The Arab Predicament Revisited

Issue 1562 • March 2011

The Arab Predicament Revisited Middle East unrest and the future of the Arab republic

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9 770261 087119 The Majalla

Issue 1562

War and Peace

With a regional war on the cards for 2011, could the eastern Mediterranean be the next battleďŹ eld in the proxy war between Turkey, Israel and Iran?

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The Human Condition Resource stressed and polluted, these conditions have motivated Gulf citizens to become more involved in environmental protection

Candid Coversations

Prominent Saudi journalist Jamal A. Khashoggi talks to Caryle Murphy about new plans for a proposed news network

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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 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 © Getty Images

Editorial In 1981 Fouad Ajami—today the Majid Khadduri professor in Middle East Studies and Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University—published his first book, The Arab Predicament, which analyzed what he described as an intellectual and political crisis that swept the Arab world following its defeat by Israel in the 1967 “Six Day War”.

In his interesting and thought-provoking book Professor Ajami posed and addressed the questions; How have Arab political ideas and institutions evolved since the 1967 War? How have the Arabs contended with the external influences to which their wealth has exposed them? What are the implications of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism?

Thirty years on from this illuminating study, Arab governments are facing a wave of uprisings whose handling will require tough decisions to be made that will have far-reaching effects on stability, balance of power and the lives of Arab communities.

Posing the same questions raised in Professor Ajami’s 1981 study, we asked one of our editors, Minas Monir to team up with Elizabeth Iskander, Dinam Research fellow in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, to write “Arab Predicament Revisited”.

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

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Contributors 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 affairs. Dr. 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. She has also coordinated research projects for several international NGOs. Minas Monir, editor at The Majalla, co-wrote this article with Dr. Iskander.

Tony Badran Research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he focuses on Lebanon, Syria and Hezbollah. His research includes US policy towards Lebanon and Syria, Syrian foreign policy and regional relations, Lebanese affairs, the geopolitics of Iraq, and Iranian policy in the eastern Mediterranean. Mr. Badran’s writings have appeared in a number of notable publications in the US. He also writes a weekly column for nowlebanon.com.

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

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

Glada Lahn Research Fellow in Chatham House’s Energy, Environment and Development programme. Her areas of expertise are transitions towards energy sustainability in the MENA region; government-industry relations in petroleum exporting countries; development impacts of oil and gas investment; and energy security and geopolitics. A graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Ms. Lahn has published in various journals and magazines, including First Magazine, House Magazine and Chatham House’s Working Papers.

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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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• A Mediterranean Battlefield • Local Influence: The Yemeni government still struggles to deal with the Houthi rebellion US Middle East policy

On Politics 18 • Guardians of the Revolution?

• Brothers in Arms: Chávez and Ahmadinejad • Delivering Demarchés

The Arab Predicament Revisited

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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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Unable to hold back the wave of uprisings, Arab governments are faced with tough decisions that will have far-reaching effects on stability, balance of power and the lives of Arab communities from Tunisia to Bahrain

• Corporate America is its Economy’s Cancer: Why exports should be at the center of America’s economic recovery • Is China the Next Tunisia? The lessons Beijing learned from Tunis

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• Grassroots and Palmshoots • The Road Ahead: Women’s Rights and the Future of Iraq

• Jamal A. Khashoggi • James Zogby

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• QUOTES OF THE MONTH

Quotes of the Month Images © Getty Images

“It is impossible that any of us here accept tutelage over Lebanon again, whether foreign domination or the domination of arms within Lebanon working for foreign interests” Outgoing prime minister Sa’ad Hariri, in reference to the arsenal of the Iranian-backed Shi’a militant group, Hezbollah

"This is not a question of whether we or our allies can do this. We can do it. The question is whether it's a wise thing to do and that's the discussion that's going on at a political level" Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, said in response to whether it would help to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya

"I am here to draw my legitimacy from you. You are the ones to whom legitimacy belongs. The mission that I am trying to realize, with all my heart, is your goals" Essam Sharaf, Egypt’s most recently appointed prime minister, told a large crowd in Tahrir Square

"I am ready to die. I would fight with our brave teenagers in the streets and so would every other man in this city if Ghadafi comes back here—and so would the women and children as well" Hassan Hamada, Benghazi’s most senior judge and rebel fighter, said to “The Telegraph”

''The Arab world has been hit by a political earthquake; Sudan was divided, regimes collapsed in Tunisia and Egypt, Libya is in turmoil, and Bahrain has been on the verge of chaos" H.R.H. Prince Turki Al-Faisal Bin Abdel Aziz Al-Saud said at the 16th annual conference of the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR) on "Global Strategic Developments: A Futuristic Vision."

“My conscience is clear and strong, because what we are doing is right, and I am 100 percent convinced of this. The enemy, and the forces confronting us, want to divide Libya between the east and west, and they want US and NATO to intervene” Saif Al-Islam, Libyan politician and Muammar Al-Qadhafi’s second son told “Asharq Alawsat” in an interview

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A Mediterranean battlefield In need of room to maneuver, Israel re-discovers Greece

Greece’s finances may be battered, so why is the country encouraging a controversial alliance with Israel? With a regional war on the cards for 2011 and Israel in search for allies, the burgeoning GreekIsraeli relationship features sophisticated airborne weapons systems, intelligence collaboration and the discovery of an enormous potential energy supply in disputed waters. Could the eastern Mediterranean be the next battlefield in the proxy war between Turkey, Israel and Iran?

Iason Athanasiadis

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military with planning to foment a war with Greece as a pretext to carry out a coup against the incumbent government.

From a Greek perspective, engagement with Israel could attract Israeli investment and technological knowhow to its moribund economy, secure sophisticated arms-sales and win over an influential protector that can act as a foil to a newly-energized Turkey eyeing energy deposits in the Leviathan field and the Aegean Sea. “Papandreou wants to attract the interest of Israeli business in the Greek economy and perhaps attract US business through Jerusalem,” said Sotiris Roussos, the head of the Center for Mediterranean, Middle East and Islamic Studies at Greece’s University of the Peloponnese. “He also wants to reintroduce Greece as a player with specific natural interests in the eastern Med.” Greek-Israeli trade, currently approaching half a billion dollars a year, is increasing by 12 percent annually.

Image © Getty Images

STANBUL: A new eastern Mediterranean front has opened in the regional strategic conflict being waged between the US and its allies on one side and a loose alliance of actors including Turkey, Iran and Syria on the other.

The new alliance with Israel was midwifed last year in Russia during a reportedly chance restaurant encounter between Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. Russia’s Gazprom petroleum conglomerate was already eyeing the enormous energy reserves that had just been discovered under the eastern Mediterranean, estimated at 4.3 billion cubic meters of petroleum and a staggering 16 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. Fittingly, the field was named Leviathan.

The Greek-Israeli rapprochement was then nursed last June, after the bloody Israeli interdiction of a humanitarian flotilla headed to Gaza. Greece’s half-American prime minister is an admirer of the Jewish work-ethic and maintains advisers such as Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stieglitz. He exchanged visits with his Israeli counterpart over the summer even as he continued trips to countries such as Libya, courting Arab investment. As the number of Arab tourists in Turkey surged to over a million last year, Israeli arrivals in Turkey plummeted.

Many followed the example set by their prime minister, who endorsed the new ties by taking his family on holiday to the Greek islands.

Now Israel is looking to extend a pipeline across the Mediterranean to Greece and jointly exploit Leviathan. Extending all the way from Israel’s coast to Cyprus and including portions of Egypt’s and Lebanon’s territorial waters, it is the largest deepwater natural gas deposit to be discovered in a decade. As regional tensions mount, the UN turned down a Lebanese request to resolve the dispute, the Iranian ambassador to Beirut declared that three quarters of the field belong to his host country and Turkey’s foreign minister refused to recognize a maritime border delineation agreement between Cyprus and Israel that would open the way to drilling. As state-owned Russian monopoly Gazprom shouldered its way into the fray, all the ingredients for the next regional conflagration clicked into place.

