In dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, President Obama is in a tight spot.

His preferred strategy of engagement, with all carrot and no stick, has predictably failed to deliver. The military option is off the table.

And even if the US is able to secure the acquiescence of Russia and China to a new UN Security Council resolution — an uncertain prospect, given the recent deterioration in US–China relations — nobody seriously expects the resulting sanctions to change Iran’s course.

Needless to say Iran has not unclenched its fist, as Obama had hoped, but instead raised its middle finger.

With the clock ticking and few preventative options at hand, the Obama administration finds itself, once again, quietly lowering its objectives. As an alternative, it’s begun assembling a containment strategy designed to check the expanding power of a potentially nuclear armed Iran, politically unreconstructed and casting a wider shadow over the Persian Gulf.

Over the past year or so, Washington’s strategic relations with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have been tightened. US arms sales to the region have been boosted. And new diplomatic efforts are underway to pull Syria out of Iran’s orbit.

Meanwhile, US officials are being dispatched to the region on an increasingly regular basis to garner support for sanctions which, despite having no chance of preventing a nuclear Iran, would be part of containment.

Like engagement, however, there’s a problem at the heart of Obama’s containment strategy read more

As a UN observer working in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon in the mid 1990s I was often told by Israelis that their sometimes abrupt attitude towards people working for the UN was because they were similar to spiky fruit — rough on the outside but sweet on the inside.

At the time I thought many of the people I dealt with would have been well served by perusing a copy of Emily Post's book on etiquette, or perhaps given their British mandatory heritage Debrett's Etiquette and Modern Manners may have been more appropriate.

I recount this because I thought that the treatment accorded me was a result of the fact that local Israelis felt the UN wasn't effectively contributing to security in South Lebanon. But recent events at a much higher political level would appear to reinforce the need for some etiquette teachers in Israel ASAP.

First there was the treatment of the Turkish ambassador by the Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon who seated him at a lower chair than him, dispensed with the Turkish flag at the meeting and told the accompanying cameraman in Hebrew that this treatment was a deliberate snub.

Not to be outdone, the Interior Minister Eli Yishai has had to apologise to the visiting American vice-president read more

Carla Liuzzo is a freelance consultant living in Doha, Qatar.

For a tiny desert state, Qatar punches well above its weight diplomatically. In February alone, Qatar welcomed alleged war criminal Omar al Bashir to Doha to broker a ceasefire agreement between Sudan, Chad and rival factions in Darfur; invited two Iranian naval vessels to Doha port for the first time in a decade; and hosted US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton for a 'town hall meeting'. 

Clinton came to Doha to drum up support for tougher sanctions against Iran and her choice of forum was significant. While most people are aware (if misinformed) about Qatar's flagship organisation, the Al Jazeera television network, few people outside Qatar would be aware of another remarkable diplomatic venture.

Clinton was hosted by the Qatar Foundation, the nation's expansive empire of global education, science, technology and cultural organisations set up by the Emir and overseen by his wife, the impressive Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned. The ambitious project was created in the name of community development, and further bolsters Qatar's regional influence. 

Six of America's most prestigious universities (including Georgetown, Cornell and Carnegie Mellon) have set up campuses alongside a science and technology park housing innovation centres for Microsoft, Rolls-Royce and Shell. Due to open in 2012 is an academic health science centre worth US$7.9 billion and likely to become the finest medical facility in the Gulf. The foundation has also purchased a full classical orchestra and built a colossal Arabian equestrian centre.

Public diplomacy efforts like the Qatar Foundation and Al Jazeera are vital for performing a delicate diplomatic balancing act for Qatar, an Islamic nation with Arab and Persian heritage and near total reliance on the US for security.

Photo by Flickr user Doha Sam, used under a Creative Commons license.

Major Gen (Retd) Jim Molan is author of Running the War in Iraq.

On Sunday, 7 February, Iraqis voted again. The national election was far from perfect, but there was no widespread violence.

