* Turnout up amid tight Israel race Voting in Israel’s general election has been higher than the record low turnout of 2006, despite poor weather and fears of voter apathy.

* Ahmadinejad says talks with US possible Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday the world was entering a “new era of dialogue”.

* Sarkozy pays first visit to Iraq French President Nicolas Sarkozy has visited Baghdad for the first time, in a bid to rebuild ties and drum up business for French companies.

* Arabs split between vote and boycott Umm el-Fahm restaurant owner Atef Laham said on Tuesday he would be casting his vote for “an Arab party” for the first time in his life.

* Obama warning on Pakistan ‘haven’ US President Barack Obama has said his administration will not allow “safe havens” for militants in Pakistan’s tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

* Bullion sales hit record in rush to safety Investors are buying record amounts of gold bars and coins, shunning risky assets for the relative safety of bullion amid renewed fears about the health of the global financial system.

* Arabs fear rise of Israeli rightist bloc Arabs are following the Israeli elections with concern, fearing a rise in power of the Israeli Right.

* German court to begin hearing on EU treaty Germany’s highest court will today (10 February) begin a hearing on whether the EU’s Lisbon treaty undermines the country’s own constitution.

* Pope to meet with umbrella group of US Jewry The furor between world Jewry and the Catholic Church appears to be on the mend .

* EU mulls extraordinary summit on financial crisis The Czech EU presidency is expected to call EU leaders for an informal meeting at the end of this month.

By: – Col. Bob Maginnis

Last fall, then-vice presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden warned “We’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test” Barack “Obama’s mettle.” Tehran’s satellite launch and Pyongyang’s war-like nullification of inter-Korean accords on security and its transparent preparations for the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) could be Biden’s “generated crisis.”

Iran and North Korea probably didn’t coordinate these crises, but their actions will force the new president to show his mettle earlier than he may wish. It appears Obama has only two paths – military action or negotiation with diplomacy, both are dangerous, but we can’t wait too long.

North Korea’s crisis is contrived and predictable. Its leader, Kim Jong-Il, is sick, possibly dying, and that crisis was produced to show the regime is still strong in spite of his absence and it intends to survive by playing an age-old game of blackmail.

It survives by creating conditions that favor the regime before it inevitably agrees to renew negotiations intended to arrest its on-again, off-again atomic program. Pyongyang has successfully used this strategy since the Korean War in 1952 — renounce agreements, threaten and cash-in on renewed negotiations.

The latest crisis started in August when North Korea barred International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and removed seals and surveillance equipment from the regime’s nuclear complex at Yongbyon. These actions suggest Pyongyang is moving toward resumption of plutonium reprocessing and away from its obligations to shutter its atomic program.

In January, the regime followed the old script by renouncing all military and political agreements with South Korea after accusing Seoul of pursuing policies that could push the neighbors toward war. Then last week Pyongyang increased pressure by moving an ICBM to its launch pad.

U.S. officials announced that satellite imagery detected a North Korean train carrying a cylinder-like object believed to be a Taepodong-2 ICBM, which has a range of more than 4,000 miles, capable of crossing the Pacific and striking targets in Hawaii or Alaska. The suspected missile was moved to a launch site where preparations will likely be completed in a month.

Each time North Korea has threatened to launch a missile or test a nuclear device it followed through. That’s why Pyongyang’s demonstration is certain and waiting will contribute to regional nervousness which is part of the North’s pressure agenda.

Few doubt Pyongyang’s contrived crisis is intended to force the Obama administration to pay attention to North Korea’s demands and to exact more concessions at disarmament negotiations later this year. But for Obama more is at stake.

This crisis reminds Americans that Obama promised not to field a ballistic missile defense (BMD) until it is proven. But, as his critics argue, no defensive system is fail-safe and, because America’s BMD systems are growing in effectiveness, the president must support their continued deployment.

Going forward with BMD should be part of Obama’s comprehensive North Korea policy which also must include how to engage the regime. During the presidential campaign then-Senator Obama advocated developing an “international coalition” to handle nuclear Pyongyang and promised that he supports “sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy.” This crisis gives him that chance.

Unfortunately, the U.S. has a long and unsuccessful diplomatic history with North Korea. Based on that history it’s virtually assured the communists will beat Obama at the negotiating table and get their ransom – oil, food and other goodies. Obama will then declare his “aggressive diplomacy” worked; that is, until the goodies run out and Pyongyang once again contrives another crisis.

