America and Political Islam - Majalla 1885

Issue 1558 • November 2010

America and Political Islam Almost a decade after the September 11 attacks, America is still at war with politically-based religious groups and movements

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9 770261 087102 The Majalla

War and Peace

The commitment to re-build Afghanistan risks being jeopardized by political considerations related to internal politics in western countries

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On Politics

The corrupt Afghan elections are only the tip of an iceberg of cultural misunderstandings that define the Western project’s failure there

Issue 1558

Candid Coversations

Parag Khanna, the director of the Global Governance Initiative speaks about an important geopolitical trend: the rising power of the global city

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• EDITORIAL

Established in 1987 by Prince Ahmad Bin Salman Bin Abdel Aziz Al-Majalla Established by Hisham and Ali Hafez Chief Executive Officer Dr Azzam Al-Dakhil Editor-in-Chief Adel Al Toraifi Editors Paula Mejia 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 © 2010 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 © Getty Images

Editorial This month, The Majalla features an article by Professor Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics discussing the as of late antagonistic relationship between American foreign policy and political Islam. Gerges, who wrote America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures or A Clash of Interests explains that since the 1979 Iranian revolution, a series of events began to change US perceptions towards political Islam. September 11 marked a rupture in this relationship, and transformed not only US foreign policy, but also the attitudes of the US public in general towards Islam. Nine years on, the signs from the Obama administration towards the issue are mixed.

In his most recent article “Commercial Geographies,” Afshin Molavi, senior fellow at the New America Foundation asks governing bodies to rethink fundamental questions.

Coming from the perspective that political geographies lock minds into thinking of countries within the same “region” as part of a coherent bloc, Molavi argues that this point of view is myopic when it comes to predicting the future of a country, especially when compared to a perspective based on commercial geographies.

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 Fawaz Gerges Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He earned a doctorate from Oxford University and has taught at Oxford, Harvard and Columbia universities. Mr. Gerges is the author of “Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy” (Harcourt Press, 2007), “The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global” (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and is currently writing a book tentatively titled “The Making of the Arab World: From Nasser to Nasrallah.”

Afshin Molavi Senior fellow at The New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank, whose work has been published in dozens of publications from Foreign Affairs to The New York Times to the Financial Times. In 2002, his book, “Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran” (Norton, 2002), was nominated for the Thomas Cook literary travel book of the year. A former Dubai-based correspondent for the Reuters news agency and a regular contributor to The Washington Post from Iran, Mr. Molavi has covered the Middle East and Washington for a wide range of international publications.

Iason Athanasiadis Writer, photographer and documentary film producer based between Istanbul and Kabul. He studied Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford University, Persian and Contemporary Iranian Studies at Tehran's School of International Studies, and he was a 2008 Nieman fellow at Harvard University.

He has worked for BBC World, AlJazeera and Arte, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, The Spectator, the Financial Times and Global Post. His photography has appeared in Der Spiegel, Marie Claire, The Guardian, and the New Statesman.

Killian Clarke Analyst at the research and consulting firm Ferrari Consultancy and a second-year master's student at NYU's Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies. He has worked as a researcher for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC and as a journalist in Cairo, Egypt for The Daily News Egypt.

Mr. Clarke has an AB in Social Studies and Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations from Harvard University.

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• CONTENTS

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Contents Quotes of the Month

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War and Peace

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On Politics

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America and Political Islam

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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 Arts

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The Critics

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The Final Word

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• Back to Basics: The international coalition prepares to leave Afghanistan • Balancing Iran? The US-Saudi arms deal • No Apology: Tony Blair’s memoir

• The Afghan Merry-Go-Round: Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections and the feeding of a parallel economy • Going Rogue: The Tea Party’s impact on American politics • Commercial Geographies: A new map of the world • The Limits of Competition: Parliamentary elections in Egypt in 2010

Almost a decade after the September 11 attacks, America is still at war with politically-based religious groups and movements

• A Symptom, Not an Illness: Inflation in Saudi Arabia • BlackBerry Blackout: The Middle East telecom crisis that never happened

• A Source of Instability: US bases abroad trigger suicide terrorism

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• Parag Khanna • Tareq Al-Hashimi

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• QUOTES OF THE MONTH

Quotes of the Month Images © Getty Images

“They do give us bags of money — yes, yes, it is done” President Karzai acknowledging that Afghanistan receives aid regularly from Iran

“Political pressure and sanctions have not prevented Iran from proceeding with its peaceful nuclear activities according to schedule” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, as Iran begins to fuel its first nuclear reactor set to become operational by next year

“We always expect tremendous criticism. It is my role to be the lightning rod to attract the attacks against the organization. “It is difficult to see, it is really heartbreaking That is a difficult role, but on the other hand I also get undue credit” actually” Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, regarding the accusations the organization has faced since its release of the Afghan war logs

"All decisions were taken by president Saddam Hussein.

I held a political position, I did not participate in any of the crimes that were raised against me personally. Out of hundreds of complaints, nobody has mentioned me in person” Tarik Aziz, Saddam Hussein’s most powerful deputy, upon learning of his death sentence

"We don't know what we're doing, but we're doing it up" American talk show host Jon Stewart regarding his upcoming moderate rally on the Washington Mall, The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

Sophie Chavanel, spokeswoman for the International Red Cross, on the spread of cholera in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake

“We send everyone our affection, we are grateful to all of you, to our president, our ministers, to all of Chile” Luis Urzúa, the last of the Chilean miners to be lifted to the surface

“If this disorder is not ended quickly, the attempt to paralyze the country could have consequences for jobs by disrupting the normal functioning of the economy” French President Sarkozy in response to protests over changes in France’s retirement age

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• WAR AND PEACE

Back to Basics

The international coalition prepares to leave Afghanistan The real commitment to re-build Afghanistan came too late after the US-led intervention in 2001. At present, that commitment risks being jeopardized by political considerations related to internal politics in western countries, and not with foreign policy concerns. These political considerations partly explain the call for a return to the initial, minimalist goal of ousting Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan and to leave as soon as possible.

Manuel Almeida

Image © Getty Images

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feel sure I am right when I say that the less the Afghans see of us, the less they will dislike us,” said Frederick Roberts, an Anglo-Irish commander. That was in 1880, the third year of the second Anglo-Afghan War, following another British invasion of Afghanistan in the context of the so-called Great Game between Britain and Russia. One hundred and thirty years, several wars and invasions of Afghanistan later, Roberts’ words seem to be echoing strongly in Western capitals amidst Western public and donor fatigue with a nine-year-long, multi-phased intervention, whose achievements are fragile at best.

For some time now, the belief in most Western capitals is increasingly that the 140,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan are no longer needed in such high numbers because AlQaeda’s presence has been considerably reduced. Given that the Afghan Taliban’s agenda is purely internal, the argument goes, Afghanistan no longer poses a threat to the West. This reasoning represents a return to the initial “minimalist” goal of the intervention in Afghanistan: defeat Al-Qaeda and leave as soon as possible. Whether or not this is the right strategy is another issue.

Al-Qaeda’s somewhat weak presence in Afghanistan (counter-terrorism officials put the number of Al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan between 50 and 100) provides the idea—or illusion—of a mission (relatively) accomplished. However, as Peter Bergen, fellow at the New America Foundation, recently argued in Newsweek, being a small organization was always a characteristic of Al-Qaeda. “According to the FBI,” Bergen wrote, “there were only 200 sworn members at the time of the 9/11 attacks, and the group has always seen itself primarily as an ideological and military vanguard seeking to influence and train other jihadist groups.”

Al-Qaeda has not gone far. Just next door in Pakistan, where they mix with the highly ideological Pakistani Taliban and other insurgent networks, the number of Al-Qaeda members is estimated at a few hundred. In spite of the escalation of drone strikes in Pakistani territory, Al-Qaeda

has been taking advantage of the unchecked border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to enter Afghanistan and support the Afghan Taliban. This continuous cooperation between the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda only proves the resilience of the ties between both groups, despite their different agendas.

If the ultimate concern of the international coalition is to ensure a stable, peaceful Afghanistan, simply ousting Al-Qaeda should not be the driving force in its Afghan strategy. To achieve the former, a strong international commitment would likely be needed far beyond 2011. The fact is, Barack Obama, David Cameron and Angela Merkel are not in optimal conditions to address the Afghan quagmire far beyond that date.

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tions is the biggest obstacle to the continuation of a comprehensive strategy in Afghanistan. The call for a return to the initial minimalist strategy of removing Al-Qaeda presence from Afghanistan and then leaving is, to a large extent, a consequence of this incompatibility.

The lack of consensus among analysts, military men and policy makers about the extent of the international coalition’s progress certainly does not build confidence. A recent debate at Chatham House about whether the Taliban has won the war in Afghanistan with Peter W. Galbraith, former UN Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan, and General Graeme Lamb, former advisor to General Stanley McChrystal, among others, was very inconclusive. And yet, most independent analysts or journalists who have traveled to Afghanistan this year report that the only few places where there is little risk of coming across the Taliban are the capital Kabul, and the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

This incompatibility between the limits of Western public patience (and pockets) with the war and nation-building effort, and the perseverance needed to actually build Afghan institutions is the biggest obstacle to the continuation of a comprehensive strategy in Afghanistan

With the world economy still struggling, spending 140 billion dollars a year in Afghanistan is becoming increasingly unviable and unpopular. Facing the pressure of the ballot boxes, Western leaders are finding it harder to justify, both politically and economically, the strong troop presence in Afghanistan.

This has long been the case with European leaders, and as Bob Woodward’s book, Obama’s Wars, reveals, Obama feels the same. “I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party,” Obama is reported to have said in private while defending his decision to withdraw the troops in 2011.

This incompatibility between the limits of Western public patience (and pockets) with the war and nation-building effort, and the perseverance needed to actually build Afghan instituIssue 1558 • November 2010

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The only consensus seems to be, firstly, that an essential pre-condition for the departure of foreign troops would be the existence of a strong partner to step in and assume responsibility. And secondly, that the Afghan government, police and army still do not meet the requirements. One of the solutions on paper—negotiations between the Karzai government, the Taliban and insurgents, now underway— should be faced with a certain degree of skepticism. These negotiations are hardly a sign of good will by the insurgents: their attempt might be simply to gain time, while the US is stepping up drone attacks on Pakistani soil. Moreover, it will be very difficult to determine what stage the negotiations have reached. Last but not least, the history of other conflicts—take Angola for example—proves that peace deals are very fragile processes, and a return to hostilities looks likelier than a permanent ceasefire.

The buildup of responsible, stable institutions—including the police and army—and a decentralized form of government, should continue to be the international coalition’s ultimate goal, even after the gross of US and NATO troops leave Afghanistan.

Manuel Almeida – Contributing editor. This article was originally published on Aspenia online, the online journal of the Aspen Institute in Italy. http:// www.aspeninstitute.it/aspenia-online/article/afghanistan-back-basics This article was first published in The Majalla 18 October 2010 11

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• WAR AND PEACE

Balancing Iran?

The US-Saudi arms deal

Although Saudi Arabia already possesses advanced US weapons, the proposed $60 billion sale would mark a major if not revolutionary improvement in Saudi Arabia’s military capabilities. Saudi Arabia would thus be better able to defend its own territory as well as that of its allies, and provide enhanced protection for the vital shipping and off-shore energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf. Ultimately, this sale would allow Saudi Arabia to balance Iran’s military might.

Richard Weitz

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he impending sale of billions of dollars of additional US weapons to Saudi Arabia, if realized, could achieve a major improvement in Saudi military capabilities. Although such weapons transfers have multiple motives, they would increase Saudi Arabia’s chances in a hypothetical conflict with Iran. More plausibly, the sale would allow Saudi Arabia to balance Iran’s military might.

The US Defense Department has not yet officially announced the details of this proposed arms sales package. According to the available public information, half of the $60 billion package will likely comprise new military hardware, while the other $30 billion will probably consist of upgrades to Saudi Arabia’s existing weapons, as well as comprise various support costs such as for training and logistics. The main items of the hardware package would likely include: 84 new Boeing F-15 combat aircraft; upgrades to 70 existing Saudi F-15S strike aircraft; 60 new AH64D Longbow Apache attack helicopters and upgrades to Saudi Arabia’s 12 existing AH-64As; 72 additional UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters; upgrades to the existing 96 Patriot Advanced Capacity-2 air and missile defense systems; and helicopter-carrying patrol boats and other naval weapons.

The $60 billion figure is misleading in that the number is simply an authorized aggregate ceiling of the value of all the possible systems and related defense items Saudi Arabia can potentially buy from the United States. The actual volume of purchases is likely to be lower, perhaps by a considerable amount. In addition, the specific transactions (which typically detail the financial terms, the appropriate support packages, and other details) will probably take years to negotiate and implement given prudential Saudi financing due to the volatility of world oil prices and the country’s limited absorption capacity. This means the annual sales totals could plausibly amount to a few billion dollars each year.

Saudi Arabia already owns many of these weapons, so the sales would simply expand their number rather than provide the country with revolutionary new capabilities. That said, the sheer size of the deal would achieve a significant improvement in Saudi capabilities. The systems under consideration would complement Saudi Arabia’s existing panoply of American- and European-made weapons.

These advanced systems would help Saudi forces respond to air, sea and ground threats from Iran as well as possible contingencies in Yemen or other nearby countries where Iran and its local allies might engage in military or terrorist operations. For example, the Saudi Arabian air force would be better able to defend the country’s airspace from intrusions from the Iranian Air Force, whose top-of-the-line MiG-29s are equivalent, on paper, to F-15s. The new planes and helicopters would also help protect offshore oil facilities and oil tankers from potential naval threats. In addition, the air and missile defense systems would also provide some protection against Iranian cruise and ballistic missile strikes. Further-

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Image © Getty Images

more, the naval weapons would also help negate Iran’s emerging submarine warfare capabilities.

Although the most plausible threats are in the domains of land and sea, last year, Saudi forces fought against Houthi rebels in Yemen along their joint border. The Black Hawk helicopters would be especially useful here because they provide strategic mobility for Saudi Arabia’s limited number of ground forces, who must cover a large land area and a lengthy defense perimeter. Saudi Arabia’s territory covers 2,150,000 square kilometers. It has short land boundaries with Qatar and Kuwait, a lengthy one with Yemen, as well as medium-length ones with Iraq, Jordan, Oman and the Issue 1558 • November 2010

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United Arab Emirates. The Saudi military must also defend some 2,600 kilometers of coastline adjoining the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. The Apache helicopters and F-15S strike planes would also provide close air support of ground border conflicts. In some cases, the strike planes could contribute to interwar deterrence and preemption, threatening or actually attacking Iranian missiles and planes stationed in Iran before they could be used.

More direct US military support would probably be required to neutralize all Iran’s air and missile systems. It would also prove important for deterring any Iranian escalation to the use of nuclear or chemical weapons.

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• WAR AND PEACE

How to Spend 60 Billion USD Boeing F-15 combat aircraft (84) Crew: 1 Length: 63.75 ft Height: 18.66 ft Wingspan: 42.83 ft Maximum Speed: March 2.5 (1,450 km/h) Range: 3,450 mi Armament: M-61A1 20mm multi-barrel internal gun, 940 rounds of ammunition, 4 AIM-9L/M Sidewinders and 4 AIM-7F/M Sparrow missiles, or a combination of AIM-9L/M, AIM-7-F/M and AIM-120 missiles Saudi F-15S strike aircraft (70 to be upgraded) Variant on F-15E Eagle with downgraded avionics, LANTIRN night viewing and targeting pods, and simplified Hughes APG-70 radar without computerized radar mapping.

12 60 AH-64A (12 to be upgraded) 72 Crew: 2 – pilot and copilot/gunner Main Rotor Blade Diameter: 48 ft 70 Length: 58.17 ft Height: 15.24 ft Wing span: 17.15 ft 96 Maximum speed: 279 km/h Range: 257nmi (295 mi, 476km) 84 with longbow radar mast Armament: M230 33mm Gun, 70mm (2.75 in) Hydra-70 Folding-Fin Aerial Rockets, AGM-114 Hellfire anti-tank missiles, AGM-122 Sidearm antiradar missile, AIM-9 Sidewinder Air-to-Air missiles

AH-64D Longbow Apache attack helicopters (60) Crew: 2 Length: 58.17 ft Height: 13.30 ft Wing span: 17.15 ft Maximum speed: 262 km/h Range: 1,900 km Armament: M230 33mm Gun, 70mm (2.75 in) Hydra-70 Folding-Fin Aerial Rockets, AGM-114 Hellfire anti-tank missiles, AGM-122 Sidearm antiradar missile, AIM-9 Sidewinder Air-to-Air missiles UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters (72) Crew: 4 – Pilot, Co-pilot and 2 crew-chiefs/door-gunners Length: 56 ft Height: 14.43 ft Width: 46.25 ft Maximum speed: 296 km/h Range: 964 km Armament: 2 gun ports (port/starboard), 7.62mm machine guns and/or 50 machine guns Patriot Advanced Capacity-2 air and missile defense systems Length: 16.99 ft Diameter: 1.3 ft Wingspan: 3 ft Range: 160 km

Arms sales (percentage in numbers)

60

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72

70 96 84

NEW Boeing F Combat 15 Aircraft UPGRADE Saudi F-15S Strike Aircraft NEW AH-64D Longbow UPGRADE AH-64A NEW UH-60 Black Hawk Utility Helicopter UPGRADE PAC Air and Missile 2 Defence System

Although the most plausible threats are in the domains of land and sea, last year, Saudi forces fought against Houthi rebels in Yemen along their joint border The United States could take other steps to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s military capabilities. The two countries can continue their robust joint training and exercise program, which has included such recent exercises as Green Flag 2010, Friendship One 2009 and Bright Star 2009. These exercises could rehearse a broader range of skills, last for longer periods, or expand to include additional countries. Improving the level of “jointness” among the different branches of the Saudi military as well as between Saudi forces and allied countries is essential for maximizing the benefits of the new weapons.

Additional supporting measures would include establishing a strong strategic partnership with Iraq, reducing tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and continuing to make an effort to avert an Iranian nuclear weapons program through diplomacy as well as military preparations.

No matter how strong the Saudi military becomes, any war in the Gulf—with its potentially large loss of life and damage to a vital region of the world economy—is best avoided.

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 8 October 2010

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• WAR AND PEACE

No Apology Tony Blair’s memoir

The recently released memoir by Tony Blair has done very little to quell British resentment for their former prime minister. Rather than presenting hesitation over his decision to go to war, the book is largely an endorsement of his endeavors as Britain’s former leader.

Image © Graphic News

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Paula Mejia

s the Chilcot inquiry continues in the UK with ongoing investigations regarding the decisionmaking process that led to the Iraq war and the UK’s involvement in it, former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s responses regarding his particular role have been found wanting by many of the war’s opponents. His recently released memoir, A Journey, is no different, leaving those who expected him to endorse a different narrative about the war’s merits highly disappointed.

The three-term prime minister’s autobiography has been met with fierce controversy. From accusations of cinematographic plagiarism (for undeniable similarities between his prose and Peter Morgan’s script in The Queen) to detailed documentation of his drinking habits—the public has only found more reasons to become irritated by Blair and his Iraqi war apologetics.

Whether Blair’s unpopularity should come as a surprise considering Britain’s tradition of becoming all but enervated with their prime ministers should be taken into account when evaluating the exceptionalism behind the egg throwing and near rioting that accompanied many of the book’s promotional events in London. After all, polls documenting Blair’s popularity, or lack thereof, as he left office showed that close to 70 percent of those questioned were unhappy with how he handled his job as prime minister, according to a Sunday Times survey held in March 2007. But that was three years ago, and the question as to why Blair’s ability to incite protests so intimidating that he canceled most of his book signings in the UK lingers uncomfortably.