The energy-related tensions do not end there. In November, Turkey dispatched two oil-exploration ships into disputed eastern Mediterranean waters, prompting protests from Greece. In a traditionally tense region where Greek and Turkish fighters engage in daily mock dogfights, the potential for escalation is huge. An ongoing court case in Turkey charges members of its

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Tehran also seems perturbed. On a visit to Greece last December, former Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki offered Greece the status of “favored partner.” But his words “were more rhetoric and flattery than structured plan,” said an informed Greek foreign ministry official. Mottaki offered no details of what Greece would gain in return for arguing Tehran’s corner in Brussels.

“We very politely said we would consider their offer and left it at that,” the official said, who also revealed that an Iranian embassy official had been caught trying to assess Athens Airport’s security procedures as a “NATO-standard international airport.”

In the same month as Mottaki’s offer, an Israeli delegation was in Athens to discuss “a new military partnership in the Mediterranean” while a Greek military official visited Israel, tasked with purchasing unmanned aerial vehicles and weapons systems for Greece’s F-16 fighter jets.

Greek-Israeli military ties were warming-up years before the political rapprochement. In 2008, Greece earned Iran’s ire when it opened up its airspace for Israeli fighter jets to train for a possible long-range strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Greece’s Russian-purchased S-300 air-defense system is similar to Iran’s.

“Tel Aviv is in need of air and naval space for the conduit of its military maneuvers,” said Ioannis Michaletos, a terrorism analyst, “and the Aegean and East Mediterranean is considered an ideal space for any kind of military exercise due to the challenge that islands and mountain ranges pose to any modern jet or radar equipment.”

The Greek media has been split over the new strategy, with one portion regretting the conclusion of a thirty year pro-Palestinian policy (Greece was the last western country to recognize Israel) and another appearing optimistic over where the new ties can take Greece.

“Any foreign attention is welcome,” said Amnon Sella, professor emeritus at the Hebrew University. “I can imagine that significant ties may evolve in the future.”

Until the Nazis occupied the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki, it boasted Europe’s largest Jewish community of immigrants taken in by the Ottoman Empire after the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition. But Greece held out from opening an embassy in Israel until 1990 against a background of anti-Israeli and pro-Arab political rhetoric championed by former Prime Minister Andrea Papandreou, the current prime minister’s father.

The current climate supports the development of a powerful tripartite alliance between Israel, Cyprus and Greece With a fresh Middle Eastern war widely expected in 2011, Israel is anxiously seeking out new allies in an ever more hostile region. Netanyahu warned Papandreou during their private meeting that Turkey has the capability and intention to acquire a nuclear arsenal. But an alliance with Greece that would also bring Israel closer to Cyprus would see Israeli and Turkish fighter jets eye-to-eye on the disputed island’s airspace.

Some Greek Cypriots view the prospect of a regional faceoff with glee.

“The current climate supports the development of a powerful tripartite alliance between Israel, Cyprus and Greece, to which it would be wise to include friendly Egypt which has many reasons to be worried about Turkey’s neo-Ottomanist imperialism,” wrote Savvas Iakovidis in the Simerini daily.

Calmer voices such as Roussos caution that, “Greece has not the resources for a significant role in the Mediterranean. Its political elite is too absorbed by the IMF directives and badly injured by extensive corruption allegations to undertake initiatives regarding the Middle East.”

Under the new agreement, Israeli intelligence services are expected to expand their already significant presence in Greece, a country that hosts over a million mostly Muslim immigrants seeking to reach the northern European Union and has become a potential center for Islamic radicalism.

“Significant Iranian interests such as the presence of Saderat Bank and a large Shi’ite immigrant population prompt Tehran to direct intelligence cells to monitor dissidents in Athens,” said Michaletos. “The Israelis will also be interested in the Hezbollah cells operating in Athens, the strong business links with Beirut, ELPE’s (Greek Petroleum) purchase of Iranian oil and the speculated funneling of Iranian capital flows through Dubai to Greece by Greek-Arab banking interests.”

“You can be sure that Israel has considerable Mossad assets in Greece,” said Philip Giraldi, a former CIA analyst, “but it is more interesting still that they might be angling for some kind of energy deal.”

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.

This article was published in The Majalla 31 January 2011

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Local Influence

The Yemeni government still struggles to deal with the Houthi rebellion Since 2004, the Yemeni government has been trying to extinguish militarily a rebellion known as the Sa’dah insurgency in the north. A Qatari brokered ceasefire brought a glimmer of hope, but the rebellion of the Houthis has been showing signs of ongoing defiance, while the Yemeni government has been vocal in accusations of foreign involvement. The real question is what steps the Yemeni President, Ali Abdallah Saleh, ought to take in order to ensure a peaceful solution to this problem.

Image © Getty Images

Youssef Haddad

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hen analysts and journalists talk about contemporary Yemen, they usually describe the poorest nation of the Arab world as one where three conflicts are being fought simultaneously. One conflict sees the Yemeni government faced with a growing tide of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) operatives. Then there are tensions in the South, where a secessionist movement seeks separation from the North. And last but not least, there is the Houthi rebellion in the North’s Sa’dah province.

Whilst the power of the central government seems to be shrinking by the day, the Sa’dah and Amran provinces are increasingly cut off from the rest of the country. This tendency is not restricted to the North of Yemen. Indeed, in the southern provinces of Abyan and Hadramout civil unrest, instigated by the secessionists, has rendered the presence of Yemeni security forces largely ineffective.

Adding to these conflicts is a booming, young population which struggles to find jobs, as well as the worrying prospect of Sana’a—the capital city—running out of water, and the whole country depleting its oil reserves. In this scenario, should Yemen be pronounced a failed state? Not yet. Even though President Ali Abdullah Saleh stands between a rock and a hard place, “Yemen is no Somalia,” as Professor Fawaz Gerges recently suggested in an article for The Majalla.

With so many problems in hand, Saleh has adopted a strategy of “prioritization” which might prove to be the key to avoiding the worst of outcomes. On the top of this list is the war against AQAP. Not far down are the attempts to smooth things over with Sunni southern secessionists and the Shi’ite northern rebels—Saleh has called the secessionist group into a dialogue, which has yet to begin.

In the North, Saleh’s efforts to put an end to the rebellion through military means have largely failed, and the price was the loss of thousands of lives. A particularly troubling episode in this regard was the government’s military operation “Scorched Earth”, in August 2007. Again the Yemeni government did not meet its goal, in spite of constant raids by the Yemeni air force over the Sa’dah province, the Houthis’ stronghold. The conflict even spilled to neighboring Saudi Arabia, as the Houthis launched attacks that killed more than 100 Saudi soldiers. When, in November 2009, the Houthis seized parts of Saudi territory, they forced a decisive military response from Riyadh.

Adding to these conflicts is a booming, young population which struggles to find jobs, as well as the worrying prospect of Sana’a—the capital city— running out of water, and the whole country depleting its oil reserves Three years after the military operation had begun, and with the urgent need to curb the exponential growth of AQAP infiltrators into Yemen, Saleh was forced to resort to diplomacy in the North. He signed a ceasefire agreement with the Houthis, brokered by Qatar. Saleh’s plan was clearly to free his hands from the North, in order to focus on hunting down Al-Qaeda operatives.

