The Burned Generation

Issue 1560 • January 2011

The Burned Generation The death of Mohammed Bouazizi may have sparked a revolution in Tunisia, but what of the millions of unemployed youth in the Arab world?

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9 770261 087119 The Majalla

War and Peace

The Lisbon summit at the end of last year saw a strong commitment by the NATO governments to sustaining a security presence in Afghanistan

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On Politics

Despite achieving a number of key successes, the world still doubts the ability of the US and its president to deliver on their objectives and promises

Issue 1560

Candid Coversations

Former CIA officer Bruce Riedel explores different scenarios for Afghanistan and highlights Al-Qaeda’s profile as an intelligent organization

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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 Jacqueline Shoen Michael Whiting Editorial Secretary Jan Singfield New Media Development Officer Markus Milligan Submissions To submit articles or opinion, please email: enquiries@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 © 2011 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: enquiries@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 © iStockphoto

Editorial In this issue of The Majalla, Afshin Molavi, senior fellow for the New America Foundation, provides us with an article titled “The Burned Generation”, relating the plight of Mohammed Bouazizi, the desperate young man who lit himself on fire in Tunisia and the far reaching effects on unemployed young Arabs throughout the Middle East.

As we ease into the new year, Majalla writers thought it fitting to cast their eyes to the United States in 2010.

Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation reasons in “Perception is Reality” that the continuing distrust of the Obama administration to deliver on its objectives and promises is due in part to the ongoing economic downturn; it is also a result of the increasing power of the Republicans in the US government.

In “American Dream Denied,” professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations, Fawaz Gerges, points to increasing cases of Islamophobia in western countries as one of the many long-term consequences brought on by America’s global “war on terror.”

We invite you to read these articles and many more on our website at Majalla.com/en. As always, we welcome and value our readers’ feedback, and we invite you 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 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.

Nicholas Birch Nicholas Birch lived in Istanbul, Turkey, from 2002 to 2009, working as a freelancer. His work from Turkey, Iraq, Iran and the Caucasus appeared in a whole range of publications, including the Washington Post, Time Magazine, The Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement. Birch was a stringer for the Wall Street Journal and The London Times until the end of 2009. Based in London since the beginning of this year, and continuing to work as a freelancer, Birch is in the early stages of writing his first book, a travel book investigating Turkey's troubled relationship with its past.

Steve Clemons Steve Clemons is a Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation which aims to promote a new American internationalism, that combines a tough-minded realism about America's interests in the world, with a pragmatic idealism about the kind of world order best suited to America's democratic way of life. Publisher of the popular political blog The Washington Note, Mr Clemons is a longterm policy practitioner and entrepreneur in Washington, DC.

Fawaz Gerges Fawaz Gerges is Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He 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.”

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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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The Burned Generation

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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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• There to Stay: NATO’s Lisbon summit and victory in Afghanistan • The Final Chapters: Why Turkey’s Kurdish war might be coming to an end • Not So Secret Wars: The Middle East’s shadow battles unveiled by WikiLeaks

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• Perception is Reality: The geostrategic consequences of President Obama’s political defeat • American Dream Denied • A Partnership for Stability: Why a Turkey-Iran axis could mean good news

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The death of Mohammed Bouazizi may have sparked a revolution in Tunisia, but what of the millions of unemployed youth in the Arab world?

• Pentagon Inc. • Algeria's East-West Highway • News Behind the Graph

• Pawns in an Election: Egypt’s independent media • The Merchant of Death

• Bruce Riedel • Stephen Walt

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• QUOTES OF THE MONTH

Quotes of the Month Images © Getty Images

“I do not say that this government, with all its formations, satisfies its citizens' aspirations.

Nor the political blocs', nor my ambition, nor any other person's ambition, because it is formed ... in extraordinary circumstances” Nouri Al-Maliki, upon naming his new cabinet in Iraq

“This act of terrorism shook the country's conscience, shocked our feelings and hurt the hearts of Muslim and Coptic Egyptians. The blood of their martyrs in the land of Alexandria mixed to tell us all that all Egypt is the target and that blind terrorism does not differentiate between a Copt and a Muslim” Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in his address following the bomb attack in Alexandria, which killed 21 people in the early hours of 2011

“I have come in front of the cameras at my own will to talk to the world" Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani appears on Iranian television, but doubts remain concerning the legitimacy of her confessions.

“My position and that of President Mubarak is that we won’t accept negotiations while settlement construction continues ... We have made this position clear to the American administration" Mahmoud Abbas, in the wake of the news that the US abandoned efforts to secure an Israeli settlement freeze

“Negative words about me are not something new.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, concerning the WikiLeaks distribution of US diplomatic cables

“We were challenging his philosophical attitude to jihad. He got so angry that he left. He was just supporting and propagating these incorrect foundations [of Islam], so I stepped in” Qadeer Baksh, chairman of Luton Islamic center, on his conversations with Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly, who killed himself in a bomb attack in Stockholm

“Dismissing a minister during a mission is un-Islamic, undiplomatic and offensive" Manouchehr Mottaki, former Iranian foreign minister, reacts to his dismissal

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There to Stay

NATO’s Lisbon summit and victory in Afghanistan NATO’s Lisbon summit saw strong declaratory support for the alliance security mission in Afghanistan.

NATO members promised additional and longer military assistance, while Russia and other partners made their own contributions. Yet, the Afghan security forces are still too weak to fight the Taliban unaided, while key neighboring states do not fully support the NATO-led counterinsurgency.

Richard Weitz

Image © Getty Images

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he 19-20 November heads-of-state summit in Lisbon devoted much attention to the alliance’s troubled military campaign in Afghanistan. In the eyes of many, NATO’s failure to win that conflict would call into question the organization’s effectiveness as a global security institution.

The Lisbon summit saw a strong commitment by the NATO governments to sustaining a security presence in Afghanistan, with the member governments extending their transition timeline to 2014. Despite recent defense budget cuts, the members of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) now deploy approximately 100,000 US troops and nearly 50,000 other foreign forces. Even the perennial shortage of NATO trainers in Afghanistan will soon be filled thanks to a decision by the Canadian government to contribute almost one thousand soldiers to that mission.

Still, several days after the summit, the Pentagon reported to Congress that, through September 2010, NATO had made only "uneven" progress in Afghanistan despite the surge of combat troops in the country. And the escalating fighting has led to a surge in the number of civilian casualties. Although Taliban insurgents are responsible for most of these incidents due to their widespread use of improvised explosive devices, the Afghan people often blame NATO for the resulting deaths and injuries.

No matter how well NATO improves the effectiveness of its strategy and tactics, it cannot win the war alone. The alliance needs partners, both in Afghanistan and elsewhere, to achieve and sustain a democratic regime able to contain widespread political violence and prevent the reconstruction of a terrorist base with global reach on its territory or a narcotics-funded insurgency that threatens neighboring countries.

Inside Afghanistan, the problem is that the government and its security forces still experience major difficulties in providing good governance and the rule of the law, promoting economic development and job creation, combating corruption and narcotics trafficking, as well as ensuring the security of Taliban members who attempt to reintegrate peacefully into Afghan society. Although NATO is not responsible for these problems, its preferred Afghan strategy will remain hostage to their resolution.

There needs to be an effective Afghan security structure for NATO to transition the war to Kabul’s leadership. Despite extensive foreign training programs and other support, the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police have little capacity to defeat the Taliban insurgents without continued direct NATO assistance. ISAF training requirements continue to increase due to the widespread desertions of Afghan soldiers. Their persistent weakness is one of

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In addition to improving its partnership with the Afghan government and several of its neighbors, NATO must achieve greater harmonization among the various international institutions supporting Afghanistan’s reconstruction

the main reasons why NATO has felt compelled to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan in the last year alone.

The Lisbon summit also has confirmed the growing Russian interest in collaborating with NATO in Afghanistan. The Russian government has now granted NATO collectively the same right to transport goods destined for Afghanistan through its territory that it offers select NATO members. In return, NATO has agreed to cooperate more with Russia on countering narcotics trafficking relating to Afghanistan. Russian authorities claim that they lose around 30,000 people each year to drug overdoses, HIV transmitted by dirty needles, and other casualties related to Afghan opium. NATO will also pay for Russia to provide helicopters and helicopter training to Afghan pilots.

Yet, the alliance still lacks support from key international partners.

Perhaps the most troublesome partner is Pakistan, whose government remains unable to curb the long-standing assistance many Pakistanis provide the Afghan insurgents. In its progress report to Congress, the Pentagon acknowledges that efforts to prevent the Taliban from sending men and material across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border “have not produced measurable results.” The Pakistani army has thus far declined to suppress the Afghan Taliban, which enjoys sanctuary in regions along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier from which they have supported their insurgency in Afghanistan.

Iran and China are other missing partners. The dispute over Iran’s nuclear program has impeded collaboration between NATO and Iran in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Meanwhile, despite becoming a major economic stakeholder in Afghanistan, the Chinese have declined to support the NATO forces that are protecting those investments. Beijing has repeatedly rejected NATO’s requests to transit supplies through Chinese territory to landlocked Afghanistan.

In addition to improving its partnership with the Afghan government and several of its neighbors, NATO must achieve greater harmonization among the various international institutions supporting Afghanistan’s reconstruction. Sustained improvements in the political, economic, and security conditions in Afghanistan are unachievable without more effective collaboration between NATO and other international institutions— particularly with the United Nations, the European Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Moving forward from Lisbon, NATO must develop and implement an action plan for assessing progress in the Afghan war according to specific benchmarks. These should include fielding more effective Afghan Security Forces, improving the capacity of Afghan governance institutions, and generating more employment opportunities of peaceful nature.

The alliance also needs to continue to develop its global partnerships to mobilize international support for the Afghan war. NATO is assuming an important coordination role among the many countries and institutions involved in Afghanistan. It is already partnering with more than a dozen non-NATO members—Australia, Japan, and South Korea—in the NATO-led ISAF. The task now is to extend these partnerships to encompass more actors and to transform what in some cases remains primarily nominal support into more meaningful and enduring contributions.

Richard Weitz – Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, Washington DC. This article was published in The Majalla 6 December 2010

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The Final Chapters

Why Turkey’s Kurdish war might be coming to an end Although commonly referred to as “the largest group of stateless people in the world,” roughly 50 percent of Kurds worldwide live in Turkey. Behind a history of oppression and violence, the armed conflict that started in 1984—between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)—has claimed around 40,000 lives. Today it looks like this conflict, which has occupied the heart of what it means to be Turkish, is heading to an end.

Nicholas Birch

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p in Turgali, a smuggler's village on the TurkishIranian border, Cüneyt Boz dotes on his packhorse. "Minefields, pasdaran, she's afraid of nothing," he says, stroking her mane. "You let out the reins and she's off. The difficult thing is stopping her. She'd trot to Tabriz if you let her."

The horse’s description is a good analogy for the Kurdish war that has raged in these parts since 1984, killing over 40,000 people, emptying several thousand villages and giving Turkey a name as an inveterate violator of human rights.

Everybody knows it has to end. The trouble is that neither Ankara nor the Kurdish movement seems to have much of an idea of how stop it.

"We can gain nothing more from fighting, and neither can the state," Cemil Bayik, a top commander of the armed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, told the Turkish magazine Ekspres late October. "The only alternative is a political solution." A week later, on 1 November, the PKK announced that it was declaring a ceasefire until general elections—due in Turkey next summer. But it declined to withdraw its guerrillas from Turkey to northern Iraq, doubtless mindful of the massive losses it sustained from the Turkish army when it last withdrew in 1999.

On the same day as the ceasefire, a PKK member blew himself up in central Istanbul, injuring a dozen policemen.

While the men in the mountains continue their phony war, Kurdish towns and cities have seen the rise in recent months of a new phenomenon: civil disobedience. It all began in September, when thousands of school children across the region boycotted school for a week to protest the lack of Kurdish-language education in Turkish state schools. A week earlier, on 12 September, Turkey's Kurdish nationalist party invited supporters to boycott a referendum on the constitution called by the government. It got what it wanted: Roughly half of voters in the southeast stayed at home, with absenteeism in some areas higher than 90 percent. Finally, on 4 November, at a trial of hundreds of Kurds accused of being part of the PKK's urban wing, defendants tried to defend themselves in Kurdish.

An "unknown language," said the judge, and ordered them removed from court.

Many analysts have described the civil disobedience campaigns as a sign that the balance of power in the Kurdish movement is tipping away from the gunmen towards the civilian wing. That seemed to be the moral of the mid-November spat between the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah

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"America wants it to, Turkey's neighbors want it to, Turkey— at last—is taking steps to persuade it to, it wants to itself. But disarming creates a dilemma. For years, guns and war, the struggle, martyrdom, have been the PKK's means of mobilization. Now, if it is to stay alive, it needs to find more “civil” ways of mobilizing support."

The situation on the Turkish side is not much different. As early as 2006, Turkey's top general was publicly admitting that, "even if we sent 500,000 troops to [the PKK's HQ in northern Iraq] we couldn't finish this group off." After years of denying there were Kurds, let alone a Kurdish problem, Ankara—without giving Kurds the constitutional recognition they demand— has progressively turned down the heat on them. Permission for private language courses was followed, in January 2009, by the opening of a state television channel in Kurdish.

Image © Getty Images

Öcalan and Osman Baydemir—the popular mayor of Diyarbakir, the biggest majority Kurdish city in Turkey. Baydemir said the time for guns was over. It's something Ocalan has been saying periodically since Turkey arrested him in 1999, but this time he was not amused. From his island prison off Istanbul, he told the mayor to repent publicly or resign. Unexpectedly, Kurdish politicians lined up to back Baydemir, rather than the man who nowadays insists upon being addressed as "the leadership."

Head of an Islamist NGO in Diyarbakir, Serdar Yilmaz doesn't buy all the talk about Kurdish nationalists turning against the PKK. Instead, he sees the PKK's implicit support for acts of civil disobedience as part of its efforts to adapt itself to changing conditions in the region. "Everything points to the PKK, sooner or later, dropping its guns," he says.

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Weathering the Storm Since the break-up of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 and the subsequent founding of the Turkish Republic under President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Kurds in Turkey have weathered a storm of assimilation, repression and bloody massacre—and taken part in several rebellions.

1925 The Hamidiye, a Kurdish militia group established under the Ottomans, organized a revolt which became known as the Sheikh Said Rebellion, after the Kurdish Sheikh, Said Piran, who rallied the officers for Kurdish independence. According to British intelligence, the rebels cited fears of a mass deportation of Kurds, anger at restrictions on the Kurdish language and complained of economic exploitation.

Following the failed rebellion—and the hanging of Sheikh Said Piran—Atatürk stepped up his secular reforms of the country, which included aggressive repression of Kurdish culture and identity. For example, the performance and recording of songs in the Kurdish language was banned, driving the music underground where a thriving black-market scene existed for much of the 20th century.

1927 Said Piran’s brother, Sheikh Abdurrahman, led a rebellion that saw minor military successes over several Turkish garrisons and the brief occupation of Bayazid. The rebels also attacked Turkish army bases in Kurdistan, but Turkish reinforcements soon drove them off.

1927-1930 Led by General Ihsan Nuri Pasha, the Ararat rebellion witnessed a self-proclaimed Kurdish state declare independence in the East of modern Turkey.

The Republic of Ararat was defeated within three years, chiefly due to the overwhelmingly superior numbers of the Turkish military and a relentless aerial bombardment.

But not so fast. Jealously-guarded government plans to persuade the PKK to disarm foundered rapidly after October 2009 when Turkish nationalists reacted angrily to the sight of jubilant Kurdish crowds welcoming a PKK "peace delegation" back into the country from Iraq. The threat from the nationalists has now decreased substantially, following the implosion of the nationalist opposition party at the referendum this September. Yet, the government seems to have lost its stomach for grand strategy.

Instead, while senior officials continue negotiations with Ocalan, it appears to have decided to try to bring Kurds onside with symbolic gestures. The country's huge Directorate of Religious Affairs, which employs 80,000 imams and is responsible for the upkeep of the country's mosques, looks set to begin permitting Friday sermons to be given in Kurdish. It has also been given money for 1,364 new mosques in Kurdish areas and for what the government calls "guidance teams"—mobile religious officials who will be charged with "protecting the unity of the country and fighting against separatism."

1937 Further rebellion quickly escalated into unprecedented tragedy for Kurdish peoples and their various ethnic groups. After an uprising in Dersim in the East, Southeast Anatolia was swiftly placed under martial law. There followed mass deportations, torture and murder in an attempted ethnic cleansing of the local population. The region remained under military control until 1950, and it was not until 1965 that foreign nationals were allowed to visit the area for fear that news of the events would damage Turkey’s international reputation.

Following the genocide, the Kurdish language was banned outright, anything related to Kurds or to Kurdistan was removed from the dictionaries, and Kurds themselves were only to be referred to as “mountain Turks.”

1978 The Marxist separatist PKK is formed on the back of a wave of Kurdish nationalist resurgence with the declared intention to liberate Kurdistan, and to form an independent socialist Kurdish state.

1990 The PKK—having survived the renewed repression of the eighties, which targeted Kurdish and leftist groups—modified its goals from complete independence to a negotiated settlement with the Turkish government.

1991 The ban on the use of the Kurdish language in public was lifted, under the presidency of Turgut Özal, who had some Kurdish ancestry.

In the past 20 years, Turkish authorities have instigated reforms in order to placate the Kurdish minority. These include allowing Kurdish radio and television broadcasts, permitting private Kurdish education and restoring the names of previously assimilated Kurdish villages.

On 1 December meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture released a bilingual Kurdish-Turkish version of the Kurdish “national” epic, Mem u Zin. "There is no Kurdish opening," the minister said, "only a progressive democratization." Analysts worry that Turkey's government may have decided to set back any major moves in the southeast until after elections next year.

The thought worries Mukadder Yardimciel, a journalist in the ethnically-mixed town of Kars, near the Armenian border. He doubts "progressive democratization" will be enough to bring peace to a region devastated by long war, and bemoans the lack of imagination and courage on both sides. "But then what do you expect," he asks. "If you spend thirty years staring down the barrel of a gun, you end up with a squint, I guess."

Nicholas Birch – Worked as a freelance reporter in Turkey for eight years. His writings have appeared in a broad range of publications, including “Time” magazine, the “Wall Street Journal” and the “Times” of London.

This article was published in The Majalla 14 December 2010

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Not So Secret Wars

The Middle East’s shadow battles unveiled by WikiLeaks “There are known knowns. There are known unknowns. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know,” US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said at a press briefing on 12 February 2002. Today, due to WikiLeaks, there are less known unknowns. Among many things, the release of thousands of secret diplomatic cables reveal what one would already suspect, a secret war for regional influence is on in the Middle East.

Image © Getty Images

Iason Athanasiadis

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STANBUL: What do a clandestine fiber-optic communications network in Beirut, Najaf ’s Shamsah Travel and Tourism Agency, and a railway line in western Afghanistan all share? According to the diplomatic cables compiled by US diplomats and released by the WikiLeaks website, they are all methods by which Iran pursues its shadow struggle for regional influence.

The US “war on terror” has provided virgin proxy battlegrounds and a backdrop of greater instability for the silent chess game playing out across the Middle East. The opponents’ often invisible moves have been as lethal as the diplomatic jockeying in Vienna, Istanbul and New York remains antiseptic. It is only when the pregnant silence is interrupted by an arms convoy’s violent interdiction in Sudan, the assassination in Tehran of Iranian nuclear scientists, or a statement made by an official that attributes some seemingly random incident to the other side that the clandestine struggle briefly surfaces.

Last Wednesday, two suicide bombers detonated themselves mid-ceremony in a Shi’ite mosque in Iran’s mixed sectarian border province of Sistan-Balochestan. Within hours, Iranian officials had blamed Western intelligence services for the attacks. But for the most part, this Great Game plays out in underground military tunnels in southern Lebanon, luxury hotel rooms in Dubai, the mist-swathed mountains of northern Yemen, African embassies and the corridors of Istanbul’s baroque Dolmabahce Palace.

I had been aware of this struggle’s low throbbing tempo since moving to Iran in 2004. At the time, it was debated in public whenever Seymour Hersh would write a piece on covert operations inside Iran, or if an anonymous Pentagon official was quoted describing how drones were being flown from bases in Iraq over its eastern neighbor in the hope of prompting the Iranians to expose their radar systems to mapping by switching them on. There are several dog-eared copies of Know Thine Enemy, a book written by a former CIA agent, in a library in Tehran. It describes the multiple ways in which he schemed, while working under the cover of a US consulate officer in 90s Istanbul, to destabilize Iran by exploiting its rich ethnic diversity.

A year later, former US President George W. Bush created a democracy promotion budget for Iran, widely viewed as a “coup fund.” A few months later, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice created the Iran Affairs Office, a bureau belonging to the State Department based out of cities with high Iranian immigrant populations that could be tapped for intelligence on the state of the Islamic Republic and its leadership.

Immediately accused by the Iranians of being a front for the CIA, the WikiLeaks haul proved that it wasn’t by containing so many of its reports (CIA reports are filed through more secure channels), some of which are the most interesting documents about the strategies utilized to pressure Iran.

These documents can also be read as a demonstration of US power: a whole host of world leaders criticize the US in public but privately line up to divulge intimacies about Washington’s strategic foes. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates captured it when he said, “the fact is governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.”

Unknown unknowns On 12 February 2002, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld addressed a Department of Defense news briefing. During the briefing Rumsfeld made the infamous comments concerning “unknown unknowns”—which he will doubtless be best remembered for, despite his long and colorful political career.

Journalist: Could I follow up, Mr. Secretary, on what you just said, please? In regard to Iraq weapons of mass destruction and terrorists, is there any evidence to indicate that Iraq has attempted to or is willing to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction?