Tehran’s “crisis” isn’t contrived as Pyongyang’s “crisis,” because Iran is run by radical theologians – not self serving totalitarians. The Islamic mullahs want hegemony over the Middle East and nuclear tipped ballistic missiles are their insurance policy against outside interference.

Atomic ICBMs are also a true offensive weapon and given Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to destroy Israel and attack US deployed forces, there is little reason to assume Ahmadinejad is only threatening. But in reality, and this is Obama’s challenge, Ahmadinejad doesn’t call the shots in Iran and the clerics who do have the power aren’t suicidal. So what will Obama do?

Tehran’s Feb. 3rd satellite launch corresponded with the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted the U.S.-backed Shah. That launch was intended to threaten its neighbors who are fearful of the hegemonic Persians and to remind the West that the regime is serious about harnessing rockets that can reach global targets.

Iran’s Safir Omid, “Envoy of Hope,” a research and telecommunications satellite launch vehicle like North Korea’s Taepodong rocket, is based on the Russian Scud design. But Tehran’s successful placement of a satellite in space demonstrates Iran has advanced the Soviet-era technology into a credible, although rudimentary, intercontinental ballistic missile capable of placing small satellites in orbit and possibly warheads on global targets.

However, the distinction between putting a small satellite in orbit and launching a weaponized ICBM is payload. A weaponized missile must be large enough to launch a heavy warhead into space and the weapon’s capsule must be rugged enough to survive the harsh re-entry. Tehran has more work to do.

David Kay, a former U.N. weapons inspector, believes Iran is now “80 percent of the way” to a deliverable nuclear weapon, though “the last 20 percent is the really hard part.” “I don’t think there’s any doubt that — left to the current policies — the Iranians will achieve a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Gary Samore, Obama’s point person on weapons of mass destruction in the National Security Council, believes Iran is only one or two years away from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. Then it’s only a question of when Iran might have the ability to deliver that weapon.

In Oct. 2007, then-President Bush said “Our intelligence community assesses that … Iran could develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States and … [U.S. deployed forces] “before 2015.” The recent launch suggests that timeline is much shorter. But Iran doesn’t have to wait for its ICBM, because it may already have the means to deliver a nuclear weapon against U.S. targets either by using short-range ballistic missiles from a ship or by aircraft.

Obama’s aids have recommended a two-part approach.

Samore counsels Obama to do an end run around President Ahmadinejad and approach the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, Iran’s real power broker. The intent is to “… see if they could begin a dialogue” aimed at persuading Iran “to stop working on their nuclear program” explained Samore.

Dennis Ross favors leveraging Tehran with sanctions. However, Ross, who is expected to be named to a senior post handling Iran warned “…the Europeans make war more likely if they do not strengthen sanctions against Iran, and effectively end all commercial relations.” Many European countries continue to trade with Iran in spite of their being party to international sanctions.

Diplomacy and sanctions are expected to be the center pieces of Obama’s Iran strategy, but for America’s protection the administration must not negotiate away the BMD installations slated to be built in Poland and the Czech Republic. Unfortunately, Obama’s campaign promise to seek radical reductions in our atomic arsenal make the European BMD vulnerable to compromise with the Russians.

The crises with Iran and North Korea were generated for a variety of reasons which include testing Obama’s mettle. But time is short cautions William Perry, a former defense secretary and Obama adviser. “I believe that today we are clearly at the tipping point of nuclear proliferation and if the world does tip, it will be irreversible and dangerous beyond the imagination of most people.”

President Obama must protect America by accelerating our BMD and he must ensure Iran and North Korea never have the capability to use nuclear tipped ICBMs. The best outcome of the current crises would be replacing both regimes with governments that abandon missile and nuclear programs.

There seems to be only two paths to that goal: military action or negotiation with diplomacy. Either option entails danger, but the greater danger lies in waiting.

Mr. Maginnis is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a national security and foreign affairs analyst for radio and television and a senior strategist with the U.S. Army.

* Israel enters final campaign day Politicians in Israel are making their final appeals to voters before a general election on Tuesday.