Comparably, his partner in crime, George W. Bush, was no more popular when he left office for very similar reasons concerning the public’s disappointment with the war in Iraq (and the economy). Yet President Bush has managed to escape this negative attention since leaving office—although his memoir, Decision Points, which is set for release this November, may change that. Is there then something exceptionally disappointing about Blair and his accounts of the past, or is it Britain’s exceptional disappointment with its leaders in general that is to blame for what could only be described as a choleric reaction to the quite common practice of a leader attempting to promote his version of history?

Take the issue of Blair’s donations. Tony Blair has decided that all proceeds for his book will be donated to the Royal British Legion, a charity providing help and welfare for the coun-

try’s veterans. This incredible donation, which includes the 4.6 million GBP advance he received prior to publication, however, has been met with severe skepticism. Some have even called it blood money, a subtle or subconscious affirmation of Blair’s belief that he cost the lives of many British veterans. Others have called it a publicity stunt, pushing more people to buy the book.

Few, however, have interpreted it as a charitable donation by a wealthy man to a worthy cause.

Atonement, generosity or publicity stunt—these categorizations have not had a negative impact on the sales of his book. On the contrary, in Britain, the book sold over 90,000 copies following the first week of its release. Its popularity in the US is similar as publishers have already ordered an additional 25,000 copies for printing, and where it has become a New York Times best seller.

Yet, as well as the book has sold, Blair continues to be a stain in the eyes of many, particularly because of his stance on the war in Iraq—a fact he does not deny by the numerous justifications he provides for his decisions. Echoing his comments during the Iraq War Inquiry, he has repeated both in his book and during promotional interviews in the United States that Saddam Hussein was “a monster.” Insisting that he regretted the loss of life in Iraq but that he never wavered about his decision to participate in the war, because even if Iraq did not have WMD, it remained a threat to the world. Comparing Iraq to Libya, Blair assures us that had Iraq complied to inspections as Libya had, the war could have been avoided.

Taken into context, however, Blair’s understanding of the UK’s responsibility to intervene is clarified by his memoir’s references to the war in Kosovo as well as the UK’s intervention in Somalia. Arguing that he was deeply troubled by the international community’s failure to take action during the Rwandan genocide, Blair came to the conclusion that “intervention to bring down a despotic dictatorial regime could be justified on grounds of the nature of that regime, not merely its immediate threat to our interests.” Although this doctrine was said to determine his decision to secure troops for Kosovo, it is certainly possible that this view determined Blair’s decision to invest troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Problematically for Blair’s argument that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to national interests, this implies that motivations for democratization were behind the UK’s involvement in the war.

Unlike Marx, the claim that history will redeem his work may never come to pass for Blair (or Bush for that matter), because history lacks the luxury of counterfactuals. Whether Saddam Hussein had the intention of building weapons of mass destruction is a moot point now, as are claims to the numerous ways apart from its possession of weapons that Iraq threatened international security. Instead, all the public is left with is the lingering question of Blair’s motives. This is perhaps why they are disappointed to find that he is still making the case that Saddam Hussein was an eminent threat to world security.

Blair’s memoir was a strategic decision on his part to present his perspective of the historical moments he participated in.

Unfortunately for those disappointed by his decisions concerning the war in Iraq, the narrative he committed to at the offset was not questioned in this account. Rather, the book is a very deliberate tool for “setting the record straight” so to speak, yet another justification for the unpopular decision to go to war.

This article was first published in The Majalla 25 October 2010

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On 2 May 1997, I walked into Downing Street as PM for the first time. I had never held office, not even as the most junior of junior ministers. It was my first and only job in government

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• ON POLITICS

The Afghan Merry-Go-Round Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections and the feeding of a parallel economy

The spending—or rather the waste—of $200 million in Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections was billed as an important step to bring democracy to this war-ravaged country. These corrupt elections are only the tip of an iceberg of cultural misunderstandings that define the Western project’s failure there. An entire parallel economy has been built around this project, while billions of dollars and too many human lives are wasted.

Iason Athanasiadis

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ABUL: The Pashtun warlord’s son arranged our audience in the plush living room of a villa thronged by petitioners and guarded by men dressed in army uniforms, armed with machineguns and RPGs. “I’m not standing for money or personal benefit but because I believe that all Afghans should serve the poor and the needy,” Gol Rahman Hamdard said in excellent English, explaining that he had given up a well-paying job working at a construction company in order to stand for parliament.

“I’m an anti-corruption candidate.”

Later, I found out that Hamdard’s father, a controversial governor who had been run out of several provinces on maladministration charges, owned a construction company and was active in funnelling pro-Taliban Pashtuns into demographically sensitive areas critical for his son’s election. It all gave new significance to the only charge that Gol Rahman had made during our interview: accusing the governor of Balkh Province—a rival of his father’s—of arming militias.

“As a Westerner, you shouldn’t try to understand the politics and motivations,” a university professor later advised me.

“This is Afghanistan.” Yet, I had just spent an hour nodding enthusiastically at Gol Rahman’s “anti-corruption” rhetoric, so I felt a little foolish at my gullibility. Arguably, my reaction is not that different from how the international community feels after nearly a decade’s involvement in Afghanistan.

Image © Getty Images

Afghan realities “So much money has been poured into this country, so many lives lost, yet there is still immense ungratefulness on the part of its people and government,” said one Western consultant who requested that his name not be published. Another Western consultant with several years of experience in Afghanistan once let me into the secret of how the game is played here by men who are either naive or wilfully blind.

Meetings are the cornerstone of an aid merry-go-round funded by a seemingly unending foreign donor-backed monetary supply. At regular intervals or “milestones,” my friend said, terribly well-meaning members of the international community meet up with Western-educated government members and representatives of the NATO militaries to discuss “progress.” The Afghan ministry officials, whose polished English and Western-friendly terminology Gol Rahman Hamdard had made sure to echo, are appointed by less refined power-brokers

So much money has been poured into this country, so many lives lost, yet there is still immense ungratefulness on the part of its people and government

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to act as screens. Speaking technocratese, they reassure the representatives of the international community that all targets are being hit, all deadlines met.

As the meeting comes to an end, the exorbitantly-paid Western consultants breathe a sigh of relief that they can continue drawing the taxpayer-funded “danger pay” that enables their lifestyles: well-guarded villas, the frequenting of apartheid restaurants where entry is banned for Afghan nationals, and regular “decompression” breaks to Goa. The Western diplomats hustle in their bulletproof convoys back to their embassies from which they compose optimistic reports for their governments stressing the necessity of continuing the “commitment” to Afghanistan. The generals repair to their headquarters from where they plan further campaigns for “marginalising” or “degrading” the insurgency. And the Westernised Afghan civil servants return to the bosom of extended tribal structures rife with vested interests and nepotism whose acceptable front they represent.

The above character-types do not represent all the aid-workers, diplomats, NATO military or Afghan government officials active in Afghanistan. But they are an expression of a dominant psychology that keeps this merry-go-round spinning by ensuring all stakeholders are satisfied. There is simply not enough incentives to get out of the rut. Sure, there’s a lot of financial wastage (not to mention the Afghan and foreign soldiers killed and maimed every day in the war’s spreading frontline), but

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the present arrangement does possess one great advantage: It keeps dormant the problem of how the West can extricate itself from Afghanistan.

Until, that is, the money or the willingness to be in Afghanistan run out. “The difference between the Russians and the Americans is that the Russian central planned economy brought Soviet companies to build directly whereas the Americans introduced the concept of democracy where you build yourself,” Najeeb Peykon, a radio station owner in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, said. “But the direct result of that was that most of the money disappeared into pockets… The past 10 years have seen a blizzard of aid in the absence of the right receptacles for it. It’s ended up destroying even the little existing infrastructure,” he added.

Another international resident in Kabul expanded on the folly the West is involved in. Applying western terms of reference to Afghanistan is meaningless, she said, because to do so would mean expecting this tribally-based society to become a Western nation-state overnight. Levelling nepotism charges at a ministry director who funnels contracts to his cousins is misplaced in a society where the action is interpreted as a show of clan solidarity.

Tainted elections September’s parliamentary elections are an example of how exorbitant sums are wasted. $200 million was poured into a nationwide exercise billed as bringing democracy to a conflicted land. Though the idea is laudable, the timing and its execution were flawed. As popular disenchantment with the Karzai government has caused the insurgency to spread throughout the country, conditions for a repeat of the parliamentary elections held in that first flush of optimism in 2005 have deteriorated. The fraud-tainted 2009 presidential elections that saw President Karzai return to power have compounded the disillusionment.

“Most people don’t know anything about democracy and have no acquaintance with it,” Peykon sighed. “If you’re from the same ethnic group, then they’ll vote for you. Other people follow the democratic bandwagon as if it’s a caravan. Only a minority understand its true meaning.”

By election day, the Taliban had killed several candidates, hundreds of polling stations remained closed, and at least one in four voters decided to stay home. Not without reason. By the end of a remarkably violent polling day, 32 Afghans had been killed and 95 injured. In the aftermath, more than 4.000 complaints poured in, delaying the release of the final results until forty-five days after the elections (31 October). Videos shot on cameraphones emerged, showing election officials stuffing ballots into boxes under the gaze of local policemen. It seemed that fraud had percolated everywhere, from voters and polling officials to the security forces.

“The key to Afghan politics is capital,” said Peykon. “Those people who were commandants and warlords have entered a new lease of life through the parliament. The new parliament will be a constructed parliament, a pre-planned one. It cannot be called a national parliament.” “We’ll have the same opposition to the government that we had before which was in no way an expression of a parliament working for the people but in fact was fighting the government in favor of entrenched warlord interests,” he added.

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International Donor Aid to Afghanistan Donor

Funding** USD

% of Grand Total

Uncommitted pledges USD

Japan

143,260,444

23.0 %

3,055,000

Carry-over (donors not specified)

128,072,742

20.6 %

0

United States

118,608,020

19.1 %

2,000,000

European Commission

39,669,570

6.4 %

18,476,514

Canada

31,637,295

5.1 %

0

Germany

24,504,657

3.9 %

0

Australia 2

1,180,102

3.4 %

0

Norway

17,110,889

2.8 %

0

Netherlands

16,138,510

2.6 %

611,111

Denmark

13,886,587

2.2 %

0

Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF)

11,019,952

1.8 %

0

Allocations of unearmarked funds by UN agencies

9,062,402

1.5 %

0

Sweden

7,024,585

1.1 %

0

Belgium

6,304,845

1.0 %

0

Ireland

6,044,555

1.0 %

549,451

Russian Federation

5,000,000

0.8 %

0

France

4,671,286

0.8 %

0

India

3,949,407

0.6 %

0

United Kingdom

3,512,709 0

.6 %

0

Finland

1,855,992

0.3 %

0

Luxembourg

1,735,668

0.3 %

0

Italy

1,602,934

0.3 %

0

Austria

1,601,330

0.3 %

0

Afghanistan

1,178,410

0.2 %

0

Spain

842,710

0.1 %

0

Poland

500,000

0.1 %

0

Switzerland

475,559 0.1 % 0 Compiled by OCHA on the basis of information provided by donors and appealing organizations.

Nevertheless, United Nations Special Representative to Afghanistan Stefano di Mistura put a positive spin on the elections, saying, “One must not forget that Afghanistan is still a country in conflict. The fact that elections took place at all, not least in such close succession and during comparatively a more volatile period, is an accomplishment in itself.”

But facts on the ground spoke not so much of a step forward as a retreat. Voters told of unprecedented disillusionment with the process. Many reportedly participated only in order to sell their support to candidates for a one-off fee. The price varied from as little as $10 to $100, according to the candidate’s purchasing power and how demographically crucial the disputed province was. Elsewhere, feudal rules played a role, with local strongmen forcing entire villages to vote for a favored candidate.

It was another clear sign of Afghanistan’s regression that no amount of technocrat-speak could disguise. The cultural experiment to reshape Afghanistan into a modern nation-state constructed along liberal western lines foundered on the crags of the Hindu Kush. Now, as the West heads for the exits, Afghanistan’s countdown clock is ticking louder than at any other time in the past nine years.

Iason Athanasiadis – Journalist based in Istanbul. He covers Turkey, the Middle East and Central Asia. Since 1999, he has lived in Cairo, Damascus, Doha, Sana’a and Tehran. Mr. Athanasiadis worked as an electoral observer during September's Afghan parliamentary elections.

This article was first published in The Majalla 14 October 2010

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Going Rogue

The Tea Party’s impact on American politics The Tea Party’s recent success in the primaries highlights an issue that receives little attention but deserves to be addressed: Why are conservatives so good at rallying the masses, stoking indignation, and giving indignation form and function?

Noam Schimmel

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fter months in which it was not clear just how influential the Tea Party would be and if the anger it channeled would have practical political implications, in the recent primaries, the Tea Party asserted itself decisively. Its victories were significant and unexpected, putting the Republican Party on the defensive and inspiring a mixture of anxiety and hope in Democrats.

On one hand Democrats were pleased to see division within Republican ranks, with the Tea Party clearly upsetting mainstream Republicans and helping to elect Tea Party affiliated candidates as Republican nominees whose politics may be too extreme as to render them unelectable in some states.

But Democrats were also concerned by the degree of energy, resources and influence the Tea Party has amassed and now wields. Although its more extreme candidates may be unelectable in politically moderate states such as Delaware— where Christine O’Donnell scored an upset victory for the Tea Party—they may well attract support in Florida and other such politically diverse and unpredictable states.

The Tea Party remains volatile and its impact on the November elections unclear. It is both helping and hindering Republicans, energizing the party and dividing it, inspiring new members and turning away moderates who are finding themselves estranged from its dogmatism. But on the whole, it seems to have galvanized conservatives, attracted massive media attention, and put Democrats on the defensive. As Gary Younge writes in the Guardian, Democrats should be careful what they wish for. Just because Republicans are becoming more extremist doesn't mean they can't win. Two Tea Party candidates have already been selected in safe Senate seats and five are on the ticket in tight races. Of these, two hold double-digit leads and the remaining three are in dead heats. Indeed, the first of two certainties come November is that the Congressional Republican caucus in both houses will emerge even further to the right than it went in.

So while in moderate states like Delaware the Tea Party may have unwittingly handed a lifeline to Democrats, their net effect is likely to be sharply positive in terms of increasing Republican representation in Congress and shrinking both the overall Democratic congressional representation and its ability to pass legislation. As Younge notes, even with a substantial majority

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in the House and Senate, Democrats have suffered from a lack of solidarity and conviction with a great deal of internal dissent which rendered them paralyzed in the face of an increasingly broken economy. After the mid-term elections they will have even less freedom to advance their agenda.

New York Times columnist, David Brooks, argues that there is little evidence to show that the Tea Party is causing disaffection with Republicans amongst Americans, citing polls showing increasing support for Republicans across the country. The Tea Party seems to be drawing Americans to Republican ranks and has set itself up as the only opposition protesting what many Americans perceive as the failed economic and political policies of the Obama administration and of Congress as a whole.

With no alternative, Americans are gravitating towards the Tea Party to vent their anger, fear and demand for change.

Brooks notes with concern the radical and irresponsible rhetoric of some members of the Tea Party—although this does not seem to have turned off most Americans, rather, it has galvanized them. Brook writes, Along the way, the movement has picked up some of the worst excesses of modern American culture: a narcissistic sense of victimization, an egomaniacal belief in one's own rightness and purity, a willingness to distort the truth so that every conflict becomes a contest of pure good versus pure evil.

Brooks is a moderate conservative, not a liberal, and his characterization of the Tea Party offers a cautious commentary on the dangers of a political movement that is becoming increasingly shrill, antithetical to pluralism and reasoned debate, and prone to defamation. It is clearly stoking the fires of extremism which Brooks notes have already infected more mainstream conservatives. A recent article in Forbes by Dinesh d’Souza, for example, amounted to a paranoid and hysterical tirade against Barack Obama, claiming that his aim was to destabilize and undermine the United States, in keeping with his father’s anticolonial beliefs.

On one hand Democrats were pleased to see division within Republican ranks, with the Tea Party clearly upsetting mainstream Republicans The existence and success of the Tea Party highlights an issue that receives little attention but deserves to be addressed: why are conservatives so good at rallying the masses, stoking indignation, and giving indignation form and function? Why are liberals so bad at doing the same for their own respective ends?

They’re no less angry but their anger rarely gets expressed in politically viable and productive ways.

There is no liberal counterpart to the Tea Party. Sure, a “Coffee Party” exists as a liberal/moderate alternative but it is not a political or social force, lacks resources and organization, and is more a product of wishful thinking and a rhetorical response to the Tea Party’s practical power than a genuine liberal parallel to it. There’s good reason why many people have not heard of it and why it has almost no media coverage: It is not a political and social force with which to be reckoned.

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Democrats are going into this election with the disadvantage of not having a group of fiercely passionate advocates for unapologetic liberalism at the forefront. At a time when many Americans are suffering from economic insecurity, indignation and immoderate sentiments attract far greater support than the mealy-mouthed moderation Obama and Democrats have been able to muster. Many Americans are angry and there does not appear to be a liberal address for anger, only a conservative one, and only with the Tea Party.

Tea Party candidates are likely to be as obstructionist and hostile to bipartisanship and compromise in Congress as other Republicans. But because many are newcomers they are relatively untainted and can project an image of newness, integrity, and innovation even if in reality they are little different from conventional Republicans and will behave quite similarly to them, contributing to gridlock in Congress and government dysfunction.

The Tea Party’s main party platform consists of delegitimizing government and defunding it under the rhetorical mantra of promoting, “limited government.” There is no Tea Party plan that will increase employment, rebuild infrastructure, improve schools and state and local services. Anger does not lend itself to such practical improvements—but to the demagoguery and name calling at which the Tea Party excels.

This Year’s Tea Party Loyalists Amy Kremer, chairman of Tea Party Express Former airline stewardess from Atlanta and a founding member of Tea Party Patriots, the movement’s largest membership organization. She helped organize the waves of protests against healthcare reform during the summer of 2009 when Washington began to take notice of the movement. Currently chairman of the Tea Party Express, she has spent months supporting Joe Miller and Christine O’Donnell in their surprise Republican primary victories.

Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska Palin’s SarahPAC political action committee recently released an 80-second video that advertised her as the leader of the Tea Party, while suggesting that a 2012 presidential run is likely. A previous mayor of the town of Wasilla, Palin, 45, was elected as the first female and youngest ever governor of Alaska in 2006. In 2008, she ran as John McCain’s vice presidential candidate and resigned from her role as governor after the couple lost. Last year she released her bestselling book, Going Rogue: An American Life, and she was the keynote speaker at the first Tea Party Convention in Nashville.

Rick Santelli, presenter for CNBC On 19 February 2009, Santelli attacked the Obama administration’s plans to subsidize struggling homeowners on live television in what was described as “the rant of the year.” Despite not having any affiliation with Tea Party groups, he concluded, “We’re thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m going to start organizing.” It soon became evident that the TV presenter had tapped into a fear over spending on stimulus and the handling of home foreclosures.

Dick Armey, chairman of FreedomWorks Texan author of Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto, Dick Armey is one of the most recognizable leaders of the Tea Party movement. Armey is a former House majority leader and currently the chairman of the conservative non-profit FreedomWorks, which is closely affiliated with the Tea Party. By endorsing candidates alongside the Tea Party, FreedomWorks has helped candidates attract national attention and win over establishment-backed candidates.