Because there are reports that there is no evidence of a direct link between Baghdad and some of these terrorist organizations.

Rumsfeld: Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know.

And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.

And so people who have the omniscience that they can say with high certainty that something has not happened or is not being tried, have capabilities that are—what was the word you used, Pam, earlier?

Journalist: Free associate? (laughs) Rumsfeld: Yeah. They can (chuckles) they can do things I can't do. (laughter) Journalist: Excuse me. But is this an unknown unknown?

Rumsfeld: I'm not …

Journalist: Because you said several unknowns, and I'm just wondering if this is an unknown unknown.

Rumsfeld: I'm not going to say which it is.

Accordingly, cables from Kabul describe intimate meetings between US diplomats and high government officials. Umar Daudzai, a former Afghan ambassador to Tehran, painted by a recent New York Times exposé as pushing a relentlessly antiWestern agenda and controlling an Iranian-provided presidential slush-fund, turns out to have very cordial meetings with US diplomats where he advises them to start “preparing the ground” for the post-revolutionary period in Iran and recounts anecdotes about his wife’s Tehrani doctor asking her to “please tell the Americans to bring their soldiers to our country next.”

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President Karzai himself is quoted as early as 2007 telling US Ambassador Eric Edelman that Iran is “busy” causing disruptions, especially in its strategic backyard of western Afghanistan. Edelman rejoins that Tehran appears to be funneling sophisticated explosively-formed projectiles and MANPADs (shoulder-fired missiles similar to the Stingers donated by the CIA to the mujahideen in the 80s to down Soviet helicopters) that could have a “strategic effect” if deployed even in small numbers against a smaller NATO member.

Most extraordinarily, we get glimpses of well-connected Iranians and US diplomats candidly discussing reciprocal attacks, whether directly or by proxy, on each other’s assets. In one 2007 cable, the brother of Iran’s then chief of the Revolutionary Guards (possibly the London-based Salman Rahim Safavi), sits across US diplomats in a track II meeting in London, and acknowledges Iran’s presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, describing Shi’ite Iraqi militias as “our allies whom we created against Saddam,” and making “near gloating” remarks about Hezbollah’s 2006 conflict with Israel.

Safavi admits that an Iranian-controlled Shi’ite militia in Iraq had attacked US troops but dismissed it as a mistake based on a “standing ‘general order’ to launch such attacks which had not yet been rescinded … similar organizational snafus lie behind the current continuing attacks on US forces in Iraq.”

Meanwhile, US diplomats had seized control of the process for granting Iraqi diplomatic visas, revealing that 20 percent of all applicants had an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) or intelligence background.

Safavi goes on to warn the Americans that, unlike “a few years ago under (former reformist Iranian President Mohammad) Khatami, the IRGC plays a central and preeminent role in the Iranian government,” and that its designation as a terrorist organization will leave the US with “no Iranian partner with which to engage on security or other issues of mutual concern.”

“The reality was more complex, especially in 2009,” said a US diplomat who worked on the Iran file. “There was real interest on Washington’s part in looking for outreach opportunities and issues of mutual interest that we and Iran could theoretically cooperate on, and real debate about how to handle the June 2009 election result and violent aftermath. Much less so now when there is no support almost anywhere in the bureaucracy for anything other than more pressure.”

It was while these then-classified missives were whizzing around the ether that I was living in Iran and wondering about the exact scale of this covert war. But suggesting that the US and Iran were involved in proxy warfare in the early summer of 2006 was still enough to get one branded a conspiracist.

So I visited the lush grounds of the Institute of Political and International Studies (IPIS) in northern Tehran to interview a former Iranian ambassador about the new Great Game.

White-bearded and urbane, he more than made up for not offering me tea (it was Ramadan) by providing a penetrating offthe-record glimpse into how Tehran views the region.

Admitting that Iran’s behavior was modified by it being surrounded on all sides by countries that were either pro-US or under US military occupation, he described Iran’s posture as being directed by “this idea that there should be some modicum of order in Afghanistan but not so much that Iranian influence there could not remain strong. Things should be relatively calm.”

Issue 1560 • January 2011

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It is only when the pregnant silence is interrupted by an arms convoy’s violent interdiction in Sudan, the assassination in Tehran of Iranian nuclear scientists, or a statement made by an official that attributes some seemingly random incident to the other side that the clandestine struggle briefly surfaces Wise words, which became evident this year when Iran indirectly participated in US-sponsored electoral processes in Afghanistan and Iraq by promoting its own candidates. Dozens of the Afghan parliamentarians elected under murky conditions this September are informally known on the streets of Kabul as “Iranian candidates.”

WikiLeaks documents are hardly necessary to establish the ample Iranian influence visible everywhere across the region.

A taste of Tehran’s soft power is given by any number of atmospherics visible on the ground, from the Iranian-sponsored reconstruction projects across Kabul, Basra or Beirut to the Iranian diplomats or swarthy Revolutionary Guard types in illfitting suits swarming across regional meetings, the ample front companies in Baku, Dubai, Baghdad and Quetta, and Iranian television and radio stations broadcasting in a multiplicity of regional languages.

Though the last cable on Iran is from February this year, the covert war continues. Two nuclear scientists were targeted for assassination in December, a day after the WikiLeaks were revealed. Top Israeli intelligence commentator Yossi Melman said that it was “obvious… that Israel was behind it.” Another more effective strategy has been to target the computer systems responsible for maintaining the nuclear program. In November, Iran finally confirmed that an unprecedentedly powerful computer virus discovered over the summer had affected its computer systems. One leading German security expert estimated that it had set back its program by two years.

None of this is discussed in the WikiLeaks. Even assuming that the US has been involved in destabilizing operations, their covert nature would make them the preserve of the intelligence agencies, not US diplomats who present America’s accessible face to the world. But what the WikiLeaks do add to our knowledge about the faceoff between Iran and the US are unique insights into the shape taken by the shadow struggle on the ground in over a dozen cities in the region. In Najaf, Tyre, Herat, Saada, Lattakia and Baku, this struggle continues day in, day out.

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

TThis article was published in The Majalla 23 December 2010 17

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Perception is Reality

The geostrategic consequences of President Obama’s political defeat Despite achieving a number of key successes, the world still doubts the ability of the US and its young president to deliver on their objectives and promises. With the Republican red tide that just swept in, and the continuing economic downturn, this doubt is eroding global stability and undermining the trust that allies have in American leadership. What can the US do in order to restore its options and its ability to shape the international system?

Steve Clemons

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On the trade front, it was telling that South Korea rejected key provisions of a US-Korea Free Trade Agreement that had been previously negotiated sensing that it could get more from a politically weakened White House—handing Obama an embarrassing defeat

Image © Getty Images

arack Obama’s political fortunes suffered a devastating blow at the election polls on November 2nd—and since then, whether on domestic policy or in the international arena, nations as well as American politicians have raised their price for cooperating with him.

Despite achieving a number of key successes—on health care policy, global nuclear WMD summitry and agreements, and making the G20 a relatively hard global economic coordinating body—the world still doubts the ability of the US and its young president to deliver on their objectives and promises.

The Republican red tide that just swept in has made that doubt in the Obama White House even greater.

This doubt is eroding global stability and undermining the trust that allies have in American leadership while increasing the appetite of US foes like North Korea and Iran to shake constraints on them and move the boundaries on their action beyond where they have been.

Iran’s nuclear course is clearly a case in which the combination of, on the one hand, the US annihilating its key rival in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and on the other, becoming militarily overextended in Afghanistan have fanned Iran’s ambitions of becoming a regional hegemon in the Middle East. Iran does not believe that the United States and its allies—including Israel—have the military capacity to prevail in a serious conflict with Iran, and neither are they able, given the wobbly economic circumstances in the US, to absorb the financial shocks of a global collision.

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On the trade front, it was telling that South Korea rejected key provisions of a US-Korea Free Trade Agreement that had been previously negotiated sensing that it could get more from a politically weakened White House—handing Obama an embarrassing defeat on a trip really designed to shore up the US alliance with South Korea and Japan as a check on growing Chinese power. While Obama’s stops in India and Indonesia, as well as Japan, immediately after the tough political rebuke of Obama’s Democratic Party, generated some positive headlines about him giving White House attention to these key countries—he got very little from these trips that made him look as if he was having any luck shaping the international order for the better.

In fact, the trip backfired in ways that few pundits have yet realized. Obama’s post-election trip was in part designed to push America’s economic interests—but also designed to assure Japan and South Korea that the US would stand with these nations as

they increasingly rubbed against China’s growing global ego. If anything, events in the region since Obama returned back to DC have illustrated that China and its “affiliates” have more ability to control events in the Asia Pacific than the US and its allies.

China and Japan had only recently ended a high stakes, several-week-standoff in which Japan arrested an aggressive Chinese boat captain who rammed Japan coast guard ships off of the disputed Senkaku Islands. This incident escalated to the highest levels—until Japan blinked and released the detained Chinese ship captain. China scored a win—and was testing not Japan as much as its chief sponsor, the United States.

Fast forward to North Korea’s attack on a South Korea island that hosts both military personnel and civilians. In this case, a nation that is highly dependent on China’s economic and strategic support makes a strategic choice for China— testing BOTH the US and China’s resolve.

Calling the Shots The foreign policy cornerstone of successive US administrations, at least regarding the Middle East, has been to resolve the continuing Israel-Palestine conflict. The US commitment to peace in the Middle East has been re-stated so often by innumerable cross-party spokespeople that the casual observer may be forgiven for considering it merely a palliative slogan—designed to sustain the image of America as a righteous arbiter of justice.

But if we accept at face value the latest administration’s assurance that America is “serious about peace,” then the recent setbacks to negotiations suggest that the US has become hamstrung in its attempt to push their agenda. Indeed, it seems that Israel’s government is largely free to pursue whichever course it so chooses, despite misgivings from its chief sponsor.

The rejection by Benjamin Netanyahu of Obama’s latest incentive for talks has been interpreted by most analysts as tantamount to humiliation—and a black mark against Obama in his pursuit of a Middle-Eastpeace-shaped feather in his cap. More than three billion dollars of military aid, mostly coming in the form of new fighter jets, was offered in exchange for an insufficient 90 day cessation of all settlement building in the West Bank (not including East Jerusalem), plus a promise from Israel to begin talking about the future borders of a mooted Palestinian state.

Even offering such a generous package—which would have pretty much consigned to the dustbin Palestinian hopes of a capital in East Jerusalem— demonstrates US desperation. The subsequent refusal of the deal, while attributable in some part to the vagaries of the Israeli parliamentary system, leaves very little room for the US to maneuver in terms of coaxing Israel into meaningful discussions. However, short of a radical policy shift and the exertion of real pressure on their much-vaunted Middle East ally, feeble cajolery will continue to be Obama’s chief diplomatic tool.

Issue 1560 • January 2011

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With the exception that there is not a large contingent of North Korean-Chinese who hold political sway in China’s government in the way that Israel is able to affect American political machinery, North Korea has emerged as “China’s Israel.”

Israel, in ways similar to North Korea’s national profile, depends on America’s guarantee of its key economic and strategic circumstances—but Israel is no longer the supplicant and realizes that the US system has decided it has to acquiesce to Israel’s recalcitrance on Middle East peace as well as the evolution of an apartheid structure dividing Palestinians from Israelis within its borders. One looking at the situation from outer space would presume that the US had the power and Israel followed along—but in fact, Israel is calling its own shots and America is paralyzed from using the levers of control it might have on Israel’s political leadership.

Similarly, North Korea knows that it can be a massive economic and geostrategic headache—worse if its state collapses. And it smartly exploits this disaster scenario to extort resources from not just the West but also China.

China is willing to ignore a great deal of North Korean misbehavior, even attacks like the one observed this week, to preserve the status quo on the Korean peninsula. China’s latitude in controlling North Korea is extremely limited and on par with America’s very frustrating lack of influence on Israel’s behavior.

North Korea, like Iran, senses that the US is militarily overstretched in the world and is on weak economic legs at home.

It saw China prevail in a symbolic test of wills over Japan in the Senkakus, and watched South Korea take away the prize Obama had expected of a free trade deal during his recent visit there. North Korea is moving its interests forward while it senses weakness from the combined front of South Korea, Japan and the US. While Barack Obama’s post-election trip to Indonesia, India, Japan and South Korea was meant in part to send a signal to China that the US could encircle it and would stand “shoulder to shoulder” with these countries in future competitions

of power, North Korea decided to act on its own and end that charade—both on its own and China’s behalf.

North Korea, at least thus far, has punctured the Obama bubble in Asia—and affairs in the region are far less stable in the Pacific than they were before the president and many members of his Cabinet, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, invested so heavily in trying to convince the region that betting on America was a bet on stability.

America’s global situation has become relatively weaker and will be tested repeatedly in zero sum challenges to its interests—particularly when its proxies like Japan and South Korea are there to be the punching bags. To restore its options and its ability to shape the international system, the US has to decide what it is going to be about in the next century—what are its key strategic goals and what is it willing to gamble to get there.

No matter what course the US chooses, it is going to have to replenish its stock of power, revitalize its economy, and show that it can affect international change—perhaps in some of the lower hanging fruit in the international system like normalizing relations with Cuba, or delivering on the START Treaty with the Russians, or moving Syria and Israel to normalize relations and do a peace deal.

All of these would be relatively doable and would help give America some momentum again in its international game— but even these are strangled and paralyzed today by American politics and the perception of President Obama’s weakness.

Given that even the easy stuff looks nearly impossible, it’s easy to understand why there is growing concern among America’s key allies about the solvency of America’s economic and strategic commitments, and why a country like North Korea feels like it has little to lose by acting up and putting its neighbors and the world on edge.

Steve Clemons – Founder and Senior Fellow of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. Mr. Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note.

This article was published in The Majalla 2 December 2010

Gallup Daily: Obama Job Approval Each result is based on a three-day rolling average

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American Dream Denied

How the politics of terrorism is driving Islamophobia in America and the West The idea that 9/11 changed the world we live in is commonplace. But perhaps more important to such change than the tragic events of that morning was the political reaction that followed suit. The long-term consequences and cultural reverberations of the “global war on terror” have reached America’s shores.

Also in Europe, which prides itself to be the bastion of liberalism and multiculturalism, worrying signs of Islamophobia have proliferated, argues Fawaz Gerges.

Fawaz Gerges

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lmost a decade after 11 September 2001 Islam and American Muslims are on trial in America, implicated through guilt-by-association with Al-Qaeda for being seen as of the same faith. In addition to driving military adventurism (the invasion of Iraq and the recent escalation in Afghanistan-Pakistan), a mushrooming national debt, and the militarization of domestic affairs, the politics of terrorism and the terrorism narrative (the notion that the West remains under constant and imminent threat of attack) have also exposed deep cultural, legal and philosophical fault lines within Western societies. Illiberal tendencies and draconian legislation aimed against Muslims have swept across Western countries and threaten the very fabric of the West.

Islamophobia’s ugly head Islamophobia, sometimes called “the new anti-Semitism,” has reared its ugly head under a new guise and different pretext, and it has finally reached America’s shore. The “global war on terror” has allowed the far right, including the religious right, to demonize Muslims and portray them as aliens, a fifth column within Western societies. Though driven by powerful farright grassroots groups, the sentiment has gone mainstream.

In Europe, the alarm over the Islamicization of the continent, masquerading as the demographic crisis in which Muslims outbreed their Christian counterparts, has become commonplace, reflected in the literature, ranging from more sophisticated treatments like Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe to cruder polemics like Mark Steyn’s America Alone and Bat Ye’or’s Eurabia.

Recent surveys and public opinion polls suggest an increasing number of Western citizens accept the fringe’s image of Muslims. Many say they are not keen to allow Muslims the same religious and legal freedoms and rights enjoyed by others.

According to a nationwide poll conducted by Cornell University, nearly half of all Americans (44 percent) say that the government should restrict the civil liberties of American Muslims.

There is a growing cottage industry of Western commentators and politicians who feed off of bashing Islam. The war on terror has provided a substantial level of cover for their views.

While initially terror “experts” such as Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson and Robert Spencer led the anti-Islam charge, it has spread widely. For a glimpse of this venomous rhetoric, read a Issue 1560 • January 2011

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blog post by Martin Peretz, the New Republic’s editor in chief, which stated, “Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims.” Peretz—a strident supporter of Israel—added: “I wonder whether the need to honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense they will abuse.”

Although Perez apologized, twice, he nevertheless defended his assertion that Muslim life is cheap. “This is a statement of fact, not value,” he said. Writing in Forward, Matthew Duss of the Center for American Progress notes that hatred of Arabs/Muslims has had a permanent home not only in the New Republic, one of America’s oldest and most respected liberal magazines, but also in many pro-Israeli forums that stoke fear of Islam for political profit.

Fox News, the home of course of Glen Beck and Sean Hannity, and several nationally syndicated talk radio show hosts, including Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, frequently promote Islamophobia on the national stage. Moreover, prominent politicians such as Newt Gingrich, Peter King and Senator Saxby Chamblis legitimize the demonization of Muslims with dark and misleading language. Critical segments of the Evangelical Christian Movement and prominent religious leaders such as Pat Robertson, John Hagee and Franklin Graham, to name just a few, have contributed to the intensification and escalation of this phenomenon throughout the US. Similarly, a debate is raging across Europe, the bastion of liberalism and multiculturalism. A plurality of Swiss voted against the construction of mosques, even though the Muslim community in Switzerland numbers only 400,000, most of whom are not Arabs or Africans but Europeans from Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo. Belgium and France are debating whether to pass a legislation to make it illegal to wear the niqab and other Islamic face coverings. In October 2010, the ban passed in both houses of the French legislature by overwhelming margins, and is scheduled to come into effect in spring 2011.

Anti-Muslim sentiment in European countries, which possess sizable Muslim minorities, coupled with anti-immigrant fervor due to difficult economic conditions and high unemployment, has raised serious questions about the future of multi-cultural and multi-religious Western societies. Exploiting the bitter debate, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri released several audiotapes condemning discrimination against Muslims, 21

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• ON POLITICS

and vowing to attack those European countries that insult Islam and its Prophet. The irony is that Islam-bashers provide bin Laden and his associates with more cannon for their murderous fodder. Similarly, the cultural reverberations of the war on terror have put America’s values of religious tolerance and individual freedom to the test. Out of a population of 300 million, there are between 2.5 to 7 million Muslims in the United States, a third of whom are African American. Confrontations have broken out over proposed mosques in Tennessee, California, Georgia, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Illinois, as well as Brooklyn, Staten Island, Midland Beach and Sheepshead Bay in New York. Particularly alarming and revealing is the highprofile battle over a mosque and community center to be built about two blocks from Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, or what its critics and detractors call the Ground Zero Mosque.

Islamophobes, such Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, have seized on the proposed mosque and Islamic center to stir up anti-Muslim sentiment. Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich spearheaded opposition to building such a mosque so long as Saudi Arabia bars construction of churches and synagogues.

To do so “a few blocks from the site where Islamist extremists killed more than 3,000 Americans,” Gingrich opined, is a “po-

litical act” of “triumphalism.” “Congress can declare the area a national battlefield area and control what’s built there.”

Gingrich justified his opposition by drawing an analogy with the Holocaust: “Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington,” he said. Meanwhile, conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer has made a similar argument in several Washington Post editorials. Rightwing politicians have jumped on the bandwagon of bashing Islam and Muslims to score cheap political shots. Campaigning for the governorship of New York State, Rick Lazio claimed that the plan to build the mosque undermined the right of New Yorkers to “feel safe and be safe.”

A number of politicians and citizens have backed the mosque project based on the principle of freedom of religion, including New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg and, eventually, President Obama, who came out in its support after the decision by the New York City Landmarks Commission to approve construction. However, the virulent debate showed clearly that the politics of terrorism and the terrorism narrative threaten enshrined American values. Even Obama raised the issue of the “wisdom” of building the Islamic center at the location in question.

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Anti-Muslim sentiment has widely spread in many quarters in America. Pastor Bill Rench of Temecula’s Calvary Baptist Church in California perhaps best expressed the feelings of those opposed to mosque construction in Temecula. “The Islamic foothold is not strong here, and we really don’t want to see their influence spread,” Rench told the Los Angeles Times.

“There is a concern with all the rumors you hear about sleeper cells and all that. Are we supposed to be complacent just because these people say it’s a religion of peace? Many others said the same thing.”

A decade of heightened anti-Muslim sentiment has taken its toll In 2010, Gallup’s Muslim West Facts Project published the results of a major poll about American prejudices toward Islam.

They showed a causal link between rising anti-Islam and the politics of terrorism. The most significant finding is also the most unsurprising: A slight majority of Americans—53 percent—say their opinion of the faith is either “not too favorable”—22 percent—or “not favorable at all”—31 percent.

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Christians or Jews. A majority of Americans disagree with the statement that most Muslims are accepting of other religions—66 percent; that Christians and Muslims’ religious beliefs are basically the same—68 percent. Unsurprisingly, a majority of Americans admit that they know either very little—40 percent—about Islam or nothing at all—23 percent.

Putting the best face on the Gallup’s finding, Boston Globe columnist James Carroll said that Muslims are wildly misperceived and wrongly judged, but that Americans are “at war, and afraid,” and therefore, that “exaggerated fears fuel themselves, and the dynamic of prejudice can be a riptide.” He compares the blanket stereotyping of Muslims to an unseen current that has run below the surface of Western culture for a millennium. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Stephan Salisbury warns that this anti-Muslim current now embraced by major political candidates may pave the ground for the emergence of a demagogue leader who can synthesize the demonizing and scapegoating of Muslims, fears augmented by economic anxiety, the maturing of far-right-wing activism, and a widespread growing contempt for official Washington.

