1553 Majalla

Issue 1553 • June 2010

vs AIPAC A geopolitical war is on for the soul of Jewish America, and it is asymmetrical, writes Stephen Glain

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9 771319 087105 The Majalla

Issue 1553

The Art of War

Since 2008, it been suggested that Al-Qaeda was on the decline, but what is the real state of the group and its affiliates? Rashmi Singh investigates

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On Politics

Obama and Arab-Israeli Peace: A new muscular posture? Fawaz Gerges

evaluates the US’s stance on the Arab-Israeli peace process

Candid Coversations

The Majalla talks to Othman Al-Omeir – a Saudi journalist and publisher, who has revolutionized the role of media in the Middle East

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• EDITORIAL

Established in 1987 by Prince Ahmad Bin Salman Bin Abdel Aziz Al-Majalla Established by Hisham and Ali Hafez Editor-in-Chief Adel Al Toraifi Senior Editor Manuel Almeida Editors Paula Mejia Wessam Sherif Jacqueline Shoen Editorial Secretary Jan Singfield New Media Development Officer Markus Milligan Submissions To submit articles or opinion, please email: editorial@majalla.com Note: all articles should not exceed 800 words Subscriptions To subscribe to the digital edition, please contact: subscriptions@majalla.com To subscribe for kindle edition: kindle@majalla.com Disclaimer The views expressed in this magazine are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of The Majalla and its editorial team.

Al Majalla © 2009 HH Saudi Research and Marketing (UK) Limited.

All rights reserved. Niether this publication nor any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of HH Saudi Research and Marketing (UK) Limited. For digital subscription inquiries please visit www.majalla.com/subscriptions

London Office Address HH Saudi Research & Marketing (UK) Limited Arab Press House 182-184 High Holborn, LONDON WC1V 7AP DDI: +44 (0)20 7539 2335/2337, Tel.: +44 (0)20 7821 8181, Fax: +(0)20 7831 2310 E-Mail: editorial@majalla.com Advertising For advertisement, sponsorship and digital edition, please contact: Mr. Wael Al Fayez w.alfayez@alkhaleejiah.com Tel.: 0096614411444 F.: 0096614400996 P.O.BOX 22304 Riyadh 11495, Saudi Arabia Cover image logos © J Street & AIPAC

Editorial The role of the US in the Middle East is a widely debated issue.

This is especially true for the Jewish community in the US, who for the past decades has been represented by the AIPAC, or the American-Israel Political Affairs committee. However, AIPAC is not the only Jewish lobby in town any more. J Street, the moderate alternative, has grown since its inception as a force to be reckoned with in American politics. In this issue Steven Glain discusses how the differences between these two lobbies, and their respective influence on politics, might impact the US’s foreign policy in the Middle East.

This issue also brings to you an interview with Saudi liberal and media mogul, Othman Al-Omeir. A controversial, albeit deeply influential figure in the region, Al-Omeir answers some of the most pressing questions concerning his career and the role of the media in the Middle East more generally.

In addition to these articles, The Majalla has invited Fawaz Gerges, author of America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures Or Clash of Interests, to evaluate the US’s stance on the Arab-Israeli peace process. In Obama and ArabIsraeli Peace: A new muscular posture?, Gerges explains the reasons behind the current status quo.

We invite you to read these articles and much more on our website at Majalla.com/en. As always, we welcome and value our readers’ feedback and we invite you to take the opportunity to leave your comments or contact us if you are interested in writing for our publication.

Adel Al Toraifi, Editor-in-Chief

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Contributors Stephen Glain Stephen Glain is a freelance journalist and author based in Washington DC. In 1991, he joined the Wall Street Journal, which assigned him to cover South Korea. He remained as a foreign correspondent for WST for the next decade, covering Asia and the Middle East. Glain is also a former Middle East correspondent for Newsweek. He is the author of the book Dreaming of Damascus: Arab Voices in a Region of Turmoil (John Murray, UK) and its updated, US edition, published under the title Mullahs, Merchants and Militants: The Economic Collapse of the Arab World (St. Martin’s Press), was named the best book of 2004 by online magazine The Globalist. His articles on US foreign policy, East Asia, and the Arab world have appeared in The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, the Financial Times, Gourmet Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Institutional Investor, The Globalist, and Survival. Glain is currently writing a book about the militarization of US Foreign Policy.

Christoph Meyer Chrisoph Meyer is senior lecturer in European studies at King’s College, London. His research focuses mainly on European integration, EU security and defense policy; and early warning and conflict prevention. He has provided advice to the European Parliament and the European Commission and leads the research group Foresight: Early Warning and Conflict Prevention.

Meyer holds a MPhil and a PhD from Cambridge University.

Rashmi Singh Rashmi Singh is a lecturer in terrorism studies at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

Her research focuses on terrorism, suicide bombing, ethics of war and political violence. Singh holds a History degree from New Delhi University, and a PhD from the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Edward Bowles Edward Bowles is Head of Public Affairs for Europe at Standard Chartered Bank.

He joined Standard Chartered Bank in 2007, after 5 years at the UK Ministry of Justice, where he was Chief of Staff to two Government Ministers and the Permanent Secretary. He qualified as a Barrister in 1993 and also holds an MBA from Imperial College, London.

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• CONTENTS

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Contents Quotes of the Month

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The Art of War

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On Politics

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J Street vs AIPAC

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The Wealth of Nations

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The Human Condition

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A Thousand Words

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Candid Conversations

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Country Brief

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The Critics

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The Final Word

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• The Real State of Play: Al-Qaeda and its Affiliates • An Inconsistent Message • Divide and Conquer: Sectarian Violence in Egypt

• Obama and Arab-Israeli Peace: A new muscular posture?

• Just What the Doctor Ordered: Iyad Allawi's Remedy • More Outward, but Less Southward-Looking: The EU’s Neighborhood Policy and the Maghreb countries

In the two years since its launch, J Street has created an air pocket where liberal Jews can express themselves in the otherwise stultified debate about Israel and America’s support of it

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• Stay the Course: Financial Reform in Saudi Arabia • Trouble in Euroland • Banking in the Future • Trading with Iran: A Closer Look at the Economics Behind the Politics • News Behind the Graph

• One with Nature • Playing the Identity Card

• Baiting Khamenei • The Murdoch of the Middle East

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• QUOTES OF THE MONTH

Quotes of the Month Images © Getty Images

“We are reaffirming our shared goal to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda and its extremist allies” President Obama during Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington

“This is the largest, most comprehensive spill response mounted in the history of the United States or the oil and gas industry by probably two orders of magnitude”

“While this is a major burden on me, and indeed the entire nation, we must - in the midst of such great adversity continue to gain our collective efforts towards upholding the values which our departed leader represented” Nigeria’s new President Goodluck Jonathan after the passing of President Yar’Adua

“We will not allow the country to fall into bankruptcy We will not fail to Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP live up to our responsibilities “It's a new kind of government, a radical, because of reforming government political cost” Greek Prime Minister where it needs to Papandreou told parliament ahead of the vote to pass an be and a source of austerity package reassurance and stability at a time of great uncertainty in our “It is clear that this was a terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans country too” in one of the busiest Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg regarding the first Conservative Lib Dem power-sharing coalition in the UK places in the country” US Attorney General “People are arrested for all sorts of Eric Holder after reasons. We don't feel these new the arrest of the statements provide any safety blanket” Pakistani-American argued activist Soha Abdelait, regarding the Egyptian government’s decision to extend the emergency law that has been in place since 1981 for another two years

responsible for the failed car bomb attempt in Times Square

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• THE ART OF WAR

The Real State of Play

Al-Qaeda and its Affiliates Since mid-2008 various intelligence and security analysts have suggested that Al-Qaeda was on the decline. While such arguments have been compelling, the attacks in December 2009 suggest that the organization’s operational capability and aspirations remain intact. This, of course, begs the question: What is the real state of Al Qaeda and its affiliates?

Rashmi Singh

Image © Getty Images

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n the 2nd of January 2010 US President Barack Obama made a statement that sounded eerily like George W. Bush’s in both tone and content.

Obama, in his weekly address from the White House, outlined the steps his administration had taken to protect the safety and security of the American people, emphasizing his unwavering commitment to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies.” President Obama’s statement was a response to two bombings that occurred less than a week apart in December 2009. The first was the attempted bombing of the Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by the Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The second was the successful suicide attack by Khalil Abu Mulal Al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor, in Khost, Afghanistan. Embarrassingly, Al-Balawi, who was sent by the CIA to Pakistan in order to infiltrate Al-Qaeda’s top leadership, killed seven Americans and a Jordanian intelligence officer along with himself and is now believed to have been working as a triple-agent for the ISI, CIA and Al-Qaeda.

These two attacks have once again raised questions about the state of Al-Qaeda and its allies, both thought to be in decline since early to mid-2008. In 2009 for instance, U.S. officials consistently emphasized the group’s unprecedented losses of mid-level to senior commanders as a direct result of concerted drone attacks in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FETA). Analysts believed that the decimation of this leadership, which included leaders like Biatullah Mehsud who were evidently instrumental in providing Al-Qaeda a safe haven in the region, had seriously damaged the organization and hampered its ability to effectively target the West.

However, Osama bin Laden’s recent audio tape, “From Osama to Obama,” aired in late January on Al-Jazeera, not only hailed Abdulmutallab as a hero but also claimed that Al-Qaeda was responsible for the attempted Christmas bombing. Given that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had already claimed responsibility for both orchestrating the attack and training Abdulmutallab, some US intelligence officials believe

that this statement is a poor attempt by Bin Laden, who has been relegated to a mere figurehead, to prove that he directly commands the organization’s many off-shoots.

The accuracy of this claim is questionable, considering these are the same analysts who had announced Al-Qaeda’s sharp decline.

Is Al-Qaeda really on the wane or does it still possess the ability to threaten and target the West and its interests? Any attempts to answer such questions must begin with an understanding of the true nature of what is a resilient and adaptable organization.

Steve Coll, in a testimony before the US House Armed Services Committee on 27 January 2010, categorized Al-Qaeda as being “an organization, a network, a movement or ideology, and a global brand.” Indeed, it is this very elasticity that makes Al-Qaeda as virulent and dangerous as it is today. The Al-Qaeda core has been characterized by a rigorous consistency in its function and goals. From its conception, over 21 years ago to date, the Al-Qaeda core has held true to its bylaws, committee structures and rules for succession.

Its foundational leaders, bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, have consistently lead the organization in its original efforts to inspire a wider global jihad by bringing together like-minded

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At the turn of this century for instance, Al-Qaeda’s critical power center was located in Southeast Asia, while in 2005 it held great sway in North Africa and Iraq individuals in a joint struggle against Western dominance and apostate regimes. While the nature of this deliberately constructed network has varied over time, the original aim of igniting a global jihad has remained at the heart of both the organization’s ideology and its methodology.

The Al-Qaeda network too has changed both in its shape and its geographical area of influence as the “core” has cunningly exploited emerging security vacuums but also as the fortunes of its many affiliated groups have waxed and waned. At the turn of this century for instance, Al-Qaeda’s critical power center was located in Southeast Asia, while in 2005 it held great sway in North Africa and Iraq. Today, it is strongest in Yemen, Issue 1553 • June 2010

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Somalia and Pakistan. While the core’s relationship with each regional group varies considerably it is amply clear that these groups are either core-related or core-inspired.

“Core-related” groups are those that have taken a bayat (an oath of allegiance) to bin Laden that has been acknowledged by the higher echelons of the leadership, as in the case of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), or indeed Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Then there are those groups that may be related but have not taken a bayat, such as Al-Shabab in Somalia, as well as those that may have historical connections to Al-Qaeda, such as the Pakistan-based Laskhar-e-Taiba. Theses groups not only shared training camps with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, but also sent its fighters to assist Al-Qaeda in Iraq. On the whole, core-related groups tend to have had some form of contact with the core, either through training-camps, funding or sometimes even joint operations.

“Core-inspired” groups, on the other hand, tend to lack this contact and are often self-taught and self-radicalized. This is in itself a testament to the power of Al-Qaeda’s ideology, which has emerged as a global brand primarily due to the organization’s systematic propaganda campaign. In an intercepted letter from AlZawahiri to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in 2005 the former declared: “More than half the battle is taking place on the battlefield of the media. We are in a media race for hearts and minds.”

Indeed, Al-Qaeda has successfully distributed its ideology to a global audience through the Internet. As a result, while individual recruits may never meet any core leaders, they are actively inspired, radicalized and recruited in any number of settings. It is precisely this media savvyness that makes Al-Qaeda so resilient as it allows the organization’s ideology of transnational violence to be effectively communicated to multiple disaffected audiences around the globe.

This all brings us back to the key question: Given these multiple manifestations what really is the state of Al-Qaeda? Perhaps most crucially, does it or any of its arms retain the capacity to inflict serious damage upon their perceived enemies? It is clear that Al-Qaeda and Al-Qaeda-related groups remain committed to striking the Western world and targeting what they see as apostate regimes. But it is also clear that there has been a sharp decline in political and ideological support for Al-Qaeda and its ideology in the Muslim world.

A great part of this drop is rooted in the organization’s indiscriminate use of violence against Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Yet, despite this declining support, and irrespective of the many multi-faceted, multi-pronged counter-terrorism strategies being adopted by various countries across the Middle East and the West, as long as Al-Qaeda’s ideology holds sway with even the smallest fraction of individuals that it can successfully recruit and train, it will retain the potential to inflict serious damage to life and property. This suggests that, as in the past, while there may be shifts in regional focus, and ebbs and flows in operational ability, as long as recruits are willing to travel to safe havens and security vacuums across the world, Al-Qaeda will endure. Perhaps then it is time we took Zawahiri’s words more seriously and made concerted efforts to win some hearts and minds.

Rashmi Singh - Lecturer in Terrorism Studies at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews.

This article was first published in The Majalla 22 April 2010 11

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• THE ART OF WAR

There are good reasons to be skeptical about the START II signed by the US and Russia. The message it sends to Iran that the international community is moving towards disarmament and non-proliferation is deeply flawed. While non-proliferation rules are seen as instrumental to pull off other strategic goals, and not as an important end in themselves, nuclear security will be much harder to achieve.

Manuel Almeida

Image © Getty Images

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n 8 April, the US and Russia signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) by which both countries committed to curb their nuclear arsenals by about a third. Although widely praised, there are good reasons to be skeptical about the treaty. First and foremost, because “it leaves enough nuclear warheads for the US and Russia to annihilate each other about one hundred times,” as the BBC reporter covering the event bluntly put it. As it became obvious, the main purpose was to send Iran a message that the world is moving towards non-proliferation, while Iran (and North Korea) are heading in the opposite direction. Unfortunately for world security, this message is deeply inconsistent.

Historical contingencies have determined today’s institutionalized system whereby the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are the world’s official nuclear- armed states. Other countries in the past have pursued this objective, only to be dissuaded one way or another from doing so, like South Africa and Libya. In the cases of India, Pakistan and Israel, they achieved the unofficial status of nuclear-armed powers and have all declined to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). North Korea, who signed the NPT in 1985, gave notice of withdrawal from the treaty in 2003.

It is highly unlikely that the historical nuclear-armed countries will cease to be so in the near- or mid-term future, and the current system of international rules about nuclear proliferation expresses this notion. Both IAEA policies and the NPT are consistent with the acknowledgement that, once a nuclear power, forever a nuclear power. And so, the logic goes, the best way to deal with the issue is by trusting the nuclear powers and at the same time having clear rules to supervise their nuclear activities. The problems come when exceptions are made, because they imply that there are good exceptions and bad exceptions to the rule.

The pursuit of other strategic goals often places concerns with nuclear proliferation on the back burner. This was the case with the nuclear deal signed between India and the US in 2006, which was approved by the US Congress in 2008. This deal lifted an American moratorium on nuclear technology assistance and exports to India, which dated back more than three decades.

Although part of the agreement requires that India is monitored by inspectors from the IAEA, it does not cover military nuclear facilities. As an article published recently in The Majalla noted, “India is now eligible to buy dual-use nuclear technology and equipment to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium, all of which can be used to manufacture nuclear weapons.”

A myriad of goals were behind the US’s decision to sign this deal with India. Most important was the desire to boost its strategic partnership with India – a counterbalance to China’s rise

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An Inconsistent Message

in Asia. It was also considered a significant step to meet India’s rising energy demands, and thus ease the global quest for oil and gas. And this policy cannot be attributed to the recklessness of the Bush Administration. In the origin of the US-India deal was the Hyde Act, which modified the requirements of Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act to permit nuclear cooperation with India. The Act had clear bipartisan support and was passed in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate with an overwhelming number of votes in favor. Less often noted than the other goals behind the Hyde Act is that one of the conditions of the deal was India’s alignment with the US positions on Iran.

The exceptions do not end with the deal the US signed with India. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not participate in the nuclear security summit held in Washington. With the recent tensions in the US-Israel bilateral relationship, analysts rushed to remind us that whenever America turns left and Israel turns right, relations go sour between the two countries.

Yet, Netanyahu’s absence had nothing to do with these tensions.

Never in history has an Israeli prime minister participated in an international summit about nuclear issues. And there was no reason why things should be different this time, especially when there were clear signs that a few countries, such as Egypt and Turkey, were planning to pressure Israel to sign the NPT.

The pursuit of other strategic goals often places concerns with nuclear proliferation on the back burner. This was the case with the nuclear deal signed between India and the US in 2006 What is sold as sound strategic thinking by US policy-makers is in fact lack of vision in disguise, which disregards, for example, the ambitions of jihadi militancy to obtain nuclear materials. One of the central issues of debate in the Washington summit on nuclear security was precisely the threat of terrorist groups obtaining nuclear materials. Yet, the instrumental stance adopted in Washington towards the issue of proliferation is highly counter-productive when it comes to what should be the utmost priority – curbing nuclear proliferation.

The message that this highly selective policy of determining who is allowed to be in breach of non-proliferation rules and who is not is an invitation for Iran and Pakistan to pursue their nuclear ambitions. The result is an Iran ever closer to achieving nuclear-armed capacity. Pakistan, who feels India is its biggest threat, is developing a second generation of nuclear weapons with China’s assistance and in response to Washington’s carte blanche given to India. Why shouldn’t they pursue their nuclear ambitions? India is allowed to choose when and which of its reactors are inspected, and it is making new weaponsgrade plutonium. Israel is allowed to have a few dozen nuclear warheads free from international scrutiny. Applying one rule for friends and another rule for foes does not work. This is not about something harmless like a game of hide-and-seek; this is about nuclear weapons.

This article was first published in The Majalla 26 April 2010 Issue 1553 • June 2010

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• THE ART OF WAR

Divide and Conquer Sectarian Violence in Egypt

Sectarian tension in Egypt has been on the rise, creating an internal challenge to the peace and security of Egyptian society. Not only does it present an internal obstacle, however, it also stands to be exploited by radical forces in the region, particularly Iran, vying to elevate their status.

Elizabeth Iskander and Minas Monir

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been one of the main protagonists in the sectarian violence in Iraq and the Iranian government has made no secret of its ambition to achieve regional hegemony. Gaining sway in Shia-majority Iraq, which, under Saddam Hussein, was Iran’s main enemy in the region, has removed an essential check on Iranian ambitions.

Iran has exploited the shifting geopolitical climate in the Middle East through a strategy of managed destabilization.

This enables Iran to increase its relative strength and influence in the region. Unstable states are not able to compete in the rebalancing of regional power relations. This prompted Abdullah Kamal, the editor of the Egyptian newspaper Roz Al-Yusef and prominent member of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), to claim in early 2009 that Iran represents a bigger threat to Egyptian national security than Israel.