(Source: the Telegraph)

Image © Getty Images

Jenny Beth Martin, activist Included in the 2010 TIME 100 list, Jenny Beth Martin was one of the leading people behind the strong response to the Rick Santelli broadcast. A co-founder and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, and the co-chair of the Atlanta Tea Party, she helped lead the movement’s march in Washington on 12 September 2009, viewed as a breakthrough moment with thousands converging on Capitol Hill.

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Tea Party candidates have demonstrated bigotry and engaged in ad hominem attacks against a broad swath of Americans on the basis of class, sexual orientation, gender, and, less explicitly, race. Carl Paladino, the Tea Party nominee for New York state governor has called for putting welfare recipients in prison where they can purportedly benefit from learning basic life skills such as personal hygiene in a structured environment. He also said— lacking any evidence and reasoning whatsoever—that Obama’s healthcare reform plans would kill more Americans than the September 11th attacks. Christine O’Donnell is firmly against a woman’s right to control her own body and have an abortion, harshly skeptical of global warming and its implications, and hostile to gay rights. Tea Party activists—both lay leaders and leaders alike have made wild accusations against Democrats and President Obama that amount to character assassination.

In the long term, the Tea Party is rendering the Republican Party hostile to moderates, Hispanics, and an increasingly tolerant American populace

The Tea Party projects an image of itself as a grass roots movement. There is some truth to this but as a recent New Yorker article explored, the Tea Party also receives a great deal of financial and logistical support from conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch. According to Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist, the Kochs are “trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies.” The money that makes the Tea Party work then is not primarily small donations from individual Americans—as was so significant in Obama’s web based campaign fundraising—rather, it is the traditional large donations of wealthy individuals hiding beyond seemingly neutral names such as “Americans for Prosperity.” The Tea Party Express, for example, raises millions of dollars to support Tea Party candidates; it has raised over five million dollars, several hundreds of thousands of which were invested in the successful campaign of Christine O’Donnell in Delaware.

At present, the Tea Party has not fractured the Republican Party in two because it reflects the very extremism that has increasingly come to define the character and politics of the Republican Party. It frustrates the political drive of moderates such as Charlie Christ in Florida and of conservatives who are not quite as conservative as the Tea Party, such as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska who lost in the recent primaries there to a Tea Party candidate. Overall, it is energizing the Republican base. It is, however, polarizing politics in America and making the Republican Party ever less welcoming to independents and those who believe that the government has an essential role to play and that the mantra of limited government is neither a philosophy nor a plan of action but an unreflective and kneejerk response to complex social problems.

In the short term the Tea Party may prove to be a boon to the Republicans and a threat to Democrats. But in the long term, the Tea Party is rendering the Republican Party hostile to moderates, Hispanics, and an increasingly tolerant American populace which has little interest in the anti-immigrant invective of the Tea Party, its lack of support for equality and civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans, and its relentless indifference and active hostility to economically disadvantaged Americans who are growing as a percentage of the American population while the economy contracts and new jobs are not being created. For now many Americans may be seduced by the Tea Party’s vivid indignation and uncompromising conservatism. But, with time, Republicans will likely rue their dependence on them.

Currently the Tea Party is the emperor and he looks in the eyes of many Americans resplendent, filled with emerging power and promise. But as is all too often the case the more one looks carefully and critically at the emperor the more one realizes that however rich one’s imagination and however generous, the emperor in fact has no clothes. The hope and enthusiasm of so many that is projected upon him cannot indefinitely mask the moral ugliness he displays and the fact that the instant people see his nakedness his empire will crumble.

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

This article was first published in The Majalla 30 September 2010

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Commercial Geographies A new map of the world

Governing bodies around the world approach challenges from a geographical perspective.

However, political geographies lock minds into thinking of countries within the same “region” as part of a coherent bloc. This point of view is in many ways limited when it comes to predicting the future of a country, especially when compared to a perspective based on commercial geographies.

Image © iStockphoto

Afshin Molavi

T

The celebrated American writer Mark Twain once said, that “the difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” Multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and most governments around the world have a lightning bug problem. They see the world through an “almost right” framework, but miss the “lightning.”

The problem lies with geography. Most governments and international institutions rely on a political geography view of the world. Political geographies lock minds into thinking of countries within the same “region” or sharing similar languages, histories, or cultures as part of a coherent bloc. Whereas the more important indicator might be the commercial geography of a country: where and from whence does its trade and investment flow? Commercial geographies of countries are often far different than political geographies, and better predictive tools for the future of a country.

To offer an example, the future of Saudi Arabia’s economic growth lies not with Egypt or Lebanon or Gaza, though those three occupy much time in the Arab media. It lies with China and India, where the biggest future growth in oil consumption resides. It was likely no accident that the Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz chose China and India as the sites for his first two state visits after ascending the throne five years ago.

The World Bank divides the world into the following regions: Africa (sub-Saharan), East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia. The State Department uses largely similar classifications. Visit any foreign ministry around the world and you will see roughly the same classifications, though in China and India, they tend to refer to the Middle East as “West Asia.”

But they lump virtually the same countries in the category.

What’s wrong with these regional divisions? They lock minds into a political geography map of the world, and fail to capture the more important commercial geography map of the world.

The commercial geography map of the world is arguably even

more important because it follows the money: trade and capital flows across regions that drive global growth and accrue wealth within countries.

The Middle East/North Africa region provides a good example of missing the larger story. This region, known as MENA within World Bank circles, includes countries from Morocco on the Mediterranean to Oman on the Arabian Sea. While Omani and Moroccan representatives sit in the same hall at World Bank-IMF meetings and their membership in the Arab League reflects their political geography links, they have virtually little or no commercial geography links. Morocco’s commercial geography is European, Oman’s is Asian.

This is indeed true of most Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. They are rich because of Asia, Europe, and to some extent, the United States – all of whom are the major purchasers

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of their major commodity, oil. The GCC states are a part of MENA, but their wealth owes little to MENA. Even their imported labor is largely Asian, not Middle Eastern.

In fact, intra-regional trade within MENA—while rising— still accounts for only about one-fifth of the region’s total trade.

That means 80 percent of MENA’s trade is driven from outside its borders.

Increasingly, that trade is headed toward Asia. It’s a shorter flight from Dubai to Mumbai, than Dubai to Cairo. Container ships that land in GCC ports are more often headed for Asia than other Middle East ports. And China has become the largest trade partner with the MENA region, surpassing the United States. A major slowdown in Chinese growth would hurt oil exporters around the world, and deter the kind of expensive future investments that are being made with the Asian growth story in mind.

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Why does this commercial geography matter? It matters because it offers a better predictive model for the future of the region and individual countries. As Europe ages, it will require more youthful labor. This provides an opportunity for more North African Middle East migration to Western Europe – if the political climate allows. Similarly, as the Eurozone economic recovery slows, so too will trade, remittances, and tourism receipts that link Europe with North Africa. This, too, will add to the illegal migration pressure of North Africans turning up on European shores.

To gage the future of the oil and gas-rich states of the region, one must look at the future of demand growth in the world: India and China. The oil and gas-rich states should have breathed a collective sigh of relief at the latest numbers from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. China and India will see robust growth through the next two years.

Indeed, the US Energy Information Administration notes that China and India are expected to be the fastest growing economies through the year 2030.

As for Mexico and Central American and Caribbean states, a slowdown in America means a slowdown in their own economies. Thus, they might sit in the Latin America-Caribbean meetings at the World Bank, but they ought to be much more interested in sitting in on meetings at the US Federal Reserve.

Those meetings more consequential to their future.

Given this differing commercial geography, we might come up with better classifications, such as MENAsia, or Euro-MedAfrica. When we begin to view the world in terms of its commercial geography, we begin to also see security and diplomatic ramifications that are not always evident in a political geography worldview. Thus, transnational terrorist groups in Pakistan or Afghanistan are more likely to see the Gulf states as regional hubs or points of target. After all, a dhow from Karachi can easily amble into the port of Dubai.

On a larger geo-political level, China’s increasing reliance on Persian Gulf oil supplies ensure that it would likely take a hardline on any attempt by Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz in the event of a confrontation with the United States. While the US Navy remains the ultimate Gulf policeman, China will have little patience for any state or non-state actor that threatens the oil supplies that fuels its growth.

What about Africa? China is increasingly playing a larger role in the future of African growth. Its purchases of African commodities and massive investments in African infrastructure (to get those commodities to the Chinese market more easily) represents the single biggest external factor in what is increasingly seen as an African growth story. All major development institutions ought to have a “ChAfrica” office (not just a task force or individuals who write the occasional paper on the topic). China is increasingly writing the future of Africa, for good or ill.

Bureaucracies are stubborn. They don’t like change. They tend to operate within political geographies, but unless they begin to think more broadly in terms of commercial geography, they will continue to get the world only “almost right.”

Afshin Molavi – Senior fellow at The New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, whose work has been published in dozens of publications from Foreign Affairs to the New York Times to the Financial Times.

This article was first published in The Majalla 8 October 2010 25

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The Limits of Competition Parliamentary elections in Egypt in 2010

Recent calls amongst opposition groups to boycott elections competing with decisions to participate in this year’s parliamentary elections have much in common with a similar controversy over the use of electoral monitoring mechanisms in Egypt. These competing trends within the opposition reveal important cleavages crated by Egypt’s model of constrained political reform.

Amr Hamzawy & Michele Dunne

T

cal and international monitors to perform their jobs freely. These demands spring from the opposition’s expectation—informed by their experiences in the 2008 local elections and in the June 2010 Shura Council elections—that the regime is intent on limiting the competitiveness of the 2010 parliamentary elections.

On the other hand, the Wafd Party and the Muslim Brotherhood—the most organized and capable opposition groups in Egypt—have decided to participate, as have Tagammu’ and a few smaller parties. In fact, recent statements by members of the Brotherhood Guidance Bureau indicate that the Brotherhood will attempt to field as many as 200 candidates.

Despite their concerns about the transparency of the electoral process and a prior agreement with those boycotting the elections, the Wafd and the Brotherhood leaderships have justified their decision to participate on four grounds. First, they argue that boycotting would exclude opposition parties and movements from the core of political life, namely electoral competition and parliamentary participation. Second, it would weaken the opposition’s popular presence and organizational capacity by depriving it of the opportunity for direct interaction with voters and rejuvenation of party cadres involved in electoral campaigns. Third, boycotting runs the risk of allow-

Image © Getty Images

he parliamentary elections of 29 November 2010 mark the beginning of a long electoral season. The ruling National Democratic Party, or the government’s party as it is known to Egyptians, continues to use the state apparatus to ensure its electoral success. By implementing internal structural reform the NDP appears on its way to maintain its two-thirds majority in the People’s Assembly.

As a result of the present electoral conditions, opposition groups disagree on the merits of participating in the 2010 elections, in contrast to their previously unified stance on the need to participate in the 2005 parliamentary elections. Competing calls by the opposition to both boycott and participate in the elections reveals the challenges inherent in the model of constrained political reform that has governed Egyptian politics in recent years.

The Ghad Party, National Democratic Front Party and the National Association for Change have decided to boycott the elections in protest of the NDP’s refusal to meet the opposition’s demands for measures guaranteeing transparency during the upcoming elections. Such measures include cleaning up voter registries, halting the harassment of opposition candidates, ensuring the functioning of the electoral commission, guaranteeing the presence of its representatives in polling stations, and allowing lo-

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ing the NDP full reign over the elections. And finally, by participating the opposition can document electoral transgressions and demonstrate to the domestic and international audience the regime’s failure to ensure the transparency of the elections, thereby dispelling myths of democratic legitimacy.

The boycott-participation divide speaks to the fundamental challenges and limited opportunities that the opposition has faced during Mubarak’s presidency. On the one hand, the regime maintains a stranglehold on electoral competition to ensure the NDP’s hegemony over legislative bodies, but on the other hand it gives the opposition the opportunity for limited political participation through elections and parliamentary activity.

The parliamentary elections of 2010 are swirling also with the debate on international election monitoring. Despite requests by the Obama administration and several non-governmental organizations to allow international monitors to ensure legitimate elections, NDP leaders have thus far refused. They claim the presence of international monitors would violate national sovereignty and enable foreigners to interfere in Egypt’s internal affairs.

The Egyptian opposition is shifting its stance, however, regarding the question of international monitoring, showing that the idea is gaining steam. Opposition parties and movements that once rejected international monitoring are now debating whether this rejection is justified. The Muslim Brotherhood has reversed the stance it took on the eve of the 2005 parliamentary elections, with several of its leaders openly calling for international observers since last year. These statements stress that international monitoring is not perceived as interference in Egyptian affairs, but rather is understood as a necessity due to prevalent electoral fraud constantly perpetuated by the regime and its security apparatus.

Joining the Brotherhood in welcoming international monitoring are the Ghad Party, the Democratic Front Party, some non-partisan opposition movements such as the National Association for Change, and all of the nongovernmental organizations engaged in the domestic monitoring process, such as the Egyptian Alliance for Monitoring the People’s Assembly Elections (an umbrella organization of some 120 NGOs). In October 2009, the leaders of Ghad and the Democratic Front, as well as members of the Egyptians Against Fraud movement and other figures like the head of the Brotherhood parliamentary bloc Sa’ad Al-Katatni, all signed a document calling for international election observers. The petition went on to ask international rights groups, the EU, the African Union and the Arab League to urge the Egyptian government to allow international observers into Egypt to oversee the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.

“The media, judiciary and rights organizations have all contributed to documenting the grave violations seen in the presidential and legislative elections in 2005, then in the constitutional amendment referendum in March 2007, the Shura Council elections in June 2007, and the local elections in April 2008,” argued the signatories as they justified their request for international monitoring. “In blatant defiance of an independent judiciary and the rule of law, the government as a matter of course ignored hundreds of judicial rulings voiding the elections in a number of electoral districts. The Egyptian authorities still deny the right to form political parties, obscure the legitimacy of several political forces, and impede civil society from independently observing the elections,” they added.

The National Association for Change, meanwhile, in the third article of its “Together, We Will Change” petition—which has Issue 1558 • November 2010

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Ruling the Roost Having been in power for just over 30 years, the National Democratic Party has developed a welldefined platform on which it will base its campaign during the upcoming elections. Claiming to represent the entire spectrum of identities Egyptians might associate with, their propaganda might be misinterpreted for one of a party that does not regularly ban the existence of an opposition groups, stands in the way of journalistic freedom, or one that relies on a pseudo-permanent state of emergency to maintain this autocratic control. Nevertheless, the party describes itself on the basis of the following principles: A Party for all Egyptians – The NDP expresses the aspirations of all Egyptians, regardless of their religious, regional or professional belongings, who live in the Egyptian national melting pot, which accommodates all these people. The NDP firmly embraces the belief that Egypt is a home for all Egyptians in an atmosphere where all different opinions serve national interests. The party is considered a natural growth of the Egyptian patriotism trend, which has led the way for national independence since the early 20th century. The NDP knows for certain that the centrality of the Egyptian national identity is the thing that nourished Egypt's integration since the dawn of history. At the same time, the NDP takes Egypt's strong links with the Arab and Muslim nations for granted.

The Principle of Citizenship – The NDP is committed to the principle of citizenship as the basis of total equality among citizens in rights and duties without the least regard to religion, beliefs, origin or sex. The party highlights the importance of national unity, which binds Egypt's Muslims and Copts together.

Religion and Progress – The NDP knows for certain that heavenly religions can play a positive role in pushing for progress. It pins its faith on Islam and Islamic jurisprudence, which is the main source for legislation. It also believes in the importance of renewing religious discourse in a way that emblazons the importance of work, solidarity, tolerance, justice and comprehensive development.

Positive Moderation – The NDP's platform stems from a moderate attitude that expresses the positions of average Egyptians. This is a positive moderation that highly pins its faith on initiatives, participation, change and the renunciation of radicalism. It is a position that adopts moderate attitudes in seeking social, economic and political alterations in an atmosphere that protects the interests of individuals and the interests of society as well.

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• ON POLITICS

Citizen’s Rights – The NDP spares no effort in securing full respect for all citizens' rights, such as the right for a secure life, the right for freedom and the right for equality before the law. It also does the same in relation to the right for property, the right for work, the right for education, the right for medical care and the right for privacy. The right for political participation, the right for freedom of thinking and speech and all the other rights that find their roots in heavenly religions, the constitution and international charters which Egypt has signed are high on the party's agenda. The NDP is easy in its mind about the importance of invigorating the institutions, which are endowed with the responsibility of protecting these rights like the judiciary and police.

Democracy – The NDP highlights the importance of continuing the drive toward democracy through bumping up respect for the constitution, the supremacy of law, public freedoms and underlining the importance of transparency and accountability, and the freedom of the press. It also condones all forms of participation and the preservation of the political rights of laborers and farmers State and Society – The NDP banks on the role of the state as the patron of society and the honest guardian of its values, potentialities and social security. It believes that the job of the state is to make suitable the atmosphere for development and strike a balance between the interests of society and the interests of individuals using the arm of law. The role of the state is also to assist low-income segments to attain their basic demands and give due care to people with special needs. The NDP, at the same time, has an unwavering belief in the importance of the continual modernization of state institutions for them to be able to carry out their development-related duties perfectly.

Family and Development – The NDP believes in the importance of the family as the core of society and the center of comprehensive development. The party does its utmost to enable families to carry out their duties of upbringing, sowing the seeds of positive values into youngsters and effectively taking part in family planning efforts in a way that makes a balance between the size of the family, its needs and its resources.

(Source: The National Democratic Party website)

Even opposition groups that have announced their opposition to international monitoring are finding that position difficult to maintain

garnered the support of 115,664 Egyptian citizens to date on the association’s website—the group demands that local and international civil society organizations monitor the elections.

Even opposition groups that have announced their opposition to international monitoring are finding that position difficult to maintain in the face of recent electoral practices. Speaking to this tension, Tagammu’, the most important leftist party in Egypt, rejected international monitoring as an intervention in Egyptian affairs in a statement by its leader Rifa’at Al-Saeed. However, the party’s deputy secretary-general, Hussein Abdel-Razeq, announced his cautious support for such monitoring due to the recurring fraud in past elections. The same contradiction was evident within the Kifaya movement, which has openly acknowledged internal disagreement over the question of monitoring. Kifaya’s former coordinator George Ishaq was one of the signatories of the October 2009 document, whereas other leaders such as the current coordinator Abdel Halim Qandil remain opposed to monitoring.

In the Wafd Party, although leaders such as Chairman Sayyid Al-Badawi and Secretary General Monir Fakhri Abdel Nour are united in their opposition to international monitoring, the party is working hard to convince the Egyptian public of the wisdom of its stance in favor of election monitors. To counter their leaders claims, they have argued that Al-Badawi and Abdel Nour did not justify their rejection of international monitoring on the grounds that it would constitute interference in domestic affairs. Rather, they explained, their position was that it would be impractical for a handful of international monitors to cover a country the size of Egypt (which has 40,000 polling places) and expressed concern that the monitors’ work would consequently be restricted to the major cities, with the countryside likely to be neglected.

This type of backtracking may be confounding, but what is certain is that although Wafd is using logistical difficulties as a pretext to reject international monitoring, it is actually as split on the issue as Tagammu’ and Kifaya are. This trend clearly shows the growing tendency within opposition movements, as well as a broad sector of the Egyptian public, to favor international monitoring as a safeguard against electoral fraud. More importantly, these developments greatly reduce the credibility of claims by regime supporters that the Egyptian public is dead set against the idea of international monitoring, and make it much more difficult to convince the international community that observers would not be welcomed in Egypt.