* Olmert says no Israeli government would let Iran get nukes Israel will not allow arch-foe Iran to develop nuclear weapons, no matter what the political make-up of the Israeli government, said outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

* German leader calls pope about Holocaust denier The German chancellor called the pope Sunday, days after she demanded he clarify the Vatican’s stance on the Holocaust after it lifted the excommunication of a bishop who denies six million Jews were killed.

* Islam group urges forest fire jihad AUSTRALIA has been singled out as a target for “forest jihad” by a group of Islamic extremists urging Muslims to deliberately light bushfires as a weapon of terror.

* Netanyahu Warns Obama on Talks as He Challenges Livni Even before Benjamin Netanyahu finds out whether he will be Israel’s next prime minister, he is sending a message to President Barack Obama that he won’t be pushed around.

* Iran’s Khatami to run for office Iran’s former president Mohammad Khatami has ended months of speculation by announcing that he will run in June’s presidential election.

* Chinese military tackles drought crisis The Chinese government brought out the big guns over the weekend to help fight its worst drought in 50 years.

* Palestinian poll: Hamas support drops A Palestinian poll conducted after Operation Cast Lead has found that 56% of residents in the Gaza Strip and 48.3% of Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem believe Hamas is leading them in the wrong direction.

* Televisions ‘to be fitted in contact lenses within ten years’ Televisions could be fitted into contact lenses within ten years, according to analysts.

* Horrifying video of militants beheading Polish engineer is released by Pakistani Taliban A shocking new video that appears to show Pakistani militants beheading a kidnapped Polish engineer has emerged.

* Kadima Still Trailing Likud, But Margin is Narrowing The final polls before Tuesday’s national election show the Likud losing support to Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party.

* Palestinian PM pessimistic ahead of Israeli elections Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Saturday he does not expect the winner of next week’s Israeli election to offer a “reasonable solution” to the Middle East conflict.

* Russia rattles sabres in Obama’s direction Russia may face a grim economic downturn but one would scarcely think so to judge by the sound of sabre-rattling emerging from the Kremlin.

* High stakes for Obama at weekend security conference The Obama administration is facing its first big international test this weekend as Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. heads to a conference in Europe.

* Iran: US must rethink policies for reconciliation Iran sternly dismissed decades of U.S. policies targeting Tehran and declared Friday that the new American administration had to admit past wrongs before it could hope for reconciliation.

* Iran: Sanctions made us stronger Iran has achieved breakthroughs in nuclear and space technology despite international sanctions against it.

* Mini-incident marks EU-Russia meeting An EU-Russia meeting designed to improve post-gas crisis ties went wrong on Friday (6 January).

* Biden calls for 2-state solution in Middle East US Vice President Joe Biden said on Saturday that the United States would work to achieve a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.

* New Challenge to Iraqi Poll Results Some Shi’ite religious parties in Iraq are refusing to accept defeat in last weekend’s elections.

* Turkey probes IDF ‘war crimes’ in Gaza Turkish prosecutors said Friday that they were investigating whether Israeli leaders should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity over the recent IDF offensive in the Gaza Strip.

* Pakistani court declares nuclear scientist free A Pakistani court declared disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan free on Friday.

* Iraq calm after election results Iraq remains peaceful following the announcement of provincial election results, which show strong support for Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s party.

* Tony Blair wins the race to be at President Obama’s side It is a ritual as old as American superpower. Every time a new president enters the White House a stampede starts to rumble.

* UN Secretary General Visits Iraq United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is in Baghdad for talks with Iraqi leaders.

* Top EU delegation in Moscow talks A high-powered EU delegation is visiting Moscow amid continuing strains over Russian gas supplies and last August’s Georgia conflict.

* Swarm of caterpillars infests West Africa, menacing crops A bizarre swarm of caterpillars is munching its way through the forests, cocoa and coffee fields of Liberia.

* Political Divide Between Hamas, Fatah Deepens Hamas security men are back on the streets, directing traffic and trying to restore some semblance of law and order.

* Likud slips, but on course for win The Likud will win an unexpectedly close race but the right-wing bloc will easily defeat the Left.

* Sarkozy pledges ‘results’ at G20 economic crisis meeting EU countries should forge a common position on the need to reform and regulate the financial system.

* The escalating war of the summits Earlier this week, nine Arab foreign ministers met in Abu Dhabi.