In spite of the agreement, the ceasefire between Saleh and the Houthis remains shaky. Although Sana’a has freed more than 400 Houthi fighters, the rebels have yet to show signs of goodwill. The Yemeni government is increasingly voicing its doubts as to the extent to which the rebels observe the agreement. Saleh has accused the Houthis of repeated violations of the agreement by attacking citizens, refusing to free abducted soldiers and setting new checkpoints. Saleh has even expressed his discontent to the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, by mentioning that the Houthis did not even spare the Qatari commission—in charge of supervising the implementation of the ceasefire—from abuse.

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A Hidden Paper Trail AFGHANISTAN Karzai administration – The New York Times alleges Karzai receives millions of dollars every other month from Iran. Karzai admits to receiving Iranian aid, but says it is only 500-700 thousand Euros once or twice a year.

Taliban militants – The Sunday Times reports that five Iranian companies secretly pay Taliban militants $200 a month and throw in hefty bonuses for each American solider killed.

IRAQ Evidence exposed in leaked US government documents indicate Iran trained and supplied weapons to Iraqi militants.

BAHRAIN Despite claims by the Bahraini government that some Shi’a opposition members are backed by Iran, American officials have yet to see any evidence of these connections as stated in a US embassy cable from August 2008.

GAZA Hamas leaders say the bulk of their 2010 budget ($540 million) comes directly from Iran. Iran also supplies military assistance and weapons.

The surge in Houthi activities since the ceasefire agreement has raised eyebrows as to who is supporting this Shi’ite insurgency. Yemeni government officials have long pointed the finger at Iran for backing the rebellion, but they have failed to present proof of Houthi-Iranian ties when asked to do so by Western officials.

Many argue that the religious affiliation between the Houthis—a Shi’a offshoot—and the Islamic Republic, has served as the catalyst behind stronger relations. Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthis, has indeed studied theology in Iran. Such allegations, however, may not be accurate.

While the Houthis might be considered Shi’ite, they follow the Zaydi School rather than Twelver Shi’ism as endorsed by Iran. Zaydis share more similarities with Sunni Muslims then they do with Twelver Shi’ites. Historically, the Zaydis believe Zayd ibn Ali was the fifth Imam after the prophet, whereas Twelver Shi’ites consider his brother Muhammad Baqir as the fifth Imam.

The difference in faith leads to an overarching divergence on core religious issues between the two sects. For example, the Zaydis do not believe in the occultation and eventual return of the twelfth Imam Al-Mahdi. This suggests that Iran’s support for the Houthis is not based on religious grounds, but rather on pragmatism. For their part, the Houthis mayt have found in Tehran a supporter for

SYRIA As part if its anti-Israel efforts, Iran has channeled money and oil to Syria. Iran has reiterated its willingness to aid the country to the West.

SRI LANKA Iran pays Sri Lanka $520 million in aid to promote oilrelated economic projects.

PAKISTAN Iran sends more than $100 million toward reconstruction and flood relief.

SENEGAL Iran has a history of sending aid money to Senegal, supporting its energy and economic interests in the region.

LEBANON Journalists report that Iran is making large investments in predominantly Shi’ite areas of Lebanon.

SUDAN Iran has assisted Sudan’s growing arms industry, offering substantial military cooperation to the country.

SUB SAHARAN AFRICA Iranian President Ahmadinejad has been vocal about his aid ambitions in Africa. The Economist reports last year the country signed a “bewildering array of commercial, diplomatic and defense deals” with various African nations, targeting Muslim populations. This includes oil exportation to Kenya and flood aid to Benin. their cause. In the absence of strong religious ties between the northern rebels and Iran, it seems that any hypothetical alliance between them is one of convenience, and is thus easier to sever.

Nonetheless, Sana’a has so far treated the Houthi rebellion as a foreign insurgency aimed at enforcing Shi’ite hegemony inside the country. Labeling the Houthis as Shi’a rebels, or even as Iranian proxies in Yemen, has so far alienated the northern Yemenis and aborted any attempts for their integration.

Not surprisingly, President Saleh has not escaped the recent wave of public protests that is shaking Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and beyond. These protests should work as a wake up call for the Yemeni government. In spite of ties that may or may not exist between the Houthis and Iran, the best starting point would be to acknowledge that the Houthis are only Yemeni tribesmen, living in a disfranchised region, in an impoverished country.

Youssef Haddad – PhD candidate in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. Haddad’s research work focuses on contemporary Islamic movements, he has taught Culture Studies and Philosophy at the American University of Beirut.

This article was published in The Majalla 7 February 2011

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The Brotherhood’s Train The coming test for the US Middle East policy

The “Peoples Revolution” sparked by Mohammed Bouazizi’s act of self-immolation seems to follow a curious pattern, whereby roughly every 10 years a major event(s) transforms the Middle East and its politics. Most of these historic moments have involved either political Islam or Jihadism and the United States. Current events, particularly in Egypt, have all the ingredients to become part of this story.

Manuel Almeida

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t seems that roughly every 10 years a major event, in or closely linked with the Middle East, transforms the region and its politics. Common to most of these historic moments is the presence of either political Islam or Jihadism, and the direct or indirect involvement of the World’s greatest power, the United States. The “Peoples Revolution,” although in its source related with none of the above, has the ingredients to become one more chapter in the convoluted story of the relationship between the US and political Islam.

Looking back in time to 1979, most will remember it as the year of the Iranian revolution—many would say Islamic revolution—when Ayatollah Khomenei returned to Iran and the US-backed Shah left through the back door. Also in November 1979, Iranian students invaded the US embassy in Tehran, and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

On 20 November that year, two hundred gunmen led by Juhayman Al-Utaybi and his followers—who pledged allegiance to Muhammad Al-Qahtani, a self-proclaimed Mahdi—locked the doors of Mecca’s Grand Mosque. The ensuing Grand Mosque siege lasted for two weeks, and the assailants were eventually routed in a gun battle with Saudi soldiers, leaving hundreds of casualties. Pundits often refer to the Grand Mosque siege as the episode that marks the rise of modern Jihadism.

November 1979 also saw a crowd—led by the student wing of the Pakistani conservative party Jamaat-e-Islami—fuelled by the conspiracy theory that the US and Israel were behind the Grand Mosque tragedy, launch a siege on the US embassy in Islamabad. This event must be read in the context of General’s Zia’s plan to establish an Islamic order in Pakistan.

In a prolific year for important events, Egyptian President Anwar El-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty in Washington DC on 26 March 1979, under the wing of US President Jimmy Carter.

A decade later, the last Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan on 15 February 1989. The Afghan quagmire, often described as the Soviet Union’s Vietnam, is considered to have had an important role in the disintegration of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev. Crucial for the Soviet defeat was one of the most unlikely alliances in history, including such awkward bed fellows as the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, the Afghan Mujahedin and the foreign Jihadists from Algeria to Central Asia. Godless communism was defeated, but the war’s aftermath would witness the rise of yet another ruthless and repressive regime.

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With a safe haven in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule, Al-Qaeda was responsible for the single most tragic moment in US history since Pearl Harbor, when it was able to fly two planes into New York’s twin towers on 11 September 2011.

In retrospect, more important than that tragic moment was the reaction that followed suit. Thirsty for action, and eager to deploy its mighty military force in the Middle East, the Bush administration launched its “war on terror,” which started with regime change in Afghanistan by eradicating “the students” from power. Soon the US would lead the invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Tired of war, the Middle East would see more foreign and local blood spilled in its sands, with little sense of purpose.

Egyptians took to the streets in protest against the oppressive and corrupt 25-year-old rule of President Mubarak and ultimately forced the resignation of an important US ally in the region On 17 December 2010, 26-year-old Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest against his treatment by a local policeman, who not only confiscated his unlicensed vegetable car, but slapped him, spat in his face and insulted his dead father. Bouazizi would end up dying in hospital on 4 January this year. Boauzizi’s act was more than a reaction to this particular episode, it was a desperate moment of a young man who is the mirror of the Tunisian youth—unemployed, disheartened with its government and naturally negative about the future. Yet virtually nobody, Bouazizi included, would expect his act to be responsible for triggering what is arguably the most important international political development since 11 September 2001.