The 2010 parliamentary elections will both renew the tension between the ruling National Democratic Party and the opposition groups, and intensify the controversy in Egypt about international election monitoring. As such, the elections should be watched closely. With the country anticipating a period of presidential succession, the parliamentary elections are worth following since at this crucial juncture, the elections offer a valuable opportunity to understand the regime’s preferences as to how to strike a balance between the objective of power preservation and the growing popular demand for democratic reform.

Amr Hamzawy – Research director and senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

Michele Dunne – Senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and editor of the online journal, the Arab Reform Bulletin.

This article was first published in The Majalla 21 October 2010

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• AMERICA AND POLITICAL ISLAM

America and Political Islam Nine years after the 9/11 earthquake

US foreign policy and political Islam were not always the worst of enemies. Gradually, and particularly since the 1979 Iranian revolution, a series of events began to change US perceptions toward political Islam. September 11 marked a rupture in this relationship, and transformed not only US foreign policy, but also US public attitude towards Islam. Nine years on, the signs from the Obama administration regarding the issue are mixed.

Fawaz A. Gerges

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lmost a decade after the September 11 attacks, America is still at war with politically-based religious groups and movements. Not only was US foreign policy indelibly shaped, shaken and transformed by the 9/11 earthquake but also, and more alarming, September 11 transformed the attitudes of the US public towards Islam from one of suspicious ambivalence to one of unnecessary fear and rejection.

Contrary to the received wisdom, American foreign policy and political Islam were not always the worst of enemies. A long history of cooperation, accommodation, common interests, and at times, confrontation has characterized America’s relations with Islamic organizations. However, September 11 marked a rupture in America’s relations with political Islam, the end of a nuanced and complex engagement for more than half a century.

Fierce debates and concerns about political Islam have been a permanent feature of American foreign policymaking for the past 60 years and different presidential administrations have approached political Islam in different ways.

A common thread of America’s engagement with political Islam is that real politick and inter-state interests have driven the relationship more so than cultural, religious and ideological factors. For the American public, although the religious and intellectual challenge of Islam continues to seize the imagination of many people in the US, it is the security and strategic implications of the mass politics of Islam that resonates in the minds of many Americans.

Aziz of Saudi Arabia to sponsor a holly Islamic alliance to isolate Egypt in the Arab world. In the struggle between Islam and populist nationalism, the United States sided with the former. American policy was driven by Cold War considerations and strategic calculations, not by history, culture or any intrinsic fear or hatred of Islam.

The US perception of the Middle East situation and the nature of the threat, however, underwent a radical shift in the 1970s, largely because of the explosion of Islamic politics onto the scene. Regional events—the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the subsequent Arab oil embargo, and the 1978-79 Is-

A history of engagement before 9/11 On the whole, between 1955 and 1970, US policy in the Arab world was framed in opposition to secular Arab nationalism led by President Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt. In US eyes, revolutionary nationalism, not political Islam, represented a security threat to the pro-Western, conservative monarchies.

Symbolic representations, such as “extremist” and “satellite,” were applied to radical nationalist elements throughout the Middle East.

Ironically, in the 1950s and 1960s, the United States hoped to construct an alliance of Islamic states with sufficient prestige to counterbalance “godless communism” and the secular nationalist forces as represented by Nasser.

In the mid-1960s, one of the reasons for the deterioration of US-Egyptian relations was Nasser’s belief that President Lyndon Johnson had encouraged King Faisal ibn ‘Abd Al30

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lamic Iranian revolution and the ensuing hostage crisis— shocked many American officials into viewing Islam as a threat to Western interests.

Of all the regional developments of the 1970s, the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis had the most formative effect on the US foreign-policy establishment and the public’s views of Islam. As one US official noted in 1995, “The Iranian experience extremely conditioned US thinking about the violent, anti-American nature of fundamentalist Islam.” It was under the impact of the Iranian revolution, then, that Islamism replaced secular nationalism as a security threat to US interests, and fear of a clash between Islam and the West crystallized in the minds of Americans.

Events of the following years only sharpened US fears of the power of resurgent Islam. In particular, the 1981 assassination of President Sadat of Egypt, and the bloody attacks against US personnel and installations in Lebanon, Kuwait and elsewhere, heightened US officials’ concerns over the export of “Iranian fundamentalism.”

The Islamic revolution in Tehran colored US attitudes towards political Islam. The politics of Islam were confused with the politics of Iran, with many Americans unable to imagine relations with an Islamist government in which the United States was not cast as the Great Satan. “US perceptions of the Iranian experience,” conceded one State Department official, “were projected to our experience of the Arab Middle East.”

Issue 1558 • November 2010

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September 11 marked a rupture in America’s relations with political Islam, the end of a nuanced and complex engagement for more than half a century Islamophobia: Is it real?

Since the World Trade Center attacks in New York on 11 September 2001, Muslims around the world, particularly in the West, have experienced various forms of hostility, violence and discrimination at the hands of non-Muslims at an increasing rate.

Though this is not a new phenomenon, its seeming resurgence has been a cause for great concern among Western policy makers and citizens alike.

The Runnymede Trust’s 1997 report Islamophobia: a challenge for us all signified the first public attempt, endorsed by a Western government, to define and identify the existence of Islamophobia. Muslim organizations, human rights watchdog groups and politicians have been the first to adopt the term, and since then, have become its main proponents, arguing that the reported increase in anti-Muslim sentiment in the US and in Europe must be addressed.

Despite the increasingly frequent use of this label, its definition and application are still heavily contested, mainly among academia. Scholars have voiced a wide range of opinions about Islamophobia, managing to sustain a lengthy and heated debate for the past 11 years. Some, for example, feel that the term is inadequate to describe the scope and breadth of anti-Muslim sentiment, while others say that it exaggerates the problem of fear and hatred of Muslims, while silencing criticism.

Daniel Pipes, American writer and political blogger known for his, sometimes unreasonable, criticism of Islam, naturally sides with the latter. In a 2005 article published in the New York Sun, Pipes argues that there is a significant difference between those who fear Islam and those who fear extremist Islam. He says that those who promote the use of the term tend to exaggerate the problem of police profiling and the prevalence of novels that glorify hatred toward Muslims. Pipes calls on Muslims to engage in introspection and abandon the victimized cry of discrimination.

However, the recent and highly publicized debate about a mosque near Ground Zero illustrates that Islamophobia, as a recognized form of racism against Muslims, is real and it poses a serious threat to the future of the Muslim-non-Muslim relationship. In fact, one could argue that extremists on both sides have already ruined any chance for rapprochement.

Perhaps there is some truth to Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations" thesis.

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• AMERICA AND POLITICAL ISLAM

Terrorism and political Islam in the psyche of the American people Since the 1990s, terrorism has emerged as one of the most important political issues in the United States. A series of explosions shattered America’s peace of mind, most notably the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, and deepened American’s fears about the security threats associated with Islamists.

The explosion in New York City had broader implications for US foreign policy. As a senior State Department official remarked, the World Trade Center bombing represented a setback to the Clinton administration’s efforts to define a positive, accomodationist policy toward Islam. Some Middle Eastern regimes, particularly Israel and Egypt, sought to capitalize on the bombing by pressing the United States to support them further in the struggle against local Islamist opposition groups. In the United States, those subscribing to variations of the clash-of-civilizations hypothesis used it to advocate a tough policy toward Islamists.

Therefore, the World Trade Center blast provided confrontationalists in the United States and overseas with a golden opportunity to lobby the Clinton administration to formulate a forceful policy towards Islamists. In moments of crisis, confrontationalists gain the upper hand and dominate the airways and media. It is at such a juncture that American’s attitudes towards Arabs/Muslims harden.

At a Senate hearing in April 1993, Laurence Pope, the Acting Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism, noted, “Twenty years ago in the Arab world, secular nationalism was the preferred ideology. And so it was the ideology that terrorists adapted as a cover for their actions. Increasingly, it’s Islamic ideology, extremist Islamic ideology, which provides the cover.”

September 11: political Islam—public enemy number 1 Although American foreign policy used to be nuanced and dynamic towards political Islam, 9/11 represented a rupture, a dramatic shift in how US policy makers and opinion makers view the many faces of political Islam.

Instead of adopting a more constructive approach—one that drew distinctions among the many faces of Islamic groups and movements, security-based US “experts” took the easier, reductionist approach of lumping all Islamists together. They looked backward and pigeonholed mainstream-moderate Islamists through the prism of Al-Qaeda.

These US terrorism ideologues, wittingly or not, endorsed the official agenda by portraying Islamism as jihadism, a borderless and transnational violent fringe and also as a mortal threat to the West, an aggressive and totalitarian ideology dedicated to random destruction and global subjugation. Still other “experts” of the neoconservative type advocated an all-out war against any manifestation of political Islam.

Building on this consensus of uninformed pundits and social engineers, President Bush ratcheted up the rhetoric by grouping all mainstream and militant Islamists together under the word “Islamofascists.” He called on Americans to be prepared for a global war on terror, the “inescapable calling of our generation.” This United States, Bush proclaimed, was thrust into a struggle between “good” and “evil.” Bush revived memories of the Truman Doctrine, proclaimed 55 years earlier, which envisioned two clashing global systems, one founded on freedom and the other on hatred and persecution.

This war, Bush said, would eradicate the threat of Islamicradical terrorism (again, a loose and incoherent term) and target rogue states that sponsored terrorism or offered lodging to terrorists. With sweeping, ideological language, Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney’s crusade set the stage for the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has been costly in blood and treasure, and damaging to America’s moral standing in the world.

Obama: change and continuity Given this volatile and polarized context, it is refreshing to hear President Obama’s new discourse of engagement, co-existence and reconciliation between Muslims in the East and Christians in the West. Obama has shifted the narrative away from confrontation and insinuated that there existed a possibility of the US adopting a new policy towards Islamic-based movement, at least initially in the first six months of his presidency.

Throughout his presidential campaign and his first six months in office, Obama reiterated his commitment to engaging Muslim societies and altering Muslims’ negative perceptions of the United States. Time and again, the new president has stressed that “the United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam.” In his speech to the Turkish Parliament in April 2009, Obama said that Americans will no longer view Muslims through the prism of terrorism.

In June of 2009, Obama made a landmark speech in Cairo to symbolically “reset” US relations with the Muslim world.

He eloquently addressed critical challenges facing the US in the Muslim world and offered rhetorically a new paradigm, a new beginning, for managing relations between the two civilizations. The speech sent a clear message.

Although Obama’s rhetoric is refreshing, he continues to be entrapped by the mindset and logic of his predecessor’s war

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on terror. Obama does not use the terms and the references of Bush but yet he has not yet broken free from the prism of the war on terror. Islamic groups ranging from moderate political organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood to extremists like Al-Qaeda are still categorized together as a monolith. Obama refuses to engage Hamas and Hezbollah, two leading social, political and “resistance” movements.

In addition, the Afghanistan strategy, unveiled in December 2009, reflects the twisted logic of the Global War on Terror. Obama bought the false, technical claim that the Afghan Taliban and bin Laden's Al-Qaeda function more or less as a single entity. The Obama foreign policy team views the Taliban, brutal at home, through the lens of Al-Qaeda and the Global War on Terror.

It is the security and strategic implications of the mass politics of Islam that resonates in the minds of many Americans The consensus within the Obama foreign policy team is that there is no credible oppositional alternative to the existing political order in the Muslim world. Islamic-based groups and movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas or Hezbollah are viewed suspiciously and considered a threat to US primary interests. In contrast, pro-Western autocratic rulers in Muslim countries are seen as the lesser of the two evils—pliant, durable and predictable.

It is no wonder that the Obama administration has softly embraced pro-American authoritarian rulers whose help is needed to assist the US in tackling thorny strategic challenges in the greater Middle East. As to dealing with violations of human rights and the rule of law by America’s autocratic allies, the Obama team will opt for closed-door, quiet diplomacy.

The major foreign-policy challenge facing the Obama administration is to take risks on the rising social classes in the greater Middle East and to come to terms with the complexity of the area’s troubles, including political governance, institutional building and political economy. In the last 50 years, authoritarianism and ideological immobilization have sapped the strength of Arab citizens, estranging them from the political process. They are fed up with the elite, both the opposition and the ruling elite, who promised heaven and delivered dust.

Despite what some of Obama’s realist advisers tell him, he must not shy away from engaging rising social movements, stating the obvious: Political repression not only violates human dignity but is also a source of perpetual instability, economic and intellectual stagnation, and extremism which damage US primary interests. This track would send a powerful message to friend and foe that the US is genuine about bringing real change to the Middle East.

Fawaz A. Gerges – Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, London University. Mr. Gerges has written extensively on America's relations with Islamic movements. Among his books are "America

Bestsellers pre- and post-9/11 What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response Bernard Lewis Oxford University Press 2001 Lewis offers a condensed account of the great Islamic civilization’s fall from historic global leadership to its current position of stagnation, infighting and ignorance. He chronicles the Arab cultural encounter with Europe and their resentments toward external groups, offering a backdrop for the animosity and hostility that fomented in the lead up to 9/11.

American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us Steven Emerson Free Press 2002 For over a decade Emerson researched budding terrorist activity inside the US, warning of impending danger, though his findings were not widely recognized until post-9/11. In American Jihad, Emerson reveals American-based operations of the Palestinian group Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and even unearths local ties to Osama bin Laden.

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror Mahmood Mamdani Pantheon 2004 Mamdani carefully details the differences between Westernized Muslims and radical extremists, looking beyond the simplistic notion of “clash of cultures.” He probes into the contributing elements that engendered radical thinking, highlighting the culpability of the US in its third world Cold War interventions.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam Robert Spencer Regnery Press 2005 Spencer offers his historical expertise to draw a correlation between the Western fight against terrorism and the mission behind the Crusades.

He juxtaposes the teachings of Muhammed with the teachings of Christianity and other mainstream religions to expose the violent and hateful notions that feed into extremist Muslim thought.

Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America Brigitte Gabriel St. Martin’s Press 2006 Gabriel uses her personal experiences of the 1970s Christian-Muslim civil warring in Lebanon to offer first hand insight to the terrorist movement. Gabriel condemns the American public for failing to notice the increasing threat of terrorism while offering ideas on how to stop the problem before it destroys the American way of life.

This article was published in The Majalla 4 October 2010 Issue 1558 • November 2010

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• THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

A Symptom, Not an Illness Inflation in Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia recently announced that its annualized inflation rate had hit 6.1 percent, causing some to worry that it might be slipping into another phase of double-digit inflation. While those fears are unlikely to be borne out in the near term, Saudi Arabia's undesirably high inflation rate is a symptom of deeper structural problems in its economy, specifically with regard to food and housing.

Killian Clarke

Image © iStockphoto

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ecent reports of an escalation in Saudi Arabia’s rate of inflation have raised concerns that the kingdom may be on the verge of careening into another bout of high inflation as it did in the summer of 2008.

Saudi inflation reached an all time high that July of 11.1 percent, driven largely by a dizzying rise in global food prices.

During the recession the following year, rates moderated to more benign levels, but a recent government report that inflation has reached an annualized rate of 6.1 percent has raised the specter of a return to double-digit inflation.

The prospect of a return to higher inflation in Saudi Arabia is indeed troubling. Yet what is worrying about the recent inflation report is not that it portends a probable return to double-digit inflation—in fact this is unlikely. Rather, it is another data point along a long-term trend line that demonstrates that Saudi Arabia may have reached a structurally higher level of inflation.

High inflation in Saudi Arabia is less an illness in and of itself than it is a symptom of deeper underlying economic tensions that result from poor public policy. Specifically, the inflationary trend is being driven by escalating food prices and housing rents, both of which are caused by supply bottlenecks and economic inefficiencies. To cure inflation in the long run, Saudi Arabia’s leaders must address these maladies first.

There are some who would counter that inflation must be tackled head on. In 2008, a number of economists argued that monetary factors were largely responsible for the kingdom’s inflation, specifically the Saudi riyal’s peg to the US dollar. To maintain the currency peg of 3.75 riyals to the dollar the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) must keep domestic interest rates closely tied to US rates. As the US Fed cut interest rates beginning in 2007, SAMA was forced to follow in lockstep so as to prevent creating upward pressure on the riyal. However, at the time the Saudi economy was already overheating and economists argued that the untimely loosening of monetary policy exacerbated already rising inflation.

A second factor cited as linking the currency peg to inflation is the relative weakness of the US dollar to other major currencies, which drags down the value of the riyal as well. In 2009, Saudi Arabia received 22 percent of its imports from the Eurozone and these goods (as well as others from Great Britain, Japan and elsewhere) become more expensive when the riyal’s value weakens.

The conclusion economists drew from these arguments was that the Saudi riyal ought to be pegged at a higher exchange rate or, in more extreme proposals, allowed to float freely. With inflation rising again today, similar calls for a revaluation are beginning to emerge.

Yet allowing the riyal to appreciate would not only be wrongheaded, but it would have a serious detrimental effect on the kingdom’s long-term economic health. The riyal’s peg to the dollar is not the primary or even a major driver of inflation, so changing it would serve little purpose. Low interest rates were reduced almost to zero during 2009, yet rather than drive further price rises, inflation actually dropped to a three-year low of 3.5 percent in October. And the currency effect is likely negligible, since 65 percent of Saudi imports are denominated in US dollars (this is because so many imports are commodities, which are often paid for in dollars regardless of their origin). Moreover, as Brad Bourland of Jadwa Investments has pointed out, close scrutiny of the Saudi cost of living index reveals that those goods imported from places like Europe and Japan (autos, mobile phones, manufactured goods) have seen little to no elevation in price.

Most important though, a revaluation of the riyal would elevate the price of Saudi exports in overseas markets. As the kingdom seeks to diversify its largely oil-dependent economy into new manufacturing sectors, making its goods more expensive could have a devastating effect on these emerging industries.

So if tackling inflation head-on with monetary policy is not the solution, what can be done?

First, it is important to understand that Saudi Arabia’s high inflation has two principal drivers—rents and food. In 2009, when Saudi Arabia posted a relatively modest inflation rate of 5.1 percent due to the global recession, rents still increased by 14 percent. Food inflation moderated that year (due to lower global food prices), but in the most recent inflation report food prices rose by 8 percent. Rents likewise grew by 8.9 percent. Indeed, the most recent bump in inflation to 6.1 percent was likely caused by the sea-

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sonal ramp in food prices that occurs every year during the month of Ramadan. It is for this reason that alarmist expectations of a return to double-digit inflation are unlikely to be borne out—with Ramadan over, food prices will moderate and the inflation rate will likely return to a more normalized level.

Yet this does not detract from the kingdom’s medium-term problem of an inflation rate that remains hovering at a worrying 5 percent. Not only is this a higher rate than economists normally consider to be healthy, but with the economy recovering from its low during the economic crisis and the government about to embark on a major spending and investment program, additional inflationary pressures could push the rate even higher. Middle class Saudis are already grumbling as they see their quality of life gradually erode. Additional economic pressure on working Saudis could, in an extreme scenario, generate political or social unrest.

The good news is that though the kingdom’s inflation problems cannot be resolved overnight, they can be addressed over the medium term with well-crafted public policy.