Muslim Americans are the new threat from within and antiMuslim sentiment “is now spreading like a toxic plume, uncapped and uncontrollable.”

The M-word has become a pejorative term in America, suggested USA Today in an article covering why a growing number of Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim.

Some 18 percent said the president was a Muslim, up from 11 percent in March 2009, according to a Pew Research survey on Religion and Public Life released in August 2010. Nearly one in five Americans believes Obama is a Muslim, up from around one in 10 who said he was Muslim last year. A Newsweek poll finds that 52 percent of Republicans believe that it is either “definitely true” or “probably true” that “Barack Obama sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world.”

Despite the efforts by the president’s men to downplay the astonishing findings, USA Today zeroed in on the M-word as mockery, or worse, to call someone a Muslim only when you dislike, fear or disagree with the person; the way to put someone down in polite company: “Is the M-word becoming the political slur that gets through the social filters?”

The terrorism narrative and the rise of Islamophobia in the West, particularly America, undermines American and Western values worldwide, allowing bin Laden and his lieutenants to portray themselves as legitimate warriors or freedom fighters who resist the sole remaining superpower. Since the late 1990s Al-Qaeda’s fundamental goal has been to trigger a clash of cultures between the world of Islam and the Christian West.

Although bin Laden and his men lost the struggle for Muslim hearts and minds, Islamophobia fuels Al-Qaeda’s narrative and provides it with the oxygen that prolongs its existence.

Fawaz A. Gerges – Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, London University. Among his books are “The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global,” and the forthcoming book, “The Rise and Fall of al-Qa`ida: What American and Western Politicians and Terrorism Experts Do not Tell You” scheduled to be published by Oxford University Press, 2011.

This article was published in The Majalla 20 December 2010 23

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A Partnership for Stability Why a Turkey-Iran axis could mean good news

Turkey and Iran have over the years forged a partnership defying expectations of how two seemingly competing and bordering regional powers might interact. And in the past few months, they have pledged to deepen their ties to the bewilderment of some and to the alarm of others. Despite qualms though, their quid pro quo ties could have a positive regional effect, starting with increased stability.

Image © Graphic News

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urkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in September urged investors to triple bilateral trade by 2015 with Iran to $30 billion annually through bilateral business ventures, precisely when US-led Western governments are trying to strangle Iran with sanctions. Turkey will also remove Iran from its “enemy list” by the end of the year, and it is currently fighting Washington’s intention to single out Iran as a target of a NATO missile defense system that Turkey will likely host in its territory. For its part, Tehran has vowed to streamline Turkish investment in Iran and it has given Ankara a de-facto intermediary role with Western countries in shuttle diplomacy over its nuclear program.

The rapprochement between the two is the result of calculated self-interest, much like Germany and France after World War II. Turkey needs Iran to fulfill its strategic goal of reclaiming the regional powerhouse stature of yore, and Iran needs Turkey to survive diplomatically and economically. What remains to be seen is whether the tradeoff is successful.

Throughout most of last century, the two former empires were introspective, struggling to find their place in the world. Ankara considered its neighbor a threat after the Islamic Revolution, a position that began to change with Turkey’s voracious natural gas thirst. In 2000, bilateral trade was $1 billion; five years later it reached $4 billion; and last year it reached $10 billion, almost entirely energy-based.

The political turnaround from suspicious to symbiotic was the re-

Andrés Cala

sult of profound geopolitical shifts—more so than trade—that triggered strategic repositioning both in Ankara and Tehran.

Most notably, the US invasion of Iraq, Iran’s standoff with the Western powers over its defiant uranium enrichment program, and Europe’s snub of Turkey’s EU membership aspirations.

For Turkey, the European rebuff coincided with its economic and military resurgence and ambitions. However, Russia was also blocking its eastern geopolitical aspirations toward the Caucasus. Thus, Turkey’s only option was to turn south, to the Middle East, while gathering the maturity to compete in Russia’s sphere by becoming the main alternative energy hub transferring oil and gas into Europe. Turkey is also the only country with the credentials, and military and economic muscle to fill the vacuum that US troops will one day leave.

But the Middle Eastern front required stable neighbors and good relations, starting with Iraq, where much of the oil and gas to make Turkey an energy hub would come from. Iraq is also the recent nucleus of regional instability that includes Kurdish independence aspirations.

Iran is the kingmaker in Iraq, which serves as its security buffer. That is why Tehran has been preoccupied there for the last decade. Tehran has the power to destabilize its neighbor and by extension, to give a lifeline to Kurdish PKK rebels, thus derailing Turkish goals. If Iran delivers stability in Iraq, then Turkey can deliver influence on the diplomatic and economic fronts.

Elsewhere, Iran is on survival mode, despite all the fear mongering going on in the region. It’s not competing with Turkey or any other to country simply because it can’t. It is of course a regional power by its own right, just not one that is able to expand. It is in no economic position to do so. It’s politically unstable internally and preoccupied with internal dissent. Iran can’t ex-

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ert any offensive pressure and has built its entire strategy on defense; it relies on asymmetrical warfare through its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah for that. Its nuclear program is meant as a deterrent. And even if it had the will and muscle to expand outside Iraq, it would face hostility in Sunni majority countries, starting with Turkey.

Iranian and Turkish interests also collude in the Caucasus, although to a lesser degree, and only when faced with Russian encroachment. After the war with Georgia, Turkey saw its eastern plans dashed. Even if just temporary, Ankara and Tehran share objectives in the Caucasus, which is Turkey’s next target.

Of course, the opposite is also true. Iran has the power to destabilize Afghanistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and the broader region, and could even turn to Russia, so it’s in Turkey’s interest to keep Tehran close. On the economic front, the Caucasus is also rich in oil and gas, but Turkey won’t be able to work as Europe’s connection to these resources without Iran’s help. Here lies another powerful incentive.

Perhaps the most imminent issue of contention is the Palestinian quagmire. It is in Turkey’s interest to reach a broad peaceful settlement as soon as possible, and it is in Iran’s interest to do the opposite.

With a foothold in Iraq, Turkey turned to mend ties with Syria and later failed to broker peace between Israel and Damascus. But the flotilla incident inadvertently cemented Ankara’s role as a regional power player, especially among Muslims who mistrusted Egypt’s half-hearted leadership, but were weary of Iranian intentions. Turkey’s uproar was about the killing of its nationals, more than defending Gaza, but Erdogan came out champion of the Palestinian cause.

Iran has traditionally claimed moral high ground on the Palestinian cause and Turkey has recently threatened Iran’s position, which explains why President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled to the Israeli border with Lebanon during his recent visit. Still, this is secondary to both countries’ objectives.

The priority for Turkey and Iran is a peaceful resolution to the latter’s nuclear standoff. Indeed, the biggest risk to Ankara’s hegemonic aspirations is a military flare-up that would wreak havoc in the Middle East. That is why Turkey voted against the last sanctions in the UN Security Council and why it unsuccessfully tried brokering, along with Brazil, its own solution, to the ire of its NATO allies.

Regarding the missile shield, it appears that Turkey will impose its will on its NATO allies. President Abdullah Gül said a week ahead of the recently held summit in Lisbon that "mentioning one country, Iran...is wrong and will not happen. A particular country will not be targeted...We will definitely not accept that."

Turkey has joined Tehran in betting its future on resolving this issue. Ankara is trying to avert war by simultaneously talking to Tehran and bargaining for time with its NATO allies.

Tehran wants Turkey to use its position to negotiate on its behalf for security guarantees. But for the region as a whole, it could translate into stability.

Andrés Cala – Madrid-based freelance journalist. Mr. Cala contributes regularly to several publications, including TIME magazine, The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor.

With a foothold in Iraq, Turkey turned to mend ties with Syria and later failed to broker peace between Israel and Damascus Friendship Through the Years 1301-1922 An enduring peace exists between Turkey and Iran during the Ottoman Empire.

1926 The Treaty of Friendship is signed, cementing neutrality between Turkey and Iran, as both countries deal with Kurdish uprisings.

1932 The shared border between Iran and Turkey is officially determined.

1955 The Central Treaty Organization establishes a security pact between Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Britain.

1964 The Regional Cooperation for Development strengthens economic projects between Turkey, Iran and Pakistan.

1980s Anti-Iranian propaganda circulates in Turkey amidst growing fears about the new ultra conservative Iranian regime, souring relations between the nations.

2002 The AKP takes power in Turkey, and ties with Iran begin to mend.

2005 Trade between Turkey and Iran quadruples within five years, increasing to $4 million.

2010 Turkey supports Iran’s peaceful nuclear ambitions. Turkey attempts to serve as mediator between Iran and Western countries regarding the Iranian nuclear program.

May Turkey, Iran and Brazil sign a nuclear fuel swap agreement.

June:Turkey votes against further international sanctions on Iran.

Current trade volume between the Turkey and Iran reaches $13 billion and is expected to increase to $20 billion by 2015. Top business executives and politicians work to resolve tariff disputes.

July: Iran signs a $1.3 billion deal to ship gas to Turkey.

December: Iranian ambassador to Turkey, Bahman Huseyinpur, announces the intention to send more trade via Turkish ports—to reduce dependency on the Gulf.

This article was published in The Majalla 13 December 2010 Issue 1560 • January 2011

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• THE BURNED GENERATION

The Exiled Islamist Tunisia now finds itself at a political crossroads, the likes of which comes along perhaps once in a lifetime.

Speculation and analysis is rife as to the potential future of a new Tunisian government. Interestingly, in one of the first radio interviews of Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, after the hurried departure of former President Ben Ali, he addressed the issue of prominent exile Rashid Ghannouchi—no relation.

The prime minister suggested that it was conceivable that Ghannouchi’s exile could be lifted in due course.

The implications of such a return would be far reaching, since Rashid Ghannouchi is one of the most prominent exiled Islamists of the Middle East and leader of the banned Tunisian political party Harakat Al-Nahdah. In a recent interview with The Financial Times, Ghannouchi— who lives in London—stressed that he had every intention of returning to Tunisia as soon as possible, but that he would not seek political office. Nevertheless, his influence would surely affect the political landscape of a country seeking new frontiers, and may worry western governments who are fearful of a new Islamist regime rising from the ashes of Ben Ali’s downfall.

However, Ghannouchi does not fit the easy stereotype of political Islam that has been so lazily propagated in Europe and the US. Indeed, he has styled himself as something of a social reformer; his philosophy embraces a democratic system of political pluralism and he is committed to full access to education for women and freedom of the press.

Opinion is divided as to the likelihood of Islamist parties surging in popularity in Tunisia. The years of Ben Ali’s regime—and before that, Habib Bourguiba’s despotism—took their toll on religious opposition groups. One need only cite Ghannouchi’s case as an example: He was arrested and tortured several times during the 1980’s over calls for a more equitable society.

As a result the youth—the vocal majority of Tunisian society—have had little exposure to political Islam, but there is a justifiable concern that extremist groups may yet take advantage of a frustrated generation.

Ghannouchi is likely to be a strong voice for reform in the post-Ben Ali years. Already he has called for a completely democratic overhaul of the constitution, stating that no solid democracy can be built upon a constitution tainted by authoritarianism. Optimists hope that a relaxation of the law in Tunisia will allow a multiparty system. Within that environment Ghannouchi and his followers may be able to encourage a progressive form of Islamist government, which could show skeptics in the West a new face of political Islam.

Their goals are modest: a job, an income, perhaps a chance to get married, a family, normalcy, dignity

Mohammed Bouazizi was the young man who set himself alight in protest against the lack of economic opportunities available in Tunisia. This young man’s act of desperation may have sparked a revolution in his own country, but what of the millions of unemployed youth in the Arab world? Already others have copied his act in protest. What must be done to prevent a whole generation from becoming burned?

Flame images © iStockphoto

Afshin Molavi

T

he biographical details are scant. He was a university graduate, 26-years-old, the family breadwinner.

He needed a job, but he could not find one. Perhaps he did not have wasta, the right connections, or no money for the requisite bribe to secure a government job. Perhaps he had heard the rumors of the riches of the Tunisian dictator and his family. He may even have seen the WikiLeaks-inspired Tunisian web sites, the ones that described the lavish presidential family parties: the ice cream imported from France, the whiskey flowing, the gold lions glinting in the moonlight of a sumptuous Mediterranean home.

Or perhaps he cared little for politics, or WikiLeaks, or what President Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali and his family were doing. Perhaps he simply just wanted a job, a decent income, dignity for his family. But there was no job, no income, no fulfillment of his university aspirations, no dignity. So, he did what he could: He went into the informal economy_a fruit and vegetable stall. Perhaps the fruit stall would be temporary, he might have thought. A stepping stone. A way to earn some income, support his family, maybe pursue further education, or use the income to start a new business. As his business began to grow, perhaps he even dared to dream again.

But the local authorities quashed the dream. They confiscated his goods. “No permit,” they said. Perhaps, once again, he was unable to grease the right palms or call in some wasta. He went to the municipality to plead his case. He was a university graduate; he just wanted a job, some income, a shred of dignity.

Perhaps he even begged the low-level functionary for help_another indignity for a young man who deserves better. But the municipality_the face of government in the provinces_spat at him with this stark response: get out, go away.

And so, Mohammad Bouazizi went away. On 17 December, in front of the same municipality that took away his livelihood, his dignity, his future_the municipality that represented a corrupt, dictatorial government_Mohammad Bouazizi lit himself on fire. Rushed to a hospital, the burns eventually took their toll. He succumbed a few weeks later. But the fire soon engulfed all of Tunisia, bringing down a dictator, sparking new hopes and new fears, and restoring_if for the moment_the dignity of the Tunisians who took to the streets to protest. Yes, they could bring down a repressive ruler; yes, they could demand better; yes, they could preserve Mohammad Bouazizi’s memory.

And the fire began to spread beyond Tunisia. Protests emerged in Egypt, Jordan, Algeria – places where the dignity gap and the hope gap for the ordinary citizen are too wide, too deep. And so others lit themselves on fire, in Egypt, in Algeria, in Mauritania and perhaps other places.

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Image © Getty Images

Image © Getty Images

The Burned Generation

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• THE BURNED GENERATION

The self-immolators are not seeking grand revolutions; they are not spouting the latest ‘ism; they are not pamphleteers with ideologies or fist-pumping leaders of “the street.” Their goals are modest: a job, an income, perhaps a chance to get married, a family, normalcy, dignity. Their expectations of government are equally modest: do not steal, help the people, manage the country efficiently, reduce the corruption.

Blake Hounshell, writing in Foreign Policy, captured the sentiment well when he wrote: “There is something horrifying and, in a way, moving about these suicide attempts. It's

The Arab world must create 100 million jobs over the next ten years, the world’s development agencies say WikiLeaks Files: TUNISIA In the immediate aftermath of the protests in Tunisia, and the dramatic flight of former President Ben Ali, many voices in the western media were quick to attribute the popular uprising to the release of sensational US diplomatic cables by the whistleblower organization WikiLeaks. In truth the actual influence of WikiLeaks to the overflowing ire of the Tunisian people is nigh impossible to measure.

However the material does offer cogent insight into how Ben Ali’s regime was doing business, especially the “quasi-mafia” that developed around the president’s extended family. What follows are excerpts from the leaked cables, which are all dated during the tenure of former US Ambassador to Tunisia, Robert Godec.

Monday 23 June, 2008 SUBJECT: CORRUPTION IN TUNISIA: WHAT'S YOURS IS MINE Classified By: Ambassador Robert F. Godec “President Ben Ali's extended family is often cited as the nexus of Tunisian corruption. Often referred to as a quasi-mafia, an oblique mention of "the Family" is enough to indicate which family you mean. Seemingly half of the Tunisian business community can claim a Ben Ali connection through marriage, and many of these relations are reported to have made the most of their lineage. Ben Ali's wife, Leila Ben Ali, and her extended family -- the Trabelsis -- provoke the greatest ire from Tunisians.”

Friday, 17 July 2009 SUBJECT: TROUBLED TUNISIA: WHAT SHOULD WE DO? Classified By: Ambassador Robert F. Godec “Tunisia is a police state, with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems.”

a shocking, desperate tactic that instantly attracts attention, revulsion, but also sympathy.”

It should also attract high-level attention, because, in a sense, young Arabs in the majority of countries might be seen as the burned generation. Burned by corrupt and unresponsive governments; burned by mismanagement and venality; burned by chronic unemployment and under-employment (the engineer driving the taxi, the professor turned petty trader).

While the Tunisia case has unique characteristics—an army chief that chose, it seems, not to fire on the crowd, a relatively strong middle class borne of years of economic growth_Mohammad Bouazizi is not only a Tunisian. He is an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Palestinian (add to your economic woes, a foreign power repressing you), an Iranian, an Indian, a Chinese, a Pakistani, a Bangladeshi, and on and on.

The new documentary film, Petition, set in China, also represents the Mohammad Bouazizis of the world: Chinese, frustrated by venal local officials who have quashed their dreams, their simple “The problem is clear: Tunisia has been ruled by the same president for 22 years. He has no successor.

And, while President Ben Ali deserves credit for continuing many of the progressive policies of President Bourguiba, he and his regime have lost touch with the Tunisian people. They tolerate no advice or criticism, whether domestic or international. Increasingly, they rely on the police for control and focus on preserving power. And, corruption in the inner circle is growing. Even average Tunisians are now keenly aware of it, and the chorus of complaints is rising. Tunisians intensely dislike, even hate, First Lady Leila Trabelsi and her family. In private, regime opponents mock her; even those close to the government express dismay at her reported behavior. Meanwhile, anger is growing at Tunisia's high unemployment and regional inequities. As a consequence, the risks to the regime's long-term stability are increasing.”

“The Tunisian government loves the illusion of engagement. The US government should press for the hard work of real cooperation.”

Monday, 27 July 2009 SUBJECT: TUNISIA: DINNER WITH SAKHER EL MATERI Classified By: Ambassador Robert F. Godec “Most striking of all, however, was the opulence with which El Materi and Nesrine live. Their home in Hammamet was impressive, with the tiger adding to the impression of "over the top." Even more extravagant is their home still under construction in Sidi Bou Said.

That residence, from its outward appearance, will be closer to a palace. It dominates the Sidi Bou Said skyline from some vantage points and has been the occasion of many private, critical comments. The opulence with which El Materi and Nesrine live and their behavior make clear why they and other members of Ben Ali's family are disliked and even hated by some Tunisians. The excesses of the Ben Ali family are growing.”

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ambitions, their dignity, convene on Beijing, living in tents known as Petition City, waving crumpled papers at disinterested officials, clamoring, pushing, jostling and just hoping that one person, one man with a stamp, one authority figure, will actually listen and actually seek to solve their problem, rather than shoo them away.

And so it goes in the Middle East. It is a familiar scene in halls of power in the Middle East: the citizen, servile and bowed, offers the official a note, a petition, a few lines scribbled on paper asking for help, for a son’s job, for an operation for his father, for help against unscrupulous landlords, hoping the man with the stamp or the powerful local official with the Cuban cigar collection and a villa in Dubai, would just listen for once, would just help, for once. And sometimes they do: patronage politics of course. And often, they do not.

And if regional policy-makers do not act soon – and act effectively (note: this does not mean yet another high-level conference with foreign “experts” flown in first class to lecture the audiences)_the slow simmer of the burning generation will continue.

The President Hopefuls The next ruler of Tunisia will surely play a major role in shaping the aftermath of the country’s revolution, and commentators have already speculated on a number of likely presidential candidates.

These include the current prime minister, Mohammed Ghannouchi, but his chances, however, of rallying the masses behind him are slim. While several of his supporters, and even some in the opposition have emphasized that Mr. Ghannouchi was never involved in any corruption or repression, his years of service in Ben Ali’s government means that he will unlikely be seen as an agent of change.

He is after all referred to by many as Monsieur Qui Qui (Mr. Yes Yes), in reference to his agreeable personality under Ben Ali’s government.

A second potential candidate is Monsef AlMarzouki, the leader of Tunisia's National Congress Party—a leftist and secularist movement that was previously banned. Marzouki returned to Tunisia after years of exile in Paris, just a few days after the departure of Ben Ali, and immediately announced his intentions to run for president. His years spent abroad, however, have left him with very limited support on the ground and his hard-line position on former regime members will most likely limit his ability to become a critical player in the unity government as he continues to urge for a complete break from the past and the expulsion of all former regime members from power.

A third possibility is Rashid Al-Ghannouchi, the leader of the banned Islamist Ennahdha (Awakening) movement, which had already stated its intention to seek legal status as a political party and take part in any future elections. Al-Ghannouchi’s movement however, unlike Islamist movements in other Arab states, has limited popularity amongst the public,

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The numbers are bleak. The Arab world must create 100 million jobs over the next ten years, the world’s development agencies say. Youth unemployment, at a startling 29 percent, leads all regions of the world. There is nothing more debilitating than widespread unemployment. It festers on the psyche like a cancer, stifles the potential of an entire generation, and drags down the larger economy, creating a vicious cycle. Add to this combustible mix, governments seen as repressive, corrupt, unresponsive.

It is a toxic brew, one that can, we have seen, bring down a dictator. Throughout the developing world, but especially in Arab lands, there are millions of other Mohammad Bouazizi’s.

They have not lit themselves on fire, but they are burning.

Afshin Molavi – A senior fellow for the New America Foundation. Mr. Molavi has covered the Middle East for “Newsweek,” Reuters, “The Washington Post,” and other publications.

especially after decades of fierce repression of their activities by the former regime. Furthermore, it is unclear whether he will be allowed back into the country due to a unity government divided over whether to allow Islamist movements to join the new political scene in Tunisia.