The public unrest was so widespread that the former Tunisia President Ben Ali fled the country with his family, after 23 years in power. It soon became evident that the consequences of Bouazizi’s act would not be restricted to Tunisia. Egyptians took to the streets in protest against the oppressive and corrupt 25-year-old rule of President Mubarak and ultimately forced the resignation of an important US ally in the region. Not surprisingly, in Yemen—the poorest country of the Arab world 15

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Empowered by the Masses Freedom and Justice Party (Muslim Brotherhood) The Freedom and Justice Party is the prospective title for the Muslim Brotherhood’s political branch under Egypt’s new order. The transnational Muslim Brotherhood is by far the largest and most coherent opposition group in Egypt—despite a longstanding official ban on its activities.

6 April Youth Movement Members of the 6 April group have been widely credited with providing the organizational impetus for the unprecedented January protests in Egypt, which brought about the downfall of Hosni Mubarak.

Made up of young, well-educated Egyptians, the group makes extensive use of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to spread their message of direct action. Indeed, the movement started as a Facebook group in support of an industrial strike on 6 April 2008.

National Association for Change (NAC) Mohamed ElBaradei, the former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, set up the NAC when he returned to Egypt after his high-profile role abroad. It is an umbrella organization for several different opposition groups—a loose coalition of individuals and groups from across the political spectrum.

Wafd Party Due to its status as the “official” opposition party, Wafd is unpopular amongst the majority of Egyptians.

It has been criticized by many groups as a token and perfunctory party, which lent the illusion of genuine democracy to Mubarak’s regime. In lieu of participating in anti-government protests, Al-Sayed Al-Badawi, the party president made a TV address calling for extensive reform.

Al-Ghad Party Ayman Nour, founder of Al-Ghad (Tomorrow party), was released from a three-year spell in prison in 2009.

He found himself incarcerated after standing against Mubarak in the last presidential elections and finishing a distant runner-up. Since his conviction on forgery charges (widely believed to be trumped-up), his party was largely consumed by pro-government supporters.

Not as prominent as he once was, Nour nevertheless played a role in the anti-government protests.

New Groups As well as the nascent Freedom and Justice Party, a few other political groups are forming in the new permissive atmosphere. This is particularly beneficial to previously outlawed political Islam. The New Movement of Islamic Jama’a has declared that it is preparing to establish a new political party called The Humanitarian Bloc for Reformation and Change after the success of Al-Wassat—established by former Muslim Brotherhood members—which was approved by a court as the first Egyptian party with an Islamic background.

where since 1978 President Saleh, with US support, has created a hyper-security state that largely fails to provide for the population—the Yemenis went out to the streets to demand change. In Algeria, Jordan, Syria and beyond, the people came out, with very different degrees of intensity but with the same message to their governments: deliver or leave.

Ten years after 11 September, Al-Qaeda and its close associates are still active and dangerous but largely on the run. Many other Jihadist groups, wary of any association with Al-Qaeda, have abandoned violence and seek increasingly to be active in politics. In the meanwhile, political Islam is here to stay, from Iran, Lebanon and, some would argue, to Turkey to name just a few cases. And yet, the West in general and the United States in particular still seem to face the politics-Islam coupling as a disease to be avoided at all costs, even if that means political and economic support to autocrats of Mubarak, Saleh or Ben Ali’s sort.

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Whether or not to support democracy unconditionally is an old dilemma for US diplomacy in the region, and Hamas electoral victory in Gaza is usually used as a reminder of how democracy promotion can backfire. If, optimistically put, Egypt holds free and fair elections later this year, and the Muslim Brotherhood performs well, perhaps even by winning the elections, this will be a litmus test for the US. More than a test though, it will constitute an opportunity for US Middle East policy to show that it is willing to distinguish political Islam from Jihadism, and that it can accommodate the former.

The democracy movement in Egypt is described by an Arab diplomat—quoted in The New York Times—as a train fueled by university students and human rights advocates. “Eventually,” the diplomat put it, “those students will have to get off the train and go back to school, and the human rights people will have to get back to work, and you know who will be on the train when it finally rolls into the station? The Muslim Brotherhood.”

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Image © Getty Images

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While this anonymous diplomat importantly highlights that the Muslim Brotherhood is, at the moment, the most powerful, organized opposition movement in Egypt, the station where the Brotherhood’s train will arrive is property of the Egyptian army. Most likely, the military will be just as reluctant to give the Brotherhood a role in future political arrangements as former President Mubarak was. This is where the US can play a influential role—using the leverage that it surely enjoys with the Egyptian army, the US holds the power to persuade the Egyptian generals to accommodate the Muslim Brotherhood’s legitimate claims of participation. Otherwise, free elections and Egypt will not be part of the same equation, which would be a recipe for more turmoil. To date, the signs coming from Washington are not promising.

This article was published in The Majalla 14 February 2011 17

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Guardians of the Revolution?

The role of the army in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions The role of the army in both the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions has been described as crucial, not only for the initial departure of their deposed leaders, but for the future of democracy in these countries. The next challenge will be to ensure that the military leadership remains faithful to the transition the people have asked for.

Paula Mejia

Image © Getty Images

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ince the fall of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, and more recently with Mubarak’s departure from Egypt, the role of the military in ending long-term autocracies has been brought to the fore. In both instances it was the moment when the military chose to side with the people that the fall of these modern day pharos became certain. As the contagion of the Arab spring continues to touch the Middle East— with protests from Libya to Bahrain— observing the militaries of these countries appears to be one of the most significant indicators for predicting the future of their governments.

Certainly, the military leadership cannot afford to stand and watch while developments of this magnitude unfold. In fact, it should come as no surprise that while witnessing an evolving political atmosphere, the military arm of the state will likewise evaluate how it could benefit from supporting change.

As David Sanger explains in a recent article in The New York Times, “Egypt’s military leadership came to the same conclusion that South Korea’s did in the 1980s and Indonesia’s did in the 1990s: The country’s top leader had suddenly changed from an asset to a liability.”

While the armies of Egypt and Tunisia have fundamentally contributed to setting the stage for democratic change, the next challenge will be to ensure that they remain faithful to the transition the people have asked for.

In the case of Tunisia, General Rachid Ammar—now a national hero who goes by the pseudonym of “the man who said no”—recently outlined the role the military would play in Tunisia’s future. General Ammar first underlined that the army would “remain faithful to the constitution and their actions would remain within that framework,” adding that the army “saw itself as the caretaker of the revolution and would see it through to the end.” General Ammar also sent the message that the army “would not reprimand peaceful demonstrations, but it would suppress those that would lead to a political vacuum, because that vacuum would surely lead to another dictatorship.” He finally urged the Tunisians “to allow the interim government to do its job.”

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Although General Ammar has been rightfully praised for the support he gave protestors during the revolution by refusing to shoot them, and thus undermining Ben Ali even further, his description of the military’s role in Tunisia’s future is somewhat problematic. True, by reiterating their commitment to the constitution, the general dispelled lingering fears regarding his or his comrades’ potential political ambitions. Nevertheless, his last two statements have shown a willingness of the military to become involved again in the political future of the country should they see the revolution taking an unwanted direction.

Perhaps it is advantageous to have “a guardian of the revolution.” After all, elements of the old guard have attempted to discredit the possibility of a democratic future in Tunisia. Further, if General Rachid Ammar had wanted to take over politically, he could have easily done so after Ben Ali’s departure. That he chose not to bodes well for a distinction between the military apparatus and the civilian government. However, General Ammar’s understanding of the military’s role is not apolitical and that in itself is a danger for the democratic future of the country.

