A violent mob assault on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. The targeted killing of an Iranian general ordered by President Donald Trump. An accidental missile strike of a Ukrainian commercial airliner. A tightening of U.S. economic sanctions on Iran. The detention of the British ambassador in Tehran.

We are barely beyond the first week of a new year and a new decade, but already the alarming and chaotic news coming out of the Middle East makes it difficult not to feel a sense of foreboding for what’s to come. Historical forces seem to be moving on paths impossible to identify precisely, but lead in the general direction of danger, political analysts and historians say.

And all this takes place at a time when the world already had plenty to worry about.

Trump has been impeached and awaits a trial seeking his removal from office that could begin in the Senate later this week. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un continues to threaten the U.S. and has declared that he will no longer observe a ban on nuclear tests. Overseas, Australia is on fire. Britain is edging ever closer to Brexit.

A Middle East on the edge

With the crisis in the Middle East one miscalculation away from spiraling out of control, and a suite of other international fires to put out, many key posts in the Trump administration’s national security apparatus are filled by unconfirmed officials or sit empty altogether.

It’s little wonder that newspapers across the country are running stories on the rise in the number of people seeking mental health care for anxiety.

At times like these, a little historical perspective can be helpful.

Parallels to 1968

Robert Dallek, noted historian and author, points out that this is not the first time the United States has been beset by seemingly overwhelming problems.

“You know, we’ve been through many difficult moments,” Dallek said in an interview with VOA. “Like 1968, when the country was locked into the war in Vietnam and you had inner-city riots, and [Lyndon] Johnson announced he wasn’t going to run for president again.”

At the time, a travel agency in France was pitching vacations in the United States with the tagline, “See America while it lasts,” Dallek said.

“It was a time when people also thought that America was slowly coming to an end and might be heading into a new Civil War, and so there are echoes of that here,” he said. However, he stressed that there are reasons to be hopeful. The United States did not descend into war, the war in Vietnam eventually came to an end, and civil unrest abated.

None of this, however, is to suggest that the real anxiety Americans feel is misplaced or imagined. Perhaps the most stressful issue facing Americans right now is the crisis unfolding in the Middle East.

Attack on US Embassy in Baghdad

On New Year’s Eve, Americans woke up to the news that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone was under siege by a mob that had broken into a reception area and set part of the structure on fire. The protests followed a December 29 U.S strike against Iranian-backed Kataeb Hezbollah sites in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for the killing of a U.S. civilian contractor near the Iraqi city of Kirkuk two days earlier. The Pentagon announced that it was dispatching troops to the region, a number that quickly grew into the thousands.

Later on Twitter, Trump promised retribution if the attackers, reported to have connections to an Iran-backed militia group, harmed embassy personnel or damaged U.S. property. “This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!” he wrote.

US drone strike on Soleimani

Two days later, shortly after landing at Baghdad International Airport, General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s notorious Quds Force, was killed in a drone strike that had been personally ordered by Trump.

Soleimani, who directed operations that have led to the killing of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq and untold thousands of civilian deaths across the Middle East, was generally considered the second-most-powerful figure in the Iranian government.

Iran, promising revenge, observed three days of mourning for Soleimani before launching missiles at two installations in Iraq housing American military personnel. There was reason to believe that the missile strikes were more symbolic than dangerous.

But any hope that the limited Iranian response might reduce the tension in the region was dashed just hours later, when a Ukrainian jetliner with 176 travelers on board crashed outside Tehran. By the weekend, it had become clear that nervous Iranian air defense forces, on alert for U.S. retaliation after the strikes in Iraq, shot down the plane by accident, a fact that Iran eventually admitted.

More sanctions for Iran

The United States announced Friday morning that it would impose new economic sanctions on Iran. These would come on top of existing penalties that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has described as the most punishing the U.S. has ever levied on another country. Many Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans complained that Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior administration officials have misled Congress and the public in arguing that Suleimani had posed an “imminent” threat.

In Tehran on Saturday, the ambassador of Britain was arrested and held for several hours after attending a vigil for the 176 people killed in the attack on the Ukrainian airliner. The highly unusual step by Iran was accompanied by accusations that the diplomat incited street protests against the Iranian regime, a charge the British government hotly denied.

Within the U.S., the collective response to the unfolding crisis in the Middle East has been unease about where all this will end. Social media has been rife with references — some joking, some not — to an imminent World War III. But experts point out the likelihood of all-out war between the United States and Iran is low.

At the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, professor of political science Michael Horowitz and senior fellow Elizabeth Saunders wrote Friday, “Blowback may be coming, and the U.S. strike against Soleimani may increase the risk of bad outcomes short of an all-out war. Those are reasons for concern. But it’s critical to distinguish such consequences from a general war.”

