articles 2/28

NY Times Magazine
The Freshman

Jihadi Turns Bulldog
The Taliban's Former Spokesman Is Now A Yale Student. Anyone See A Problem With That?

Democracy Angst
What's The Alternative To Promoting Freedom In The Middle East?

Are We Playing for Keeps?

By MICHAEL RUBIN
February 27, 2006; Page A14

On Feb. 22, terrorists bombed the Askariya shrine in Samarra, Iraq. The attack shocked Iraqis and infuriated Shiites. The Iranian government sought to direct public anger toward Washington. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei blamed "intelligence agencies of the occupiers of Iraq and the Zionists." Iran's Arabic-language al-Alam television repeated the accusations on Feb. 23. Because al-Alam is broadcast terrestrially, it is particularly influential among poor Iraqis who cannot afford a satellite dish. Furthermore, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the powerful Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), a movement aligned to Tehran, blamed U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad for the attack. "Certainly he is partly responsible for what happened," Mr. al-Hakim said.

He is not, nor is Washington, despite the U.S. policymaking elite's tendency to self-flagellate. Blame for terrorism rests solely upon its perpetrators and their sponsors. Here, though, the White House has lost focus. While journalists concentrate on the daily blood, Iraqis describe a larger pattern which U.S. officials have failed to acknowledge let alone address: Step-by-step, Iranian authorities are replicating in Iraq the strategy which allowed Hezbollah to take over southern Lebanon in the 1980s. The playbook -- military, economic and information operation -- is almost identical.

Hezbollah's story begins in 1982. As the Israeli army evicted the PLO from Lebanon, Ayatollah Khomeini dispatched his elite Revolutionary Guards to the Bekaa Valley to arm and organize its Shiites. Hezbollah was born. Iranian authorities simultaneously built Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah's Sunni equivalent. (The idea that Shiites do not arm Sunnis is taken far more seriously in Langley than in Lebanon.) Tehran was so brazen in its support that, until the early '90s, it even carried a budgetary line-item. The investment paid off: Even after last year's Cedar Revolution, southern Lebanon remains under Hezbollah's control. Islamic Jihad remains a force.

Just as the Revolutionary Guards helped hone Hezbollah into a deadly force, so do they train the Badr Corps, Sciri's militia. The Badr Corps infiltrated Iraq even before U.S. forces reached Baghdad. This was reflected in the black market of Sadr City where the price of Iraqi documents rose while those of Iranian passports fell. The Iranian strategy was laid bare with its choice of representations. Its first chargé-d'affaires in post-Saddam Iraq was Hassan Kazemi Qomi, the Revolutionary Guard's former liaison to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Nor did Sciri hide its affiliation. In January 2004, a yellow Lebanese Hezbollah flag flew from Sciri's headquarters in the southern city of Basra.

Iraq's subsequent experience reflects the evolution of Hezbollah tactics. In Lebanon, Revolutionary Guard advisers imbued young Lebanese with a cult of martyrdom. Hezbollah suicide bombers moved with deadly accuracy, ultimately driving U.S. and multinational peacekeepers out of Lebanon. In 1984, Hezbollah added kidnapping to its repertoire. The Revolutionary Guards provided intelligence to the kidnappers and, in some cases, interrogated the victims. The group seized several dozen foreigners, including 17 Americans. Just as in Iraq, journalists received no immunity. In 1987, Hezbollah held ABC's chief Middle East correspondent hostage for two months. Just as in Iraq, the kidnappers sought both to win material concession and shake Western confidence.

Increasingly sophisticated bombs also accompanied Hezbollah's rise. The improvised explosive device has become the bane of coalition patrols. In October 2005, Tony Blair confirmed that bombs used to kill eight British soldiers in Iraq were of a type used by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and its Hezbollah proxies. When pressed in a November 2005 meeting in Sweileh, Jordan, an Iraqi Sunni insurgent leader acknowledged to me the "possibility" that some Iraqi Sunni insurgents took Iranian money, albeit unknowingly.

While Washington wrings its hands over the Samarra bombing, it should not play into Iranian hands and repeat the mistake of Najaf: Following the Aug. 29, 2003 bombing at the shrine of Imam Ali, coalition authorities acquiesced to demands to empower militias for security. Once implanted, militias take root. Iran is patient. While Washington rejoices in short-term calm, Tehran looks to long-term influence.

