Mideast peace push puts US in tough spot

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2014
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Focus
Spending bill
a triumph of
divided govt
By David Espo
A
fter drawing opposition from both ends of the political
spectrum, the $1.1 trillion spending bill cleared for
President Barack Obama’s signature stands as a triumph
of divided government.
It’s the first of its kind for a while, and may also be the last.
“Remember this bill was put together in a bicameral, bipartisan
way,” House Speaker John Boehner said. Large numbers of lawmakers on both sides of the political divide would rather forget
parts of the bill, as evidenced by relatively close votes, 219-206
in the House and 56-40 in the Senate.
The legislation quietly locks in billions of dollars in spending
cuts that the tea party-strengthened Republicans extracted
from Democrats in recent years in a tumultuous string of battles.
Equally without much fuss, it reduces staffing at the agency the
GOP dislikes the most, the Environmental Protection Agency, to
levels last seen in 1989.
Yet it maintains funding for President Barack Obama’s health
care program that Republicans loathe so heartily that they shut
down the government last year rather than spend any money
on it. And it provides additional money for health research that
Democrats favor, and most of what the administration sought to
combat Ebola. It is stocked with provisions to prevent the use of
federal funds to pay for abortions, and with another to block the
government from giving endangered species list protection to
the sage grouse. More points on the Republican side of the
ledger.
But it doesn’t tamper with the administration’s proposed
greenhouse gas regulation, or allow guns on Army Corps of
Engineers land, changes that conservatives favored. Modest victories for the Democrats. Obama echoed Boehner’s assessment
on Friday as he urged the Senate to approve the legislation one day after he had been publicly chastised by Rep. Nancy
Pelosi, the leader of his own party in the House.
“This is what’s produced when you have the divided government that the American people voted for,” he said. “I think what
the American people very much are looking for is some practical
governance and the willingness to compromise and that’s what
this bill reflects.” Except that political leaders in both parties tend
to preach bipartisanship far more than they voluntarily practice
it. And possible presidential contenders on the verge of a campaign practice it even less often. That explains Republican Sen.
Ted Cruz of Texas, who emerged as the Senate’s most aggressive
foe of the bill. He’ll need support from tea party-aligned voters
in primaries if he runs, not middle-of-the-roaders eager for compromise.
In fact, House Republicans in general weren’t exactly thrilled
with the bill, which made no attempt to challenge Obama’s
immigration policy. And within moments of its passage, Rep.
Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the third-ranking GOP leader, made it
sound like the entire 1,764-page measure was merely the price
Republicans had to pay to resume legislative hostilities with the
president in the new year. “That battle begins in just four weeks
when we get the reinforcements of a Republican Senate in
January,” he said, echoing promises made by Sen. Mitch
McConnell and other GOP leaders on the other side of the
Capitol. A few weeks after that, money runs out for the
Homeland Security Department. By Republican reckoning, that’s
when they will have leverage to force Obama to roll back a policy that envisions work visas for 5 million immigrants living in the
country illegally. Then, unlike now, there will be no threat of a
government-wide shutdown looming in the background.
Republicans weren’t the only ones who said they were looking ahead. Pelosi called the legislation a Republican attempt at
“blackmail,” citing a provision that rolls back a regulation
imposed on banks after the economic calamity of 2008. Next,
she publicly reprimanded Obama for embracing it. Fifty-seven
Democrats voted for it regardless, exposing deep divisions
inside the party that were also echoed in the Senate. Pelosi
claimed victory anyway.
“We strengthened our position to achieve common sense
solutions” in the new Congress that convenes in January,” she
wrote to her members. “We hope to do so in a bipartisan way,
but stand ready to sustain the president’s veto when necessary,”
she added pointedly. Obama made no mention of vetoes in his
own remarks a day later. He said if he’d been able to write the
spending measure, “I suspect it’d be slightly different,” but
Americans want to see willingness to compromise.
So said the president whose party lost the midterm elections. The winning Republicans aren’t likely to see things quite
that way. They intend to challenge Obama’s policies on immigration, health care and the environment, and probably will produce a 10-year balanced budget plan that Democrats will not
abide. —AP
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Sydney siege: The danger of ‘lone wolf’ attacks
By Madeleine Coorey
A
ustralia’s dramatic siege in which a
gunman displayed an Islamic flag
follows months of warnings about
“lone wolf ” attacks, and experts said
authorities must think harder about how
to tackle the problem. Heavily-armed
police surrounded the Lindt chocolate
cafe in Sydney’s financial heart yesterday
as an unknown number of people
remained inside hours after being taken
hostage.
The incident comes against a backdrop of warnings from the government
about radicalized Muslims, potentially
attracted to the conflicts in Iraq and Syria
and sympathizing with the Islamic State
group.
Australia upgraded its security alert in
September in the face of extremist
threats, ramping up an anti-terror crackdown after foiling a plot by Islamic State
jihadists to carry out “demonstration executions” in the country. “I am deeply concerned about the threat that lone wolf
terrorism poses to people,” Prime Minister
Tony Abbott said in September.
Anne Aly, an associate professor specializing in counter-terrorism at Curtin
University in Western Australia, said radicalization in Australia had been a gradual
process over the last five years but had
become more noticeable since the rise of
IS.