The issue of rents has been on the Saudi government’s radar for the better part of a decade. According to the Saudi Home Loans Company, Saudi Arabia’s home ownership rate is only 30 percent, leaving the majority of the population to rent their lodgings. Saudi Arabia has an extremely underdeveloped mortgage market and it is next to impossible for lower or middle class Saudis to obtain the financing to build or buy their own houses. The population is growing quickly and the housing stock has not been able to keep up— some estimates have the deficit at 2 million housing units. The result has been rapidly escalating rent prices, which have flown through into the inflation rate. The government has tried to ameliorate the problem by providing cheap, Shari’a-compliant mortgages directly to citizens, through a state-run Real Estate Development Fund. But these loans have not been enough to move the needle. A new mortgage law apparently under review would make it easier for lenders to foreclose on properties in default and would establish a central authority through which debtors’ records could be reported. However, the bill has been under discussion for 10 years and there is still no clear timetable for when it will be adopted.

Rising foods prices present a somewhat thornier problem. Saudi Arabia relies on imports for 70 percent of its food supply, leaving it exposed to sometimes volatile swings in global food prices.

Moreover, the kingdom’s reliance on imports is likely to increase further as the government wisely puts an end to a series of extremely wasteful, water-intensive domestic agricultural projects.

In its quest for food security, the Saudi government has turned to other countries that are better suited for agricultural production. In January 2009, it launched the King Abdullah Agricultural Initiative, which provides funding for Saudi businesses to invest in agricultural production in countries like Ethiopia, Vietnam, Egypt, Sudan and Turkey. The crops from these projects would be shipped directly back to Saudi Arabia and would help to insulate the kingdom from global fluctuations in food prices. Yet, this plan has been criticized for being largely exploitative, leaving little of value for the citizens of the recipient countries, some of which are net food importers themselves. Moreover, there are questions as to the wherewithal of Saudi food companies to make optimal use of land in often unstable foreign markets.

Still, the step seems to be in the right direction. John Sfakianakis of Banque Saudi Fransi has suggested that Saudi Arabia consider investing in more developed agricultural markets like Argentina, Issue 1558 • November 2010

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Saudi Arabia Inflation Rate (% Change in Consumer Prices) Change in Saudi inflation, from 2000 to 2006, remained relatively stable. From 2006 to 2009, however, inflation within the kingdom gradually began to rise, with the inflation rate jumping from 4.1% in 2008, to 9.9% in 2009. A recent government report, moreover, has raised speculation that the kingdom could once reach double digit inflation very soon.

(Source: CIA World Factbook)

Saudi Arabia – EU 27 Trade Recent years have seen a growing Saudi dependence upon imports from the Eurozone. In 2009, for example, 22% of Saudi imports came from the Eurozone, valued at approximately 11 billion euros. As the dollar continues to weaken against the euro, the value of the Saudi riyal diminishes as well. Goods purchased from the Eurozone, then, have become comparatively more expensive for Saudi buyers as their currency weakens.

(Source: Eurostat, Statistical Regime 4) Brazil, Canada and Australia, where rule of law is stronger and the likelihood for controversy lower. He also thinks the Saudi government should look into striking strategic agreements with global food businesses, which could facilitate access to land, final products or technological expertise.

Clearly these are not quick cures. Yet, resolving Saudi Arabia’s inflation problem will require tackling these underlying economic imbalances. The Saudi government seems to realize this. It is now a question of how quickly and forcefully it is willing to act.

Killian Clarke - Analyst at the research and consulting firm, Ferrari Consultancy, and a graduate student at NYU's Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies.

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• THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

BlackBerry Blackout

The Middle East telecom crisis that never happened In August, BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) found itself at the epicenter of diplomatic disputes with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and India. Although threats to block the service never materialized, the standoff stands as further proof that the global telecommunications sector is becoming an increasingly uncertain place.

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hroughout his stellar 15-year career as arguably the greatest tennis player in history, Pete Sampras wielded the same, archaic Wilson Pro Staff 6.0 racquet, which he used to chip and charge his way into athletic immortality. Although the Pro Staff was the weapon of choice for a number of notable players—including Stefan Edberg, Steffi Graf and, in his early years, Roger Federer— no other legend was ever as synonymously associated with the stick than Sampras was.

In some sense, the BlackBerry smartphone is to the 21st century businessman what the Wilson Pro Staff once was to Pete Sampras. In the same way that Sampras used his graphite sword to pave his way to international supremacy, today’s businessmen and women rely upon the BlackBerry to execute deals and manage global logistics from within the palms of their hands. So integral is the BlackBerry to modern finance, in fact, that it’s now difficult to imagine an investment banker or fund manager without one constantly by her side.

Imagine the terror that must have coursed through Dubai’s corporate veins, then, when the United Arab Emirates announced a potentially crippling ban on BlackBerry service in August.

Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian company that manufactures BlackBerry phones, suddenly found itself under fire from Emirate leaders, who demanded that the company allow the government greater access to corporate data sent across its networks. The ability to monitor such data, officials argued, was critical to the country’s efforts to identify and defuse potential attacks.

The problem, however, was that all user data sent across RIM’s network were encrypted and securely stored in servers in Canada and the US—where the UAE, of course, would have no authority to access them. Because the data were hermetically locked, moreover, they were exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to access. Even the company’s engineers claimed they didn’t have the “key” to unlock the system.

In response, then, the UAE threatened to completely block all email, text message and internet BlackBerry services within the

Image © Getty Images

Amar Toor

country by 11 October unless RIM complied with the country’s demands and opened up its database. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and India, meanwhile, soon fired similarly ominous warning shots.

Ultimately, the blackout never materialized. Just a few days before the looming 11 October deadline, the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority announced that the Canadian company’s infrastructure was now compatible with the country’s demands, and that BlackBerry users would enjoy uninterrupted service as a result. RIM avoided similar bans in India and Saudi Arabia, where the company reportedly appeased governmental demands by placing servers within the respective countries.

So, crisis averted, right? Well, sort of.

Modern Telecommunications: A Dream Deferred?

On the surface, at least, all appears to be hunky dory now between RIM and its Middle East markets. The Canadian company reportedly met its respective government mandates, and businessmen and foreign travelers can still use their BlackBerrys to surf the web from atop the Burj Al-Arab.

But the fact that a sizeable chunk of the Middle East came so close to a blanketed BlackBerry blackout should give cause for concern, on a number of levels.

Thus far, most of the discussion surrounding the RIM-UAE standoff has centered on the exceedingly tenuous balance between national sovereignty and cross-border telecommunications.

The ethos of every major telecom or web-based company, after all, is one of globalism. Unlike other goods or service-based

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In some sense, the BlackBerry smartphone is to the 21st century businessman what the Wilson Pro Staff once was to Pete Sampras Both showdowns, much like the rift between RIM and the Middle East, ultimately ended in varying degrees of compromise. Even with all of its globally renowned might and influence, two of the tech world’s heaviest hitters still couldn’t overcome the deeply engrained, proud ethos of national sovereignty.

industries, the global telecom sector relies almost exclusively on one, critical commodity: the human audience.

Financially titanic as they may be, companies like RIM, Google and Facebook are, by definition, only as strong as their individual users allow them to be. Their might is primarily measured not by exports, production or sales, but by their respective abilities to connect people, and to streamline the flow of information. In order to stay ahead of the curve, then, telecom companies are forced to constantly reach across borders; to troll the globe in search of new customers, new markets and new clicks.

According to conventional wisdom, moreover, this is exactly what modern technology is supposed to do. The internet, we’ve been told, is the world’s new global village—a frictionless vacuum where information seamlessly flows across borders, and at speeds that seem to defy geography, politics and the laws of physics.

As recent months have shown, however, this vision of new technology as some sort of diplomatically immune, intra-continental super force may be just that—a vision.

Earlier this year, for example, China found itself in the middle of a frigid staring contest with Google over the San Francisco-based company’s refusal to censor search results— a pillar of the communist regime’s online regulatory system.

More recently, the search engine butted heads with political leaders in Germany over Google’s Street View feature, which many Germans perceived as a threat to their nationally protected privacy rights.

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An Uncertain Middle East Market For now, then, it appears that global telecommunications companies will have no choice but to tip-toe around the intersecting minefields of diplomacy, national security and regulatory policy. But what about the consumer? And, more specifically, what about the businessmen and women working in the Middle East?

Let’s ignore, for a moment, the more abstract, politically charged questions surrounding issues like governmental surveillance, or the delicate balance between counterterrorist efforts and civil rights. While these questions are certainly pertinent to any discussion involving international tech enterprise, they can all too easily lead us down murkier, more subjective channels of thought.

Within this more depoliticized context, then, the most serious consequences of RIM’s Middle East crisis stem not from any Big Brotherly police states it may spawn, but from the sultry climate of economic uncertainty it may inculcate.

Sure, RIM may have met Emirate demands, but it’s still unclear how it actually did so. Both parties have been suspiciously tight-lipped about the agreement, and haven’t publicly acknowledged any specific change that spurred the recent decision to keep BlackBerrys humming in the country. The UAE, of course, may insist on such privacy in the interest of national security, but its ambiguity probably won’t do much to ease the minds of Emirate, Saudi or Indian businessmen worried when the specter of a new blackout might rear its ugly head.

Uncertainty can always pose a cancerous threat to a market, and cautious hesitation can easily snowball into rampant, herd-like speculation. Fortunately, that probably won’t happen to the BlackBerry market anytime soon. At the moment, RIM’s smartphone is too firmly embedded within the culture of modern business to be abandoned over one cascade of international controversy.

Pete Sampras, after all, never abandoned his Pro Staff, and global businessmen likely won’t be tossing away their BlackBerrys for the foreseeable future.

RIM and Google’s recent travails, however, do speak to a larger, hazy reality that may be difficult for most technologyaddled consumers to swallow. Telecommunications may give us the world at our fingertips, but the world is still capable of flipping the “off ” switch, at any moment.

Amar Toor – Contributing editor, who currently writes about technology for AOL. This article was first published in The Majalla 22 October 2010 37

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• THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

News Behind the Graph

I

n September, the Syrian government announced a plan to attract 55 billion USD in foreign direct investment (FDI) over the next five years. Considering that officials expect FDI levels to reach only 2.1 billion USD by the end of 2010, the country’s long-term goal may seem somewhat ostentatious. In October, however, the French cement company, Lafarge, announced a massive 700 million USD investment in new cement facilities in Syria, marking the largest private investment in Syrian history.

The country, then, appears to be making progress, but it remains to be seen whether it can realistically reach its goal of 55 billion USD in foreign investment. According to its recent history, however, the Syrian market appears to be gradually opening its gates.

Syria’s inflows of foreign direct investment, as Graph 1 shows, have gradually increased over the past few years. The country experienced the most noticeable growth, however, between the years 2004 and 2006, when FDI skyrocketed from just 0.2 billion USD to nearly 0.6 billion USD after having hovered around 0.2 billion for the early part of the new millennium.

Since 2006, foreign investment has only continued its upward trend, reaching a high of nearly 1.6 billion USD in 2008 before slipping slightly in 2009.

According to its recent history, however, the Syrian market appears to be gradually opening its gates

Syrian Foreign Direct Investment (Net Inflows), USD

Syrian Economic Freedom Ranking, According to the Heritage Foundation

Syria’s FDI inflows dropped off between 2008 and 2009, due in large part to the capital-tightening effects of the global recession. When compared to investment trends in its neighboring countries, however, the country’s slip doesn’t appear to be quite as drastic. While Syrian investment dropped by an estimated 28 billion USD, countries like Tunisia, Bahrain and the UAE experienced much more substantial dips in FDI. Despite this steady increase in foreign investment, however, the Syrian economy has yet to fully embrace private enterprise.

Most state banks, for example, are controlled by the government, and, as Graph 3 shows, the Heritage Foundation still ranks Syria’s overall economic freedom level well below the global average. Still, the Central Bank of Syria says it plans on opening up more freedoms for foreign investors, who will soon be allowed to own as much as 60% of the country’s banks.

Syria may be a long way from its stated goals, but at least it appears to be moving in the right direction.

Source: World Bank Foreign Direct Investment in Arab Countries, 2008-2009

Source: Arab Investment and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation

Source: The Heritage Foundation

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• THE HUMAN CONDITION

Although for long they have been considered a source of stability, American military bases in the Middle East and South Asia are nefarious to American interests. Strategists must revaluate the costs of projecting force by establishing military presence abroad. Taking an objective perspective would show them that rather than feeling protected, many of the US’s host countries feel occupied, and that the presence of the military is creating unnecessary animosity towards the US. Steve Clemons

C

an it be that American military bases abroad, usually thought of as "stabilizers" in tough neighborhoods, are really the primary cause of radical terrorism against the US and its allies? That is what Robert Pape and James K. Feldman compellingly argue in their new book released this week titled Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It. Most war planners and geo-strategists conceive of US military bases abroad as if they are anchors of stability in unstable regions. Over the last six decades, while there have been occasional protests, sometimes violent, targeting these foreign bases by rebellious students or groups affiliated with socialist or communist parties in governments hosting these US troops, most of the political system in these respective governments strongly support the American bases, usually as a cheap way to deter aggression from neighbors.

But what once worked in Germany, Japan, Turkey, the Philippines, South Korea, and the UK doesn't seem to be working so well in the Middle East or South Asia today and frankly may be eroding even in these traditional base-hosting countries where jihadist terrorism hasn't been a factor.

When terrorist tracker and New America Foundation Counter-Terrorism Initiative director Peter Bergen was invited to interview Osama bin Laden in 1997, bin Laden told Bergen point blank that America had become an arrogant nation in the wake of its victory in the Cold War and that the basing of American troops in Saudi Arabia, the home of the two Holy Mosques, had made the US a target for al Qaeda. It is also true that the Saudi government invited in and agreed to host on a temporary basis US forces in order to help deter Iraq's Saddam Hussein. But after ten years, the phrase "temporary bases" actually shifted in then Defense Secretary William Cohen's remarks to "semi-permanent."

The shift was noticed by media, government officials, and incensed Islamists throughout the region—though hardly noted at all by American strategists that only saw one side of the costbenefit ledger.

War planners have tended only to consider the upside opportunities in projecting force through foreign-deployed military bases rather than calculating downsides as well. During the Cold War, the seven hundred plus US military installations abroad helped give the United States unparalleled capacity in intelligence and power projection that no other nation in the world other than the Soviet Union could match. And with the

A Source of Instability

US bases abroad trigger suicide terrorism collapse of the USSR, America stood unrivaled, reifying a core belief that this global network of foreign bases had in part been vital to American success and strength.

While Bergen was tracking down bin Laden and taking the pulse of an increasingly restless Middle East, I was watching growing protests and anti-American anger take hold in another part of the world where American bases had long been situated – Japan and South Korea. Believing that the US was impeding normalization efforts between North and South Korea and had been a supporter of military crackdowns against pro-democracy efforts, students directed violent, flame-throwing protests at American military installations in South Korea.

In Japan, the situation was less violent but politically more severe. In September 1995, three American military servicemen brutally raped a 12-year old Okinawan girl. The senior US Commander in the region remarked that the soldiers should have just procured a prostitute triggering the largest anti-American protests in Japan since 1960. Okinawa, Japan's poorest prefecture,

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Images © Getty Images

Pape argues that the key factor in determining spikes of suicide terrorism is not the prevalence or profile of radical Islamic clerics or mental sickness but rather the garrisoning of foreign troops, most often US troops or its allies nonetheless hosts the majority of America's military capacity in Japan – with 39 distinct U.S. military facilities on the island. During the Cold War, the sacrifice made by Okinawa in "carrying the burden" of hosting these bases and US personnel was more easily justified. Since then, the rationale has shifted from everyIssue 1558 • November 2010

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thing from deterring North Korea to being a bulwark against growing Chinese power—anything to keep the huge land assets of the Pentagon in the Pacific in place.

When I spoke to South Koreans and Okinawans at the time, I regularly heard comments that they felt "occupied.” Indeed, before a revision in security guidelines between the US and Japan after the rape incident, the US controlled more than 80 percent of Okinawa's air space. One senior activist told me that while the protests of the Okinawans would be peaceful for the most part, the US had to worry in the long run about groups self-organizing and possibly beginning to throw Molotov cocktails at US trucks and installations—and threatening personnel and their dependents. This didn't happen, or hasn't happened yet, but counting on docility “permanently” may be a major blind spot of Pentagon planners.

What was brewing in Okinawa was not suicide terrorism – but the impulse to reject the logic of large-scale, long term basing of US troops on Japanese soil was growing.

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• THE HUMAN CONDITION

In parts of the world less accustomed to US military personnel, the reaction has been more virulent.

Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago and the director of the new website mega-data base on suicide terrorism titled the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism (CPOST) and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, has been putting on a lot of United Airlines miles between DC and Chicago not because progressives and liberals who might have a thing against America's global network of foreign military bases want to hear him – but the highest levels of America's military and intelligence bureaucracies are seeking him out.

The Pentagon's leadership prides itself on hearing not just material that supports its current course but is open to alternative scenarios to consider military threats – and the Pentagon is most easily convinced by solid empirical data.

Pape and his co-author Feldman have broken down every recorded suicide terrorist incident since 1980 and noted an eruption of such incidents since 2004. From 1980-2003, there were 350 suicide attacks in the world, only 15 percent of which were anti-American.

In the short five-year period since, from 2004-2009, there have been 1,833 suicide attacks, 92 percent of which were anti-American.

Pape argues that the key factor in determining spikes of suicide terrorism is not the prevalence or profile of radical Islamic clerics or mental sickness but rather the garrisoning of foreign troops, most often US troops or its allies, in these respective countries.

Pape and Feldman show for example that even in war-torn, beleaguered Afghanistan, suicide attacks surged from just a handful a year to more than 100 per year in early 2006 when US and military deployments began to extend to the Pashtun southern and eastern regions of the country beginning in late 2005. Pakistan also deployed forces against Pashtun sections of western Pakistan, which Pape and Feldman note also saw large spikes in suicide attacks.

Pape is not a pacifist and is not calling on the US government and Pentagon to appease dictators and terror masters, but he is making an argument that a new, better strategy is needed. He and his co-author make a compelling case—much like Donald Rumsfeld once pondered in his famous memo on terrorism—that we are creating much of our own problem and animating and feeding fuel to the enemy of America's and its allies' interests.

I once asked Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott whether he thought that America would have problems managing its empire of bases and whether those nations hosting them would feel the burden too heavy in a post-Soviet world.

Talbott responded that he believed—as did most of the national security community—that "US bases are anchors of instability in unstable regions."

This may not be the case any longer—or at least not to the same degree as used to be the case.

Pape and Feldman, in their new book Cutting the Fuse, suggest that the US military would better secure its key foreign policy interests with a posture of "offshore balancing"—relying on military alliances and "offshore air, naval, and rapidly deployable ground forces rather than heavy onshore combat power."

I bet Pape's first calls were from the Air Force and Navy—but their interests aside, Pape sees that the future needs to be more high flex, smaller footprint, more nimble—and less toxic and anti-body gen-

Quadrennial Defense Review Report 2010 The mission of the Department of Defense is to protect the American people and advance our nation's interests. In executing these responsibilities, we must recognize that first and foremost, the United States is a nation at war.

The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review advances two clear objectives. First, to further rebalance the capabilities of America's Armed Forces to prevail in today's wars, while building the capabilities needed to deal with future threats. Second, to further reform the department's institutions and processes to better support the urgent needs of the war fighter; buy weapons that are usable, affordable and truly needed; and ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and responsibly.

(Source: US Department of Defense) The US Military Footprint on the World

erating than the large-scale, clunky, unsuccessful force deployments that characterize America's deployments to Afghanistan today.

Robert Pape is working from the data upward in formulating a smart strategy for military organization—rather than working from the top down and repeating mistakes made by those whose thinking is conventional, incremental, and who tie what they do tomorrow much by what they did yesterday.