As in southern Lebanon, what cannot be won through bribery is imposed through intimidation. Neither Hezbollah nor Iraq's Shiite militias tolerate dissent. Constitutions mean little and law even less. In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is judge, jury and executioner. In Iraq, the Shiite militias do likewise. Militiamen have broken up coed picnics, executed barbers and liquor store owners, instituted their own courts, and posted religious guards in front of girls' schools to ensure Iranian-style dress.

Force, though, is not the only component of the Hezbollah playbook. In Lebanon, Hezbollah used Iranian money to create an extensive social service network. It funded schools, food banks and job centers. It's a tried and true strategy. When I lived in Dushanbe toward the end of Tajikistan's civil war, babushkas lined up under Khomeini's portrait to pick up food from the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee. Driving through Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, similar scenes unfold. While the U.S. Embassy boasts billions of dollars spent, it has little to show ordinary Iraqis for its efforts. Not so the Shiite militias. Mr. al-Hakim's son Amar has opened branches of his Shahid al-Mihrab Establishment for Promoting Islam throughout southern Iraq. They distribute food and gifts of money, so long as patrons pledge their allegiance. For impoverished Iraqis lacking electricity and livelihood, it's an easy decision.

U.S. officials have no strategy to counter this. At a recent American Enterprise Institute panel, James Jeffrey, the State Department's Iraq coordinator, said, "We don't believe in bags of money in the middle of the night like [the Iranians] do." In principle this is fine; in reality it is a recipe for defeat: While Tehran understands the importance of patronage networks, Washington does not. While U.S. funds go to Bechtel and Halliburton, Iran-backed groups address Iraqis' immediate needs. And not only is U.S. policy ineffective, but Foggy Bottom ineptitude has bolstered Tehran. Take Bayan Jabr, a Sciri functionary who, with U.S. acquiescence, became Iraq's Interior Minister: He has transformed the Iraqi police into a Badr Corps jobs program. According to one Iraqi minister, he has employed 1% of the Najaf workforce. These recruits do little, they receive a salary courtesy of the U.S. Congress, and the Badr Corps reaps the gratitude.

* * *

The final part of Hezbollah's strategy is information warfare. Since 1991, it has used al-Manar TV to spread its message. Iran founded Al-Alam for the same purpose and succeeded in beginning broadcasts three months before the U.S.-funded Iraqi Media Network commenced. Well-endowed, al-Alam provided cars and video cameras to students, making them correspondents and promising rewards to those providing footage embarrassing to the U.S. mission.

It is in the info-war that Washington has stumbled most severely. The U.S. operates in Iraq as if the country is a vacuum. Sheltered within the Green Zone, diplomats are oblivious to enemy propaganda. Resistance to occupation is Hezbollah's mantra. It is a theme both the Badr Corps and firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army adopted. Why then did Foggy Bottom acquiesce on May 22, 2003 to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483 which formalized U.S. and Britain as "occupying powers." What U.S. diplomats meant as an olive branch to pro-U.N. European allies was, in reality, hemlock. With the stroke of a pen, liberation became occupation: Al-Manar and Al-Alam barraged ordinary Iraqis with montages glorifying "resistance." They then highlighted U.S. fallibility with images of withdrawal from Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia.

Tehran has a formula for success in Iraq; Washington does not. Victory will require U.S. diplomats to recognize that any successful policy must include strategies not only to promote U.S. and Iraqi interests, but also to derail our adversaries' strategy. Iran's methods are clear. Less clear is U.S. resolve. The stakes in Iraq are high, and one side is playing for keeps. Are we?

Mr. Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is editor of Middle East Quarterly.

Ports of Gall
February 25, 2006; Page A10

"I also believe that winning the war on terror will not happen by military strength alone. This is fundamentally about America's values and leadership. . . . The idea of winning hearts and minds has been derided by some. But I don't think that we can overlook its singular importance. . ."

-- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, February 25, 2004

In Mrs. Clinton's "hearts and minds" crusade, this will not go down as a good week. A United Arab Emirates government allied with America, that provides a Persian Gulf base for U.S. military operations, and that was the first Middle Eastern country to join the U.S. Container Security Initiative, has been rewarded with Congressional demagoguery that a company it owns can't be trusted to manage commercial operations in U.S. ports. With Mrs. Clinton herself leading the jeers.

And why? For no other reason than that it would be an Arab-owned company. If it is "foreign" ownership that's alarming, the same politicians would also be denouncing the Chinese, Singaporean and British companies that already manage some U.S. port operations. So the message that all Arabs need not apply comes through loud and clear.