The parliament that I am proud to say I had a hand in creating in 2005 has, for all its faults, actually passed bills. Sectarian parliamentary groupings even compromise every now and again, forming and reforming not just on hate and narrowness, but sometimes according to issues. It should give us hope.

Unlike 2005, there was campaigning with a robustness that might even be more developed than the institutions and the laws to control it. Campaigning occurred not just by posters, but also on TV, radio and mobile phones, with debates, questioning and comment.

The issues were not only sectarian, but practical: power, water, jobs, health and security. An anarchically free media is everywhere. It challenges and identifies the corrupt, and the courts have actually convicted some of them. In my time, the media was warned off at night by thugs or just killed.

The apparent success of these elections complements recent provincial elections, with non-sectarian candidates securing majorities in nine out of 18 provinces. In these elections too there was a comparatively low level of violence — terrorism now has no natural constituency in Iraq.

This is a world removed from a charity football match I attended last weekend in the peaceful Australian heartland of Bellingen near Coffs Harbour, where an army rugby league team played the local team. The match is the annual commemoration of a Bellingen hero, Sergeant Matthew Locke, who won a Medal of Gallantry in his first tour of Afghanistan and was killed on his second. I knew him only because he was a member of my bodyguard in Iraq.

Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury, Special Correspondent for India's Mail Today, is the author of two books on India's Northeast and Kazakhstan. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.

Sixty-two years ago the partition of British India into India and Pakistan (West & East Pakistan) left the north-eastern part of India (seven states) landlocked, connected to the mainland by the narrow Siliguri corridor (in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal). This was serious setback for the strategically located Northeastern region (surrounded by China, Bhutan, Bangladesh & Myanmar). Since 1947, all goods to the Northeast pass through the Siliguri corridor and the economy has remained stagnant.

India has tried for long to unlock this region via neighbouring Myanmar and Bangladesh. Now, finally, with a friendly dispensation in Bangladesh and following New Delhi's pragmatic approach towards military-ruled Myanmar, the issue may be addressed.

New Delhi has been looking at several routes to link the region through the two neighbours. There are two major projects. One is an ambitious Kaladan multi-modal project that will transport goods from Eastern Indian city of Kolkata (across the Bay of Bengal to the Myanmar port of Sittwe) and then to Northeastern state of Mizoram, under an Indo-Myanmar pact signed in 2008. 

Hugh White is right to worry about the prospects of Sino-Indian strategic competition in Afghanistan, but I disagree with his argument that whether or not Afghanistan is a robust and stable state is immaterial to avoiding that outcome.

We do have an interest in the future of domestic stability within Afghanistan, but we need to think much more clearly about which countries build and guarantee that stability. An Afghan state built just by the US and its allies will be inherently unstable because, as we demonstrated after the Soviet Union withdrew, we have little stomach for any continued strategic involvement in the region. Pakistan, India and China, on the other hand, have deep and enduring strategic interests there, and their competition would soon undermine anything ISAF and NATO leave behind.

Understanding the dynamics of strategic competition among Asia's rising behemoths has to be the first step in trying to figure out how to mitigate it.

Last week Rory and I wrote a piece in The Australian arguing for a more transparent look at attacks on Indian students. As research for that article we asked (on 8 February) the Victorian Police and the Premier's Office for some stats. The police only got back to me on Tuesday the 23rd, but I thought I'd share their replies to our questions. Draw your own conclusions about how on-top of this issue they are, nine months after the attacks hit the headlines.

Q1: What Victorian government/police statistics have been made publicly available regarding the attacks on Indians and/or Indian Australians?

A: Victoria Police records details on victims based on racial appearance and not ethnicity. Racial appearance is based on the subjective assessment of attending police and is recorded primarily for operational and intel purposes only. Racial appearance is one limited indicator of ethnicity based on appearance only and does not necessarily mean that the person(s) attributed to a particular ethnic group are in fact of that origin.

