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På Svenska

2007-01-28T21:52:00.000+01:00

I'm not entirely certain how I will shape my future in the digital world. This blog in English is one of the alternatives, but another alternative is to do one more geared to the Swedish audience and then naturally in the local language.

I have set up a trial version that you can see. It's called Alla Dessa Dagar for reasons that are not immediately obvious but which I am trying to explain.

But sooner or later a choice will have to be made between the two different approaches.

Kosovo Questions

2007-01-27T10:01:00.000+01:00

Once more it is the Balkans that is in the headlines. We are approaching the time when President Ahtisaari will present his ideas on Kosovo to both Belgrade and Prishtina.

And that will be the start of an intense period of diplomacy centered on Kosovo and Serbia.

On Tuesday evening I'm heading to Prishtina for some quick talks there during the Wednesday.

It is primarily Prime Minister Ceku and the UN head Ruckers who have expressed a desire to see me, and the best way of making that happen was for me to come down to them for some hours.

But I will also take the opporrtunity of seeing some others to get a better picture of the challenges abhead. That applies perhaps in particular to the economic situation of Kosovo which in my opinion should be given far more attention than is the fact.

There is the belief that if you take some sort of decision on the "status issue" you would automatically improve the economic and social situation. I fear that this is very far from what will happen, and that there is the risk of a rather rude awakening some time down the road.

And if you don't get a better economic situation for the inhabitants of Kosovo, I'm afraid that the political stability Kosovo so desperately need will also be in danger.

Today, approximately 60 % of the economy of Kosovo is based on money coming from abroad in different ways. That's a substantial increase in relation to the approximately 40 % it was during the Yugoslav years. But over the coming years there might well be a rather sharp reduction in these flows, and it will then be imperative that this is balanced by a dramatic increase in the activity of the domestic economy of Kosovo.

I want to know more about how the Kosovo instituitions are planning for the immense post-status challenges they will be facing.

Afghanistan, Lebanon and Kosovo

2007-01-27T09:35:00.000+01:00

Home in Stockholm again after a rather hectic but essentially succesful week. It was Brussels, Riga, Stockholm, Paris and then Brussels again.

The discussions at the GAERC - the Foreign Ministers of the EI - on Monday were primarily about assessments of the results of the election in Serbia and the implications they would have.

For me they were a clear victory for the reform- and Europe-oriented political parties. The extreme nationalists in the Radical and Socialist parties actually declined, although the Radicals remained as the single largest party.

Discussions about these issues continued in Brussels yesterday as we had a joint informal luncheon between the Foreign Ministers of Nato and the European Union - although the overlap is of course rather considerable. In essence it was the US and Canadian ministers joining all their European colleaugues in a very uselful talk.

But as we discussed Kosovo at that luncheon, our attention had been focused on the issues of Lebanon and Afganistan in previous meetings in Paris on Thursday and earlier during the day at Nato headquarters in Brussels.

President Chiraq was really successful in mobilizing international support for Lebanon at the Paris III conference. It was a significant international event.

And financial help is really needed if the country should have any possibility of coming back. It's still suffering from the consequences of its 18 years long civil war, and to this was then added the devastating conflict last summer. I was able to announce a further Swedish contribution of Euro 4,5 million.

It was an impressive gathering in Paris with good opportunities for informal discussions also on other subjects.

As one can see, the challenge of fragile and failing states, as well as national and ethnic conflicts in sensitive areas, requires an enormous amount of both attention and resources. We can not afford to fail in either Afghanistan, Lebanon or Kosovo since the consequences of failure will have ramifications over very wide regions.

For me it was my first visit in my new capacity to Nato headquarters, although it is of course a place where I have been many times before in different other capacities. But as a nation we now have a close partnership with Nato in the stability operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan, and there is the need for a much closer dialogue also on the political level.

Nato and the EU need to work closer together in the future. At the luncheon we all agreed that we have to tear down that invisible wall that divides Brussels into Nato and the EU. In Kosovo as well as other places there will have to be very close coordination.

And I will certainly be back at Nato within the not too distant future to continue efforts and discussions in this direction.

Onwards to Brussels

2007-01-21T10:30:00.000+01:00

Later today I'm taking off for Brussels, preparing for the monthly meeting of the General Affairs and External Relations Council.

GAERC - as is the romantic description of this august body of the 27 foreign ministers of the European Union.

When we sit down in the Justus Lipsus building in Brussels tomorrow it will be to a rather heavy agenda dominated by the Balkans and the Middle East, but certainly dealing also with Somalia and Sudan as well as pre-viewing some of the core issues for the upcoming European summit on energy security and climate change.

From Brussels I'm flying directly tomorrow late afternoon to Riga in Latvia.

I have already been to Tallinn and Vilnius, and had been planning to go to Riga already earlier. It is important to reconnect the network of cooperation in the Nordic and Baltic area, and I certainly look forward to the talks I will have in Riga with the President, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister.

Riga is a true metropolis of the Baltic region that is now rapidly regaining its historic role. It's a splendid and truly booming city in a country with a growth record among the most impressive in modern Europe.

After a day in Stockholm on Wednesday I'm off to Paris on Thursday for the big international conference on Lebanon. It will be an impressive gathering also to show support for the position of Prime Minister Siniora, and I'm certain that the discussions in the corridors will be dominated by the broader Middle East issues.

From there I'm continuing to Brussels on Friday where there is a special meeting of the foreign ministers of Nato to discuss primarily the situation in Afghanistan.

We have a keen interest in these discussions since we are among the troop contributors to the ISAF mission there, and I'm looking forward to the lunchean that also includes the EU countries not members of Nato.

The Week That Was

2007-01-21T10:04:00.000+01:00

Last week turned out to be even more hectic than I expected - but also more fruitful.

I had a most useful visit to Belgrade and to Southern Serbia. With due respect to diplomatic conversations - it is useful to come out and meet the concerns of people in villages and farms and small towns. And that is what I did with President Tadic on Monday of last week.

What struck me most from these poor areas of Southern Serbia was the fact that every time the word "Europe" was mentioned there was spontaneous applause. You could feel and see and hear the soft power of the European Union during those meetings.

The ideologies of the past no longer appeals, and I believe that noy even the appeals to raw nationalism don't work to the same extent as before. It is dream of Europe that is the dream of a better future for many of the peoples of the Balkans.

It goes without saying that these expectations will be very difficult to meet. European integration can do a lot - but not everything.

But the very fact that these expectations are there is a powerful political fact - if they are ignored or rejected there are bound to be consequences. I would not rule out that such a situation would give the forces of raw nationalism a new life.

But it wasn't only Serbia and the discussions there - centred on what could happen after today's election - that were useful last week.

In Rome - apart from attending a big conference on Balkan policy together with Commissioner Olli Rehn - I had a very fruitful meeting with Foreign Minister D'Alema.

We broke all time schedules as we discussed primarily the Middle and the Balkans, but we also had time for an interesting exchange on developments in Russia. Our political backgrounds are very different, but I believe it is fair to say that we were very much on the same wavelength, and there is a good ground for a closer cooperation between Stockholm and Rome on a number of important subjects.

On Wednesday I was in Helsinki for more traditional informal talks on security policy. It was the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries meeting over a good meal at a manor house on the outskirts of Helsinki.

As usual between our two countries it was an excellent meeting of minds.

In terms of security policy our orientations and ambitions are very similar, with a more relaxed attitude towards practical cooperation with Nato than before, although there are differencies in the ways in which our respective defence forces have so far adjusted and been transformed.

And Thursday I spent - apart from the regular meeting of the government - mostly in the Riksdag debating different issues.

We had a long and excellent discussion on the situation in the Middle East, and it was worth noting that while there are certainly tensions between different interpretations of the basic situation in the area, there was a very broad consensus on the tasks ahead for European and Swedish policy in the area.

In this area, I see my task more as trying to shape the future than in trying to judge the past.

From Belgrade to Rome

2007-01-14T09:06:00.000+01:00

Late yesterday evening I returned home from an eventful day in Vilnius.

It was Freedom Defenders Day, and apart from the special session in parliament where I was among the speakers we all attended the special commemorative mass in Vilnius Cathedral in the evening. I walked down the aisle of the cathedral filled with people together with Vytautas Landsbergis, who remains the hero of Lithuania's struggle for independence.

But later today I'm off to Belgrade in Serbia for political talks, and tomorrow I'm heading together with the President of Serbia Boris Tadic to Southern Serbia in order to visit different development projects.

Serbia faces important parliamentary elections January 21st, and it is of course of critical importance to demonstrate that there is a European option for the country. The stability of Serbia is a key to the stability of the entire region, and there are significant challenges - Kosovo certainly among them - to be handled in the next few months.

I will have talks - apart from with the President - also with Prime Minister Kostunica and Foreign Minister Draskovic.

From Nis in Southern Serbia I'm flying tomorrow evening to Rome to have dinner with the European Commissioner Olli Rehn who is responsible both for enlargement and Balkan policy.

And on Tuesday both he and I are taking part in a public debate on the future challenges in the Balkans together with, among others, Italian Foreign Minister D'Alema.

We will also discuss the approach we need to take in the coming weeks and months towards these issues. They will be high up on the European agenda during the spring, and my quick trip now is part of the preparations for those policy decisions on the European level.

From Madrid to Vilnius

2007-01-12T23:32:00.000+01:00

It's been a somewhat hectic week, and I'm sorry I have not been able to post anything since Sunday.

But I have noted the very positive reaction to me being back here - although not in the same way as before.

I spent Wednesday and Thursday in Madrid at a major gathering 15 years after the historic conference on peace in the Middle East. The meeting was supported by the Foreign Ministers of Spain, Norway, Denmark and Sweden and brought together for informal discussions many key decision-shapers from the region.

All in all I flew back from Madrid with a marginally less pessimistic assessment of the situation. Things could easily go very wrong - but there is a slight possibility that we might succeed in turning things around.

In my opening remarks I stressed that time is not necessarily on the side of peace any longer.

There is a risk of not only rising tensions but also the rise of forces that might challenge the very foundations on which peace must be built. So, time is of the essence, and what we need is no longer a peace process - what we need is peace.

Back in Stockholm from Madrid I followed the latest move in the somewhat bizarre efforts to attack my due to the remumeration I received from some of my board positions before becoming Foreign Ministers.

Specifically, it concerned the share options I received as part of the board remumeration from the investment company Vostok Nafta. As appropriate, I sold them as soon as I could, but to some that wasn't enough and they called for all sorts of investigations.

As is usual in this sort of case, there was the usual media frenzy as well. The media hunts in herds.

But earlier today the legal inquiry very solidly rejected all the accusations and attempts to smear me. This was the much stronger as it come from a prosecutor well known for taking the strictest of views on these sorts of issues.

Naturally, this will not stop the political opposition. They have nothing to say about foreign affairs - but smear campaigns they can always mount. I don't think there are too many who will be much impressed by their efforts.

From Stockholm I flew to Vilnius for a very special evening.

Tonight is 16 years since Soviet forces stormed the TV tower in Vilnius in their attempts to smash the forces of freedom and democracy. Thirteen young people lost their lives that night.

I attended the commemorative vigil outside the Parliament building tonight, meet the heroes of those days and was also suddenly invited the address all those that had gathered to remember, to sing the songs and to express their faith in their country.

And tomorrow I will address the special session of Parliament. I will speak about our vision for all of Europe, and the text will be available on the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs web site immediately.

Then I stay here during the day.

I'll see the KGB museum. And I'll see my old friend Emmanual Zingeris to continue discussions on efforts to restore parts of the old ghetto of Vilnius. This was - before the immense tragedy of the Holocaust - the Jerusalem of Eastern Europe, and the contribution that Jews from here have done in many countries has been enormous.

Before flying home I will attend - with the President and the Prime Minister - the special commemorative mass in Vilnius Cathedral.

Against the Executions in Iraq

2007-01-05T13:00:00.000+01:00

The execution of Saddam Hussein turned into a horrible spectacle that did not reflect well on the authorities that carried it out.

It would have been far better if one had listened to the European and other voices that had called for his sentence to have been changed to life time imprisonment.

Let's at the least hope that the Iraqi government is now ready to listen to this appeal just issued by the Presidency of the European Union:

The Iraqi Government intends to execute Barzan Ibrahim Al-Tikriti, formerly head of one of the intelligence services, and Awad Hamed Al-Bandar, formerly president of the Revolutionary Court. The Presidency recalls the longstanding position of the EU with regard to the death penalty. The EU opposes capital punishment under all circumstances.

Both, Mr Al-Tikriti and Mr Al-Bandar, were high-ranking representatives of Saddam Hussein?s regime, which had brutally oppressed its own population for decades. Thousands of innocent people were killed and tortured, many disappeared.

Iraqis deserve a better future. To this end, it will be crucial to bring together all parts of Iraqi society irrespective of ethnicity or religious affiliation. Ensuring accountability for the crimes committed during the former regime can assist in furthering national reconciliation and dialogue in Iraq. The Presidency recalls that in order to achieve this important aim the prosecution of those crimes must adhere to the requirements of a fair process. "

Europe Starting Up

2007-01-05T10:05:00.000+01:00

As expected, we had a good aqnd important European meeting on Somalia in Brussels on Wednesday.

After the celebrations marking the entry of Romania and Bulgaria into the Union, this was the first event of the German Presidency during the first part of 2006.

Now, the meeting in Brussels is now followed by a meeting in Nairobi of the wider International Contact Group on Somalia. This is the occasion for more detailed discussions on how a political reconciliation process in the country can be launched.

There are also discussions on some sort of peacekeeping force to be sent to the country. But such a force first requires a peace to be kept. Force can not replace peace - it can support it. First things first.

My day in Brussels also gave opportunities for other discussions in a city that hadn't really come back from the holidays.

And the same still applies to Stockholm, which has given me some breathing space for planning activities at the ministry.

Next week will be different. Europe is starting up again.

On Wednesday I'm off to Madrid for a major conference 15 years after the Madrid conference that started a peace process in the Middle East. Now there will be discussions on the step that must be taken now to achieve not just a process but preferably a peace.

There is little doubt that this will one of the issues at the top of the European foreign policy agenda in the next few months.

By that time we might also know more about where President Bush intends to take his Iraq policy. Will he take up the recommendation from the Iraq Study Group to launch a major diplomatic initiative to revive a Middle East peace process?

Javier Solana is in Washington these days, and he will certainly tell all he is meeting the priority that we Europeans attach to this. This was also the message that Chancellor Merkel brought to the White House when she saw President Bush yesterday.

The conference in Madrid is hosted by the Foreign Ministers of Spain, Norway, Denmark and Sweden - so I'll see my Nordic colleauges there as well. It also brings together a number of individuals and public figures from the region itself in order to take stock of what's been happening during the past 15 years.

After Madrid I'm coming home very briefly to Stockholm - hopefully to see Foreign Minister Peter MacKay of Canada; his schedule is still somewhat uncertain - before proceeding on Friday to Vilnius in Lithuania.

There I'm speaking Saturday at a special session of the Seimes - Parliament - to remember those that died in front of the Soviet tanks 15 years ago in 1991. But it will also be the occasion of a seminar bringing together some of the key thought leaders on the issues of Europe's East.

And from there I'm off to the Balkans - but that's another story for another blog entry.

The Future of Somalia

2007-01-01T19:29:00.000+01:00

After celebrating the New Year and the entry of also Romania and Bulgaria into the European Union, it is the crisis in Somalia that is at the top of the foreign policy agenda.

On Wednesday I'm heading to Brussels for a meeting of the European members of the International Contact Group on Somalia.

It's a meeting that is the result of talks during the last week between European Commissioner Michel, Foreign Minister Steinmeier of Germany and myself, and we will all of course be there.

The aim is to coordinate the European approach to the crisis in Somalia. In the days to follow there will then be more broadly based meetings primarily in Nairobi on the concrete steps to be taken. That will be an opportunity to coordinate more closely also to the United States.

With the immediate phase of military operations inside Somalia now ended, there is a need to move forward with a political dialogue aimed at the setting up of a government that is seen as representative by all of the country. Although the representatives of the present Transitional Federal Government have now been in Moghadishu or its environs, it seems obvious that there will have to be a more broadly based solution.

The risks of the country falling further down into chaos are very real. A return to the rule of the competing warlords must be avoided. This both in order to reduce the suffering of the ordinary people and to prevent the country being a safe haven for terrorists of different sorts.

I fail to see that the Ethiopian troops that have now entered in large numbers can remain for long. They risk being seen as a force of occupation, and then provoke more of violence and conflict. It is not a coincidence that the UN Security Council has said that neighbours should have no military role in bringing stability to the country.

Whether there would be the need for some sort of international stability force remains to be seen. Uganda is said to have offered troops, but that is unlikely to be enough. But clear is that there has to be a broadly based political agreement before there is any stability force.

And then there will of course be the need for both immediate humanitarian and more long-term state-building aid efforts. Here it is to be expected that the countries and institutions of the European Union will be the main actors.

All of this will be on the agenda in Brussels on Wednesday.

I'm coming there from Stockholm, and Gunnilla Carlsson - Minister for Development Assistance - is joining me from Washington where she has been attending the state funeral for former President Ford.

And I also expect the Foreign Minister of Norway Jonas Störe to ge there. Not the European Union - but still Europe.

New Policy for a New Era?

2006-12-31T10:51:00.000+01:00

For those interested in my approach to the challenges we are facing in the world today, it might be interesting to read the speech I gave to the Swedish Institute for International Affairs on December 19th.

The text can be found on the Ministry website on my own old one and on the site of the Institute.

Those interested can there also access the video version of the event.

The speech has been fairly widely commented upon in Sweden, although mostly in general appreciative terms without going too much into the substance.

But it does set out both my vision and my priorities. It combines optimism about the possibilities of globalisation with pessimism concerning the dark clouds gathering on the more immediate horizons of the neighbourhood of Europe.

The Future of This Blog?

2006-12-30T17:29:00.000+01:00

As has been noted, this blog has gone inactive since I was asked to serve as Foreign Minister of Sweden in early October.