They added, “There will no doubt be consequences — but general war remains unlikely.”

A desire for ‘normalcy’

Dallek, the presidential historian, said that in his view, the most likely outcome of a lengthy period of civic stress is an electorate primed for a return to perceived normalcy. This is something the Democrats are counting on as the 2020 presidential campaign heats up.

“I think the outcome of all this is going to be like in 1968, when the country wanted to get back to some kind of continuity,” Dallek said.

It was that election in 1968, of course, that gave the United States the Nixon presidency.

…

The Dec. 22 parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan highlighted the complex mix of change and inertia that characterizes this Central Asian country today.

In Almalyk, an industrial town in the Tashkent region, leading journalist Dilfuza Ruziyeva said corruption is still deeply rooted, even so close to the country’s capital.

“There is very little accountability and transparency despite reform efforts and bold statements from Tashkent,” said Ruziyeva, the chief editor of the local newspaper.

Yet modest changes abound. Uzbekistan’s politicians, however befuddled they sometimes seem by the new need to respond to voters, were compelled to acknowledge and then commit to address citizens’ growing demands.

Indeed, Uzbekistan’s political class, which has long had a sense of insulation and impunity, now seems to recognize, sometimes quite explicitly, that it owes the public real answers to real problems.

Take Senator Rahmatulla Nazarov, who is shifting jobs to manage a think tank. In an impromptu interview with VOA at his suburban Tashkent polling station, he acknowledged that “distrust in the system is the biggest problem.”

Such an acknowledgement — an admission that the system has simply not been responsive to citizen concerns — has become common here, and it is changing the political discourse.

<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

Chance to Vote Boosted Uzbeks’ Hopes Despite Limited Choices

Candidates all backed government policies but were forced to answer to public and media

Alisher Qodirov, who leads Milliy Tiklanish (National Revival Party), told VOA that “for the longest time, we punished those who wanted change and pushed for progress. We tortured them, we killed them … we kicked them out. We must learn to honor the human being, ideas and human rights. Only then can Uzbekistan move forward as a society and state.”

His party claims to be the most critical of the government among the five parties that were permitted to contest the election. In fact, none of the state-sanctioned parties really opposes the policies of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev; what has changed is that the lack of real opposition can now be openly discussed.

At a pre-election debate Dec. 19, VOA asked party leaders whether they should place a higher value on security or freedom. All five leaders replied that both were important and made sure to claim to be against torture and the abuse of human rights.

Yet they offered few, if any, specific policy proposals for achieving a more balanced system. Indeed, all five struggled to explain more specific policy positions, much less differences, perhaps because so little sets them apart, and because the president, not the parties or the legislature, sets the agenda for the country. Reforms happen when Mirziyoyev wants them.

Adolat (Justice Party) leader and former presidential candidate Narimon Umarov bluntly says the political elite “did what we had to do” during the rule of the late dictator Islam Karimov, and urges citizens to “focus on the present and future now.” He says Uzbek politicians should feel “challenged in every way” by public expectations, while adding that he is personally “hopeful and energized.”

Aktam Haitov, leader of Mirziyoyev’s own Liberal Democratic Party (O’zLiDep), argues that the party deserves credit for the progress so far. O’zLiDep says it is pushing for deeper reforms in agriculture and to empower the private sector, precisely reflecting Mirziyoyev’s stated policy goals.

Ulugbek Inoyatov is a teacher who became education minister and has been widely criticized for not being effective in that role. Now, he leads Uzbekistan’s People’s Democratic Party and acknowledges that “the election campaign was a learning process for me.”

Inoyatov’s party did not have prescriptions for every problem, and its program still lacks substance. But he stresses the benefits of the improved process: “This campaign and our engagement with the people around the country is helping us to strengthen our focus,” he said.

It is easy to dismiss the electoral process, as many international observers have. Uzbekistan is neither a constitutional democracy nor on the way to becoming one. But by creating an opening for social mobilization, for citizens to question authorities, and by forcing the politicians to respond to public expectations and demands, the process marked a step toward more diverse politics.

More questions on more issues were openly aired than at any time in recent memory, including by the media. At live debates, the press corps was aggressive. And not surprisingly, the party representatives on stage seemed nervous, confused and at times forgot why they were even there.

It was long forbidden to discuss the government’s refusal to allow visits to Uzbekistan by thousands of overseas Uzbek natives, citizens and non-citizens alike. Some fear they are on blacklists, while others are simply denied entry. But during the election debate, the leaders of all five parties felt compelled to say that the country is — or should be — open to these compatriots.  