Information pertaining to Racial Appearance is available via the Annual Crime Publication where they are categorised under the broad categories of Aboriginal, Asian, Caucasian, Other and Unspecified.

Any analysis done pertaining to the ethnicity of a victim is for intelligence purposes and is not available to the public. 

India is smartening up its naval diplomacy in the great maritime game with China. New Delhi is showing signs of a new spirit of cooperation with Beijing in the Indian Ocean, offering to protect Chinese oil shipments or even cooperate with the Chinese Navy.

This is not capitulation. It is cleverness. As I have argued previously, India needs to be on the front foot in building maritime security cooperation in the Indian Ocean, in a way that locks in India's own advantages as being the only great power actually located there. That's why India should have offered last year to refuel China's anti-piracy patrols, rather than letting the French do it at Djibouti. Maybe the Indians were spurred into engagement by their worries about China recently taking a lead role in patrolling a zone in the Gulf of Aden.

Well, better late than never. By making a show of taking the lead in engaging with the Chinese, India can test China's intentions, and weaken China's rationale for a 'string of pearls', in the form of the permanent bases some Chinese analysts are now advocating.

This is not to deny that India might face a direct military threat or wider strategic competition from China in the Indian Ocean. Alongside proactive engagement, India should continue to hedge – asymmetrically, as Admiral Suresh Mehta has wisely argued.

Photo by Flickr user Preters, used under a Creative Commons license.

I like Michael's suggestion that Coalition strategic objectives in Afghanistan should address what we want to avoid rather than on what we want to achieve. People are often uncomfortable about negative statements of purpose, but in strategic policy they are often the simplest and most direct way to say what we mean. For example, I think Australia's core strategic interests in our own region are best expressed in terms of what we want to prevent.

I also like his argument that the most important thing we want to avoid in Afghanistan is for it to become a focus of strategic competition between major powers in the new Asian strategic order. 

Several major powers will shape Asia's order in coming decades, but lets focus on China and India, which seem the most important to Afghanistan. The argument then runs like this: as India and China grow, their strategic relationship will become critical to the Asian strategic order. A weak Afghanistan could destabilise that relationship by offering a focus for strategic competition between them. We want to avoid this, and we therefore have a strong interest in helping Afghanistan become the kind of robust state that does not invite strategic interference from big neighbours. 

This is my kind of argument. The reasons usually given for why Afghanistan matters strategically to Australia are pretty unconvincing. In contrast, stable relations between Asia's major powers matters to us a great deal, and will matter more as they grow. But I'm not sure it follows that avoiding problems in the emerging Asian order provides a compelling reason for Australia or its coalition partners to commit the resources required to make Afghanistan a robust and interference-proof state.

Two reasons. 

With the Dutch governing coalition close to disintegrating due to differences over Afghanistan policy, the Lowy Institute couldn't have picked a better time to host Dutch Major General Mart de Kruif, who until last November was NATO's military commander of coalition forces in southern Afghanistan.

It was a strictly in camera affair, but General de Kruif was kind enough to give me a few minutes of his time for an interview, during which he was surprisingly candid about machinations in The Hague, and what it all means for Afghanistan. 

So much of the recent discussion about Coalition strategy in Afghanistan seems to ultimately revert to how one defines success. The debate about the conditions of success tends to oscillate between the long-term ideal of a stable, non-corrupt, functioning state – which almost everyone admits is unachievable – and a series of short-term operational benchmarks, such as training Afghan police and armed forces.

Success benchmarks have become commonplace in all interventions by democracies. They are less about fixing a problem and more about democratic politics and strategic credibility; about establishing a set of arguments for when it is feasible and honorable to withdraw from a potentially open-ended commitment. Success benchmarks are then progressively lowered as the war draws on and public frustration mounts.

The problem with success benchmarks that are explicitly or implicitly tied to withdrawal schedules is that they give heart to adversaries to bide their time. Most insurgents are not clever enough to realise that it's in their interests to help occupying forces achieve their benchmarks, but many have the sense to ready themselves for a surge once occupying forces leave.