It is not easy to combine blogging with having an official position. Your worlds are scrutinzed in a somewhat different way - as indeed they should be.

It's really the difference between being an observer of politics and an active participant in some of the same events. And the two roles are very different, with blogging fitting better with the first than with the second of these two functions.

Nevertheless, the web is an important tool also of the increasingly important public diplomacy.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs does maintain it's somewhat dull site in Swedish as well as another one in English, although I have to admit that they don't really meet the standards that must be achieved these days. Work is underway to improve them, although government bureucracies don't really operate with the speed of the light.

To which extent I will have the possibility of continuing to post on this or another blog now and then remains to be seen, but since I noted that there are hundreds of visitors each day in spite of the blog being virtually "dead" since months back I just wanted to note the state of affairs.

We'll see.

A new year might bring new opportunities also in this respect.

New Government in Sweden

2006-10-07T22:55:00.000+02:00

Well, things do happen in life, as we know.

On Friday I was appointed Foreign Minister of Sweden in a move that was widely seen as somewhat surprising.

And in many ways it was. But when asked, while it wasn't entirely easy to say yes, it would have been impossible to say no.

So that's the way it is. And there is a very good team at the ministry with Gunilla Carlsson doing international development issues and Maria Borelius doing international trade. In addition, there is Cecilia Malmström as Minister for European Affairs located in the Prime Minister's Office.

All together a rather strong team.

And the policy declaration of the new government is also very clear on the priorities also in foreign affairs.

We clearly want to be in the centre of the process of European integration. We want a Europe that is a strong voice for freedom, democracy, peace and reconciliation throughout the world. We are convinced of the need to go on with the process of enlargement of the European Union. We seek security in the cooperation with other nations. We value the transatlantic link. We remain a strong supported of the United Nations.

All in all a modern foreign policy.

So that's what I'm doing at the moment. These days to a large extent getting the house in order. But then onwards...

Call For Mid East Action

2006-10-04T15:06:00.000+02:00

Today is published a major appeal for a new push towards peace in the Middle East, signed by a large number of public leaders around the world.

And I am among those that have signed the appeal.

It comes at the same time as US Secretary of State Rice is touring the region and exploring the possibilities of moving forward.

And it comes when there is a mounting interest in Europe in taking some sort of initiative. The present policy vacuum on the key issues of the conflict are nothing less than dangereous.

Another appeal in another critical situation.

Will it have any effect?

Keflavik Moves On

2006-10-03T09:50:00.000+02:00

A couple of days ago, the last part of the US military base at Keflavik on Iceland was closed down.

It's a historic move showing the new times we are living in.

For close to a generation, Keflavik was the by far most important military installation in northern Europe. It was the linchpin of Atlantic and Northern security during the cold decades of the Cold War.

Operated primarily by the US Navy, the mission centered on the runways, command and control as well as intelligence facilities at and around Keflavik was to prevent any Soviet naval break-throughs towards the Atlantic supply lines connecting the United States and Western Europe, as well as facilitating Western movements up towards the northern parts of the Atlantic.

From here, important parts of the vast sub-surface and air patrol system that sought to track Soviet nuclear submarines as they exited their base areas up on the Kola peninsula or beyond and heading towards the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland were run.

In addition, there were the aircrafts for the air defence of Iceland and the very large radar stations on northern and eastern parts of Iceland.

It was no coincidence that one of the books trying to look into how a possible Soviet surprise attack against the West would look started with a very cleverly executed raid against Keflavik. It was the key installation.

But no it's all gone. Left are empty hangars and large living quarters for the thousands of soldiers and families that were stationed there.

It's a new world.

Ban Ki Moon Takes Clear Lead

2006-10-03T09:34:00.000+02:00

Yesterday's straw poll in the Security Council made it likely that Ban Ki Moon would in fact emerge as the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.

He was the only one of the contenders that did not receive one or more discouraging votes from permanent members of the Security Council, as well as receiving encouraging ones from 14 out of the 15 members.

And number two in the race - Shashi Tharoor from India- immediately gave a concession speech and pledged his support for Ban Ki Moon.

More important than this were statements by the ambassadors of both China and the United States. China's Permanent Representative said that it was "quite clear" that Mr Moon was the candidate, and John Bolton for the US said that he would be "surprised" if there were any new names that would enter the race.

So much for my previous guess that this would in fact happen!

The Security Council now moves towards a formal vote next Monday. That might decide the issue, with the nomination of the Council then going forward for confirmation to the General Assembly.

Latvia's Vike-Freiberga came in a most honourable number three in this last straw poll, although with two permanent members - Russia? China? - casting discouraging votes.

But all in all it was a most impressive achievement by her and by Latvia.

Now we will see what happens on Monday.

Bosnian Challenges

2006-10-02T15:04:00.000+02:00

If I was wrong in my predictions for the Austrian elections, it looks as if I was somewhat less unsuccesful in the Bosnian case.

With preliminary results in, we see a significant shift among both the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Serb voters.

The old and traditional nationalist parties - SDA and SDS, respectively - have been outflanked and defeated by forces using more of nationalist rhetoric, although a general desire for change has in all probability also played a role.

The Bosnian Muslim seat in the Presidency will now be taken by Haris Silajdzic and the Bosnian Serb one by Nebojsa Radmanovic.

The former wants to abolish Republika Srpska, while the latter comes from a party that has recently started to toy with the idea of abolishing Bosnia. Eleven years after Dayton, that's not too encouraging a result.

But while things do look bad on paper I don't think there is any cause for alarm. And I would strongly caution against any thought of outside political intervention of the one sort or the other.

At the end of the day these gentlemen will have to find their own compromises if they want to live together. And with all of Europe - including, slowly and somewhat reluctantly even the Balkans - coming together they know that they haven't got much of a choice.

So Bosnia is to be congratulated to a well run and democratic election. That's good.

And then it is to be wished well in its attempts to live with the result.

That's democracy. Sometimes a messy thing - but always better than the alternatives.

The New Week

2006-10-02T09:04:00.000+02:00

Another week of changes starting its journey.

On Friday we'll get the new government in Sweden. And there will obviously be a new government in Austria at some point in time.

We are still waiting for the election results from Bosnia to see what they might imply.

And that local elections in Hungary brought setbacks for the ruling Socialists was hardly surprising.

The week will also bring important local elections in Georgia - in the middle of its dangereous crisis with Russia.

My week will be somewhat more Stockholm than usual.

But on Wednesday and Thursday I'm off to Rome for meetings there with business and government representatives, including Prime Minister Prodi. It will be centered on the role and possibilities of Italy as globalisation accelerates.

And then I might head from there to Brussels for some informal talks on the question of Turkey's accession to the European Union. That's a subject that will also be in focus the coming days due to Chancellor Merkel's visit to Ankara in the weel.

Slowly, we see autumn arriving in Stockholm.

Surprise in Austria

2006-10-01T22:45:00.000+02:00

It is indeed somewhat of a surprise to everyone to see the SPÖ coming out on top of the Austrian elections today.

Everyone - including myself - had expected ÖVP and Chancellor Schuessel to come out on top, although probably not repeating the very good 2002 election result.

But the voters wanted otherwise. ÖVP lost more than 8 % and ended up with 66 seats in the Nationalrat, while SPÖ lost 0,8 % and ended up with 68 seats.

And that means that the SPÖ leader Gusenbauer is likely to be the one trying to form a coalition - which at the end of the days might well include ÖVP.

If you compare with the Swedish election two weeks ago, it's interesting to see the difference between the two countries.

While SPÖ completely dominated Vienna, with ÖVP only having marginally more than 20 % there, the Social Democrats in Sweden suffered their worst losses in the metropolitan Stockholm area, and are now a distinct minority party there, with the Moderates being the by far leading force among the uran middle classes.

In contrast. ÖVP retains its bastions in Tyrol, where the SPÖ is virtually nothing. This sounds rather like the Swedish Social Democrats who are scoring their best results in the less populated, rural and somewhat problematic parts of the country.

Two different countries.

Now let's see what kind of government Mr Gusenbauer will manage to get together.

It's Austria, and it will take some time.

Liberal Conservatism

2006-09-30T15:59:00.000+02:00

I promised to come back to David Cameron as well after my comments on - and praise for - Tony Blair.

On September 11 he delivered a speech on foreign affairs that has been much commented upon since.

That's primarily because his phrase that Britain should be "solid but not slavish" in its friendship with the United States. The swipe at Blair was difficult not to understand.

But there is far more to the speech than that.

In fact, he makes a rather interesting attempt to distinguish his so called liberal conservatism on international affairs from the so called neo-conservatism that has been doing much of the running in the Anglo-Sachson world in the last few years.

And its worth reading.

I particularly liked the way he looks at the struggle against terrorism around the world:

"Part of the problem we have encountered these past five years is that the struggle has been perceived - as the terrorists want it to be perceived - as a single struggle between single protagonists.

The danger is that by positing a single source of terrorism - a global jihad - and opposing it with a single global response - American-backed force - we will simply fulfil our own prophecy.

We are not engaged in a clash of civilisations, and suggestions that we are can too easily have the opposite effect to the one intended: making the extremists more attractive to the uncommitted

This is not to deny the connections between terrorist activity in different parts of the world.

It is simply an appeal for us to be a little smarter in how we handle those connections.

Our aim should be to dismantle the threat, separating its component parts, rather than amalgamating them into a single global jihad that simply becomes a call to arms."

I think this is entirely correct - and the difference between much of what is dominating on the other side of the Atlantic is profound.

It is by dismantling or disaggregating the situations, and then dealing with them one after the other, that we have the greatest possibilities of making progress.

Lumping them all together in one big battle to which we also give the description "war" probably serves Usama bin Laden better than it serves anything else.

The David Cameron restyling has certainly been about style to a very large extent.

But the speech on foreign policy showed interesting and important substance as well.

Green Green Green Blue

2006-09-30T10:23:00.000+02:00

With the UK Conservatives getting together for their party conference in Bournemouth, there will be a lot of attention on the changes they are undergoing.

Is it just style? Where is really the substance?

As usual there is likely to be a bit of both in what's going on, and that's only natural.

When times are changing the challenges of politics are changing and so must the political parties.

Tony Blair spoke about how the issues have gone from being "essentially British" a decade or so ago to being "essentially global" today and tomorrow. Very true. And very important.

The Conservatives are also emphasizing the global, although trying to perform the interesting intellectual balancing act of doing so without mentioning or getting involved with European issues.

And they are emphasizing their new green and environmentally friendly image. The tree-huggers of Notting Hill.

Just look at the new symbol and log of the Conservative Party.

Not really Churchill. Not really Macmillan. Certainly not Thatcher.

But certainly modern.

Next Round UN Race

2006-09-30T09:47:00.000+02:00

Well, I was not entirely correct in my previous entry on the race to select the next Secretary-General of the UN.

There was indeed an interesting straw poll among UNSC members on Thursday.

But it had been decided to have another one on Monday - and that will be the one with colour-coded votes so that there is a difference between permanent and non-permanent member states.

That's when the real drama will begin.

Thursday's straw poll was interesting in that Latvia's Vaira Vike-Freiberga - who entered the race only two weeks ago - come in at third place. She had seven votes encouraging her against six votes discouraging her.

Only two candidates - present front-runner Ban Ki Moon from South Korea and Sashi Tharoor from India - did better. All others had more discoraging than encouraging votes - de facto the end of them.

The performance of Vaira Vike-Freibergis is indeed impressive, and she should be truly congratulated. Her success benefits the image of her country and all three of the Baltic countries.

But it's on Monday it gets real.

Will Russia put a red vote to her since she's Latvian? Probable, I would say. She has done a lot to improve relations between Russia and Latvia, but it's doubtful whether that's enough.

And which red votes will there be against the others? China will take out of the race the candidates it does not want to see going to the final round.

It will be interesting to follow, and this website will give you the latest.

At the end of the day I stand by my guess that it's likely to end up with someone who's not on today list.

Next UN Secretary General

2006-09-28T22:09:00.000+02:00

This is the day for a critical straw poll among the members of the UN Security Council on who will be the next Secretary General.

And its the first of the straw polls that makes a difference between permanent and non-permanent members of the Council. One discouraging vote from one of the so called P5's de facto means a veto and exit from the race.

In previous straw polls, there has be no way of seeing the rather critical difference betweehn the two categories of members.

Today, New York Times has invited the six official candidates to briefly present their views on what they want to do.

It makes interesting reading. I know three of them fairly well - they are all highly qualified individuals.

So far there are six candidates, but my guess that at the end of the day at the least one of them will be out of the game.

And my guess is also that there is more than a fair chance that the final choice of the P5 - in effect, the decision is theirs - will not be a person on the list of today.

Essentially Global

2006-09-28T21:31:00.000+02:00

Passing by London on my way back from New York was a good opportunity to get up to speed on the transformations underway on the British political scene.

The Labour party has just finished its conference in Manchester, and the Conservatives are only days from theirs in Bournemouth.

Tony Blair is leaving - although probably not until May of next year or so - and Labour is challenged by the new Conservative leader David Cameron.

His ratings might be fairly low on the British scene at the moment, but I persist in seeing him as one of the both best and most interesting major political leaders in terms of making speeches.

And his farewell in Manchester was certainly not exception to that rule. It's worth reading in its whole.

But here I'll just quote at some length what he said about how the challenges of politics have changed during the last decade. From being essentially national, they have now become essentially global:

The scale of the challenges now dwarf what we faced in 1997. They are different, deeper, bigger, hammered out on the anvil of forces, global in nature, sweeping the world.

In 1997 the challenges we faced were essentially British. Today they are essentially global.

The world today is a vast reservoir of potential opportunity. New jobs in environmental technology, the creative industries, financial services. Cheap goods and travel. The internet. Advances in science and technology.

In 10 years we will think nothing of school-leavers going off to university anywhere in the world.

But with these opportunities comes huge insecurity.

In 1997 we barely mentioned China. Not any more. Last year China and India produced more graduates than all of Europe put together.

10 years ago, energy wasn't on the agenda. The environment an also-ran.

10 years ago, if we talked pensions we meant pensioners.

Immigration hardly raised.

Terrorism meant the IRA.

Not any more.

We used to feel we could shut our front door on the problems and conflicts of the wider world. Not any more.

Not with globalisation. Not with climate change. Not with organised crime. Not when suicide bombers born and bred in Britain bring carnage to the streets of London . In the name of religion.

A speech by the Pope to an academic seminar in Bavaria leads to protests in Britain.

The question today is different to the one we faced in 1997.

It is how we reconcile openness to the rich possibilities of globalisation, with security in the face of its threats.

How to be open and secure.

I would hope that every major political leader in every European country would be ready to spell out the nature of the tasks ahead in the same way.

Gloomy Perspectives

2006-09-27T22:44:00.000+02:00

Just preparing to leave New York and head back to Sweden after an intense day of discussions here.

At the SACC NY centennial, Richard Holbrooke and I had a public discussions on the different challenges we are facing in the years ahead.

I'm afraid it was a rather gloomy session.

While I spoke of most things between Kabul and Khartoum becoming increasingly problematic, Holbrooke said the same but used the expression between Beirut and Bombay. At the end of the day it means the same.

And we both failed to see the coherent either European or American policies to address this, not to speak about coherence in approach across the Atlantic. But we agreed that without that appearing, the situations are likely to get worse.

Meanwhile, President Bush in Washington is trying to get President Musharaf of Pakistan and President Kharazai of Afghanistan to improve their relationship and be more effective in countering what the New York Times today actually calls an "insurgency" in Afghanistan.

The seriousness of the situation is illustrated not only by the word "insurgency", but also by fear that it is getting "iraqized". Not good.

President Bush has also decided to release to the public important part of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) dealing with terrorism that's been subject of controversy in the last few days.

It's worth reading - without being particularly sensational. You can find it through the NYT article on the subject.

Better head back to Stockholm.

Mounting Concerns Across Atlantic

2006-09-26T20:56:00.000+02:00

I see that UPI in a telegram has picked up on one of the discussions we had in Berlin a couple of days ago, quoting some of the more worried words that I had to say on the situation in the Middle East.

It was indeed a discussion dominated by mounting concerns.

Everywhere in the region - from Kabul to Khartoum - our policies as well as the situation is "heading South", as they would say on this side of the Atlantic.

And discussions here in New York today in and around the United Nations have not given much ground for optimism.

There is a desperate feeling in the air, and that could perhaps lead to something coming together to produce something. But there are formidable forces working in the opposite direction as well.

Could the European Union take a credible initative? Could Europe and the United States join forces for something truly comprehensive in the region?

I don't know. No one else seems to know either.

But things are not moving in the right direction. Mildly speaking.

Morning by East River

2006-09-26T14:09:00.000+02:00

A beutitful morning in New York. The summer seems to be lingering on her as well.

Just heading for breakfast a couple of blocks from the UN building on East River.

The morning TV news is dominated by different aspects of security and foreign affairs issues as the controversies ahead of the mid-term elections are increasing.

A news report last week about a secret National Intelligence Estimates that evidently states the obvious in claiming that the situation in Iraq has become a focus for recruiting terrorists is at the centre of the debate at the moment.

The Democrats are obviously making the most of it. To counter the Bush claim that he has made America safer is politically important.

But administration spokesmen are saying that this is too limited a view of what the NIE is actually saying, and in all probability it is also saying that the US had had some success in reducing the possibilities of the al-Qaeda core network.

All fairly obvious. You don't need leaks from a secret report to understand that. And it does not seem to be that much to argue about.

But with the elections looming, the debate is getting increasingly partisan. Why did not Clinton get at bin Laden? Why hasn't Bush caught him? What has the war in Iraq really meant for the long-term security of the country?

Today Afghan President Karzai pays a visit to the White House. Meanwhile, reports speak about increased fighting primarily in southern Afghanistan, with an Italian soldier killed yesterday.

It's obvious that there is a need to take a hard look at the combined operation in Afghanistan. A new Petersberg conference bringing all of the actors together might well be needed shortly.