Image © Getty Images

he dramatic shooting that took place outside a church in Nag Hammadi, a village in rural Upper Egypt, on 6 January briefly shone a spotlight on Egypt’s problem with communal violence. This was not an isolated incident. In fact, sectarianism represents a deepseated crisis, threatening Egyptian national unity from within.

Regardless of the causes of these tensions, sectarian incidents have become more than simply an internal challenge to the peace and security of Egyptian society. Sectarianism is a weakness that can be exploited – indeed, perhaps already is – by radical forces in the region as part of the struggle to rebalance power in the Middle East and reorient its ideological direction.

The potential of outside forces to exacerbate sectarian tensions was clearly illustrated in Iraq after 2003. Iran has

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Undermining the Egyptian Government Until now, Iran has focused on building its influence in Afghanistan and Iraq and constructing alliances with Turkey and Syria. Through its proxies Tehran stretches its hand towards Lebanon and Palestine. However, beyond this, Tehran’s ambitions come up against Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

We are already witnessing what many analysts describe as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Yemen. Iran is allegedly using the Houthis, a Yemeni minority group, to stir up internal conflict. Similarly, those who would exploit tensions between Muslims and Christians in Egypt are not necessarily targeting the Copts as such, but are using sectarian conflict to undermine the social order and the government that relies on it to remain in power.

Although Egypt’s position on the international stage is not as obviously pivotal as in the past, Egypt is strategically crucial to regional geopolitics and so retains considerable stature.

Egypt is also an important player in the peace process and maintains good relations with America. Consequently, Egypt continues to act as one of the principal theatres for Middle East politics and is therefore an obstacle to the extension of Iran’s aspirations for military and political dominance in the Middle East.

This clashes with Iran’s sense of its own stature in the region.

Iran would like to play a key role as mediator in the ArabIsraeli conflict so it can market itself as the champion of the Palestinian people. This would give Tehran credibility domestically and in the Arab world. It would also force the West to take Iran seriously as a diplomatic power on the world stage.

The External Dynamic In April 2009, the so-called Hezbollah cell was discovered in the Sinai. Nasrallah himself admitted that the cell was established to provide logistical support to Hamas, but not to undertake attacks in the area. It was later alleged that there were links between the Hezbollah cell and a group referred to as El-Zeitoun Organization that is thought to have carried out a number of attacks on Christians in El-Zeitoun area of Cairo, including a bomb attack on a the Church of the Virgin Mary on 11 May 2009.

During the trial, the investigations of the public prosecutor revealed that the organization’s leader was a Hamas member named Tamer Moses who had received a group of 25 men at training camps in Gaza. The group is also thought to have been financed by Hamas supporter, Mohammed Abdel-Ati, from within Egypt.

It was further reported that the design and materials of the improvised explosive device used in the attack on the church were the same as those seized in raids carried out on members of the Hezbollah cell. This suggests that there may be cooperation between Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran’s key proxies, to target Egyptian social stability.

Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood Proxies infiltrating Egypt from outside are dangerous but they cannot have the impact of a home-grown group aligned with Iran. Iran’s clear support for Hamas demonstrates that the Sunni-Shia divide is not a barrier to cooperation when it is expedient for undermining a secular government. Likewise,

The Muslim Brotherhood

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Image © Getty Images

The Muslim Brotherhood, or the Al-Ikwhan AlMuslimun, is a transnational Sunni movement with a political approach to Islam. It is also a significant opposition organization in various Arab countries, especially Egypt where it controls one fifth of the seats in parliament. The Brotherhood has branches in approximately 70 countries.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire by Hassan Al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher. Since its founding, the organization’s motto has been “Allah is our objective.

The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” This motto explains the organization’s panIslamic objective to make the Koran the sole reference for order in the Muslim family, community and state eventually leading to the creation of a unified caliphate.

The organization was created in response to Islam’s loss of social dominance, which Al-Banna believed was a result of Western influence. The Muslim Brotherhood began as a youth organization aimed at moral and social reform in Egypt, but later expanded its political involvement as the Party of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimoon.

The Muslim Brotherhood, however, has since been banned in Egypt.

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• THE ART OF WAR

80 Years of Politics 1928 Founded by Hassan Al-Banna as a youth organization.

1936 The Muslim Brotherhood takes a pro-Arab position following Anglo-Egyptian treaty and the start of the Palestinian uprising against Zion settlements in Palestine 1948 Brothers join the Palestinian side in the war against the Zionists of Palestine. In December of that year the Muslim Brotherhood is banned by Egyptian authorities.

1949 Hassan Al-Banna is killed in Cairo.

1950 The Brotherhood is legalized as a religious body.

1951 Hassan Islam Al-Hudaibi, a moderate, is elected leader of the Brotherhood.

1952 Due to their cooperation with revolutionaries, the Brotherhood is permitted to operate following the coup by the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC).

1954 As a result of differences concerning the role of Sharia versus secular law, the Brotherhood is banned again. Following the ban, a member of the Brotherhood, Abdul Munim Abdul Rauf tries to assassinate Nasser. The failed assassination attempt leads to the execution of six members along with the arrest of 4,000. Many remaining members flee to Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.

1964 A general amnesty is granted to imprisoned members. Nasser wants them to join the newly formed government party, the Arab Socialist Union, to ward off the threat of communism. The conditional cooperation policy does not succeed, and Nasser is exposed to three more assassination attempts.

1966 The top leaders of the Brotherhood are executed, and many other members imprisoned.

1970 After Nasser’s death, Anwar Al-Sadat releases imprisoned members.

1976 The Muslim Brotherhood is not allowed to participate in the general elections, leading many brothers to run as independent candidates or as members of the ruling Arab Socialist Party, gaining 15 seats.

1979 The Brotherhood opposes the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel.

1990 The Brotherhood boycotts the elections, protesting government controls at the polls.

2005 The Muslim Brotherhood is prevented from running in parliamentary elections as a political party.

But their candidates, running as independents, win 88 seats, making them the largest opposition group.

there is no barrier to an Iran-Brotherhood alliance. In fact, according to Yusef Nada, the Brotherhood’s spokesman, the close relationship between the Brotherhood and Iran was demonstrated when the group acted as interlocutor between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 1993.

This link is important because the Brotherhood challenges the political status quo as well as good relations between Egypt’s religious communities. Egyptian Christians fear that a Brotherhood-led government would return their official status to that of dhimmi.

Both Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood have a long history of confrontation with the Egyptian state. The will and testament of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini specifically referred to President Hosni Mubarak as a criminal and an enemy. The Iran-Brotherhood relationship thus operates on the basis that the enemy of an enemy has become an ally. Consequently, when the Hezbollah cell was uncovered it was Islamist lawyers connected with the Brotherhood, such as Montaser Al-Zayat, who defended those accused.

Addressing Egypt’s Vulnerability To oppose such challenges to stability and security, Egypt needs to undertake vigorous and comprehensive counter-measures.

At the domestic level, Egypt should begin to honestly and publicly address the causes of sectarian tensions. An open debate is essential so the problem cannot be exploited at the expense of national security. A culture of equal citizenship must be enshrined at the top and developed simultaneously at the grass roots through the implementation of a comprehensive legal, media and educational package of measures.

At the international level there are several steps that could be taken. Firstly, Egypt should use to its advantage that sense of political weight that the country still has. Egypt should stand up and take a leading role in the affairs of the region by establishing itself as a key line of defense against Iranian expansionism.

By promoting itself in this role, Egypt could garner the support of the international community and the Arab States. One mechanism would be to establish a regional security forum that would create an Arab bloc to cooperate with the West in addressing the challenge of Iran and to prevent nuclear proliferation in the region.

Particular efforts should be mounted to improve relations with Syria and thus undermine Iran’s “Northern Alliance.”

Such cooperation is essential as the international community struggles to find a united stance on the Iranian nuclear file and the proliferation of its proxies. Together, these steps could enable Egypt to address both the internal and external aspects of this challenge to its national security.

Elizabeth Iskander – Director of the Next Century Foundation's research programme. A Middle East analyst and writer based in London, she has published in both the English and Arabic-language media and has a particular interest in the politics, law and society of Egypt and Iran. She is also currently a Ph.D. candidate in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Minas Monir – Cairo-based journalist, translator and writer. He works on the politics, culture and religion of the Middle East. The author of several books, his main areas of expertise are Egyptian affairs and political theology.

This article was first published in The Majalla 8 May 2010

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Obama and Arab-Israeli Peace A new muscular posture?

Entering his second year in office, there were no indications that Arab-Israeli peace would be on the top of the Obama administration’s priorities. If there wasn’t much hope that Joe Biden’s visit to Israel could change the status quo, the announcement of the construction of more settlements in East Jerusalem on the same day of the vice president’s arrival delivered a further blow to the hopes for a breakthrough.

With Obama’s hands half-tied due to the position of the US Congress, Netanyahu has been playing the nationalist card at home to justify an intransigent position.

Images © Graphic News

Fawaz Gerges

P

resident Barack Obama’s second year in office began with no indication that Arab-Israeli peace would figure prominently on his foreign policy agenda.

Declining approval numbers, coupled with the burden of passing a health care bill, meant that Obama lacked the political capital necessary to take substantive steps on the peace process.

By March, Obama’s sole achievement had been an agreement for US-mediated “indirect talks” between Israel and the PLO, in addition to an Israeli commitment to “temporarily” suspend settlement building in the West Bank. Undermining the US administration’s diplomatic initiative, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that “substantive” issues concerning security and territorial status should not be part of the talks. Without an alternative, Obama reluctantly agreed.

Joe Biden’s visit to Israel: a new momentum In March, Vice President Joseph Biden’s visit to Israel was expected to symbolize the administration’s growing support for the new round of indirect peace talks. Biden was also expected to allay Israeli fears about Iran’s nuclear program. The Obama foreign policy team did not expect a major breakthrough to result from Biden’s visit.

On the first day of Biden’s visit, the Israeli Interior Ministry announced the construction of 1,600 additional housing units in occupied East Jerusalem, a highly contentious issue in the peace process. Shocked by the announcement, Biden and the White House swiftly condemned the Israeli move as an impediment to peace. Although Netanyahu apologized for the poor timing and claimed that it was accidental, his words fell on deaf ears in the White House, especially after he declared that construction of settlements would continue as planned.

In a direct and lengthy phone call with Netanyahu, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed the administration’s deep concern and displeasure with Israel’s announcement. According to State Department spokesperson, P.J. Crowley, the secretary made it “clear that the United States considered the announcement to be a deeply negative signal about Israel's approach to the bilateral relationship and counter to the spirit of the Vice President’s trip.” That same day, the Quartet released a statement condemning Israel’s move as undermining the peace process.

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The administration kept the heat on Netanyahu with Obama’s most senior advisor, David Axelrod, firing a powerful salvo. “This [the settlement announcement in East Jerusalem] was an affront, it was an insult but most importantly it undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region,” said Axelrod.

Speaking at AIPAC, the pro-Israeli powerhouse in Washington, Netanyahu was defiant: “The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today.”

Obama turns up the heat on Netanyahu While in Washington, Obama held a meeting with Netanyahu at the White House to try to find common ground and to improve US-Israeli relations after a tense few weeks. The meeting was brief and futile, with Obama supposedly still angry about the ill-timed announcement of new Israeli settlements during Biden’s visit. The president reportedly outlined a series of benchmarks that Israel would need to restart the peace talks.

These included the extension of the West Bank suspension of settlements, the cessation of construction in East Jerusalem and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied Palestinian territories. Furthermore, Obama sought Netanyahu’s approval for the indirect talks to focus on “substantive issues,” such as security and territorial status questions.

Netanyahu refused all of Obama’s demands, choosing instead to argue that his hands were tied. Unsatisfied with Netanyahu’s intransigence, Obama left Netanyahu in order to have dinner with his family. The typical formalities extended to visiting heads of state were absent, as Netanyahu left without even a photo op with Obama.

After returning to Israel, Netanyahu met with his senior ministers for five hours to discuss Obama’s demands. There was no public announcement afterwards. Netanyahu’s office released a short statement that read: "The Prime Minister's position is that there is no change in Israeli policy on Jerusalem.” Netanyahu is still unyielding.

The inconclusive nature of US-Israeli bargaining raises several questions on the future of relations between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu-led government. What does the new US posture mean? Does it signal a more muscular and aggressive approach toward Israel?

Has Obama concluded that he cannot work with Israel’s right-wing coalition?

The Congress versus the presidency In glaring contrast to Obama’s icy demeanor toward Netanyahu, the US Congress warmly embraced the Israeli prime minister. In a press-filled event attended by the leadership of the Republican and Democrat parties after Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and an Obama ally, told Netanyahu, ‘We in Congress stand Issue 1553 • June 2010

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by Israel. In Congress we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel – a rare example of congressional bipartisanship in stark contrast to the White House stance.

While in Washington, Obama held a meeting with Netanyahu at the White House to try to find common ground and to improve US-Israeli relations after a tense few weeks. The meeting was brief and futile Nita Lowey, a Congresswoman overseeing foreign aid appropriations to Israel (about 3 billion dollars a year) reassured the Israeli leadership that the 10-year memorandum of understanding (30 billion dollars) is solid. “There is strong bipartisan support for Israel in the Congress that will not falter,” stressed Lowey. Siding with Netanyahu against her own president, she sarcastically asked, “How can he go to the end stage of any discussion and give away the store in the middle of a negotiation?”

Pelosi and Lowey’s pronouncements show clearly the complexity of the US political system and the domestic challenges facing Obama in his effort to advance peace in the Middle East. When it comes to US foreign policy in the Arab-Israeli arena, Congress fetters the president’s hands and limits his options. The presidency is a very powerful institution but the Congress yields considerable power and influence, particularly on the ArabIsraeli conflict, because it speaks with “one voice,” as Pelosi bluntly put it.

In the case of Obama, some of his closest allies, like Pelosi, would desert him if he decides to exert real pressure on Netanyahu and threatens to withhold the billions of dollars in US military and financial aid to Israel.

Although in the final analysis Obama would be able to carry such a policy through, that would be too politically costly, and he would sacrifice other important policy priorities.

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Obama’s next move?

Instead of a frontal assault on Netanyahu, Obama is more likely to wage an encirclement manoeuvre and raise the stakes for him at home. It is a slow, gradual and unpredictable campaign whose outcome is unknown. Netanyahu is playing the nationalist card at home and might escape unscathed. In fact, his position inside Israel has been strengthened because he has portrayed himself as standing up to a “stranger” Obama who makes “illogical and unreasonable,” demands of Israel.

Obama’s recent political pressure on Netanyahu has produced a domino effect internationally. In response to Netanyahu’s pronouncement on Jerusalem, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon stressed that Israel should respect the significance of Jerusalem and that that the city “should emerge from negotiations as the capital of two states.” Significantly, this marks the first time that the United Nations has publicly expressed its views regarding the status of Jerusalem as the capital not only of a Jewish state but also a Palestinian state.

December 2000 Clinton Parameters In late December 2000, US President Bill Clinton made one last effort to facilitate peacemaking between the Israelis and Palestinians. The Clinton Parameters, the plan was called, set out proposals for dealing with the three most difficult issues— settlements, Jerusalem and refugees. The Council on Foreign Relations summarizes the plan below.

The plan offered the Palestinians: • Control over a sovereign, contiguous, viable state recognized by the international community.

• Sovereignty over Al-Haram Al-Sharif in Jerusalem.

• Control over the Arab sections of Jerusalem, which would serve as the capital of a Palestinian state.

• A comprehensive settlement plan for refugees that offered them several options: return to the new state of Palestine; return to the state of Israel (with restrictions); resettlement in a third country; and/or compensation.

The plan offered Israelis: • The right for 80 percent of the West Bank settlers, most of whom live near the 1967 borders, to stay put.

• Security guarantees.

• Control over the Jewish sections of Jerusalem, which would be internationally recognized as the capital of Israel.

• Control over and access to Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem, including sections of the Temple Mount.

Both sides tentatively accepted the deal with reservations; some experts say Arafat later added so many conditions that the agreement fell apart.

Clinton left office, and talks continued in January at an Egyptian resort in Taba.

(Source: Council on Foreign Relations)

Obama has forced Netanyahu to clarify his government’s position on settlements and exposed his unwillingness to abide by international consensus. What he has done is to produce a moment of clarity. The international community knows that the right-wing governing coalition in Israel, not the Palestinian Authority (PA), is blocking the start of peace negotiations. Israel is on the defensive and faces international scrutiny.

It remains to be seen if the Obama foreign policy team will offer its own proposed parameters for an eventual Palestinian state. The perception among Arabs and Muslims is that America’s biases towards Israel have been further reinforced.

In the early days of the second year of his presidency, Obama has already further dashed the expectations and high hopes of the Arab world. In an interview with TIME magazine, Obama surprised his interviewer when pressed on the Israeli-Palestinian issue: “This is just really hard... and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high.”

The future of the relationship between the US and the Islamic world seems uncertain. One hopes that Obama’s recognition of the complexities of the region will lead to a wiser policy, and that the Arabs and Muslims should not solely rely on Obama’s goodwill to deliver on his promises. They must take concrete steps to influence US foreign policy if they wish to bring about lasting change in the region, such as laying out what a comprehensive settlement entails.

The international community knows that the right-wing governing coalition in Israel, not the Palestinian Authority (PA), is blocking the start of peace negotiations. Israel is on the defensive and faces international scrutiny Obama’s next steps will be crucial in potentially resolving this stalemate. A more honest and frank US relationship with Israel, as well as a more transparent relationship with the Arab world based on common and mutual interests, not political expediency, would be a powerful legacy for the new AfricanAmerican president.

Yet, if Obama shies away from directly confronting this challenge, he risks permanently rupturing America’s relationship with the Arab and Muslim world. His actions will have a far more lasting impact than any words he spoke in Cairo last June.

Fawaz A. Gerges – Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, London University. He is author of “America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures Or Clash of Interests?” (Cambridge University Press).

This article was first published in The Majalla 17 May 2010

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Just What the Doctor Ordered Iyad Allawi's Remedy

Iyad Allawi, Iraq’s former interim prime minister and a current contender for the position, has been a prominent figure in most of the turning points in Iraq’s recent political history. Although his position as interim prime minster earned this secular Shia the stamp of American puppet, Allawi has managed to secure a political come-back in the recent elections

I

yad Allawi, Iraq’s former interim prime minister and a current contender for the position, has been a prominent figure in most of the turning points in Iraq’s recent political history.

Although his position as interim prime minster earned this secular Shia the stamp of American puppet, Allawi has managed to secure a political comeback in the recent elections.

The British-trained neurosurgeon has once again found himself in the limelight after his alliance, Iraqiya, won a narrow victory in the March parliamentary elections, with 91 seats over the 89 held by his challenger, Nouri Al-Maliki. Although Maliki still has a chance to retain his position as prime minister, Allawi’s expertise in political maneuvering will serve him well if he’s given the opportunity to create a coalition government of his own.

While very little appears to be certain in Iraq’s future political leadership – with neither contender having the 163 seats necessary for a leading majority – what is certain is that Allawi has learned from the past. After having watched Iraq plunge into sectarian violence, he has made sure that his bloc bridged the sectarian divisions that creep up every so often.

In promising that Iraqiya “will open its heart to all political forces and all those who want to build Iraq,” he managed to draw Tariq Al-Hashimi, the Sunni vice president, and Saleh Al-Mutlaq, also a Sunni, who was barred from the March elections. As a result, Allawi brought to the polls many Sunnis who had boycotted the last election, adding credibility to the development of Iraq’s burgeoning democratic system. In addition to his success in Sunni-dominated areas, he also performed strongly in Kirkuk, an area contested by Arabs and Kurds.