The next challenge will be to see whether the newly elected parliament can exercise more meaningful oversight of the administration.

Akmal Burhanov, a reelected MP, is calling for an end to the practice whereby legislators also operate businesses or even serve simultaneously as regional governors. Those who are elected today should work as lawmakers only if they are to provide an effective check on the government, he said.

That is why the biggest tests are yet to come. The parliament is more representative than ever before for instance, nearly one-third of its members are women, the most in its history. But as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe noted the day after the contest, “The elections showed that the ongoing reforms need to continue and be accompanied by more opportunities for grassroot civic initiatives.”

…

The morning of Dec. 22, dawned cold but bright in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, as a morning snowfall gave way to afternoon light. For the first time since the death in 2016 of the country’s longtime strongman, Islam Karimov, voters went to the polls to choose a parliament and local councils.

For the first time also, they projected the heightened expectations of a much more mobilized and aware citizenry, despite their low opinion of the current crop of candidates for the so-far toothless legislature.

“Members of parliament have no trust or respect [from] the citizens because citizens don’t feel their impact,” said Kamil Fakhrutdinov, a blogger in the region of Kashkadarya. His Yakkabog24 focuses on once-forbidden socio-political issues.

Meaningful change

Three weeks after the election, it is apparent that something meaningful has changed in this Central Asian republic, even though the electoral process itself was flawed and the country remains an authoritarian regime.

Even this highly circumscribed election gave citizens and the media space to ask questions that would have been unthinkable just three years ago.

“We are not the same passive society we were three years ago,” Fakhrutdinov told VOA. “So those who want to represent us must know that they will have been gifted [with] a trust and charged with working for the people.”

Since coming to power three years ago, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has announced a spate of reforms and changed some elements of this once brutal dictatorship. He has openly acknowledged the country’s legacy of torture and human rights abuses, removed from power the feared leader of the Uzbek security services, and dismissed dozens of national and local officials, including from the country’s coercive apparatus, such as the prosecutor’s office.

But Mirziyoyev’s hopeful words and modest actions have raised expectations sky-high, not just among international observers but, more important, among Uzbek citizens themselves. Uzbekistan is no democracy, but its citizens approached their first post-Karimov opportunity to cast votes with very real expectations for change.

Across the country, from Tashkent to regional cities like Namangan in the Fergana Valley, the process raised hopes that in the future Mirziyoyev might undertake bolder reforms and adopt enduring systemic changes. But the management of the Dec. 22 election also served to demonstrate the limits to the president’s reform agenda.

Managed Uzbek Election Exposes Mix of Reform and Inertia

Candidates acknowledged need for more reform but took care not to contradict the president

Five parties, little difference

The central problem for Mirziyoyev is that he aims to preserve the core elements of Uzbekistan’s political and economic system, and his own power, even as he opens greater space for rulers and ruled to interact. His government permitted five parties to contest seats, but all five were pro-presidential parties, chartered by the state and with proposed policies that varied not at all from Mirziyoyev’s and very little from one another’s.

No opposition parties, or opposition politicians in exile, were permitted to participate.

The Uzbek parliament itself has been historically weak. In interviews with members of the Mirziyoyev administration, as well as with the private sector, the most common criticism of parliamentarians was their lack of professionalism. Many fail to grasp even the basics of lawmaking and oversight.

That has been much on the minds of those who showed up at polling stations on voting day.

Namangan-based human rights defender Zohidjon Zakirov told VOA that voters in his region knew very little about parliamentary or local council elections, much less who was running or for what office. That sentiment was echoed in comments to VOA at polling stations.

To be sure, the voters were interested in the election. But few had illusions that meaningful changes could be expected from the candidates, who often seemed confused about why they were running, or what policies they would espouse should they win a seat.

Even so, the cynicism among the voters found expression in ways that, in themselves, suggested just how much has changed in Uzbekistan. For decades, the Uzbek media have been tightly controlled and a reliable mouthpiece of the state. But private journalists and bloggers found their voices in this contest. They asked tough questions of the candidates at state-organized debates.

In recent weeks, a humorous fake television advertisement, “As Much As We Can,” lampooned the electoral process, making fun of all five of the officially sanctioned parties by noting that they had simply promised to do “as much as we can.” The video and other commentary directly addressed the lack of substance and relevance in the political parties’ agendas.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR), which monitored the election, issued an official statement emphasizing that while the vote “took place under improved legislation and with greater tolerance of independent voices,” it “did not yet demonstrate genuine competition and full respect of election day procedures.”