Pape sees a chance to neutralize the forces that could otherwise yield another generation of hardened terrorists, many of whom are willing to engage in suicide attacks.

I know the Pentagon is listening—and this impresses me.

Others should be too.

Steve Clemons – Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note. Clemons can be followed on Twitter @SCClemons <http://twitter.com/scclemons> This article was first published in The Majalla 8 October 2010

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Images © Getty Images

• A THOUSAND WORDS

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“If we amplify everything, we hear nothing” – Jon Stewart Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert drew thousands of supporters to Washington on 30 October when they held their Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on the Mall. Just days before the midterm elections, the two comedians delighted the crowd with their specific brand of fun, before delivering their message that political discourse in Washington had reached “caustic” level and was being portrayed ever more nastily and noisily on the 24 hour television news channels; thereby overshadowing any good and positive moves that have been achieved.

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• CANDID CONVERSATIONS

Cities and the Global Order

An interview with Parag Khanna, senior research fellow at the New America Foundation Having argued that the future of the 21st century will not be determined by the United States or any other rival super power state, Khanna boldly expanded his understanding of “the global city” in an interview with The Majalla. From predictions to how this trend will play out in the Middle East, to explanations on what drives this change, Khanna describes the foundation of what he believes will determine a future global order.

Paula Mejia

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arag Khanna, the director of the Global Governance Initiative and senior research fellow with the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, spoke with The Majalla about an important geopolitical trend: the rising power of the global city. In a recent article with Foreign Policy, Khanna explained that the 21st century will not be dominated by any particular super state. Instead, cities will be the drivers of governance and a future world order.

Can you explain in some detail the argument you proposed in a recent Foreign Policy article, where you show that the future of the world will not be dominated by any one country but by a network of powerful cities?

Cities are becoming more and more prominent and we are returning to a world that looks a bit like the Middle Ages. The 12th, 13th and 14th centuries were a period in history where cities were very important and nation states hadn’t yet quite formed. Today is a world where many nation states have descended already. There are still many strong states but those strong states depend on the power of their cities.

So, the rise of global cities and mega cities are the two different kinds of cities that increasingly shape global politics, the policies of countries, or they have the power to dictate what happens within countries themselves. Those are the reasons why cities are so important today.

Now I don’t necessarily think there is a network of cities, there could be a network of cities or there could be alliances of cities against other cities, or cities rivaling each other and then causing the countries to which they belong to rival each other; so there’s no automatic network or alliance of any kind. Each city is out for itself just like each country is out for itself.

Sometimes the motive of cities is that there is a rival with others, so you find that in East Asia, for example, you have many mega cities or globalized cities rising. Singapore has been there for a long time; Hong Kong has been there, Taipei and Tokyo. Now, China has Shanghai, Beijing has absorbed Hong Kong, and you also have Sydney and others.

So you have the Pacific Rim, an entire region which now has more global hubs than any other region of the world. It also has a substantial number of mega cities, and mega cities aren’t necessarily world leaders. I try to make very clear that just because a city like Lagos or Cairo or Mumbai, just because they

have a lot of people, tens of millions of people in the greater metropolitan areas of these cities, it doesn’t make them respectable, iconic, global cities that everyone wants to emulate. No one wants their city to look like Mumbai after all.

Tokyo’s a different story. Tokyo’s the largest city in the world but it’s immaculate, it’s impeccable, everything works perfectly.

It has a huge economy; on any given day up to one third of the population of Japan is effectively in the greater Tokyo area, but the city works flawlessly by almost all accounts, by almost any measure, so its a very different landscape than in a place like Lagos, Nigeria. So there are very different kinds of cities, therefore I wanted to begin with an analysis of what is happening in a broader sense, and then make deductions from there about the role of cities.

How did this shift from city to state, and back to city again come about?

I want to emphasize that it isn’t necessarily a shift as such; a lot of people would say that it’s either or. And I know that the title of the article would suggest that nations are gone, cities are back, but the real message is what I consider something more like the Middle Ages where you have many different entities— cities, governments, corporations, philanthropists, universities, mercenaries, private armies— that’s what the world really looks like; its not necessarily either or. Some states are fading/failing, some states are weak, but other states are growing stronger than ever, like China, for example, so I don’t really view it as an either or situation.

But obviously one of the main things driving this is what we call globalization, and that’s the emphasis on transnational flows of finance and people, largely. That has led to an accruing of power, an accruing of money and talent in cities, which has increased the power of cities to dictate their own agenda, to shape their own affairs, and I think that is something that we have observed happening all over the world.

Then the other is, as a result of that globalization a certain amount of political liberalization has allowed mayors to become more powerful or national leaders to realize that they have to emphasize their cities. For example, Korea already has a major hub of the region, and that’s Seoul, which is a very important city in the global economy and you know the capital is a very important city, but that’s not enough for them. In order to be a

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real regional competitor they’re looking ahead and saying we need to have a high-tech city—one that controls or dominates in 21st century technology, so we have to build a new city that has the latest amenities, that uses the best information technology to wire itself up and move regional corporate headquarters there so that Korea can be this economic engine for the North East Asian sub-area. So that kind of thing is happening as well and you see special economic zones popping up all over the place and so on. I would say globalization, competition are the main drivers of this. It becomes a tipping point—as power accrues and accrues with the cities you start to see more emphasis in that direction.

What kind of predictions could you make about cities in the Middle East and North Africa?

I try to emphasize very much the way in which the trends in the Middle East show that there is a traditional set of political trends that relate partially to cities. This is the reason why traditional centers of power and influence, like Egypt, are losing ground and the city-states, or the Emirates, the monarchies of the Persian Gulf region, have risen.

In the Middle East you have a belt of city-states, stretching really from Bahrain and Qatar to the UAE, that are becoming enormously influential in the region and have a lot of international connections.

Remember that the foreign policy index measures really the aggregate influence of these cities—it judges a global city in its index based on the amount of influence or sway or visibility that it has in the world. And certainly Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh, Manama, Doha and so forth increasingly fall into that category, so I see a lot of action happening in the cities of the Gulf region and that has pulled in a lot of the capital and talent of the Arab world of the Middle Eastern region. And that’s nothing new obviously to the readers of The Majalla, but I think that is the broader context that explains the great dynamism of the Middle East in the last decade.

If globalization is part of the impetus for this phenomenon could you argue that there is a political dimension as well that influences how powerful a city can become?

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Right that’s a really good question, and the answer is that there is no clear answer. Yes the traditional great global hubs and cities that have been in the Western world happened to reside in democracies. So, New York and London and so forth.

But today, the cities in East Asia, for example, that I’ve identified, and like I said East Asia has more global hubs really than the Western world, and that’s something to really think about, and I focus on a lot in the article, but those are non-democracies—Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai and so forth, so, there is definitely not a rule about political systems.

If anything one would have to say the kind of decision-making that people have to make, or that city leaders have to make, with respect to being decisive about what type of infrastructure to build and so forth, with those kinds of things you almost wonder about how cities should be almost non-democratic in nature in order to be run more efficiently. New York is a good example, I’m a New Yorker and we all know that Rudi Giuliani, who was one of the most successful mayors in New York’s history, had somewhat authoritarian tendencies. Mayor Bloomberg, for example, cornered himself a third term, so cities have a certain amount of autonomy in how they are run that doesn’t tend to lead to them being run more rather than less democratically.

Can you expand a bit on the concept of the charter city and its potential impact?

The idea of the charter city derives from looking at the way in which a colonial territory such as Hong Kong was able to rise into a global hub, as a colony that operated in a manner that was independent of its surrounding countries like China. Economist Paul Romer is basically taking a principle and saying there are a lot of poorly run African countries that have a lot of space, a lot of good useful land, particularly in the coastal areas, that could be developed into modern, thriving hubs of economic activity, that could function according to global rules rather than local rules, and so forth. But it is recommended that countries volunteer, in a way, a certain amount of space to be run by an international set of experts who could really help turn around the economic fortunes of a country through this example or role model city that would be built in their country.

That’s the theory behind it. In practice so far, no one country has committed to allow for an outside team to run such a charter city in their country, but I do think that its already happening in different ways. And two good examples are the economic development in countries like Vietnam or in India, or that are run by Singapore or Dubai Ports World. What Dubai Ports World is doing everywhere from Senegal to Djibouti is an example of really taking a space and building a world class ports facility and hiring some locals but using outside management and global practices to help these countries increase their role in global shipping and global trade. So I think that we already have micro-versions of charter cities emerging in a very practical, needs-based kind of way.

You mention in your article that you draw on the research of Saskia Sassin’s Global City, how do your perspectives differ?

Well I don’t know her personally but I’ll say a couple of things about her broader work, including that book. The first is that she has a very functional approach to analyzing world politics,

which I appreciate, so she doesn’t bias the state, which is why she is able to look at supply-chains, financial flows, which she calls assemblages, and that was one of the sub-titles of one of her books, and the ways in which these new vectors shape power dynamics, political results and outcomes. I think that is one of the very good things about her work. Because she doesn’t have any bias towards particular actors, she’s able to see the power of corporations and cities, and her work has consistently revealed that. I think that therefore she has a very empirical approach to globalization, which I think is good, rather than jumping towards a very normative approach or a very polemical one, so I appreciate that aspect of her work as well. And then now the focus on cities, in her latest sort of thinking that really puts cities at the center, I think is a very fresh perspective. In some ways this article is drawing a lot on her general approach, and her. If you compare her to other academics, she’s been very bold in putting cities front and center, so I think that the popularity of her work in some ways is reflected in the visibility of this article.

In a recent TIME magazine article you talked about the potential importance of transcending boarders as economically and strategically necessary. How is your understanding of the global city related to that argument, if at all?

I think that to some degree we’ll always have boarders of various kinds, although as an end stage it would be fine to eliminate them, but that’s not something that is immediately feasible in most parts of the world other than in the European Union, and even there, there are soft boarders of various kinds. But the real point was supposed to say that if you wanted to eliminate boarders for a whole variety of political and economic reasons, the way to do it would be to build and construct across those boarders as much as possible, like roads and pipelines that create real neutral economic and political paths that are dependent. So I aggregate constructing those new lines that cut across boarders and have great economic utility, that’s really the main thrust, the main argument, or the main mechanism to which I think we would accomplish those goals, that’s really what the article was about.

One could certainly say the two arguments are related. For example, regional economic hubs serve not just their countries but the broader sub-region. The way in which Lagos, Nigeria is sub-regional for West Africa, the largest and most significant economic city, it draws in a lot of people from all the surrounding countries, so seven or eight countries surrounding Nigeria. And therefore, Lagos is really a city, not just for Nigeria but for that region. And you find increasingly that Luanda, the capital of Angola, is really a regional hub emerging for South West Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, because of its huge flow from the oil supply which the country has. I would say, a place like Singapore, for example, has always been an important hub, not just for Singapore itself, which is a tiny country, just a city-state. But Singapore is the place that is crucial to the growth of all the countries around it, because a lot of money that goes into poorer countries, like Indonesia and South East Asian countries, goes through Singapore. Its very important actually; the more regional hubs that develop in terms of cities, the more likely you are to have that cross-boarder kind of integration and dependence.

This article was first published in The Majalla 26 October 2010

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A Historic Change and Socio-political Birth?

An interview with Tareq Al-Hashimi, second vice-president of Iraq Iraqi vice-president and the leader of the Iraqiya coalition, Tareq Al-Hashimi speaks to The Majalla about the ongoing political stalemate in his country and its repercussions. Suggesting ways to improve the conditions for this “socio-political birth,” he highlights both the obstacles and the opportunities Iraq is facing.

Shereen Al-Faedy

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is a part of the constitutional confusion faced by the country.

Meanwhile, the transformation from government to caretaker was met with objections, and the new parliament must still endorse the decisions of this transitional period before implementing them.

What is the current constitutional situation in Iraq?

Does the government hold its powers until now, or has it become a caretaker government?

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Presidency Council (comprising the president and his two vice-presidents) will continue to assume its powers until a new president is elected according to Article 72 of the constitution. As for the cabinet, its elected members were excluded from swearing in at the Council of Representatives in order to resume their work. This

Is Iraq right now experiencing a state of constitutional vacuum? If so, what are the repercussions?

The Council of Representatives has been in open session for about four months, which is unconstitutional—a result of the absence of legitimacy, whereby the constitution continues to be subjected to the will of the political blocs, rather than the opposite. This is a negative precedent, as the legal supremacy of and respect for Iraq’s constitution should be valued over and above political calculations.

Issue 1558 • November 2010

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Image © Getty Images

ix months after the Iraqi parliamentary elections, the absence of a new government leaves an ever-increasing power vacuum. With the Iraqiya alliance and the State of Law bloc battling for power, the repercussions of this power vacuum are becoming evident in the streets of Iraq, where violence continues to break out. Once formed, the future government will be the first to rule over a fully sovereign Iraq since the US-led 2003 invasion, and thus, the stalemate poses questions regarding the viability of the Iraqi constitution and the democratic aspirations of the country. Rather than reconciling different ethnic, tribal and religious groups, the elections have further entrenched sectarian divisions, thereby contributing to the various levels of violence and instability over the past years. With the last US combat brigades having left Iraq and still no agreement between the numerous coalitions reached, the situation in Iraq poses questions concerning the future of democracy in the Middle East as a whole.

The Majalla spoke to Tareq Al-Hashimi, a vice president since April 2006, about the lack of progress after the elections.

Outlining the domestic and regional obstacles to the formation of a new government, he emphasizes the differences between his own Al-Iraqiya alliance and Al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc, whilst insisting on the responsibility of all politicians to represent the Iraqi people. Al-Hashimi’s outspoken commitment to a strong constitution is doubtlessly challenged by sectarian divisions, which reach beyond Iraq’s borders. While arguing on the one hand that the previous government created a failed state and on the other that Iraqi democracy is in its infancy, Al-Hashimi’s line between power struggle and building the best possible democracy appears very blurred. In this conversation, the fragile relationship between a weak constitution, a frustrated people and the struggle between self-interest and the common good becomes dauntingly evident.

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• CANDID CONVERSATIONS

Six months have passed since the legislative elections and Iraq is still without a government. What obstacles, domestic, regional or otherwise, are preventing Iraqis from forming a government?

The obstacle is overwhelmingly a domestic one, along with a strong regional factor. Not acknowledging the results of the elections that revealed the victory of the Iraqiya bloc is a narrow-minded stance. Furthermore, those who rejected the results were unable to offer an alternative consistent with their interpretation of the constitutional provisions related to the majority bloc in parliament. This has resulted in a state of political disintegration, and the only solution is to rebuild confidence between the parliamentary blocs, first and foremost by acknowledging the electoral and constitutional entitlements of the Iraqiya bloc.

Some have said that Iran is hindering the formation of the government by objecting to Dr. Iyad Allawi’s victory. What is your opinion on the matter?

The issue is a "conflict of wills;" Iran wants to impose its will on Iraq by rejecting any project that represents the Iraqi national will, whether resulting from the elections or a political agreement. The question is broader and more complex than a mere Iranian objection to Iraqiya or Dr. Allawi. Our message to Iran is that a good neighborly relationship is usually based on a coexistence of interests and not a conflict of wills.

Vying for Votes State of Law coalition: Alliance led by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, cutting across religious and tribal lines.

Iraqi National Alliance (INA): Mainly Shi’a alliance, which is seen as one of the biggest rivals to the State of Law coalition. Includes the radical cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr.

Kurdish Alliance: This coalition is dominated by the two parties administering Iraq's northern, semiautonomous Kurdish region.

Al-Iraqiyya (Iraqi National Movement): This alliance includes the Sunni vice-president, Tariq Al-Hashemi, the secular, Shi’a former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, and senior Sunni politician Saleh Al-Mutlaq, who has been barred from standing due to suspected links with Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party.

Unity of Iraq Coalition: A group including significant political figures such as Interior Minister Jawad Bolani and Ahmad Abu-Risham, a leader of the Sunni antiAl-Qaeda militia in Al-Anbar province.

Iraqi Accord Front/Al-Tawafuq Front: Party alliance led by Sunni politicians, including speaker of parliament, Ayad Al-Samarrai. Has suffered splits and defections.

(Source: BBC World News)

To what extent do you consider the inability to form an Iraqi government a failure of the Iraqi democratic example?

Democracy has not failed. Rather, we are witnessing a historic change and a socio-political birth. The current problem is that pledges to respect election results and other requirements of a nascent democracy have been thrown to the wind in the first test of applying the principle of power rotation on the ground—one of the most important democratic principles. In order to protect democracy, pillars of state should be established by abandoning the sectarian quota system that damaged social cohesion and caused an imbalance in the political process, which has resulted in the current political situation. Also, a constitution supported by an overall vision of Iraq that minimizes divisions should be implemented, and flaws of previous governance should be revised and evaluated, along with building and enhancing confidence among political blocs.

Al-Hashimi meets with Al-Hakim, Allawi meets with Al-Maliki, Al-Sadr with Barzani, Talibani with others… All these meetings have yet to resolve anything.

What has come of them?

These meetings may appear to be "public relations" activities, but they are attempts to find a solution by exchanging views on the political papers examined by negotiating committees. As long as the political scene remains complicated, the coalitions are divided, and views are different, finding a solution will not be easy, but it will not be impossible either. Therefore, such meetings are required even if they do not achieve much at the moment.

You have criticized the State of Law Coalition's insistence on supporting Al-Maliki as the only candidate for the position of prime minister, and their rejection to any alternative candidate.

You accuse the coalition of hindering the formation of the government, however, in the meantime, you insist that Iyad Allawi is your only candidate. How does this work?

We insist on the electoral right, not the person. We are the winning bloc and are constitutionally entitled as we form the majority in parliament. Let me remind you how many times Allawi declared that he is ready to transfer his candidacy to another member in the bloc. Not only that, but also I announced more than once that Iraqiya is flexible and ready to consider the opportunities of the candidates of other blocs if they commit to the national platform we proposed. We are still waiting for these blocs to reconsider their stances.

Why don't you propose candidates other than Allawi, who has become a burden to the bloc because of objections to his candidacy?

The problem lies in the "veto" against Iraqiya and its right to form the government even before objecting to the candidate. We have been doing our best to show our commitment to achieving the Iraqi national interest without harming the special interests (that are legitimate, of course) of any domestic or regional party.

You described the choice of Dr. Adel Abdul-Mahdi as the National Coalition’s candidate for prime minister to have made the situation more complicated. What are the main objections to Dr. Adel Abdul-Mahdi?

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On the contrary, we have welcomed this choice and didn’t deny his right to the candidacy. Our objection was the shift from the national arena to the narrow frame of the blocs resulting from the formation of the National Coalition that consists of Al-Maliki’s State of Law and the Iraqi National Alliance. It is not easy to reach an agreement between two coalitions on one candidate in isolation from the general national environment. Even if one of them is chosen, he will be required to negotiate with other blocs outside the National Alliance which may object to his candidacy.

This is the complication we were referring to.

Why doesn't each party offer concessions in order to form a government? And what is the nature of your actual difference with Al-Maliki?

Our bloc has revealed sufficient flexibility, and moved in its negotiations to focusing on the political and governmental project of reform even before speaking of positions. We held talks with the two other coalitions despite their rejection of the electoral and constitutional entitlement of Iraqiya. Also, we spent three months in serious negotiations with the State of Law, but we reached nothing.