Meanwhile, I notice that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has headed off to Montenegro. Nice place, but doesn't feel that central to what's happening at the moment.

New York itself seems to be winding down somewhat from all the stress during the 61st UN General Assembly. Limousines, police cars and blocked roads as the world's leader got here to have their say.

I'll hover over to the UN during the day to pick up the latest gossip. And then it's time for the Swedish-American celebrations in the evening.

The World From New York

2006-09-25T08:49:00.000+02:00

As work continues with setting up the new government in Sweden, I'm heading for New York later today.

It's the centennial anniversary of the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce there. Big thing.

I'm there primarily for an interesting seminar on different global trends on Wednesday. Together with Richard Holbrooke I will try to make some sense of what's happening on the global stage.

But then it's back to here rather quickly.

Otherwise this is the week in Europea leading up to the parliamentary elections in Austria and Bosnia that I have written about, as well as the local elections in Hungary in the middle of the turmoil there.

And then there is the Labour Party conference in the UK with the final conference performance of Tony Blair - to be followed by the Conservative conference next week with challenger Cameron.

Next week is not only the week of the formal change in Sweden, but also of important local elections in Georgia as well as the parliamentary elections in Latvia on October 7th.

In the United States the members of Congress have left Washington and gone campaigning for the November mid-term elections. We seem to be witnessing a slight rebounce in the support for the otherwise somewhat beleaugered Bush administration.

There will be a lot to discuss in New York.

And Bosnia As Well

2006-09-24T22:30:00.000+02:00

Well, then there is of course the elections in Bosnia next weekend as well.

I must confess to having been somewhat out of touch with the debate there during the past few weeks.

But prior to that it wasn't too stimulating.

It seemed to me then - it might have changed since - that the trend was that the two old and big nationalist parties - SDA on the Muslim and SDS on the Serb side - was in danger of being outflanked by the more nationalist rhetoric of their main rivals. On the Croat side it's a more confused picture after the splits in the local HDZ party.

SDA is challenged by long-standing challenger Haris Silajdzic. He's been around for ever, and remains as ambitious as ever. But instead of being a man that could help in bridging the divides of Bosnia, I think there is now a risk of him making them worse.

He was one of those instrumental in blocking the attempt earlier this year to modify the Bosnian constitution - advocating an all-or-nothing approach that fits very badly with the realities of Bosnia.

And on the Serb side the story seems to be similar with RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik talking about an independence referendum for Republika Srpska in order to outflank the classical nationalists in SDS. But these have, under a new leadership, started to sound more responsible than in the past, also on the controversial constitutional issues.

I'm not unduly alarmed, although the build-up of nationalist rhetoric throughout the region at the moment is worth taking note of.

And all my younger friends in Bosnia are saying that they are throughly fed up with a rhetoric that seems to be more looking back to the wat years than forward to the common European future they want.

Choice for Austria

2006-09-24T22:01:00.000+02:00

One week after the Swedísh election, and one week until the voters go to the polls in Austria.

You might remember all the fuss that was created after right-wuing FPÖ under Jorg Haider had their success in the autumn 1999 election and eventually was made the coalition partner of centre-right ÖVP under Wolfgang Schuessel.

It was then said that this would open the floodgates to rightist populist parties throughout Europe. Indignation was overflowing selected European capitals.

I never believed in those theories, and thought that Schuessel did the right thing.

Up until then the country had been governed by a larga coalition between the Social Democrats SPÖ and ÖVP. It was seen as big, overpowering, bureucratic and bordering on the corrupt.

And the FPÖ vote was essentially a vote by the young people of Austria for change. You couldn't really vote for ÖVP or SPÖ if you wanted change - there was only FPÖ. And they got nearly 30 % of the vote.

Since then the Schuessel strategy has proved itself.

He has governed successfully - getting a new mandate in the November 2002 elections - and has gradually marginalized Haider to the point that he is now almost completely limited to his regional position in Kärnten.

The election now is a race between ÖVP and SPÖ for position number one, and then it will be a question of coalitions.

At the moment it looks very much as if ÖVP will come out on top. Schuessel is well ahead in opinion polls, and seems to have won the key duel with the SPÖ leader without much of difficulty.

And SPÖ is seriously tarnished by scandals and failure in a bank more or less affiliated with the trade unions it is very close to. Not a niced story.

But to win is one thing - to form a coalition will be another.

At the moment speculation is that Schuessel will have to chose between a coalition with the SPÖ and one with the Greens. My guess is that he would prefer to test the later alternative - with a coalition with SPÖ being the default option.

In either case it will be a significant accomplishment if Wolfgang Schuessel comes out on top in this election as well.

In my opinion there is little doubt that he deserves it. Austria is doing very well under him.

Erzwungene Wege

2006-09-23T21:35:00.000+02:00

I don't think there is any exhibition in recent years that has generated so much controversy as the one on expelled people's now open in the Kronprinzenhalle in central Berlin.

I took the opportunity of spending some time at it earlier today.

And I come away convinced that it ought to be shown all over Europe in the years to come.

During the 20th century more than 30 peoples in Europe have more or less lost their right to their own homes. And although it is not easy to estimate how many people have been affected, it is reasonable to talk of between 80 and 100 million people.

That's a huge amount of human suffering.

But there is also the loss of a diversity in important parts of Europe that had been preserved over the centuries. Areas might have become more homogeneous, but Europe as a whole has become a poorer place, even leaving all of the suffering aside.

It's not large, but it's very telling in the facts that it portrays. And the steady stream of people just standing in silence reading, looking at small items or listening at some of the stations were this is possible is impressive.

You can see that it is an exhibition that makes an impression.

For every people that has been forced to flee there are those guilty of having done it, and there is often a complicated story leading up to it. That's why it has been so sensitive to bring up the fate of the millions of Germans expelled from Central Europe in 1945.

Isn't this to seek to "relativize" the crimes of Hitler and the Holocaust? And is it right to even mention the expulsions from Poland after the crimes the Nazis had committed against that nation?

But this isn't the only aspect that has lead to controversy.

There is the perennial debate on whether the mass murders of Armenians in 1915 should be called a genocide or not. Although the facts are generelly recognized, the term is still highly controversial in Turkey.

But there are more sensitive cases shown in moving details in the exhibition.

The expulsion of Finns from Vyborg and Karelia. The expulsion of Italians from Istria and Dalmatia. Or the enormous "exchange" of people between Greece and Turkey after the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.

Not to speak about the ethnic cleansing of the far more recent Balkan wars.

But all this is part of our history, and the exhibition is just presenting the facts without either pointing fingers or judging concerning responsibility. In taking this approach it in fact becomes even stronger.

Well worth a journey to Berlin. That I found it particularly strong perhaps has its background in me having lived through ethnic cleansing and seen the human tragedies.

Let's hope that there will be a wider future for the exhibition.

Merkel Has Spoken

2006-09-23T21:10:00.000+02:00

I'm now back in Stockholm after two intense days of different discussions in Berlin.

It was the Bertelsmann Forum which was organized for the 10th time, and which brought together a rather impressive and certainly interesting crowd ranging from Angela Merkel to Henry Kissinger.

And in addition to Merkel there were the Prime Ministers of France, Belgium, Hungary, Latvia and Montenegro.

One of the highlights was the policy speech on European issues delivered yesterday by Chancellor Merkel. It had been preceded by rather extensive discussions on which policy line to take on some controversial issues.

And one of them was clearly the future of enlargement.

Here she come down with a position that is tolerable although not ideal, but which could have been a good deal worse. She did not fall into the dangereous trap of trying to define, once and for all, the borders of Europe.

In effect she said that existing accession negotiations - Croatia and Turkey - should go on, that the rest of the Balkans had a membership perspective, but that one beyond this in the forseeable future should not hold out the membership perspective to anyone.

I don't have the precise text, and I have yet to find it on any of the official websites, but it will come.

In effect this means that membership for Ukraine is off the table for the forseeable future, and since this would only be possible in the longer perspective anyhow, the damage might not be overwhelming. The exact wording made it clear that the door was not closed forever.

She was also rather careful in her position on the future of the Constitutional Treaty. Without repeating past pronouncements that it should be adopted as it is - a rather unrealistic position - she pointed out some of the core issues that a coming treaty must dealt with.

To slim it down to just the most essential institutional provision was not, in her view, sufficient, and she argued for including the section on citizen's rights as well in any new attempt.

Although we might see some movement on this issue already in the Berlin Declaration on the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome in March, she made it clear that it waws only in June - after the French presidential election - that the German Presidency would be prepared to become somewhat more concrete.

A wise line that allows for both reflections and debate in the coming months - although we are already starting to see roughly where the entire discussion is heading.

Congratulations, Estonia!

2006-09-23T18:09:00.000+02:00

It is of course profoundly good news that Toomas Ilves has been elected as the new President of Estonia.

At last there is a worthy successor to Lennart Meri. And a person that can proudly project the success of Estonia and the other Baltic states on the wider world stage.

It was long uncertain whether he could make it, but it seems as if campaigning has paid off. And Estonians at the end of the day wanted a modern president they could be proud of.

This is not to say that outgoing president Arnold Ruutel, who was now defeated by Toomas Ilves, hasn't done important services to his country.

With his roots in Soviet Estonia's agriculture and political nomenklatura he played a prominent role -- along with young movement leaders -- in the restoration of Estonia's independence through parliamentary enactments.

And during the 1990's he helped reassure sections of society, including many Russians, that Estonia's independence and aspiration to join NATO and the European Union was good for the country.

He become president in 2001 at the age of 73 and served as a figurehead, though often with dignity. However, not speaking any foreign language other than Russian, he has been at a disadvantage in representing Estonia internationally.

Toomas Ilves represents a more modern, outward looking Estonia.

He has done most things over the years. He has been his country's ambassador in Washington as well as its foreign minister, and is now serving in the European Parliament and on its important Foreign Affairs Committee.

He will easily be the northern European official that moves the most easily around the corridors of the world - at the least its Western parts. And that is of great importance for a country - not the least if its size doesn't automatically give it entry everywhere.

Toomas Ilves is of course to be congratulated, but primarily the congratulations should go to all of Estonia.

Thoughts in Lyon

2006-09-22T00:11:00.000+02:00

Well, it was a good meeting with the European Ideas Network here in Lyon.

EIN every years brings together thought and opinion leaders from the centre-right in Europe for a couple of days of brainstorming and provocative discussions.

And I have been invited to speak in Berlin in 2004, in Lisbon in 2005 and here in Lyon in 2007.

But others were here as well. Commission President Barroso delivered a good speech on the agenda of Europe today. Passionate in a way he isn't always.

And I took the opportunity of my speech over dinner - someone has to have that thankless task - of discussing the gathering storms around Europe and the urgent need to strengthen the soft powers of Europe in order to extent our zone of peace and stability.

At a time when there is a lot of discussion on "the borders of Europe" and "absorption capacity" I wanted to highlight what is really at stake if we suddenly decide to shut the doors.

If one door is shut, other doors are opened. That's the way history works. And if we close the door to European integration - however far down the road the ultimate goal might be - then we are opening up the doors to aggressive nationalism of a sort we have seen before.

Then we open the doors to instability at our doorstops - soon to spill over them into us.

I was primarily talking about Serbia, Ukraine and Turkey. These are the "swing states" that I see in the decade ahead. If they are turned away from us, the consequences over wide regions will be profound.

We must engage, engage and engage in order to change and change and change. There are no quick fixes to true peace.

Closing the door to them is to open the doors to new instability.

I'll see if I can post the entire text somewhere.

From Bosphorous to Rhone

2006-09-21T06:29:00.000+02:00

It's early Thursday morning by the Bosphorous, and the great city of Istanbul is waking up.

It's somewhat unclear how many people are actually living here. The city is growing fast. There might be around 20 million people in the urban landscape around the Bosphorous.

And it is indeed one of the greatest of European cities.

Thick with history and bustling with life. The ships from and to the Black Sea ports passing constantly, while the minarets of Sinan's fabolous mosques are pointing towards the sky. The airport is filled with aircrafts heading also for desttinations all over Central Asia.

I was here for a dinner yesterday evening discussing the future of Turkish business in the European Union.

There is a slight pessimism concerning the accession process. The Cyprus issue risks causing a train wreck in the months ahead if nothing is done. Words of rejection from different European politicians have certainly been noted here, and are playing into the hands of more hard-line nationalist politicians.

But history seldom moves in a completely linear fashion. It always has its ups and down and bumbs in the road.

It might be ten years down the road when we arrive at the final decision concerning the membership of Turkey. It will be another European Union by then, and it will also be another Turkey.

But if we have a clear interest in Turkish membership today, I'm convinced that we will have an even clearer interest a decade or so down the road. It's geostrategic importance will certainly not decline.

But now I'm off to Lyon by the river Rhone in France. Once the capital of the Gaul of the Romans, and then a trading and fair city of European importance. Now the second largest city of France and its gastronomical capital.

So I take the Turkish Airlines non-stop flight from Istanbul to Lyon to speak there about the challenges facing Europe in the years ahead.

European Journeys

2006-09-19T15:22:00.000+02:00

As the transition process in Sweden gets underway, I'm heading off to other European countries for different discussions.

Tomorrow I'm off to Istanbul for a dinner and discussion on the future of Turkish business in the European Union.

I do expect the Turkish economy to be one of the more vibrant and dynamic in the years ahead, and it will have to make its voice heard also in Brussels on different issues of concerns.

From Istanbul I'm heading off on Thursday to Lyon in France for the annual summer meeting of the European Ideas Network.

It's the annual intellectual brainstorming linked to the centre-right EPP-EDG group in the European Parliament. And I'm joining a list of speakers that also includes European Commission President Barroso and French presidential contender Sarkozy.

And from Lyon I'm heading Friday to Berlin for the Bertelsmann International Forum, where my task is to discuss whether we are on the verge of a failure for the combined Western policies from the Middle East to the Hindu Kush.

I fear that's a very relevant question - although the answer might not be immediately obvious.

And from there I'm heading home to Stockholm again, where the hand-over preparations should by then have proceeded a fair bit.

Hungarian Revolt

2006-09-19T14:59:00.000+02:00

Just as preparations are gearing up for the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the 1956 freedom revolution in Hungary and its brutal repression by Soviet forces there is another rebellion brewing in Budapest.

The words used by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany when he described Socialist election tactics at an internal meeting are indeed extraordinary.

He said that the government had been lying day and night in order to win the election and remain in power. And there is indeed a stark contrast between the rosy picture presented before the election and the brutal realities of not least a disastrous situation in the public finances.

While this is no excuse for violence in the streets, it is hardly surprising that there are strong reactions.

In a broader sense we can see what is now happening as a sign that some of the easier days in the transition in Central Europe are now over.

High levels of expenditure have been financed by income from privatizations, and when this is no longer possible to the same extent as before, the task of tackling the growing deficits becomes more difficult.

I have been writing here before about the Hungarian situation, warning that it might be heading for a very difficult situation. The Prime Ministers remarks and the violent reactions they have caused have now accelerated that development.

And there is only one way of relieving the situation.

To tell the thruth - and stop lying.

And to undertake the harsh budget cut-backs necessary.

New Beginning for Sweden

2006-09-18T07:56:00.000+02:00

I had a very late evening - I left the celebrations with Fredrik Reinfeldt at nearly 3 a m.

And now it's an early morning - off to the TV studios again to try to comment on what's happening.

The Swedish election gave the result that was in the air during the last few weeks. A rather resounding victory for the centre-right alliance, which will now give Sweden its first majority government since 1981.

The Moderate Party under Fredrik Reinfeldt not only did its best election since 1928, but also the best election result of any non-socialist party in modern times, narrowly beating the record set by the Centre party in the 1973 election.

And for the Social Democrats it was their worst election result since 1914 - before the introduction of universal suffrage in Sweden.

Prime Minister Persson immediately announced that he will step down also as leader of the party at an extraordinary congress likely in the beginning of next year. He looked positively happy as he made the announcement.

While previous non-socialist governments that took over in 1976 and in 1991 did so under rather difficult economic circumstances - in 1991 Sweden was losing 1 000 jobs a day and the government deficit was increasing by a billion crowns a week - the situation now is very different.

This is an immediate advantage, but also harbours the risk that the pressure for change will be less than it perhaps ought to be. As numerous international studies have pointed out, there is a need for deep structural reforms in important part of the economy of the country.

But further comments on this will have to await further developmnents.

Today Prime Minister Persson hands in his resignation, although he will be asked to remain in a caretaker position. As the new Riksdag convenes on October 3rd, the formal process of forming the new government will begin, with the actual transfer of power likely to happen on Friday October 6th.

That will be the true new beginning for Sweden.

Elections Tomorrow

2006-09-16T10:51:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow is election day in Sweden, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

And in addition there is some sort of referendum in Trans-Dniester. Not much of an election, but still worth noting.

The Swedísh election is increasingly likely to result in Prime Minister Persson being replaced by Prime Minister Reinfeldt leading a four-party centre-right coalition.

All opinion polls this morning gives a lead to the centre-right.

That might be less important than the fact that the momentum we have seen during the last few days have been moving in that direction. That it will change before the polling stations close at 8 p.m. tomorrow is unlikely.

Today is the last day of campaign - in the wonderful late summer sun of September. Most party leaders will try to be both in Stockholm and in some other part of Sweden - with the 2nd largest city Göteborg the obviously most popular destination.

The final TV debate yesterday evening went well for the centre-right Alliance, with Prime Minister Persson failing to make the break-through that he so desperately needed. But he reluctantly had to accept that he is dependent for his future on the Communists - yes, the leader of the leftist party calls himself communist - and the Greens.

And this only added to the uncertainty concerning his policies for the future.

But there is also so called Senate elections in Berlin tomorrow. And they seem less likely to result in a change.

Berlin is run by an odd red-red coalition between the Social Democrats SPD and the ex-Communist of PDS. And this is now challenged by the CDU and its main candidate Friedbert Pflueger.