That's why what look, in the short term, like orderly withdrawals so often turn into strategic disasters with the passage of time.

There is a case for arguing that rather than planning withdrawals around success benchmarks, we should plan around failure benchmarks. In other words, we should take a step back and think about what medium to long-term strategic outcomes in Afghanistan would be a strategic disaster for our interests – not to mention a gross waste of life and money – and think about how our military-diplomatic strategies can contribute to avoiding disaster.

My colleague in Afghanistan has seen Rodger's post in reply to his first piece, and offers a rejoinder below.  

A quick detail beforehand: I entirely agree with Rodger's point that it is unhelpful to 'try to view the Taliban as a homogenous group', but note that (1) that's not what my colleague said, and (2) I know that's not what he thinks. In fact, five years ago when we were both on the HQ Multinational Corps plans team in Baghdad, we both despaired at the 'Anti-Iraqi Forces' term used in planning work, and strove to encourage use of more precise names for specific adversary groups.

Thanks to Rodger Shanahan for taking an interest in my missive. I suppose each gains their views from different sources: I draw my perspective of what motivates many Afghan soldiers from nearly two years of planning, commanding and conducting combined operations between US Forces and Kandaks.

First, I will acknowledge the average Afghan is not known for his sense of volunteerism. Nevertheless, the fact that Afghan men are volunteering to serve openly — knowing full well that  the Haqqani Network and Taliban insurgents will viciously target them and their families — is an indicator that many Afghans are willing to fight against the reactionary elements of all of the disparate groupings within the loose collective grouping called 'Anti-Afghan Forces'.

Amid all the heat and worry over how the student safety crisis is affecting Australia-India relations, here are some angles that deserve more attention:

• The Indian Express, consistently one of India's sharpest newspapers, brings a few breaths of fresh air to the overheated Indian media debate, pointing out that an over-reaction is not in India's interests.
• Maybe India's External Affairs Minister still has a balanced view of the situation after all.
• The Indian High Commissioner to Australia explains her view.
• And the Australian High Commissioner to India explains his.
• Australia — or at least Victoria — certainly has to do a better job of getting accurate information on crime into the public domain.
• One Indian magazine, Outlook, put a downright prejudiced spin on its recent investigation into the student issue. The story itself had a few notes of balance buried within the text, but the front page headline misleadingly screamed 'WHY THE AUSSIES HATE US'. Instead of linking to that piece, which has already had more attention that it deserves, I'd like to bring some prominence to this article, written by an Indian-origin journalist who is actually based in Australia.
• And some even-handed opinion in the Australian press too.
• Finally, since we can all be forgiven for not believing what we read in newspapers, here are the views of some Indian students in Australia, and of some young Australians visiting India.

I'm sorry to be so critical lately of others' posts, but if I disagree with a post on the blog about which I think I know something, I feel the need to speak out (hence my silence on economics, climate change, Asia etc). And so it is with Nick Floyd's post about the motivations driving your average Afghan to join the security forces.

For all the sadness of any soldier's death, the truth is that soldiers join armies for a range of reasons: the pay, a sense of adventure, hopes of learning transferable skills, as well as notions of patriotism. But to say that Afghans joining the security forces and government are doing so in order to revolutionise their society is to ascribe a motivation that does not necessarily exist.

The military desertion rate (9% by some accounts) and high turnover as a consequence of volunteers failing to re-enlist indicate that many are not such committed 'freedom fighters' as the author of the letter featured in Nick's post would have us believe. The endemic corruption in the police force is a further blow to the supposed selflessness of all Afghans in government service.