By: The Cable News Network

A Russian-led bloc of post-Soviet nations has agreed to establish a rapid-reaction military force to combat terrorists and respond to regional emergencies, Russian media reported Wednesday.

The decision came a day after reports that Kyrgyzstan is planning to close a strategically important U.S. military base that Washington uses to transport troops and supplies into Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, the Collective Security Treaty Organization — made up of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan — decided on the rapid-reaction force at a Kremlin summit, the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

The group’s security council “spent a long time discussing the central issue of forming collective reaction forces and, generally, of rapid reaction to possible threats,” said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

Russian navy soldiers stand guard during a military ceremony.

“Everyone agreed that the formation of joint forces is necessary,” he said.

Officials told Russian media that all the members had signed the agreement, though Uzbekistan submitted a special provision.

Uzbekistan doesn’t mind contributing military units to the rapid-reaction force “but does not consider it necessary for the moment” to attach emergency responders, drug-control forces and other special services, organization spokesman Vitaly Strugovets told Interfax.

Russian media reported that the force will be used to fight military aggressors, conduct anti-terror operations, battle regional drug trafficking and respond to natural disasters. The force will be based in Russia under a single command, with member nations contributing military units.

On Tuesday, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced at a Moscow news conference that “all due procedures” were being initiated to close Manas Air Base, RIA-Novosti reported. The announcement was made after news reports of a multimillion-dollar aid package from Russia to Kyrgyzstan.

Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees U.S. operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, was in Kyrgyzstan last month, partly to lobby the government to allow the United States to keep using the base. He said he and Kyrgyz leaders did not discuss “at all” the possible closure of the base and said local officials told him there was “no foundation” for news reports about the issue.

The United States is planning to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to halt a resurgence of the Taliban. Petraeus described Manas as having “an important role in the deployment of these forces” and in refueling aircraft.

The relationship between the United States and Kyrgyzstan was damaged when a Kyrgyz citizen was killed by a U.S. airman in December 2006. The airman was transferred out of Kyrgyzstan, and the dead man’s family was offered compensation. Petraeus said in January that the investigation was being reopened.

As he announced the base closure Tuesday, Bakiyev said he was not satisfied with the inquiry into the accident and his government’s “inability to provide security to its citizens” was proving a serious concern.

Medvedev also weighed in on the issue Wednesday, saying the base closure shouldn’t hamper anti-terrorism operations, according to Interfax.

“It would be great if their numbers meant there were fewer terrorists, but such action depends on other things as well,” he said.

By: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross – News World Communications Inc.

Ethiopian efforts in Somalia began with an unexpected intervention in December 2006 that rapidly reversed many territorial gains made by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), an Islamist group that was then on the brink of destroying Somalia’s U.N.-recognized transitional federal government (TFG). However, neither the Ethiopians nor the United States (which supported the invasion) were able to provide the country with badly needed stability. The beginning of the end came in early January, when trucks filled with Ethiopian soldiers began to roll out of Mogadishu. They almost immediately hit a roadside bomb.

Somali Islamist militants of a coalition of four insurgent groups parade on the outskirts of the Somali capital Mogadishu, Feb. 2, the day four rebel groups, the Dr. Omar Iman faction of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), Faruk Anole, Raskamboni, and the Islamic Front of Somalia, announced opposition to the newly-elected President of Somalia Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. (PTS Photo via Newscom)

The Ethiopians, who invaded Somalia largely because of concerns about ICU designs on their territory, had been forced to withdraw by a vigorous insurgency. As Ethiopian fighters have left, militants affiliated with the extremist Shabaab group have taken their place. Many analysts believe that Somalia now poses a greater terrorist threat than it did in 2006, prior to Ethiopia’s intervention.

The circumstances of Ethiopia’s withdrawal can only be described as a defeat. Anti-Ethiopian insurgent forces split into two primary groups during the course of the fighting. The Alliance for Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) is frequently described as a “moderate Islamist” faction by the international press, and much pressure was brought to bear on the TFG to constructively engage with ARS, including by the U.S. State Department. (Some observers believe that labeling the ARS “moderate” is inaccurate.) The insurgent faction that now lays claim to a large part of Somalia, Shabaab, is regarded as extremist by virtually all outside observers.