However, not all see Allawi as the solution to sectarian division, nor as the ideal leader of the country. Many Shiites have interpreted Sunni-support of the politician as a “disguised support for the old government,” reported The New York Times.

Mr. Allawi has also faced criticism for his leadership as the interim prime minster of Iraq. Although he had been chosen for his strong credentials as an opposition to Saddam Hussein by the US, he was deeply resented by Iraqis for having lived in exile and for the strong hand he used to fight insecurity while in power.

Before his appointment as prime minster, he had been in charge of reforming the army, police and intelligence services.

Although he opposed the purging of former Baath Party members from government positions, he was considered a hardliner when it came to security, a fact which earned him the nickname “Saddam without a mustache.”

Among his controversial decisions was his support for the US offensive in Fallujah and Najaf against Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi

army. There were also rumors that he summarily executed two suspected insurgents in 2004. These controversies, in addition to the failure of his government to undermine sectarian violence, did little for him in the 2005 parliamentary elections. His secular Iraqi National List alliance came in third to the Shia United Iraqi Alliance.

From the beginning, Allawi’s life seems to have turned around the event’s shaping Iraq. He was born into a prominent merchant family with a political legacy. His grandfather had helped negotiate Iraq's independence from Britain, and his father was a member of parliament. He too would soon become involved in politics by joining the Youth branch of the now banned Baath Party, and organizing against the government of Abdul Karim Qassim.

Allawi’s ties to the Baath Party, however, were severed early on. Due to his differences with the politics of the party, and in order to continue his medical education, he moved to London in 1971. He eventually resigned from the Baath Party in 1975, causing him to fall greatly out of Saddam’s favor. After resisting Saddam’s pressure to re-join the party, he was told by friends that his name was on one of Hussein’s infamous purging lists.

Distance, it seemed, was not an obstacle that Saddam considered sufficient to deter him from killing his enemies. Allawi was severely injured in an assassination attempt while living in Kingston-upon-Thames in 1978. His would-be assassins attacked him in his bedroom with an axe, almost cutting of his right leg and inflicting a severed wound in his chest. Although his attackers left him for dead, he is said to have yelled, “You tell Saddam I am going to survive this, and I'll take your eyeballs out.”

And survive he did. Allawi spent almost a year in a hospital recovering from his injuries. With ample time to consider his options he decided to organize Baathists in exile, founding the Iraqi National Accord, an organization whose popularity would grow exponentially after the 1990 Kuwait invasion.

In 1996, with the backing of the CIA and MI6, the group tried to initiate a coup in Iraq by employing Baathist allies in the military and government. However the attempt failed when Saddam’s security agents infiltrated the network, causing the arrest and execution of many of the plotters.

Indeed, Allawi’s involvement in politics have made him no stranger to danger or controversy, leading many to speculate over how he will deal with the current electoral stalemate. Even under the current conditions, however, he has proved adept in managing challenges. Perhaps what Iraq needs to cure the long-lasting illness of sectarian division is to give this doctor a second chance.

This article was first published in The Majalla 18 May 2010

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• ON POLITICS

More Outward, but Less Southward-Looking?

The EU’s Neighborhood Policy and the Maghreb countries The EU’s focus in the Maghreb has been on economic and security interests to the detriment of political reform and human rights. The coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty raises questions about how it will affect the Southern dimension of the EU’s neighborhood policy. Will the new provisions in the Lisbon Treaty make any difference to the coherence and focus of EU policy?

Christoph Meyer

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he coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December last year was heralded by many as an end to European navel gazing. But will the EU really reengage with the rapidly changing world with a reformed foreign policy machinery and a new cross-institutional foreign minister, Catherine Ashton? Among other things, this question relates to whether the treaty will affect the Southern dimension of the EU’s neighborhood policy. Will it continue to focus on economic and security interests relating to migration, terrorism and access to energy to the detriment of political reform and human rights?

EU Business in Africa The EU is the largest trading partner and largest export market for almost every country in Africa.

• Africa accounts for almost 9 percent of EU imports.

Half of these imports are energy products. Twentythree percent are manufactured goods and 11 percent are food and agricultural products.

• Africa absorbs 8.3 percent of EU exports.

Machinery, chemicals and manufactured goods make up more than 78 percent of EU exports to Africa.

• Europe's largest trading partner (imports + exports) in Africa is South Africa.

• Algeria and Libya are the biggest African exporters to the EU. In 2006, they exported €24 billion and €26 billion worth of goods respectively, almost entirely energy products.

• Through the Euromed process, which aims to create a free trade area of the Mediterranean by 2010, the EU has built close trading relationships with the countries of North Africa. EU-Morocco trade was worth €17.5 billion in 2006, based largely on Moroccan textiles and agricultural products, and European Machinery and industrial products. EUEgypt trade was worth €16.3 billion, based largely on Egyptian energy goods and textiles, and European machinery and chemicals.

The EU launched its so-called European neighborhood policy (ENP) in 2004 to replicate the success of Eastern Enlargement, but without being able to offer full membership to 19 countries East and South. This applies to all Maghreb countries, given that Morocco’s application for membership in 1987 was turned down by the Council of Ministers, as it was not considered “European.” The ENP offers a package of alternative incentives, including financial aid, cultural exchanges and political dialogue. What is on offer is “everything but institutions,” meaning that countries who meet the conditions set out in their Association Agreements could benefit

The EU launched its so-called European neighborhood policy (ENP) in 2004 to replicate the success of Eastern Enlargement, but without being able to offer full membership to 19 countries East and South from free access to all the benefits of the single market in the same way as Norway, Iceland or Lichtenstein. They could have observer status in many areas of EU policymaking, a voice, but no vote.

Before the launch of the ENP, the emphasis of EU policy vis-à-vis North Africa was firmly on promoting economic reform and some micro-assistance for civil society as a means of reducing labor migration. Given fears of instability by Southern European states, the EU has shied away from any significant negative sanctions for violating democratic principles and any meaningful attempts to promote opposition parties, in particular, those associated with Political Islam. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 have further strengthened the status-quo bias of the EU and its willingness to cooperate with authoritarian regimes feeling threatened by Political Islam. Neither has the EU invested serious political capital in resolving longstanding disputes such as those over Western Sahara between Morocco and the Polisario Front (backed by Algeria). The

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• ON POLITICS

Given the current troubles of the Eurozone, it is already clear that the EU will not have much money for positive conditionality and will have to ruthlessly prioritize on where to spend its money But will this translate into new political initiatives? Ahston’s first announcements since being appointed in December last year do not bode well for those hoping that the EU could help solve the region’s many problems. She has expressed interest in the Middle East peace process, but de-facto delegated responsibility for the ENP to her Czech Commissioner colleague Stefan Füle. Given that he is also responsible for EU enlargement, one cannot expect the Maghreb countries to rise on the Brussels agenda.

This is lamentable as EU influence is on the wane as China and other emerging economies are vying for access to hydrocarbons and minerals with no questions asked about political corruption, human rights abuses, and suppression of free speech and democracy. In the last three years Africa's trade with China has doubled, reaching $106.7 billion in 2008. The more authoritarian regimes in the region, will not mind concentrating on seemingly technical rather than political issues. In the meanwhile, the EU is wasting an opportunity to help resolve festering conflicts before they become virulent, and generate lasting good will with the currently excluded civil societies in the region.

Christoph Meyer – Senior Lecturer in European Studies at King’s College London.

The Africa-EU Partnership At the beginning of the new millennium, the EU launched a new dialogue with Africa to build a strategic partnership with the entire continent which would strengthen existing measures. The first summit between the EU and Africa was held in Cairo in April 2000.

A Plan of Action was adopted at the summit, highlighting these general areas: • Economic issues • Deepen the link between trade and development at international level in order to ensure that trade liberalisation contributes to poverty reduction • Respect for and protection of human rights, democratic principles and institutions, the rule of law and good governance • Peace-building and conflict prevention, management and resolution in Africa • Development measures to combat poverty • Conflict prevention and resolution (including the problem of anti-personnel landmines) • Regional cooperation and integration, integrating Africa into the world economy and trade • The environment, including the fight against drought and desertification • HIV/AIDS and communicable diseases • Food security • Human rights and democracy • The return of cultural items that have been stolen or exported illegally • Africa's external debt (Source: EU website)

Image © iStockphoto

EU’s status has not been helped by increasing attempts by individual member states to pursue their own agendas on terrorism, migration and, increasingly also, energy.

Nevertheless, the EU has made some progress in building up close contractual relations with its favorite neighbors. Morocco, for instance, was offered a privileged partnership last year given its cooperative attitudes on a range of issues, including migration and energy. Even the EU’s more awkward neighbors, such as Algeria, were drawn into contractual linkages given their most sought after oil and gas reserves and despite their resistance to political conditionality. As competition for these resources with Russia, China and other countries is intensifying, the EU has placed pragmatic self-interest and long-term transformation before norm promotion.

Will the new provisions in the Lisbon Treaty make any difference to the coherence and focus of EU policy? Given the current troubles of the Eurozone, it is already clear that the EU will not have much money for positive conditionality and will have to ruthlessly prioritize on where to spend its money.

But this makes political engagement even more important.

We can at least expect more manpower in the combined diplomatic service to analyze in more depth and more objectively future opportunities and threats related to the Mediterranean region. These include increased competition for energy resources, the multi-facetted impact of climate change, and the future of Political Islam.

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• J STREET VS AIPAC

J Street vs AIPAC The asymmetrical war for the soul of Jewish America

A geopolitical war is on for the soul of Jewish America, and it is asymmetrical. For decades, conservative groups, led by the American-Israel Political Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, have insisted that they alone spoke for a monolith known as the American Jewish community. For the first time, that claim is being seriously challenged. In the two years since its launch, J Street has created an air pocket where liberal Jews can express themselves in the otherwise stultified debate about Israel and America’s support of it. At stake, according to friends of J Street, is whether Israel can survive as a Jewish state in co-existence with its neighbors, or hunkered down and segregated in a ghetto of its own making.

Stephen Glain

Image © iStockphoto

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n March, when the Israeli government defied US President Barack Obama’s peace efforts by announcing it would build Jewish housing blocks in Arab East Jerusalem – with Joe Biden, Obama’s Vice President, in Israel on a good-will mission, no less – even Israel’s close supporters in America condemned it as an intolerable snub.

Israeli resistance against US pressure for a settlement freeze is nothing new, of course. This time, however, Americans had a place to park their outrage. Within hours after news of the slight broke, J Street, a pro-Israel, pro-peace lobbying group, received 18,000 signatures on its website from citizens expressing support for Mr. Obama’s Middle East policies. “There is a vast majority of American Jews who form a moderate center and who want Israel to survive,” says J Street media coordinator Amy Spitalnik. “We’re creating space for them.”

A geopolitical war is on for the soul of Jewish America, and it is asymmetrical. For decades, conservative groups, led by the American-Israel Political Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC, have insisted with impunity that they alone spoke for a monolith known as the American Jewish community. For the first time, that claim is being seriously challenged. In the two years since its launch, J Street has created an air pocket where liberal Jews can express themselves in the otherwise stultified debate about Israel and America’s support of it. At stake, according to friends of J Street, is whether Israel can survive as a Jewish state in coexistence with its neighbors, or hunkered down and segregated in a ghetto of its own making. “J Street has to succeed,” says a pro-peace veteran of the Israel-lobby wars who has found herself on the losing end of many a battle with AIPAC. “It cannot fail. Otherwise, the entire left will go down with it.”

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• J STREET VS AIPAC

Others discount the influence J Street or any other lobbying group might have over the making of US Middle East policy. For them, “creating space” for liberal Jews in America is less important than facing “facts on the ground” in Palestine.

“I’m under no illusion that a single organization will create that much change,” says Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center who served for years as a State Department advisor on Middle Eastern affairs. “The chances for peace will be driven not by domestic politics but the prospect of success for a deal between Arabs and Israelis.”

Liberal pro-Israeli organizations are not new to Washington, where J Street is based. (Though its name is a sly commentary on how muted is the pro-peace camp: there is no J Street in Washington’s alphabetized urban grid). There is Americans for Peace Now and the New Israel Fund, for example, which as non-profits must confine their activities to educating legislators and opinion makers about Israeli affairs. J Street, on the other hand, is registered as a political action committee, which allows it to contribute to political campaigns and endorse candidates. This year, according to Spitalnick, the group expects to raise $1 million in support of 60 candidates for mid-term elections. It has an operating budget of $3 million and it has more than a dozen full-time staff members on its payroll. It boasts 110,000 online supporters, 7,000 of whom contribute regularly to the group’s campaign war chest.

If that sounds impressive, consider J Street’s opposition.

AIPAC, long regarded as one of the most effective lobbying groups in Washington, has a $60 million budget and 300 employees. Its ability to cajole and coerce Congress to its will is legendary. AIPAC lobbyists have been known to draft resolutions on behalf of the Israeli right and get them passed into law by wide margins. Its annual convention is attended by at least half the members of Congress and it has a powerful ally in the Christian-Zionist movement in America, including Christians United for Israel, a San Antonio, Texas-based group with a congregation of 19,000 worshipers.

Needless to say, if there is an AIPAC-J Street fight going on, it is less Clash of the Titans than it is Tom and Jerry. By leveraging the internet and its small but agile web of field offices nationwide, J Street has managed to level the playing field for dissenting views on Israel’s hard line policies. During Israel’s December 2008 siege of Gaza, for example, legislator Donna Edwards of Maryland was one of a handful of lawmakers who refused to vote for a resolution supporting the Jewish state’s right to defend itself, in part because of its disproportionate response to Palestinian provocation. Angered at Edwards’ position – she and twenty-one similarly conflicted Congressmen had voted “present” on the motion – some local Jewish leaders suggested they might whip up a primary challenge against her re-election bid this year. Enter J Street, which rallied to Edwards’ defense with $30,000 in fresh campaign funds within 48 hours. Talk of a primary fight quickly dissipated.

J Street has also organized Congressional tours of Israel that counter the narrative Israeli authorities routinely spoon-feed visiting lawmakers. In February, a group of Democrats made headlines during their J Street-sponsored visit to Israel when Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon refused to see them. William Delahunt, the Massachusetts representative who led the delegation, called the decision “a real surprise and disappointment” and he implicitly scolded Ayalon, who publicly suggested that J Street is anti-Israel, for impugning the delegation’s motives. “It is

J Street Polls Jewish Community in US The following polls demonstrate the Jewish-American community's reaction to recent developments in AmericanIsraeli relations. They are indicative of this demographic's stance on what the US's position should be in the Middle East.

unwise for anyone,” he said, “to take disagreements as to how to accomplish our common goals and purpose, which is to achieve peace and security – and to misrepresent those differences as questioning support and concern for the state of Israel itself.”

Delahunt’s rebuke was resonant of J Street’s most subversive message: that the conservative establishment does not represent the sympathies of American Jews any more than occupation serves Israel’s long-term interests. Through aggressive use of polling data, the group has established how Obama’s approval ratings among American Jews is 15 percent higher than the national average; that a majority of Jews oppose further settlement building and support a strong US role in the ArabIsraeli peace process, which AIPAC and its allies implicitly oppose; and that most Jews approve of President Obama’s public criticism of the Israeli government when it obstructs the peace process. (The poll also revealed that Israel is not a major Jewish preoccupation; the country rated eighth among the average respondent’s lists of concerns.)

“People are tired of being told you are either with us or against us,” J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami told The New York Times in May. “The majority of American Jews support the president, support the two-state solution and do not feel that they have been well represented by organizations that demand obedience to every wish of the Israeli government.” His remarks were published in a story that focused on an evolving constituency of Israel sup-

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porters who reject “the old-school reflexive support of the country’s policies, suggesting that one does not have to be slavish to Israeli policies to love Israel.” For a fledgling influence-peddler in a rough market like J Street, this was a real coup.

In creating space for dissent, J Street is in many ways mining opportunities created by conservative overreach, both in the US and in Israel. Over the last few years, groups like AIPAC, often working quietly or through proxies, have adopted tactics against Israel’s critics of an increasingly thuggish cast. Legislators have complained – entirely off the record, of course – of a growing AIPAC imperiousness in their demands for votes and other displays of support. In 2006, when scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote a provocative article that alleged a pernicious Jewish lobby was manipulating US foreign policy, the attacks set a new standard for biliousness. (The Anti-Defamation League, a major conservative group called it a “classic conspiratorial anti-Semitic analysis invoking the canards of Jewish power and Jewish control.”) They were followed by a campaign against historian Tony Judt, who has called for a bi-national Palestine, and an assault on the character of Chas Freeman, a career State Department Arabist and open critic of Israel, after he was offered a key national security post in the Obama administration. The offer was ultimately withdrawn.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has tested the limits of the US-Israeli relationship like few Israeli leaders before him. In addition to his mishandling of the Biden visit, he reportedly called White House aides David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel “self-hating Jews.” His inclusion of the openly anti-Arab, some say fascistic, Avigdor Lieberman into his ruling coalition, and his refusal to endorse an independent Palestine have alienated some of the most committed of America’s Jewish Zionists.

Inevitably, J Street has made several missteps and it has disappointed liberals with policy recommendations that do not stray significantly from AIPACism. Last summer, it equivocated lamely over whether or not it would urge senators to sign an AIPAC-backed letter that called on Arab leaders to normalize ties with Israel without a reference to Israeli settlement activity.

It has expressed support for an Iran sanctions bill in Congress that the White House opposes as overly restrictive and it condemned as “one-sided and biased” a United Nations human rights report that concluded both Israelis and Palestinians committed atrocities during Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

It would be churlish to applaud J Street’s independence while scolding it for not unswervingly towing the liberal line. There may be less to the group’s initial success than meets the eye, however, for reasons that say more about the political ecology of Washington than they do about J Street’s commitment to peace. J Street has distinguished itself by emphatically endorsing an independent Palestine, contoured roughly along its pre1967 borders and with east Jerusalem as its capital. Seen from the Middle East, however, that merely places the group within a stale orthodoxy that has come to mean nothing inside Palestine itself. Demands for a settlement “freeze,” for example, are regarded in the West Bank as a hollow gesture that resonates more in America’s capital than it does in Palestine, where national survival is predicated on settlement removal.

Invariably, given Washington’s habit of domesticating overseas issues, media coverage of J Street has focused largely on the political implications of its challenge to the conservative order, with abundant references to J Street’s “David” versus AIPAC’s “Goliath.” Unexamined is the growing irrelevancy of either group Issue 1553 • June 2010

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given the estrangement of Middle Eastern reality – on one side, a Palestine divided from within and Balkanized from without; on the other, Israel’s dysfunctional and increasingly rightist political culture – from the totemic “peace process” as it is revered in Washington. As Palestinian journalist Ali Abunimah told the liberal magazine The Nation last November, “J Street is supposed to represent a tectonic shift, but it operates within the peace process paradigm and doesn’t challenge it at all.”

After eight years of Bush administration indulgence of the Israeli right, the only kind of presidential peace initiative that might succeed is one Israel is unlikely to accept, regardless of which Beltway lobbying group has the whip hand. The debate in Washington over J Street’s influence may be a lively one, but it has little to do with the region that informs it.

Only occasionally does a shaft of Middle East reality penetrate the Washington biosphere. On April 21, journalist Eyal Press discussed at the centrist New America Foundation a story he had written about the growing religiosity within the Israeli Defense Force. According to the article, published in the April 29 edition of the New York Review of Books, religious nationalists in the IDF are now so numerous and their influence so great within the officer class that an order to evacuate West Bank Jewish settlers “could spark mass mutiny.” Neither Press’ article nor his presentation rated significant mention in the mainstream media.