The basis on which Iraqiya and State of Law have started their negotiations to form a government is not merely the proximity of the number of seats, but also the intellectual rapprochement between our two projects or platforms. They are talking about establishing a "state of law," and we are adopting a project that establishes a "state of citizenship." The perspectives and purposes of both projects are the same, but the difference appears in the practical and operative side. Our project for change focuses on building a country of democratic institutions whose main pillars are actual partnership in power and decision-making, and achieving real reconciliation along with enhancing the independence of the judicial authority, the army and the police. The State of Law until now does not share Iraqiya’s views on these issues. We think, however, that these views are relevant to the public interest, and implementing them will be for the benefit of the nation, so they should be accepted by everybody, including the State of Law Coalition.

Can Al-Iraqiya accept Al-Maliki?

If the question means Al-Maliki personally, it will be very difficult. He continues to introduce himself as prime minister and recommends a government that produced, during his administration, what the UN labeled a “failed state.” Therefore, no one is prepared to risk entering a political partnership of this sort again. Guarantees are required and necessary as agreements are worthless without them. But the guarantees we are talking about are either domestic, which are quickly distorted, or foreign guarantees, which are impossible to get. We are facing a real problem in this regard.

Does Iraqiya mind staying in the opposition, because then it could support the democratic process in Iraq more than it could as part of a national partnership government, which is a reconciliation government full of tension and dominated by centers of power and quotas? Or are all seeking power?

Democracy in Iraq is still nascent and institutions are being established while the culture of democracy is not mature yet.

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social solidarity. Thus, the partnership government is necessary in order to commit to achieving national unity, providing that interest is paid to building and enhancing confidence between the respective partners. Even if a political opposition bloc is formed according to democratic principles, there will also be obstacles to the implementation of effective government oversight. This would mark the transformation of the Iraqi experiment in which the executive authority would have a larger role than the other authorities, and this what we witnessed in the past. However, the Council of Representatives is primarily concerned with the professional performance and the legal commitment of its members before directing its attention to the existence of an opposition bloc. MPs are to respond to the needs of Iraqis before they respond to the needs of a specific parliamentary bloc.

Do you agree on the call to limit the absolute powers of the prime minister, regardless of who will carry the post?

I repeat what I've said on previous occasions: The most important thing is to identify and commit to the scope of power of all the state's institutions, not to limit or expand them. Moreover, the criticism of the previous experience can be attributed first to the inefficiency of the Council of Representatives in assuming its responsibilities, and second to the fragility of the institutional structure of the state, rather than the quantity and strength of the constitutional powers attributed to the prime minister.

Is it possible to consider dissolving the parliament and calling for another election if this prolonged period of government formation continues?

The Iraqi people need a realistic solution and do not want to start from scratch. However, it is necessary to have all options on table, as this power vacuum should not stay forever.

How do you see the most recent political orientations, especially the insistence of the Sadrist Liberal bloc and State of Law Coalition that Al-Maliki be prime minister to form a new government? What will be your response while you are facing a fait accompli?

What happened was that the Sadrist Liberal bloc joined the State of Law, while the Islamic Supreme Council refused to join. This agreement will change nothing in fact, because Iraqiya's right to form a government is evident by the elections and the constitution, and cannot be ignored. We hope that no fait accompli is imposed on us, because then we will act within the frame of the constitution and respective laws to defend the will of our people.

What is the best scenario for the formation of a government now, in your opinion?

A coalition government comprising the winning parliamentary blocs, based on mutual recognition of the rights resulting from the elections and the constitution. The government should actively pursue reform and change according to a practical program and strategic view in order to establish a country with strong institutions, which are committed to progress through construction and development projects.

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• COUNTRY BRIEF

United Arab Emirates Timeline 1892 The British-Trucial Treaty of 1892 is signed. Seven sheikhdoms agree not to give up territory to countries other than UK in exchange for British protections.

Image © iStockphoto

1930s Oil surveying and exploration begins.

1962 The first shipment of crude oil is exported from Abu Dhabi, quickly boosting the economy and raising the living standards of the population.

1966 The UAE sheikhdoms unite under Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan.

1971 The British-Trucial Treaty ends. The leaders of Abu Dhabi and Dubai decide to unite. Within a year, five other emirates sign the constitution, creating the UAE as a federation government, or federal presidential system combined with a constitutional monarchy.

1990 The UAE sends forces to help liberate nearby Kuwait during the Gulf War. 1995 The UAE joins the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.

2004 Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, the UAE’s first and only president since independence, dies. He is succeeded by his eldest son.

2008 Oil prices drop, the real estate bubble bursts and foreign liquidity dries up. The toll of the global financial crisis is felt, though, in 2010, Sheikh Mohammad denies the UAE suffered a true recession.

2010 In January, the world’s tallest building and the world’s tallest hotel, the Burj Khalif and the Rose Rayhaan, respectively, open in Dubai.

Image © Getty Images

2001 The UAE is identified as a financial hub used by Al-Qaeda, and two 9/11 suspects are identified as UAE

citizens. The UAE cooperates fully with coalition forces and offers support in the fight against extremists.

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A new nation with traditional ties The constitution of 1971 laid the framework for the UAE, which allows for the seven emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Arjman, Umm Al-Quwain, Ras Al-Khaimah and Fujairah) to operate mostly autonomously within the federation. Of significance is the fact that the UAE has no political parties, though recently a strong Arab nationalist movement has surfaced, particularly among the younger Emiratis who favor liberalization.

On the periphery of the progressive and modern UAE, a strong Bedouin population of around 200,000 still exists. While some of these nomadic, desert tribes move from oasis to oasis, living off of their herds, others, the fellahin tribes, are more stationary and live off the fertile lands. Bedouin tradition and ways of life saturate much of the cultural landscape of the UAE, as Bedouin folk music and dance is trendy even in metropolitan areas. Rhythmic poetry continues to have a strong presence, particularly in broadcast media. Shows like Million’s Poet Issue 1558 • November 2010

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Key Facts Capital: Abu Dhabi Government: Federal presidential system and constitutional monarchyi President: Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Vice President and Prime Minister: Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum

Image © iStockphoto

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n oasis in the desert, brimming with cosmopolitan business ventures and branded by a skyline studded with ostentatious skyscrapers: This paints a picture of the United Arab Emirates. Yet these very recent developments offer barely a glimpse into the UAE’s rich and complex past.

Ancient pieces of pottery and metal works discovered within the UAE prove humans settled the lands as early as the 5th century BC, though more recent archaeological findings suggest the land had human inhabitants after the last Ice Age. Researchers hypothesize that early settlers were nomadic herders during the Bronze Age before the desertification of the region and the introduction of agricultural practices in the 3rd century BC. There is evidence of early trade with civilizations to the north, suggesting its location on the Arabian Peninsula and long border along the Persian Gulf has made the area strategically significant for some time.

Though briefly ruled by the Sassanian Empire in the 3rd century AD, the region came under the control of the Ummayyad dynasty by the 7th century. The Ummayyads brought Sunni Islam to the people of the lands, uniting the tribes through religion and the Arabic language. This, coupled with Bedouin traditions, has had a lasting impact on the culture of the UAE. Portuguese explorer, Vasco de Gama, discovered the region during his 16th century quests to sail directly from Europe to India. The heavily armed Portuguese effectively crowded out local trade, forcing inhabitants to abandon coastal towns. By the 1600s, the Dutch, French and British had taken an interest in the Gulf; meanwhile, the region endured additional rivalries from the competing interests of the Ottoman Empire, the Salafi tribes of Saudi Arabia and the Persians.

Known as the “Pirate Coast” by the 1800s, the volume and brutality of pirate attacks on the shipping and trading industries prompted Britain to intervene. The British signed an initial treaty with Trucial coast sheikhdoms in 1953, which paved the way for the British-Trucial Treaty of 1892. This agreement quelled much of the violence, partially united the sheikhdoms and extended special privileges to the British Empire. In fact, scholars argue that the seemingly long-held tradition of sheikhdoms within the Gulf region is actually a system instilled by British leaders transforming UAE families into royal dynasties that would honor British interests in return for their protections. The British-Trucial Treaty lasted until the United Kingdom decided in 1968 to withdraw, and the emirates of the region regained full independence in 1971.

Geography Area: 82,880 sq km (according to US State Dept) Terrain: mostly desert with some agricultural areas Climate: Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran Largest city: Dubai Border countries: Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar PEOPLE Population: 6 million in 2009 (according to US State Dept.)

Ethnic groups: less than 20% Emirati, more than 50% south Asian, significant expatriate community that is largely European and African Religions: predominantly Sunni Muslim with a Shi’a minority Languages: Arabic ECONOMY GDP: $198.7 billion (according to US State Dept.)

GDP composition: services = 44% (trade, government, real estate), Petroleum = 36.8%, manufacturing = 12.2% Unemployment: 4.2% (according to UAE government) Foreign aid: receives more than $8.7 billion Inflation rate (consumer prices): 4% (2009 est.)

Unemployment rate: 2.2% (2004 est.)

and The Prince of Poets air regularly on Abu Dhabi television, and UAE citizens have access to poetry-specific television channels. One of the best-known early nabati, or Bedouin, poets is Ibn Daher, who lived in Ras Al-Khaimah in the 16th century, and whose work still influences popular nabati poetry. Current political leaders are known for their nabati contributions. Vice President Sheikh Mohammed’s poems explore his own philosophies and echo the beliefs of many Emiratis: The dark nights and hard days We take them as they come and worry not about the future.

We walk along an unbeaten track And if the path is difficult I enjoy it more.

Though Arab and Muslim traditions dominate, the UAE is exceptionally tolerant of other religions, and its political leaders are careful to construct a cultural climate that welcomes international investors. Beyond its majority Muslim population, the UAE is home to Christians, as well as Hindu and Sikh communities, many of which have fled to the UAE to avoid persecution elsewhere.

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• COUNTRY BRIEF

lands, created from dredged sand, are formed to represent the world’s landmasses and can be seen from satellite. The estimated cost of the incomplete project is around $14 billion. In March 2010, the UAE government pledged to give the Dubai World developer, Nakheel, $8 million to finish and repay contractors with the hope of boosting post-recession investor confidence. The global recession coincided with another massive project in Dubai: the world’s tallest building.

But the 124-floor skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, opened successfully in early 2010.

Moving forward In an address to the United Nations in September 2010, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the UAE’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, outlined the country’s future political agenda. A particularly contentious issue for the country is the Iranian occupation of three UAE islands: The Greater Tunb, The Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa. Beyond this, he stated that the UAE’s top priority is the stability and security of the Gulf region.

To that end, Sheikh Abdullah expressed support for the new Afghan government, and emphasized that the UAE seeks future partnerships in upcoming development projects. Though approving of anti-militant operations in the Middle East, Sheikh Abdullah simultaneously condemned acts of violence and expressed disappointment with the special treatment afforded to certain countries, which prevents the realization of a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction.

Militarily, the UAE also called for stronger trading and transport safekeeping for the region as well as multilateral anti-piracy initiatives. But the stability of the UAE would be incomplete without addressing the economic challenges ahead. As it stands now, the view from the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa shows an eerie mix of glistening buildings aside abandoned construction projects, surrounded by a multicultural mix of people below.

This, perhaps, offers a more descriptive image of the future facing UAE leaders.

Image © iStockphoto

Resources, real estate and recession The rich natural resources within the UAE make it the world’s seventh largest holder of oil reserves, and the United Nations Development Program ranks the UAE as 35th in the world on the Human Development Index, making it one of the most developed countries in West Asia. Oil has contributed significantly to its prolific economic growth and development throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s, the UAE government abandoned oil-backed development plans and instead opted to build up the service sector, prompting a real estate and banking boom. The Economic Times reports that the real estate industry grew nearly 1,500% between 2000-2007 alone, with the capital city, Abu Dhabi, leading the way.

Contributing to the economic success of the UAE are the numerous government-mandated free trade zones, like Dubai Internet City, Knowledge Village and Fujairah Free Zone. These zones offer long land contracts, allow for export/import duty exemptions, and give substantial tax breaks to big businesses.

Moreover, they have inspired an influx of academics, scientists and high-technology developers. Because of this, many multinational companies have relocated to the UAE; for example, Halliburton, a leading US defense and energy contractor, is now headquartered in Dubai. This method for attracting commerce and venture capitalism has prompted some tense competition between the seven emirates as they vie for business deals.

However, the advent of the global financial crisis in 2008 took a toll on the UAE, causing its economy to stagnate as construction projects stalled and the real estate boom began to bust. The UAE government has received some international and local criticism for allowing contractors to continue racking up massive debts with elaborate projects. There has also been some unrest among the emirates as the UAE Central Bank is dolling out $10 billion to finance the country’s debts, many of which originated in Dubai.

Dubai World offers a prime example of the sophisticated construction undertakings of the 2000s. These man-made is-

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11th November 2010â&#x20AC;&#x201C;22nd January 2011

Untitled 9, 2010.

MIxed media on canvas, 170 x 142 cm.

In collaboration with

THE THIRD LINE 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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7/11/10 13:35:44

The Scents of Arabia The tradition of perfumery in the Arab world Perfumes in the Arab world have religious, medical and scientific value, alongside their traditional use as an accessory.

The home of a variety of fragrant plants and resins, the Arab world is the natural home of many of the ingredients that have constituted perfumes for centuries. The craft of perfumery, which touches even the sacred realms of religious life, is an important part of the Arab world’s patrimony.

Juliet Highett In markets like Khan El-Khalili in the old city of Cairo, or indeed in any other Arab souk, the shops, courtyards and the very clothing of the traders and their customers are enveloped in a pungent cloud of fragrance. The scents of rose, sweet jasmine and the spicier ambience created by ‘ud (obtained from imported aloewood), frankincense and sandalwood, encapsulate the very spirit of Muslim culture.

The perfumes of Arabia have religious, medical and scientific uses, while also encouraging one to develop a pleasing personal habit. The first long-lasting fragrances were frankincense and myrrh, distilled from the resin of trees grown primarily in southern Oman. Frankincense was also used by doctors, dentists and cosmeticians as early as 3,000 CE as cuneiform texts engraved on Sumerian tablets verify. The Sumerians had discovered that most aromatic plants and shrubs have powerful antiseptic properties that make them natural healers for external wounds, and as infusions for internal ailments. Myrrh and frankincense were also used in Pharaonic Egypt, and are still important perfume materials, not just for their scent, but also for their fixative powers.

Arabia is home to a wide variety of fragrant plants and resins, which together with secretions from certain animals (such as musk deer), constitute a vast corpus of materials for perfumery. The word “perfume” comes from the Latin per fumem, meaning "through smoke,” as clouds of incense rose from the people to their gods, carrying their prayers.

Throughout antiquity there was an incessant demand for incense, particularly frankincense, to mark the rites of passage from birth to grave, for daily ritual use, as well as the domestic functions of censing rooms, bed linen and clothing. The most highly prized incense and essential oils used for perfumery were at times during their long history of trade worth more than their weight in gold. They changed hands for Bahraini pearls, for Indian teak and horses, for silk and porcelain from as far afield as China, and indeed, for gold in the mediaeval royal courts of Europe. Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, wringing her bloodied hands, cried that all the perfumes of Arabia would not sweeten them.

The most popular traditional perfumes of Arabia are still amber, jasmine, ‘ud and musk, the latter being one of the strongest and most long-lasting scents, which is often used as the basis for perfume blending. Sandalwood, imported into Arabia from southern India, has been a cherished ingredient for millennia, reaching ancient Egypt. Its rich, sweet, woody fragrance makes the use of the oil on its own desirable as a fragrance, and when dissolved in spirit, is still used as a Issue 1558 • November 2010

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base for blending other perfumes and incenses. The most common fragrance for men, drifting through thousands of souks most days of the week, is dehn al ward or flower oil.

The best is reputed to come from Taif in Saudi Arabia, and therefore named Taifi.

"The art of perfumery," an Egyptian expert told me, "lies in the blending." He chooses two or three kinds of ingredients from a selection of hundreds of flower oils and spices, and prepares them in precisely the same way the ancient Egyptians did. He crushes the flower petals in a wooden pressing machine to extract the oil, then blends them with spices. He said crossly that French research chemists have taken his oils back to Grasse, added chemicals and alcohol to fix the fragrance, given the products a French name and then slapped on a hefty price.

His musk perfume did smell identical to the far more expensive Bal a Versailles by Jean Deprez.

The Sumerians had discovered that most aromatic plants and shrubs have powerful antiseptic properties that make them natural healers for external wounds, and as infusions for internal ailments Another Egyptian perfumer in Luxor related more about the art of blending essential oils. As in Western scent, creating “notes” of both dynamic and subtle characteristics is the goal of a memorable fragrance. Three layers are combined. The first is the fast-acting, quickly evaporating top or head note, often nowadays with fruit characteristics; to be followed by the moderately volatile main bouquet, the heart note, made primarily of flowers. Finally the base or body note—woody, spicy and sensual—rounds off and stabilizes the scent.

Perfume is a luxury in which even the most austere Muslim can indulge, as it is part of the process of taher, the ritual cleansing of the body that Islam commands before prayer five times a day. It may also be used by a widow after a 130-day period of mourning who might waft fumes of ‘ud through her hair. Following ancient rites, the dead are anointed "for the sake of the angels" with camphor, saffron and rose perfume, or a’atr. But every day, in many Arab households, incense is burned and perfume applied. Rooms are censed as often as five times a day, usually with incense, or bokhoor, using ingre57

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• THE ARTS

dients such as rosewater, sugar, amber, sandalwood powder and saffron in recipes handed down by generations of female perfumiers, mother to daughter.

What a civilized way to live! When it's time for guests to go home, the host or hostess will bring out the censer and pass it around. They will already have been offered a dab from two or three small flasks of essential oils on a crystal tray after their meal. Now they will waft the fragrant smoke briefly through their clothes, breathe some in reverently, and make their scented farewells. These timeless perfumes have seeped into the very texture of life, a symbol of exquisite Arabian hospitality.

Mapping Paradise Damascus in the eyes of contemporary Syrian artists Damascus, renown for its beauty, has been the subject of artists for some time. However, Syrian artists of a new generation have taken up the challenge and have presented their own image of their hometown in works that are refreshingly clean of any nostalgia, showing surprising new sides of this heavily inscribed piece of land.

Charlotte Bank Juliet Highet – A writer, photographer and curator, Juliet Highet specializes in Middle Eastern heritage and contemporary culture. Ms. Highet is currently working on her second book, “Design Oman,” having published her first book, “FRANKINCENSE: Oman’s Gift to the World,” in 2006.

This article was first published in The Majalla 7 October 2010

The most popular traditional perfumes of Arabia are still amber, jasmine, ‘ud and musk, the latter being one of the strongest and most long-lasting scents, which is often used as the basis for perfume blending A Genius to be Remembered Also known as Avicenna (c. 980-1037), the polymath Ibn Sana was one of the greatest philosophical thinkers and medical scholars in history. An astronomer, chemist, geologist, psychologist, logician, paleontologist, mathematician, physicist, scientist and poet, his influence can be traced to great thinkers as diverse as Thomas Aquinas, Isaac Newton and Carl Jung.

Born in present day Uzbekistan, Ibn Sana was the son of a government official. After having memorized the Qur’an by the age of 10, he is said to have read Aristotle’s Metaphysics 40 times as a teenager, and at the age of 18 he was a qualified physician.

He wrote almost 450 treaties on a wide range of subjects, around 240 of which have survived. His most famous works include the philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, The Book of Healing, and The Canon of Medicine, which was a standard medical text in Europe and the Islamic world up until the 18th century.