More pronounced concerns have been raised regarding Egypt’s military. As Tony Karon pointed out in Time magazine, “Egypt’s army, like all others, is not a democracy and its generals are more accustomed to giving instructions than

Custodians of Power Amidst the outpouring of passions throughout the Middle East, as generations of voiceless people make themselves heard, each nation’s military stands guard. It has been demonstrated incontrovertibly in recent weeks that the strongmen leaders of the region invariably rest their fate in the hands of their armed forces. First in Tunisia, then in Egypt (and who knows where next?) the Army has played a pivotal role in the collapse of successive regimes. Hopes are high that the military men in these countries will see their role as that of a custodian, ushering in a brighter, pluralistic future.

Historically, the closest comparison to be made is with events in 1960, in Turkey. There, a military coup d’état resulted in the execution of the prime minister, Adnan Menderes. We have yet to see such grim results mirrored in current events, but the accusations leveled at Menderes and his ministers—of gross corruption and abrogation of the constitution—are familiar.

Significantly, the subsequent military junta that took power in Turkey promised to return power to civilian rule as soon as stability was restored. At the time, as now, predictable reservations were expressed regarding the likelihood of the Army ceding control back to the people.

However, in October 1961, the head of state, General Cemal Gürsel, ended military control.

Sadly, the end of the junta precipitated years of instability and ineffective coalition governments in Turkey.

For the rest of the twentieth century the country was to see further turmoil and an average of one coup every decade. It can only be hoped that a happier outcome awaits the people of Tunisia and Egypt, in the aftermath of this delicate stage of transition.

to negotiating their next move with those under their command.” Following Mubarak’s departure, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces announced the process transition would undertake. “Not just a plan; the plan…” wrote Karon, and “the brisk martial pace of the planned transfer of power is hardly to everyone's taste.”

Opposition figures, including ElBaradei, are concerned for example that they are too unorganized to have a chance at elections if they take place in less than a year, and that such a process would give established groups like Mubarak's National Democratic Party and the Muslim Brotherhood a distinct advantage. As Karon notes, the “absence of a defined role in the military’s transition plans for the civilian political movement” has created significant anxiety.

Surely, the military will continue to play an important role in the future of both Egypt and Tunisia, and everyone should keep a close eye on how they approach the transition process.

However, as Human Rights Watch’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa pointed out, there is more to ending the policed state and ensuring the democratic transition of Tunisia and Egypt than limiting the role of the army.

In his Wall Street Journal article, “Dismantling the Machinery of Oppression,” Eric Goldstein explains that police states doubled as a job program. In other words, that the security apparatus was so entrenched and elusive that the hundreds of thousands of people it employed will also have a lingering impact on the democratic future of these countries. Tunisia, Goldstein reports, had over 200,000 policemen to cover a nation of 11 million people. Often their jobs had little to do with ensuring the safety of civilians, but rather ensuring the power of the autocracy in place. “While many Tunisian police officers and members of the former ruling party held benign jobs, others hounded dissidents, tortured Islamists, and shook down their compatriots. [They did not exit with] Ben Ali and Mubarak, nor will they vanish if they are purged in an indiscriminate de-Ba’athification-style process,” Goldstein argues.

The destabilizing potential of lingering elements of Ben Ali’s security apparatus were perhaps most evident right after Ben Ali’s departure when what can only be described as death squads broke curfew and attempted to terrorize civilians into wishing Ben Ali back. Fortunately, a combination of organized neighborhood militias and a general distrust of Ben Ali prevented their initial sabotage from wreaking excessive havoc.

The comparison of Ben Ali’s departure to that of Mubarak’s is striking. In Egypt, instead of public celebrations, the entire country was on lock-down for fear of repression from these rogue elements.

Although less pervasive, their efforts have not been entirely eradicated. As Goldstein notes, they have infiltrated sit ins and instigated confrontation between protestors and the interim government, in one instance leading to the deaths of two people by shooting and the torching of a police station in Kef province.

Clearly, the military will continue to play an important role in the future of these police states. However, when assessing the prospects of democratic stability in Egypt, Tunisia and beyond, one should not ignore that the fundamentals of the police state do not end with the military but with the police, and their role should also be closely monitored.

This article was published in The Majalla 28 February 2011

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Brothers in Arms

Chávez and Ahmadinejad: one script, two worlds apart Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran want to lead a global anti-American movement, half a world apart. It should come as no surprise because the two populist patriarchs, who refer to each other as "brother," harnessed immense power within their countries and regions using very similar tactics. The question is where this is heading.

Andrés Cala

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ance based on populism and militant anti-Americanism, which they are seeking to expand with their oil wealth.

Chávez and Ahmadinejad should be understood as populist, autocratic politicians who are driven by their survival instinct, not ideology. Populists are pragmatists that render their regimes stable by increasing economic devolution to the masses at the expense of the broader economy, by blaming enemies for everything, by propping up the economic interests of a new ruling elite, and by gradually taking over a state's institutions.

Chavez and Ahmadinejad have correctly concluded their own domestic and international agendas can be furthered by working together. They both seek to globalize their worldview as a deterrent to a perceived American threat. Indeed, their survival is symbiotic.

Image © Getty Images

ast October, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez visited Iran, his ninth trip in 12 years, only days after announcing a deal with Russia to develop a nuclear power program. Chávez calls the Islamic Republic his "second home." His counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says they belong to a revolutionary front stretching from Latin America to East Asia. If at one point they felt alone in their anti-American struggle, a confident Ahmadinejad says, "thereis a long line" of supporters now.

At face value, this bond—that both describe as “brotherly”— defies reason. After all, what could a devout conservative Persian Shia Muslim possibly share with an ultraliberal socialist Caribbean Christian? But the two have brokered a deep alli-

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Spirit of Cooperation The strategic alliance between Iran and Venezuela has blossomed over the past decade. The two parties have overlooked ostensible ideological differences, found common ground in a mutual antipathy towards the United States and concentrated on energy production, economic and industrial collaboration.

Famously, in 2007, the two countries set up a joint fund of around $2 billion—trifling by international standards—to help finance mutual investments in Iran and Venezuela. The fact that not a huge amount of significant investment could be made with such a relatively small sum is less important than the symbolic capital invested in the enterprise.

At the time Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad both made the point that they intended to use the money to assist countries with a common animosity to the US. “"It will permit us to underpin investments ... above all in those countries whose governments are making efforts to liberate themselves from the imperialist yoke," said Chavez.

Not long after, in August 2007, it was agreed that $350 million of the fund would be spent on a deepwater seaport off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, as well as substantial development of cross country infrastructure. Alarm bells started ringing in Washington at the prospect of a concerted anti-American diplomatic The making of caudillos President Chávez has been consolidating power around him for a dozen years now, but then again he started his revolution from scratch, whereas Ahmadinejad has had to work within Iranian power structures to gradually amass authority.

Chávez led a failed coup in 1992 as an army colonel, only to capture the presidency in a landslide electoral victory in 1998. He pushed through a constitutional reform to extend his rule and to legitimize a massive purge of dissidents, starting with the Armed Forces and gradually moving toward Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) the pillar of the county’s economy. He was re-elected in 2000 for the first of his six-year terms and again in 2006.

A coup in 2002 briefly deposed Chávez, but he retook control and blamed the US and Spain. A two-month strike in PDVSA intended to force his resignation only empowered him further.

He fastened his hold on power and in 2006 nationalized oil fields managed by foreign companies, increasing the government share to 60 percent from 40 percent.

Thousands of Venezuela's oil experts fled during his purge and the oil industry has yet to recover. Production has fallen from 3.3 million barrels per day (bpd) before the strike, to around 2.4 million. Mismanagement is eating away at what was once one of the world's biggest oil companies. Recent WikiLeaks revelations seem to confirm that the US shares this view, although recent Chinese investment in Venezuela could reverse the trend.