Finally, and possibly the strongest contender for the presidency, is Mr. Najib Chebbi, founder of the Progressive Democratic Party and one of the best known opposition figures in the country. Unlike Monsef Al-Marzouki, Chebbi opted to stay in Tunisia despite being regularly harassed and berated by the former regime. This has left him with a wider, albeit still small, circle of support. More importantly, though, he has been the most open among opposition figures to cooperate with former regime members to form the unity government in which he now holds a ministerial position. He is also a very eloquent speaker who has already appeared in several media interviews presenting the unity government as the way forward and advocating the approach of let’s not “throw the baby out with the bath water.” Of all possible candidates, Chebbi could be the best positioned to maneuver the political game currently being played in Tunis, and to emerge as a unifying actor and a candidate for change that the public will rally behind.

Whatever happens, the few months ahead will shape the outcome of the Tunisian revolution and determine whether the first success story for a popular nonviolent uprising in the Arab World had culminated in a more open, democratic and equitable nation. What is clear now is that politicians must act fast to create a credible unity government that is able not only to run the country and restore order but also satisfy the demands of the masses for democratic change.

To view the full version of this article, visit the Blog section of “The Majalla” under “Ballot Recount” at www.majalla.com/en

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• THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Pentagon Inc. US Defense spending is out of control, but will Congress do anything about it?

As fiscal conservatives fight to rein in the US budget deficit, the American military continues to flagrantly spend even more federal dollars. Although some politicians and policymakers have openly discussed reducing the military budget, it remains unclear whether Congress will ever risk doing so.

Jason Gagnon

Y

ou are an accountant tasked with evaluating the world’s largest conglomerate. Its finances are so poorly managed that they have been rendered all but unintelligible each year for the last two decades. Income has nearly doubled over the last ten years, though liabilities are a third larger than assets. It has a massive procurement budget that increases at a brisk annual pace, though it suffers from declining rates of productivity due to skyrocketing manufacturing costs and a dwindling number of contractors. Outlays on staff benefits are rising so dramatically they are crowding out investment in the group’s main business lines.

If you’re wondering why shareholders of this conglomerate have not demanded an emergency general meeting and the heads of its directors, it is because this is no ordinary conglomerate. It is the United States Department of Defense, by far the world’s largest and by some measures its most dysfunctional government agency with an annual budget of more than $700 billion. Even before the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US unleashed a decade of record military spending, the Pentagon’s budget was, along with the national pension and retirement medical programs, regarded as a perpetual trust. Members of Congress supported spending reductions at their peril for fear of being called soft on America’s enemies. Indeed, some lawmakers have opposed the Defense Department’s own proposed cuts in obsolete weapons assembled in their districts.

All that may be changing, at least if a widening alliance of fiscal conservatives get their way at a time when deficit reduction has become a new religion both in Washington and in the American heartland. Over the last few months, several blue-ribbon panels have called for a mix of tax increases and spending reductions—including in defense outlays—to right a public deficit estimated to reach $8.5 trillion in a decade. In October, the Center for Strategic and International Studies scolded the Defense Department and the administration of President Barack Obama for lowballing the future costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

and not curbing runway spending mandates. Last month, the US Presidential Debt Commission proposed cutting the Pentagon’s budget by $104 billion. In a report issued in October, it attacked the very foundation of US national security policy as unsustainable. “Instead of protecting us against a clear and determined foe,” according to the report, “Defense Department planning and strategic objectives now focus on stemming the emergence of new threats by maintaining a vast range of global commitments on all continents and oceans. We believe that such commitments need to be scaled back.”

Defining the military’s mission downward is only the first step in what a growing number of strategists and budget experts believe is a Pentagon gone rogue. From 2001 to 2010, the baseline defense budget has grown at an inflationadjusted rate of 6 percent a year, to more than double its pre-September 11 size. It reports $1.7 trillion in assets, $2.1 trillion in liabilities, and $676 billion in net operating costs, though such numbers are meaningless given the opaque and primitive quality of its balance sheets. Pentagon financial statements have been declared all but unauditable since 1991, the year it began submitting its accounts to Congress, and it is estimated to have lost nearly $4 trillion since then.

In 2002, the Pentagon’s comptroller and chief financial officer found that eight of its nine financial statements were not reliable and issued a disclaimer of opinion on them. In 2008, all but two financial statements were so dodgy as to warrant disclaimers of opinion. In October 2009, the Pentagon’s inspector general found serious inadequacies in its bookkeeping standards, including a financial management system that occludes accurate, reliable and timely data collection and accounts management, neglected inventory records, improper reporting of property, plant, and equipment depreciation, and inadequate audit trails.

In 2010, the Senate Finance Committee issued a report that slammed the Pentagon’s “total lack of fiscal accountability” for “leaving huge sums of the taxpayers’ money vulnerable to fraud and outright theft.”

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Rather than demand meaningful reform in the way the Defense Department accounts for itself, however, Congress has transfered funds for security-related programs that used to be controlled by the State Department directly to the Pentagon. Nearly $1 billion is now available to the US military to help foreign government fight radical Islamism in their midst, though some legislators and their aides have expressed concerns about the transparency of these accounts.

In August 2009, Senator Russell Feingold responded to the Pentagon’s request for additional counter-terrorism funding with a report that $6 million from the program had been given to the government of Chad, which according to a State Department report is “engaging in extra-judicial killing, arbitrary detention and torture.” Early this year, Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, told ForeignPolicy.com that “there are real procedural problems that need to be worked out” regarding the Pentagon’s proprietary funding authority.

Despite the simmering rhetoric, it is unclear whether Congress is willing to put the defense budget under the knife. In November’s mid-term elections, usually Pentagonfriendly Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives, though the success of its Tea Party candidates —self styled libertarians who are not afraid to treat defense spending like they would any other item in the federal budget—could result in significant reductions in spending. Or it may not. No government agency is as resourceful and wellresourced in gathering legislative support for its initiatives as the Department of Defense. To entice lawmakers into approving costly weapons programs, it dangles the prospect of jobs in the states and districts of key legislators, a costly way of manufacturing but an astute political maneuver, particularly given America’s still sluggish economy and high unemployment rate.

Meanwhile, waste, inefficiency and political patronage, no stranger to military-legislative affairs, has grown in extravagance over the years. In April 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that 95 major Pentagon projects exceeded their original budgets by nearly $300 billion. A year later, it concluded that nothing had changed. In 2009, lawmakers larded the Pentagon’s annual budget proposal with $5.4 billion in programs and weapons it did not request.

To reach their deficit reduction targets, budget cutters are also demanding the withdrawal of US troops from large and costly military bases in Europe in Asia, which many strategists consider to be outdated legacies of the Cold War. That would place them on a collision course not only with the Pentagon but also with senior American diplomats loathe to rile key allies. For budget hawks in Washington, the journey to anything close to a balanced budget may be more hazardous than they realized. However deep is American indebtedness, it may turn out, the roots of American militarization run deeper still.

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

This article was published in The Majalla 27 December 2010 Issue 1560 • January 2011

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A Future of Failure In July 2010, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published “Unplanning” for Uncertainty: Reshaping Future Defense Plans.

The report turned out to be a damning indictment of the US Department of Defense’s ability to adequately plan for the future. By analyzing the Department of Defense’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Report and comparing it to the 2006 version, CSIS discovered a gaping discrepancy between stated goals and realistic targets.

What follows are the concluding remarks from “Unplanning” for Uncertainty, which effectively sum up the lack of rigorous and detailed planning on the part of the Department of Defense (DoD).

• The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Report (QDR) and 2011 Budget Request continues the Department of Defense’s (DoD) long-running mismatch between strategic objective and budgeting priorities.

• While the 2010 QDR does a markedly better job than its 2006 predecessor at defining the threat to the environment and the DoD’s strategic objectives, it still fails in many respects to clearly and thoroughly explain how the DoD intends to achieve these objectives.

• These failures to articulate clear operations concepts obfuscate attempts by planners to identify necessary capabilities and force structure changes, as well as how to prioritize amongst competing demands for different capabilities.

• This situation further complicates efforts by Congress and the DoD to “optimize” the military’s force structure to achieve all six key missions in the midst of a campaign of fiscal “belt-tightening,” in which the DoD may not be able to simply spend its way out of future force structure crises.

To entice lawmakers into approving costly weapons programs, it dangles the prospect of jobs in the states and districts of key legislators, a costly way of manufacturing but an astute political maneuver, particularly given America’s still sluggish economy and high unemployment rate 31

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• THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Algeria's East-West Highway

A tale of Chinese bribery and non-payments Chinese enterprises building the East-West Highway in Algeria have not paid their subcontracted Algerian enterprises for 16 months, tarnishing China's image in the Algerian press.

This is one of several instances of corruption involving the highway, which threatens to weaken a deeply rooted strategic partnership between the two developing nations.

Michael Martin

C

hinese construction giants charged with realizing Algeria’s project to create the longest highway in Africa have yet to pay Algerian construction companies in their employ.

CITIC and China Railway Construction Company (CRCC) delivered bounced checks to their small Algerian subsidiary enterprises involved in constructing Algeria’s East-West highway earlier this year. The project is nearing completion, and some Algerian construction workers say CITIC-CRCC have not paid them in nearly 16 months.

In Sidi Bel-Abbes, a major epicenter of construction, 16 companies counted 302,933,667.65 Algerian dinars in unpaid wages. That’s only a fraction of the total amount due to what Algerian daily Liberté reports is over 30 enterprises.

“There is no way to contact the Chinese enterprises. Their checks were found without provisions,” said one staff member at the Sidi Bel-Abbes branch of Algeria’s Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development, the bank that issued Chinese enterprises’ checks.

“The payments will be settled,” another bank employee said.

When asked when and how that would happen, he said, “I am not sure about that part yet.”

The highway is part of a multi-pronged strategy to reduce Algeria’s unemployment and poverty. Official figures put unemployment at around 10 percent, but analysts say the figure is more likely double that.

Acknowledged by the Algerian government as President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s “challenge of the century,” the mega-project was designed to create jobs for Algerians and act as a “platform for sustainable development,” as described by Andy Xie Guozhong, an independent economist and analyst of China’s own economic development. Xie explained that roads are necessary for transmitting exports, and they attract foreign direct investment by facilitating travel for international enterprises.

CITIC’s one-time representative in Algeria, Chani Medjdoub, and six other persons, including Algeria’s secretary general of the Ministry of Public Works, were detained after third-party intelligence alerted Algerian officials to irregular activity in Algerian accounts at Spanish banks Algeria is one of the region’s major oil exporters. Of the total 1,216km, the Algerian Ministry of Public Works contracted China’s CITIC-CRCC to construct 528km, the longest stretch of highway, in 2006. Their contract was worth $6.2 billion of an overall $11.4 billion projected cost. Japanese consortium COJAAL was allotted 399km, and the rest was contracted to local enterprises.

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Allegations of corruption CITIC-CRCC have also been implicated in a network of bribes and illegal commissions involving their contract.

CITIC’s one-time representative in Algeria, Chani Medjdoub, and six other persons, including Algeria’s secretary general of the Ministry of Public Works, were detained after thirdparty intelligence alerted Algerian officials to irregular activity in Algerian accounts at Spanish banks. Trials are underway.

Chinese ambassador to Algeria, Liu Yuhe, confronted the press regarding the unnamed foreign intelligence involved in the allegations, saying, “The people behind this campaign against China and its enterprises and who wish to tarnish their image are nostalgic of the bitter wars and a colonialist mentality.”

The project was originally slated to create 100,000 jobs, according to Algeria’s Ministry of Public Works. Official reports say the highway has employed some 75,400 Algerian workers and engineers to date, and Algerian daily El-Khabar counts roughly 12,000 Chinese staff. Once hailed as a harbinger of prosperity by the Algerian government, the project has meant hard times for some locals.

One Algerian construction worker refused to reveal the details of his particular circumstances, fearing retribution from his bosses, but he confirmed that Chinese companies had not paid him for his work for around 16 months, and said Chinese employers subjected him to poor working conditions. He recently left the project site to find work elsewhere. And the Algerian authorities haven’t been responsive.

A 2009 article by Zouheir Ait Mouhoub for independent Algerian daily El Watan recounts how highway workers employed by CITIC-CRCC in Bouira lamented underpayment, unsafe working conditions and abuse from Chinese employers.

After alerting local authorities, the local union submitted a letter to President Bouteflika that went unanswered.

“The French denied you your rights for 130 years,” a speaker for the union told workers. “It’s not for the Chinese to accord you [your rights] today.”

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The post-colonial card: A partnership of underdogs The highway and Algeria’s business relationship with China have their roots in a shared post-colonial experience.

Chinese news media often cites the similarities of contemporary Chinese and Algerian history in what analysts say is an attempt to solidify their relationship with the country.

Colonized by the French for 130 years, Algeria fought a bitter war for independence starting in 1954, just five years after Chairman Mao Zedong declared the New China, free of foreign domination from Japan and the West.

“Algeria and China have comparable histories. The Chinese government and people gave strong support to Algeria during its war for independence,” said one economic attaché at the Chinese embassy in Algeria.

The promise is that the nations’ parallel histories won’t stop at a bloody end to imperialism and the poverty and disillusionment of its aftermath. Analysts say projects like the East-West highway are modeled after large-scale infrastructural projects that boosted economic growth after China’s Reforms and Opening up policy in 1978.

“In the past 30 years of open up and reform, we have had great achievements in economic and social development, and have reduced poverty. This kind of achievement is a good example for African countries,” the attaché said.

Algeria has long developed a business partnership with its postcolonial ally. According to Chinese embassy figures, mutual trade between the two countries reached $5.13 billion in 2009, a 11.4 percent increase from the previous year; and by the end of last year, China had invested nearly $1 billion in the country. For example, last year, the China National Petroleum Corp built a large oil refinery in Algeria’s Skikda industrial zone at a cost of $385 million.

Despite the strong close relationship, some Algerians’ perceptions of Chinese enterprises have been soured by recent media coverage of the highway. Nourredine BenAbbou, one Liberté reporter who reported CITIC-CRCC’s nonpayment of wages, said Algerians now feel that, “the Chinese are replacing the Europeans in Africa.” BenAbbou believes that the fact that no major contracts have been assigned to large Chinese firms this year indicates that the highway has weakened Algeria’s political relationship with China.

Still, others aren’t convinced this will affect the nations’ partnership. “The relationship between Algerians and the Chinese is so strong, it can’t be touched by corruption,” explained Adlène Meddi, editor in chief of the weekend edition of independent Algerian daily El-Watan. “We have a strategic partnership with China, so we don’t dare say anything about them.”

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What’s in a highway?

Many Algerians still hope mimicking China’s domestic infrastructural development, with the engineering know-how and cheap construction China is known for, will encourage the foreign investment that continues to breathe life into the Chinese economy.

“We are, in fact, developing the basic infrastructure, essential to all future investments, and potentially the Algeria of tomorrow,” said Aziz Naffa, economic researcher at Algeria’s Center of Research in Applied Economics for Development, explaining that Algeria needs roads.

But infrastructural development may not be enough to promote Algeria’s sustainable development. “Most developing countries need to deal with institutional weakness to welcome foreign development,” said economist Andy Xie, referring to the kind of bribes and illegal operational costs that have led to the ongoing trials.

One Algerian construction worker refused to reveal the details of his particular circumstances, fearing retribution from his bosses, but he confirmed that Chinese companies had not paid him for his work for around 16 months, and said Chinese employers subjected him to poor working conditions For China, the long-term benefits are clearer.

Economists note that, as a major investor in Algeria, facilitating transportation in Algeria will cut China’s own transaction costs. And, as its 2009 investment in Algerian oil illustrates, Algeria has a lot to offer China’s thirst for fuel.

Sources say CITIC originally requested to be paid for its participation in the East-West highway in oil.

Nafa is positive that the highway is necessary for Algeria’s development but also cautious in measuring China’s role in Algeria’s development. “I would say, effectively, certain services will generate a durable added value. But to say that the Chinese enterprises by virtue of the East-West highway will contribute to durable development in Algeria is pretentious.”

Nafa is even more cautious in discussing the allegations of corruption. “I often don’t respond to these questions at all,” he said. “I will say that in our time, the notoriety of an enterprise, its global image, is not only created by a mastery of production.

Another capital element in a globalized and segmented word is ethics.”

CRCC and Algeria’s Ministry of Public Works failed to comment by the time of publication. CITIC initially offered to comment, but after discussing the sensitive nature of the questions asked, said the concerned authorities were on a business trip. The Algerian bureau of the United Nations’ International Labor Organization also declined to comment.

Benefactor or Bandit?

China has generally been considered the world’s fastest growing economy of 2010. A bastion of durability during the global economic crisis, the country continues to extend its influence around the world and has not ignored the Middle East and North Africa.

These examples illustrate the growing cooperation and blossoming relations between the world’s most bullish economic power and a developing region. However, critics fear that China is less concerned with fostering development than with increasing its own economic momentum and threatening western energy security.

Syria In June 2010, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China’s largest energy company, bought a 35 percent stake in Syria Shell Petroleum Development (SSPD) in a deal potentially worth more than 1.5 billion dollars. Though a relatively minor acquisition for the energy giant, it demonstrates Chinese willingness to enhance their Middle Eastern presence.

Iran Sino-Iranian relations have developed into strong ties in the past five years, with significant multi-billion dollar deals being signed to develop oil fields in western Iran at North Azadegan, and gas production in the enormous South Pars gas reservoir. Iranian officials claim that Iran-China trade value will reach 50 billion dollars by 2015.

Egypt The development of the new Suez Economic Zone is to be completed with substantial Chinese interest. SEZone, as it is known, hopes to encourage manufacturing investmen,t and so the anticipated Chinese involvement will help to deflect criticism that China is only interested in the region’s natural resources.

Sudan China’s sensitivities were revealed in early December 2010 when the government pledged to donate 23 million dollars towards aid projects in East Sudan.

As the leading supplier of arms to Khartoum, and a major investor in Sudanese oil, China has been keen to promote goodwill by dispatching special envoys to encourage peace. The 23 million dollars will go towards building basic infrastructure in the strategic region, which contains the country’s only commercial port and access to pipelines.

Michael Martin – Journalist working for “South China Morning Post,” Hong Kong's leading English-language newspaper, and recent graduate of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism.

This article was published 17 December 2010

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• THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

News Behind the Graph

J

ust a few months ago, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Finance projected that the Kingdom would face a budget deficit of SR 70 billion ($18.6 billion). However, in late December the ministry announced a starkly different outcome. Instead of finishing the year in the red, Saudi Arabia actually ended 2010 with a bang—and in the black.

As Graph 1 shows, Saudi Arabia wrapped up the year with a budget surplus of SR 108.5 billion, after ending 2009 with a deficit of over SR 60 billion. In fact, recent years have seen rather substantial swings in the Kingdom’s budget. In 2003 and 2004, the country faced national deficits until breaking even in 2005, and enjoying surpluses for the next three years.

As the financial crisis swelled in 2009, this surplus suddenly became a deficit, exceeding over SR 60 billion. This comparatively steep deficit makes the country’s recent turnaround all the more remarkable.

In a statement, the Saudi Ministry of Finance announced that the country’s surprise surplus could largely be attributed to increasing oil prices. And, according to recent data from OPEC, global prices are indeed on the upswing. Between 2003 and 2007, petrol prices steadily rose around the globe, before steeply jumping to over $90 a barrel, on average, in 2008.

In 2009, prices slumped and not surprisingly Saudi Arabia’s national budget took a hit. In 2010, it appears that prices rebounded in a robust fashion, with the average barrel garnering a little over $77 on the international market.

For the Saudi Arabian economy, oil is just about everything.

Current estimates from the US Energy Information Administration show that oil export revenues account for around 90 percent of the Kingdom’s total export earnings, and over 40 percent of Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product (GDP). It should come as no surprise then that whenever oil prices head skyward, so too do Saudi revenues.

In much the same way that the Saudi economy depends on oil to sustain itself, so too does the rest of the world depend on Saudi oil exports to meet growing demand for energy. As Graph 3 clearly shows, OPEC countries comprise the overwhelming majority of today’s global crude oil reserves, and

significantly Saudi Arabia has more crude reserves than any other OPEC member. With just over 24 percent of all reserves under the organization’s umbrella, Saudi Arabia has more of a stake in the oil industry than arguably any other country in the world. As long as oil prices stay high, the country’s coffers should remain filled.

Current estimates from the US Energy Information Administration show that oil export revenues account for around 90 percent of the Kingdom’s total export earnings, and over 40 percent of Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product (GDP)

Graph 3

Graph 1

Source: Saudi Ministry of Finance Graph 2

Source: Saudi Ministry of Finance

Source: OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin 2009

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• THE HUMAN CONDITION

Pawns in an Election Egypt’s independent media

During the months prior to November’s parliamentary elections, the independent media in Egypt took a hit. Although officials gave poor excuses for their silencing of various opposition journalists, evidence suggests that all was done to give the NDP the lead in the elections. Should allegations of government infiltration into the opposition prove to be true it will be difficult to refute the idea that the illegal Muslim Brotherhood is the only opposition to Egypt’s NDP. Elizabeth Iskander and Minas Monir

E

While the government denied any responsibility for what happened to Adib and Issa, observers of the political scene in Egypt strongly believe that shutting down independent media helped the NDP to operate with a greater degree of freedom during the election campaign

Image © Getty Images

gypt’s independent media became a battleground in the months before November’s parliamentary elections. It was already under the spotlight following the airing of controversial television series Al-Gama’a, which chronicled the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood. The strong and swift shutting down of some of the government’s most outspoken critics, along with the arrests of opposition party members, indicates a change of strategy from the 2005 elections.