Ibn Sana introduced the chemical process of steam distillation used to produce alcohol and essential oils. He also invented the refrigerated coil, which condenses aromatic vapors. This was a breakthrough in distillation technology and is still the most commonly used method today.

Certain cities seem to conjure up a wealth of images at the mere mentioning of their names. Damascus, just like Paris and Venice, is such a place. Hardly any other place seems to be so imbedded in a web of stories and legends as the Syrian capital. As one of the world’s oldest cities, also associated with the Prophet Muhammad, Damascus has provided residents and visitors with fresh water wells, lush gardens, a refined lifestyle and a rich tradition of handicraft. Damascus has been the subject of poets and writers, representing a fantasy, an object of desire and an eternal enigma. In the words of Mahmoud Darwish: “Oh! The impossible...is to name you, Sham!”

This ideal image of the city is also the one invoked by the tourist industry and by an entire literary genre as well, carried by a nostalgic longing for the “treasures of Old Damascus,” as the title of Siham Tergeman’s childhood memoirs so clearly describe. The English title of this book, “Daughter of Damascus,” seems very dry in comparison and hardly carries the special attraction these tales continue to have for the public. This heritage could easily lead young artists to avoid the subject altogether for fear of feeding one cliché or the other. But while Damascus is not the most burning topic for young artists in Syria, some have taken up the challenge and presented their own image of their hometown in works that are refreshingly clean of any nostalgia, showing surprising new sides of this heavily inscribed piece of land.

The alienating effects of the urban setting are central in the projects of the photographer Maher Salma. His series “One Kilometer” is an investigation of the structures and means that function to separate people rather than bring them closer to one another, where each individual is locked up in a confined space, sealed off by artificial barriers and isolated from other human beings. Salma’s scarcely populated views of deserted urban spaces appear desolate, dark and even hostile, and they seem to bring us closer to the cityscapes of Zakariya Tamer’s short stories, which serve as nightmare-like settings for his stories about oppression and the dehumanizing effects of arbitrary power. Maher Salma presents a study of separation strategies that leaves the spectator with a feeling of intense discomfort, and stands in stark contrast to the comforting views of traditional architecture that are habitually associated with Damascus.

Another investigation of the gap separating reality and ideology is the experimental short documentary film Before Vanishing (2005) by Joude Gorani. The filmmaker embarks on a trip following the Barada river from beginning to end and chronicles the people and communities living alongside and with the river.

Starting at a school lesson where young children learn about

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the benefits of the river, known for its cleanness and refreshing qualities that offer “fertility, beauty and pure and delicious water” to the people of the city, we follow this famed stream and its sad fate due to pollution and general neglect. The contemporary appearance of the river seems very far from its history as the Barada of today is on the verge of drying out altogether.

Gorani’s cinematography is sensitive and subtle, almost like a succession of still images. Beautiful and un-dramatic at the same time, the film shows the reality behind the poetic images.

As the title states, it can be read as a last homage to the Barada before it vanishes forever.

Also contrasting ideal and reality is Hazem Alhamwi’s video installation “Damascus.” In a succession of images, starting with the serenity of greenery, gardens, water and singing birds, the spectator is soon drawn into an increasingly strange and disturbing universe where colours and structures change and appear increasingly twisted. Alhamwi presents a different Damascus, a place where appearances may mislead, where idyllic elements at times appear, only to be silenced by haunting distortions, leaving no room for rest.

By relying purely on the visual strength of his imagery and keeping any narrative element out of his work, Alhamwi separates the city of Damascus from the haze of legends surrounding its name. This re-location, which can be felt as an act of breaking free from the historical burden of endlessly repeated stories, allows the spectator to get closer to the essence of the city. It is an image that still holds much of the magic present in Issue 1558 • November 2010

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former representations, but at the same time it carries a warning not to be carried away by our all too nostalgic dreaming.

Through different means, these pieces all invite the spectator to look beyond the superficial images of the city, to see the contradictions of its representation as an ideal on the one hand and its present-day, yet darker, reality on the other. Damascus is no different from other large urban conglomerates throughout the world, where pollution, overpopulation and gentrification remain very high. At times, the ideological distance between the imaginary city of Damascus and 21st century reality seems overwhelming. The three artists undertake a process of analyzing and deconstructing the narratives and legends surrounding the city, and thus offer a fresh view of it. In their works, Damascus is no longer the enigmatic city of the past legends that seemed almost too beautiful to be real. Instead, we are offered a more truthful image of the contemporary city with all its conflicts and contradictions, an image that might disappoint those longing for the “good old days,” but actually an image that is so much more alive than the stagnant fantasy of earlier representations.

Charlotte Bank – Independent curator, researcher and writer living and working between Berlin and Damascus. Her work focuses on contemporary cultural and artistic practices in the Arab world and diasporic communities. She has curated exhibitions, and film and video programs in Europe and the Middle East. She also publishes regularly in international media, both on- and off-line.

This article was first published in The Majalla 22 October 2010 59

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• THE CRITICS

Untangling the Jihadist Web Brothers in Arms: The story of Al-Qaeda and the Arab jihadists by Camille Tawil SAQI 2010 In his book, Brothers in Arms, Lebanese journalist Camille Tawil provides a detailed history of Al-Qaeda beginning with its 1988 inception and culminating with an overview of Al-Qaeda franchises across the region in the post 9/11 world. Tawil uses anecdotes and interviews to recreate the development of the loose web of affiliated jihadists across the Middle East and North Africa, with particular emphasis on the impact of movements in Algeria, Egypt and Libya.

In this condensed English translation of Camille Tawil’s original Arabic book, the Lebanese journalist clearly outlines the more recent history of jihadist movements. He uses the Russian quagmire in Afghanistan in the 1980s as the starting point for illuminating the subsequent political and military conquests throughout the region that would ultimately explain the ideological transformations and infighting experienced across the Middle East and North Africa.

Brothers in Arms accounts for specific faction members as they join groups, capitalize on regional contacts, gain military training, and trek the globe to complete their jihadist duty, whether gaining new recruits in London or fleeing to foreign lands, like China, looking for safe havens. More particularly, it reveals the friendships, the military and familial ties, and the cultural obligations to honor religion and uphold loyalties that have contributed to the unsteady alliances. Though, one word of caution: Tawil shifts quickly between separate Islamic movements from different countries, which can be difficult to follow for a reader who lacks substantial foundational knowledge of the area, the key players and recent political events. To that end, the explanation of abbreviations offered on page seven becomes a crucial reference while Tawil fleshes out the distinctions between the groups.

Historic grievances, clandestine trials, and shifting allegiances saturate the fluid dynamics of the Arab jihadist movements, a picture painted well by Tawil’s incorporation of numerous anecdotes. For example, the tumultuous relationship between the Arab and Afghan mujahideen is explained through an account in which group militant members attempt to oust a top leader by bringing him to trial in absentia for allegations of secular misconduct. As the book progresses, Tawil identifies the rationale behind the decisions of group leaders, offers hypotheses for the use of certain tactics, and gives a strong account of Osama bin Laden’s actions and trans-regional movements through the early 2000s.

Though the links with movements in Algeria, Egypt and Libya are emphasized throughout, the overarching focus is on AlQaeda, the complexly networked group that lies at the center of the US’s “war on terror.” Though the fight against Russia

had served to unite jihadist movements, in the post Cold War era efforts to merge the factions were unsuccessful as leaders chose to concentrate on their own nationalist agendas and the nearby enemy. Tawil connects the formation of the prevailing Al-Qaeda jihadist ideology directly to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) group’s doctrine, which condemned Arab governments that did not rule by Islamic law and other movements who refused to unite in the jihad. Publications by EIJ leaders served as key texts for training in Al-Qaeda camps. In the late 1990s, bin Laden’s campaign for jihad to focus on the far enemy, or the US, began to take root and regenerate the united front. EIJ and Al-Qaeda would in fact merge in June 2001, just months before 9/11.

Tamil is quick to point out that the shift in ideology from a defensive jihad, one in which the Islamic movements protected their homelands from invaders, to an offensive one, where they actively seek out enemies, did not appeal to all jihadists from the region. Some felt bin Laden corrupted the ideology, thus hindering their separate nationalist agendas, which sought support under same religious banner. Yet, he criticizes the decision of US leaders in oversimplifying the identification of jihadists and lumping them all into the same category, which only angered them and prompted them to unite further against the US. Additionally, Brothers in Arms provides a less publicized account of the depth of the CIA’s intelligence on bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, and how the US neglected two opportunities to capture him and address the growing dangers his movement presented in the late 1990s. Tawil draws clear parallels between the war on terror and the Russian presence in Afghanistan in the 1980s, stating that the problematic insurgency in Iraq gave Al-Qaeda the “breathing space it needed to regroup.” Thus, in 2003, Al-Qaeda became an even looser franchise, with jihadist movements assuming the brand name but without adhering to any centralized control. Tawil provides great detail to the struggles between Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and central figures within Al-Qaeda due to their disapproval of Al-Zarqawi’s alienating and overbearing tactics.

The book gains momentum near the end as it barrels toward the dramatic events leading up to 9/11. It then takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the Al-Qaeda franchises located in the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, Algeria and Libya. However, the conclusion—just over a page in length—is obviously lacking an element of synthesis. The Lebanese journalist, who has devoted much of his life to researching these issues and sourcing his information, somehow seems hesitant to lend his expertise in a final argument. With the known complications of Western counter-insurgency tactics in Iraq, and the continued problems with the Taliban in Afghanistan, one would expect him to take more of a definitive stance on how anti militant operations could be improved.

Perhaps the lack of commentary is Tawil’s attempt to provide an objective journalistic account of events, or perhaps it is an effort to allow the reader to form his or her own opinions. Either way, the book leaves the reader with a much deeper comprehension of the enigmatic Al-Qaeda, but with many lingering questions about the future direction of Arab jihadist movements.

This article was first published in The Majalla 28 October 2010

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Playing the Long Game The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Islamist Participation in a Closing Political Environment by Amr Hamzawy, Nathan J. Brown Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 2010 In 2005, the Muslim Brotherhood was a leading actor in Egypt’s opposition movement, winning 1/5 of the seats in the ‘05 legislative elections. But after five years of significant parliamentary experience, the Brotherhood’s popularity is faltering, prompting a shift in the movement’s tactics.

In a recent paper for the Carnegie Endowment, Amr Hamzawy and Nathan J. Brown reflect on the political highs and lows of Egypt’s biggest opposition movement ahead of the country’s legislative elections this November. Hamzawy and Brown assess the extent to which the Brotherhood’s increased participation in politics over the last 10 years has shaped the Egyptian political environment. Very little, they conclude. On the other hand, they suggest that the movement’s popularity may have faltered due to its participation in parliament. Hamzawy and Brown expect that sparse victories in parliament and waning support will lead the Brotherhood to a take a partial withdrawal from politics in 2010.

In December 2005, the Muslim Brotherhood stunned analysts by winning 1/5 of the 444 seats in Egypt’s legislative elections.

Their performance was all the more impressive considering the movement’s self-imposed limits: They only fielded enough candidates to win, at best, 1/3 of the seats, and chose not to field candidates in constituencies held by prominent NDP politicians. The result of these self-imposed limits was the establishment of a small, but nonetheless significant voice of dissent within parliament, and the avoidance of harsher forms of government repression.

However, as Hamzawy and Brown note, the Brotherhood has traditionally shown disdain for party politics. Leaders feared that participating in the hustle and tussle of daily politicking would prevent them from focusing on their long-term goal: the reform of Egyptian society in the name and within the spirit and letter of Islam. Up until the last 10 years, the Brotherhood’s preferred tactic had been to focus on social and educational programs, and the promotion of religious and moral values. So the platform on which they launched their successful 2005 campaign, which called for constitutional amendments to improve competitiveness in parliamentary and presidential elections, marked a significant shift in the Brotherhood’s attitude towards politics.

Yet the impact of the Brotherhood’s increased presence in parliament has been, at least for the short-term, disappointing for its supporters. The movement entered parliament in 2005 on a platform prioritizing constitutional, political and judicial reform. In the process, it marginalized its religious and moral program. Five years on, this tactic may have backfired.

The Brotherhood has failed wholesale to implement its platform.

Their calls for complete judicial supervision of elections fell on deaf ears, and their efforts at making the presidency more competitive were equally in vein. Meanwhile, the Egyptian judiciary, which was Issue 1558 • November 2010

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perhaps the most effective arena of political contestation at the start of the decade, lost this status in 2006 when an NDP law brought it under greater executive control. In 2010, the rules of the game remain unchanged. Electoral politics still favor the NDP, and the signs are that Mubarak is grooming his son for the presidency.

Their recent dalliances with politics not only yielded few gains for the Brotherhood politically—they failed to gain legal status as a party—but they also saw the movement subjected to criticism from supporters and liberal opposition movements alike. Known collectively as Kifaya, Egyptian opposition groups complained that the Brotherhood’s contribution to the opposition movement was “cheap talk and little action.” This was largely in reference to the leadership’s reluctance to join street demonstrations. Liberal opposition leaders also derided the Muslim Brotherhood for their stance on women and minorities. In the Muslim Brotherhood manifesto, leaked in 2007, the movement indicated that women and Christians would not be eligible to hold top positions in a republic governed by Islamic principles.

Increased political participation also posed internal problems. With such a significant number of seats in the lower house, the movement was forced to explain its political stances as well as to present specific policy proposals. But in its efforts to articulate specific positions on issues, internal divisions have manifested. This at times has hampered the movement’s ability to present itself as a united force.

Finally, in light of the Brotherhood’s inability to implement its platform of constitutional change, constituents have clamored for the movement to re-focus activities on the religious and social spheres. Their calls were seemingly answered earlier this year when the Brotherhood announced its new supreme guide, the ultra-conservative, Muhammad Badi’. Badi’ has already indicated his wish to return to the movement’s original strategy: Islamizing society from the bottom-up through social and religious activities.

Their analysis of the Brotherhood’s politicking might suggest an overall failure. However, Hamzawy and Brown’s conclusion is tempered by the Brotherhood’s assertion that success can only be measured in the long term. They argue, that the movement is anything but defeated. It has weathered the toughest decade for Islamic movements, managing to keep its identity and agenda distinct from that of Al-Qaeda in the eyes of many international observers, whilst provoking minimal resistance from the Egyptian regime.

But the retreating Brotherhood of 2010 is also more sophisticated.

The movement has demonstrated that beyond popular slogans, it can also articulate its aims in detailed policy and reform proposals. Perhaps more importantly, the Muslim Brothers in parliament were not once co-opted by the regime. Through their dedication to debating the priorities of reform, and their use of oversight tools to regularly criticize government policy, the Brotherhood has fulfilled its original aim: “energiz[ing] an inclusive debate about the priorities of reform and development.”

The Brotherhood may be in retreat, but it will not disappear.

The last five years have seen the movement acquire a level of legislative acumen that will stand them in good stead for the future. It has also re-enforced their resilience in withstanding government efforts to sideline them.

To access the full report, follow this link http://carnegieendowment.org/ publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=40318 This article was first published in The Majalla 11 October 2010 61

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• THE FINAL WORD

Attached at the Hip The Syrian-Iranian alliance continues

The Syrian-Iranian axis is still capable of overcoming the difficulties that it faces, and undermining the opportunity for genuine peace and stability in the region, but many of those who bet on the emergence of a real axis to oppose the Syrian-Iranian axis are now facing disappointment Adel Al Toraifi

T

his was the message of the recent Syrian-Iranian summit that took place in Tehran between President Bashar Al-Assad and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and in which the supreme leader of Iran, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also participated. President Al-Assad's fifth visit to Iran since Ahmadinejad came to office took place at a time when the Lebanese and Iraqi arenas, as well as the Palestinian, are witnessing a number of complications. It was notable that only 20 days separated this visit and President Ahmadinejad's visit to Damascus, which itself came less than a week after the meetings that took place between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Syrian counterpart, and the Syrian president's meeting with the US Mideast peace envoy, George Mitchell, and the Iraqiya bloc leader, Iyad Allawi. This shows that Syria remains active in playing the role of mediator between Iran and the outside world, and that it is the Arab country with the most influence on Iran.

The two regimes have been allies for more than 30 years In late 2003, the Americans accused Syria of allowing terrorists and arms to enter Iraq in order to undermine the US presence in Baghdad. As a result of this, the US issued sanctions against Syria and succeeded in convincing a number of Lebanese politicians to support UN Resolution 1559 in September 2004, which called for the withdrawal of foreign forces—Syrian troops—from Lebanon, and the disarming of Lebanese militias—Hezbollah. Only a few months later, Rafik Hariri was assassinated and Syria was publicly accused by a number of Lebanese parties of being responsible for this, complicating relations between Syria and a number of major Arab countries. Following pressure from the UN Security Council, Syria was forced to withdraw from Lebanon. At the time, the US, Britain, France and a number of major Arab countries decided to isolate Syria and Iran, especially in the aftermath of Iran's nuclear project and Ahmadinejad's election by the conservatives in Tehran.

In the following five years, Iran and Syria committed to their alliance and were able to support their allies everywhere; from Lebanon to Iraq to the occupied territories. However, the policy of isolating Syria and Iran by some Arab and European countries began to change after 2008; Syrian-Arab relations began to reconcile, and this included US and European rapprochement with Syria under the pretext that it was possible to separate, or distance, Syria from Iran.

At the present time, it does not seem that this policy is bearing the desired fruit. It is true that rapprochement with Syria has succeeded in restoring the (Syrian) channel of communication with Iran and the groups affiliated to it, however, in actuality, the region has returned to the state that it was in prior to late 2003.

In his book, Syria and Iran: the Diplomatic Alliance and Power Politics in the Middle East (2006), Jubin M. Goodarzi writes that despite their ideological differences, the two regimes have been allies for more than 30 years. Syria stood side by side with Iran during the Iraq-Iran war, `and, at the time, Iran supported the Syrian presence in Lebanon, giving Syria the upper hand in policymaking there.

Therefore it is unlikely that Syria will accept the idea of concluding a peace agreement with Israel and abandoning Iran; this is because the Syrian regime—after the collapse of its alliance with Egypt following the 1973 war—relies upon Tehran for survival in the face of any potential foreign interference, not to mention the fact that Iran benefits from its alliance with Damascus, as Syria represents its primary transit route to the Levant and Lebanon with regards to supporting its allies there.

Iran protected Syria from the threat of Iraqi aggression in the 1980s and 1990s, and, were it not for Iran standing behind them, the US would have been able to compel Damascus to throw in its hand in the region. Hezbollah—which is affiliated to Iran—was able to maintain Syria's interests in Lebanon, defending Syria during the tensest of moments. In fact, we can say that without Hezbollah, Syria would never have been able to return to Lebanon and extract an apology from Lebanese politicians. The same applies to the Hamas movements that succeeded in giving Syria the deciding vote with regards to the peace process and negotiations with America.

This does not mean that the Syrian-Iranian axis has succeeded and that others have failed, but it does reveal that the "resistance" axis, as it is called, is still capable of overcoming the difficulties that it faces, and undermining the opportunity for genuine peace and stability in the region. Many of those who bet on the emergence of a real axis to oppose the SyrianIranian axis are now facing disappointment.

Professor Daniel Bymen of the Brookings Institute in Washington said that despite their ideological differences, the SyrianIranian alliance is one that would make [Klemens Von] Metternich proud of the correctness of his theory that the balance of power—not ideology—is the secret to lasting relations between countries. In my opinion, the Syrian-Iranian alliance will continue so long as the diagram of regional alliances with America remains constant without change. Until that time, there is no cause for worry, for the Syrian-Iranian axis is alive and well.

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