But he's up against a rather solid majority supported also by all the old ex-Communist buraucrats still living in the Eastern parts of the now reunified Berlin.

His aim is probably to make a decent election, showing that the CDU is a force to be reckoned with, establishing himself as a Berliner and then aim for the next elections. Politics is a long-term business.

There is also elections in the Land of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in northern Germany, which is the only other place in Germany run by red-red coalitions.

Here the prospects are for more of change, with an increase in the support of the CDU, and perhaps a great coalition as a result.

Together, these two elections will give some indications of how the political winds are blowing in the country.

The thing in Trans-Dniester - the break-away Russian statelet in Moldova - isn't really much to comment on. The result is easily orchestrated by the authorities.

The only relevant question is how the Kremlin will decide to play it. But that has almost nothing with democratic elections to do.

Red Green Mess

2006-09-15T13:14:00.000+02:00

I'm back in Stockholm after a couple of days that have taken me from Geneva to Haugesund in Norway and from there to Tbilisi in Georgia as well as to Brussels for different discussions.

But now it's two days of making some additional contributions to the campaign before the election here in Sweden on Sunday.

The opinion polls are showing a very tight race, although it is my distinct impression that the momentum at the moment is more with the centre-right alliance parties.

They evidently carried the day in the first of the two major final TV debates yesterday. What happens in the second one tonight will obviously be of major importance.

By acting together as they have done, they have really turned the tables in the debate about how to govern Sweden.

They are seen as a united alternative, while there are increasing tensions on the Left.

It's becoming increasingly clear that a continuation of a Social Democratic minority government simply isn't possible, and that there in all probability will have to be a formal coalition that includes the Green Party and the ex-Communists. But that's an alternative profoundly detested by many Social Democrats, and what sort of policies would actually emerge out of such a government is very unclear.

So on Sunday there is a choice between one reasonably clear majority government alternative of the centre-right, and some sort of red-green mess if the majority ends up on their side.

Good News - For Once?

2006-09-12T00:13:00.000+02:00

It is not that usual with days when good pieces of news are coming out of the Middle East.

But yesterday seems to have been such a day.

There now seems to be some sort of agreement to set up a new coalition government in the Palestinian Athority.

It means that Hamas will share power with Fatah - something Hamas offer before, but Fatah then refused.

One of the basis for the new government is the so called prisoners document drafted by key Palestinians in Israeli jails. This document contains an implicit recognition of Israel, and seems now to have been accepted by Hamas.

This is undoubtedly an important step forward. The key question is now whether it will lead the Israelis and the US to lift their different sanctions against the Palestinian government.

I take it for granted that the EU will do it - this is very much in line with what's been discussed in EU policy circiles for some time. There has been distinct unhappiness over the policy one was more or less forced into after the Hamas election victory earlier this year.

If all of this happens, it will certainly not sort out all of the problems of the area. Very far from it. But it might have the highly important effect of stopping a further deterioation of the situation.

By the standards of these problematic days, that must be called progress.

Five Years Later

2006-09-10T21:22:00.000+02:00

On September 11 five years ago I was standing at Potzdamer Platz in Berlin explaining to a friend the tremendous changes there since the wall through Berlin had come down.

Suddenly there was a call from a friend in the UN building in New York. He had just from his room seen the second plane crash into the World Trade Center.

To me it was immediately obvious that al-Qaeda had succeeded. No other network had the resources to plan and execute an attack of this magnitude. And within minutes it was clear that a plane had also struck Pentagon.

The United States immediately declared itself at war, and to a large extent remain in that state today, with the Pentagon now talking about "a long war" and the President lately defining the enemy as "Islamic fascists".

As the Taleban regime in Afghanistan was protecting Usama bin Laden and the core of the al-Qaeda network, the attack to unseat the regime there was unavoidable. It was undertaken by the US, but it had the broad support of the United Nations.

That attack succeeded in liberating Afghanistan from the Talibans, but at the battle of Tora Bora Usama bin Laden and his core group managed to escape over the mountains. Since some years back it seems that virtually all traces of him has disappeared, although he delivers his videos and messages from his remote hideout.

But the core al-Qaeda organisation has been severely damaged since then. Although what is still there is likely to continue to plan large-scale attacks, its capabilities are severly reduced.

Today, it is more a symbol and an ideological inspiration for other groups, some of them originally helped by al-Qaeda, but many also new creations during the last few years taking the ideological lead from the fundamentalism from the mountain hideout.

Today, Usama bin Laden's most powerful weapon might be his videos and messages as he continues to evade capture.

In the last few years we have seen Europe coming into focus in a way that was not the case five years ago. Although the September 11 group had its origins in Hamburg, we have since them been made aware of the risk of terrorism being bred in the margins of the second- or third-generation immigrant communities in Europe. And their targets tend to be targets in our part of the world.

The fight against this terrorism isn't really a war in the classical sense. There is no clear beginning and end, there is no clear enemy and military instruments are certainly not the key when it comes to winning the battle. That they have declared war against us is no reason for us to elevate them to that level.

We still require to reinforce police and intelligence cooperation, and that is done as we are learning more and more.

But at the end of the day we are talking about a battle between values and ideas that to a large extent will have to be fought out within the society and culture of Islam. On our side, we must move ahead more desively with more genuine attempts to address some of the root causes that are leading young men into terrorism, be that different situations in the Middle East or the cultural alientation in the secular societies of Western Europe.

The greatest danger at the moment is hardly the one or the other terrorist attack - they will come - but that reactions to them - by supporters or those frightened into different reactions - will lead us into a more fundamental clash of civilisations. In this context, I fail to see that the designation "Islamic fascists" is particularly helpful.

We shall always be clear that what Usama bin Laden really seeks is such a more fundamental conflict, which would increase the possibility of the groups that he seeks to inspire to recruit and to attack. That is one of the reasonbs why we should be careful in the extreme not to let things slide into a direction that long-term plays into his hands.

Five years after September 11, I would guess that the assessment he is making in his cave is that while his al-Qaeda has been severly beaten, a number of events have inspired new although significantly less competent organisations, while tendencies towards a clash of civilisations have gradually become more pronounced.

The next five years must be different. Otherwise the risk of a really serious development is very clearly there.

Good Debate - But Very Dangereous Position

2006-09-10T00:00:00.000+02:00

To start with the positive, it is of course a good thing that Nicolas Sarkozy goes to Brussels and gives a major speech on his vision for Europe.

Apart from the IHT summary, there is also the complete text available in French.

Too many politicians in too many countries are too silent on the challenges on the European scene that they will face in the years to come.

So Sarkozy should be praised for this, as well as for his thoughts on how to handle the institutional issues ahead.

Much in line with what's been discussed here before, he declared the old constitutional treaty dead, and instead wants to start discussion on a more limited treaty of institutional reform.

That's a far more realistic approach, although some of his proposals might not necessarily be acceptable yet. But it's a good start to a necessary debate.

Another issue - but I leave commenting on that one until later - is whether a Britain under a Prime Minister Brown would be ready to go along with anything.

But where I profoundly disagree is his call for the suspension of membership negotiations with Turkey. He wants to restrict membership to countries on the continent of Europe, although it's not clear if he wants to expell Cyprus with its position off the coast of Lebanon.

I'm not certain how that suspension would work. France can always block any progress in the talks, but to get the Union to officially suspend the talks is another matter, and would be bitterly opposed by a number of member states. It could easily descend into a very nasty and very damaging debate.

The last few months should have demonstrated anew the geostrategic importance of Turkey. Apart from the importance of facilitating and anchoring the continued democratic and secular reform path of Turkey, I don't think Europe can afford to have a rejected, disillusioned and bitter Turkey as its neighbour.

It's also very easy to see other consequences. Cyprus is likely to be divided for ever. And efforts to handle the Kurdish issue will be far more difficult, perhaps making a slide into an open conflict, that could also start unravelling a lot of the reforms of Turkey.

And it's highly likely that a Turkey rejected by Europe will move towards more of a relationship with a Russia that will then have new geostrategic opportunities, also in blocking part of the energy diversification of Europe.

It's high time for those really caring for the strategic position of Europe in the decades ahead to speak up in the debate.

The Sarkozy position is a position taking us to conflict - inside the Union, but more importantly along some of its most critical borders.

IISS Global Strategic Review

2006-09-09T08:04:00.000+02:00

Geneva this weekend is the site for the big Global Strategic Review conference organized by the International Institite for Strategic Studies.

And being a member of the Council of the IISS I'm here, and also have to speak about peacekeeping and stability operations in one of the sessions today.

But we started yesterday evening by listening to a speech by Sheik Humam Hamoudi, who is Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Baghdad and was a key man in negotiating the constitition of the country.

His assessment of Iraq was not without its problematic sides, but basically positive. He categorically ruled out dividing the country, although it was interesting to note that he believed US policy was drifting in that direction. And he saw the centralized control of oil revenues as the key means to assure that this did not happen.

Security would improve over time, he thought, as Iraqis saw that they are now truly governing themselves. But he complained somewhat that US and Iraqi priorities are somewhat different, with him stressing the need to improve basic services, while he said the US was more focused omn fighting the different militias.

Today we continue the discussion with listening to more of those actually doing things in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

As we approach the fifth anniversary of 9/11, all know that success or failure in Iraq and Afganistan will have profound implications for the future of the entire region.

Afghanistan Again

2006-09-08T19:25:00.000+02:00

As we approach the five year anniversary of the toppling of the Taliban regime, the situation in Afghanistan looks increasingly problematic.

NATO has just called for 1 000 more troops in order to contain the rising tide of violence in the South of the country, but it looks rather unlikely that these forces will be forthcoming very fast.

At the hearth of the failure is the failure to attack and to limit the rapidly increasing drug production in the country, and in particular in these southern provinces.

In a report to be issued in full shortly, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime in Vienna is painting a picture of a situation rapidly escalating completely out of control.

Drug production is up nearly 60% this year, with Afghanistan now completely dominating the global opium markets.

According to UNDOC, production is the troubled Helmad province, where British forces are now having a hard time, increased by more than 160%.

And it says that "the southern part of Afghanistan was displaying the ominous hallmarks of incipient collapse, with large-scale drug cultivation and trafficking, insurgency and terrorism, crime and corruption."

There seems to bew little prospect in fighting this, and reversing the disturbing trends, without a fairly long-term combined military, political and economic effort.

Five years after the toppling of the Taliban, that's not too comfortable a conclusion. And one must question whether either the willigness or the resources are really there among, effectively, the NATO governments.

But if even worse should be avoided there isn't really any alternative.

A Balanced View

2006-09-08T07:18:00.000+02:00

As I head off to Geneva for a couple of days, I note that The Economist has made its judgment on Sweden and our election campaign.

The Social Democrats are fond of saying that all the world is envious of everything that Sweden is.

That's a wild exaggeration, and The Economist presents a far more balanced picture, pointing out the obvious and glaring shortcomings, and effectively calling for some profound reforms.

Well worth reading.

New Balkan Tensions in Bosnia

2006-09-06T21:43:00.000+02:00

Among the elections immediately ahead of us is the one in Bosnia on October 1st.

So far, the election campaign has been rather divisive, with old nationalist slogans coming back, and the race to some extent being a race to catch the nationalist vote in each of the three major population groups.

There is a risk of the election setting Bosnia back.

There are numerous reasons for this development.

One is the renewed dispute over basic constitutional issues triggered by parts of the debate surrounding the efforts to modify and modernize the Dayton constitution. Suddenly, the ultimate demands that were overcome by the compromise of Dayton are back on the table.

A second reason is some new relevation of what happened during the war, in this case videos showing senior Bosnian Muslim commanders being involved in ordering atrocities against the Serb population.

And a thir is the disintegration tendencies that have come to force with the independence of Montenegro as well as the ongoing debates about the possible independence of Kosovo.

Now, the Prime Minister of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik has accelerated his talk of the eventual independence of the Serb part of Bosnia.

Long a favourite of the international community, not the least Washington, Dodik is suddenly on a collission course with the views of the outside world. But his aim is very clearly to win votes in the October 1st elections.

He recently said that an independence referendum cannot be avoided because Bosnia is untenable as a single state. Referring to ongoing talks on Kosovo province, Dodik said the independence of Kosovo would intensify Bosnian Serbs' wishes for secession, saying that this option had the support of 99 % of the Serbs of Bosnia.

This talk is, to put it very mildly, unhelpful. Wipping up nationalist passions is always possible, and the Balkans is going through a sensitive period, but it is no way to take responsibility for the future.

Doing Business 2007

2006-09-06T08:29:00.000+02:00

There are numerous reports trying to rank countries according to different criteria.

Among the most interesting and relevant ones is "Doing Business" published annually by the World Bank.

It measures the ease of doing business legally in different countries, as well as the reforms in this direction.

The top reformer in this year's report is Georgia. It has seen an impressive package of reforms aimed at easing the burdens of business and improving growth prospect.

It has been inspired in these efforts not the least by the success of Estonia.

Georgia is to be congratulated. And it follow in the footsteps of last year's top performer Serbia.

It goes without saying that these countries have some way to go before reaching the top. And the top ten countries in this year's report are Singapore, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Hong Kong/China, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, Norway and Ireland.

Two Nordic countries - Denmark and Norway - among the top ten isn't too bad. Finland and Sweden should take note.

Campaigning

2006-09-04T10:09:00.000+02:00

My blogging has suffered from the fact that I'm on a campaign journey in different parts of Sweden in connection with the election September 17th.

At the moment I'm on a train approaching Gothenburg, and will spend the day here before proceeding to Skåne - the southernmost region of Sweden - tomorrow.

Increasingly it looks likely that we will see a change of government as a result of the elections.

I have never been in an election campaign where the Social Democrats have been as passive and defensive as in this one. Their virtual absence as one travels around to the different meetings even feels somewhat strange.

Yesterday evening was the important interview with opposition leader Fredrik Reinfelt in TV.

He did very well, and opinion polls indicate that so far every other party leader has done better in these interviews than Prime Minister Persson, with Reinfeldt at the top of one of the lists.

It will require something truly unique for the Social Democrats to turn this election campaign round in their favours in the somewhat less tan two weeks remaining.

Critical Difference

2006-09-01T18:06:00.000+02:00

Increasingly, there is an amount of foreign interest in the Swedish election as well.

In its main editorial today, the Financial Times have some thoughts about the subject. They point out some of the obvious shortcomings of Sweden particularly in terms of employment generation.

But they also write that the Social Democrats have done well over the past decade, having “reformed pensions, presided over some of the fastest economic growth in Europe and renewed public services: for example, introducing real parental choice in schools.”

These are indeed successful policies, but FT seems to have missed the rather crucial fact that they were in fact decided upon by the centre-right government of the early 1990’s, although the Social Democrats were part of the agreement on pensions.

And the same applies to most of the liberalisation measures that has increased the growth potential of the Swedish economy since then.

On choice in public services, the Social Democrats have conducted a virtual crusade against it, only being prevented from rolling all the reforms back by the resistance also of the small Green party it has been dependent on.

So the successes the FT talks about were in fact in spite of - not because of - the Social Democrats.

A rather critical difference.

Lappeenranta Thoughts

2006-09-01T10:47:00.000+02:00

Today the foreign ministers of the European Union assemble in Lappeenranta in southeastern Finland for their twice-a-year informal discussion of the state of the world.

They will meet among the beutiful lakes of the Saima district of Finland.

It is not too far from the city of Viborg that was once established by the Sweden of those days as a trading outpost towards the East, and which up until it was incorporated in the Soviet Union after World War II was a cosmopolitan hub on the Gulf of Finland.

They will certainly not lack issues to discuss. And the Middle East will be in focus of their discussions.

I see in the media that the Finnish Foreign Minister Tuomioja has declared that Europe should now be ready to talk also to Hamas, and this is bound to stir some debate.

But of course he's right. If the European Union should engage itself more actively in the Middle East - instead of just being asked to foot the bill or provide the troops - then it must be ready to have open channels of communication with all the actors in the region.

And it might well be that the EU could play a critical role in facilitating some move to avoids the emerging meltdown both on the West Bank and in Gaza. It's difficult to see that anyone else could - although the difficulties for the EU should certainly not be underestimated.

The US is more and more engaged in the November mid-term elections, and the administration is stressing the message of fighting terrorism and "Islamic fascism". No openings are to be expected from there at this time.

And Israel is heavily engaged in its internal debate on what went wrong with the Lebanon war. It has scrapped whatever it had as policy for the West Bank and is now doing little more than handling a status quo that is rapidly changing for the worse.

To all of this should of course be added the looming larger crisis with Iran, where at the least the EU3 has a critical role to play, as well as the need to manage the fragile situation in Lebanon.

In addition, I hope that they will have some time to at the least show awareness of the challenges looming in the Balkans.

Whether there will be time for a sauna as well I don't know - but meeting where they do, there should be.

Coming Clash of Mitrovica?

2006-08-30T22:10:00.000+02:00

I'm getting increasingly worried over where the talks over the future status of Kosovo are really heading.

Over the course of the process so far, there have been very little done to try to build some sort of confidence across the ethnic divide in Kosovo and the region.

On the contrary, it is my impression that the divide has recently deepened even further.

A grenade attack against some Serbs by an Albanian in northern Mitrovica in northern Kosovo the other day lead to a further escalation of feelings. There are reports of an increasing number of weapons in the area.

With time now running fast, there seems to be very limited possibilities of some sort of agreed or semi-agreed outcome before the end of the year. If the so called international community sticks to its timetable, there are increasing signs that we are heading for trouble.

And it could easily get very nasty.

If the independence of Kosovo is just imposed by diktat, I believe there are two possible scenarios for Serb-dominated northern Kosovo.

The first is that they simply refuse to go along and block the access of Prishtina authorities to the area, in extreme case with armed violence.

In that case, NATO could of course escort Kosovo Albanian officials in the area, as well as try to block all borders with Serbia. But such a NATO occupation and military rule of the area can't last for long.

And in the course of it, there would be a high risk both of violence in that area itself - primarily by the Serbs - as well as by Albanians against Serbs in more exposed locations in central and southern Kosovo.