In 2005, private satellite channels in particular gave significant space for coverage of opposition candidates. This time the government did not want a repeat of the Muslim Brotherhood’s 2005 success when they won 88 seats in parliament.

The two main targets were outspoken media figures Ibrahim Issa of Al-Dostour newspaper and talk show, Baladna Belmasry, and Amr Adib, who presented the talk show Cairo Today.

Prior to the shutting down of his show, Adib had launched a

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critical campaign against the National Democratic Party (NDP) and their economic policies. The official reason for ending his show was that Orbit Channel failed to pay fees it owed the stated-owned Media Production City company. Yet Adib and his staff insist on the existence of a deliberate intention to stop his controversial show prior to the start of the elections season.

The situation reached its climax after Ibrahim Issa’s television show was suspended on 23 September. Then on 4 October he lost his post as an editor in chief of Al-Dostor, the publication that is perhaps the most consistently critical of the government. This took place 24 hours after the official transfer of ownership of Al-Dostor to Sayed Al-Badawy, the president of Al-Wafd opposition party.

Ibrahim Issa is perhaps Egypt’s most famous opposition journalist and writer. He established Al-Dostor to be a platform for the different opposition movements in Egyptian journalism, and to challenge the dominant state-affiliated media. In particular, Issa had written a series of articles against the scenario of President Mubarak delivering the presidency to his son Gamal. He also opened Al-Dostor to the articles of the National Assembly for Change, the organization that backs Mohamed ElBaradei. It is this latter move that Issa believes motivated the decision to have him removed.

While the government denied any responsibility for what happened to Adib and Issa, observers of the political scene in Egypt strongly believe that shutting down independent media helped the NDP to operate with a greater degree of freedom during the election campaign. However, this shutting down of some of the most prominent voices of independent media should not be taken at face value. Events provoke questions regarding the nature and seriousness of the opposition movements in Egypt. Issa himself accused Badawy of making an agreement with the NDP whereby the Al-Wafd party will win more seats in the elections.

And in fact, after deposing Issa as editor in chief of Al-Dostor, Badawy quickly re-sold the newspaper.

If Issa’s claims about the agreement between Al-Wafd and NDP are true, then this will lead to the conclusion that there is no real opposition bloc in Egypt, apart from the illegal Muslim Brotherhood organization. Sayed Al-Badawy’s policies in AlWafd led to the resignation of several Coptic and secular members, like Kamal Zakher, and he keeps the door open for dealings with the NDP. The implications are that such dealings may deconstruct the classic identity of the most ancient political party in Egypt, Al-Wafd, and consequently, will deconstruct the already weak opposition bloc. There are even accusations that the NDP is planning the infiltration of their supporters into the opposition bodies. Abdurrahman Yusuf, the president of the National Assembly for Change, reported that they discovered people inside the assembly who are actually working for the government.

An alternative reading of the situation is that what is currently happening will be used for propaganda in the future for the more important presidential elections. Orbit Channel was threatened with the closure of its studios one year ago for the same reason used to shut down Adib’s show now. However, in this instance, Mubarak himself interfered to rescue the show and keep it broadcasting. This enabled Mubarak and the government to portray themselves as protecting freedom of speech—a similar tactic was employed during the broadcast of Al-Gama’a. For the same reason, Mubarak interfered and issued an official pardon for Ibrahim Issa when the latter was arrested after publishing “false information” about Mubarak’s health in October 2008.

Issue 1560 • January 2011

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Legal Irony The Egyptian constitution of 1971 ensures press and media freedom.

Article 47: “Freedom of opinion is guaranteed … Self-criticism and constructive criticism is the guarantee for the safety of the national structure.”

Article 48: “Freedom of the press, printing, publication and mass media shall be guaranteed.

Censorship on newspapers is forbidden as well as notifying, suspending or canceling them by administrative methods.”

Yet subsequent legal changes have given the government strong control over news and media entities.

• Newspapers must request a license to operate from the government • Journalists can face imprisonment or hefty fines if they publish undisclosed information, insulting reports against the president or parliament, or even stories that damage national unity, public order, social decorum • Journalists are not allowed to report information pertaining to the armed forces • Numerous government bodies, such as the National Agency for Regulation of Audio and Visual Broadcast, have powers of censorship • The Supreme Press Council can censor publications, set prices and allocate resources for government-subsidized media—which account for the bulk of media operations in Egypt • The Ministerial Council can ban publications or prevent them from being issued abroad • The Minister of the Interior can ban foreign publications from entering Egypt • An emergency law gives power to the executive branch to ban or shut down media entities (Sources are BBC, AlJazeera, OpenArab.net) This suggests that the government may interfere to reinstate these journalists when the Muslim Brotherhood threat subsides after the parliamentary elections and propaganda is needed to support Mubarak, or perhaps Gamal, in the presidential election.

This would enable the NDP candidate for president to portray himself as defender of free speech and democracy. In both scenarios, independent media has become a cynical electioneering tool.

Elizabeth Iskander – Dinam Research fellow in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr. Iskander holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge, and writes regularly on Middle East politics. Ms. Iskander works in the field of conflict resolution, and her research focuses on the politics of identity and religion in the Middle East with an emphasis on Egypt.

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

This article was published in The Majalla 9 December 2010 39

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• THE HUMAN CONDITION

The Merchant of Death The social costs of arms trafficking

In mid November, Viktor Bout, the infamous arms trafficker, was extradited from Thailand to the US. Despite this victory, the detrimental effect that arms trafficking has on human security is unlikely to decrease with his absence.

Paula Mejia

Image © Getty Images

I

llicit arms trafficking is one of the most challenging obstacles that conflict-torn countries and the international community face in their intentions to curb poverty, and human insecurity more generally. According to the UN, the trafficking of arms contributes to increased levels of crime rates. While the international community has lately had its eye on the possibility of terrorist organizations getting their hands on nuclear weapons, small arms trade is in many ways equally dangerous.

Small arms and light weapons account for an estimated 60 to 90 percent of the 100,000 plus conflict deaths each year and tens of thousands of additional deaths outside of war zones, according to the UN’s Small Arms Survey of 2005. Not to mention that small arms continue to be the weapon of choice by terrorists—of the attacks identified in the State Department’s most recent report, half were perpetrated with small arms or light weapons.

Unfortunately, because of the context in which most trafficked weapons thrive, victims tend to be innocent civilians, usually completely detached from a conflict that surrounds them. A perfect example of the social costs of trafficked weapons is the use of land mines, a weapon that is problematic in its own right for its indiscriminate nature. Land mines continue to be used across the globe, and problematically, even after wars end land mines continue to take the lives of innocent civilians at the worst, or permanently maim and paralyze them at best.

Weapons that are trafficked tend to be used most by nonstate actors, creating a constant threat of insecurity that has immeasurable social costs. And because of the nature of global markets, it is impossible to stop arms dealing entirely, with the UN even acknowledging that “small arms trafficking is not a problem you solve; it is a problem you manage.”

Which is why the extradition of Victor Bout, or the Merchant of Death as he has been dubbed by the media, has been met with such great attention.

In mid-November, Thailand made the decision to extradite the accused Russian arms trafficker to the United States to face terrorism charges. The former Soviet air force officer had been

arrested in the spring of 2008, after US agents led a sting operation in a luxury Bangkok hotel—the agents posed as guerillas from Colombia intent on purchasing surface-to-air missiles, unnamed drones, and sophisticated anti-tank systems from the prolific arms dealer.

In addition to this intended sale, Bout has supplied weapons used to fuel civil wars in almost every continent. His clients have included Liberia's Charles Taylor, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi, and opposing factions of the Angolan civil war, to name but a few. He also had links with the Taliban and indirectly to Al-Qaeda.

But to what extent is the person who facilitates weapons trafficking responsible for the many deaths in which these weapons are implicated? The answer, argue Matt Schroeder and Guy Lamb, authors of The Illicit Arms Trade in Africa, is that these traffickers bare a serious brunt of the responsibility. More specifically, they have argued that in certain African countries, the availability of small arms (made available through trafficking) in conjunction with protracted conflicts has “resulted in the emergence of a gun culture.”

In other words, gun ownership in such contexts becomes a symbol of status and, by default, that armed violence is an acceptable method in which to conduct anything from personal disputes to political or economic goals. Although the authors explain that the tendency of gun cultures to develop is higher in weak states, it so happens that weak

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Land Mines The use of land mines remains prevalent throughout the world in so-called conventional warfare.

However, the weapon has become increasingly controversial, and growing international clamor paved the way for the Ottowa Treaty—commonly known as the Mine Ban Treaty—in 1997, which completely prohibits the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines, and requires the signatory to destroy all the mines in its possession. As of April 2010, there were 156 countries signed up to the treaty. Significant absentees include the major powers Russia, China and the US—though they remain in compliance with a number of the treaty’s protocols.

Of all the countries in the Middle East, only Qatar, Yemen, Jordan and Iraq have acceded to the treaty.

Israel uses the devices extensively along its borders with Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, but is bound by the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which regulates the use of land mines—mainly by insisting that they only be deployed in clearly marked mine fields.

Despite signing up to the Ottowa Treaty in 2007, Iraq is a long way from being mine-free.

It is thought that during the 1991 Gulf War the Americans planted more than 200,000 landmines in Iraq and Kuwait—a vast number of which remain unaccounted for. states are more likely to be part of an illicit arms trafficking network—as countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia have demonstrated.

Illicit small arms also allow for the intensification of tensions over scarce resources. Take the example of the border between Kenya and Uganda. Low-scale cattle rustling has been a feature of rural life between these countries for centuries. Yet in the last two decades, cattle rustlers began to acquire arms from traffickers, changing the nature of the conflict entirely. Since then, “hundreds of people have been killed and numerous communities displaced, with the Karamojong and the Pokot nomadic cattle herders believed to be the principal perpetrators,” explain Schroeder and Lamb.

The human cost of arms trafficking is more complex than accounting for lives lost to conflict. The trafficking of arms also undermines development initiatives. According to the 2005 Human Development Report: “Insecurity linked to armed conflict remains one of the greatest obstacles to human development. It is both a cause and a consequence of mass poverty.”

Disturbing as these facts might be, extraditing Bout is at the very least a small step, or symbolic attempt, in curbing arms trafficking more generally. The fact remains however that even with Bout gone, the arms networks he profited from are not going to disappear.

This article was published in The Majalla 21 December 2010 Issue 1560 • January 2011

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Small arms and light weapons account for an estimated 60 to 90 percent of the 100,000 plus conflict deaths each year and tens of thousands of additional deaths outside of war zones, according to the UN’s Small Arms Survey of 2005. Not to mention that small arms continue to be the weapon of choice by terrorists—of the attacks identified in the State Department’s most recent report, half were perpetrated with small arms or light weapons 41

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• A THOUSAND WORDS

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Images Š Getty Images

A Dictator Falls In a spectacular turn of events, thousands of Tunisians protesting against high unemployment, rising food prices and widespread corruption have managed to topple the 23-year dictatorship of Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali, sparking a nation-wide debate over the prospects of a free Tunisia.

Issue 1560 • January 2011

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• CANDID CONVERSATIONS

Deadly Embraces

An interview with Bruce Riedel, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution A former CIA officer, Bruce Riedel has been a close observer of the radical developments that South Asia has witnessed since 2001. In this interview with The Majalla, Riedel explores different scenarios for Afghanistan in 2015, warns against a possible coup in Pakistan, and highlights Al-Qaeda’s profile as an intelligent organization.

Constantino Xavier

B

ruce Riedel is a former CIA officer and currently a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Riedel was a senior adviser to three US Presidents on South Asia and the Middle East. In 2009, he chaired the Obama Administration’s inter-agency review of policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. Riedel is also the author of The Search for al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future (2008). In his upcoming book Deadly Embrace (December 2010), Riedel recounts the troubled history of US-Pakistan relations and its connection to the rise of global jihadist groups.

Speaking to The Majalla in his office in Washington DC, Riedel does not shy away from tackling the tough questions on the region, from Afghanistan’s possible scenarios in 2015, and the future of Pakistan, to Al-Qaeda as a learning organization interested in sucking the United States into a third war in Yemen. His picture of South Asia suggests a gloomy future for a region increasingly riddled by deadly embraces.

And, on the opposite extreme, if everything goes wrong over the next five years, what would the worstcase scenario look like?

Resumption of civil war. And I think that’s a very realistic danger. In fact, we are already seeing the Tajiks, Uzbeks and others making contingency plans and arming themselves for a fullscale resumption of the civil war as it was in the late 1990s.

They are seeing the talk about talks with the Taliban as a signal that their interests are about to be sacrificed. I think that’s premature on their part, but it is nonetheless real and palpable today, an indication of their anxieties. The tendency of all parties in the region is to think the worst and in conspiracy terms.

And when people see all this talk about talks with the Pashtuns and the Taliban about changing the political order in Kabul, Tajiks in particular perceive that as a threat to what they see as a very good political order in Kabul, one in which, for the first time, Pashtuns don’t have control over the country as a whole.

Why do you underline that there has only been “talk about talks”?

Well, if we take *Ambassador Holbrooke’s recent comments, there is very little that is actually happening in that regard. As

In concrete terms, what is in your view the best-case scenario we can expect for Afghanistan in 2015?

The optimal outcome is an Afghanistan that is strong enough to manage the Taliban largely on its own. That is to say that it can contain, if not defeat, the Taliban insurgency without foreign combat troops on the ground. It will still need financial support from outside. It will still need intelligence support. It may need occasional expert and military advice. But it can take care of the Taliban or the residue of the Taliban and Pashtun insurgents by itself.

Image © Getty Images

Mr. Riedel, you chaired the 2009 US inter-agency review for Afghanistan and Pakistan and the next one is coming up soon. What are the benchmarks to evaluate the strategy’s success since then?

On the benchmarks of success, they are fairly clear: Size and quality of the Afghan army and police, which are both moving in the right direction, and also signs of the degradation of the Taliban. In the last three months, according to the Pentagon, over three hundred mid-level Taliban commanders have been killed or captured. What does that tell us about the momentum of the Taliban? Are they beginning to feel pressure in a way they have never felt before? Those are the things I think they are going to be looking at this December and next spring.

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far as I can tell, at this stage this is much more speculative than it is for real. The story about a Pakistani imposter fooling British intelligence, MI6, into believing he was a senior Taliban official underscores how little real talking is underway.

But do you agree that talks with the Taliban will eventually become a necessity? That beyond the military level, there is need for a political negotiation?

I don’t think it is a necessity. Most civil wars end with one side winning and the other side losing, and not in a negotiated finale.

That said, there is every reason to test to see whether the Taliban is interested in a political process. We should encourage the Karzai government in that regard. If it turns out that there is a substantial bloc of moderate Taliban leaders who want to get back into the political process, all the better. I’m personally skeptical that such a bloc exists, but I don’t see any reason to not test that and finding out whether they are there or not.

You have previously underlined the importance of an attitude shift in Pakistan, in order to limit external support to the Afghan Taliban. How do you see that shift occurring, now that withdrawal is on the immediate horizon?

The shift will only happen when the Pakistani army comes to the conclusion that America is not leaving Afghanistan. And unfortunately that’s not going to seriously happen until sometime in the middle of 2011. I think the administration has already changed the timeline debate. You saw it in Lisbon. The new buzzword is 2014, not July 2011, but that’s going take a while to filter down into the region.

Pakistan is clearly going to play a part in what happens in Afghanistan but it’s not likely to achieve its goal, which is a satellite state. Nor will the NATO alliance or India let that happen. Over the next years Pakistan will have to reassess what its interests and assets are in Afghanistan. The calculation in Islamabad today still is that the US is leaving next year.

So it’s only in August 2011, when they actually see that we are not leaving, that their assessment of the situation is likely to begin to change.

Issue 1560 • January 2011

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The Strategy of Suicide Cutting The Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How To Stop It Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman In their 2010 book, Cutting The Fuse, Robert Pape and James Feldman dedicate a chapter to the specific vagaries of suicide attacks in Afghanistan.

Far from conforming to any standardized blueprint of global extremist tactics, Pape and Feldman suggest that the use of suicide as a strategy in Afghanistan has its own trajectory—quite removed from the usual explanations of Islamic fundamentalism—which begins as a direct consequence of foreign occupation.

Their arguments are compelling, not least the observation that Islamic extremists existed and operated in Afghanistan long before the US-led invasion, but it is only since 2001 that suicide attacks have been used in the country. The subsequent prevalence of suicide bombings since 2006 coincides with a widespread loss of confidence in political institutions amongst the Afghan people. This, combined with far more conspicuous troops, and a damaging campaign of NATO airstrikes, led the population to view the foreign military as an occupying force: “Faced with this loss of control, citizens may embrace coercive tactics such as suicide terrorism to remove the foreign occupier,” write the authors.

Pape and Feldman also make important distinctions between tactics in Afghanistan and other areas of extremist violence, namely Iraq.

In order to safeguard sympathy within the local community the Taliban have maintained a policy of specifically targeting so-called hard targets, i.e. the police and military. In this way, they seek to build upon their resistance credentials—which have only been aided by a surge in “collateral damage” brought about by the US war machine between 2006 and 2009.

The picture painted is one of great detail and intricacy in which the motives for, and the strategy of, a campaign of suicide bombing are sharply delineated in the unique context of Afghanistan.

However, the overarching proposition—that foreign occupation is the root cause of suicide attacks—is to some extent weakened by the unconvincing dismissal of the fact that Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was not met with such tactics. Pape and Feldman contend that the undemocratic nature of the USSR made it less susceptible to suicide terrorism—a contention which overlooks the enduring commitment of the US and its allies to persevere in the face of such tactics.

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• CANDID CONVERSATIONS

ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) has recently initiated a major public relations operation, inviting foreign officials, journalists and scholars to visit their headquarters. What is motivating this campaign?

You’ll have to ask General Pasha. But I think that the ISI recognizes that it has an image problem. And the reaction of most organizations to an image problem is a public relations campaign. But as far as I can tell, I don’t think they have had very much success.

And it’s not just the ISI—it’s the army. The ISI is an instrument of the army, and they know that they have become perceived in America as duplicitous and doubledealing. They want to draw attention to the fact that they are at war with the militancy and they want more credit for what they are already doing, which they should deservedly get for their struggles.

But the problem is that the past is not so easily escaped, as indicated by their ongoing relations with the Afghan Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The true picture of that complex relationship is that they are at war with part of the jihadist Frankenstein they created, while they are still in bed with other parts of the jihadist Frankenstein, and all the public relations in the world won’t change that.

mean they don’t do them anymore, but they are more careful.

They will find a rationale to explain their targeting better than they did in Iraq five or six years ago.

Al-Qaeda’s strategic priority is now focused on Pakistan for two reasons. There is a defensive priority because they are under real pressure from the drones. And there is an offensive priority because they sense that the Pakistani state is weak and that their allies in Pakistan—the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-eMohammad, etc—have a real chance to take the country over in the foreseeable future. That would be a global game changer for Al-Qaeda.

What would be Al-Qaeda’s role in a possible coup in Pakistan? Is that a likely scenario?

The simplest way for a jihadist Pakistan to be created is for a coup from within the Pakistani army. It already happened once, with Zia-ul-Haq. Is there another Zia in the Pakistani army today? Most certainly. Is he in a position to stage a coup?

That is a much more complicated question. Pakistan’s coups have traditionally come top-down, usually from a chief of army staff. That tradition could change and you could then have a coup from, say, a brigadier general. It has happened in other countries, and it could happen in Pakistan too. But it is by no means inevitable.

We have endorsed enthusiastically every Pakistani military dictator and the result is that we have contributed to the weakness of Pakistani civil society and to the imbalance in civil-military relations

What is, in your view, Al-Qaeda’s actual state of links with the Lashkar-e-Taiba, who organized the Mumbai attacks in 2008?

The jury is still out on Al-Qaeda’s role in the Mumbai attacks.

The confession of David Headley shows that the planners for Mumbai include people that were clearly influenced by AlQaeda’s ideology if not Al-Qaeda members themselves. And as soon as he finished that operation and began working on the Copenhagen plot, he went directly into Al-Qaeda’s orbit, so I think that it’s premature to say that Al-Qaeda did not have a role in Mumbai. The facts are still to be completely understood on that, just like the question of the extent of ISI’s involvement, though on that case the evidence in the dock is mounting pretty considerably.

Your upcoming book, Deadly Embrace, takes a rather critical perspective of US-Pakistan relations. Why such a gloomy balance?

It’s a deadly embrace for both sides: The US gets Al-Qaeda and the like, and Pakistan gets a Frankenstein, which it no longer can control. The book is an effort to study the US-Pakistani bilateral relationship in the context of the growth of the global jihad over the last quarter of century.

It seeks to understand why the US has been such a weak partner for democracy in Pakistan. We have endorsed enthusiastically every Pakistani military dictator and the result is that we have contributed to the weakness of Pakistani civil society and to the imbalance in civil-military relations. And this has been a bipartisan project, as Democrats and Republicans alike have—by and large—endorsed the man on horseback.

You’ve been a close observer of Al-Qaeda over the last decade. Since 2001, have its strategy and operational capabilities actually changed?

As a learning organization, Al-Qaeda is very adaptive and agile. For example, in Iraq, Al-Qaeda emphasized the use of foreign cadres and found that this alienated the local Sunni community. Today, in Pakistan, they prefer to emphasize their Pakistani face, the Pakistani Taliban. They have also learned that purely indiscriminate acts of terror can backfire. It doesn’t

So smaller groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba are both emulating and cooperating with Al-Qaeda?