Stephen Glain – A former correspondent for Newsweek and covered Asia and the Middle East for the Wall Street Journal for a decade. Now based in Washington as a freelance journalist and author he is currently working on his forthcoming book about the militarization of US foreign policy.

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Stay the Course

Financial Reform in Saudi Arabia As the Western world debates about how to drive back financial liberalization, Saudi Arabia wonders whither its ongoing financial reforms should head. The Kingdom should, however, stay the course with its reforms as these are likely to bring significant improvements to its economy. The fact that these economic policies seem to go against the current tide of Western reforms should be no reason for Saudi leaders to follow in their stead.

Emma Carswell-Engle

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conspicuous if not shocking feature of today’s world is its unambiguously upside-down state. While various industrialized countries find themselves on the verge of sovereign default, emerging markets have come to represent the engine of growth and dynamism for the global economy. A noticeable consequence of this new economic environment is the rise of anxiety in Western economic debate, and, in some cases, a general neglect of sound economic principles as various countries undertake a process of financial regulatory reform. If anything, the impending regulatory onslaught has considerably heightened the need to reassess both the merits of financial liberalization and the lessons to be drawn from the crisis.

Although the crisis has not affected the world equally, it seems to have raised similar doubts everywhere. A case in point is Saudi Arabia. Notwithstanding its relatively good economic performance during the financial storm, some opinion leaders have come to question the desirability of pushing ahead with the Kingdom’s financial liberalization process. After all, some ask, didn’t countries with heavily controlled financial systems such as China and India fair better than the notoriously open UK and US during the crisis?

The Conceptual Mush Opponents of free markets have been (too) quick to herald the incompatibility of financial liberalization with a stable economy. By rashly equating liberalization with deregulation, these critics have used the unruly nature of unregulated financial markets as a justification for their questionable policy proposals. Their success is such that, nowadays, attempting to highlight this intellectual incoherence only seems to draw criticism as a free market extremist Be that as it may, the failure on the part of critics to see the contradictions in their position does not make reality any less real. After all, shooting yourself in the foot will not make you feel good, no matter how much you want to believe it. As economists (should) know, correlation is not causation; Canada and Australia were also left relatively unscathed by the financial turmoil, and this despite their fairly open financial systems.

In fact, much of this speculative incoherence is due to major misconceptions about the definition of financial liberalization as well as the origins of the global financial crisis.

Contrary to what many critics assert, financial liberalization does not mean deregulation. Rather, it means giving more rein to market forces by, inter alia, reducing capital controls

and restrictions on currency convertibility, and removing barriers to market access and discriminatory treatment between foreign and domestic suppliers. In fact, financial liberalization encourages better, not less regulation.

Saudi Economy GDP (purchasing power parity): $585.8 (†474.9) billion (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 23 $584.7 (†475.2) billion (2008 est.) $560 (†454.8) billion (2007 est.)

GDP (official exchange rate): $384 (†315) billion (2009 est.)

GDP (real growth rate): 0.2% (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 109 4.4% (2008 est.)

3.3% (2007 est.)

GDP (per capita): $20,400 (†16,736) (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 60 $20,800 (†17,067) (2008 est.) $20,300 (†16,657) (2007 est.)

GDP (composition by sector): agriculture: 3.2% industry: 60.4% services: 36.4% (2009 est.)

Labor force: 6.922 million Country comparison to the world: 62 note: about 80% of the labor force is non-national (2009 est.)

Investment (gross fixed) 24.2% of GDP (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 49 Budget: revenues: $167.7 (†137.6) billion expenditures: $164.3 (†134.8) billion (2009 est.)

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Public debt: 20.3% of GDP (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 100 18.9% of GDP (2008 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 5% (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 141 9.9% (2008 est.)

Market value of publicly traded shares: $246.3 (†202.1) billion (31 December 2008) Country comparison to the world: 20 $515.1 (†422.7) billion (31 December 2007) $326.9 (†268.3) billion (31 December 2006) Agriculture products: Wheat, barley, tomatoes, melons, dates, citrus; mutton, chickens, eggs, milk Industries: Crude oil production, petroleum refining, basic petrochemicals, ammonia, industrial gases, sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), cement, fertilizer, plastics, metals, commercial ship repair, commercial aircraft repair, construction Industrial production growth rate: 7.2% (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 125 Exports: $180.5 (†148.1) billion (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 20 $313.4 (†257.2) billion (2008 est.)

Exports – commodities: petroleum and petroleum products 90%

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Liberalization In the Kingdom Truth be told, financial liberalization is no panacea; it is even less so if carried out arbitrarily. Nevertheless, a properly sequenced liberalization process accompanied by sound regulation and effective regulatory oversight could not only help solve the Saudi economic diversification conundrum, but could also help address politically sensitive issues such as unemployment.

From this standpoint, the creation of the Tadawul, two regulatory oversight agencies (e.g. SAMA) and the King Abdullah Financial District are all positive, even if small, steps forward.

While the stock market and Saudi corporate structure slowly mature, however, it is crucial that the private sector be able to meet its capital needs. To ensure this, policymakers should continue the process of eliminating market access barriers and discriminatory treatment to foreign suppliers. By increasing competition, these policies would reduce profitability and overall costs, and encourage an increase in both quality and range of service. This would facilitate firm entry in other sectors, thus improving economic diversification and the competitiveness of markets throughout the economy.

Exports – partners: US 17.2%, Japan 15.3%, South Korea 10.2%, China 9.4%, India 5.9%, Taiwan 4.6%, Singapore 4.4% (2008) Imports: $86.61 (†71.08) billion (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 31 $108.3 (†88.8) billion (2008 est.)

Imports – commodities: machinery and equipment, foodstuffs, chemicals, motor vehicles, textiles Imports – partners: US 12%, China 10.4%, Japan 7.6%, Germany 7.3%, South Korea 5.1%, Italy 4.7%, India 4.5%, UK 4% (2008) Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: $39.98 (†32.8) billion (31 December 2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 26 $30.59 (†25.1) billion (31 December 2008 est.)

Debt – external: $72.45 (†59.45) billion (31 December 2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 40 $82.13 (†67.39) billion (31 December 2008 est.)

Stock of direct foreign investment at home: $149.3 (†122.4) billion (31 December 2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 27 $108.5 (†89) billion (31 December 2008 est.)

Stock of direct foreign investment abroad: $20.57 (†16.8) billion (31 December 2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 38 $18.07 (†14.83) billion (31 December 2008 est.)

Image © iStockphoto

Although there is little doubt, as many opponents to the liberalization process have asserted, that the rash financial deregulation of the 1990s contributed to triggering the crisis, these critics seem to have slyly glossed over one of the much more powerful triggers: the global “savings glut.”

According to this theory, for the past decade or so the US— acting as a sort of massive hedge/investment fund – has absorbed much of the extra-capital (i.e. the difference between domestic savings and domestic investment) from East Asia and the Middle East. This global financial imbalance fuelled massive current account deficits in the US, where real interest rates were kept very low. The resulting low cost of money led to massive overinvestment – what Hayek calls mal-investment – in low return assets (real-estate), creating a boom and, eventually, a bust. In this much more compelling and economically sound interpretation of the crisis, the role of haphazard deregulation is circumscribed to systematizing the crisis rather than causing it. Even so, blame should be placed on imprudent deregulation rather than financial liberalization.

(Source CIA World Factbook)

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Finally, no matter how politically sensitive the issue, capital controls need to be eased if the government is serious about promoting economic diversification and tackling unemployment.

The undervaluation of the riyal encourages Saudi oil exports and supports an inherently inefficient industrial sector. This artificial competitiveness of the industrial sector, in turn, attracts capital and labor that would have otherwise been allocated elsewhere. In “economics speak,” an undervalued peg is therefore a redistribution of income, a “subsidy” if you will, which benefits the tradable sector at the expense of the untradeable sector.

This situation results in two problems. First, the undervaluation of the riyal benefits a sector (industrial goods) that will never be able to compete with Asian industrial sectors without government intervention (the oil sector is inherently competitive and hence does not need this “subsidy”). Second, as a 2008 Chatham House report makes clear, the tradable sectors benefiting from these policies employ less labor than a vibrant untradeable sector (services sector in general) would.

Easing capital controls and restrictions on currency convertibility (floating or at least revaluating the riyal) would therefore contribute to reducing the structural distortions of the Saudi economy. It would siphon capital and labor back into the untradeable sector and encourage the diversification of the economy. This would be an efficient way of increasing the contribution of the non-oil sector to Saudi GDP (which already doubled between 2002 and 2007) and could considerably reduce unemployment since the Saudi untradeable sector is notoriously more labor intensive than the oil sector.

Yet, there is one principal requirement for all this to work. The liberalization process must be properly phased and structured within a sound regulatory framework. Government and corporate transparency is also a key ingredient for a stable and efficient financial system. Moreover, liberalization of the Saudi financial sector could help rebalance global finance by reducing the Kingdom’s chronic capital account surplus and, therefore, the financing of the American current account deficit. But this is a whole other story.

Emma Carswell-Engle - Manager of Trade and Regulation at International Financial Services in London.

Government and Oil Saudi Arabia is an oil-based economy, with 80 percent of its budget revenues, 45 percent of its GDP and 90 percent of export earnings coming from petroleum. It possesses approximately 20 percent of the world’s proven petroleum reserves and is rated as the largest petroleum exporter in the world. In an effort to diversify, the Saudi government has committed more resources to the private sector in the areas of power generation, telecommunications, natural gas exploration and petrochemicals.

Following its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in late 2005, the Saudi government began to implement its plan to establish six “economic cities” in different regions in order to attract foreign investment.

Though its comfortable financial position helped to cushion the impact of the global economic crisis, tight international credit and falling oil prices forced the government to postpone some of its development projects.

Trouble in Euroland

The soundness of the euro and the dollar as investment opportunities How can one decide between investing in a depreciating dollar and a euro burdened by the Greek debt crisis? Will the €110 billion loan package agreed by European leaders and the IMF on 2 May to save Greece from default be enough to demise any doubts about the future of the European currency? Much will depend on the unfolding of events. At the end of the day, what really matters is what European leaders do to fix the institutional shortcomings of the European Monetary Union.

Daniel Capparelli

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he Balkan region produces more history than it can consume.” Even though one may find Winston Churchill’s famous observation unpalatable by today’s code of political correctness, one can only be struck by its witty perspicacity. Albeit not comparable to triggering a world war, the region – through Greece’s economic predicaments – could once more be about to undermine (economic) stability in Europe. Indeed, how the EU deals with Greece’s debt crisis may end up defining more than the mere near future of the Greek economy; the future of the European Monetary Union (EMU) could also be at stake.

In all fairness, Greece’s problems alone are very unlikely to be fatal to the union. Nevertheless, the unfolding of events and contagion could end up sapping the credibility of the euro. For if EU members are unable to efficiently respond in a coordinated fashion to the Greek problem, one could ask, how can they provide an efficient and coordinated response to a similar situation involving one of the big EU economies such as France, Italy or Spain?

Paraphrasing Deepak Lal from UCLA, this lack of credibility is inherently related to the way the euro was created: by putting the cart of monetary integration before the horse of political union. This deficit in political integration, however, would not be so critical were the EMU to fulfill the conditions of an “optimum currency area.”

Within a currency area, dealing with high unemployment caused by asymmetric external shocks – and the resulting political pressures – requires one of two things: flexible prices and wages, or easy migration within the union. Neither exists within the EMU: Wages are highly inflexible, and language and customs are mighty barriers to migratory flows (except, of course, in the top echelons of society). Further-

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The debt crisis that has forced the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to orchestrate a €110 billion bailout for Greece risks spreading to Portugal and Spain. Combined foreign-bank exposures to the three eurozone nations currently stands at over €1.2 trillion Foreign banks’ lending to governments, banks and private sectors of Greece, Portugal and Spain: €1.27 trillion (Q4 2009) Germany Switzerland Rest of world €216bn €226bn €56bn United States €52bn

PORTUGAL

GREECE

Image © Graphic News

SPAIN

Britain €107bn Sources: Bank for International Settlements, The Economist © GRAPHIC NEWS

Other eurozone €326bn

France €210bn Spain €60bn Netherlands €17bn

more, the stability-pact precludes dealing with unemployment via exchange rates or (expansionary) fiscal policies, and fiscal transfers – bailouts in plain speak – between member states in case of crisis.

These inadequate institutions lead to situations such as Greece’s. When faced with rapid capital outflows, stiff labor markets make price adjustments between the tradable and non-tradable sectors slow, if not impossible, leading thus to unemployment, recessionary pressures and political instability.

This, in turn, has a negative impact on fiscal revenues, which undermines the ability or willingness of governments to service their debts.

Today in Europe, stressing these institutional shortcomings may readily earn one the tag of Euro-skeptic. Be that as it may, facts are facts. To quote Churchill again, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”

Take, for instance, the volatility of the euro during the Greek crisis and compare it to the stability and even appreciation of the dollar – at the epicenter of the global financial meltdown – during the worse of the global financial crisis. Much of this is explained by the much stronger credibility of the dollar face to the euro.

Many, however, argue – or hope – the euro is growing to become an alternative or even a substitute for the dollar as the main global currency. To support these views, their proponents stress the steady rise of the euro in sovereign foreign reserves and the future weakening of the dollar as a result of the spike in public expenditures during the crisis. The loose monetary policy, the liquidity measures, the asset purchase and bailouts used to avoid deflation are, truth be told, very likely to lead to inflationary pressures. As these pressures grow in the US, they Issue 1553 • June 2010

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argue, the dollar is bound to lose value, which in turn would end up eroding its status of safe heaven.

Conspicuously absent from their discourse remains the fact that although the euro has indeed grown to constitute more than one third of foreign reserves in the past decade, this has mainly been achieved at the expense of the yen and the pound sterling. During the same period, the dollar actually rose from half to nearly 60 percent of sovereign foreign reserves, the highest mark in over 30 years.

This trend might seem at odds with the dynamics of the American burgeoning public deficits and debt. As it happens, however, by considering a simple equation of costs and benefits one realizes that there are systemic incentives supporting the dollar that are absent in the case of the euro. In reality, the market seems to question the probability of a collapse in the value of the dollar by acting as if foreign governments would readily step up to support the dollar if private financing were to prove insufficient.

This market belief is not far-fetched. Take the instance where speculation would lead to a run on the dollar. In this case scenario, the American current account deficit would become untenable, leading to a depreciating dollar, rising interest rates and collapse of asset prices. The systemic reverberations of such events alone are scary enough.

The story, however, runs deeper than that. The American current account deficit is part, many believe, of what has been called the global “savings glut – referring to the massive current account surpluses ran by Asia, the Middle East and, to a lesser extent, Western Europe. For reasons extraneous to our story, these regions save more than they invest domestically and therefore need a profitable and dynamic “investment fund” for their “extra capital.” This is exactly what the US is in the eyes of observers such as Martin Wolf – a massive, safe and dynamic hedge/investment fund, a “borrower of last resort” if you will.

If this fund goes bankrupt – or is unable to sustain its current account deficit – a world recession would very likely ensue.

This is not to say that the euro is an unviable currency. The euroland has a priceless opportunity to reform its institutions in order to create the necessary conditions for a credible euro. In the absence of similar business cycles, fiscal transfers or bailouts are fundamental. The substance of the €110 billion agreed by European leaders and the International Monetary Fund is a positive step forward if Europe is serious about keeping the euro around in the medium and long run. This system needs still to be honed and institutionalized with a mechanism to minimize moral hazard. These costs are nothing more than payments for the failure to put such a system together at the inception of the EMU and for admitting countries with such a dismal history of public finances management as Greece in the eurozone.

As wagers are being raised on whom the next victim will be – mainly pointing at other Mediterranean countries such as Portugal and Spain – the dream of a strong euro superseding the dollar as a safe heaven for investors is ludicrous. Although the dollar is likely to fall in the short run, in the long run, when 30 year bonds mature no one believes the dollar will have disappeared. At this stage, no one can be sure the euro will even be around in 30 years. Although stronger, investing in the euro requires caution.

This article was first published in The Majalla 5 May 2010 35

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Banking in the Future “Return on Capital” and Basel 3

As the consultation period for the international banking regulatory reform ended on 16 April 2010, the private sector now awaits the decision on new banking rules by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the international club of regulators. Although no one can be sure of how these will affect international banks and investors, many rumors do not bode well for the future.

Edward Bowles

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eturn on Equity (RoE) is one of the most well used metrics employed by listed companies and investors as a method of communicating whether there is a “reasonable rate of return” on funds invested. The financial services industry is no exception in this respect. Nevertheless, there has been a recent backlash from European and international regulators to the use of not only the term itself, but the very reliance placed on the concept. The regulatory community is now challenging the assertion that RoE targets are an appropriate aim for the financial sector, and a relevant consideration in assessing the impact of the sweeping set of new international banking rules proposed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS).

As all readers will readily agree, a reasonable rate of return is one of the principal pillars of a market-based economy. Although banking is only one of many possible sectors where investors can place their funds, it is the principal channel for maturity transformation and credit supply; through leverage, a dollar invested in banks can be transformed into $20 or $30 made available to the wider economy. There is concern that the cumulative and individual impact of the proposed new rules – referred to as Basel 3 – is not only going to have unintended consequences for investors and the economy at large, but will also adversely impinge on emerging markets.

It is also important to bear in mind the delicate timing of these proposals. First, the USA and a number of emerging markets have not even fully implemented Basel 2 yet. Second, where Basel 2 has been implemented, e.g. in Europe, it has been done so differently. A notable example, several large continental European countries opt out of supervising institutions at Solo, and only look at the Consolidated level. This implies that some institutions are able to issue guarantees to their subsidiaries when these do not hold high enough levels of capital, whereas the Solo-supervised entities have to hold adequate capital.

The proposed rules were subject to a consultation that ended on 16 April 2010. The BCBS is now reflecting on the many responses submitted, with a view to issuing the final rules by the end of the year.

capital, and the elimination of Tier 3 as a recognized form of capital for regulatory purposes. These are all broadly sensible, so long as there is appropriate grandfathering of existing capital instruments. The exclusion of tax deductibility as a criterion for recognition as regulatory capital is also welcome.

One of the consequences of the distinction between “going” and “gone” concern capital is the proposal to write down the principal amount of non-Core Tier 1 instrument – or its conversion to Core Tier 1, if a trigger is breached. A temporary write-down would seem sensible, but a permanent write-down would put the holders of those instruments at a disadvantage compared to pure equity investors, whether in the event of liquidation or recovery. Furthermore, as discussed in my article in the March issue, the use of hard-wired triggers in a contingent convertible (CoCo) instrument could lead to a rapid downward spiral of market confidence in the institution as investors rush

Assessing Key Issues In regards to the definition of capital, the rules propose the clear distinction between Common Equity as “going concern” capital for Core Tier 1, and “gone-concern” capital in non-Core Tier 1, such as hybrid instruments. The proposals also entail the elimination of the distinction between Upper and Lower Tier 2 36

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to exit their positions and counterparties cut the lines to the institution. There is every risk that this would be likely to outweigh any loss-absorbing feature of the instrument.

There is a political drive to implement leverage ratios across the industry, despite the fact that these were in place in some jurisdictions where institutions were central to the crisis and subsequent downturn. The question, therefore, is not whether there will be a ratio, but what purpose it would serve, and what assets are included in the definition.

It would seem sensible for there to be a “backstop” leverage ratio, which would serve as an additional indicator for supervisors. For this reason, the industry is broadly supportive of including such a ratio in the reporting and monitoring requirements under Pillar 2 of Basel. However, there is pressure in some quarters of the regulatory community to include it under Pillar 1, which would hardwire it into an institution’s capital structure, rather than leave it to regulatory discretion. The key to addressing the different positions might be by ensuring that a) derivatives are included, after netting and credit risk mitigation and b) it is applied universally, including to US firms. It would also seem sensible to use “going concern” Core Tier 1 capital as the measure in any definition of leverage.