A large number of Somali members of parliament fled their country as the Ethiopians left. The exiled lawmakers settled in Djibouti, where they promptly set about undertaking “reconciliation talks.” The representatives agreed to double the size of the parliament to include Islamist MPs affiliated with the ARS, and they selected ARS leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as their new president following Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s December resignation.

President Ahmed has said, “I think we can improve the situation in Somalia and establish genuine peace and reconciliation in my country.” But it’s difficult to see how this can be accomplished.

“Where will this parliament go?” asks Abdiweli Ali, an associate professor of economics at Niagara University and a former adviser to the TFG. “The seat of government has already been captured by Shabaab.”

Indeed, Shabaab’s area of effective control stretches from Baidoa in south-central Somalia and Kismayo in the far south all the way to the capital of Mogadishu. There are two major concerns about the group’s advances.

The first concern is humanitarian. Shabaab has already begun to implement its strict version of Sharia in areas that it controls. At a rally held Jan. 27 in Baidoa, Shabaab’s Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Mansoor declared that his group would “rule with justice, and the almighty Allah’s Sharia law.” He continued: “We are informing Somalis we will not accept any man-made constitution…. We shall fight with anyone who opposes [Sharia].”

On Jan. 28, a man convicted of stealing fishing nets had his hand amputated in Shabaab-controlled Kismayo. Shabaab executed a politician for “apostasy” in the same city in mid-January due to his alleged cooperation with Ethiopian forces, and a 12-year-old girl was stoned to death there in November for adultery. (Her aunt claimed that she was raped.)

Kismayo residents have expressed their violent displeasure with some of Shabaab’s new rules, rioting after the Islamist group transformed a soccer stadium into a market. “We are here to defend our stadium and fight against anyone who wants to prevent us from playing soccer,” one enthusiastic rioter told the African Press Agency.

Bill Roggio, a civilian military affairs analyst who has followed the situation in Somalia closely for the Long War Journal, suggests that on the whole Shabaab may be implementing Sharia more slowly than the ICU did during its rise in 2006. “I think they’re doing it more subtly this time,” he says. “They’ve learned that you can’t rush into Sharia.”

It is also worth noting that Somalia has been mired in anarchy since the early 1990s, so many Somalis may find even Shabaab’s harsh version of Sharia preferable to lawlessness. This is similar to the Taliban’s rise in the 1990s: as Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid wrote in his best-selling book “Taliban”, the Taliban managed to win over Afghanistan’s “unruly Pashtun south because the exhausted, war-weary population saw them as saviors and peacemakers.”

Beyond humanitarian concerns, there are worries about Shabaab’s connection to transnational terrorism. Shabaab and al-Qaida in East Africa have interlocking leadership at top levels. Moreover, Roggio notes Shabaab’s terrorist training camps. “We know that Shabaab has been running camps,” he says. “We now have another terrorist sanctuary, this time in East Africa.”

One likely sign that training camps are reopening in Somalia is the disappearance of young Somali men in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in the United States and elsewhere (a phenomenon that has recently been heavily reported in the American media, including in Newsweek). There are reports of young Somali men going missing in Canada, Europe, Australia, and Saudi Arabia; U.S. intelligence sources believe that they are returning to Somalia, where they receive military training from Shabaab.

How can this situation be addressed? J. Peter Pham, the director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University (and my colleague at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies), has a couple of suggestions for American policymakers. “There’s clearly an obsession with Somaliland by some Shabaab leaders,” he says, fingering Ahmed Abdi Godane and Ibrahim Haji Jama. “We need to find a way to enforce security in Somaliland, which will have elections in the next few months.”

Second, Pham argues that policymakers need to recognize the linkages between Islamist militants and Somali piracy. He contends that there are three levels of connections. First, Somali pirates have paid the militants in order to operate in their ports. Second, militants have needed someone to ferry in arms and trainers for them. This began with the militants as the pirates’ paying passengers; later they paid in kind, allowing the pirates to participate in their weapons training courses. Third, now that Shabaab controls considerable territory, it receives payments directly from pirates in exchange for allowing them to do business. Pham suggests that Somalia’s pirates may be particularly vulnerable to embargoes targeting their boat fuel.

For the foreseeable future, the situation in Somalia is likely to grow worse rather than better. Past efforts by the United States and other countries have come up short. It remains to be seen if the Barack Obama administration can formulate a better Somalia policy than that of its predecessor.