I think there are two phenomena going on here. All of these Pakistan-based jihadist groups are becoming both more radicalized and more global. It doesn’t mean that they are giving up their historic objectives. Lashkar-e-Taiba is still focused on India primarily. The Afghan Taliban is still primarily focused on Afghanistan. But at the same time they are now also adopting considerable parts of Al-Qaeda’s global agenda. So you see Lashkar-e-Taiba supporting attacks on Israeli targets, even this is not their traditional objective—it is the global jihad that attracts them.

At the same time you also have an overall radicalization process that is leading to increasing operational links. For example, you have David Headley working for the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Mumbai and then being literally outsourced to Al-Qaeda for the Copenhagen operation. The same person but working for two different terrorist organizations over a relatively short period of time.

This interview was conducted prior to the death of US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke on 13 December 2010.

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Iran and the Bomb

An interview with Stephen Walt, Harvard professor of international affairs In this interview with The Majalla, Stephen Walt provides crucial insight into Iran’s regional ambitions.

With history as his guide, Walt’s perspective serves to calm the alarmist within us while opening our minds to different points of view. Still loyal to the balance of power theory, Walt argues that when leaders have forgotten about the importance of this approach in politics, they’ve tended to get into trouble. As a pillar of America’s success in the Middle East, the US leadership should return to the balance of power principle, but avoid meddling into the affairs of others.

Jacqueline Shoen

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tephen Walt, world renown professor of international affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, met with The Majalla to discuss one of the key security issues today, the possibility of Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb, and possible responses from the different actors involved. He offered his insight into the degree to which such an eventuality will change the dynamics in the region, and disclosed his opinion on what the US could do differently.

Walt was the academic dean from 2002 to 2006 at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, at Harvard University. Previously, he taught at Princeton University and the University of Chicago, where he served as master of the Social Science Collegiate Division and deputy dean of Social Sciences.

His published works include The Origins of Alliance (1987), Revolution and War (1996) and more recently, Taming American Power: The Global Response to US Primacy (2002). Together with John Mearsheimer, he coauthored The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (2007), a New York Times Best Seller that started a heated debate inside the United States.

In looking at the current US policy towards Iran, what would you do different and what would you keep the same?

The United States and Iran have had an intense relationship ever since the Iranian Revolution in 1979/1980. In recent years, most of the focus has been on the United States and its allies attempting to halt Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. We’ve done that by trying to put as much pressure as possible on Iran through economic sanctions, and occasionally hinting that we might do something more extreme like using military force.

The main point I would make is that this simply hasn’t worked and it has not halted Iran’s enrichment program. It has not produced any kind of shift in Iran’s political orientation and it’s not likely to work going forward. I don’t think the United States is going to be able to get a set of international sanctions that would put that much pressure on Iran.

Threatening the use of military force simply gives the regime more reason to want to have some kind of deterrent capability of its own. Therefore, the only way to deal with this issue would be to essentially take the threat of military force off the table.

We do this by saying we’re not going to try and overthrow the

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regime and we’re not going to attack its nuclear facilities and try to work out essentially some sort of grand bargain were we try to convince them that they are better off not getting a nuclear weapon capability. And that they will be allowed to have a nuclear power capacity and an enrichment capacity under the auspices of the non-proliferation treaty, and then begin to talk more candidly about the various security issues that both sides have been worried about for along time.

Do you think that President Barack Obama’s administration has the support in Congress to do something like this?

Probably not. The Obama administration came in initially hoping that they could make a few friendly gestures towards Iran, and that that would produce a positive movement. I think this was naïve because essentially what they did was to say we’re willing to talk to Iran, we’re willing to have direct negotiations, and we would like to improve relations.

But what they fell back on was the Bush administration’s policy, which was to say first Iran has to give us the main thing we want, and to end its nuclear enrichment program. And then once they have done that, we’re willing to talk to them about the various things that they’re concerned about.

As I indicated before, this approach is simply not going to work. It didn’t work under President Bush, and it wouldn’t work under President Obama, no matter how many friendly gestures he makes and how many videos he sends on Iranian holidays.

Ultimately, this is about the actual issues in front of us, and if we’re not willing to talk about things their concerned about, until they give us what we want, we won’t make much progress.

Due to US sanctions, Iran is forming – and in some cases strengthening – economic relationships with other countries like China and Turkey. What message does this send to those who support sanctions on Iran, and what effects could this have on regional politics?

First of all, it reminds us that economic sanctions are not a very powerful weapon. Even when they are effective, they take many years to work. We’ve seen that in plenty other cases as well, and that is particularly true when the country you’re trying to pressure has other options.

And we have seen Iran expanding its economic dealings with neighboring countries, notably Turkey, but also with countries like China as well. And that is just another sign of how difficult it’s going to be to get a set of sanctions that will actually bite to the point that they would abandon key national priorities.

To me, the proper conclusion to draw from that is that you need to come up with a different approach. Now I might add that China has supported sanctions in the past, but always very reluctantly and always done its best to water them down. I think that reflects the fact that first of all that China wants to maintain good relations with Iran. Second, China doesn’t really want any kind of force being used in the region because that could be destabilizing; that could threaten energy supplies and things like that.

At the same time China doesn’t want this issue to be resolved anytime soon, because from China’s perspective, keeping the United States and Iran at odds with each other for as long as possible is a good thing. China would like this confrontation to never go to force and also to never be resolved, because it’s in China’s interest [for the US] to have a bad relationship with Iran.

In an apparent effort to balance Iran, the Gulf states are rearming themselves, constituting what has been said to be the world’s largest peacetime rearmament exercise. How effective is such a strategy?

I think that it is quite effective. One key point to note is that Iran does not have an enormous military capability. Iran has a lot of long-term power potential; it’s got a large population; it’s got a lot of economic potential if the sanctions were lifted and the Iranian government adopted more sensible economic policies.

But right now Iran doesn’t have much of a capacity to threaten its neighbors; its military spending is rather modest, coming up to about $10 billion a year, which is quite small. Its military forces do not have the capacity to move large distances and it cannot threaten to conquer any of its neighbors or even intervene in a modest way.

So in that sense, Iran’s various neighbors in the Gulf can, I think easily, protect their interests and protect their own security with some modest military purchases, maintaining good relations with each other and with the United States. So the idea that Iran is about to dominate the Gulf anytime soon I think is a mistake. Furthermore if that started to be a real concern, then you would find, first of all, more cooperation occurring amongst the other Gulf states, and more support coming from other countries that have an interest in the security of that region. It’s an issue to keep in mind but not an issue to be frantically worried about.

Taking into account Iran’s military capabilities, does it not seem excessive that the Arab states are rearming themselves at such an early stage?

No. There have been a lot of tensions in the last weeks and months over the basic issue of Gulf security. And the Unites States has been attempting to make it clear to its various allies in the region that although we are now getting out of Iraq, and we are negotiating with Iran, we are certainly not forgetting our other interests in the region.

I also believe that—to some degree—the arms sales are almost a symbol of commitment. It is a symbol of the continued security partnership between the United States and some of these countries. It’s not so much developing and acquiring specific military capabilities to deal with a specific military threat as much as maintaining a close security relationship.

In this context, what is the future relationship between Iran and the Gulf states?

What you often hear in the United States is the idea that the Gulf states are terrified of Iran and are desperate to have the United States protection. I think that exaggerated the situation considerably. I think the countries in the Gulf understand that Iran had a lot of power potential that could be a problem under certain circumstances.

I might add that was true under the Shah, at various times when Iran appeared to be rising in power and his ambitions were growing, and that was of some concern to his neighbors as well. This is not purely a function of the nature of the Iranian government; it has to do with Iran’s size.

But, at the same time many countries in the region had dealings with Iran for centuries. I once heard an official in the region say, “look we have been living next door to Iran for hundreds of years we know how to do this,” so I think, like many

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countries, they will be watchful as to what happens in Iran and how Iran’s power may change over time.

I don’t think its time for panic by any means, and I don’t think people in the region are panicking.

Will the Iranians go all the way to achieve a nuclear bomb, or do you think they will stop short of it, keeping the capacity to build one if they choose to do so?

Obviously I don’t know because the Iranian government hasn’t confided in me about what their long-term intentions are. I think there are some good reasons to believe that they do not want to go all the way to get a fully functioning developed overt nuclear capability.

There may be ways that the rest of the world can convince them that that’s a bad choice. Having said that, I think that the most likely outcome is that they do want to have a latent capability and the capacity to develop nuclear weapons relatively quickly... if their own security program began to deteriorate and they began to worry that strong outside powers like the United States would prepare to come after them... But there are real consequences to an overt nuclear posture and I think if they can avoid that, they would prefer to do so.

People often compare them to Japan, that they might like to have a nuclear capacity similar to that of Japan where most people believe that Japan could acquire a nuclear weapons capability very quickly if they wanted to but they have not chosen to do so for a variety of domestic and international reasons.

It is worth noting that the many Iranian leaders have said openly that they do not want to get a nuclear weapons capability. They regard it as un-Islamic, and I certainly don’t think that you should take that at face value, but I don’t think that a final decision has been reached and I think in some respects this latent approach to capability I described would be the optimal posture for Iran.

What do you think the Western response to something like that would be?

First of all, I think that the United States and its allies need to start thinking very hard about what their policies are going to be if that’s what happens. In a sense, I think that is the most likely result, if not in the near term, then eventually. We may not be able to stop Iran from acquiring that latent capability, but we may be able to persuade them not to take the next step.

Second, I don’t think that that is all that big of a problem or all that revolutionary development. You sometimes hear people speaking, quite foolishly, that Iran having a near nuclear capability would have revolutionary consequences for world politics or even for relations within the Gulf region.

They suggest that this would allow Iran to coerce its neighbors, to blackmail other countries, to impose its will on others and I think this is just foolish. No country has been able to use a nuclear capability to threaten or blackmail others. The Soviet Union couldn’t do that in the Cold War and they had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. The problem of course, is that a nuclear threat isn’t all that credible if the person your threatening has the capacity to retaliate or has strong allies who might be willing to retaliate.

And, the risks of trying to carry out a nuclear threat are enormous and I don’t think Iran’s leadership is suicidal. So even if they had such a capability, they couldn’t use it to intimidate or brow beat other people. The only thing they could do is deter others from attempting to overthrow them.

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Application of Equilibrium The balance of power theory of international relations (IR) has been applied so enthusiastically in modern history that it is approaching the status of the ubiquitous tool of both IR scholars and world leaders.

Enshrouded in the neo-realist ethos that assumes , among other things, that the international system exists in an anarchic state—in which there is no higher authority above state level—the balance of power is admired as much for its simplicity as anything else.

The theory appeals to a perception of human interaction based firmly in the “common sense” notion that humans are naturally pre-disposed towards competition and a basic instinct of selfpreservation. In this inherently insecure environment, states as actors must use their military and economic wherewithal to protect their own self-interest—chiefly national security—and to survive. The best way of doing so, for balance of power adherents, is to roughly organize themselves into a series of coalitions or alliances and to distribute power more or less evenly between antagonist blocs. In this way, nations are encouraged not to make any overtly aggressive attempts at outright dominance, and a stable peace endures. However, should one particular state make a bid for greater power, war may become a reality. The balance of power then becomes a theory of military management in which the participants clamor to assess who will be on the winning side, and to whom go the spoils after victory or defeat—in order, of course, to maintain a new balance of power.

Though a favorite of 20th century theorists, historical examples of the balance of power are rife—indeed, some even consider it “as old as history.” From 16th century England—when the crown based its foreign policy on essentially oscillating its support between the two great European powers, France and Spain, in order to avoid an expensive war and preserve its independence—to 19th century Europe, when a loose equilibrium existed between the five major powers— all the way up to the cold war stand-off between the US and America.

Interestingly, the balance of power theory cannot satisfactorily account for the rapid and peaceful disintegration of the USSR, as the theory would rather have predicted a much more violent conclusion. Sadly, especially when one considers its contemporary application with respect to the Middle East, the other famous historical precedents of a politics based on balance of power have invariably ended with war.

What sort of regional challenges do you foresee if Iran were to get the bomb?

I don’t think it will be a good thing, I would prefer it if Iran did not go down that road. I think it is the kind of event that people often talk about in very alarmist terms before it happens, and when it does happen, everyone adjusts to it kind of quickly.

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So, if you go back in the 1960s, American politicians spoke of the possibility of China getting the bomb, almost paranoia. They would say this would be a horrible thing because the Chinese leadership was not rational and they would do all sorts of crazy things. Of course, once China tested a nuclear weapon people quickly adapted to the fact and realized it wasn’t that serious.

Not a good thing, but not something you had to worry enormously about. I think that something similar would be true here.

It would raise some concerns in the region, no question about that. You would probably get some debates in some other countries about whether or not they wanted to follow suit, but I think not by any means inevitable that other countries in the Middle East would immediately imitate what Iran had done, particularly if it was a latent capability.

Israel has had nuclear weapons for 30 or 40 years and that didn’t immediately lead to every other country in the Middle East to go out and quickly try to get a nuclear weapon. There have been some nuclear programs in various countries, but they have not been as enthusiastic as this sort of panicky model as imitation suggests.

Most government in the Middle East find it very hard to understand why the US lobbied last September to block an Arab-sponsored resolution in International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which urged Israel to join the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Can you explain to our readers what is behind the US position?

I think that’s just another manifestation of the special relationship between the United States and Israel. The United States gives Israel diplomatic cover in places like the IAEA or the UN Security Council, even when that’s completely inconsistent with other American policies in other realms, and that’s not entirely – but mostly – driven by domestic politics here in the United States, and the power of the Israel lobby.

If, or when, Iran gets the bomb, do you think the chances of convincing Israel to sign the NPT will increase given that it will cease to be the only armed nuclear power in the region?

I think it’s very unlikely that Israel will sign the NPT. It’s conceivable that they would, but only if they were granted the status of a nuclear weapon state. I can’t imagine a set of circumstances in the next several decades in which Israel will give up its nuclear arsenal. Signing the NPT is not on the cards given Israel’s own security policies, which are their ultimate guarantee of survival.

Israel and the Arab states have a common enemy in Iran, how will this affect the dynamic of the relationships between them?

First of all, Israel had a very good relationship with the Shah of Iran, and its relationship with Iran has been more complicated then just the idea that they’re embittered enemies. Things have gone worse since the early 1990s, but back in the 1980s Israel’s relationship with Iran was somewhat better. There were even some dealings between the two governments.

Certainly today there are a number of Arab states that are concerned about Iran, and Israel obviously is concerned about Iran, and that creates a potential for some degree of cooperation. The problem is the Palestinian issue. It continues to be a major source of division between Israel and its Arab neighbors. It is also an issue that Iran has been very effective at exploiting in this context.

So, what really ought to be happening if Israel were thinking clearly about this would be to solve the Palestinian problem by granting the Palestinians a generous two-state solution. That would eliminate the wedge that Iran can use to divide the Arab states, to challenge different Arab countries and to challenge Israel. It will make it much easier for Arab governments worried about Iran to cooperate with Israel in various ways to try and deal with that.

Unfortunately, granting a state to the Palestinians is not something the Israelis have been willing to do, which in my view is unjust, but also quite foolish from a strategic point of view.

Does the regional problem of Iran serve to benefit or harm the Palestinians in their quest for a state?

I am not sure. On the one hand, as I have just said, it ought to be giving a lot of different parties an incentive to get the Palestinians a state. You can see the concerns about Iran as being a positive development, to get everybody to agree that we have got to solve this Palestinian issue once and for all so we can deal with Iran.

The problem is that it has also been used as a distraction, so whenever the United States and others want to get serious about the Palestinian issue, the Netanyahu government will say, “well that’s fine, but we need to worry about Iran.”

So on the ne hand, it ought to be something that would be good for the Palestinians, but it hasn’t been, in part because the Iran issue has been used as such a smoke screen.

People often talk about linkage between these two problems.

For example, Israelis will say, “we can’t do a good deal with the Palestinians until we are feeling secure from Iran. Guarantee our security against Iran, get rid of their nuclear program, and then maybe we will be more generous towards the Palestinians.” Often that’s not true. It’s just been used as an excuse, but more importantly, you don’t want to link those issues too closely.

The fact is, the United States, Israel and the Arab states, to the extent that they are concerned about Iran, ought to have a set of policies designed to address those concerns. And, if those are smart policies, you ought to pursue them. And similarly, the United States, and Israel, and the Arab states ought to be working very hard to get a two-state solution before it’s too late.

No matter what’s happening in the relationship with Iran, you don’t want to let either of those two issues be a barrier to making progress on the other.

And, when people try to link them, you essentially give different countries veto power over what you might like to do with respect to one issue. You don’t want to let Tehran decide whether or not you’re going to pursue peace with the Palestinians.

How likely is it that Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and what would happen if it did?

I can’t rule it out, and I change my mind from month to month how likely it is. Ultimately, I don’t think so, mostly because an Israeli attack would not significantly delay Iran’s nuclear program. They could slow it down, but they couldn’t eliminate it, and it has at least the potential to cause lots of trouble for the United States and others in the region.

The United States would be blamed for it, even if we didn’t think it was a good idea. On balance, I don’t think it will happen; I don’t think it will be very smart, but the Israelis have done a lot of things that weren’t very smart in recent years.

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To what extent does Israel have a say right now over the Iranian issue in the United States?

I think Israel’s opinion is taken seriously in the United States by many people, and certainly the groups here, the so called Israel lobby, have been the most hard-line in pushing the United States to do something about Iran’s nuclear program.

I think if you didn’t have the Israel lobby, the United States would still be worried about Iran’s nuclear program the same way we are worried about other countries like Pakistan or India.

But, people would not be talking about using military force to try and prevent it. They would not be talking about preventive war, and we would in fact be more likely to be pursuing a much more ambitious diplomatic program designed to try and resolve the differences between the two countries and move forward.

How is this situation with Iran affecting the US war in Afghanistan and its presence in Iraq?

I think the American military presence in Iraq for the last eight years and in Afghanistan has two different effects. First of all, it has greatly increased Iran’s sense that it’s threatened by the United States. You have the world’s most powerful country with large military forces on two countries on your borders, plus a naval presence in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, and close partnerships with many countries in the Gulf.

If you were Iran you would really be worried about this, particularly when you have prominent American politicians talking about regime change, talking about how we really need to do something about the clerical regime. Whatever one thinks of Iran, it is pretty clear that this is something they regard as potentially threatening the same way any country would.

The second point is that the American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, because it has gone so badly, also puts a real limit on the pressure the United States could bring to bear on Iran. This is because there are lots of things that Iran could do to make life more difficult for the United States in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

Remember that Iran actually helped the United States in a variety of ways when we went into Afghanistan in 2002, and Iran has never had a close warm feeling towards the Taliban.

There are still lots of things they could do to help the Taliban to make our lives more difficult in Afghanistan. There are certainly things they could do—and probably have done in the past—to make life more difficult for us in Iraq.

So, in a sense, our presence there really complicates the relationship in a variety of ways. It makes Iran more worried about us, but it also makes it harder for the United States to do very much about Iran because of the ways that Iran may be able to retaliate.

What international relations theory best explains what is happening now in the region?

This will not surprise you, but as a first cut, I always tend to fall back on variations of the balance of power theory. American objectives in the region, for decades, have been primarily to maintain a balance of power there, and those policies have tended to work, I might add, when we follow more or less the balance of power approach.

Certainly the concerns that the countries in the region have to do with their concerns when they think one country is getting too strong, or too ambitious, as was true with Iraq at various points.

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power in politics, or adopted different strategies, they’ve tended to get into trouble. So when the United States followed the policy of dual containment in the 1990s, this was really quite foolish. We were essentially attempting to balance against two countries simultaneously that didn’t like each other.

Also, when President Bush adopted the strategy of regional transformation—we were going to transform the entire region at the point of a gun—this was even more foolish. Of course we have all seen the results in Iraq, so I tend to think of the region largely in balance of power terms, and I think if American policy uses that framework, we are more likely to have results we like as opposed to results that we regret.

At present, the administration would like to apply a humanitarian framework in its foreign policy. How do you feel about this?

I’m not sure what that means. One feature here is that I think the United States needs to get out of the business of telling lots of other countries how to run their affairs. We can provide some advice and we can provide some suggestions, but the fact of the matter is, we don’t know how to govern places like Iraq or Afghanistan.

We wouldn’t know how to run Iran if we were suddenly in charge of that. I would say that’s largely true of other states in the Gulf and states throughout the Middle East, even other parts of the world.

The United States have their own interests, and they should pursue those energetically, but we should be much more humble about trying to reorganize the internal politics of the other countries. I think the last decade or so has taught us that we are actually not very good at doing that, and we’re as likely to cause more trouble for ourselves and for our friends then to make things better.

Which writers from the younger generation are you following these days?

There are a lot of bloggers that I read now on a regular basis, whether it’s Andrew Sullivan or Philip Weiss, Matthew Yglesias and others. There is a historian, a Lebanese historian named Osama Makdisi, whose work I have been reading and enjoying very much.

Are you working on a book right now?

I am working on a couple of different projects. I would like to write a book on American grand strategy for the 21st century, and suggest ways in which the United States can rethink how it deals with the rest of the world as a whole, not just in any particular area.

Second, I’m working on a book about why it is so difficult for countries to get out of military commitments, even when they’re not going well. Why is it hard to cut your losses when you’re in a losing war? Why do countries tend to stay in these wars much longer than they should?

You often see states stay in war far too long. You rarely see them get out too early, and I’m trying to explain why that’s the case, and suggesting how we might be able to fix it. Finally, I continue to write on various Middle East affairs, and would probably do something more on that subject in the future too.

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Qatar Timeline 1700s The Bani Utbah tribe migrates from Kuwait to Qatar's northwest coast and found Zubarah. Pearling and trading is established along Qatar’s coast.