By the way, to make this argument does not mean we are accusing critics of racism. We are accusing them of error, not to rule out stupidity. These columns have long supported profiling young Middle Eastern-looking men in airport screening, for example, as a way of reducing the odds of another 9/11. But Mrs. Clinton was absolutely correct to note back in 2004 that to win the war on terror we need Arab and Muslim allies. And trashing friends who are engaging in legitimate commercial transactions is not a good way to keep those allies.

It is also not a good way to convince the world that we mean what we say about free trade and investment. The port-management business is dominated by non-American companies in part because high labor costs drove U.S. firms out of the business. That's also in part the handiwork of the International Longshoremen's Association, an affiliate of the protectionist AFL-CIO.

And, lo, the New York Sun reported this week that "nearly every politician who has been at the forefront of the opposition to the Dubai deal is on the receiving end of some Longshoreman largesse" in the form of campaign contributions. They include New York Representatives Peter King (R), Jerry Nadler (D) and Vito Fossella (R) and Senators Clinton, Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.).

Another sign of the protectionism at work here is the call to give Congress a larger say in vetting such transactions. But the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), the interagency panel that reviewed the DP World contract, is an executive branch function precisely to avoid the parochial concerns that dominate Congress. If Congress ran CFIUS, every Member would have a chance to interfere with every private foreign investment.

In fact, under the CFIUS statute Congress is barred from being involved in the review process until it is over, and the political meddling we see with respect to the DP World deal is the reason. Such confidentiality is important because companies are often asked to disclose proprietary information to the government. This also explains why the Bush Administration didn't brief Congress up and down about the deal in advance.

To take seriously the political criticisms of the DP World deal, you must also take seriously the notion that President Bush has suddenly gone soft on security. So the same Administration that's criticized for being overly obsessed with terrorism suddenly can't be trusted to vet a routine deal involving terminal management at a handful of U.S. ports. We can understand why some Democrats would want to make this case; the shame is that so many conservatives and Republicans have taken their political bait.

The good news is that we elect Presidents to represent the national interest on these issues, even if it means taking political heat for doing so. That's what Mr. Bush has been doing this week, and in the process he's caused some of the original yahoos to educate themselves before they demagogue again. We've also learned something about the political character of certain would-be Presidents, such as the junior Senator from New York and Majority Leader Bill Frist, who also joined the early critics. Using "national security" as an excuse for protectionism is not the best way to win anyone's "hearts and minds."

Chinese Consumers Overwhelm Retailers With Team Tactics

Mr. Zhang Haggles With Gang Over Cost of Cabinets; 'Let's Talk About Price'

By JAMES T. AREDDY
February 28, 2006; Page A1

SUZHOU, China -- Seller beware: Some of China's 1.3 billion consumers are angling for group discounts.

Chinese shoppers have long been known as hard-nosed bargainers. Now, to the dismay of merchants, some have started shopping in teams to haggle for bigger markdowns.

The practice, called tuangou, or team purchase, begins in Internet chat rooms, where like-minded consumers hatch plans to buy appliances, furnishings, food, even cars, in bulk. Next, they show up en masse at stores like Suzhou Zhongyi Kitchen Co. to demand discounts.

On a recent Saturday, Zhang Qinyong, who owns the kitchen-cabinetry shop in this city near Shanghai, found himself cornered against his display cabinets by a team of more than a dozen shoppers.

"In Suzhou, no other products are better than ours, I bet," he told the crowd. He insisted that craftsmanship and German materials made his cabinets worth more.

"Forget quality. Let's talk about price," snapped one member of the buying group, 36-year-old Guo Yong, an electrical engineer. For the next hour, the shoppers turned aside Mr. Zhang's sales pitches with an unbending response: "Thirty-five percent off!"

Cai Kun with the Chevrolet Aveo he bought with a team-purchase discount in Shanghai.

Successful haggling is a point of pride in China, where even shoppers in department stores treat price tags as mere starting points. The practice is gaining popularity at a time of unprecedented change in China's retail sector.

Name-brand consumer goods now fill the nation's stores, giving Chinese consumers more choice than ever before. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, merchants are quietly bending to consumer demands.