As regards counterparty risks, regulators are concerned about the ability of institutions to adequately assess their exposure to

any individual risk, and therefore have proposed a crude capital add-on, derived using a bond-equivalent as a proxy for Credit Valuation Adjustment (CVA) risk. There are a number of serious objections to this; first, on a ready calculation, the add-on seems to be considerably in excess of the underlying risk; second, banks that do not use market-implied adjustments, but historic Probability of Default movements, are not exposed to volatility in CVA, and the bond-equivalent would not address the risk appropriately for these banks. Of most concern, however, is the fact that many counterparties, especially in the “emerging” markets are not traded, and would leave banks having to use proxies such as credit indices. This would not only add basis risk to the bank’s exposure, but also result in an increased correlation of risk, as all banks would have to use the same indices.

A second proposal would entail an indiscriminate multiplier for large financial institutions, and in relation to an increased scope of exposures, including those inherently low risk facilities that support trade finance. The result would be to disproportionately impact the better-rated counterparties, which could see business driven to smaller and less well-rated institutions, as well as reducing the incentives of banks to engage in trade finance. Both these proposals will also effectively move risk outside the regulated system, which was part of the reason why this crisis came about.

There seems to be little doubt that, despite the range and depth of concerns expressed about some of the proposals, not only by the financial services industry itself, but also by many other interested parties, political pressure will ensure that the BCBS pushes through even some of the more obviously unwise elements. The reason is simple: They fear that if they do not do it now, the impetus for change will fade. What that will do to RoE remains to be seen.

The regulatory community is now challenging the assertion that RoE targets are an appropriate aim for the financial sector

Edward Bowles is the Head of Public Affairs, Europe, at Standard Chartered Bank. The views expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of Standard Chartered Bank.

This article was first published in The Majalla 26 May 2010

Image © iStockphoto

International Cooperation in Banking Supervision

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Created in 1974 by the central bank Governors of the Group of Ten (Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the UK), the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) formulates guidelines and standards of best practice in banking supervision. So far, two regulatory frameworks have been published: Basel I and Basel II. Although countries are not forced to implement these guidelines, the majority of them choose to do it since implementation reduces the perceived risk inherent of their banking systems. The latest framework in place, Basel II, is composed of three pillars: • Pillar I - Minimum capital requirements (addressing risk) • Pillar II - Supervisory review • Pillar III - Market discipline 37

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Trading With Iran: A Closer Look at the Economics Behind the Politics An analysis of Iran’s trade regime, and its economic ties to key global players

As the West continues to consider imposing tighter, more restrictive economic sanctions against Iran, it’s worth examining the trade-related foundations underpinning the political rhetoric. In particular, Iran’s economic ties with Russia and China further complicate an already complex international debate.

Amar Toor

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s Iran continues to move forward with its nuclear program, and as attempts at diplomacy have given way to more aggressive rhetoric, the spectre of economic sanctions has once again stepped out on to the international theatre’s main stage. Unlike previous sanctions, though, the current US proposal being circulated among UN Security Council members would reportedly call for an outright ban on specific transactions between UN countries and the Islamic Republic, in an attempt to more precisely target the banking, insurance and shipping sectors under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG).

The debate rages on, however, over how effective a new slate of sanctions would be in halting or even deterring Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts. While most Western powers have come out in favor of the proposed sanctions, support from Russia and China remains critical. Not coincidentally, both hesitant, veto-wielding countries also have significant economic interests within Iran’s borders.

The debate may be shrouded in political discourse, but it’s unquestionably driven by economics. And while experts and policymakers may continue to disagree over the capacity of sanctions to bring about real political change, the only way to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of prospective economic sanctions is from the bottom, with a more detailed excavation of the Iranian trade climate and the trade relations governing it.

Iran’s Trade Landscape With a full 10% of the world’s known oil reserves within its vast borders, Iran’s economy revolves, not surprisingly, around energy. In 2007, the Iranian state pulled in $57 billion in oil export revenue, comprising about half of all governmental revenue.

Oil currently comprises about 80% of all Iranian exports.

Under the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, though, the country’s domestic economy has staggered under the weight of enormous government subsidies, rising unemployment, and double-digit inflation levels. Without proper infrastructure to refine its massive supply of crude oil, the country has been forced to import gasoline. According to 38

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partners – Russia and China – have each stepped in to particularly pivotal political roles, warranting a closer look at their economic ties to Tehran.

Russian Uncertainty Russian-Iranian trade stems primarily from a similar abundance in natural gas. The two countries possess the two largest reserves of natural gas in the world, and have developed strong economic relations in an effort to capitalize on their endowment. In October 2008, Russia, Iran and Qatar, together comprising a full 40% of the world’s natural gas reserves, entered into a formal agreement to strengthen their energy related economic bonds. In addition to their energy related endeavours, Russia and Iran have, since 2008, expanded trade in agriculture, telecommunications, and aviation.

Although the Russian government officially supported each of the three previous rounds of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, it has openly helped the Islamic Republic develop its nuclear facilities in Bushehr, which will reportedly be completed in 2011. After vehemently arguing against bringing economic sanctions up for Security Council deliberation in 2005,

Image © iStockphoto

a recent Reuters report, Iran imported 23% more gasoline in February of 2010 than it did during the same month last year.

While many agree that sanctions targeting the IRCG would exert some deleterious effect upon the Iranian economy, others believe that sanctions could actually benefit specific partners.

Dr. Arang Keshavarzian, associate professor at the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University, claims that “the tightening of sanctions will benefit three groups – traders based in free trade zones in the Gulf (especially in Dubai), business interests in countries able to resist or skirt sanctions 9especially in East and Southeast Asia), and large parastatal organizations in Iran.”

Since 1996, when the US government unilaterally passed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (ISLA), Iran has greatly expanded its trade relations with specific partners. Although the EU and the People’s Republic of China lead the list of Iran’s top trade partners, recent years have seen a surge in Iranian trade with other developing countries, such as Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and India.

With the prospect of multilateral economic sanctions once again looming over Iran, two of the Islamic Republic’s trade

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• THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Russia promptly voted in favour of the measures in 2006. Once again, Russian diplomats have expressed discontent over current proposals, while acknowledging the danger that a nuclear Iran could present.

The most contentious issue surrounding Russo-Iranian relations remains the impending delivery of air defense missile systems to Iran, which were guaranteed under a 2005 contract signed between Tehran and Russia’s state owned Rosoboronexport agency. The deal has been met with derision from Western leaders, who argue that Russia is merely giving Iran the safety net incentive it needs to pursue uranium enrichment.

There has also been considerable concern expressed over Russia and Iran’s comparatively blatant exchange of scientific knowledge. For years, Iran has been allowing Russian and Ukrainian scientists free entry into the country via what policy experts call an “underground tunnel” of suspicious visa policies. Unlike other commodities traded across Russian and Iranian borders, it’s virtually impossible to gauge the true value of this knowledge exchange, although a 2009 CIA report firmly claims that the assistance of Russian experts has “helped Iran move toward self-sufficiency in the production of ballistic missiles.”

The Chinese Enigma While the EU has long been Iran’s largest trading partner, accounting for over $35 billion of total trade in 2008, China appears poised to overtake the Europeans – if it hasn’t already.

According to a February article in the Financial Times, China may have officially accounted for only $29 billion of Iran’s 2008 trade, but the actual figure is probably much higher, since a substantial portion of Iranian-Chinese trade flows are funnelled through the UAE. When these transhipments are taken into account, experts estimate the grand total value of trade flows to be at least $36.5 billion.

The Politics of Pistachios Iran is the world’s biggest pistachio producer and exporter, followed closely by the United States. In 2009, Iran’s export earnings from pistachios reached $1.2 billion, representing more than 10 percent of Iran’s non-oil exports.

Curiously, one of the world’s biggest pistachio consumers is Israel. Despite the opinions that the Israeli and Iranian governments have of each other, Iranian pistachios have reached Israel for years, mainly through EU markets. In 1996, the US alerted the relevant Israeli authorities that Israel’s inspection procedures were being inefficient by failing to determine the Iranian origin of the pistachios reaching Israel through the EU. This was not only affecting the US exports of pistachios, it also constituted a violation of Israeli national law, which prohibits the importation of goods and services from Iran. Israel acted accordingly, and made the changes to its import inspection procedures. Current estimates indicate that, by 2011, the US will replace Iran as the world’s leading pistachio exporter.

Much of Iran’s imports from China consist of consumer goods and machinery, while Iran, in turn, provides roughly 12% of China’s energy needs, as evidenced by the 23 million tons of crude oil it exported to the People’s Republic in 2009.

According to recent projections from the China National Petroleum Corporation, Chinese imports of Iranian oil could rise by as much as 9.1 percent in the coming year.

Iran, crippled by its inadequate refinery infrastructure, has begun importing greater amounts of refined fuel from China. According to a September report from the Financial Times, somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 barrels of Chinese petrol arrive in Iran on a daily basis, usually via third party intermediaries.

Much like Russia, China’s outward approach to Iran has often been orthogonal to their economic and commercial actions. Although China has supported the three previous sets of sanctions, in recent years, it has only stepped up economic cooperation with Tehran. Several Chinese firms have assisted in developing Iran’s energy capacities, including last year’s $1.76 billion contract to development of the North Azadegan oil field, and a $3.39 billion deal to produce liquefied natural gas in the South Pars field, agreed to in March 2009.

Most critical to diplomatic negotiations, though, are rumoured Chinese sales of missile technology to the Islamic Republic. China, like Russia, has a long history of arms trade with Iran, dating back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The ability of Chinese scientists to reverse engineer military technology has allowed them to reproduce old Soviet missile technology, and funnel the end products to Iran.

Just last year, an investigative report by the AP bureau in Taipei revealed that Chinese merchants had successfully delivered over 100 pressure transducers to Iran, via an elaborate chain of delivery that masked the end destination of the devices. According to nuclear experts, the only logical explanation for a country purchasing that many transducers at one time would be for uranium enrichment activities. The Chinese government maintains it knew nothing of the clandestine trade, but many have read their defense as a veiled, diplomatic attempt to avoid ruffling Iran’s feathers.

For the moment, then, the fate of a new round of economic sanctions remains, rather ironically, dependent upon support from two of Iran’s most prominent trade partners. Furthermore, while the set of sanctions currently under consideration would not directly affect Iran’s energy sector, it’s clear that the complexity of its political economy goes far beyond oil. In a diplomatic climate in which words are invalidated by actions, and in which economic figures, on their own, only tell part of the story, separating political from profit-seeking behavior has become a nearly impossible task.

It’s too early to say whether politics or economics will ultimately decide the course of action the international community takes with Iran. But judging from the deeply entrenched trade relations the Islamic Republic enjoys with two enormously important world powers, arriving at a global consensus may only be part of the equation. At the end of the day, holding Iran’s trade partners accountable to their words may prove even more difficult.

Amar Toor - Paris-based freelance writer and consultant at the OECD. The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not reflect the policy or views of the OECD. This article was first published in The Majalla 6 April 2010

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• THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

News Behind the Graph External Finance in Emerging Markets Despite their freefall in the past three years, external finance remains a fundamental element in the development of emerging markets. Indeed, foreign direct investment (FDI), international bank lending and portfolio investment stand as the main sources of external finance for developing countries.

Their fall has been without precedent in the past decades, however. Private inflows of external finance, for instance, have plummeted from over $1,500bn in 2007 to a mere $372bn in 2009. Despite falling from over $728bn in 2008, in 2009, FDI constituted the primary source of external finance with net investment reaching $430bn. Bank withdrawals from international markets reached $72bn inflow lending in 2008, while repayments attained $57bn in 2009. In 2008, the BRICS countries and Hungary amounted to the largest share of external finance: China topped the list with $124bn followed by Hungary ($68bn), Brazil ($42bn), Russia ($41bn) and India ($36bn).

Foreign Direct Investment Estimates by IMF and UNCTAD indicate that the FDI in emerging markets has increased by 6 percent to $728bn in 2008 only to decrease by 43 percent to $430bn in 2009.

Nevertheless, FDI is expected to recover in the upcoming years as a result of sustained economic growth in emerging markets. FDI flows to Asia and Central and Eastern Europe have reached $281bn in 2008. China has been the biggest source of attraction of FDI since 2001, taking up 61 percent of the total flows to Asia at $148bn in 2008. FDI in Latin America has increased $127bn, half of which is going to Brazil and Mexico. On the other hand, FDI flows to the Middle East and Africa have been significantly lower, at $78bn and $41bn, respectively.

Portfolio Investment Following a peak of $225bn in 2007, portfolio investment has experienced an $80bn net disinvestment in 2008 by foreign investors, followed by an estimated inflow of $50 billion in 2009.

China attracted the biggest share of portfolio investment inflows ($10 billion) followed by Mexico and Chile. Russia and Malaysia experienced disinvestments of over $20bn.

Investors in the US, UK and Luxemburg are considered the main sources of portfolio investment, holding 30 percent, 11 percent and 9 percent of the assets, respectively. Investors from the three countries hold about $679bn of the assets in 20 emerging markets, followed by Singapore and Hong Kong.

Brazil, Mexico, Russia and India are considered the biggest receivers of US investment, while investments from the UK and Luxemburg tend to be spread around the world.

International Bank Lending Being considerably more volatile than FDI and portfolio investment, lending has experienced a sharp decline in 2008 to $72bn following a peak of $612bn in 2007. In 2009, outflows reached only $57bn. In the same year, Russia experienced a

32 percent drop in cross-border bank finance, while lending to China decreased by 15 percent before partially recovering by the end of the year. The UK banking sector is the biggest source of lending to emerging markets, taking up 16 percent of the total international lending at $622bn in Q4 2009. The UK is followed by the US, Germany and France, with 14 percent, 10 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

Foreign Direct Investment

Source: IMF Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook Portfolio Investment

Source: IMF Coordinated Portfolio Investment survey International Bank Lending

Source: BIS Quarterly Review of Banking & Financial Market Developments

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• THE HUMAN CONDITION

The Arab world has a rich biodiversity, yet it does not come to mind as being in need of nature conservation. Jordan, however, has been an innovator in environmental conservation by merging pragmatism and principle. It does not prioritize environmental wellbeing over human welfare. Instead, it successfully integrates the two.

The progressive, balanced and culturally sensitive way in which Jordan pursues environmental conservation is a model from which other Arab countries can draw important lessons.

One With Nature Jordan’s Environmental Conservation Program

Noam Schimmel

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nvironmental conservation efforts to protect natural habitat tend to receive the greatest attention when they relate to natural habitats that have immense biodiversity and that the average person associates with teeming life, such as tropical rain forests. Because so much of the Arab world consists of desert, the Middle East does not typically come to mind as being in need of nature conservation.

Indeed, the World Wildlife Fund has prioritized 19 eco-systems around the world in urgent need of preservation. They range from the Amazon, to Sumatra and Borneo in Malaysia and Indonesia, to coastal Africa and the Congo Basin. No Middle Eastern eco-system features on this list, with the exception of the Somali coast.

But the Arab world does have its share of rich biodiversity – from the Mediterranean climate of countries such as Tunisia, which fosters unique and biologically diverse and dense flora and fauna, to the marshes and wetlands of Iraq. The great desert expanses of countries like Egypt, Jordan, Oman and others also host an array of animal and plant life, much of which is threatened due to human encroachment, pollution and overdevelopment.

During the past several decades Jordan has been an innovator in environmental conservation. Relying on indigenous resources, government policies and civil society, different interest groups have been working in concert to advance the protection of land, wildlife and plant life. Other Arab countries have followed suit, making efforts to create legally enforceable conservation programs and to rehabilitate endangered wildlife, such as the Arabian Oryx. Although, few have programs as extensive and rigorously managed as Jordan’s.

Until 2007 the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman had been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it was removed when the Omani government reduced the site by 90 percent and pursued oil prospecting on much of the land that was originally part of the sanctuary. This is but one example of the acute vulnerability of the natural environment to degradation caused by humans. Conservation, typically, is a low-priority area for governments, and fragile eco-systems are undermined as a result. In 1996 when the Omani Sanctuary was still at its full size and protected as a UNESCO heritage site there was a population of 450 Arabian Oryx living there. That number has now drastically dropped to 65, with only four breeding pairs.

Consequently, the sanctuary may not be viable in the future.

Poaching and habitat degradation are cited by UNESCO as being the main causes for this drop in the population.

Until 2007 the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman had been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it was removed when the Omani government reduced the site by 90 percent The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) in Jordan focuses on nature conservation, research and environmental education. The RSCN has a long history, dating back to 1966 when it was first established. It manages protected areas and also runs captive breeding programs to help preserve endangered species, such as the Arabian Oryx, gazelle and ibex. However, like other environmental organizations globally, in recent years the RSCN has shifted its focus from conservation efforts targeting particular animal species to habitat conservation, which maximizes overall biodiversity. It also strives to integrate the needs of local communities in its efforts, incorporating a simultaneous commitment to community development and poverty reduction.

Some current projects of the RSCN include improved water resource management in the Mujib Nature Reserve with the support of the Canadian International Development Agency; conservation of herbal and medicinal plant with the support of

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Why is Biodiversity Important?

The Links Between Biodiversity and Human Wellbeing (Source United Nations Environment Programme) Food Security: The availability of biodiversity is often a “safety net” that increases food security and the adaptability of some local communities to external economic and ecological disturbances. Farming practices that maintain and make use of agricultural biodiversity can also improve food security.

Image © Getty Images

Vulnerability: Many communities have experienced more natural disasters over the past several decades.

A common finding from the various sub-global assessments was that many people living in rural areas promote ecosystem variability and diversity as a risk management strategy against shocks.

the World Bank; eco-tourism development with the support of the United States Agency for International Development; forest conservation promotion in the Ajloun Nature Reserve area funded by the European Union; and an extensive eco-system management program for the Jordan Rift Valley sponsored by the World Bank. The RSCN has also reached out to neighboring countries, providing training in environmental management and preservation to seven Middle Eastern countries addressing water management, land use planning, law enforcement and institutional capacity building.

Sites of great environmental significance that are protected as nature reserves in Jordan include, for example, the Ajloun Nature Reserve in northern Jordan with its forests of oak, pine, pistachio, carob and wild strawberries; and a captive breeding program for deer endemic to that area, which began in 1988 and has helped restore their population.

The RSCN manages seven protected areas: Dana, Wadi Mujib, Azraq, Shaumari, Dibeen, Ajloun and Wadi Rum. These cover 1,200 square kilometers. The organization is considering the establishment of four new reserves in the next six years.

Recognizing that long-term environmental conservation depends on the conviction of the public to demand respect for the environment and hold the government accountable for doing so in its policies, the RSCN promotes public education about the importance of conservation. It has also developed educational curricula for grade school students in Jordan, relating environmental topics to subjects such as geography and science, enabling students to appreciate the value of environmental conservation.

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Health: A balanced diet depends on the availability of a wide variety of foods, which in turn depends on the conservation of biodiversity. Moreover, greater wildlife diversity may decrease the spread of many wildlife pathogens to humans.

Energy Security: Wood fuel provides more than half the energy used in developing countries. Shortage of wood fuel occurs in areas with high population density without access to alternative and affordable energy sources. In such areas, people are vulnerable to illness and malnutrition because of the lack of resources to heat homes, cook food and boil water.

Clean Water: The continued loss of forests and the destruction of watersheds reduce the quality and availability of water supplied to household use and agriculture. In the case of New York City, protecting the ecosystem to ensure continued provision of clean drinking water was far more cost-effective than building and operating a water filtration plant.