1871 Turkish Ottoman forces occupy Qatar at the invitation of the current Emir, until their withdrawal in 1913 at the beginning of the First World War. 1916 Treaty signed between the UK and Qatar. In return for protection, Qatar agrees not to give away any territory except to the U.K. or to enter into relationships with any other foreign government without British consent.

Image © iStockphoto

1867 Conflict with neighboring Bahrain over territorial claims; Doha is practically destroyed.

Seeds of independence are sown when Britain signs a treaty recognizing Qatar as a separate entity.

1939 Oil discovered at Dukhan. However the onset of World War II delays export utilization. Oil exports begin in 1949.

1950s-1960s Prosperity and immigration brought by gradually increasingly oil revenues trigger the beginning of Qatar’s recent history.

1971 Qatar becomes an independent sovereign state on 3rd September after Britain withdraws its troops from the region.

1981 Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE form the Gulf Cooperation Council—to provide for regional defense and to coordinate policy on trade and economic issues.

1990 Qatar plays a crucial role when it permits international forces to use Qatar as a base during the Persian Gulf War. 1995 Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani topples his father in a bloodless coup while Emir Khalifa is abroad in Switzerland.

1996 The international news network Al-Jazeera is launched. The original Al-Jazeera channel is started with a loan of 500 million Qatari riyals ($137 million) from the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa.

1999 Municipal elections, first democratic polls since 1971.

2001 Qatar resolves long-standing border disputes with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia

Image © Getty Images

2003 Qatar-based US Central Command forward base serves as the nerve centre in the US-led military campaign in Iraq.

2010 Qatar and Iran sign a defense treaty. Qatar also wins the bid to stage the 2022 FIFA world cup.

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At a glance Qatar's strategic location in the Arabian Gulf led to the migration of Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula, bringing with them commercial prosperity. Archaeological evidence including rock carvings and pottery reveal that humans inhabited Qatar as early as the 5th or 6th centuries BC. Excavations have unveiled evidence of town planning and large walled houses of a once thriving town at Zubara, showing that at one point the town was the center of pearl diving in the Gulf. In the early twentieth century, fishing and pearl production were Qatar’s main sources of revenue, though the discovery of oil in 1939 radically altered the country’s path.

Despite its twentieth century riches, tradition and conservatism are evident in the Qatari dress and way of life. Most native Qataris belong to the Islamic Wahhabi sect, an orthodox branch of Sunni Muslims. Men wear the long flowing white thawb (tunic) with a headdress, and women wear a long black loose robe to cover the (often western) clothes worn underneath—some women wear a thin black veil to cover their head and face. These clues hint at the traditional nomadic past of Qatari tribes, and even today some live a semi-nomadic life in the desert, but most people have settled down in urban centers. There are efforts to protect a more traditional way of life, including internet filters which block websites deemed at odds with Qatari interests.

Qatar’s construction boom has attracted many foreigners, including laborers, who outnumber the small population of natives. In April 2001, just over half of the estimated 907,229 people were non-citizens –many of whom individuals from South East Asian and Arab countries working on temporary employment contracts. Because a large percentage of the expatriates are male, Qatar has a heavily skewed gender ratio, with 3.46 males for every female.

Ruling family and rentier economy Qatar’s constitutional monarchy was established in 1867 when the Al-Thani family arrived in Qatar from modern-day Saudi Arabia. During the same century, the Al-Khalifah family, who Issue 1560 • January 2011

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Key Facts

Image © iStockphoto

O

ver the next 12 years, the small peninsular of Qatar will come under enhanced scrutiny after winning the bid to stage the 2022 FIFA world cup. This deceptively unassuming country has a maximum width of just 50 miles and is dwarfed by its southern neighbor Saudi Arabia. It is a land of low terrain covered by a blanket of windblown sand, where to the east a gradual rise culminates in a central limestone plateau, and to the southeast lies Khor Al-Udeid, a bay of the Persian Gulf surrounded by rolling sand dunes. Similar to other countries in the region, Qatar’s mainly barren landscape contrasts sharply with the rapid growth and impressive stature of its innovative and modern architecture— a testament to this country’s large ambitions. Remarkably, Qatar now attracts a surprising variety of birds, due to changes in the environment caused by increased irrigation and efforts to make the desert flourish.

Of its many islands, the most significant is Halul, situated 60 miles east of the country’s capital, Doha, which functions as a collection and storage point for the country’s three offshore oil fields—the source of Qatar’s wealth and fuel for its continuous economic and social transformations.

Capital: Doha Independence: 18 December 1878 Independence from the Ottoman Empire: 1913 Termination of special treaty with the United Kingdom: 3 September 1971 Government: Constitutional emirate with one governing body Emir: Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani Prime Minister: Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al-Thani Language: Arabic Geography Area: 11,437 sq km Border country: Saudi Arabia Climate: June to September up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, Spring averaging 63 degrees Fahrenheit PEOPLE Population: 1,696,563 Ethnic Groups: Arab 40%, Indian 18%, Pakistani 18%,Iranian 10%, other 14% Religions: Majority Sunni Muslim ECONOMY GDP: $102.147 billion GDP per capita: $83,840 Currency: Qatari Riyal currently rule Bahrain, arrived from Kuwait. Ostensibly to keep the peace in the Persian Gulf the British established Mohammed bin Thani, head of a leading Qatari family, as the region’s ruler in a negotiated Perpetual Maritime Truce. In 1872, Qatar was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire until the outbreak of World War I when the Turks eventually withdrew from the Arabian Peninsula. In 1916, Sheikh 'Abdullah bin Jassim AlThani signed a treaty with the United Kingdom which brought Qatar under British protection—in exchange for a central role for the UK in Qatar's foreign affairs. In September 1971 the United Kingdom withdrew its military presence from the region and Qatar became an independent sovereign state. A new treaty of friendship and cooperation was signed with the UK, and Qatar was admitted to membership of the Arab League and the UN. In 1995, amidst a bloodless coup, Sheikh Hamad seized power from his father, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Hamad Al-Thani, who had ruled the country since 1972. The ageing emir's eccentric method of funding the government via his personal bank account had been draining and crippling the economy, so the son stepped in while the father was abroad.

Around 85 percent of Qatar’s export income is from oil, and this money funds a bulky welfare state that provides many services for free, or at least heavily subsidized. On top of this Qataris pay no income tax and face one of the lowest overall tax rates in the world. Recently Qatar has begun to diversify 53

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its economy by investing heavily in liquid natural gas (LNG)— offshore natural gas fields lying northwest of the peninsular currently produce 15 percent of the world’s total LNG revenue, placing Qatar firmly at the top end of world production capability. Despite the global financial crisis Qatar has maintained its economic growth, by putting direct investments into domestic banks, and by maintaining its policy of moderation and restraint during the oil price hikes of 1979 -1980.

Modernization Following Hamad’s accession, Qatar experienced a surge of sociopolitical liberalization and modernization. Various reforms were introduced, including the right to vote for women, in 1999. Hamad also established the international news network, Al-Jazeera, basing its headquarters in Doha. The broad extension of press freedom means that Al-Jazeera has become one of the most important broadcasters in the Arab world. However, it emerged from the recent WikiLeaks publication of US diplomatic cables that the independent credibility of the network was questioned in November 2009, when US representatives in Doha claimed that the channel had altered the nature of reports—in order to improve relations with countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Humanitarian issues in Qatar have also blighted the country’s reputation. Homosexuality is an offence punishable by capital punishment, and—in common with other Persian Gulf Arab countries—a so-called sponsorship law exists in Qatar. Sponsorship has been likened to modern-day slavery, and requires that a worker entering Qatar cannot leave without permission of a kafeel or sponsor. According to the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report, men and women who migrate willingly, with the promise of highly salaried employment in Qatar, are sometimes given underpaid jobs. In February 2009, Qatar enacted a new migrant worker sponsorship law that criminalizes some practices commonly used by trafficking offenders, although punishment for such crimes still remains lower than those for comparable crimes.

In relation to other Arab states, Qatar has comparatively liberal laws and a civil law jurisdiction. However, Shari’a or Islamic law is applied to some aspects of family law, inheritance and certain criminal acts. A good example of Shari’a application is the fact that alcohol consumption is illegal in public, but such things are generally tolerated in upmarket hotels and clubs. Women can legally drive in Qatar and a strong emphasis on equality is brought about by Qatar’s National Human Rights Committee.

Women are eager to become more educated and compete with men in different professions, and there are considerably more female than male students attending Qatar University.

Education in Qatar is now an area that is high on the country's agenda and there are now currently 567 schools operating in the country. Qatar seeks to bolster its oil wealth by developing a “knowledge economy” and the government has launched a recruitment policy known as Qatarization—with the aim of eliminating illiteracy and filling industry positions with Qataris. Her highness Sheikha Bint Nasser Al-Missned has been actively engaged in education and other social reforms in Qatar for many years and chairs the Qatar Foundation, which in 2009 launched The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), a global forum for education experts to discuss education issues.

In the healthcare sector Qatar has also come a long way since the first hospital opened 50 years ago. Admittedly, Qatar has among the highest rates in the world for obesity, diabetes and genetic disorders but its health care establishments, medical services and equipment have benefitted from substantial recent upgrades and improvements. Qatar now has some of the most advanced medical equipment in the world, and is one of only four countries that offer the hi-tech neonatal program, which screens newborn babies for inherited disorders. The state sponsored Hamad Medical Cooperation (HMC), established in 1979, manages four highly specialized hospitals and has one of the highest expenditures in the gulf region.

Qatar’s appearance is clearly changing, and this is no more evident than in its shifting skyline. Modern Qatar’s international hotels and skyscrapers are indicators of its modernity, though the architecture has managed to maintain an approximated air of tradition. The Emir has plans to transform the state of Qatar into a capital of culture and learning, and he has already established The Museum of Islamic Art. The museum itself, a cubic construction, was built on an artificial Island so that it could always be distinguished from any other development on the sea front. The recently opened Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art pushes the boundaries further—the museum will give an identity to Modern Arab art world-wide, but more importantly will stretch the limitations of what is deemed acceptable in the region, as works containing nudity and politically sensitive imagery are not subject to censorship.

Future reckonings Between the 1940s and 1960s Qatar’s wealth rocketed following the discovery of oil. The Qatar football association was formed when foreign oil workers brought the sport to the country and today it is the most popular sport—closely followed by cricket. However, it was still a surprise to many when Qatar held off competition from Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the USA to win the bid for the FIFA world cup in 2022. The immediate concern among the international footballing community was that money, especially lucrative advertising contracts, played a part in the outcome. A member of FIFA’s ethics committee has labeled the decision as “lunacy” while also warning of lingering questions over the bidding process. Few people believe that the bid on sporting merits, as Qatar’s oil spun riches have allowed its sovereign-wealth fund to invest in multiple foreign project—including the recent purchase of the UK's Harrods department store for 1.5 billion pounds ($2.2 billion). Some believe that Qatar’s anti-gay laws should preclude it from hosting the world cup. Others focus on the country's intensely hot and inhospitable playing conditions—temperatures in July and August can reach up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Further opinions stretch to suggest that a world cup will be a socially radical force in the slowing modernizing emirate. One thing is certain, the arguments will continue over the next twelve years.

Qatar now straddles the gap between traditional conservatism and modernity, and although it has failed to create an entirely harmonious bridge between the two, its pioneering efforts have to be admired. Qatar has demonstrated its enormous potential and for those that knew Qatar in its early days, the region is unrecognizable. By 2022 who knows how far it will have come?

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• THE ARTS

Brushstrokes in Motion An interview with Golnaz Fathi, Iranian artist Golnaz Fathi’s work is characterized by the combination of energetic smatterings of colored paint with brushstrokes of obscure script. She has been exhibited internationally and to wide acclaim. On the occasion of Ms. Fathi’s second solo exhibition in the UK, The Majalla speaks to the Iranian artist about her life in Tehran, the development of her work as an artist and the message she hopes to send to her viewers.

Amy Assad Distinctive within Iranian artist Golnaz Fathi’s second solo UK exhibition, entitled Liminal Subliminal, are three red, black and white painted manuscripts draped from ceiling to floor. To the casual eye there appears to be calligraphy emblazoned across them.

On closer inspection, the writings become an amalgamation. Several lines are of Arabic poetry by the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, and a few are Persian script—others are Fathi’s own abstract scribbles or “unwrittens.” It is puzzling, but as the artist explains, the words are not meant to be understood. The intention is that the whole piece affects the viewer on a personal, subconscious level.

Golnaz Fathi’s work is characterized by the combination of energetic smatterings of colored paint with brushstrokes of obscure script. She has been exhibited internationally and to wide acclaim. Indeed, Fathi’s output could be described as embodying contemporary Iranian art—an energetic expressive movement shrouded in ambiguity.

Fathi was born in 1972 in Tehran. As a result she witnessed first-hand the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war and a flourishing Iranian art market. After graduating in Graphic Design from Tehran’s Azad University, Fathi embarked on an intensive six-year-study of calligraphy, where she was immersed in the highly venerated Islamic discipline—as well as a largely conservative, male environment. Later she began to branch out by investigating the potential in using more abstract forms.

Despite many developments within the art world in Iran, an overbearing scrutiny of art still exists in the country. While mid 1990s Iran experienced a cultural re-birth and the re-opening of art galleries, the demonstrations of last June led to renewed government crackdowns and “interest” in the artistic scene. But where restrictions are imposed, creativity thrives. Fathi is an influential member of that currently thriving generation in the Iranian art world.

I love participation so I always invite my spectators to take part in the works and translate what they see. The reason all of the works are untitled is because I want to give freedom of mind to you, so you dream, you let it go as far as you want to

Although Iranian contemporary artwork tends to run the risk of being politicized, in an interview with The Majalla, Fathi emphasizes a determination to break free from overtly political readings of her work. As her pieces are left untitled and therefore stripped of a predetermined interpretation, the autobiographical imprint in her paintings is also indistinct. Fathi invites her viewers to take their own experiences from her pure “visual language,” leaving them to interpret each piece for themselves.

How does this exhibition differ from your first solo exhibition?

My first solo exhibition was in 1998, a long time ago. It is amazing because at that time we had only two main galleries in Tehran, can you imagine? It was years after the war so the country was starting to rebuild itself. I remember, two years before the exhibition I always used to go to these openings and in my heart I was asking, “can I have an exhibition here one day?” In 1998 I had that show, and today we have more than 160 galleries in Tehran.

Growing up in Tehran, at what stage did you first become aware of art or artists, and did any of them have a particular influence on you?

I was always influenced by abstract expressionists. I still am because I love to stand in front of a painting that drives me crazy with energy. There are so many great artists producing completely different work, but when you see a good artwork it gives you the energy to go and work yourself. It makes life beautiful. I have a great day when I view the works of Anish Kapoor. When I see a good exhibition I would rather go to my atelier and immediately start working with that energy instead of having dinner with friends. Alternatively, when I see bad exhibitions I lose my energy—I can’t work that day.

When I was nine years old my mum took me to these painting classes and I went there for two or three years. If I were to say I had any teaching it was during those years. At that time I knew I wanted to become a painter. It is amazing; I was really determined and thought, “I love this. I want to become a painter.” At that age people usually say they want to be a doctor, especially in my country, everybody says either engineer or doctor. Now that I have become a painter I have the courage to say that even at that time I knew, but that was only inside my heart.

I studied Graphic Design because I did not believe in academic studies for art. University cannot make you a painter, a degree cannot make you a musician—it should be in your

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blood. I cannot call myself an artist either. My belief is that “artist” is a great compliment. If somebody asks me what I do, I do not say I am an artist. How can I say I give this title to myself ? The fact is that I do a painting then leave it to other people to judge if I am an artist.

You studied calligraphy for six years in what has been described as a privileged world. As your art is a marriage of this old discipline and new media, is this a form of rebellion against prescriptive rules?

I am thankful for those years. Traditional calligraphy is a lifetime’s work. Even if you become a master, you must practice it every day until the end of your life—that is the thing that you learn the first day. Every day you write the alphabet for hours and hours because your hands, like a pianist’s, have to practice so that the fingers get warmed. I did that, working, for six years, every day, eight hours, I loved it—I still love calligraphy. But then I was thinking, “where am I going with the traditional and all this effort?” I mean all day you are doing this and the aim is to be as good as the old masters.

In my view, it is not creation it is repetition.

I think it needed courage really, because traditional calligraphy is some kind of a fact—you entered in this world, you are there.

The mind is so closed over there and they see the whole world in that square. When you break those boundaries you see there is no end to anything. I do not know if traditional calligraphy is art or not. Do you have the end or destination for art? No, it is like philosophy, does it end? Do you have any answer for it? No. So maybe it is a rebellion yes. Upon graduating I was sure that I could not do graphic design because you take orders and work from that. That also makes me crazy because it locks my brain—again I do not have the freedom of my mind. At that time my steps were truly confident to go the way of painting.

So was it always your intention to transpose your skills into art?

Yes absolutely. I thought I should mix calligraphy with my painting because it is part of me, I have spent time on it and I love it—it takes me to another world. Not specifically Iranian calligraphy either. If I am standing in front of Japanese or Chinese, calligraphy I don’t care if I cannot understand what it says, because for me it is painting. That was the main reason that I mixed calligraphy with my paintings. Throughout the years I tried to take the meaning from it because the meaning of words are important—every human being is touched by meanings and if you use poetry that meaning is doubled—I did not want that to affect my work. When you stand in front of it, it is the painting that should talk to you, not the meaning of the words. What I want from my work is that the painting itself relates to you. It took me 10 years to develop this because in the beginning my scripts were readable.

And then they became more abstract?

Yes and wherever I go with this calligraphy I always say I am grateful for those years because my hand is trained. I know the structure of the alphabet by heart—that is why I believe I can do something else with it. If a hand is not trained and tries to do calligraphy, somehow it cannot connect.

I like the struggle for people who come and stand in front of my painting. They do not know, especially Iranians, if it has kept its identity as Persian calligraphy. Obviously something is Issue 1560 • January 2011

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written so they stand from afar, they go near and I can see they are trying to read. Sometimes they ask, “excuse me, have you written something or is the problem with me? I can’t read it.”

I say, “no I don’t know either, I can’t read it myself.” For the foreigners it is the same, they feel happy because when they ask and I say that I also cannot read it, they say, “good we both can’t read it.” I believe art should keep a mystery to itself, so that it demands questions in the mind of the viewer.

What role do you believe calligraphy has in your work?

Can unwrittens be called calligraphy? I guess then, it is not calligraphy. Art should demand mystery and somehow there is mystery behind calligraphy. It is not okay just to make nice forms. I sometimes say if I was a good speaker I would have chosen to become a writer, instead I have said all the things that I wanted with my brush. And I think I’ve talked too much. I love participation so I always invite my spectators to take part in the works and translate what they see. The reason all of the works are untitled is because I want to give freedom of mind to you, so you dream, you let it go as far as you want to. Imagine if I called a piece “Flower,” immediately you would try to imagine a flower, I don’t like that. Many people come to my openings and give very different opinions and I love this. If you bring ten people of course they have ten different points of view and this shows that one word cannot define one painting, so just let it go.

Do you ever have a certain message in mind when creating a piece?

No. I do not know. I know professionals meditate and when the moment is correct they take up the brush and go with one dash but that dash was six months of thinking. That is why sometimes people say “It is one line but it costs one million dollars.”

The professional knows it took him a lifetime of work to be able to do this one line and do that perfectly.

So the thing is, if I am working on a piece, I have to do it right then. If it is after lunch the feeling disappears. It is somehow very unconscious. I am not in this world, I do it and it happens. I am not thinking and I like that. I don’t force myself; anything could happen during the work. I do not know where the red dot would be because I do it and then I see where it fits in the composition. I did not know that my hand would come down at that time. It is like an adventure. Sometimes I make very small sketches to know for example that the work should be vertical or horizontal, something simple like that. I am not afraid if my hand goes up and it changes the composition. I say, “okay, so now the plan has changed what shall we do now?”

Your work has been characterized as autobiographical. You experienced the Iranian revolution at a young age, as well as the Iran Iraq war. Naturally people will focus on this when analyzing your work, to what extent do these events play a role?

I do not know, because of course as a human and a person that has lived there I have seen war, and I have seen hard times after the war. So of course they would have had an impact on me, my character and everything. But the works I do are not political at all. I am doing something personally, creating my inside world in an abstract language. It is not only the revolution, I could break up with my love and of course that might have an impact on my work as well. I am not the one who can answer 57

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• THE ARTS

this, it is up to the viewer to decide. Everything affects me; in London I like to walk, I like to go and sit in a cafeteria and look at people. Even in Iran daily life can give you inspiration, everything can.

For women in Iran there seems to be a conflict behind the idea of veiling and self-expression. As a female artist do you feel this struggle?

Amazingly—even though we don’t have the same rights as men—I don’t compare it for example to Saudi Arabia and those countries, because we have been in parliament. The amazing thing is, even though my government is not good for a woman, after the revolution women have woken up to their own rights, they are so active. They take their own rights; they are not waiting for anybody to give them rights. I’m not the only woman painter; there are so many artists over there. Women are more active than men. Right now around 64 percent of university entrants are women. Women did this themselves, not the country, not the government. We should say bravo to women.

I see it in every field; most of the good lawyers are women. Shireen Abadi got a Nobel Prize a few years ago; she is so brave. Sometimes I am amazed because I see so many women doing things and think how brave they are. So this is something positive. They say that during hard times art happens or good things happen, so maybe it is because of the hard times that women are becoming this strong. They do what they want and they believe they can do it. If you have to go to the court you don’t have the same rights as men. That is still how it is, but in daily life women are very strong.

The colors in your work are intriguing—does red represent trouble?

No, that is the cliché. It is a symbol of life for me; it is life going on. For me it is never blood, for me it is energy. If I look at red, blood is the last thing I think about, but anyway what is blood?