Group purchasing is catching on in booming cities such as Shanghai. On the Web site 51tuangou.com -- in Chinese, the name sounds like "I want to team buy" -- consumer teams formulate plans to bargain for products ranging from Buick automobiles to Panasonic television sets and refrigerators. Dozens of other Chinese Web sites offer similar services. EBay Inc.'s Chinese site offers potential bulk sellers of goods an option to solicit team bids.

Zhang Guohua, the 34-year-old founder of 51tuangou.com, says he decided to launch his Web site after saving money two years ago on bathroom fixtures for his new apartment. He arranged those purchases, he says, by posting messages in general-interest Internet chat rooms, listing the brands he planned to buy. "Let's meet at the shop," he wrote. Many did. "I was really shocked by the power of ganging up," Mr. Zhang says.

Last year, he says, 380,000 consumers registered to use his Web site, free of charge, to organize group purchases. He says he gets his profit from ads and commissions from companies that offer discounts on the site.

In the U.S. and Europe, several Web-based businesses were set up in the late 1990s to arrange discounts on group purchases of consumer goods. But customers were turned off by the amount of time it took to complete transactions and other complications, and many of the Internet businesses failed.

China's version of team buying, however, leads to face-to-face negotiations. "That's a little scary, the mob mentality," says Tom Van Horn, former chief executive officer of Mercata Inc., whose now-defunct Web site attempted to negotiate bulk discounts for U.S. consumers.

In Shanghai, when Cai Kun decided in December to buy a new General Motors Corp. subcompact, the Chevrolet Aveo, he logged onto a Web site where others were chatting about staging a team purchase. On a Saturday morning, 28-year-old Mr. Cai and 17 others met for the first time at Anji Mingmen Car Services Co., a Chevy showroom in downtown Shanghai. As planned, they told the dealership's manager they would buy 18 Aveos in one pop -- but only if he would cut roughly 10% off sticker prices as high as $12,862.

Negotiations went on for six hours. Group members broke away occasionally for private meetings. The dealer tried unsuccessfully to negotiate separately with buyers who wanted the more expensive SX model and those who didn't. In the end, the group extracted a discount of nearly 9% on a fleet of 18 Aveo cars, along with gifts such as car-wash vouchers, says one buyer. Group members such as Mr. Cai who bought the fancier Aveo SX AT, for instance, agreed to pay $11,712, about 8.9% below the sticker price. Individual buyers can normally expect a discount of as much as 6%, Shanghai Chevrolet dealers say.

Yang Feng, sales manager of the dealership that provided the discount, declines to talk about individual deals. "Team purchases aren't common," he says. "But if more than 10 buyers come together, we can give them a cheaper price than we do individuals."

Some manufacturers don't like the practice. Some Chinese dealers of sinks and toilets made by Kohler Co., for example, have offered group discounts via Mr. Zhang's Web site. The company, based in Kohler, Wis., said in a statement: "Kohler does not support team purchases via the Internet as it purely supports competition based on price."

Chinese dealers of BMW AG's luxury cars typically provide 2% discounts for four-car orders, says Jiao Jian, fleet sales manager at Shanghai Bowdex Motor Co., a BMW importer. But such discounts are intended primarily for companies ordering more than one car, not strangers who meet on the Web. In an internal memo this year, the dealership urged employees not to capitulate to buying groups set up for the sole purpose of getting a discount, Mr. Jiao says.

Cosmetics group Estee Lauder Inc. and Cartier, the jeweler owned by France's Compagnie Financire Richemont SA, say they stop team-buying at the door with fixed-price policies.

The team buyers who targeted Mr. Zhang's cabinet shop, most of them new homeowners in their 20s and 30s, met on an Internet bulletin board, where earlier postings revealed that another team last year had squeezed a 35% discount from Mr. Zhang. For two weeks, they plotted strategy, and team members visited his shop individually to view the cabinets. "If we have more people, we can of course get more discount," said one of their Internet postings.

Nearby cabinet shops were nearly vacant when more than a dozen team members filed into Mr. Zhang's store one Saturday afternoon this month and began haggling for a 35% discount. More than an hour later, Mr. Zhang appeared to be wearing down. He directed an assistant to type up and distribute an offer: 30% off cabinets, 15% off hinges and free gifts to the team.

Three hours after the group arrived, some team members continued to press for a bigger discount. Ten had put down deposits on the package offer, including Mr. Guo and his wife, who agreed to pay $875 for new cabinets. They chose Mr. Zhang's shop, they say, only because they saw the team forming on the Internet. "Last year I bought wooden flooring this way," Mr. Guo says. "I don't have too much money."