Social Relations: Many cultures attach spiritual, aesthetic, recreational and religious values to the ecosystem. The loss or damage to these components can harm social relations, both by reducing the bonding value of shared experience as well as by causing resentment toward groups that profit from their damage.

One of the unique aspects of RSCN is its merging of pragmatism and principle. It does not prioritize environmental wellbeing over human welfare. Instead, it tries to integrate the two. Wild Jordan is the business side of RSCN, which incorporates socioeconomic programs within the nature reserves that increase revenue for local communities, encourage the development of their skills to produce marketable products, and enable them to ben45

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• THE HUMAN CONDITION

Noam Schimmel is a London-based researcher and human rights practitioner with extensive development experience in the field.

This article was first published in The Majalla 18 May 2010

Playing the Identity Card

Jordan and its Palestinians Jordan has been the subject of criticism for its decision to withdraw citizenship from several thousand of its citizens of Palestinian origin.

Although the decision has been defended by Jordan as a means to counter Israeli plans to transfer the Palestinian population of the West Bank to Jordan, there is more at play in the situation. Palestinians in Jordan are predisposed to economic and political disenfranchisement, and the decision to withdraw their citizenship is an unrealistic solution to this problem.

Chris Phillips

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or a country that takes great care to promote a positive image abroad, Jordan has recently been subjected to unusually harsh criticism from Western NGOs. In February, Human Rights Watch accused Amman of arbitrarily withdrawing citizenship from several thousand of its citizens of Palestinian origin, “denying them basic citizenship rights such as access to education and health care.” Similarly, the previous month Freedom House, the Washington-based democracy watchdog, relegated the Hashemite Kingdom from the tiny list of ‘partly free’ Arab governments to the ever-increasing collection of ‘not free’ states in the Middle East.

The two complaints are not unrelated. The failure of Jordanian democratizing initiatives has much to do with government fears that genuine freedom will allow its Palestinianoriginating majority to dominate over the East Bank elite who have ruled in Amman since independence. The practice of withdrawing citizenship from a select few stems from the same concerns. Though over half of Jordan’s population are

Image © Getty Images

efit from the natural environment while simultaneously protecting it and ensuring its long-term viability. Small businesses that Wild Jordan has developed include jewelry, organic jams, fruit leathers, olive oils and products made of goat leather.

According to the RSCN, “All of these initiatives are tied to a strong promotional concept that uses ‘the reserve address’ and the conservation philosophy as the main selling points.” Some of the most successful of these projects focus on tourism and hospitality, and were first initiated in the Dana Biosphere Reserve near Petra.

Working with local Bedouin communities the RSCN developed a campsite, guesthouse and eco lodge, as well as other income-generating activities such as handicrafts, which are sold to tourists. According to the RSCN, “Such ventures continue to make nature conservation important to the lives of Dana residents and create a constituency of local support for the Reserve, which, in the past, was often a source of conflict with local people. Dana today is firmly on the ‘tourism map of Jordan,’ attracting over 30,000 visitors a year; and it has won four international awards for sustainable development.”

Because this has been a very successful approach to both environmental conservation and community development, Wild Jordan has begun to develop such tourist lodging sites and accompanying handicrafts programs in reserves throughout the country. It has also opened a center in Amman to reach tourists who are staying in the city who may wish to learn more about Jordan’s natural environment and to buy handicrafts.

By its own admission, “Getting the balance right between the interests of conservation and the interests of local people is not easy. After years of experience, RSCN and Wild Jordan have developed a well-thought-out approach to resolving potential conflicts, but it is clear that there is no magic formula for any given situation. We are always trying to apply the lessons learned from our experience and improve our ability to put both nature and people first.”

As someone who has had the opportunity to experience the intense otherworldly beauty of Wadi Rum with its giant rocky outcroppings, trickling streams and the extraordinary vistas, I can confirm that the progressive, balanced and culturally sensitive way in which the RSCN pursues environmental conservation is a model from which other Arab countries can draw important lessons from. Beyond the numbers proving the biodiversity of a particular reserve area, the detailed management plans and endless meetings between administrators and local communities, there is a feeling of expansiveness and humility in each and every one of Jordan’s nature reserves.

In the Azraq wetlands it may be the sight of a bird’s wing flapping as it takes flight; in Wadi Rum, the redness of the setting sun against the sand dunes and the clarity of the stars in the night sky; in Wadi Mujib, the freedom of clambering through streams and down waterfalls; and in the Ajloun Nature Reserve, the green density of pines and oaks and the startling redness of a wild strawberry.

After four trips to Jordan I still find myself coming back because of these sights. Of the knowledge and experience of their continuity, their wholeness and integrity, one never tires.

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of Palestinian origin, many are economically and politically disenfranchised and social divisions remain acute. Despite sixty years of attempted integration, the Hashemite monarchy has still not come to terms with its ‘Palestinian problem’.

The Hashemites’ fear of its Palestinian population has deep roots. Forty years after Jordan lost the West Bank to Israel, and sixty years since the first Arab-Israeli war, descendents of refugees from both conflicts remain in breeze block refugee camps scattered around Jordan, alongside a further 300,000 that were expelled from Kuwait during the 1990-91 Gulf Crisis. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that operate these camps, in 2003 1.7 million of Jordan’s 6.3 million population were registered refugees.

It was from these camps that Yasser Arafat’s PLO drew support in the late 1960s until they were crushed by King Hussein’s forces in the 1970 Black September civil war amidst fears that Arafat sought to replace the Hashemite monarchy with a revolutionary Palestinian state. Though Arafat was exiled to Lebanon, the idea of a Palestinian government in Jordan was revived by the unlikely source of Israel’s Likud Party in the 1980s and 90s which sought to legitimize their annexation of the West Bank with the slogan, “Jordan is Palestine.” Despite Hussein signing a peace with Tel Aviv in 1994 and renouncing his own claim to the West Bank in 1988 – thereby giving his support to the idea of a separate Palestinian homeland outside of Jordan – the election of Benjamin Netanyahu last year has revived Amman’s paranoia. Indeed, as Human Rights Watch reported, Jordanian officials defended the practice of withdrawing citizenship from Palestinians as a means to counter any future Israeli plans to transfer the Palestinian population of the West Bank to Jordan.

Yet withdrawing citizenship from every Jordanian Palestinian to guard against right-wing Israeli rhetoric would be impossible and such recent actions must be seen more as a method by disgruntled citizens rather than a tool to actually redress Jordan’s demographic balance. This is in line with a wider practice of official and unofficial discrimination within the kingdom. On the one hand, unlike refugees in Lebanon and Syria, Jordanian Palestinians enjoy full citizenship rights entitling them to live where they like, be educated and to vote. At the same time, many Palestinians face a glass ceiling whereby the vast majority of positions in the army, civil service and government are filled by the East Bank Jordanian minority. Moreover, political discrimination is widespread.

Carnegie’s Arab Reform bulletin highlights that in Jordan’s parliamentary elections, urban areas with large Palestinian populations receive the same number of MPs as rural areas with a population up to seven times smaller to ensure the dominance of East Bank Jordanians.

Magnifying these divisions is Jordan’s economy. Whilst western allies have praised King Abdullah II’s market reforms since inheriting the throne in 1999, their effects have been lopsided. Fueled by foreign investment, central Amman is currently awash with cranes building new skyscrapers, banks, luxury hotels and malls – including the new $300 million Jordan Gate complex and the $370 million Abdali Central Marketplace. Yet any benefit is largely restricted to a small elite, and the United Nations Development Programme warned recently that poverty and unemployment, Issue 1553 • June 2010

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both currently at 13%, is likely to increase. Jordanians already speak of two Ammans: the wealthy West and the poor East. Not surprisingly, most of the inhabitants of East Amman are originally Palestinian.

The division though is by no means black and white, and many among the West Amman elite are themselves of Palestinian origin. At the same time, many of the thousands of Jordanians living below the poverty line have no familial ties to Palestine. Even so, the Jordanian government is well aware of the problem of its mass of urban poor Palestinians, who resent both their economic and political disenfranchisement. This situation is only exacerbated by frustration at Jordan’s policy towards Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Despite a decade and a half of peace with Tel Aviv, Jordan’s Palestinians have seen neither material benefits at home nor relief for their relatives in Palestine. Whilst paying lip service to the Palestinian cause, Abdullah II’s apparent compliance with the US and Israel on issues such as the Iraq war, the boycott of Hamas and his comparative silence during the Gaza War only serve to heighten a perceived distance from the government.

Forty years after Jordan lost the West Bank to Israel, and sixty years since the first Arab-Israeli war, descendents of refugees from both conflicts remain in breeze block refugee camps scattered around Jordan Whilst Abdullah is clearly torn between the pro-Palestinian sentiment of his population and the need to toe the line of his western allies to secure aid and investment, the continued revocation of citizenship from Palestinians suggests that the latter will always outweigh the former. On the one hand, Abdullah appears keen to address the divisions in his society. Since assuming power, the King has launched three widespread campaigns to promote national unity. ‘Jordan First,’ ‘We are all Jordan,’ and ‘The National Agenda,’ were all designed to integrate the disparate elements of Jordan’s population, particularly the Palestinians, behind the state and monarchy. Yet these were not accompanied by any real effort to end political discrimination or economic imbalance, so it is not surprising that they had little impact on lessening dissent.

Slogans cannot paper over the cracks of decades of division. Irrespective of developments in the West Bank, until the real problem of economic and political disenfranchisement at home is addressed, Amman is likely to continue to rely on intimidation tactics like revoking citizenship and decreasing freedoms to deal with its disgruntled Palestinians.

Chris Phillips – An Associate of The Foreign Policy Centre and a columnist on Middle Eastern politics for The Guardian Online This article was first published in the Majalla 6 April 2010 47

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• A THOUSAND WORDS

Relatives embrace over the coffin of one of the victims of Israel's deadly raid on aid ships bound for Gaza on June 3, 2010

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• CANDID CONVERSATIONS

Baiting Khamenei

Interview with US Ambassador John Limbert US Ambassador John Limbert is the only serving US official to have met face-to-face Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, now the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. His meeting with Khamenei in 1981 was held under very particular circumstances, as Limbert was one of the US diplomats held for 444 days in Tehran. Limbert spoke with The Majalla about the future of US-Iranian relations.

Iason Athanasiadis

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We should see that the Afghan government has actually failed to carry out any truth and reconciliation process since 2001 Limbert was one of the US diplomats held for 444 days by the revolutionary Iranian regime. In January 1981 Khamenei swept into the US Embassy compound where the Americans were being held for a televised visit. Dressed in his clerical robes, black turban, and chunky reading glasses, Khamenei faced Limbert, whose fluent Persian was difficult to ignore. Having learned Persian during the four years he spent in Iran, the young US diplomat had a few choice words for the future Supreme Leader.

In typical Persian fashion, Limbert ditches brash American confrontationalism for honeyed, double-edged pleasantries.

Bidding the then-deputy defense minister to sit down in a bare room but for posters of Ruhollah Khomeini and a map of the region, Limbert apologizes for being unable to offer traditional Persian hospitality. “The lads haven’t brought any sweets today,” he points out, referring to his captors.

Khamenei stares at him with a glassy smile while Limbert launches into a monologue praising Iranian hospitality. Iranians are so hospitable, he dumbly enthuses, that “they don’t want to allow their guests to leave.”

So infuriating is Limbert’s verbal onslaught, it prompts Khamenei to commit the cardinal sin of any Iranian argument, however heated: brutal honesty.

“Actually, no one wants you to stay here,” Khamenei snaps back, fully aware he is being toyed with on a televised propaganda piece

Image © Eric Bridiers

merica’s top expert on Iran is the only serving US official to have had a face-to-face meeting with the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the famously aloof Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Although he rarely meets with politicians, Khamenei sometimes makes exceptions for Iranian allies such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

Ambassador John Limbert inhabits a very exclusive club: He travels the globe in his capacity as a senior State Department diplomat seeking to build an international coalition against Iran.

However, his 1981 meeting with Khamenei was conducted in surroundings entirely divorced from the niceties of diplomatic protocol. Then, Limbert was a prisoner and Khamenei, a captor.

10 February 2010: John Limbert visited Geneva in advance of the Human Rights Council's first Universal Periodic Review of Iran

January 1981: John Limbert talking with Ayatollah Khamenei inside the Embassy compound in Tehran during the hostage crisis

intended to showcase the consideration with which the new regime looks after its American prisoners, despite being burdened by the hardships brought on by the Revolution and Iraq’s invasion.

“Quite the opposite. Both the lads here and the Iranian people don’t want you to stay… they want you to leave the soonest possible,” he says.

Thirty years after leaving Iran, Limbert’s Persian is still in working order; his Iranian wife sees to that. His current appointment is a sign that US President Barack Obama recognizes the

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value of regional specialization as part of his staff ’s experience and education. It is the kind of preference that went out of fashion with the extinction of State Department Arabists such as the legendary Hume Horan, incidentally himself of Iranian origin.

As the US seeks to convince the UN Security Council’s nonpermanent members – Brazil, Lebanon and Turkey – to support added sanctions on Iran, Limbert answered The Majalla’s questions about the future of the US-Iranian relationship.

The Iranian line on the change in regime in Washington – Obama following Bush – is that there’s been a change in tone though not substance. How would you respond to this charge? In what way has US policy changed visà-vis Iran compared to the Bush years?

I think they’re missing it if that’s what they really believe. And I’m not sure that’s what they really believe or find it convenient to believe as a delaying tactic.

What are the significant changes then?

Well it’s very clear. Obama said it as early as the campaign that he was going to change this relationship. We’ve had 30 years of estrangement. Sometimes you’ve had a few signs of process going here and there but it hasn’t gone anywhere.

He said it in the campaign, he said it implicitly in his interview with Al-Arabiyya; he said it explicitly with his Nawruz (Iranian new year celebration) message; he said it in Cairo; he said it again at Oslo in his (Nobel Peace Prize) speech. It’s hard for me to see how they could claim there’s been no change. Of course, they can go out and find statements by this or that official and perhaps there’s something in them that they don’t like but to me that’s bahanegiri, making excuses.

So some of the proposals on the table that are different from those of the Bush administration include this new deal that effectively accepts Iran’s uranium enrichment program on its territory, to some degree, and the alleged withdrawal of funding for the democracy promotion program. Have there been any other substantive changes or offers?

Well, depends by what you mean as substantive. The thing that I would point to – because we deal in the realm of symbols – would be something Obama said in the Nawruz message that he addressed to, not just the people of Iran, but also to the government of Iran. This was deliberate change. The Bush administration had never done that. Even the Clinton administration had a hard time doing that. And this was deliberate.

He came back to that in his Oslo speech when he talked about engagement with governments that don’t have a very good human rights record. I think that’s a change. The other change is who he is. It’s very difficult to demonize a Barrack Hussein Obama.

But Iranians argue that this is just fancy window dressing. He has a Muslim name but he is ultimately pushing through the same policies such as the drone strikes in Pakistan and …

If that’s what they want to see, they’re going to see it, but I think in doing so they’re ignoring the reality.

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eryone was talking about the Obama effect in terms of the campaign that Mousavi had run.

The word I’ve used to describe Obama for the Iranians is not doshman but havoo. It’s a co-wife – a second wife, which is much more dangerous than an enemy because she’s younger, more attractive … between doshman and havoo.

So when you’re faced with this havoo, in a way he has stolen the enemy from them. It’s difficult to deal with it. So one of the things they’ve done is to take refuge in “well, it’s just the same thing with new window dressing.” So that’s a hard case to make.

You bring to the job an understanding of Iranian culture, fluency in Farsi alongside such people as Vali Nasr and formerly Ray Takeyh (ethnic Iranians appointed by the Obama administration as Iran experts). Is this a noticeable change in substance compared to the previous administration’s policy on Iran?

I think that this administration has made its desire very clear on what it wants to do. If I didn’t think that this was sincere I wouldn’t have accepted the job. The last time we corresponded I was very happy as a private citizen, but this was a chance to do something.

The other issue is that we’ve lost our cadre of Iranian expertise. I’m one of a species sometimes called an Iranosaurus.

You and the Arabists?

And the Arabists. We have new people who are doing great work, but between that, there’s nothing in the middle; and there are very few, maybe one or two people, still on active duty in the foreign service who actually have served in Iran.

In terms of Iranian Americans, they’re a source of information, a source of wisdom. We haven’t frankly been very good at making use of their skills but we would probably need to do better.

That is one of the charges leveled against the current cadres, that none have been in Iran since, in some cases, before the 1979 Revolution.

You can certainly make that charge against me. I haven’t been there since 1981. I’d like to go back. What I’m told is that a lot of things have changed but a lot of things remain the same.

Has there been a realization now that simply speaking nicely to Iran is not going to be a game changer as we move towards sanctions?

I don’t think it was ever that way. I hope we weren’t so naive as to think that if we’re nice to them they’ll be nice to us. I wish the world worked that way, but certainly in the case of our relations with Iran it hasn’t worked that way for a very long time.

Because when one side says they want to be nice to the other, the other side suspects a trick, because otherwise, why would they want to be nice to us?

So why the insistence, under the terms of the uranium-swap deal, that all 1,200kg of the uranium go out of Iran? This seems to be the sticking point for the Iranians who think that the deal is a conspiracy to, in one fell swoop, deprive them of their entire stock of enriched uranium.

This really is out of my area. There are a lot of theories about that, conspiracy theories for me.

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How about sanctions? How effective can they be if they are not going to target the Iranian people themselves but the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps)? To what extent can they be a game changer in bringing Iran to the table for concessions?

On the one side they will be defiant and claim they don’t care.

On the other side they don’t like being singled out as miscreants in the international community. It puts them in a category they don’t like to be, down with the Libyans and the Sudanese.

And I don’t have to tell you what the Iranian view of their Arab friends is (smiles).

That’s psychological, but I think it matters. The other piece is whom they will affect. The intention is not to harm the great majority of the Iranian people. They’ve suffered a lot as it is and had to put up with a lot, and it’s not our intention to increase that. The intention is to get to the people or institutions that are beating them up, throwing them in prison, shooting at them, gassing them. And if you can do that, and visibly, at least according to what I hear, those kind of sanctions would get support.

Sometimes isn’t there an element of cultural relativism in the US approach to Iran and the greater region? That somehow “they are the baddies who need to be punished and then there are the goodies who are on our side.”

I don’t think anyone’s claiming that these sanctions will bring democracy to Iran. A question I get many times from Iranian friends is “we’re suffering under a difficult government. Can you help us? What can you do for us?” We can make statements; we can bear witness. But is there something else one can do?

So what was your impression of Khamenei when you met him? How did he come across?

Well, we were all 30 years younger at the time. I was baiting him. You’ve seen the video [http://niacblog.wordpress. com/2009/11/04/hostage-john-limbert-speaking-withkhamenei/]. At first I think he wanted to elicit some kind of statement from me but when he realized what was going on— because I think he’s a pretty smart person—he realized what was going on and then he played along.

Did you feel at that point that you were speaking with someone who was going to be the top guy in a few years’ time?

I had no idea. I had no idea. Obviously he was very much part of the inner circle. At the time he was Friday prayer leader of Tehran and also a member of the Supreme Defense Council.

This was a period when there really wasn’t any government as such. The provisional government had fallen—there was no parliament; there was a kind of temporary arrangement. But Friday prayer leader of Tehran, even then, was a very important post. The Friday prayer leaders in the key cities were definitely members of the inner circle.

And so if you met him again, what would you talk about?

I’d be happy to meet him again. We could reminisce about meeting 30 years ago.