A US Army colleague in Afghanistan (second tour) has circulated a letter in which he tells the story of an Afghan National Army soldier, whose tragic fate had just been announced by the Afghan Government: 

Until today, most people will have never heard of or seen Naqibulah Adbul Wakhel. Born in the village of Jzar Bahg in the Takhar province of Afghanistan, Wakhel was a soldier late of the 3rd Brigade, 201st Corps, Afghan National Army. During a mission on November 30, 2009, Private Naqibulah was on a patrol in the Surobi District of Kabul when his vehicle was destroyed by an improvised explosive device placed on the road by the Taliban. When the device detonated, Naqibulah died in the service of his country and his people, and was rewarded with martyrdom by the Imam assigned to the 3rd Brigade.

It is important to understand Private Naqibulah’s life and his sacrifice because he was, as are many like him, the new face of Afghanistan – the twenty-first century revolutionaries. They are among the thousands of Afghan soldiers who, along with the Coalition forces, take the fight to the Taliban insurgents.  These soldiers come from all walks of life and all over Afghanistan.  They all have one thing in common, to unite in the cause of building their country out of the ashes caused by 30 years of devastation.

Far from 'dancing around' Chris Kenny's point that the surge set the military conditions for the orderly withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, I agree with him. My post had nothing to do with the merits of the surge, the success of which (along with other tactical and strategic levers that were employed) is self-evident.

Rather, my argument was that Chris' piece spoke in absolutes such as '(US) victory and a functioning (Iraqi) democracy', or in uncontrasted relativities such as 'relatively peaceful'. It spoke of the Iraq war in terms of its impact on the US, and equated victory with an orderly departure of its troops. 

In the same vein, Jim Molan says the counterinsurgency is finally, as wars go, a success. But when hundreds of Iraqis are routinely being killed (and more injured) every month by insurgents, I would argue that the counterinsurgency has been successful in relative but not absolute terms. And the latter is what we should be looking at more closely, because only Iraqi security forces will be able to achieve absolute success. 

My point is that the political measure of success appears to be the ability to withdraw US troops, not the security of the Iraqi population. By adopting this measure, Western commentators tend to conflate withdrawal with success, with little regard for the circumstances for the Iraqis left behind.

Chris Kenny writes:

Rodger Shanahan makes clear his revulsion at the 'tragedy of the Iraqi adventure' and the audacity of anyone finding something positive to say about ongoing efforts to stabilise that country's future.

But he dances around the one point I made about Obama's Iraq policy; that is, simply, that the orderly withdrawal of US troops owes more to the success of George W Bush's surge strategy than to any decisions taken by the Obama Administration.

I pointed out that Democrats and our own Labor Party opposed the surge strategy and preferred a humiliating exit for the US. This would have seen the US leave in unambiguous defeat, it would have left Iraq in an even more precarious position and it would have emboldened terrorists everywhere.

Whatever Shanahan thinks of Bush's original decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein, perhaps he would at least concede that the surge strategy has allowed an orderly American drawdown and a more stable platform for the establishment of a democratic Iraq.

On Afghanistan, the criticism from the Left has been that the Taliban flourished because the US was distracted by Iraq. So Obama's commitment to allocate sufficient resources and focus to Afghanistan is welcome. Facing such seemingly insoluble conflicts it may seem trite to talk of victory and defeat, except to note, as George Orwell said, that the quickest way to end a war is to lose it.

Part one here; part two here; part three here.

And finally, to the Levant. Hopes were high following the pro-West coalition's 'victory' in the June 2009 elections that Lebanon would stay in the Western camp and cease to be hostage to external actors, but most realistic observers of Lebanon understand that elections are one thing and influence another.

On that score, the departure of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt from the coalition in August and the inability to form a 'national unity' government under Sa'ad Hariri until November (as portfolio distribution was incessantly debated) showed how little Lebanon was in control of its destiny. As if to confirm that Syria was a main player in Lebanon again, Sa'ad Hariri visited Damascus in December. But despite the political infighting and shaky security, Beirut is still Beirut and so Lebanon enjoyed its most successful tourism season ever in 2009.
 