By: Gil Feiler and Edo Harel – The Jerusalem Post

When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan very publicly condemned President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Davos and then stalked off the stage in a huff, the incident was blamed on his short temper, and officials in Ankara and in Jerusalem rushed to dispel perceptions of a major crisis between Turkey and Israel.

However, Erdogan’s seemingly spontaneous outburst was a carefully considered move in Turkey’s internal power struggle between the ruling Islamist party AKP and the opposing military establishment, and highlights a major shift in the country’s balance of power.

The AKP, or Justice and Development Party, is a religious Islamic political party that has been the ruling party in Turkey since 2002. It operates in a special environment, as modern Turkey was founded along strict secular principles, with strong institutions committed to maintaining the separation of mosque and state.

Foremost among these are the Turkish armed forces, which have over the past decades forcefully ousted several elected governments that they saw as promoting a religious state, including the Welfare Party, a forerunner of the AKP.

Since coming to power, the AKP has maintained that it has no religious agenda, and that it is committed to increased democracy and liberalization of the economy. Critics, however, have consistently held that the AKP is employing democratization and liberalization merely as tools to weaken the anti-religious state mechanisms.

In recent years, the AKP has, indeed, taken numerous measures to consolidate its power base and its control of the state, while eroding the political, judicial and military opposition, all within the boundaries of the democratic political process, and often within the context of political reform and increased transparency.

The key challenge to the AKP came when it tried to change the law.

The AKP mobilized massive popular support throughout Turkey, and the court bid to disband the Islamist party, which had succeeded in removing similar threats to Turkish secularism in the past, failed. Overcoming the judicial watchdog that had defeated its predecessors was a major moral and political victory for the AKP.

A key confrontation that took place during the court fracas saw the Turkish military attempt to influence the process by taking a public stance against the ruling party. The military has usually been perceived by the Turkish public as the protector of democracy, and such interventions in the past had been met with approval.

To the military establishment’s surprise, its move this time gave rise to public opposition across the board, even among traditional supporters of the fight against Islamization, and it had to back down after failing to garner popular support.

Erdogan had managed to draw liberals, moderates and the educated middle class to his side by painting the confrontation as a challenge to Turkey’s democracy (and a threat to its prospects for EU accession), made by a self-interested military clique that was unaccountable to its citizens.

Following its defeat of these crucial challenges in 2008, the AKP has shown increasing confidence, and has now taken the offensive.

In an affair that has been shaking the country, the government has alleged a shadowy right-wing conspiracy against it, and has been using controversial evidence and a problematic legal process to arrest scores of its secular political opponents.

For the first time, these have included not just civilian opposition (such as journalists, lawyers and university rectors), but also high-ranking military and police personnel, a previously untouchable sector.

Turkey’s military expressed concern and later expressed outrage, but at present seems incapable and unwilling to attempt any more drastic measures against the government.

This backdrop brings us to Erdogan’s attack on Israel, which began not at Davos but during the recent fighting in Gaza, when the prime minister issued numerous highly vehement public pronouncements against Israel, employing rhetoric that was harsher than that of many of Israel’s fiercest antagonists.

Erdogan’s attacks on Israel represents the new phase of seeking open confrontations with Turkey’s secular watchdogs, albeit in a relatively toned-down manner.

For this purpose, Turkey’s relationship with Israel is an excellent target. Since 1992, Turkey’s military establishment and its professional bureaucracy have pushed for an increasingly warm relationship with Israel, at the expense of Turkey’s Arab neighbors, in essence forming a strategic alliance between the two countries.

These two institutions, which are also the key challengers to the AKP’s rule, are deeply and publicly committed to the relationship with Israel.

It should be noted that the Turkish public has a shared bias against Israel: the more traditional and Islamic-oriented masses perceive the Jewish state within the traditional context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, while the educated middle class is open to the demonization of Israel as a war-mongering pariah state that is increasingly accepted among their liberal European counterparts.

The choice of Israel as an issue area is therefore well calculated by the AKP, which has learned from the events of the past year that it can rally pro-secular (and hence traditionally pro-military) sections of the Turkish public against the military establishment if the right cause is chosen.

The images of death and destruction from Gaza have served as a more than adequate base for Erdogan’s one-sided interpretation and rallying cry, and he has succeeded in drawing support from all levels of Turkish society, as evidenced by the pro-Erdogan focus of the heated anti-Israel demonstrations that resulted from his attacks on Israel.