Like Venezuelans, Iranians had suffered from decades of corruption that facilitated a soft regime change. Ahmadinejad combined a religious hard-line with populist economic policies that appealed to Iran's poor and rural classes to capture the presidency in 2005. Like

effort across Central and South America. Two years later, in 2009, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton reiterated fears, this time over a proposed Iranian “mega-embassy” in Nicaragua. In the event, neither project materialized—the embassy proved to be a complete invention and it seems that the seaport shall now be constructed with South Korean funding.

Ultimately, despite the loud noises made by both Chavez and Ahmadinejad, there has been very little in the way of substantial material investments which might help other countries throw off “the imperialist yoke.” But actual material assistance is of secondary importance in this instance. Both Iran and Venezuela know that the US is touchy about the politics of Latin America—a region more grossly affected by US intervention (both open and covert) than anywhere else in the world. They know that by vociferously declaring common support for other nations opposed to US hegemony, they can shore up their fairly risky position as pariah states.

Much like Iran’s nuclear ambitions, this diplomacy is a case of empty vessels making the most noise. It does not particularly matter that Venezuela and Iran have done practically nothing to cause a real and present danger to US pre-eminence in Latin America, or anywhere else in the world. By beating their drums the loudest and longest these two comparative minnows can create a deterrent against the so-called international community, and live to shout another day.

Chávez, he also consolidated his hold on power by giving security forces broad control over the state. Ahmadinejad was re-elected in 2009 by a majority of Iranians, even though the vote was marred by allegations of fraud. Iran's energy industry, while not suffering as much as Venezuela’s, is also constrained. The country's vast gas wealth, the second biggest in the world, has been squandered through subsidies impeding Iran from becoming a net exporter.

And its oil production has failed to reach pre-revolution highs, despite numerous finds that have since almost tripled proven reserves.

Brotherly bonding Iran and Venezuela have been bonding for well over the last decade. Chávez had a close relationship with former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami—who visited Venezuela three times— based on a shared interest in pushing oil prices higher. Mutual goals evolved into political support and Chávez has staunchly defended Iran's right to develop a peaceful nuclear program.

In 2004 Chávez met Ahmadinejad, a young Tehran mayor and upcoming star in Iranian politics. Ahmadinejad rose to power swiftly and organically within Iran’s power structure, first as a provincial governor and in 2003 as Tehran’s mayor.

With Ahmadinejad as president, Chávez opened Venezuela's doors to Iran. Relatively speaking, bilateral trade soared—although it is still minute by international standards and stands below $100 million. That said, Iranian companies have reportedly invested over $2 billion in Venezuela and hope to increase that to $20 billion. Around 160 bilateral deals in all economic sectors have been signed, from housing and energy to the automobile industry and nanotechnology.

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Moreover, a series of unconfirmed reports have accused Chávez of helping Iran procure advanced double-use technology, explore for uranium and train Hezbollah militants on Chilean soil. The US Department of the Treasury in 2008 designated two Venezuelan citizens—including one diplomat—and two travel agencies as Hezbollah supporters. Chávez will no doubt continue supporting anti-American movements, bordering on legality, to remind the US that he is able to facilitate security threats against US interests, even if he’s not able to carry them out. That is his deterrent; sending a message to Washington that if he is pushed too far, if he feels the US insists on regime change, he will open his doors wide open to terrorists eager to attack the US. Controlling dissent A populist knows that personal survival, not ideology, is the ultimate goal. Retaining power, if not for themselves then for their ego-driven movements, is the objective. This effort is almost always aided by a powerful military that manipulates nationalist feeling in order to hang-on to power.

This is why the populist autocrat will always cultivate a cult of personality. Chávez remains defiant ahead of the 2012 presidential elections in the aftermath of the October parliamentary vote in which the opposition made a strong showing. He has good reason to; the opposition remains broadly fractured and the system has been manipulated for some time to allow Chávez to retain power legally.

Indeed, at the end of 2010 the Chávez-controlled congress passed a series of powers giving its patriarch broad powers to rule by decree, under the cover of streamlining aid to areas devastated by earlier floods. It took Chávez less than a month to suggest that he was willing to give up those additional powers, to placate opponents who accused him of resorting to dictatorial measures.

It is a moot point whether Chávez is willing or not to resort to such tactics to suppress dissent. He has already secured the necessary power to guarantee his hold on power after 2012, whether it’s through legitimate or illegitimate means.

More importantly though, violent repression will remain a viable option for Chávez, a lesson he learned from Ahmadinejad following the 2009 elections in Iran. With the courts, the electoral system, and armed forces under strict control, even violence can be acceptable to a majority of the population willing to sacrifice liberty in the battle against a perceived foreign enemy.

Persecution ethos Anti-Americanism is useful for scapegoating, but in the case of Chávez and Ahmadinejad it's rooted in a justified persecution ethos. Whatever American intentions are, it is a fact that Iran is militarily surrounded by US forces, and that Chávez soon could be, and that both are a target of covert and blatant regime change policies. This has translated into popular liveor-die defense of their revolutions.

Iran has been surrounded for decades, but its breathing room diminished with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and its nascent nuclear program. For Venezuela the situation is relatively novel. Until now, American policy has been keen to dismiss Chávez as a colorful clown, but his military buildup—however small compared to the American arsenal—is as concerning as his dangerous liaisons.

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still could, if the Colombian government decides to revive it by putting it through Congress. The US Air Force, in a draft budget proposal presented to Congress, said the deal offers a "unique opportunity for full spectrum operations throughout South America" to confront "anti-US governments," and although this wording was edited out in the final version, Chávez quickly seized upon the claim as proof that the US was targeting him.

Chávez knows he cannot confront the US militarily, which is where Ahmadinejad comes in. Iran has developed perhaps the world's most formidable expertise in asymmetrical warfare and has been in a constant state of war-readiness in the face of US military superiority.

Chávez is arming and training civilian militias as a first line of defense, mirroring tactics faced by US forces in Iraq at the hand of Iranian-trained and armed militias. He also has good ties with Colombia's guerrillas that could act as a proxy to bog down any American or Colombian offensive. Chávez is also believed to be harboring Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence operatives. He will no doubt flaunt his deterrents if nothing else, to remind the US that he is able to facilitate security threats against US interests.

If this tactic fails, Chávez's last weapon—which he will resort to if his survival depends on it—is playing the energy card, even if it's self-defeating. In the same way that Iran might try to close the Strait of Hormuz, Venezuela could not only shut its own exports, but it could target global energy markets.

Although US oil and derivative imports from Venezuela have decreased in line with demand, they still account for about 10 percent of imports, or about 1.1 million bpd. Venezuela also owns Citgo, the third largest refiner in the US. Colombia, which would be immediately targeted by Venezuela's proxies in case of a conflict, contributes another 3 percent, but its shipments to the US are expected to soar. Plus, any conflict with Venezuela would at the very least complicate deliveries from Brazil and Ecuador, which together contribute around 5 percent of US imports.

Energy is Chávez's best weapon, and it's also Iran's. It raises the cost of regime change and it's a powerful ploy at this juncture when the global economic recovery is so frail, and when the US is already bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's unlikely that Chávez would go as far as risking US sanctions. In fact, even his nuclear power program is unconvincing.

It will take Venezuela at least 15 years to develop and enrichment would be almost impossible. But the threat of nuclear power, as Caracas has learned from Tehran, is almost as powerful as the weapon itself.

The best option now is to break the Iran-Venezuela axis to further undermine Tehran's options. President Barack Obama appears to be doing just that. "We have no incentive nor interest in increasing friction between Venezuela and the US," he said in October. But a more assertive Republican House could change that.