While the new year began with the normal sabre-rattling involving Hizbullah, this year international conflict involving Lebanon may take place not on its border with Israel, but in New York as it takes up its place for the next two years as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. With votes likely this year on sanctions against Iran and the Hariri tribunal, there are fears that Lebanon's voting patterns may favour Syria and Iran, and place it in conflict with many of the Government's Western aid donors.  
 
Over the mountains, things are looking up for Syria in 2010. It is being wooed heavily to distance itself from Iran, it has enjoyed increased influence in Lebanon, a reciprocal visit from Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, and the US announcement of its first ambassador to Damascus for nearly five years. Not bad for doing nothing.

Part one here; part two here.

Iraq (remember that place? It used to be in the news quite a bit) is the one country in the Middle East which could see significant developments in 2010, but I'm not sure whether the net effect will be particularly good.

Politically, the good news is that the electoral law was passed last year, allowing elections to go ahead in March, and holding the promise of a more established Arab democracy emerging. Unfortunately, some of the characteristics of functioning democracies, such as the impartiality and independence of electoral bodies, are yet to develop, if the actions of the rather Orwellian Accountability and Justice Commission are anything to go by.   

The Accountability and Justice Law (very good and detailed analysis here) appears to have done little other than to stir up the sectarian hornet's nest that is post-Saddam Iraqi politics. General Petraeus, head of US Central Command, highlighted the damage this body could do to sectarian reconciliation in an interview with The Times last week.

I can't believe it. Just a few weeks ago I was predicting the end of the fraught Arab-Persian diplomatic battle over the naming of the Gulf. The sleuthing Iraqi Foreign Minister seemed to have finally settled the issue with the discovery in some archive or other that it was actually called the Gulf of Basra. 

So much for predictions of an end to this nagging issue. While I was away last week the BBC reported a dramatic development in the dispute, with the cancellation of the Islamic Solidarity Games that were due to be held in Iran in April. As the BBC reported it:

The games federation in Saudi Arabia said the Iranian organisers had failed to address its concerns, particularly about the planned logo and medals.

These bear the words "Persian Gulf"....The Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation (ISSF) in Riyadh said, after an emergency board meeting, Iran's local organising committee "unilaterally took some decisions without asking the federation by writing some slogans on the medals and pamphlets of the games".  

The Interpreter will vigilantly follow this story and bring you any developments.

Photo by Flickr user Pete Ruscitti, used under a Creative Commons license.

My colleague Jenny Hayward-Jones and I have written previously about Iran's attempts to influence and reward the Solomon Islands for its UN votes. But Pacific micro-states' voting patterns are of equal if not greater interest to Israel.

This week the presidents, foreign ministers and ambassadors of the Federated States of Micronesia and Nauru are enjoying a week-long state visit to Israel. The Presidents of Palau and the Marshall Islands were unable to make the trip, unfortunately. All are noted supporters of Israel in the UN, even if the average Israeli is not sure why. Still, a vote's a vote. 

The Solomon Islands wasn't invited, likely because of the Government's decision to vote in the UN in favour of accepting the Goldstone Report, which was critical of Israeli actions during the conduct of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

Photo by Flickr user thejcgerm, used under a Creative Commons license.

The unsuccessful bombing plot against an American airliner at Christmas, a plot which had its origins in Yemen, did what my posts on The Interpreter and my Lowy paper (co-authored with a real Yemen expert, Sarah Phillips from Sydney Uni) could not do — focus the media's attention on Yemen. 

It also appears to have focused the mind of the Yemeni Government (which has multiple security issues to worry about), and it has had significant success against al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), if its own statements can be believed. The problem is that not many of them can be verified, let alone believed, so it's pretty difficult to judge fact from fiction.  

Yemeni Government sources claimed a 17 December air strike killed 34 militants in Abyan province, while locals claimed that many civilians were victims of the raid, and that alleged AQAP members conducted a rally at the site the next day. On 24 December another air raid reportedly claimed the lives of AQAP's emir, Nassir al-Wahayshi, along with the Yemeni/American cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi, though this has been challenged in other media reports.  