The second scenario would be that the Serbs simply see themselves as betrayed, and there is an immediate and massive exodus of both them and other minorities from Kosovo.

We will get an ethnically pure Kosovo, as well as perhaps 100 000 new refugees in Serbia with all the political consequences this might have.

And then there is of course the - perhaps most likely - scenario of first the first and then the second scenario being played out.

Violence, ethnic cleansing and mass refugee movements...

On present trends, I fear that's where the present process is heading.

The Real London Story

2006-08-30T21:33:00.000+02:00

As we approach the 5th anniversary of September 11, there will be numerous attempts to take stock on where we are in what in the United States is often referred to as the Global War on Terrorism.

And I will certainly also have reason to return to the subject of "GWOT" in the weeks to come.

Fears of the resurgence of large-scale terrorism were rekindled by the dramatic arrests in the United Kingdom recently. Suddenly, the threat looked very real again.

UK pre-trial secrecy rules have since then prevented much information of relevance from leaking out, but a recent major story in the New York Times gives an amazing amount of details concerning what it was all about.

Access to this article was blocked in the United Kingdom due to their special legal rules in cases like these.

Although there might not have been the risk of an "imminent" attack, the information in the NYT article clearly shows that it was a determined group working on a rather advanced scheme. Whether they would have had the capability to carry it out is another matter - there seems little doubt that they had the intention.

Their motivation seems to have been less general ideological, and more what they saw as the West's "war against Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq." Whether they had any links with the original al-Qaeda network is uncertain, although there is little doubt that they saw it as a source of inspiration.

This, then, is likely to be the new threat.

Not a world-wide and centrally-directed fanatical terrorist movement of "Islamic fascism" bent on setting up a new khalifate from Andalucia to Indonesia.

But rather copy-cat attempts by third-generation immigrants in Europe or elsewhere to revenge what they see as grave injusticies committed against different Muslim population.

It's a different, and perhaps more difficult, challenge.

The Rotten Governance of Rosenbad

2006-08-29T17:07:00.000+02:00

Right in the middle of the election campaign, the Constitutional Ombudsman JO has published his report on the behaviour of the Prime Minister's State Secretary Lars Danielsson.

Some might remember that I have written about this several times during the years. In my opinion, it was obvious that Mr Danielsson had lied to the Parliamentary Commission set up to clarify the governments handling of the December 2004 Tsunami disaster.

But Mr Danielsson was consistently protected by the Prime Minister.

Gradually during the Spring the media pressure on the issue intensified. There were extensive revelation of how Mr Danielsson had used the Gulfstream IV executive jet of the government on missions that certainly did not require it.

When the Constitutional Ombudsman JO decided to take up the issue, Mr Danielsson asked for an extended vacation. He has now been on vacation for 14 weeks, and is scheduled to go back to work in the Cabinet Office on Monday.

That is now unthinkable.

Without using those words, the JO is saying that it is highly likely that Mr Danielsson has been lying throughout the different investigations, and sums up that he has seriously hindered the review and investigation of the governments conduct.

In my opinion, Mr Danielsson has to be relieved of his duties immediately.

I don't think it has ever happened that a person on this high level has been so harshly critized on such a central issue by such an authoritative body.

It isn't the rotten governance of Sweden - it's the rotten governance of Rosenbad; the Prime Minister's Office.

An Estonian Model?

2006-08-28T19:54:00.000+02:00

If we are in the business of models in Europe, it does not hurt to take a look at the performance of Estonia.

Leading the Baltic "tiger economies", it has also served as an inspiration to the debate about economic policy elsewhere.

Indeed, it was Estonia that championed the concept of the flat tax- since then adopted even by Russia.

The other day the IMF published its annual review of the performance of the Estonian economy. It points to some of the challenges of extremely high growth, but very clearly applauds the main lines of policy:

"Estonia's rapid economic growth stems from its liberal economic institutions and conservative financial policies. Real living standards now surpass those in most new member states of the European Union. Increasing trade and financial integration are offering new opportunities, but also creating imbalances. The challenge now is to implement policies that minimize the resulting risks to macroeconomic stability while continuing to profit from access to foreign markets and technologies."

Not bad for an economy that little more than 15 years ago had little else but empty grey shelves in the stores.

Model For Whom?

2006-08-28T17:27:00.000+02:00

Although nowadays the so called Swedish model is primarily talked about in Sweden - in the rest of Europe it´s rather the Danish model that's on the agenda - it has a resurgence now and then.

In the latest issue of National Interest, Johan Norberg has published a piece that tries to correct the record somewhat.

Highly critical, broadly correct, and certainly worth reading by those that take an active interest in Sweden.

A Role For Europe?

2006-08-28T17:10:00.000+02:00

Although I´m sitting in Bled discussing Caucasus and the Caspian region, the issues of the Middle East continue to be in focus.

In the shadow of the developments around the Lebanon conflict, there is a dramatically changed situation in Ramallah and on the West Bank. And I would argue that for all the importance of handling the aftermath of the Lebanon war, it's now imperative not the least for the European Union to start to address the Palestinian issues.

The situation there is simply not sustainable. A stat of collapse and chaos is drawing nearer.

There seems to two alternatives.

One is to accept a new Hamas-Fatah coalition government of the Palestinian Authority and an end to the Israeli and international sanctions against it.

The other might well lead to a dissolution of the Palestinian Authority - since it is collapsed by the sanctions anyhow - and going back to direct Israeli occupation rule as it was before the Oslo agreement.

An article in Egyptian Al-Ahram spells out the options that are on the table, and if you strip the text of some of the hyperbole it seems like a good summary of the situation.

This clearly calls for concerted international diplomacy. And with the US have locked itself in a situation of supporting nearly whatever Tel Aviv does, there is a new opening for the European Union.

Next weekend, all the foreign ministers of the European Union are heading for Lappeenranta in Finland for their informal so called Gymnich meeting.

This is a subject they can't avoid. Europe has a responsibility.

Energy Security In Focus

2006-08-26T21:28:00.000+02:00

Sunday morning I'm flying off to Ljubjana in Slovenia, and from there go to beutiful Bled for the Bled Strategic Forum.

The conference this year will focus on the Black Sea and Caspian Sea areas and the challenges we will be facing there.

I'll take part in a discussion Sunday afternoon on Europe's geostrategy and energy security and the relevance of the the Caspian Basin in these respects.

But I guess there will be plenty of discussions also on other aspects than security.

With some sort of decision on the future status of Kosovo coming up soon, it will be necessary to discuss the impact this might have on the secessionist areas in both Georgia and Moldova. To say that a Kosovo decision will have no impact on these issues is just trying to stick the head into the sand.

But no doubt energy will be important. Independent access to the energy resources of the Caspian Basin has to be an important part in the overall energy strategy of the European Union.

There will no doubt be interesting discussions on the subject. And for me it's only the first in a series of international meetings focusing on energy security issues during the next few months.

Yeltsin and 1991

2006-08-25T01:57:00.000+02:00

I did write about Boris Yeltsin going to Riga to receive the Latvin state decoration.

He did. And it was an event worth noticing.

In her speech, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga pointed at his key role in restoring Latvia’s independence.

“The world saw a man who has understood the course of history, showed himself not only as a democrat but also as a brave politician.”

And Yeltsin acknowledged that he had seen the necessity of recognizing the independence of the Baltic countries.

“In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, the head of the Soviet Union, was very surprised about my actions and made a large mistake by ordering the Soviet military to storm strategic points in Latvia. I called him from my car and said, ‘If you do not withdraw the army from Latvia, I will go there and offer them to shoot their president.” Y

Commenting on the failed coup in Moscow that started August 19th in 1991, Yeltsin correctly noted that “if reactionary forces had won at that time, both Latvia and Russia would have been back in the Soviet swamp.”

An honourable and brave Russian.

Swedish Heroism

2006-08-24T19:28:00.000+02:00

Well, I can only note that Sweden now seems to be ready to join the heroic nations offering to send naval units to Southern Lebanon.

The offer is to send one of the multi-purpose missile corvettes of the Swedish navy.

They are indeed very capable ships, with a multitude of different capabilities, and have proven themselves over the years.

But it has to be confessed that they were not optimized for patrolling villages, securing bridges, clearing landmines or inspecting lorries, to name just a few of the day-to-day tasks that the UNIFIL forces would have to undertake.

At least we did not offer a submarine...

Rush to Judgment?

2006-08-24T19:17:00.000+02:00

During the Lebanon war, it was often argued that there was a direct operational link between Hezbollah and Teheran.

It was seen as Hezbollah attacking Israel on the instructions of Teheran, and the counterstrike just being an attack on the "Western front" of the coming confrontation with Iran.

Now, doubts are beginning to emerge.

Some of those propagating these theories are displeased with the US intelligence agencies, since these do not seem to be giving much support to the thesis.

According to an article in The Washington Post today:

"Several intelligence officials said that American spy agencies had made assessments in recent weeks that despite established ties between Iran and Hezbollah and a well-documented history of Iran arming the organization, there was no credible evidence to suggest either that Iran ordered the Hezbollah raid that touched off the recent fighting or that Iran was directly controlling attacks against Israel."

The fact seems to be that we don't know the fact.

And we should have learnt that a rush to judgement is not a particularly good basis for policy decisions.

Neither in the Middle East nor elsewhere. But perhaps particularly in the Middle East.

Nuclear Birth?

2006-08-23T23:19:00.000+02:00

So far, there haven't been any official reactions to the Iranian answer to the offer by the so called 5+1 to start wide-ranging negotiations if Iran suspends the enrichment of uranium.

It's obvious that one is seeking as coordinated an assessment of the answer as possible. And that might indeer require some discussions.

In the meantime, there are signs that there are those in Teheran that are interested in inflaming the situation even further.

We are rapidly approaching the first anniversary of the forming of the president Ahmadinejad government.

And there are now press reports in Teheran that this will be celebrated with "the governments 'nuclear birth'."

What this could mean is far from clear, but we can safely expect a major tirade from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that will do very little indeed to defuse the already dangereous situation.

Not what is needed at this point in time - to put it very mildly.

Lebanon Force Uncertainties

2006-08-22T10:35:00.000+02:00

There seems to be mounting uncertainities concerning the building up of the UNIFIL force in Lebanon towards 15 000 persons.

A meeting in Brussels tomorrow will - at French request - look at the combined European contribution.

It's not difficult to see the reasons for the hesitancy that is there in different countries concerning the sending of soldiers.

Exactly what the force is expected to do is not entirely clear. It will be under great pressue to disarm Hezbollah, but that does not really seems to be in its mandate, although the requirement that it will be done is very clear in the UN Security Council resolution.

Then there is the situation that has been demonstrated in the last few days, with Israel claiming that it has the right to undertake different military operations in Lebanon. If this continues, it's not difficult to see the cease-fire starting to deterioate even before a proper UN force is in place.

A third consideration - not publicly expressed, as far as I have seen - concerns the risks associated with a coming possible military confrontation with Iran.

If - at some point in time - the US decides to take military action against Iran, it is highly likely that Western forces in Lebanon will immediately be in the firing line, being caught up in a war over which they have no control whatsoever.

For all the complaining in Washington about France not supplying more troops, there are solid reasons beyond availability of force why neither the US nor Britain is keen to put boots on the ground in the area.

One consequence of the uncertainty is that we now see a rush to provide naval forces to UNIFIL. Germany will do it, Norway will do it and others are also certain to do it. I bet we'll soon have someone offering submarines to UNIFIL.

It's a way of minimizing risks as well as providing a very quick exit possibility - but it does not really contribute that much to the uncertain mission of the UN in Southern Lebanon.

Three Stars to Yeltsin

2006-08-22T00:26:00.000+02:00

There was the expected official silence in Moscow over the anniversary of the defeat of the reactionary coup in 1991.

But others see things differently.

In a remarkable move today, the president of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, will honour former Russian president Boris Yeltsin with Latvia's highest honour - the Order of the Three Stars.

The ceremony will take place in the old castle of Riga.

The reason is obvious. Without the courageous stand of Yeltsin during those days, blood might have flowed on the streets of the then Soviet Union, and not the least the Baltic countries.

But instead he defeated the plotters, and went on to recognize the independence of the Baltic nations.

It was when the independence of the three Baltic states was recognized by the Russian Federation that the way was suddenly open for a more general recognition. And there had been an indirect alliance between Yeltsin and the Baltic reformers all through the reform process.

So it's certainly a significant step that is now taken at Riga Castle.

And one worth noting more widely than what so far has been the case.

Paris, Stockholm, Belgrad and Bled

2006-08-21T08:17:00.000+02:00

Another week starting up, and after some meetings in Stockholm in the morning I'm off to Paris.

It's for a meeting of the President's Strategy Committee of ICANN.

We are there in order to give strategic advice to the President of ICANN. And ICANN, of course, is the body that is the key to the global governance of the Internet.

These issues have been much in the debate in the last few years. A major UN conference in Tunis last year spent a long time discussing the global Internet governance issues, and the debate certainly hasn't gone away.

There are also important issues on the table between ICANN and the US government - some very technical, but all seen as having profound political implications.

So it will be interesting - and informal - discussions in Paris. Our task is only to give advice to the Board of ICANN - they are the ones to take the decisions.

From Paris I'm back in Stockholm for two days. It will be interesting to see how the work with a common election manifesto for the four parties in the centre-right alliance progresses.

But then it's onwards to Belgrade for discussions on the Balkan strategy of the European Union in general and the possibilities of Serbia in particular.

The country is in a somewhat difficult situation at the moment, but at the same time its potential is obvious. It is the key to the long-term European prospects for the region as a whole.

And from there I will go - the one way or the other - to Bled in Slovenia for a major conference on strategic prospects in the Black and Caspian Sea areas. It's a discussion not the least on energy possibilities and strategies.

Once upon a time, Belgrade and Bled was part of the same country, and I guess communication between them was fairly straightforward. But that was then. Now it's a different situations, and I'm still not certain of the least inconvenient way of getting from B to B.

An interesting week ahead.

The Escalation with Iran

2006-08-20T20:00:00.000+02:00

We are now entering some weeks in which the Iranian issue very rapidly will move up on the international agenda.

Tuesday the 22nd is the first critical day.

That's when Iran has promised to give its official answer to the offer that was put on the table by the EU3 as well as the US, Russia and China before the summer.

It's a rather genereous one - but an absolute precondition for moving ahead with it is that Iran suspends its ongoing enrichment of uranium. There is an ultimatum from the UN Security Council on that issue as well, and that expires Thursday August 31st - next week.

Then, on Monday September 18th there is the meeting of the IAEA in Vienna which will assess whether Iran has fulfilled the requirements of the Security Council.

And with the UN General Assembly beginning in New York the day after, there is little doubt that the consequences of the IAEA assessment will dominate the discussions in the corridors in New York.

It's unlikely - to put it mildly - that the Lebanon war has improved the climate on the issue.

From the Washington perspective, support for Israel's strike at Hezbollah was very much seen as a strike at "the Western front" of the power of Iran.

Some obviously saw the need to reduce the striking capabilities of that "Western front" in the light of the possibility of a coming military conflict with Iran, in which one of the risks is that Iran will answer a US strike also with using Hezbollah to attack Israel.

Rightly or wrongly - but those are the concerns.

But the problem was of course that this strike wasn't overwhelmingly succesful - although we don´t know what's really behind the words, there is a serious risk that Teheran believes that it has come out rather well of that confrontation.

Indications are that Iran will continue with a policy of brinkmanship on the issue, trying to buy time and create divisions in the now rather solid international front on the issue.

My guess would be that Iran will say that it is ready to negotiate and talk about the entire package - including the suspension of enrichment. But talking about and doing are two very different things, and it is unlikely in the extreme that the US and the EU3 will be satisfied with such an approach.

Anyhow, it is most unlikely to pass the examination of the IAEA, since that will have to follow the strict wording of the Security Council resolution.

If I'm right, we will then see a further move up the ladder of escalation in the conflict with Iran.

The world is becoming an increasingly uncertain place.

Swedish Election - Also In Swedish

2006-08-20T14:10:00.000+02:00

It's less than a month to the Swedish parliamentary election on September 17th.

We will elect the 349 members of the Riksdag, and its composition will decide who will be able to form the next government when the new Riksdag convenes on October 3rd.

This Sunday is the official start of the campaign, with the parties having put up their election posters.

As I biked back from a meeting downtown, the posters were already up everywhere. It's been the usual battle to secure the best positions.

I will obviously return to the issues of the Swedish campaign somewhat on this blog in the weeks to come, but in addition I have set up a Swedish-language blog where comments will be somewhat more frequent.

You can easily access it at this address - www.dagsattbyta.blogspot.com.

At the moment, the opinion polls are giving the ruling Social Democrats 34-35% support.

When they lost power in 1976 they achieved 42,7% and when they lost in 1991 they achieved 37,7% - so obviously, they are in a rather difficult situation.

As they had 39,9% in the 2002 election, it looks very likely indeed that Prime Minister Göran Persson will finish his political career with a rather substantial defeat for the party.

If, in fact, they end up with an election result along the lines of what the polls are indicating at the present - but four weeks is a very long time in politics - it would be the worst result for the Social Democrats in a parliamentary election since the Spring of 1914 (!).

It will be a campaign worth watching.

Russian Drama of August 19

2006-08-19T12:12:00.000+02:00

Early in the morning 15 years ago - it was Tuesday August 19, 1991 - a TV announcement in the Soviet Union said that emergency rule had been declared, that Michael Gorbachov was sick and that power was now in the hands of an emergency committee namned GKChP.

The day after had been supposed to be the signing of the new union treaty. But for the conspirators - the KGB, parts of the army, the interior ministry, conservative communists - it was seen as the death of the Soviet Union.

That's why they decided to strike.

The evening before they had detained Gorbachev at his vacation place on the Crimea. Now tanks were rolling into Moscow from all directions to enforce the clamp-down that had been decided and announced.

In some way, it was supposed to be the repetition of what we had seen in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Poland in 1981.