If you do not have blood you are dead.

Usually people know me for my black and whites—and a spot of red, this is what they know from Golnaz Fathi. I’m always in the mood for black, white, red and this is because I am not a very colorful person—even dressing—it is my character.

For me, black is not darkness; it is the most complete, powerful color. Sometimes I don’t even put a red spot so the work stays monochrome. Sometimes I wake up and say, “oh I need yellow.” It happens. I can’t tell beforehand, it depends on what I want on that day. It might be blue, it might be red, it might be yellow. I always use hot colors.

What are your plans for the near future?

I am going to the Devi art foundation in India for a contemporary art exhibition. I am going to do a six and a half meter wall painting for the museum, for their permanent collection—so that’s some kind of a dream come true for me. There will also be a huge modern calligraphy exhibition in Europe in April next year, starting in Germany. They select two artists from each country and I am representing Iran.

The main thing is I am going to work, because I live for that.

If I were to explain what I am going to do in terms of my art, I don’t know—it is like the color.

This article was first published in The Majalla 8 December 2010

Forever Amber The everlasting value of amber Although its shape and color vary in each case, amber’s value seems to have been consistent across the ages. From South America to Iran, the value associated to amber is interesting for its pervasiveness across space and time.

Juliet Highet During the long, cold Nordic winters down the millennia, amber came to represent sunshine itself. Its glorious life enhancing colors, its glowing warmth both to the eye and touch, earned it the name "Gold of the North." But there's more to amber than meets the eye—its “magical” and therapeutic powers as well as its comparative rarity have caused it to be prized almost as highly as gold.

Most of the amber available nowadays is Baltic. The Gold of the North is literally as old as the hills, the trees and the seas, for it is the fossilized resin of ancient coniferous trees, now extinct, and which once covered the greater part of northern Europe more than 30 million years ago, long before man had ever set foot on the evolutionary ladder. Gradually the sticky resin hardened and when the tree died and eventually crashed to the forest floor, it carried the resin with it into the ground where it remained for the next 20 to 30 million years. Over the millennia the resin fossilized into the hard, light sunshine colored gemstone known as amber.

In its natural state, amber or succinite, as it is scientifically known, is found in irregular nodules, some quite small, others spectacularly large—in lumps weighing several kilos. If later exposure to the elements has not formed a dark crust around the piece, its wonderful golden color is immediately apparent.

But just as each piece of amber is unique, no two being the same size, shape or luster, so the color scale ranges remarkably.

The variations stretch from milky white, through pale yellow, via sugar-syrup to rich, sweet sherry; and then there are all the shades of red, from pale scarlet to burgundy.

Color preferences have swung with fashion trends, the women of ancient Rome having a predilection for reddishgold amber, whereas during the 19th century the milky-white variety was around everybody's necks. The major Southeast Asian source of amber is burmite from Burma, whose most famous and sought-after color is a bright cherry red. According to ancient texts, this was evocatively called Tiger's Soul. It was always held in high esteem in China, carved with stunning virtuosity into intricate pendants, snuff bottles and miniature sculptures. Sicilian amber, known as simetite, is extremely collectable nowadays, as it is so rare, and comes in an unusual range of colors and glows with a beautiful fluorescence. Romanian amber or rumanite, usually a clear, pale yellow, was always the most prized variety in Persia and Turkey for its remarkable internal crazing, due to geological pressure, achieving a mother of pearl effect. This amber became the height of European fashion at the turn of the century due to the patronage of the British royal family.

In South America, amber was an important item of commerce, and fragments of it were found on the altars of ancient Aztec and Mayan temples; it was burnt as incense and mounted in gold as jewelry. Mexican amber tends to be a rich golden

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color, whereas amber from the Dominican Republic, currently flooding the market today, is often a rich, mottled brown due to historic detritus collected within the clear yellow color. It was first noted by Christopher Columbus in the 15th century, and is still shallow mined in difficult, treacherous terrain—mountainsides covered with tropical hardwood forest. Amber varies in translucency too—some pieces are crystal clear, others opaque or cloudy, others waxy and quite matt. Recently some of the most stylish jewelry has been cut to leave raw surfaces, sometimes contrasting in the same piece with highly polished, faceted ones. Amber often contains inclusions of insects trapped millions of years ago.

Was the reward for being clubbed on the head and dragged into a Paleolithic cave a string of amber beads? Certainly. Amber has been found in caves in Britain and southern Europe since Paleolithic times (450,000-12,000 BC). As the temperature improved, becoming less arctic, nomadic hunters moved northwards into the Baltic, and there is evidence that Mesolithic man used amber for jewelry (between 12,000 and 4,000 BC). An amber pendant, still pristine yellow having been preserved in a Danish bog, has survived, carved with human figures as well as representations of animals sought by these ancient hunters.

All across northern Europe during Neolithic times, amber was a favorite material for jewelry, and the golden splendor with which some women were buried us an idea of the value attached to it. One grave find is a necklace of about three meters in length, made up of 650 beads. Intrepid amber traders carried the precious material over the Alpine passes to northern Italy, past brigands and many other hazards to Mycenaean Greece. Amber appears quite suddenly and in great quantity around 1,600 BC until around 1,200 in the Peloponnese shaft graves of the royalty and nobility of Mycenae (along with a lot of gold, cornelian and amethyst). Then there was a gap of about 400 years when amber was either unavailable or unfashionable, only to spring up again with great style in the ancient Greece of around the 8th century BC. Amber was used extensively as an inlay with gold and ivory by those who could afford it; and those who could not aimed for amber and bronze fibulae (pin-brooches), popular with both men and women.

Life in ancient Rome was always a chancy business, and the Emperor Nero (AD 56-68) murdered his first wife in order to marry Poppaea Savina. This woman was blonde, unusual in the Mediterranean, her hair acclaimed by the Emperor himself in a poem as "amber-colored." Fashion was instantly created, fair-haired slaves were ruthlessly shaved to provide wigs for the privileged, and amber itself became the symbol of stylish luxury. Not only elaborate jewelry was de rigueur, like the heavy rings worked Issue 1560 • January 2011

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with miniature figures of Cupid or Venus, or even splendid coiffures; but also exquisite little toiletry items. Lucky ladies had tiny flasks (amphorae) for perfumes, pots with carefully turned lids for cosmetics and glorious mirror handles–all of amber, principally imported and worked at the city of Aquileia.

There are literally thousands of examples through history of amber being used to protect and cure both man and beast.

One of the more colorful is ascribed to Lucrezia Borgia. A gold ring reputed to have belonged to that dangerous lady had six gold claws holding in place an intricately carved amber snake.

Of brilliant red amber, the snake's head was raised, its forked tongue ready to strike. On the underside was a tiny knob, which released poison from a hidden chamber within the setting.

It is a sobering thought that the shahs of Iran traditionally wore an amber bead to protect them from assassination; but none was found when the crown jewels of Iran passed to the state following the deposition of the last shah. Today, amber jewelry is enjoying an extraordinary renaissance. Newly manufactured pieces like those of London designers Cobra & Bellamy have attained the heights of creativity. Older pieces have an apparently endless market, especially so if the item is mounted in an unusual way and attracts collectors. It seems that the appeal of amber goes on forever, with all its mysterious properties.

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.

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• THE CRITICS

Coming Clean Before History Decision Points by George W. Bush Crown 2010 In his memoir, Decision Points, former US President George W. Bush tries to reshape his political legacy. While readers might disagree with his thinking, the book simply illustrates how the former president thinks, and how he took his decisions.

Readers must be aware, however, that at times, Bush does not disclose all that he knows, even though most of the information he tries to hold back has become public knowledge.

When asked how history would judge the Iraq war, George W. Bush told The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward: “History, we don’t know. We’ll all be dead.”

Inconsistent with this nonchalant response, Bush seems unwilling to wait until everyone is dead for history to grant him, or not, his due credit. In his recently published memoir, Decision Points, America’s 43rd president takes matters into his own hands as he tries to reshape his political legacy, even before history gets to judge.

While readers might disagree with Bush's thinking, the book simply illustrates how the former president thinks, and how he took his decisions. Readers must be aware, however, that at times, Bush does not disclose all that he knows, even though the most of the information he tries to hold back has become public knowledge.

For instance, David Sanger of The New York Times reported—and later published in a book—that Israeli officials showed up in Washington with satellite pictures of a Syrian nuclear reactor. The Bush version of the story goes like this: "In the spring of 2007, I received a highly classified report from a foreign intelligence partner. We pored over photographs of a suspicious, well hidden building in the eastern desert of Syria."

Bush argues that since US intelligence could not verify that the reactor was part of a Syrian weapons program, he told former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that America's air force would not take out the facility. Bush reported that a disappointed Olmert said his country considered the Syrian reactor an "existential threat." Bush writes that on 6 September 2007, the facility was destroyed, without specifying who destroyed it. Needless to say, it is publically known today that the Israelis—who supplied the intelligence in the first place—were the ones who sent their fighter jets to bomb the Syrian reactor.

The story of the Syrian reactor might make some readers ask: If Bush has left out details, how much detail has he left out exactly? And would such details change the common perception of some stories, if they were told differently?

The fact that this book leaves out such details might tell readers that while Bush intended to make everyone see events from his perspective, he also tried to filter information, a fact that makes

the book more of a tool to rewrite history in his favor, rather than reporting it as it happened.

Yet despite such a downside, the book is filled with behind-thescenes stories of interest to Middle Eastern readers. The former US president recounts how he received then Crown Prince, now Saudi King, Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, in his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. “When will the pig leave Ramallah?” the crown prince told Bush in reference to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who had ordered a military operation in the West Bank that culminated in besieging late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in his house. “Clearly the Saudi ruler was not happy with Ariel Sharon,” Bush added.

The former president tells of his experience of receiving King Abdullah along with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal and Ambassador to the US Bandar bin Sultan. He explains that by the time his Saudi guests had arrived in the ranch, the Arab Peace Initiative—which the Saudi monarch had proposed and had been endorsed by the Arab League in Beirut a month earlier—had been shelved because of the Sharon offensive. “The Saudis had expected me to persuade Sharon to withdraw from Ramallah before the crown prince arrived. Now they were insisting that I call the prime minister on the spot.

I wasn’t going to conduct diplomacy that way,” according to Bush.

To convince the Saudi leader to stay, Bush asked for a moment alone with King Abdullah. The American leader told his Saudi counterpart about his Christian beliefs. The Saudi monarch was not impressed. Then, Bush took his Saudi guest on a tour of the ranch and tension remained high until, while driving his Ford 150 truck, Bush came across a turkey hen that blocked his way and would not move. “Suddenly I felt the crown prince’s hand grab my arm…My brother, he said, it is a sign from Allah. This is a good omen,” Bush writes. “For the rest of my presidency, my relationship with the crown prince—soon to become king—was extremely close.”

Bush’s narration of his relations with other heads of state also brings to the fore behind-the-scene details about decisions that shaped the world. In the summer of 2004, while visiting France, President Jacques Chirac told him that their two countries should do what it takes to protect the Lebanese democracy from Syrian control, and should work together to end Syrian occupation of Lebanon. The extension of the term of former Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, “a Syrian puppet,” gave Bush and Chirac the lead. In September, they proposed at the Security Council— and secured approval for—Resolution 1559, which helped to force a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005.

Bush argues that his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki was also instrumental in his decision to order the surge of troops in Baghdad. According to the former American president, Washington implemented the surge only after Bush had found a reliable partner in Al-Maliki.

This article was first published in The Majalla 15 December 2010

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The Link between Failed States and Failed Intervention Yemen and Somalia: Terrorism, Shadow Networks and the Limitations of State-building

by Sally Healy and Ginny Hill Chatham house, October 2010 A new briefing paper from Chatham House suggests an alternative approach to the fragile (if not failed) states of Yemen and Somalia in order to improve regional and international security. This crucially involves addressing the tension between security interventions and supporting political processes that improve legitimacy and possibly target radicalism at the source.

Yemen and Somalia face parallel challenges: insurgencies, terrorism, economic hardship and ineffective governments. Both AlQaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen and Al-Shabaab (Mujahideen Youth Movement )in Somalia have developed successful narratives around injustice that are not being addressed by existing western interventions. In fact, these sentiments are being enforced by western policies that focus strongly on the security sector and contribute to a sense among the public of being under attack, leading to radicalization. With conventional counter-terrorism and counter-piracy strategies further hindered by “shadow business networks,” new long-term approaches should be considered to target existing security threats at the source.

Somalia has been a failed state for decades, which has produced a fragmented society led by armed factions, organized mainly along clan lines. Militant Islamist activism has been relatively dominant among many of these groups, including Al-Ittihad AlIslami, a Salafi reform movement, which was allegedly involved in the Islamic Court Union’s (ICU) takeover of Mogadishu in June 2006. The US government accused the ICU of harboring international terrorists, and at the end of that year, the US carried out its first (unsuccessful) missile strike in Somalia directed against terrorist suspects. Also in 2006, after the intervention by Ethiopia, Al-Shabaab surfaced as a fighting force, comprised of radicalized young men. The movement quickly developed into a successful insurgent movement and in February 2010, Al-Shabaab’s leadership made an explicit and direct statement of support for Al-Qaeda’s international jihad. It is now increasingly recognized in the West that the feeble Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is not succeeding in its attempt to undermine Al-Shabaab.

Across the Gulf of Aden, Yemen is facing rising unemployment, economic stagnation provoked by a declining oil production and a rapidly growing population. In this, the poorest country in the Middle East, the government is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain security and stability in the face of southern separatists and northern insurgents. Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda, whose founder, Osama Bin Laden is of YemeniSyrian descent, maintains strong ties to the country. In 2009, groups in Yemen and Saudi Arabia merged into AQAP, which presents itself as a social justice movement, tapping into public perceptions of elite corruption, militarism and alliances between President Saleh’s regime with Riyadh and Washington.

Sally Healy and Ginny Hill point to the connections between Yemen and Somalia, which are significant on several levels, as Issue 1560 • January 2011

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links between piracy, arms-smuggling and people-smuggling have repeatedly been established. In 2008, the UN monitoring group on the arms embargo in Somalia concluded that Yemen’s inability to stem the flow of weapons across the Gulf of Aden remains one of the key obstacles to the restoration of stability in Somalia. While Yemen claims to want to improve its border controls, it finds itself positioned as the middle link in a chain of profit accruing to traffickers in at least five countries: Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Healy and Hill suggest closer monitoring of money transfers as a partial solution, but it is clear that this is a vicious circle of a lack of control and a lack of incentives for key actors to improve security.

Since 9/11, policymakers have increasingly seen a strong connection between development and security, meaning that strengthening fragile states is a key link in enhancing international security.

However, the link between security and development is also a dangerous one in the sense that external efforts in the area of security sector assistance can undermine local expectations of legitimacy.

The Obama administration also pursues targeted killings in both Yemen and Somalia, one of which, in May 2008, resulted in a wave of killings in Somalia and had significant negative consequences for the humanitarian community. Meanwhile, the Yemeni public perceives the Yemeni security services as threatening their livelihood and wellbeing. As argued by Healy and Hill, “[s] ecurity assistance in fragile states does not contribute to stability if the public fears the military and does not want it strengthened.”

Healy and Hill argue that the western approach in Yemen and Somalia has in itself become “part of the problem,” partly grounded in the tendency to see both Yemen and Somalia as spheres of “ungoverned space.” This notion fails to capture the nature of locally mediated power, which is prominent in both countries. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Healy and Hill argue that a fragmented Somalia under multiple administrations may be an entirely inhospitable environment for international jihadism. In reality, power is diffused among local actors, business people, Islamists of different hues and an overseas diaspora. Yet, this power structure is in no way addressed in the transitional federal government’s approach to the country, meaning that it has no impact on the forces in place. Furthermore, resilience to extremism should be supported at the local level. Finally, a regional strategic approach, overcoming a bureaucratic tendency for governments to handle Yemen and Somalia in different departments, is required in order to effectively address terrorism, trafficking, piracy and transnational criminal networks.

The attempts to construct state-level security have failed in Somalia and are unlikely to succeed in Yemen, because they are often perceived by the local population as a form of aggression. Rather, Healy and Hill argue, external security efforts should be focused more on political legitimacy and systems of accountability. Hence, their analysis generally shies away from short-term security fixes, calling for more focus on political configurations supporting networks of resistance. This would mean a move away from military training and missile strikes towards political inclusion and reconciliation. While Healy and Hill’s diagnosis is extremely convincing, their proposed cure raises much bigger questions regarding the conflict between short-term interests versus long-term commitments—and perhaps above all, the perpetual inability of western regimes to face the self-defeating nature of their policies in the region.

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• THE FINAL WORD

Ben Ali... The Last Bey Adel Al Toraifi

I

n the late 1960s, Habib Bourguiba, the first president of Tunisia, told his ministers, "One day I will veer off the road and babble…but none of you will prevent me or stop my deviation." Bourguiba was quite correct; within four decades he was named "the Eternal Leader", and "the Supreme Combatant."

He manipulated his men such that should one of them think to replace him, or even hint at it, Bourguiba would have let opponents kill, imprison or exile him. However, he was eventually defeated on the 7th November 1987, in a coup where the national guards surrounded the palace. The master of Carthage Palace left in less than 12 minutes to a forced exile in his home town of Monastir.

Analysts would be confounded in explaining what happened in Tunisia this past week. Ben Ali's security-fortified state has fallen apart in less than 29 days. Public demonstrations were sparked by the suicide of unemployed university graduate, Mohamed Bouazizi, in protest at the authorities’ confiscation of his cart from which he sold fruit to try and eke out a living. None could imagine that the seemingly impervious security system would collapse in record time, and that the country would find itself in a political vacuum. Clearly, the recent uprising has succeeded where previous attempts failed. However, we are witnessing today a state of fear and uncertainty of the future.

In December 1983, when the country was suffering economic difficulties, the Tunisian government raised the price of bread. It stated that the treasury was empty and there was no alternative in order to overcome the economic situation. Consequently, the impoverished people, tired of waiting for job opportunities that never arose, came out in protest. Demonstrations started in the marginalized south and spread to other cities, until the "bread" uprising reached the capital. Bourguiba returned to his Carthage Palace and declared a state of emergency. When the police and anti-riot forces failed in controlling the situation, the President called out the army. When the confrontation ended after many people were killed and injured, Bourguiba withdrew the price rise.

Does not this incident remind you of what happened in Tunisia a few days ago? The regime that has just collapsed failed in solving it’s current crisis. When the President publicly admitted to the charges of corruption, his promises were to no avail, and the army let him down – as it did with Bourguiba in 1987.

Today, Tunisia is witnessing a great test; it needs to undergo a peaceful transition that must result in holding free and honest elections, and take the country out of repression and loss of hope. The most important challenge it will face is the ability to preserve the modernization and civilization which it has acquired and been characterized by, in addition to establishing an ideal democratic regime that does not lead it backwards.

Those who consider what happened in Tunisia a revolution are to some extent right, but it is an incomplete revolution. It has yet to face a true test. The Tunisians were able to regain decision making from a dictator. Yet, we must remember that some figures of the old regime remain in power, and among their responsibilities, they have to manage the transition pe-

riod. Thus, it is difficult to decide whether what we are seeing now is a traditional revolution. Only time will tell.

Charles Tilly (1978) differentiated between four types of political changes: a coup, a civil war, a public uprising, and finally a great revolution. The latter requires removing the previous constitutional, political and social system and replacing it with a new system of values. What has taken place in Tunisia until now is a mix of all four.

There are indications of unclear cooperation between the army, the Prime minister and the Speaker of the Parliament. There are also evidences that it is a strong public uprising that pushed for change, and there are features of a coming revolution promising the change of political and constitutional nature of Tunisia.

Currently, the constitution, which was introduced by Bourguiba, and subsequently amended by Ben Ali, is the reference, despite its shortcomings. This leads us to think that the ruling elite in Tunisia are still present, even if they have integrated opposition parties in the transitional government. Hence, it is difficult to speculate currently whether what we are witnessing is a traditional revolution, or if it may result in a limited constitutional amendment, not a replacement of the constitutional, legal or social system of the country.

Undoubtedly, any regime that does not enjoy enough legitimacy in the region will think of what happened in Tunisia. However, repetition of the same experience is not inevitable. Let us think of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The pre-revolution regime was corrupt and tyrannical, but what toppled it in the first place was poor economic conditions in the previous two years and its failure in responding to the advice of international institutions about the necessity of addressing the needs of the impoverished and poor classes.

Today, Tunisians are facing a new stage, in which they have to restore their economic activity, including the tourism sector that is vital for their country's economy. Dignity and freedom are crucial issues, but people need to secure their source of power and self-sufficiency. True democracy with hungry people does not ensure that these events will not happen again. Those who came out against the ousted regime, will do the same against any other government. Ben Ali has achieved remarkable economic progress in Tunisia in the past decade, but he missed the point that legitimacy is the only guarantee in the time of crisis.

Ben Ali veered off the road and none dared to advise him or prevent his tyranny. He wanted to be an unchallenged ruling "Bey", yet even a "Bey" needs legitimacy. Today he is moving to an exile where he will be forgotten.

Al-Safi Saeed describes the years in which Bourguiba lived in exile. The ousted president suffered greatly from boredom and anticipation of the end which did not come. In order to relieve his anxiety and boredom, he used to dial random telephone numbers, once the other side responded, he would say: "Are you a Monastirian family? I'm Habib Bourguiba," and then he would end the call. He once called the local radio and said angrily, "I'm the cause of your existence, and you do not mention my name even once." [Bourguiba... Sirah Shebh Moharramah (Bourguiba... A Semi-Prohibited Biography), 2000].

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