Six months ago Sam wrote a post about Qatar's decision to purchase two C-17 cargo aircraft and how they would provide a good national advertisement in times of humanitarian crisis. 

The Haiti earthquake has provided the Qatari Government with its first opportunity to dispatch aid in the very recognisable livery of a Qatar Airways C-17. 

In the world of diplomatic self-promotion, being small but rich means you don't have to be invisible. And with wealthy Gulf states seeing the provision of humanitarian aid as a way of projecting soft power, expect to see more photos of Gulf C-17s during future humanitarian crises.

Flight Global reports that an Iranian jetliner ran off the runway in Stockholm after a burst of flame came from the left-hand engine. Amateur video below:

Iranian commercial aviation is subject to international sanctions, making it very difficult to get parts for its Airbus and Boeing jetliners, and making it impossible for Iran to buy new ones. That's why there are so many old aircraft in the fleet (which apparently makes Iran's airports havens for Western plane spotters) and why Iran imports new passenger aircraft from Russia and the Ukraine.

The second geopolitical angle here (well, trivia, really) is that the aircraft involved in this incident is from the same airline (Iran Air) and of the same type (Airbus A300) as was shot down by the USS Vincennes in 1983.

On the broad topic of Iranian aviation, here's some stunning footage (from April 2008?) of an Iranian Air Force Su-24 strike aircraft coming in to land at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport (which doubles as an air base). Clearly, not everything goes to plan, though you do see two chutes, suggesting the flight crew managed to eject. The best view of the incident is at the 2.30 mark:

Two events in the past few days – one positive, one negative – have the potential to act as circuit-breakers in the crisis over the welfare of Indian students in Australia.

The negative event was the suggestion by the extremist Shiv Sena Party that Australian cricketers should be banned from Mumbai. Why might this threat actually do some good? I have explored the reasons in more detail in this opinion piece, but the short answer is that most Indians – including many who have been worried about questions of race and safety in Australia – consider the Shiv Sena to be the last people they want on their side. 

This development is at least a reminder that every society has its share of bigots and that irresponsibly accusing entire nations of racism plays into their hands.  

The positive event, meanwhile, was the free public concert by Bollywood maestro A R Rahman in Sydney's Parramatta Park on Saturday night.

This will be remembered as a watershed moment for Indians in Australia. It was both the biggest gathering of the Indian community in this country's history – much of the crowd of tens of thousands comprised people of Indian or South Asian origin – and a dynamic expression of Australia's openness to multiple cultures.

I can attest to all of this because I was lucky enough to be there. The show was broadcast live across the Asia-Pacific by Australia Network and could go a long way in reducing misperceptions that Indians are not welcome in this country.

Part one here. 

Ahh, the Middle East peace process. I really do think I'm on firm ground here when I predict that the MEPP will look the same at the end of 2010 as it did at the start — going nowhere. The reasons are pretty well summed up in some exchanges from last year.
 
In May 2009 Secretary of State Clinton issued a very public demand to the Israeli Government that there must be no exceptions to President Obama's call for Israel to stop its settlement activity as a precondition for peace talks with the Palestinians: 'Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions. We think it is in the best interest of the effort that we are engaged in that settlement expansion cease.'
 
This hard-line approach was followed up very quickly when, in June 2009, President Obama said in his Cairo speech that 'Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.' read more

Sam's post yesterday on Israel's humiliation of the Turkish Ambassador reminded me how important diplomacy is in the Middle East. 

I knew Turkish Ambassador to Israel Oğuz Çelikkol well when I served at the Australian Embassy in Ankara a few years ago. He was then Turkey's Special Representative on Iraq and I frequently accompanied senior Australian Government visitors in discussions with him on the war in Iraq. He was one of the most intelligent and talented diplomats I ever met. He was also a very nice person. 