Attacks on Israel also play to a specific subset of the Turkish public at large, allowing Erdogan to consolidate the ranks of the “hardcore” Islamist supporters in the country.

Until now, the defection by devoted members of the Islamist camp towards more outspoken parties due to frustration with the AKP’s moderate policies and seeming reluctance to challenge Turkey’s secular establishment has been a constant threat to Erdogan’s power base.

It should be understood that the key aspect of Erdogan’s attacks on Israel is not just in uniting the Turkish public behind him, but in uniting them against the military and the secular establishment. In the public eye, the secular establishment is the key backer of Turkey’s warm relationship with Israel.

When he condemns Israel, Erdogan is also publicly condemning Turkey’s military and civil service. Once again, the previously all-powerful secular establishment finds itself faced with a challenge from the AKP that is backed with popular support from throughout the Turkish public.

An intriguing aspect of Erdogan’s attacks on Israel is in the introduction of overt religious language into the political debate. The prime minister has made prominent use of religious terms, invoking Allah’s punishment upon the Jewish state, thus making another inroad into previously forbidden territory for Turkish politics.

Meanwhile, the establishment is occupied primarily with defending the relationship with Israel. Erdogan’s attacks have been consistently followed by public statements issued by the country’s military and foreign policy officials in which they attempt to douse fears of a major rift between the two allies – assuring, for example, that multi-million dollar purchases of Israeli military equipment will not be canceled.

Since rising to power in 2002, the AKP has been careful to avoid the type of overt action that had in past lead to the downfall of Islamic parties in Turkey. However, increased confidence and a revised balance of power versus the military establishment have combined to foment increasingly overt challenges to the secular watchdogs of Turkey.

The public challenge to Turkey’s relationship with Israel serves as a perfect issue to further the Islamist cause as the AKP moves to shatter Turkey’s decades-old power structure and bring about a fundamental change in the role of religion in the state. (The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies)

By: Times Newspapers Ltd.

Russia moved swiftly today to extend a hand to President Obama over American plans for big cuts in nuclear weapons.

Sergei Ivanov, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that Russia was ready to sign a new strategic missile treaty with the United States after The Times disclosed that Mr Obama is to seek an 80 per cent reduction in stockpiles.

“We welcome the statements from the new Obama Administration that they are ready to enter into talks and complete within a year, in this very confined time frame, the signing of a new Russian-US treaty on the limitation of strategic attack weapons,” said Mr Ivanov, a hawkish former defense minister once seen as a candidate to become president of Russia.

He added: “We are also ready for this, undoubtedly.”

The landmark Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) signed by the US and the Soviet Union in 1991 is due to expire in December. It reduced stockpiles held by the two states from 10,000 to 5,000 but there has been little progress in negotiating a successor treaty.

Talks faltered in part over President George W. Bush’s enthusiasm for siting a missile-defence shield in eastern Europe, a move that infuriated Russia. Mr Obama has not said whether he will press ahead with the plan to put ten interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic.

A delay in the programme could ease Russian concerns and pave the way for talks to cut the number of nuclear warheads to 1,000 each. An official in the US Administration told The Times: “We are prepared to engage in a broader dialogue with the Russians over issues of concern to them.”

The significance of missile defense as an obstacle to successful negotiations was underlined by a former chief of staff for the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces. Colonel-General Viktor Yesin said that a deal on missile cuts made sense only if Washington accepted Moscow’s security concerns.

“If the American Administration really intends to radically cut Russia’s and the US’s strategic nuclear arsenals to 1,000 warheads, this would undeniably be a step that could promote real nuclear disarmament,” he told Interfax news.

“However, with such considerable reductions of nuclear arsenals, an equal level of security for Russia and the US could be ensured only on condition that Washington drops the idea of deploying . . . its missile defense system in Europe.”

Andrei Piontkovsky, executive director of the Strategic Studies Centre in Moscow, said that defense experts in Russia understood that the US missile shield posed no military threat, but Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister and former president, was determined to prove that the West could not decide anything in Eastern Europe without Moscow’s approval.

“The Start treaty for Russia is a symbol that it is still a superpower, so I think the Kremlin would be satisfied with the fact that Obama is not pushing this issue [missile defense] ahead,” Mr Piontkovsky said.