Do you think that personal touch is something key in diplomacy?

It should be. It is, but… I don’t have an invitation to go there.

4 November 1979 BBC News reports Militants storm US embassy in Tehran Militant Islamic students in Iran have stormed the US embassy in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and taken more than 90 people hostage. The students have demanded that the Shah of Iran, who fled the country in January, be extradited from the US, where he is currently receiving medical treatment for cancer, to stand trial in Iran.

It is reported that revolutionary guards and police did nothing to stop the take-over and Iranian television has indicated its support for the action by broadcasting live pictures of the siege. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who assumed control of Iran in February, has also voiced his support for the occupation.

‘Show of strength’ It is not clear at this stage how many of the hostages are American although it is estimated that the figure is approximately 65. One of the hostage-takers, speaking to reporters by telephone from inside the embassy, gave assurances that there was no immediate danger to the hostages, that they were safe and were being fed. He said the action was a show of strength and the hostages could be released in the next two or three days.

Supporters of the siege, many of them children, have gathered outside the embassy. Some have set fire to American flags and have posted anti-American messages around the building. As yet there has been no official reaction to the siege from America.

The storming of the embassy follows months of political and religious tension in Iran. Violent protests against Shah Reza Pahlavi's regime culminated in a revolution coordinated by Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in France.

In January the Shah and his family fled Iran and are currently in the US. Within weeks, Ayatollah Khomeini, who had been expelled from Iran by the Shah in 1964, returned to Iran and was greeted by more than five million devotees lining the streets of Tehran.

The Ayatollah immediately dismissed Prime Minister Shapur Bahktiar and installed Mehdi Bzargan as his replacement. He declared an Islamic Republic of Iran in April and since then he has presided over a brutal and repressive regime. Thousands of westerners living in Iran have already fled the country in fear of their lives.

Interview conducted by Iason Athanasiadis – journalist based in Istanbul, covers Turkey, the Middle East and Central Asia. Since 1999, he has lived in Cairo, Damascus, Doha, Sana’a and Tehran.

This article was first published in The Majalla 10 April 2010

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The Murdoch of the Middle East Othman Al-Omeir, Saudi journalist and publisher

Othman Al-Omeir is a Saudi journalist and publisher, who has revolutionized the role of media in the Middle East. This media mogul is not only known for his professional accomplishments, he is also a vocal liberal in an otherwise conservative region.

Paula Mejia

O

thman Al-Omeir has revolutionized the role of media in the Middle East. This media mogul is not only known for his professional accomplishments, he is also a vocal liberal in an otherwise conservative country.

Born in 1950 in Riyadh, Al-Omeir pursued his education at the University of Medina. He later began his career in journalism as a junior sports correspondent for a Saudi newspaper. He quickly established a name for himself and became managing editor and London correspondent for Al-Jazeera newspaper in Riyadh. Among his many accomplishments, Al-Omeir has been editor in chief of Al-Yawm newspaper, editor in chief of Al-Majalla, and a member of the board of directors for AlJazeera newspaper in Saudi Arabia.

During his long career in journalism he interviewed many world leaders exclusively including President George Bush Senior, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister John Major, Chancellor Helmot Kohl, President Jacque Chirak, King Fahad, President Husni Mubarak, King Hassan II, President Zainulabideen Bin Ali, President Rafsanjani, President Gorbachev and many more.

Al-Omeir’s business savvy has allowed him to undertake various publishing ventures. He set up a UK-based media company, OR Media Limited, in partnership with Abdulrahman AlRashed to produce TV programs for Middle East, British and American stations. He also launched Elaph Publishing Limited in the UK and its associated company in Saudi Arabia, which quickly became the leading Arabic news portal. Mr. Omeir is currently undertaking plans to publish Elaph online as a printed newspaper throughout the world. In addition, Mr. Omeir acquired the Maroc Soir publishing house, the leading newspaper publisher in Casablanca Morocco, which publishes Le Matin, a daily newspaper in French, Al-Sahara Al-Maghribia, a daily newspaper in Arabic, moroccotimes.com, an English language news web site, and La Manana, a weekly Spanish language newspaper.

Al-Omeir’s many accomplishments have been recognized extensively. He is currently a member of the Royal Academy in Morocco, and in 2006 he was awarded Media Man of the Year by the Arab Media Forum in Dubai.

As the former editor in chief of The Majalla, how do you remember the magazine? How has it evolved?

It was a golden time for me because Al-Majalla was one of the main Arab magazines. It was a golden age for the Arab media, for the newspapers.

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At that time there were few serious programs on television, and there was no Internet. Magazines were one of the big resources people relied on for information. We had many intellectual and distinguished writers, like Tayeb Saleh, Buland AlHaidari, among others.

I was very serious about my position as editor in chief and was passionate about my job. I think this is partly why the magazine was successful.

You are well known in Arab media, but you are a divisive figure. Some have described you as more inclined towards PR than journalism. How do you see your role in the media?

I don’t see anything wrong with having good public relations skills and being a “good media man.” The only time this becomes a problem is when the public relations becomes more important than the journalism. Otherwise, I believe that if you have good tactics and good luck you will be successful; the press will come behind you.

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• CANDID CONVERSATIONS

People who accuse me of focusing more on public relations don’t know how to do public relations themselves. There are many decent and bright people who have failed because they did not have good public relation skills.

Although Alsharq Alwasat enjoyed great success under your leadership, others like, Nizamuddin and Jihad el-Khazen, Claim to be responsible for its success. How would you respond to this?

Asharq Alawsat was founded by two brothers: Hisham and Mohammad Hafez. They directed and managed the paper for a very long time. The first editor in chief was Jihad El-Khazen.

Nizamuddin was the third editor in chief, and when he left the paper, the publication was only 12 pages long.

Is it true that you had a difficult relationship with the former publishers of Asharq Alawsat and Al-Majalla—Hisham and Mohammed Hafez?

In any job you have to expect some things to run smoothly and others to run with more difficulties. The Hafez brothers are very good journalists, no one can deny this, but they come from different schools, different backgrounds. This is probably why I had a difficult time working with them, but I enjoyed it.

Elaph’s website has been banned in Saudi Arabia.

Why do you believe this has occurred?

We are, I believe, a liberal newspaper, open to a wide range of ideas. It is banned in Saudi Arabia now but the ban could be removed in the future. I don’t know because I don’t belong to the Saudi Arabian government. The banning of the newspaper was because some elements in Saudi Arabia were not happy with Elaph’s content, and they worked to harm Elaph but they failed.

You once declared that printed press had died, and that the future of journalism was online. But many are still printing, and you invested in a printed newspaper in Morocco. Can you explain your theory?

Well, Morocco needs that newspaper. In America you wouldn’t need it. It depends on the public’s demand.

Do you think that charging for online content is a trend that will become more popular? Will it be successful?

We have to wait and see. The problem is that now the free content is everywhere. Success will depend on what you invent that will interest people and “move their pockets.” I think it’s very difficult to say in advance that it will definitely be successful, but I hope it will be.

Ahmed Muleifi accused you of receiving 18 million pounds from the Kuwaiti prime minister to publish an article supporting the government and delegitimizing the opposition. Is this true?

First of all, the man who accused me recanted his accusation. But it’s funny because you can’t really transfer 18 million pounds and you can’t transport it either. So I just wonder, if it’s still in Kuwait I would like to take it (laughs).

Iraqis also accused you of receiving money from Saddam Hussein. Can you explain your relationship with Saddam?

No, on the contrary, I am the one who has told people to return money that Saddam Hussein has given to them. The fact is, I went to see Saddam Hussein, and I met him. He did normally give people who interviewed him $100,000 as a gift.

When I went there, they had to have a meeting about what to do with my gift since they knew I wouldn’t accept it. They called Saddam Hussein himself, and he said OK just give him pictures of us together.

King Hassan II asked you to write the introduction to his biography. How did a Saudi journalist become friendly with the king of Morocco?

Because the king loved him (laughs). I enjoyed his company and he enjoyed my company. At the time I was younger, and he believed in encouraging young journalists. He was a wise man, not an ordinary one. We had a very fruitful relationship. He chose me because I was one of the journalists who knew him first, and he knew that I loved Morocco, and Morocco’s culture.

Is that part of the reason why you have such a close relationship with Morocco?

I spent time in Morocco before I met him, and then I started to get to know Moroccan society and its decision makers. It is really a fantastic country, and it has a bright future.

What do the following names mean to you?

Turki Al-Sudari, editor in chief of Riyadh newspaper I worked with him in my youth; he is a very good journalist. I like him; he’s a fighter.

Khaled El-Malik, editor of Al-Jazeera newspaper I also worked with him for many years. He is very determined and always works very hard.

Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Labor He is a great man – the only great man in Saudi Arabia.

Abdul Rahman Rashid, managing director of Al-Arabiya He is a friend and a colleague. I think he is an accomplished writer, one of the best in the Arab world. And he is very successful in his job as the managing director of Al-Arabiya.

What do you love in life and what do you hate in life?

I hate death; I love everything of life. Life is beautiful, and there are many elements that you can fill your life with. I don’t like hateful people, or people with gloomy ideas. Otherwise, I like everything. Life is beautiful as long as we can live with it.

Your father was a Qutab teacher for a mosque in Azulfi, what led you to become a modern secular editor?

This is very common, it happens to everyone. You can come from a family and be very different from them. You cannot really decide who you want to be, and your family cannot decide for you. I was very lucky because I came from an educated family, I worked very hard, and I was in a very good environment to learn more and change my ideas at any time.

Can we speak of the Saudi brand of liberalism? You have been described in Saudi Arabia as a secular liberal. Do you see yourself that way?

Well, it is very difficult to say to an Arab that they are liberal and secular. Liberalism has to have a specific meaning. I don’t believe we have many liberals in the Arab world. When you

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are describing a liberal they have to be very open minded about religion, culture; and I don’t think most Arab intellectuals are clean of racism. When you hate Jews you are not liberal. When you hate the West and you believe they are your enemy you are not liberal.

I am trying to be a liberal. Five years ago calling yourself a liberal might have had a negative connotation, but more people are accepting that label. However, I don’t think that liberalism exists in Saudi Arabia. How can you call yourself a liberal if you don’t support someone in your family changing their religion, or you don’t want someone in your family to marry a foreigner? That is not liberalism. Liberalism is a book and you have to follow it.

What does King Abdullah mean to you?

I think he’s a very good reformer. He surprised everybody. He changed the history of the region. I believe he did very well in the last five years.

Because of his ideas, he changed the attitude of the government toward the media, and other ideas. He tried to change women’s position. He has opened the door in Saudi Arabia, and it is not an easy door to open.

How do you assess the intellectual and political debate in Saudi Arabia?

I think it is very promising. I would be very happy to continue seeing it evolve. Importantly, the debate is always peaceful and it always comes to some solution. This is a very healthy way of debating in any society.

Elaph is one of the first Arabic language electronic magazines. Based in London, it commands one of the biggest audiences of any Arabic language news site. In celebrating its 10th anniversary, Elaph can look back on many accomplishments, including an international readership that makes it one of the most influential websites in the Arab world.

The website is owned by Elaph Holdings in the United Kingdom and Elaph Publishing House in Saudi Arabia, in cooperation with Int2sol.

Elaph‘s CEO and editor in chief, Othman Al-Omeir, insists that his site is impartial and does not have any political or partisan affiliation. He sees Elaph as “a window or a bridge connecting the Arab people with the world.”

The publication’s coverage is extensive with sections including politics, economics, health, culture, sport and music. Elaph has published extensively on human rights, including violence against women.

To what extent has the media participated in that debate?

The media has played a very good role on the side of what you call liberal. They try to bring up all of the issues and follow many cases. I have always believed that you cannot change societies by force, maybe you could in the 17th and 18th centuries, but not in the 21st century. The only factor that can do this now is the flow of information: media, the Internet, Google, to name a few. This is my hope, that nations, the Saudi nation and others, open their mind to this information, because it will change them.

Has anything been done to change regulations on the press in Saudi Arabia, especially censorship?

Now the regulation in Saudi Arabia has changed; it is not bad.

They are opening the air space for radio, and we hope they will grant licenses to more newspapers and publications.

This article was first published in The Majalla 20 May 2010

Elaph

Elaph Coverage 2006

What do you make of the Saudi Association of Journalists?

I don’t believe in any associations. I am not really good with any party, unless this organization is going to concentrate on their own business and the affairs of its members, like health or their members’ future.

What are your memories of Prince Ahmed Bin Salman?

He was a very outstanding person; he had great ideas, and was supportive of editorials and journalists. He looks tough, but in reality he was very accepting of others. We have also Faisal now, who is doing a very good job with the company as well. I think they match each other.

Geographical Breakdown of Elaph Content 2006

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• COUNTRY BRIEF

The Republic of Lebanon Timeline

Image © iStockphoto

1943 France agrees to officially transfer power to the Lebanese government from 1 January 1944, officially granting independence.

1967 Lebanon plays no active role in the Arab-Israeli war but is affected in the aftermath due to Palestinianuse of the country as a base for activities against Israel.

1975 April – Phalangist gunmen ambush a bus in Beirut, killing mainly Palestinian passengers. These clashes are regarded as the start of the civil war.

1976 Syrian troops enter Lebanon to restore peace.

1976 October – Following Arab summit meetings in Riyadh and Cairo, a ceasefire is arranged and a predominantly Syrian Arab Deterrent Force (ADF) is established to maintain it.

1978 In reprisal for a Palestinian attack into its territory, Israel launches a major invasion of Lebanon and occupies land in the south. Israel later hands over territory in southern Lebanon not to UNIFIL but to its proxy mainly Christian Lebanese militia under Major Saad Haddad.

1982 President-elect, Bachir Gemayel, is assassinated.

The following day, Israeli forces occupy West Beirut. His brother, Amine Gemayal, is elected president.

1983 Israel and Lebanon sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal, ending hostilities and establishing a security region in southern Lebanon.

1988 Outgoing President Amine Gemayel appoints a six-member interim military government, composed of three Christians and three Muslims, though the latter refuse to serve. Lebanon now has two governments – one mainly Muslim in West Beirut, headed by El-Hoss, the other, Christian, in East Beirut, led by the Maronite Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Gen Michel Aoun.

1989 Aoun declares a “war of liberation” against the Syrian presence in Lebanon.

1990 The Syrian air force attacks the Presidential Palace at Baabda and Aoun takes refuge in the French embassy. This is regarded as the end of the civil war.

1990 Omar Karami heads a government of national reconciliation.

1992 Rafik Hariri, a rich businessman of Saudi Arabian nationality, becomes prime minister.

1993 Israel attempts to end the threat from Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of PalestineGeneral Command (PFLP-GC) in southern Lebanon by launching “Operation Accountability,” the heaviest attack since 1982.

2000 After the rapid advance of Hezbollah forces, Israel withdraws its troops from southern Lebanon, more than six weeks before its stated deadline.

2005 February - Rafik Hariri is killed by a car bomb in Beirut.

2005 Syria says its forces have left Lebanon, as demanded by the UN. Anti-Syrian alliance led by Saad Hariri wins control of parliament following elections.

New parliament chooses Hariri ally, Fouad Siniora, as prime minister.

2006 Israel launches attacks on targets in Lebanon after Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group seizes two Israeli soldiers. Civilian casualties are high and the damage to civilian infrastructure wide-ranging.

2006 Truce between Israel and Hezbollah comes into effect on 14 August after 34 days of fighting and the deaths of around 1,000 Lebanese—mostly civilians— and 159 Israelis, mainly soldiers. A UN peacekeeping force, expected to consist of 15,000 foreign troops, begins to deploy along the southern border.

2008 October – Lebanon establishes diplomatic relations with Syria for first time since both countries gained independence in 1940s.

2009 The pro-Western March 14 alliance wins 71 of 128 seats in parliamentary elections, while the rival March 8 alliance led by Hezbollah secures 57. Saad Hariri is nominated as prime minister.

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Hezbollah Hezbollah – or Party of God – emerged in Lebanon in the early 1980s and became the region's leading radical Islamic movement, determined to drive Israeli troops from the country.

In May 2000, due to the party's military arm, it achieved one of its main objectives. Israel's army was forced to end its twodecade occupation of the south.

Key Facts

Image © iStockphoto

Lebanon at a Glance Lebanon’s history has been interlinked with events driving world history. Having been the home of the Phoenicians from 3000-539 BC, later pertaining to the Ottoman Empire, and finally to the Vichy French government before obtaining independence, Lebanon’s culture and politics show the influence of world events.

Lebanon is thus a country of rich history, and diversity representing Marnoite Catholics, a druze community, as well as a dominant Muslim demography. This diversity, however, has come with problems, with conflict and civil war leaving its imprint on the country’s identity.

A civil war lasted over a decade between Lebanon’s different religious groups, and only outside intervention by Syria was able to stabilize the country. That stability has been short lived, and periods of peace are often interrupted by longer periods of uncertainty and violence. Such ruptures in stability were marked first by the assassination of Rafik Harriri, and later by the 2006 invasion by Israel.

Since the invasion, Hezbollah, the country's powerful Shiite militia, has sought to increase its power and political influence.

This has done little to downplay the tension that exists between the country’s different ethnic groups as was evidenced by the 2009 parliamentary elections. The results, which have been questioned because of the corrupt way in which the electoral process played out, left the March 14 coalition with the majority in the 128-seat parliament. The alliance won 71 seats in comparison to the Hezbollah-led coalition, which only won 57 seats.

The March 14 coalition is a predominantly Sunni, Christian and Druze alliance, led by the Sunni Muslim Future Movement of Saad Hariri. Saad, whose father, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated, was chosen by the president as the country’s prime minister. His appointment has been interpreted as the beginning of a new period of stability for Lebanon, although tension is always possible.

In a recently published article by The Majalla, Georgetown Professor Steven Heydemann, evaluates exactly what prospects for stability and normality a country like Lebanon could hope to achieve under Hariri’s leadership. He explains that after Prime Minister Hariri was finally able to cobble together a fragile coalition government, there is now some promise of a future closer to normal than anything the country has experienced since before the civil war. Normality in Lebanon, however, means something very specific. It is a modest normality. The country’s “political conflicts have become routinized, channeled within existing institutions, and less likely to drive the country into violence.” While in the political sphere this view might be overtly optimistic, there is evidence of an emerging confidence regarding Lebanon’s future.

Capital: Beirut Independence: 1943, from French rule President: Michel Suleiman Prime Minister: Saad Hariri Geography Area: 10. 452 sq km Location: bordering the Mediterranean Sea and between Israel and Syria People Population: 4.2 million Ethnic Groups: Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1% Religions: Muslim 59.7%, Christian 39%, other 1.3% Languages: Arabic, French, English, Armenian Economy GDP (ppp): 13,100 billion GDP composition by sector: agriculture: 5.1%, Industry: 18.7%services, 76.2% Unemployment rate: 9.2% Population below Poverty Line: 28% Refugees (country of origin): 405,425 (Palestinian); 50,000-60,000 (Iraqi) IDPs: 17,000 (1975-90 civil war, Israeli invasions); 200,000 (July-August 2006 war) Hezbollah has won considerable support within Lebanon in recent years. It has been particularly successful in implementing social service programs for the country’s Shia community.

Not to mention the organization’s successes in the war with Israel have also accounted for much of the support it receives.

Hezbollah’s popularity was affirmed in the country’s 1992 elections when it led a successful campaign and managed to win eight seats in parliament. However, not all of Lebanon’s ethnic groups support the organization. Christians, for example, have accused it of trying to destabilize the country.