Ahmadinejad and Chávez know this, and that is why confronting Chávez is counterproductive to the US. That is just ammunition for him. To stop Iran, the US must co-opt, not confront, Chávez.

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.”

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The Obama administration has yet to put out a convincing argument as to what exactly it expects to get from its recess appointment of Robert Ford as its ambassador to Syria. So far, the US government has fallen back on an unpersuasive position, that the appointment was crucial to more effective communication with Damascus and better pressing US interests. However, as some informed Syria observers have noted, Ford’s time in Damascus is likely to be spent “delivering démarches” about Syria’s negative policies.

Tony Badran

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n the midst of the crises in Lebanon and Egypt, the return of the US ambassador to Damascus went by with little fanfare.

When news came out of Robert Ford’s recess appointment, some Arab commentators were quick to speculate about the bargaining that must have underwritten the American move. Such a gesture, observers reasoned, must be the result of either US capitulation, or a deal with Damascus. For to simply offer free concessions to intractable adversaries would be nonsensical for a super power.

Muddling the cardinal rule of punishing enemies and rewarding friends seems to have become the hallmark of this administration.

President Barak Obama’s decision to circumvent Congress did not factor in any of these concepts. In fact, it was not at all about Syria—or foreign policy altogether, for that matter.

Rather, it was a decision entirely motivated by and consumed with domestic politics, following the Democratic Party’s massive defeat in the November midterm elections, seemingly without a thought about how it might impact US interests.

Other issues were also ignored. Consider, for instance, that when the recess appointment was made, Syria was in the middle of negotiations with Saudi Arabia whose aim, from Damascus’s perspective, was to force then Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to publicly denounce the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) and end Lebanon’s cooperation with it. Moreover,

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime was expecting Saudi acquiescence to renewed Syrian political primacy in Beirut.

Riyadh was clearly unwilling to deal with Damascus’s shenanigans. When Saudi Arabia saw Syria unwilling to live up to its part of a deal that, according to Hariri, was to hold a conference for national Lebanese reconciliation in Riyadh, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal said the kingdom had pulled out of joint efforts with Damascus to resolve the crisis in Beirut.

The foreign minister said the Saudi-Syrian deal broke down because Syria had not lived up to its promises.

Immediately thereafter, the Syrians and Hezbollah made their move, toppling Hariri’s government. It bears recalling that the US Ambassador to Syria, Margret Scobey, was recalled in 2005 following former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s murder and the consequent toppling of the pro-Syrian Omar Karami cabinet in Beirut. Six years later, the Syrians were backing the re-establishment of a pro-Syrian Lebanese government that would rescind its cooperation with the STL, and simultaneously getting back the US ambassador without the slightest change in their behavior or objectives.

Beyond these outward appearances however, the Obama administration has yet to put out a convincing argument as to what exactly it expects to get from this appointment. So far, it

Delivering Démarches

Image © Getty Images

US ambassador is back in Damascus, but few in Washington see any returns

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has fallen back on a pitifully unpersuasive position, that the appointment was crucial to more effectively communicate Washington’s messages and demands to the Syrians, better pressing US interests in Damascus. As some informed Syria observers have noted, Ford’s time in Damascus is likely to be spent “delivering démarches” about Syria’s negative policies.

However, aside from being flimsy—as the US has repeatedly made its position amply clear to the Syrian leadership—this reasoning becomes doubly weak when we consider that the administration has not clearly articulated what the price of continued Syrian non-compliance would be. By reducing the Syria policy to mere empty rhetoric, the administration risks appearing inconsequential, allowing Assad to ignore it without serious repercussions.

The same lack of seriousness marred the claim by the US embassy in Damascus that Ford’s appointment “represents a tangible American action to try to find common interests between Syria and the United States.” It has been painfully clear that this is a fool’s errand. A quick perusal of the recently leaked US diplomatic cables reveals why.

On three main issues of contention—illegal arms transfers to Hezbollah, lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and shutting down the Syrian-based networks of Iraqi Baathists and foreign fighters—the cables show that the prospect for any serious change in Assad’s behavior is dim.

For instance, the State Department has already delivered a démarche from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the Syrians about their smuggling of ballistic missiles to Hezbollah. The Syrians denied such activity, ignored the démarche, and continued their arms transfers. Not only does this undercut the argument about the need for better communication, but the lack of a credible US response means that Ford’s future complaints will also be ignored.

Damascus also continues to deny the IAEA access to its facilities. While the US has threatened a special investigation, the IAEA has been reluctant to pursue such an option. Again, Syria snubs its nose at the world and pays no price for it.

As for Iraq, one cable, written following a trip to Damascus by coordinator for counterterrorism Daniel Benjamin, shows Syria’s lack of seriousness as well as its contempt for the US—a contempt accentuated by Benjamin’s poor performance during his meetings. Syria laid out a number of demands it wanted delivered up front, while its own end of the deal was left ambiguous and brushed aside into the future, pending further stipulations.

And yet, the Obama administration has not set forth the price for such cocksure disdain for US interests. It has not even contemplated adjusting its posture following the recent provocations in Lebanon. Instead, it continues to repeat—seemingly to itself more than to anyone else—that the appointment should not be viewed a reward to Damascus.

However, just because the administration says it does not make it true. When Syria and its friends topple US allies in Lebanon and Assad gets restored diplomatic relations in return, the administration’s feeble defense rings particularly hollow. Worse still, by not backing its demands with clear consequences for noncompliance, Washington risks appearing dangerously weak.

That is why when all is said and done, the only saving grace in Ford’s ill-advised appointment is that it’s only for one year. Beyond that, however, a US foreign policy that loses sight of the cardinal rule of punishing enemies and rewarding allies cannot succeed.

Blacklisted Syria has been on the US’s list of states that sponsor terrorism since 1979. Relations between the two countries range from pleasantries through gritted teeth to outright mutual hostility. Ongoing issues of US concern include Syria's continuing involvement in Lebanese affairs, its protection of the leadership of Palestinian groups in Damascus, its poor human rights record and the country’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

1941 Post Syrian independence, a US consulate is established in Damascus.

1944 United Sates recognizes an independent Syria, and appoints George Wadsworth as Minister.

1945 Syria appoints its first Minister to the United States and French and British representatives withdraw from Syria on acceptance of a US draft resolution.

1952 A US embassy is established in Damascus and a Syrian embassy in Washington.

1957 US–Syrian relations are shattered following the discovery of a plot by the CIA to attempt to topple Syrian President Adib Shishakli. Embassy officials from both sides are recalled to their countries.

1967 Relations tense after the Israeli-Arab war and Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights.

1974 Warming relationship following US sponsored SyrianIsraeli disengagement agreement, as well as an official visit from US President Richard Nixon to Damascus.

1990-91 Syria cooperates with the United States during the Gulf War. The two countries also consult closely on the Taif Accord, ending the civil war in Lebanon.

1991 Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad accepts President Bush's invitation to a Middle East peace conference, designed to engage in bilateral negotiations with Israel.

1992 Syria helps to secure the release of Western hostages held in Lebanon and lifts travel restrictions on Syrian Jews.

2000 The last of several presidential summits between Bill Clinton and Hafez Al-Assad 2001 In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Syrian Government begins limited cooperation with US in the war against terror. Syria’s opposition to the Iraq War deteriorates relations.

2005 The assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri leads the US to recall its ambassador from Syria.

2006 Local security forces foil an attempted attack on the US embassy in Damascus.

This article was published in The Majalla 14 February 2011 Issue 1562 • March 2011

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• THE ARAB PREDICAMENT REVISITED

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n his book, The Arab Predicament, Professor Fouad Ajami argued that the politics of Arab states between 1967 and 1981 were locked into a formula of stability versus chaos. He described how the threat of instability, Islamist terrorism and western imperialism have all been used as instruments to bolster Arab autocracies. The book, published as Hosni Mubarak ascended to the presidency of Egypt, seemed to be just as relevant 30 years later when the Egyptian people started calling for him to step down. In his interview with American TV network ABC, responding to the demonstrations against him and his regime, Mubarak said that he wanted to resign but could not “for fear of the country falling into chaos." In justification, Mubarak warned of a potential takeover of Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood—using an Islamist threat as a scarecrow to maintain the support from the West. In this way he set out his stall to resist change, encouraged pressure from Israel on America to back his ailing regime, and hoped for compliance from the Egyptian people.