His knowledge of the Middle East region was exceptional, and like most senior Turkish diplomats, Çelikkol was a strong proponent of the Western alliance system and very well disposed to Israel.

Relations between Turkey and Israel have been souring for the last four years as Turkey's AKP Government has improved its relations with Arab countries, met with Hamas leaders and openly criticised Israeli actions in Gaza. Experienced diplomats, senior journalists and businesspeople in both countries, however, have worked hard to keep the relationship intact. 

That a diplomat as experienced as Çelikkol was appointed Ambassador to Israel shows how important the relationship is to Ankara. Israel badly needs friends in its neighbourhood, even if those friends retain the right to criticise Israel's actions. It also needs Turkey to act as a mediator in the region. Ambassador Çelikkol himself is a vital ally for Israel.

Risking an important strategic relationship with a diplomatic snub over something as petty as a Turkish television program was a stunt Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon could have avoided — with a private (rather than televised) expression of serious concern that would have been relayed faithfully to Ankara, probably with Çelikkol's recommendations for how Turkey could assuage Israel's concerns. 

Ayalon's apology shows calmer heads have prevailed just ahead of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak's visit to Turkey. I wonder, though, how many more misadventures this important relationship will endure before its advocates on both sides lose the will to protect it.

Admiral Suresh Mehta (pictured, at a 2008 event at the Lowy Institute) has one of the wiser minds in the Indian strategic community. This speech last year was the most sensible and balanced piece of advice on Indian defence policy uttered publicly by a military officer. It has also been one of the most misunderstood. He did not argue that India should not try to protect itself from Chinese power. He argued, rather, that India should adopt a clever strategy of asymmetry – just as China has done against the US.

So why has this former Chief of Navy and Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (in other words, India's head of the defence force) been sent as High Commissioner to New Zealand? Is he being sidelined, rewarded or both? Somehow I doubt it signals a New Delhi-Wellington strategic axis.

The 2009 winner of Graeme Dobell's Madeleine Award — for the best use of symbol, stunt, prop, gesture or jest in international affairs — has only just been announced, yet I think I can say with some confidence that we already have a winner for 2010.

At the very least, this entry will take some beating. I found this Christian Science Monitor story via Daniel Drezner's blog, and it describes a meeting between Turkey's ambassador to Israel and Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon. The Israelis were upset about criticisms of Israel made by the Turkish Prime Minister, and about how Israeli intelligence officers were depicted in a fictional Turkish TV show. They let it show:

Breaking with diplomatic protocol, Israeli officials failed to include the customary Turkish flag on the table between them and the Turkish ambassador, whom they seated on a low couch. To rub it in, they instructed the press members in attendance to note that they were sitting in higher chairs and the usual diplomatic niceties were conspicuously absent.

This is not a joke. Check out the photo the CS Monitor ran with the story.

If there is one thing I've learned from following, living in and writing about the Middle East as an Australian it is that, while many of my countrymen say they find the region fascinating, it is fair to say most Australians believe it to be of peripheral concern despite our substantial economic interests and the fact that we seem to continually send the ADF there.

So, to fit in with the average Australian's attention span for all things Middle Eastern, I'll try to write a series of short posts offering my views on what is likely to happen in certain countries in the region this year. I feel safe in offering such predictions because the opaque decision-making process of many of the actors, the number and nature of internal and external pressures facing states, and the regional rivalries and biases that often colour decision-making all mean that few if any outside observers get it right.    
 
Iran will continue to concentrate minds in the US in particular, but I can't see much policy headway being made and the situation at the end of the year will be little different from now. A sputtering domestic resistance movement may survive but will gradually lose momentum or split, but either way is not likely to threaten the regime's survival. I have said since the disputed elections last year that the election was not as pivotal as some people hoped or believed. The regime has a very tight grip on its security forces, and the opposition, while persistent, lacks a unifying vision or even a centralised leadership. This interesting post points to the challenges facing the Iranian protest movement. read more