Despite their defeat in the 2009 Parliamentary elections, to the March 14 coalition Hezbollah’s power in Lebanon remains in fact very much unchanged, and virtually unchallenged. Hezbollah still retains its quasi-hegemonic position among the Shiite population, which turned out en masse to vote for Hezbollah candidates, including in electoral districts where the Party of God ran virtually unopposed. In addition to being bolstered by the unyielding support of the Shiite community, Hezbollah can also count on its Amal allies, led

by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berry, who has recently been re-elected for a further term in office. Berri’s reelection, particularly, is a clear signal that the March 14 coalition has had to make a number of political concessions to the opposition. Hezbollah remains a powerful political force that has to be reckoned with in Lebanon.

Image © Getty Images

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• THE CRITICS

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death A review of Between Two Worlds: My Life in Captivity in Iran by Roxana Saberi.

Published by Harper Collins 2010 Roxana Saberi, the American-Iranian journalist that was imprisoned in Iran on allegations of espionage, has just released a book recounting her ordeal. In Between Two Worlds Saberi eloquently explores the reasons for her arrest, the emotional struggle that one encounters when losing their freedom, and the difficult quest of finding empowerment behind bars. A moving and informative read, Between Two Worlds is Saberi’s ode to the liberties that many of her compatriots left in Iran live without.

Roxana Saberi captured the world’s attention when just before the Iranian elections of 2009, the American-Iranian journalist was arrested and taken to Iran’s infamous Evin prison. The stories of torture and rape that have made Evin prison a feared destination for Iranian activists was never a place Saberi expected to go to. Her latest book Between Two Worlds: My Life in Captivity in Iran explains how this unexpected turn in her life came to be.

Now that the nightmare is over and her body has healed from the two-week hunger strike she began in her demand for a fair trial, the journalist takes on this book to deal with the emotional and psychological scars that her imprisonment left her. Having been arrested and imprisoned without knowing the charges against her, undergoing solitary confinement, confessing to crimes she didn’t commit, and living through the uncertainty that comes with a corrupt judiciary (that even intimidated her lawyer), gives Saberi ample material to write a compelling book about something many people know nothing about: loosing their freedom.

Saberi’s background in journalism shines as the author is able to create the suspense that one would associate to a thriller.

From her arrest through to her interrogation and trial, Saberi emotes the anxiety, denial, anger and sadness that anyone in her situation would have undergone. More importantly perhaps, is Saberi’s ability to present her story without sensationalizing what she went through, or glorifying her own strengths.

Despite the incredible situation she finds herself in, the reader is always made aware of how real her ordeal was.

Impressive in its presentation, what stands out most from this book are the ontological and ethical questions that Saberi raises.

One particularly important question is the value of life and freedom, if it comes at the cost of lying. Saberi is honest about the fact that when taken to prison, she admitted to spying for the CIA, using a book she was writing about Iran as her cover for interviewing broad ranges of Iranian society. However, after meeting her inmates in the 209 section of Evin, reserved for prisoners of conscience, she realizes the importance of telling the truth even though it almost cost her freedom and even worse, her life. In this way, what begins as a story of the struggle for freedom becomes an account of the relationship between freedom, dignity and inner-

strength. It also pushes her readers to confront these questions, and ask themselves what they would have done in her place.

One particular success of Between Two Worlds is Saberi’s ability to demonstrate the sheer challenge that staying sane in her situation must have been. As a result of Saberi’s accomplished account, her audience becomes increasingly aware of the inherent weakness in humanity, especially their own. This is also highlighted in Saberi’s portrayal and relationship with her interrogators and the guards in prison.

The idea of loving your enemies is not new, but it acquires a new dimension in Evin prison. Saberi asks her inmates, two Bahai women who forgive their captors so as to avoid becoming like them, how they managed to forgive those who took their freedom? Their advice to forgive comes as Saberi struggles with her own feelings of animosity towards her captors, who promise her freedom one day, and deny it to her the next. Most shockingly perhaps, is the story of her interrogator who admits to her that he knew her confession was a lie, but imprisons her anyway.

Saberi notes throughout her book that the intense paranoia felt by the regime was one important reason behind her arrest. She also explains that as far as the guards went, they came from the lower class (comprised of individuals who are more likely to follow the government’s extremist lead) and were probably just content with having a regular job. Whether in her eyes this excuses their role in her incarceration is never fully explained. Nonetheless, Saberi doesn’t let their humanity get too much of her soft side.

Her most interesting moments as the book’s protagonist come when she learns to defy the suggestions of her captors. When they tell her parents not to give interviews, she encourages them to do the opposite. When they tell her hunger strikes won’t help her, she goes ahead and does it anyway. Her empowerment under these conditions appears as the main way in which she dealt with her animosity towards her captors and her situation.

Many have speculated that Saberi’s imprisonment came at a very particular time in Iran’s political history. At a moment when President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s government was about to face an electoral showdown, not to mention American pressure to respond to a rapprochement, it appears that the equation was just right for an arrest to take place which would serve the government’s propaganda machine. Whether or not this is the true reason behind Saberi’s incarceration, she does not pretend to know for certain. Nonetheless, the story of her ordeal is layered over a political analysis of Iran’s government, and the legacy of the Islamic Revolution’s impact on civil rights.

In highlighting the weakness of the government, Ahmedinejad’s lack of popularity, even her trial’s lack of evidence, she demonstrates what a state the Iranian government is really in.

This is truly her ultimate revenge, for the underlying message of the book is that her importance, as far as her career in journalism went, were so minimal that only the weakest government would try to use her as their salvation.

Layered over details of Iranian society and its characteristics, Between Two Worlds is more than an account of Saberi’s incarceration. Rather, it is a study of humanity, from the relationship between body and soul, to the true meaning of strength.

Saberi’s latest book teaches you more than her story or Iran’s political situation, it demands that you reassess your appreciation of freedom, and most importantly, how you define it.

This article was first published in the Majalla 7 May 2010

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Between Torture and Democracy Iraq Detainees Describe Torture in Secret Jail Human Rights Watch, 27 April 2010 Human Rights Watch released a report disclosing the existence of a secret prison where over 400 Iraqis had been systematically tortured and held without charges since September 2009. The detention of predominantly Sunnis could have a negative impact on Iraq’s sectarian tensions.

Following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 the sectarian animosity that had been building up as a result of Saddam Hussein’s brutal suppression of Shias erupted, leaving the country marred by civil war. This year, as Iraqis anticipate the long-awaited results of the March elections, sectarian tension and violence in general are simmering once again.

In this context, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report disclosing the existence of a secret prison where over 400 Iraqis had been systematically tortured and held without charges since September 2009. The organization has called for thorough investigations and prosecutions of government and security officials responsible for the prison, which falls under the jurisdiction of Prime Minister Al-Maliki’s military office.

Having interviewed 42 of the 430 men held at the Muthanna detention facility, HRW found that their perpetrators had used a variety of torture techniques, such as hanging the detainees upside-down, depriving them of air, kicking, whipping and beating them, giving them electric shocks and raping them. Interrogation sessions usually lasted three or four hours and recurred every three or four days. HRW was also told by the detainees that when they refused to confess after torture their interrogators threatened to rape their wives, mothers, sisters or daughters.

As one detainee explained, “The interrogators would tie my arms behind my back and blindfold me before they would hang me upside down and beat me. They would suffocate me with a bag until I passed out and would wake me with an electric shock to my genitals. Even after they forced me to confess that I killed 10 people, the torture never stopped. Ten days before I was transferred out on April 8, I endured a horrific beating for speaking to an inspection team from the Human Rights Ministry. After they left, the prison staff beat me so badly that I urinated blood.”

In addition to the torture they sustained, none of the prisoners were given access to legal counsel, nor were their families informed about their detention. Detainees were also deprived of official documents, including case numbers, and “investigative judges” were said to hear cases down the hall from torture chambers.

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ries that were consistent with their account of the systematic use of torture. Given this evidence, the HRW report is convincing in its declaration that Muthanna was a secret prison, and that grave breaches of human rights took place there.

While Human Rights Watch does not explicitly state so in their report, the detention of these individuals came prior to the elections and could be interpreted as the type of sectarian discrimination that has characterized much of Iraq’s tumultuous political history.

According to the report, the men interviewed had been detained “by the Iraqi army between September and December in 2009, after sweeps in and around Mosul, a stronghold of Sunni Arab militants, including Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.”

This suggests that the legacy of sectarian tension in Iraq could have been the motivation behind their arrests.

Or at least it could be interpreted as such by other Iraqis, as suggested by a recent article in The New York Times. “The revelations could further polarize Iraqis, still coming to grips with the scars of the sectarian conflict between 2005 and 2007.

All those held at the secret prison before it was shut down were brought to Baghdad from Sunni Arab areas in Nineveh where Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, is largely perceived as a sectarian leader with a personal vendetta against anyone associated with the former Sunni-led government of Saddam Hussein.”

In an interview between Sheikh Abdullah Humedi, a tribal leader from Nineveh, and The New York Times, Humedi warned that these revelations could further inflame sectarian tensions and lead to more violence. “In our country a man who is raped will commit suicide, and how do you think he will do it?”

The implications that the revelation of torture and secret prisons in the country might have on groups that consider themselves repressed are clear. However, Al-Maliki has not adequately responded to the allegations. Instead, he has delivered inconsistent messages regarding the existence of the prison and of the presence of torture within Iraq’s legal system.

Maliki has claimed that there are no secret prisons in Iraq, and that the existence of torture at Muthanna was fabricated by the media and sustained by his political rivals who “instructed the prisoners to make false charges and to give themselves scars by “rubbing matches on some of their body parts.” Yet Maliki also referred to abuses at Abu Ghraib, implying that those were justifiable, because if the US took tough measures, then they could do the same in the name of security.

Al-Maliki’s assertions that no torture occurred, however, contradict not only the HRW report, but also Wijdan Salim, Iraq’s minister of human rights. To make matters worse, the investigative team that Al-Maliki sent to the prison to look into the allegations, have been implicated in the torture as well.

That Al-Maliki has had a heavy hand over Iraq’s judiciary makes HRW’s suggestion that an in-depth and impartial inquiry be held to investigate torture at Muthanna highly unlikely.

This, however, does not render them any less necessary.

As Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, explained, “What happened at Muthanna is an example of the horrendous abuse Iraqi leaders say they want to leave behind… Everyone responsible, from the top on down, needs to be held accountable.”

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• THE CRITICS

From Oppression to Opportunity A review of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into opportunity for Women World Wide

by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

Published by Alfred Knopf 2010 In Kristof and WuDunn’s most recent book, Half the Sky, the author’s explore the different types of oppression that affect women around the world. What might at first appear to be a discouraging account of discrimination, however, is actually a book about opportunity. For these authors, empowering women is not only a solution to their own oppression; it also stands to do much for global challenges like poverty and security.

Twice weekly, in Nicholas Kristoff ’s habitually moving column for The New York Times he does something most journalists tend not to do. Instead of discussing the complex, highbrow subjects of international relations, he brings to his readers’ attention the oft-ignored issues that affect the world’s most vulnerable. In his latest book Half the Sky, Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn go a step further, not only advocating for the rights of women, but arguing that in their empowerment lie the solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. From poverty to security, Kristof and WuDunn make more than a compelling case for engendering our analysis of politics. They manage to recruit most of their readers to what they describe as an incipient but promising movement to emancipate women “and fight global poverty by unlocking women’s power as economic catalysts.”

In what they describe as a social responsibility equivalent to the abolition of slavery, Kristof and WuDunn effectively argue that like other emancipatory struggles of the past, the new women’s movement faces challenges. One of the most difficult to overcome is not apathy, but rather the feeling by the more privileged that women’s oppression is the result of history, culture, and is therefore a legacy that is difficult to overcome.

Yet with their powerful accounts of female oppression and empowerment, Kristof and WuDunn manage not only to make their readers aware of the extent of the oppression women face.

More importantly, they also provide good news. Accounts of successful empowerment demonstrate that the battle against sexual trafficking, slavery, maternal mortality and poverty have solutions.

Half the Sky is perhaps best described in the words of the authors themselves, it is a “story of transformation... of change that is already taking place and change that can be accelerated.”

One especially important issue addressed in their book is the prevalence of rape, especially in war. Rape has been present in war in the past, but as of late, women have been increasingly used as a weapon of war. In the case of the Congo and Rwanda, for example, the rape of woman has been used to ostracize the victim, dishonor their family, instill fear in the community

and effectively disintegrate the social fabric that keeps communities together. Even though in almost every conflict mortality is disproportionately male, women also face a huge burden both during and after wars, usually as a result of rape.

In Darfur for example, the Sudanese-sponsored Janjaweed militias were “seeking out and gang-raping women of three African tribes, then cutting off their ears or otherwise mutilating them to mark them forever as rape victims.” To make matters worse, so as to prevent the outside world from shaming Sudan into protecting their women, the government punished those who reported rape or sought medical treatment.

However, Kristof and WuDunn make it clear that while these problems are indeed a reality, they can be addressed at the grass-roots level, and that means that ordinary people can help. Half the Sky parallels the stories of difficulty with those of achievement, and in the case of rape the authors chose to highlight the role of a hospital in the Congo that treats rape victims, and one of their special volunteers.

Harper, a 23-year-old American, went to volunteer at the HEAL hospital in the Congo. During her time there she has started a school for children awaiting medical treatment, since it can take several months for them to receive care. She also began a skills training program for women awaiting surgery. The authors explain that her efforts have given victims of sexual violence the opportunity to earn a living and transform their lives. Although financial independence cannot undo what rape victims went through, it can help them create a promising future for themselves and their families.

Other issues addressed in the book include the problem of maternal health. Maternal death is described by Kristof and WuDunn as a cruelty of indifference. Lack of attention to maternal healthcare, for example, leaves more than 3 million women and girls incontinent as a result of fistulas—a condition unfamiliar in the developing world. A fistula is a hole in the tissue of the bladder and the rectum; it is painful and causes urine and feces to trickle constantly through a women’s vagina and down her leg. These injuries, which can result from labor complications or injuries from sexual violence, have become a handicap since women suffering from them are socially rejected because of the smell that accompanies their injury. “The fistula patient is the modern day leper,” but despite its devastating effect, fistulas are very easily cured.

Why is it then that fistula injuries are so prevalent and often ignored? The authors explain that fistulas, like other issues relating to maternal health face three obstacles: They are the problem of poor, rural women. Women, they argue, are considered an expendable commodity in the developing world.

These are the sorts of injustices that the accounts in Half the Sky aim to end. By inspiring those with resources, be they time or money, Kristof and WuDunn hope to bring to people’s attention the plight of those who are regularly unheard. Their book is moving for its encouragement, and its accounts of oppression are reason enough to read it. In profiling the types of organizations that elicit real change, the authors also do an important part in supporting their measures and likely improve their success rate. What is most commendable, however, is that not only do the author’s give a voice to the marginalized, they also offer tentative solutions to serious problems.

This article was first published in The Majalla18 May 2010

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Rachid Kora誰chi Ecstatic Flow

11th June - 10th July 2010

Rachid Kora誰chi Ibn El Arabi, 2009 (detail). Lithograph, 61 x 40 cm, ed. 70 + 5AP

AN EXHIBITION OF NEW WORKS CELEBRATING THE LIVES AND TEACHINGS OF SUFI MASTERS Saturday 12th June at 3pm.

GALLERY TALK: Rachid Kora誰chi will talk about his art at October Gallery. Admission Free.

October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AL art@octobergallery.co.uk Tel: + 44 (0)20 7242 7367 Tues - Sat 12.30-5.30 or by appointment October Gallery Trust Registered Charity No. 327032

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• THE FINAL WORD

A Public Truce

Yet, Karzai’s visit does not erase longstanding disagreements Despite the harmonious display in Washington during President Karzai’s visit, tensions persist over how rapidly Afghan military and civilian institutions should assume leadership of the war effort. There are also disagreements on the terms that should govern any peace settlement between the Karzai government and the Taliban insurgents.

Richard Weitz

H

amid Karzai, accompanied by a number of senior Afghan officials, recently completed his first visit to Washington since his controversial re-election as president last year. Over the course of four days, Karzai met with US President Barack Obama and other American policy makers. He also participated in several media events. The trip was notable for its public displays of harmony between the Afghan and American governments, which concealed continuing bilateral tensions as well as unease about prospects of transforming the war into an Afghan-led effort.

Karzai’s arrival coincided with heightened American alarm about Islamist militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Last month’s failed car bomb attempt in New York City surprised analysts, who doubted that the Pakistani Taliban had the capability to try to conduct a terrorist attack in the US homeland. Although Washington policy makers recognize that the relationship between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban is complex, they had considered both movements primarily a regional threat lacking the global operational reach of Al-Qaeda.

Before Karzai’s arrival in Washington, the White House instructed US officials to cease making public criticisms of the Afghan president, which the Obama national security team had been doing since taking office last January. Both strategic and tactical considerations led to the change in public policy. Despite widespread allegations that his reelection was fraudulent, and Karzai’s continuing difficulties with the Afghan parliament, he has consolidated power in Kabul, depriving Washington of the option of supporting an alternative Afghan political leader of national stature.

In their joint media appearance following their 12 May White House meeting, President Obama described public perceptions of US-Afghan tensions as “overstated.” He characterized bilateral ties as a strategic partnership based on mutual respect and shared interests that would endure even after he and Karzai left office. As testimony to the latter, Obama stressed how American forces were following his injunction to minimize Afghan civilian casualties, an issue of acute tension between the two countries in recent years, even at the risk of suffering higher US military casualties as a result.

Karzai praised the US military for constraining its military operations to reduce threats to civilians. He also thanked the Obama administration for increasing the flow of US military and civilian resources to Afghanistan, which he pledged would not be misused.

Karzai subsequently underscored the importance of the American commitment to transfer the US-led detention centers in Afghanistan, which some human rights groups argue employ torture, to Afghan government control by the beginning of next year.

Obama claimed that the US and Afghan war strategies were effectively meeting many of the performance benchmarks established last year. He cited recent coalition military victories, improvements in Afghan government capacity and enhanced support from European countries as well as Pakistan. Obama said that this progress, especially in developing Afghan military forces and civilian agencies, was creating the conditions needed to transfer leadership of the counterinsurgency from NATO to Kabul beginning next year.

In this regard, Obama restated his controversial position that he aimed to begin withdrawing some American combat troops from Afghanistan in July 2011, though he acknowledged that only about half of the new American “surge” troops had yet to arrive on the ground, leaving the US force total considerably short of the 98,000 military personnel cap. A more serious problem is the persistent misalignment of the US and Afghan timetables. In Washington, Karzai said that, even with the pledges of continuing American financial and other assistance after 2011, it would take until 2014 before Afghan government institutions could establish an effective presence throughout their country.

The issue of Karzai’s proposed peace plan attracted much interest at his joint public appearance with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Afghan president had postponed convening the planned National Consultative Peace Jirga, which was to endorse his peace plan, until 29 May, allowing Karzai time to assess Washington’s response. Like Obama, Clinton offered conditional US backing for Karzai’s controversial proposal to reconcile with defecting Taliban leaders as well as rank-and-file fighters prepared to desert the Taliban movement. Although acknowledging the need for some kind of political tract to end the fighting, Clinton insisted that the candidates for either the reconciliation or the reintegration process must renounce violence, break with Al-Qaeda, and accept the laws of the current Afghan constitution, especially those promoting women’s rights.

Despite Karzai’s well-managed visit, a major gap exists between the optimistic talk of politicians in Washington and what the US and British military report seeing in Afghanistan. These field commanders discern little enduring progress in eliminating the Taliban’s presence in key provinces or in developing the stronger Afghan military and political forces needed to sustain the Afghan government after the coalition completes its planned military withdrawal.

Richard Weitz – Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, Washington DC. This article was first published in The Majalla 18 May 2010

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