Now, the tanks were needed to save Soviet power in the Soviet Union itself.

More or less the same group of conspirators had tried to clamp-down violently on the Baltic countries earlier in the year. At that time, they must have had at least the passive support of Gorbachev himself.

But in spite of extensive preparations in all three countries they had failed. Tanks against people didn't work in the age of television, but 13 people had been killed in the battle for the TV tower in Vilnius in Lithuania.

Now they were determined to take power in the country as a whole to prevent the Soviet Union from disintegrating.

But they made one absolutely critical mistake: they forgot to immediately arrest the President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin.

Very soon after the dramatic announcement, Yeltsin´s car had raced into Moscow past the columns of tanks, and within hours he climbed up on a tank outside the so called White House and read out his defiant statement. He was accompanied by a Russian rather than a Soviet flag.

It was an act that changed history.

With massive popular support for Yeltsin, even the KGB's elite Alpha Group of soldiers hesitated to attack the White House through the crowds. And soon the key paratroopers and some other army units began having their doubts as well.

Within two days it was clear that the coup had failed - and that Boris Yeltsin was the new leader of a new Russia. Soon he were to take the bold move of recognizing the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Soon he would outlaw the Communist Party and dissolve the Soviet Union as a whole.

We can only speculate on what would have happen if the conspirators had arrested Yeltsin in the early morning hours of that August 19th. It would have been easy.

Without a forceful opposition, they would have taken control of all of Moscow. And there would have been tanks rolling into also Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn - as well as other cities - very soon. There would have been violence and deaths throughout the area. We can not know how the army units still remaining in Central Europe would have reacted. It would have been profoundly dangereous.

But Boris Yeltsin saved us and Russia.

What Vladimir Putin thought - and which side he was really on - during those dramatic days I do not know.

But there are certainly no celebrations in the Kremlin on this important day in the history of Russia and Europe.

On The Path To Defeat

2006-08-18T22:29:00.000+02:00

Today, the governing Social Democrats produced their manifesto for the September 17th general election.

It was their chance to set the agenda for the debate in the days and weeks ahead.

It's too early for a definitive judgment, but the initial one could only be that they blew it.

There was certainly the usual avalanche of different hand-outs and expensive promises. Massive new amounts are to be spent on making it somewhat better to be unemployed.

But the nearly universal reaction by commentators was that instead of spending resources on making it somewhat better to be unemployed, the focus should have been on creating the conditions for new jobs.

The Social Democrats seems to have lost the priviligie to formulate the agenda of the political debate.

That's normally just the beginning of even bigger losses ahead.

On the trends of today, they are heading for defeat.

But an election campaign is a long, changing and dramatic event.

After Month of Madness

2006-08-18T15:54:00.000+02:00

There are few voices on the issues of the Middle East more worth listening to than that of Lakhdar Brahimi.

He negotiated the accord that ended the civil war in Lebanon, was key in the Bonn agreement setting Afghanistan on a new course and was called in at critical times in Iraq when everything was going wrong.

In the New York Times today, he makes no secret of what he feels for the "month of madness" that is behind us.

And he is explicit in describing the major setbeck the month has been:

"Rather than helping in the so-called global war on terror, recent events have benefited the enemies of peace, freedom and democracy. The region is boiling with resentment, anger and despair, feelings that are not leading young Arabs and Palestinians toward the so-called New Middle East."

Brahimi argues for talking to Hezbollah and trying to get it truly integrated in Lebanese society. To try to defeat it is to risk the destruction of Lebanon.

And he argues strongly - and rightly - for turning attention to the Palestinian issue. Here, he sounds much like Tony Blair did in his recent speech in Los Angeles.

I agree fully.

If the month of madness can produce a wider recognition of the need to look anew at the Palestinian conflict, and get away from some of the policies of the past months, there might be some hope.

If not - then there is not.

Back To Stockholm

2006-08-16T18:14:00.000+02:00

After absence more or less continously since late June, I'm now back in Stockholm.

I just landed from Italy after having gone there from Croatia yesterday.

It's a Stockholm which in terms of weather has definitely left the summer months, but which is in the early phases of the campaigns before its September 17th general election.

There will be reason to return to that subjects as the weeks progress.

But for the moment it's the more global agenda that dominates. We are heading towards a very complex couple of weeks and months.

The war in Lebanon is over, but there is certainly not peace, and all over the region passions are running higher than before.

It's in this athmosphere - also influence by the arrest of the terrorist plotters in Britain and Pakistan - that the Iran issue is very rapidly moving up on the international agenda.

There is profound drama and danger ahead.

There is every reason to fast the seat belts.

Was It Worth It?

2006-08-14T08:02:00.000+02:00

With the cease-fire in Lebanon in effect, and the conflict thus entering a new and less violent stage, different actors must ask themselves what the war achieved.

It was Hezbollah that started by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers at a small cross-border raid. Why? Well, the declared purpose was to bring about a prisoner's exchange with Israel, but the more political one was in all probability to give indirect support to the Hamas militants in Gaza who had kidnapped another soldier and entered into a conflict over that.

It was then that Israel decided on a very major escalation. The decision was taken to bomb and isolate all of Lebanon. The first attack was against Beirut airport to stop Lebanon's airlinks with the outside world. The IDF Chief of Staff said that they should bomb Lebanon 20 years back in time.

This unleashed the rockets of Hezbollah in retaliation. Indeed, since 1996 there has been an informal understanding that Hezbollah would not fire rockets if Israel did not bomb Lebanon.

But now that understanding was gone. And the carnage started.

Israel has as the immediate aim to get its two soldiers back unconditionally and as the more general aim to break the back of Hezbollah. When Washington gave its support, it was with the more ambitious goal of destroying Hezbollah and sending a strong signal to Iran.

The goal of achieving a release of the two soldiers has not been reached so far, and is not in the operative part of the UN resolution. In all probability, we will see a UN- or Red Cross-negotiated mutual prisoner release within the not too distant future.

That's what was the initial and stated Hezbollah objective.

Whether Hezbollah has been broken remains to be seen. It has undertaken to disarm itself, and has declared that it is ready to do so when Israel totally leaves what they consider Lebanon's territory.

In itself, this is not a new position. Hezbollah has kept its weapons with the Sheba Farm issue as the pretext.

How fast this can happen might well be decided by how fast the IDF leaves Lebanon. It seems as if it was uncertainty over this that prevented the Lebanese government from reaching a decision at its meeting yesterday.

And it should be said that the UN resolution is not crystal clear on the sequencing of these different steps. There is an ambiguity that might have been seen as diplomatic in New York but could well turn out to be dangereous on the ground.

But the overall position of Hezbollah in Lebanon remains to be seen. That it's overall prestige in the Arab and the Muslim world has increased is beyond doubt.

Overall, there is little doubt first that the confidence of Israeli's in their armed forces have taken a heavy beating, and second that the standing of Israel in the world has been negatively affected by what has been seen as a grossly disproportionate use of force, also against civilians.

A million refugees is indeed a lot.

Washington has hardly covered itself in glory during the war.

But that's a separate story.

Another War Starting

2006-08-11T19:35:00.000+02:00

In the wake of the Lebanon and Connecticut wars, a new war is opening up in the US foreign policy debate.

By the Connecticut war I mean the defeat of Senator Lieberman in the Democratic primary election. It's an event that will have a significant impact on the way the US foreign policy debates shapes up.

Yesterday, Richard Holbrooke said some sensible things in an OpEd in Washinton Post that I referred to here.

It wasn't too sensational - but uit certainly hinted that a more active and constructive US political approach wouldn't hurt.

Today, Holbrooke is blasted on the same pages by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who makes it abundantly clear that he will seek a domestic battle over foreign policy along very different lines.

He represents a rather stark version of the policy line that have led Washington to give diplomatic cover to every aspect of Prime Minister Olmert's less than spectacularly succesful policies during the past month.

He attacks Holbrook's what he calls "diplomacy first - diplomacy always" school.

And instead makes it clear that "if violence is necessary to defeat the terrorists, the Iranians and the North Koreans, then it is regrettably necessary."

It is unfair to accuse Holbrook of never being willing to use force, but if Holbrooke can be desdribed as "diplomacy first", Gingrichj sounds very much like "violence first".

The Gingrich line is very much the line I warned of yesterday - seeing everything as just one great war, seeing the enemy as evil beyond evil, and seeing only violent confrontation leading to the defeat of the enemy as a defensible policy.

It's recipe for an accelerating number of wars, which much sooner than later will completely overwhelm the capacity also of the United States, and which will certainly put Europe in the danger zone even more than would otherwise be the case.

But Newt Gingrich most probably see things also in domestic political terms.

With a democratic party tearing itself to pieces over Iraq, and clear and present terrorist dangers out there, an increasingly hysterical tone in the security debate might perhaps bring some domestic policy dividends.

But as foreign policy, it is profoundly dangereous.

We have all a stake in the war starting over the direction of US policy.

As Dangereous As 1962?

2006-08-10T17:27:00.000+02:00

Now, it’s beginning to get really dangerous. The guns of August are firing all over the place.

The consequences if the security agencies had not managed to stop the plot to blow up a number of jumbo jets in mid-Atlantic would have been tremendous.

I’m saying that also as a rather frequent flyer on precisely the London – Washington route.

But even now they will be large.

There is a risk of US opinion even more seeing everything that happens everywhere through the prism of the “global war against terrorism”.

Iraq, Hezbollah, Iran, al-Qaeda, Hamas – everything seems to merge into some sort of super-plot that requires a super-response by the world’s superpower. And that super-response by definition has to be military.

The upcoming midterm elections in the US in November might well have the tendency of moving the White House even more in this direction.

But such an approach risks making a very risky situation even more dangerous.

Richard Holbrooke sometimes has a tendency to be somewhat hyperbolic in his statements, but I think he has it absolutely right now:

“Two full-blown crises, in Lebanon and Iraq, are merging into a single emergency. A chain reaction could spread quickly almost anywhere between Cairo and Bombay.”

“Turkey is talking openly of invading northern Iraq to deal with Kurdish terrorists based there. Syria could easily be pulled into the war in southern Lebanon. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are under pressure from jihadists to support Hezbollah, even through governments in Cairo and Riyadh hate the organisation. Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of giving shelter to al-Qaeda and the Taliban; there is constant fighting on both sides of that border. NATO: s own war in Afghanistan is not going well. India talks of taking punitive action against Pakistan for allegedly being behind the Bombay bombings. Uzbekistan is a repressive dictatorship with a growing Islamist resistance.”

His rather dark conclusion is that “this combination of combustible elements poses the greatest threat to global stability since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.”

Then it was one situation that required the acute attention of two men. Had they failed, a nuclear war might have resulted.

Now, it’s a far more diffused conflict, where it is difficult and demanding for policymakers to differentiate sufficiently between the different challenges and develop policy responses that don’t make things worse.

And it is vitally important not see everything as one super-plot, but rather as a number of extreme serious and mutually reinforcing challenges that have to be handled with policy responses that disaggregates rather than fuses together the challenges.

For all the attention given to the war in Lebanon, it seems as if more people have been killed in Baghdad in the last two weeks. And today’s deadly attack in Najaf takes Iraq even closer to the feared civil war.

The multiple crisis now exploding from Mogadishu to Kabul – and its terrorist extensions into London and everywhere – makes it even more imperative to calm down whatever can be calmed down.

For Washington to give Israel green light for a major ground invasion of southern Lebanon in this situation would be a very major mistake.

Minds that are burning all over the Muslim world will be inflamed even more – in London as well as in Baghdad.

The purpose of policy should not be make bad things even worse.

That's the least we need in this increasingly dangereous situation.

Voice That Should Be Heard

2006-08-10T13:40:00.000+02:00

These days it's not difficult to be critical towards the policies of Israel - but it remains difficult not to admire Israel as a society.

It's an open, pluralistic and dynamic society in every sense of the world. It would have a lot to give to the rest of the region. It could be a model to be admired by the region - instead of a threat to be hated.

In the middle of this sixth war for modern Israel, it's remarkable how open and transpent the political process remains.

Yesterday's Cabinet meeting on strategy ahead seems to have been filled with dissent and controversy, although at the end of it a large majority gave their support to the Prime Minister. Everything else is unthinkable in a situation like these.

But divisions where there.

The IDF Chief of Staff - the man who said he was going to bomb Lebanon 20 years baqck in time after the Hezbollah kidnappning of two soldiers - wanted to bomb and destroy the entire power grip of Lebanon. Thankfully, that wasn't even supported by his minister.

After a short interval for diplomacy, the intention now seems to be to launch three divisions into southern Lebanon. Officially, it is said to take a month to achieve the objectives. Some ministers predict it might take two months.

Although this would not take away the rocket threat to Israel, it could initial a catastrophic series of events. It is not to be excluded that other Arab nations would feel compelled to start coming to the aid of Israel. The risk of a wider war increases substantially.

Among the three ministers at the meeting who did not support the plan was Shimon Peres.

He is by far the man with the most experience in the Israeli government, and the only link with the founder generation of the country. He was the protege of David Ben-Gurion - the founder and first President of Israel.

At the meeting - and according to media reports - Shimon Peres said that he did not support the move because it has already forfeited the element of surprise, may involve numerous fatalities and would endanger Israel's relations with Arab and Muslim states.

It's a tragedy that his words of experience and wisdom were overruled in a Cabinet that seems to be dominated by those with only a very limited experience.

But it's still the strength of Israel that there are voices like those of Shimon Peres.

Back to Bactria

2006-08-09T18:16:00.000+02:00

Just days ago, NATO took over responsibility for the entire inernational security operation in Afghanistan.

It will be a far greater test of the stabilisation capabilities of the organisation than the previous less demanding Balkan missions.

Summer is also reading time, and I have just finished a fascinagting account of Alexander the Great’s struggles to control the province that was then called Bactria.

It encompassed much of present Afghanistan and stretched into the Central Asian countries.

During his short decades, Alexander crushed the armies of the Persian Empire, but never really managed to subdue Bactria. At the end, it was the campaigns and challenges at Bactria that broke the back of his armies.

In his book ”Into the Land of Bones” author Frank Holt – renowned scholar in the area - dwells also somewhat on the experiences of the Macedonian, British and Soviet armies in this region over the centuries.

He finds disturbing similarities in the challenges they faced – and eventually were overcome by.

”For example, all these invasions of Afghanistan went well at first, but so far no superpower has found a workable alternative to what might be called the recipe for ruin in Afghanistan:”

”1. Estimate the time and resources necessary to conquer and control the region. 2. Double all estimates. 3. Repeat as needed.”

This is certainly not an argument for not trying. Handing Afghanistan back to tribal turmoil and terrorist temptation can certainly not be a policy alternative.

But it’s an argument against complacency when discussing the challenges, and against underestimating the time and resources that will be needed.

It’s also an argument in favour of reading a good book.

End This Tragedy Now

2006-08-09T13:37:00.000+02:00

The peace efforts in the war over Lebanon are obviously at a standstill as France and the US discusses changes to their draft UN Security Council resolution and the Israeli government is considering launching a more significant ground offensive into southern Lebanon.

The war is not going Israel's way.

Yesterday, the general in charge of IDF's Northern Command was de facto dismissed. There is obvious tension over military strategy.

But to launch a major ground offensive into Lebanon would be to enter a quagmire where Israel have been numerous times before - without ever really achieving its stated objectives.

It would effectively kill the possibility of an early cease-fire. The tragedy would be prolonged.

The ray of hope that is there is the 7-point plan presented by Lebanon's Prime Minister Faoud Siniora. The fact that is seems to have the support of Hezbollah is of the utmost importance.

Today, Siniora argues for his plan in an OpEd in Washington Post - hoping to reach political opinion makers there directly.

But no progress seems possible as long as Israel insists on holding on to positions in Lebanon until an international force arrives, and Hezbollah refusing any cease-fire as long as Israel does not leave Lebanon, thus also de facto blocking the arrival of any possible augmented international force.

To me, it seems reasonable that Israel leaves positions that serve no purpose anyhow ; they have not stopped the rocket attacks - while what is there of the Army of Lebanon in cooperation with what is there of UN forces takes over that limited area until an international force can arrive.

It's not the perfect way forward - bit still a way forward where others look like being blocked.

Olmert and Kosovo Lessons

2006-08-08T18:58:00.000+02:00

There are indeed strange words coming out of Jerusalem these days.

In a German interview of the weekend, Prime Minister Olmert has said that the Europeans have no ground to lecture Israel on how to treat civilians in war, and uses Kosovo as an example of this.

Olmert said that "European countries attacked Kosovo and killed ten thousand civilians. Ten thousand! And none of these countries had to suffer a single rocket [attack] beforehand."

Well, I was not among the keenest supporters of the Kosovo war, but Olmert is wide off the mark in practically every respect.

It's probably the case that the Kosovo war killed app 10 000 people, and it's certainly true that the overwhelming majority of those were killed after the beginning of NATO airstrikes.

But more realistic assessments talk about the NATO airstrikes directly killing in the order of 500 civilians during the 78 days of bombing. Bad, indeed very bad, but less than 10 000.

What Olmert should learn from the Kosovo war are two things.

The first - which he might have learnt already - is that you can never rely on air power alone.

The NATO generals thought that a number of strikes during a couple of days would do, but had to engage in nearly three months of intense bombing, at the end of which the Serb forces left Kosovo in good order and with more of armoured vehicles than NATO had been aware of them having at the beginning of the conflict.

The second is that if you are seen as the one inflicting harm on the civilian population, you will be the one that loses the conflict.

Milosevic's big mistake was to answer the NATO air strikes with a massive increase in ethnic cleansing, which drove 800 000 people across the borders into other countries. NATO's awful mistakes paled in comparison, and the court of world public opinion condemned the former rather than the later.

There are lessons to be learnt from every conflict.

But if Olmert things that the lesson from Kosovo is that you can keep bombing until there are 10 000 civilian casualities - since that is what he believed was the case in Kosovo - then it will spell tragedy for Israel.

And there is a third lesson from Kosovo.