Pavel Felgengauer, one of Russia’s leading defense analysts, told The Times that Mr Obama would face domestic pressure to accelerate the missile-defense program after Iran’s success in launching a satellite into space yesterday.

“This puts a serious shadow over the arms-control negotiations because it was assumed that the Democrats would freeze or postpone deployment of this project until the missile threat emerged. Now it has,” he said.

“The pressure is going to be on the new US Administration to continue deployment and maybe even speed it up. With missile defense in Europe getting this new impulse from Tehran, that makes it even more difficult to achieve results with Russia.”

By: Daniel Pipes – The Jerusalem Post

Why, just two weeks into a 209-week term, assess a new American president’s record on so esoteric a subject as the Middle East and Islam? In Barack Obama’s case, because of (1) a contradictory record: His background brims over with wild-eyed anti-Zionist radicals such as Ali Abunimah, Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said, with Islamists, the Nation of Islam and the Saddam Hussein regime; but since being elected he has made predominantly center-left appointments and his statements resemble those of his Oval Office predecessors.

(2) The outsized role of the Middle East and Islam: His first fortnight in office witnessed an inaugural address that mentioned them prominently, a first diplomatic telephone call to Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, the appointment of two high-profile envoys and the first interview granted to Al-Arabiya television channel.

What to make of this whirlwind?

Afghanistan and Iraq: No surprises – more emphasis on the former and less on the latter (“you’re going to see me following through with dealing with a drawdown of troops in Iraq”).

Iran: A willingness to talk to the Iranian regime mixed with a flabby reassertion of the unacceptability of Teheran’s actions (“Iran has acted in ways… not conducive to peace and prosperity”).

Arab-Israeli conflict: A strange mix: Yes, statements about Israel’s security imperatives and no condemnation of its war against Hamas. But also effusive praise for the “Abdullah Plan,” a 2002 initiative that has Arabs accept Israel’s existence in return for its return to the June 1967 borders, a plan distinct from other diplomatic initiatives for its many loose ends and its total reliance on Arab good faith. The elections on February 10 are likely to bring a government to power not favorably inclined to this plan, spelling rocky US-Israeli relations ahead.

War on terror: One analyst announced that Obama is “ending the war on terror,” but this is speculation. Yes, early on January 22, Obama referred to “the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism,” which avoided saying “war on terror,” but later that same day he did precisely refer to the “war on terror.” Given the many clumsy ways George W. Bush referred to this war, including “the great struggle against extremism that is now playing out across the broader Middle East,” Obama’s inconsistency so far suggests continuity with Bush more than change.

Reaching out to the Muslim world: Obama’s reference to wanting to return to “the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago” revises history, ignoring that 1989 was a bad year and 1979 the worst ever for US-Muslim relations. (In November 1979 alone, Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the shah of Iran and then seized the American embassy in Teheran, while an Islamist insurgency in Mecca inspired a wave of attacks against US missions in eight majority-Muslim countries.)

Democracy: Harkening back to the good old days of 20 or 30 years ago does contain a real message, however, as Fouad Ajami points out. This phrasing signals “a return to realpolitik and business-as-usual” in relations with the Muslim world. Bush’s “freedom agenda” has been in retreat for over for three years; now, with Obama, tyrants can breathe yet more easily.

FINALLY, THERE is the issue of Obama’s personal connection to Islam. During the campaign, he denounced discussion of his connections to Islam as “fear-mongering,” and those exploring this subject found themselves vilified. He so severely discouraged use of his middle name, Hussein, that John McCain apologized when a warm-up speaker at a campaign event dared mention “Barack Hussein Obama.” After the election, the rules changed dramatically, with the oath of office administered to “Barack Hussein Obama” and the new president volunteering, “I have Muslim members of my family, I have lived in Muslim countries.”

It’s bad enough that family connections to Islam perceived as a liability when campaigning are suddenly exploited once in office to win Muslim goodwill. Worse, as Diana West observes, “not since Napoleon has a leader of a Western superpower made so unabashed a political pitch to the people of the Muslim world.”

To sum up, while Obama’s retreat from democratization marks an unfortunate and major change in policy, his apologetic tone and apparent change in constituency present a yet more fundamental and worrisome direction.