“The jihadist narrative is one that has
personally resonated with the everyday
lives of some young people in Australia,”
she said. “If you look at that narrative, it is
all about victimhood, persecution and
Muslims under attack.” The black flag
shown at a window in the Lindt cafe was
one commonly used by jihadist groups
bearing the shahada, or profession of faith
in Islam.
Australia has committed some 600
troops and several aircraft to Iraq and
Abbott has repeatedly called the Islamic
State group an “apocalyptic death cult”.
Aly said there was a growing right-wing,
nationalistic movement in Australia which
made some Muslims feel like outsiders.
“They feel there is some truth to
Muslims being under attack. And maybe
because they feel are so far away, they feel
they need to get out and do something.”
Concerns of violence
Counter-terror expert at Charles Sturt
University, associate professor Nick
O’Brien, said any connection to the IS
group (also known as ISIS) in the Sydney
siege would not come as a surprise.
“Once we have a situation when we have
Australians being recruited and travelling to the Middle East to fight for ISIS,
inevitably something is going to happen
here and unfortunately it looks like it
has,” he said.
Canberra has passed a law criminalizing travel to terror hotspots and cancelled the passports of 70-plus people to
prevent them heading to fight alongside
jihadists, amid concerns they could
return home and commit violence.
Australian National University visiting
professor Clive Williams said Australia
had attracted attention by committing
troops to operations in Iraq, but had not
so much to fear from fighters returning
from Syria radicalized.
“It’s the ones who want to go over
there and can’t go,” he said, adding the
siege was probably the work of a “lone
wolf”. “We need to think about that a bit
more strategically. It needs to be a bit
more sophisticated than taking away
their passport.”
Adam Dolnik, professor of terrorism
studies at Wollongong University, said it
was possible that the perpetrator was
sympathetic to the Islamic State group.
“The other possibility is we are dealing
with a psychopathology in need of a
cause,” he said, adding that the gunman
may have little religion or ideology.
However, he said there would be an association with Islam in most people’s
minds. “Of course, that can be very damaging,” he said.
The grand mufti of Australia Ibrahim
Abu Mohamed said in a statement with
other Muslim leaders that the community was “devastated” by the turn of
events and condemned “this criminal
act unequivocally”. “Any such despicable act only serves to play into the
agendas of those who seek to destroy
the goodwill of the people of Australia
and to further damage and ridicule the
religion of Islam and Australian
Muslims throughout this country,” they
said. —AFP
Mideast peace push puts US in tough spot
By Bradley Klapper
T
he Obama administration is in a diplomatic
bind on the Mideast as US Secretary of State
John Kerr y meets with top Israeli and
Palestinian officials in Europe this week. The US is
reluctant to do anything right now that can be perceived as interference in Israel’s election while
being pressed by close allies to endorse an IsraeliPalestinian negotiating framework that largely
adheres to US policy.
France is drafting a UN resolution that proposes a
two-year timetable for talks. The draft speaks of the
1967 Mideast borders as the basis for dividing the
land, which President Barack Obama has publicly
backed, but it doesn’t include key Israeli - and US
conditions such as Palestinian recognition of Israel
as a Jewish state.
The United States has long opposed the idea of
the UN Security Council imposing a framework for
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But for Washington,
simply vetoing the plan could have pitfalls. A veto
would upset Palestinians and perhaps some Arab
allies frustrated by years of diplomatic gridlock.
Several are fighting alongside the US right now
against the Islamic State group.
A veto would also risk angering France as well as
other European countries that want to broaden
peace efforts after countless US-led mediation failures. America’s credibility as a peace broker could
be damaged as a result. At a White House meeting
last week, Obama’s top foreign policy aides were
unable to agree on an approach to France’s potential resolution.
Kerry suggested steering away from the effort at
a time of increased Mideast violence and with the
Israeli election a couple of months away, according
to a US official familiar with the discussion.
Compromise
Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser,
supported engaging allies to see if a compromise is
possible, said the official, who wasn’t authorized to
speak publicly on the matter. For now, the administration is trying to get an idea of what key countries
are hoping to accomplish or avoid.
Kerry was to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu in Rome yesterday, followed by the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany in
Paris. The discussions continue today in London
with top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and the
head of the Arab League.
“Time after time, we have repulsed efforts to dictate conditions which have damaged the security of
Israel and which do not comply with real peace,”
Netanyahu said as he left for Rome. He said this
effort would be the same. “ We will rebuff any
attempt that would put this terrorism inside our
home, inside the state of Israel.” Kerry discussed the
escalating tensions in the Middle East on Sunday
with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who
told reporters in Italy’s capital that it was “crucial ...
we don’t allow the situation to degrade further.”
Support within Europe for France’s proposal is
unclear. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was
making his case to EU foreign ministers in Brussels
before his meeting with Kerry. French officials
believe the US opposes the draft right now, but
they say they would consider making changes.
France’s diplomatic push was prompted by a
Jordanian resolution, on behalf of the Palestinians,
last month that the US finds much more objectionable. That proposal demands a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank within two years and full
recognition of Palestine as a state, with no talk of
land swaps or security measures. The resolution
appears to have stalled. If it were to move to a vote,
Washington would almost surely veto it. —AP
ROME: US Secretary of State John Kerry talks before meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at
Villa Taverna on Sunday in Rome. —AP