After NATO was starting to run out of military options, one had to enter into a political deal with Milosevic. The alternative had been to assemble an army for a ground invasion, which would have taken months.

And that deal - that stopped the carnage and made it possible for the refugees to return - handed the issue over to the UN awaiting a political settlement later on.

Lebanon Anger

2006-08-07T16:47:00.000+02:00

It seems as if some of the critical questions I highlighted here today have caused a delay in the adoption of the UN Security Council Resolution on the Israel-Lebanon war.

The government of Lebanon and its Prime Minister Siniora have been critical in the extreme of the draft.

They had worked hard to produce a peace plan which, in their opinion, meet all the key concerns, including the disarming of Hezbollh, only to see it ignored by the international community.

And they were given support by a special meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Beirut earlier today.

An editorial in Beirut's English-language newspaper The Daily Star spells out what they consider the faults of the draft resolution:

"The aim of the Lebanese government is to reach a point of closure in the decades-long Lebanese-Israeli conflict and to create the required conditions for a lasting armistice. Siniora's plan ties up all loose ends, including the issues of the Shebaa Farms, Israeli incursions, and Hizbullah's weapons."

"But the UN's draft resolution leaves these issues open and sanctions new conditions that will prolong conflict. Instead of closing the door on the current war and on future conflicts, the resolution will open a pandora's box."

Under these conditions, it seems likely that there will be a further delay in New York while the possibility of further changes in the draft resolution are discussed.

This happens at the same time as there seems to be more active considerations in Israel of launching the three mobilized reserve divisions in a more major offensive into southern Lebanon.

It's all look very, very tense.

And very,very uncertain.

Ukraine Analysis

2006-08-07T12:44:00.000+02:00

As the text of the political agreemenr in Kiev becomes available, its implicationbs can be analyzed better than in the first reactions.

But essentially the first generally positive assessments are confirmed by a more detailed reading of the text.

Early out is Anders Åslund with a commentary published today in The Moscow Times.

On the foreign policy side, he sees the document as mostly a victory for the reformers in Our Ukraine.

"Ukraine is to maintain its course toward European integration with the eventual aim of joining the European Union, including the beginning negotiations on a free trade zone between Ukraine and the EU. Again, this looks like a victory for Our Ukraine."

"The Party of the Regions insisted on adding a paragraph on the Common Economic Space, a proposed common market between Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine that has been pushed by Moscow. But the coalition addresses the Common Economic Space only as a free trade area and with certain reservations from Yushchenko that may make the deal much less attractive for the Russian side."

Good. But absolute key will be what happens with the economy.

On these issues as well, the words in the documents are reassuring.

But it's the deeds that will make the difference.

Critical Questions Ahead

2006-08-06T19:03:00.000+02:00

Whether it will be easy to implement the resolution that is now on the table of the UN Security Council must be open to some considerable doubt.

It calls for the "immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks" and the "immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations", but leaves open the question whether Hezbollah will accept that Israel is seen to be given some room for continued attacks.

More difficult is what will happen on the ground in southern Lebanon.

Here, a zone between the Blue Line - the border between Lebanon and Israel - and the Litani River should be free of "any armed personnel, assets and weapons" other than those of the Lebanese government or authorized by the US.

Since the advance of the Israeli army so far seems to be rather limited, the resolution seems to be based on either Hezbollah voluntarily clearing out everything it has from this area or the coming international force undertaking the task of clearing the area.

The likelihood of either of these two options being realized imminently seems to me to be rather remote.

But answers to these and other questions might come in the second resolution that more specifically concerns the international force. This is however unlikely to be tabled until the government of Lebanon has given its assent, and that might not be fortvoming that easy or that fast.

Perhaps the idea is for a force to start entering the area and then ordering the withdrawal from the area of both the Israeli army and Hezbollah.

The problem is that it is not unlikely that fighting will continue in southern Lebanon up until that time since the Israeli army will not have been asked to withdraw and Hezbollah might not agree to vacate the area at the least until such time as the Israelis do it.

Well, the positive thing that can be said is that the focus of the conflict might shift from the ground and air of Lebanon and northern Israel to the corridors by the East River in New York.

But for the suffering peoples, the only thing that counts is an immediate cessation of all hostilities and military actions.

The next few days will show whether the resolution will be accep0tred in its present form and whether it can achieve these aims.

There are big question marks hanging over the process.

France for Europe

2006-08-05T18:29:00.000+02:00

It's obviously France that has carried the heavier of the diplomatic burdens in the present war.

Reports now speak about Washington having accepted an agreement with Paris that has just been tabled "in blue" in New York as a draft UN Security Council Resolution.

It's evidently first one resolution on an immediate cease-fire and associated arrangements and then a second one on the international security force.

Whether the second has also been tabled isn't entirely clear from the reporting.

This brings hope of a cessation of fighting within the next few days.

One would assume that the resolution will be respected by Israel, and one would also have to assume that French diplomacy acting also through the Lebanese government has secured the assent of Hezbollah.

Let's hope that there will soon be the possibility of the up towards one million refugees in Lebanon to start returning home, as well as those having fled the rockets attacks in northern Israel, as well as for the beginning of the painful destruction of Lebanon.

When everything is over it is likely that France will come out of it rather well among the European countries, while the United Kingdom by lining up so heavily with Washington effectively made itself a non-factor in the efforts to end the war.

But much more might have been achieved much earlier if the Europeans have acted together.

Washington Betrayed?

2006-08-04T22:28:00.000+02:00

Slowly, Washington seems to be losing faith in Israeli PM Olmert and his conduct of the war.

It was expected that he could have the Israeli Air Force delivering a quick victory over Hezbollah, and that should be seen as an important defeat also for Iran.

It wasn't only that Washington backed what Israel was doing - there was in all probability an element even of encouragment.

But three weeks into the war things look very different.

The rockets are continuing to rain down on northern Israel - and the images of civilian victims of Israeli bombs in Lebanon increasingly agitates the Muslim world.

And on the diplomatic front is seems as if it will be the French that will be dictating the terms in the UN Security Council.

Not really what Washington expected Israel to deliver.

An OpEd by Charles Krauthammer in Washington Post today is undoubtedly of significance in this regard.

He's a standardbearer on the more neoconservative thinkers in Washington. For harsh words of criticism against Israel to come from him there really have to be serious reasons. And many are likely to follow his lead on these issues.

He feels betrayed by Israel.

They promised a quick victory. And they seem to be delivering a profound mess.

The cost in Washington - if this is perceived to be the outcome - will be very considerable indeed.

Batallions to and Pessimism over Baghdad

2006-08-04T10:41:00.000+02:00

As the US is rushing its two advanced Stryker batallions to Baghdad in order to try to stem the upsurge in sectarian killing, a pessimistic British assessment is leaked to the press.

It's the final report of outgoing UK Ambassador to Iraq William Patey that has reached the media, including The Times.

"The prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy," he wrote in his cable, which was addressed to the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Defence Secretary, Leader of the House of Commons, and senior military officers.

"Even the lowered expectation of President Bush for Iraq — a government that can sustain itself, defend itself and govern itself and is an ally in the war on terror — must remain in doubt."

But in spite of this, the situation was not beyond hope, although he predicted that - at best - Iraq would be a very messy place for the next five to ten years.

This comes as the level of sectarian fighting is increasing dramatically in Baghdad.

The fact that the US is rushing its two advanced Stryker batallions from other critical parts of Iraq - one of them from Mosul - to Baghdad in order to reinforce the security operation there is a sign of the seriousness of the situation.

These are capable forces, but the batallions in question have never been to Baghdad, and what difference they can make in a city of 5-7 million people remains to be seen.

In the meantime, there is little doubt that what is seen on the ground as the Israeli-American war in Lebanon is complicating the situation even further. And that can not be corrected by rushing batallions to Baghdad.

New Challenges on Dnepr

2006-08-03T12:17:00.000+02:00

As predicted here, the political crisis in Ukraine ended with a de facto-coalition between Our Ukraine and the Party of Regions.

This afternoon, an official ceremony of signing of what is called Universal Of National Unity took place in Kiev, in which President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko, speaker Oleksand Moroz, Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov and leaders of the other parliamentary factions took part.

The document was signed by Socialist party leader Vasyl Tsushko, Our Ukraine leader Roman Bezsmertny and Party of Regions leader Victor Yanukovich.

it certainly took a long time to reach this result - and the details of the agreements signed are still somewhat unclear.

Whether this will result in a sufficiently strong government remains to be seen. There is reason to be particularly concerned over the position of the Socialists and the small Communists - they are the true reform-blockers.

That there will be a strong opposition with Yulia Timoshenko is beyond doubt. She might well set her sights on challenging Yushenko in the next presidential election, although that position holds less powers now than in the past.

Does this means that all the gains of the Orange Revolution are gone?

Certainly not.

Ukraine is still a free and open - somewhat disorganized - democracy in contrast to what we see emerging in Russia. The elections that were held in March were free and fair.

And there is a certain value in a coalition that bridges the political gap that does exists between the East and the West of the country. It might well be that President Yushenko sees this as his possibility of becoming true President of all of the country.

There now seems to be a joint commitment to work towards closer integration with the rest of Europe in general and the European Union in particular.

It will now be up to the EU to test how far that commitment can carry them. The proposal that is on the table for "deep free trade" between the EU and Ukraine should certainly be explored.

Whether this arrangement will mean that Ukraine's moves towards NATO will be delayed is too early to tell. Mr Yanokovich has been eager to send signals to the West that he is not as opposed as he might have sounded, but that remains to be seen.

Reports talk about an agreement to have a referendum on the NATO issue. When that should be held would be an open question, and it would certainly require very major effort to turn public opinion around on this issue.

Absolute key will be whether the government can get back on track in terms of economic reforms. That's what's really needed after the debacle of the Timoshenko government last year and the long political crisis this year.

But economic growth has started to pick up markedly in the last few months, and that's a good signal that the economic slowdown might have been overcome.

Very important would be to send a signal on early resolution of the outstanding issues concerning membership of the WTO. It's here the role of the Socialists and Communists could be dangereous. Let's see.

Relations with Russia will are unlikely to be straightforward immediately. The issue of gas prices for next year remains to be sorted out, as well as the details on the ownership and managment of Ukraine's important gas distribution and transit infrastructure.

There is every reason to continue to follow and support developments in Kiev, Donetsk, Lvov and Odessa.

It's a key country for the future of the entire East of Europe.

Important Blair Messages

2006-08-02T18:45:00.000+02:00

Tony Blair’s speech in Los Angeles has received publicity mainly for his remarks about “reactionary Islam”.

But its most significant and new parts where not really this.

Two things are particularly worth noting in the speech.

First, the emphasis that he places on the imperative of reconsidering and re-balancing the policy that has been pursued during the last few years.

He stressed that in the situation now this “require us to change dramatically the focus of our policy.”

This he said without going more specifically into where responsibility for the focus that now needs to “change dramatically” lies. Probably wise.

Second, the importance in this context that he gave the situation between Israel and Palestine.

Although he uses his missionary way of speaking to paint the picture of a great battle of values between us and “reactionary Islam”, it is obvious that he does not fail to see the centrality of the Israel-Palestine issue to this battle.

“Unless we re-appraise our strategy, unless we revitalize the broader global agenda on poverty, climate change, trade, and in respect of the Middle East, bend every sinew of our will to make peace between Israel and Palestine, we will not win.”

In order to empower the moderates within Islam and start isolating the extremists, thus putting the Middle East on a modernising path, he urges us to tackle the Palestine issue.

This issue is “utterly fundamental to all we are trying to do.” And he says that “progress will not happen unless we change radically our degree of focus, effort and engagement, especially with the Palestinian side.”

Somewhat more specifically, he calls for action “to put a viable Palestinian Government on its feet, to offer a vision of how the Roadmap to final status negotiations can happen and then pursue it, week in, week out, ‘til its done.”

“Nothing else will do. Nothing else is more important to the success of our foreign policy.”

It’s undoubtedly an important speech in both these respects, particularly coming at this period in time.

It calls for reappraisal of policy. It places the Israel-Palestine issue at the centre of everything we are trying to do in the Middle East and the Muslim world. And it obviously calls for a shift in policies in order to make progress here.

There are important hints in the speech on what these could be.

I couldn’t agree more.

Olmert Confusion

2006-08-02T18:41:00.000+02:00

Prime Minister Olmert is now saying that there will be no ceasefire in Lebanon until an international force is deployed in the south of the country.

This statement unfortunately hints at a large degree of naivety in the higher echelons of Israel.

There is very little possibility of nations committing troops to any peacekeeping force in Lebanon without knowing its mandate and the political base on which it will be deployed.

And this will scarcely be possible until there is an agreement with the government of Lebanon and inside Lebanon, and in all probability with Israel as well.

To believe that such an agreement can be hammered out, troops committed and deployed while the bombs and the rockets keep flying and the casualties mount is naïve.

In all probability, it will be the other way around.

There will be a cease-fire either as part of or rapidly followed by a broader political agreement.

From there a mandate for the international force emerges. Then nations have the basis to start to commit forces and for the UN – or whoever – to assemble the force.

Then – and only then – can the deployment of the force begin. And if we are talking about 10 000 to 20 000 men – as some do – then it will take weeks if not months to get the force as a whole properly deployed.

If Prime Minister Olmert believes that he can have his air force and artillery continue to hammer Lebanon during this time it really hints at him not having read the dossier properly.

Sorry to say.

Linguistic Innovations as Policy Substitute

2006-08-02T11:35:00.000+02:00

The European Union foreign ministers meeting yesterday seems to have been more succesful in producing linguistic innovations than in agreeing on a forceful policy.

After much discussion, it was agreed to "call for an immediate cessation of hostilities to be followed by a sustainable cease-fire."

This was evidently a comprimise between those that wanted an immediate cease-fire and those that did not.

But the compromise is nothing but a linguistic exercise of an equally innovative and debatable character.

Any reader of the history of war and peace would argue that a cease-fire always comes first, that it's not really meant to be sustainable over a longer time, since it is just an end to ongoing military activities in the absence of the broader political deal or agreement that will have to follow.

To talk about a cease-fire being sustainable is to imply that it can substitute for a broader political deal. In my opinion, that's a highly debatable concept, unproven in the past and likely to fail also tomorrow.

It is sometimes argued that the Balkan wars saw numerous cease-fires that were not sustainable. True. But the problem was nearly always that they feel apart after a while because they were not followed by broader political ageeements and a broader cessation of hostilities.

It is when a cease-fire is then followed by a broader peace deal of some sort that you can really talk about a broader cessation of hostilies between the warring parties.

That's - in my opinion - the way the language is normally used.

But now it's the other way around.

It seems as now this war is starting to produce collateral damage also in the linguistic field.

That would be OK if this wasn't a reflecting of a profound muddling also of the political line.

But I fear it is.

Words of Wisdom from Carter

2006-08-01T16:00:00.000+02:00

Jimmy Carter has an experience of the Middle East rivaled by very, very few.

He is the man who produced the most significant contribution to Israel's security in modern times in the form of the Camp David accords.

In recent years, I have followed him twice to the area in connection with the different Palestine elections and been profoundly impressed by his knowledge and wisdom.

With an OpEd in Washington Post today he joins those speaking up against both the Israeli and US policies.

And he is right in connection it all to the failure to move forward on the core issue of a peace agreement over the Palestine issue, and that in spite of broad majorities in all communities in favour of such an agreement.

"Traumatized Israelis cling to the false hope that their lives will be made safer by incremental unilateral withdrawals from occupied areas, while Palestinians see their remnant territories reduced to little more than human dumping grounds surrounded by a provocative "security barrier" that embarrasses Israel's friends and that fails to bring safety or stability."

Words of wisdom from a man of knowledge.

Tuomioja Thruths

2006-08-01T15:42:00.000+02:00

As the foreign ministers of the European Union sit down together in the Council building in Brussels this afternoon, stakes are high.

It's a meeting that's been called by the Finnish Presidency of the Union, although not everyone has been overly keen on it.

On the agenda are the different aspects of the war in Lebanon, but also the situation in the Palestinian territrories, notably Gaza.

Although public opinion in Europe has been reasonably clear on these issues, governments have been divided, and the European Union the usual problem of too many voices have too little to say.

Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja might not be much of a diplomat, and that's why he has also been very blunt on what's at stake with, among other things, today's meeting.

"If the EU now is unable to act and to show leadership in this issue – the leadership that it is now being offered – we can say goodbye to EU power of influence for a long time,” Tuomioja has declared.

Somewhat exaggerated - the EU is still there after the profound debacle of the Iraq war - but worth saying anyhow.

Beginning of the End?

2006-08-01T14:58:00.000+02:00

It is in all probability the beginning of the end.

The announcement that Fidel Castro has turned over power to his brother Raul after complicated surgery shows the inevitable.

Although said to be "temporary", the handing over of power to someone sooner or later will have to be permanent.

The charismatic Castro has been in power continuesly since taking power in the revolution of 1959.

He has duelled - in a political, and sometimes military sense - with every US President since Dwight Eisenhower.

Fidel and his brother took power New Year's Day 1959, after what at first was an unsuccessful attempt at toppling the dictator Fulgencio Batista.

The revolution began on July 26, 1953, after an attack on the Moncada army barracks. But in spite of being surrounded by much revolutionary mythology, that was a spectacular failure, and Castro was among those jailed.

But after having fled to Mexico, he came back and succeeded with ousting the widely unpopular Batista.

Since then, Raul as been close at to Fidel in every sense. But he is certainly not the charismatic leader that Fidel is, and there have been persistent rumours that he is too heavy a user of alcohol.

Although it sounds unlikely that a Raul regime would last long, there are those that see the possibility of him being somewhat less dogmatic. There is an urgent need for profound economic reforms.

Partucularly on the US side, some thought seems to have been given to the transition issues in Cuba. A 95-page report on what the administration would do to usher democracy into the island after Castro's demise was published only weeks ago.