Still, it added, “The contesting parties presented their political platforms and the media hosted debates, many aired live.” For a country that was among the world’s worst dictatorships just three years ago, that is notable progress that will raise citizen expectations all the more.

…

Hundreds of Iranians protested in several cities around the country Saturday after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps admitted to mistakenly shooting down a civilian Ukrainian plane, killing all 176 on board.

* VOA could not independently verify the authenticity of these videos.

…

European powers have rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for them to join him in abandoning the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, with several factors pushing them to try to keep the deal alive, analysts say.

After European Union foreign ministers held an emergency meeting in Brussels Friday to discuss escalating Middle East tensions, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said the 28-nation bloc will keep doing whatever it can to save the deal. Under the agreement, world powers offered Iran relief from international sanctions in return for limits on its nuclear program.

Trump had called on the JCPOA’s three EU signatories — Britain, France and Germany, all traditional U.S. allies — to “break away” from the deal in a Wednesday speech detailing his response to Iranian missile strikes on U.S. forces in Iraq the previous day. Iran launched the attacks, which caused no casualties, in retaliation for what the U.S. called a self-defensive strike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad last week.

“The very defective JCPOA expires shortly anyway, and gives Iran a clear and quick path to nuclear [weapon] breakout. The time has come for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia and China to recognize this reality,” Trump said. Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

“We want to save this deal if it’s possible,” Borrell told reporters after chairing the EU foreign ministers’ talks in Brussels. “Thanks to this deal, Iran is not a nuclear power,” he added.

Dispute resolution mechanism

Borrell also said the EU powers had not discussed triggering the JCPOA’s dispute-resolution mechanism in response to Iran’s series of breaches of JCPOA limits on nuclear activities in recent months or its latest threat to scrap restrictions on uranium enrichment, a process that can be diverted to nuclear bomb-making.

Diplomats have warned that Britain, France and Germany could activate the agreement’s dispute mechanism if Iran does not return to full compliance. Such an activation could lead to a U.N. Security Council “snapback” of international sanctions on Iran, a move that Tehran has said would prompt it to quit the deal and end any remaining restraints on its nuclear program.

Trump has vowed that he will never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and refused to rule out military action to prevent such an outcome.

One factor pushing EU powers to try to keep the JCPOA alive is the fear that triggering a dispute process that leads to a U.N. sanctions snapback could push the U.S. and Iran into a war.

“Any conflict between Iran and the U.S. will happen at the EU’s doorstep, and they will be the ones who will pay a price for it, in the form of waves of refugees and radicalization that would end up on European shores,” said Ali Vaez, an International Crisis Group analyst, in a VOA Persian interview.

EU powers also appear to be waiting for Iran to make the next move in its series of JCPOA breaches.

Tehran has yet to say when and by how much it will expand uranium enrichment, as it threatened to do after the Jan. 3 U.S. killing of Soleimani. Tehran also has said the International Atomic Energy Agency can keep monitoring its nuclear sites and the JCPOA breaches are reversible if European powers help the Iranian economy to circumvent crushing U.S. sanctions.

Hudson Institute analyst Michael Doran told VOA Persian that Iran would have to behave so brazenly in any further breaches of the JCPOA that it generates a backlash for EU powers to feel compelled to trigger the dispute mechanism.

“I think the Iranians understand that it’s not in their interests do that, so they will calibrate their nuclear steps very carefully,” he said. 

Waiting game

As EU powers wait for U.N. inspectors to verify the extent of Iran’s breaches of the JCPOA before deciding their next move, the U.S. may not exercise the same degree of patience. 

A State Department legal opinion reported by the Associated Press last month said the U.S. has a legal avenue to demand a snapback of U.N. sanctions without waiting for the JCPOA’s joint commission to conclude its dispute process. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA in 2018, saying it was not tough enough on Iran.

Trump’s Republican allies in Congress, including Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, have urged him to invoke the U.N. snapback of sanctions in response to Iran’s threat to back out of JCPOA limits on uranium enrichment. U.S. officials have not said whether they will heed that call.

Trump critics have disputed the State Department’s legal opinion, saying the U.S. can only trigger the U.N. snapback if it actively participates in the JCPOA and its dispute mechanism. 

“I’ve talked with the Europeans, Russians and Chinese. No one recognizes that interpretation that the U.S. has, so they don’t take this threat seriously,” Vaez said. 

EU powers also face little pressure from their domestic constituencies to walk away from the nuclear deal. 

“This is not a top priority for the European public,” Vaez said. “There are a lot of other issues they care about more, like the future of trade, the NATO alliance and 5G mobile technology.” 

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.
 

…