The report by the multi-agency Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba pledges to help a transition government with humanitarian aid and organizing free and fair elections. It earmarked $80 million in assistance for Cuba's opposition.

But US law regulates that a transition government cannot include Fidel or Raul Castro, and must meet a number of rather reasonable conditions such as calling for free elections and releasing political prisoners.

Key for the economy of a future Cuba would of course be the lifting of the US economic sanctions that have been in force all these decades. It's Fidel Castro and the Communist Party that have ruled the place, but it's been the political effects of these sanctions that have helped them stay in power.

There was obviously rejoicing in the streets of Miami as the news came through, and the Miami Herald has extensive reporting as well as analysis of what might lie in story for the poor country.

Its to Miami that the large waves of refugees - the middle class of Havana - has gone over the decades.

Today, Cuba is a poor and desperate dictatorship.

It's economy has been destroyed by socialism and its politics by communism. Having lived off the subsidies of the Soviet Union, and seen them disappear, it has gone through a very hard time, only partly rescued by the new subsidies from Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.

When Castro goes there are numerous scenarios of which happen - ranging from open rebellion to a smooth transition to a similar leader. But it does look likely that the regime will disappear with the man.

Thus, we will be faced with the task of helping to manage a critical process of regime transition in the Caribbean.

We'd Europe has better get ready.

The Mistakes of Past and Present

2006-08-01T06:59:00.000+02:00

It would not surprise me if Prime Minister Olmert is in for a rough time after the Lebanon war.

The number of voices raised against his conduct of the entire operation is increasing by the day.

And it's not really only the ones that you would believe.

Increasingly it's a highly professional criticism focusing on the obvious lack of any clear political-military strategy and equally clear lack of understanding of the political realities of warfare.

This is war among people's - and as such subject to very different rules of the game.

But Olmert believed that some quick use of air power would do. And he counted on the White House to give him all the time he needed for that campaign.

But air power could do little decisive but destroy the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon, and even the White House is now starting to feel the strain of a war that looks having no end.

The mistakes made are certainly grounded by mistakes done in the past by all concerned.

This analsys from Ami Isseroff, who is director of MidEastWeb, gives a good account of both the mistakes and the past and the more obvious mistakes in this campaign.

I guess we will hear much more along the lines in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

Time for Europe?

2006-07-31T22:20:00.000+02:00

It didn't get any better in the Middle East today.

Rather on the contrary.

New images of civilian casualities of the Israeli bombing campaign came at the same time as Jerusalem said that they had no interest in any early cease-fire.

Exactly what they hope to achieve by some more weeks of war is increasingly unclear.

The simply thruth is that there are no clear-cut objectives that can be achieved with the chosen military strategy.

For the US the situation is obviously starting to become difficult.

One is increasingly aware of the damage done to the political position of the US around the world. I would guess that - among others - diplomats and military commanders in Iraq are sending clear messages on the effect Washington's support for Israel's war has on their position.

When Secretary of State Rice was informed that she was not welcome to come to Beirut for talks was that a snub of the first order. It also showed that the leverage the US has in the regions risks declining in a dangerous way.

I see no real alternative to an early cease-fire.

Prime Minister Olmert is saying that a cease-fire now will mean that the original problem will very soon come back. That's a rather devastating indictment against himself.

But a cease-fire later will in all probability have damaged the credibility of the entire Western world even more than is already the case - and the delay will have achieved very little else.

So it's really time for diplomacy.

It might even be time for a more active European role.

To shape a such will certainly not be easy in view of the differences of opinion that are there.

But to abstain from even trying would be to deny the diplomacy of the conflict the balanced voice that's so obviously missing - and will be missed with increasing desperation.

A Deal With Hezbollah?

2006-07-29T12:10:00.000+02:00

I was obviously wrong in assuming that Tony Blair in Washington would endorse the general European line of calling for an immediate cease-fire in the war.

He did not - and once again the European Union is split on a major foreign policy issue.

Tony Blair - once again - sees lining up with the US as the only way of having any influence on developments, opening him up to the charge of actually having no influence whatsoever.

And the rest of the Europeans are more or less left in the dust. Italian Foreign Minister D'Alema is off to Damascus only to underline the divisions.

A meeting of the foreign ministers on Wednesday next week is supposed to sort things out. We'll see.

But pressure for a cease-fire is building up not the least because it is obvious to more and more people that Israel will not achieve its military objectives. Today's editorial in New´York Times clearly points at the direction in which also US opinion is heading.

Focus is now on trying to get together a 10.000 - 20.000 strong military force to go into Southern Lebanon. A meeting at the UN in New York on Monday will look at the possibilities, although I guess very few would be ready to commit anything as long as there is no political agreement on what such a force could do.

The only thing that's clear is that the two nations now pushing for the force have no intention of being part of it. The US considers it too dangereous, and the UK simply does not have the forces available at the moment.

Nothing can be achieved without an agreement with and inside Lebanon. That's the key to everything. So far the Lebanese government is holding together - Hezbollah is part of the coalition - and there are evidently constructive although difficult talks going on.

As we are now in the third week of war - with app 700 000 refugess and massive destruction - the only positive thing that could be said is that both Washington and Jerusalem now seems to understand that there is no military victory in sight and that there has to be a political agreement.

But there is a long road ahead. There is virtually no possibility of the Israeli army clearing a sufficiently broad security zone in southern Lebanon quickly or easily. Fighting is fierce.

So an international force can only come in with the agreement of Hezbollah.

Such a deal will obviously have different elements. Some sort of prisoner exchange is highly likely. But also the recognition of Hezbollah's political role in Lebanon.

It will be an interesting arrangement.

Pressure On Washington

2006-07-28T14:58:00.000+02:00

With Tony Blair rushing to Washington for talks, there are bound to be increasing pressures on the United States to push for a cease-fire in the Lebanon war.

It's difficult to see Secretary of State Rice's recent trip to the Middle East, Rome and Southeast Asia as much of a success.

And that's a very diplomatic way of phrasing it...

She seems to have been devoting most of her activities to resisting calls for an immediate cease-fire. She wants to give Israel more time for its military activities in the profoundly mistaken belief that these can achieve any reasonable objectives.

There is little doubt that the United States is paying a high price for this political stance.

In an OpEd piece in today's Washington Post, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher joins those that are highly critical of her line:

"Every day America gives the green light to further Israeli violence, our already tattered reputation sinks even lower. The reluctance of our closest allies in the Middle East even to receive Secretary Rice this week in their capitals attests to this fact."

Based on his own experience, he also argues forcefully for both an immediate ceasefire and for engaging Syria in order to achieve it.

Warren Christopher might not have been the most spectacular of Secretaries of State, but at critical junction - he himself mentions his Balkan experience - he demonstrated that he could be a man of sound judgment.

And he is not alone.

I would consider it highly likely that Tony Blair will argue along very similar lines when he sees President Bush in the White House. Whether he will be prepared to state his position openly is another matter.

We'll see. In the meantime the war continues and the situation in the Middle East deterioates.

The guns of July will soon by the guns of August...

Meanwhile, Baghdad...

2006-07-27T23:33:00.000+02:00

While Beirut burns, the situation in Baghdad deterioates.

The gloomy scenario seems to be playing out all over the region. It risks going downhill with dangerous speed.

A well-informed friend in Washington wrote this as part of his assessment of the situation:

"I understand that the intelligence community is drafting a national intelligence estimate on the situation in Iraq, but the news is so grim that no one wants to take it to the President."

"The working level analysts have concluded the civil war is on and that we have little opportunity to affect the course of events in coming months. Reports coming from U.S. intelligence and liaison offices in Baghdad indicate that the Iraqi leadership has concluded that, practically, the city of Baghdad must be divided—with Shia and Christian Iraqis living east of the Tigris River, and Sunni Iraqi’s living in west Baghdad. “Ethnic cleansing”—both involuntary and voluntary—is now rather extensive."

And one should not overlook the interconnection between the different areas.

When Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki was in Washington a few days ago he provoked a minor political firestorm - particularly among Democrats - because he failed to suport Israel and condem Hezbollah.

Hardly surprising. What the Israelis are doing in Lebanon is obviously undercutting support for what the US and their allies are doing in Iraq.

There is a risk of the one disaster feeding the other...

Time To Rescue Israel!

2006-07-27T14:17:00.000+02:00

Slowly the absence of a coherent strategy is starting to seed divisions also inside the Israeli government on how to proceed.

When Prime Minister Olmert unleashed the air campaign as a response to the Hezbollah border attack and kidnappning, he obviously expected a rather quick and easy punishment operation.

The main aim of the very sharp counterattack was probably to restore the fear of the armed might of Israel that had started to weakened during the past few years. Now was the time to set an example, was the idea.

But two weeks into the war things are more complicated.

It's increasingly obvious that an air campaign only can achieve very little apart from the counter-productive destruction of the infrastructure of Lebanon. The fighting capabilities of Hezbollah are certainly degraded, but not eliminated. It can probably easily be restored.

And the ground incursions into southern Lebanon are proving more difficult than anticipated.

At an emergency meeting yesterday evening and night as well as today, now with the entire Cabinet, it seems as if different alternatives were considered. The report in Haaretz is well worth reading.

A military proposal to make a massive call-up of reservist and launch a two-month campaign to clear the entire area up to the Litani river was obviouslu turned down. There were fears of large casualities - the 1982 war all over again - but also fear of stumbling into a major ground war with Syria.

So much for the talk over everything just being a question of some air strikes.

It seems as of Prime Minister Olmert is now instead aiming at the securing of an area in southern Lebanon that could be cleared of Hezbollah and then held until an international force could take over.

But that's a debatable strategy.

If a proposal to clear the area up to the Litani has been rejected, we are obviously talking about a rather small area. While the genuine security perimeter of Israel now extends well north of the Litani - in view of the longer range of the rockets - this area would obviously end far to the south of the Litani.

It would not halt the most damaging of the rocket attacks of Hezbollah.

And to expect an international force to quickly just come in and take over the occupation operation of the Israeli army in this zone is in all probability a pipe-dream. Few would be happy with such a mandate and even fewer would be ready to provide the forces. And even under the best of circumstances it would take months to deploy anything of substance.

The irony of the situation might well be that the longer Washington provides political encouragement for the Israeli operation to continue, the greater is the risk of Israel being stuck in a quagmire that would risk a strategic defeat.

That's certainly not in the interest of even those of us being - like myself - highly critical of the Olmert policies.

Israel needs to be rescued from the consequences of its policies. An agreed cease-fire as quickly as possible.

But as long as Washington doesn't see it - it will not happen.

Voice of Lebanon

2006-07-26T22:29:00.000+02:00

It's worth listening to the voices from Lebanon on the war being waged against and in their country.

The online version of the Beirut English-language newspaper The Daily Star gives a glimps that's certainly worth reading.

Its report from the Rome meeting of foreign ministers of a number of the key states gives a vivid description of how at the closed-doors meeting of the Rome conference Lebanese Prime Minister Faud Siniora asked "what future other than one of fear, frustration, financial ruin and fanaticism can stem from the rubble?"

A good question. Is there a good answer?

An Israeli Strategic Failure?

2006-07-26T16:52:00.000+02:00

One of the most impressive analysts of strategic issues in general and the Middle East in particular is Anthony Cordesman at the CSIS in Washington.

And he has just published a brief assessment of the Israeli war against Lebanon which I take the liberty of quoting rather extensively from.

In essence, it's a rather devastating critique of the entire thing - and it's coming from one of the most well-respected observers in Washington.

His overall conclusion on Israel's military performance, based on the information available, is that "it does not seem particularly impressive either in terms of strategy or execution. Israel seems to have escalated without a high probability it could do critical damage to Hezbollah or coerce the Lebanese government, and the tactical execution of its air and land actions seems to be weak."

Hasn't then the dramatic escalation of the air and artilllery campaign weakened Hezbollah? Well, Cordesman says that "there is little sign that either the Israeli Air Force (IAF) or the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has done critical damage to Hezbollah. Israel's claims about Hezbollah casualties are vague, and reports of 100 killed would mean little in any case."

"Blowing up Hezbollah buildings breeds anger and support for the Hezbollah, but there are no high value facilities filled with critical equipment. Destroying most Hezbollah armament means using high cost precision weapons to destroy a few very low cost systems that are easily replaced. The political and propaganda value to the Hezbollah of showing it can ride out IAF strikes, survive, and grow offsets any losses reported to date."

But if the aim was to coerce the Lebanese government in taking action against Hezbollah, what has then been the performany? Here, Cordesman is no less critical:

"The broad-based IAF attacks on Lebanese targets like infrastructure, and the creation of some 600,000 refugees, has bred some anger against Hezbollah. It also has bred anger against Israel."

"What it has not done is lead the Lebanese government to rush towards decisive action against Hezbollah or towards useful reactions from the Lebanese Army. If anything, the IAF has hit enough Lebanese military targets to cause a larger reaction against Israel. The fact that the Lebanese government would not accept Secretary Rice's offer to aid the Lebanese Army in moving south reflects the lack of Israeli success to date."

It remains somewhat of a mystery that Israel could believe that such a strategy would work:

"Lebanon's confessional politics remain a powder keg, and taking on a movement with so much influence among the Shi'ites, Lebanon's largest faction, is difficult to impossible for a government that does not have massive domestic support in doing so."

"Many Lebanese do tacitly or overtly support the Hezbollah in its fight against Israel, and not simply Shi'ites. The IAF has almost certainly increased this support by exacting what are at least reported to be large numbers of strikes that hit civilians and civilian facilities. Collateral damage normally only results in temporary fear, but it breeds lasting anger."

Again, we seem to be confronted with one of those intelligence failures. For all its unlimited access to Lebanon's clear skies, the Israelis seems to have an imperfect knowledge of what's really happening on the ground.

It's a story we have seen before.

AS far as the artillery campaign goes, it "seems to have had little impact other than to create refugees and hurt Israel's image abroad. Precision fire is relatively pointless, just as area fire is, unless there is something targeted. Blowing up Hezbollah buildings accomplished no more in the area in artillery range than the rest of Lebanon, and finding and hitting small, dispersed Hezbollah targets remained extremely difficult."

If this is the case, the Israeli campaign might be on the verge of running into very major difficulties as to its future:

"So far, the image is that Hezbollah is standing up to Israel — scarcely the image Israel wants and needs — and the fighting will be meaningless unless Israel moves north in strength, or some combination of an international force and Lebanese forces actually occupy the area."

Although it is likely that the Israeli's have had limited tactical successes, it's increasingly obvious that they can't win or achieve their objectives. It's now only by some sort of international involvement that they can be extracted from what otherwise might develop into a major failure:

According to Cordesman, "this leaves the option of pressuring the international community into making up for Israel's military limitations by forcing it to react to Lebanese suffering on Israeli terms."

And that is of course effectively the Secretary Rice advanced in Beirut.

Whether this will work long-term is a completely different issue:

"The international force will probably have to do the heavy lifting, be willing to fight, and become the focus of new Hezbollah attacks and ambushes. Non-Muslims will be seen as occupiers and crusaders, and Muslims as traitors. Ambushes, bombings, and foreign volunteers will follow. Can anyone spell IED?"

IED, for those not familiar with the term, means Improvised Explosive Devices.

And it's IED that's really bringing the US Army down in the campaign in Iraq.

I guess this is what they call "the new Middle East".

Kosovo Issue After Vienna

2006-07-26T16:40:00.000+02:00

It was hardly expected – and not even planned – that the talks in Vienna on the future of Kosovo would produce anything even resembling an agreement.

The big question is what happens now.

There are, in my judgment, some possibilities of patiently manoeuvring the issue slowly forward.

It will certainly be time-consuming and difficult, but it might produce part results that could then pave the way for further steps forward.

But the big question is whether the policy that the UN mediator Marti Ahtisaari follows will allow this or not.

In certain quarters all these talks are seen just as necessary preliminaries for a dramatic imposition of a pre-determined outcome: the full and immediate independence of Kosovo.

In those quarters, there isn’t really much interest in investing in the possibilities for even partial results.

A milder version of this approach has already resulted in the U-turn in policies on Kosovo from the previously sacrosanct “standards-before-status” to the now de facto-policy of “status before standards”.

Although not openly admitted, large parts of the international community have given up on achieving progress in Kosovo towards the stated goal of a multi-ethnic society. And everyone agrees that Kosovo is very far from that goal.

I fear that a hasty continuation of an approach that seeks a speedy imposition of a pre-determined outcome could spell tragedy for the region.

These are not the days of Milosevic, in which some high-level arms-twisting would do the trick and one could reply on authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes to use all their instruments to just “impose” things.

Dealing with democracies isn’t always as easy as dealing with dictatorships, and they do have a tendency to resent being dictated to.

An idea advocated is to offer Serbia the big bargain of losing Kosovo but gaining membership of the European Union and NATO. But that offer is often made by those who could possible dictate some sort of unilateral recognition of an independence of Kosovo, but have little influence over the enlargement strategy of the European Union.

And give the state of the enlargement debate in the European Union at the moment, it’s not hard to understand those in Serbia who question whether such an offer is really on the table.

To “impose” a solution of new states being created and international borders being changed on a region is hardly possible without a decision of the UN Security Council. That will then require an agreement between its five permanent members.

Whether that is a possibility or not remains to be seen.

Russia is signalling that it will demand a policy of parallelism between the Kosovo issue and the different secessionist issues in Georgia. It’s a position utterly unacceptable to the West – but it’s a position they so far are adhering to.

And then there is the question what it would actually mean. Even a Security Council resolution can’t alter sentiments and facts on the ground.

If Serbia refuses to recognize such a dictate and its election within the next year hands power to the nationalists again, it will be a very major setback for the region as a whole.

Massive new refuges waves will be a high probability, borders will be sealed again as hostility becomes the name of the game, Bosnia will become unpredictable and the entire European strategy of the past decade will be in tatters.

Whether there will be a stable and prosperous Kosovo in the middle of the ensuing mess is anybody’s guess – although I would not personally put too much money on it.

So there is much at stake –much more than many realize – in what happens after the talks in Vienna.