The fear, particularly in America, of a destabilized Egypt had given Mubarak room to effectively establish a police state, with only superficial gestures to democratic reform. The lack of real democracy meant that the government and its president had never been genuinely accountable to the people. Thus the regime never needed to listen to the demands of Egyptians nor learn to adapt to changing social needs. When Mubarak succeeded Anwar Al-Sadat, the new president tried to make a fresh start, but—as Ajami explained in his book—Mubarak “wouldn’t indulge in a full-scale assault against what Sadat had left behind. After all, he himself had been picked by Sadat, brought out of the air force into the political domain.”

Egyptians today are more open to multicultural ideas and are connected and exposed to the outside world via modern media. It is a new generation that has only ever known one political system at home, while being able to see different models elsewhere via the internet. The youth were pivotal in the current protests but Mubarak’s government, which was formed in another era, did not have the capacity to meet their aspirations for change and progress.

Those who seek to push Egypt forward without its president of the past 30 years will need to transform the entrenched system that he has left behind. Mubarak’s regime can be considered the natural development or evolution of the system put in place since the Free Officers revolution in July 1952, when the monarchy was replaced by another form of autocracy; a military rule with a leader crowned with the halo of heroism. Any strategy to take Egypt forward in the post-Mubarak era should be formed in light of the profoundly intermeshed economic, military and political legacies of Egypt after the 1952 revolution.

The Arab Predicament Revisited Middle East unrest and the future of the Arab republic

Popular unrest in the Middle East has raised serious questions about the future of the region.

Unable to hold back the wave of uprisings, Arab governments are faced with tough decisions that will have far-reaching effects on stability, balance of power and the lives of Arab communities from Tunisia to Bahrain.

Images © iStockphoto

Elizabeth Iskander and Minas Monir

The Legacy of Mubarak’s Predecessors, Economic Schizophrenia and a Hero Complex While Gamal Abdul Nasser was not the first leader of Egypt after 1952, he became the symbolic leader of Egypt’s revolution.

After achieving this status, Nasser started to apply the principles of his brand of Arab socialism, beginning with the economy. He nationalized large economic concerns, such as the Suez Canal, to transfer their management into government hands. As the president of a state with a single-party political system, a nationalized media sector and an interventionist economic model, Nasser’s autocracy was secured. Added to this symbolic, economic and political supremacy was his authority over the army by virtue of 26

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his military background, his role in the Free Officers coup and the inclusion of army officers in his government.

After about 20 years of such control and a growing tendency towards cronyism, Egypt’s public sector had become unwieldy and inefficient. The economic and political scene languished in this way until the crisis brought about by Nasser’s death. His successor, Sadat, dissolved the Socialist Union, and following the 1973 war with Israel he gained enough kudos as a heroic military leader to be able to abruptly exchange Nasser’s socialist economic model for a capitalist one. In scrambling to achieve this transformation and distinguish his legacy from that of Nasser, Sadat failed to take other sociological and political factors into consideration when applying this infitah (Open Door) policy without an adequate social or economic foundation.

Corruption rose as controls were removed and the gap between rich and poor increased as a direct consequence of the infitah.

The 1977 Bread Riots—widespread civil unrest which Sadat described as a “revolution of thieves”—can be also attributed to this radical and rapid policy change. Sadat’s use of terminology more appropriate to an earlier feudalistic era illustrates the disconnect that existed between Sadat and the Egyptian people.

This year’s youth protests were the largest seen in Egypt since 1977 and once again the president, this time Mubarak, appeared to be surprised by the demonstrators’ demand that he leave.

From L to R: North Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Jordanian King Hussein and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, wave to the crowd, on 15 June 1989 during a motorcade rally prior to the opening of the Arab Cooperation Council in Alexandria, Egypt

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Mubarak’s presidency saw a further shift in economic policy, the hallmark being privatization—completing the circle after the initiatives instituted by Nasser. Wealth became concentrated in the hands of a few entrepreneurs with links to the inner circle of the government. Mubarak didn’t fix the damage caused by the abrupt changes of his predecessors and exacerbated problems by incorporating businessmen into government and the National Democratic Party (NDP).

Perhaps the most infamous example is Ahmed Ezz, the steel magnate who was the chairman of the NDP until the start of February.

The last government even became known as the businessmen government, because most of its members were business moguls—some of whom now face interrogation by the Attorney General because they are accused of abusing their positions in government to sell government land cheaply to their own private companies. This conflict of interests between business and government led to the failure to protect workers’ rights and to the misuse of billions of wasted Egyptian pounds on failed projects. For example, Muhammad Nasr Eddin, the former minister of irrigation, said that the state pumped 14 billion pounds into the Toshka project (a plan to direct water from Lake Nasser to one of Egypt’s driest areas for agricultural purposes) “without any recognizable outcome.”

Republic-Kingdom: The Jumlukia Debate In July 2000 Abdul Rahman Rashid, the editor in chief of AlMajalla Arabic at that time, invited Saad Al-Din Ibrahim, a notable Egyptian activist and thinker, to write an article about possible scenarios for bequeathing the presidency in major Arab republics. In reflecting upon the trends of political leadership in the Arab world, Ibrahim noticed a dominant pattern among Arab republics—a concept he termed jumlukia, or “republicarchy,” in which sons inherit government authority from their fathers in republic states.

Ibrahim went on to examine the implications of jumlukia in five Arab countries, including Egypt, where the article was banned upon release. The following day, Ibrahim reported that 200 policemen trapped him in his own home, arrested him and took him to an unknown location. The ideas expressed in the article were clearly seen as a threat to the Mubarak regime, which at that time had been in place for two decades.

Today, transitional Arab republicarchies are under the threat of collapse as we witness popular protests from Tunisia to Yemen.

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Security, Stability It was not only on the economic front that Egypt has had to absorb abrupt and extreme change. Egyptians have been forced to grapple with basic questions about identity. While Egypt was the “beating heart” of the Arab world in the time of Nasser, it was subsequently isolated after the Camp David agreement— when Egyptians saw their “heroic leader” of 1973 shaking hands with the perpetual enemy in the time of Nasser: Israel.

In seeking to construct an image for his presidency, Mubarak also used his military credentials as an air force pilot in the 1973 war. To support this he began to construct a discourse of stability and moderation, perhaps because he took over the presidency in the middle of political chaos. As Sadat’s vice president he had to handle the leadership of a nation shocked by the assassination of their president in 1981, whilst coping with a street war with Islamist groups and the policy of exclusion by its Arab neighbors.

Domestically, Mubarak’s main concern was to calm the waters of the unsettled period following Sadat’s assassination. He declared a state of emergency, which gave him full power to arrest the members of jihadist groups spread throughout Egypt.

The interior ministry brought back its “iron fist” policy used under Nasser and concentration camps—shut by his predecessor—were opened again to incarcerate the Islamists that Sadat had released. Thirty years later and Mubarak still appeared to be trapped in this time-period. Emergency laws were never lifted and the police state became entrenched, as was the discourse on Mubarak’s leadership as a presidency of stability.

The stagnation of the past 30 years is behind much of the fear concerning what a post-Mubarak Egypt could look like—how will the country react?

It is this prioritization of security over social freedoms and democratic development that ironically earned Mubarak his popularity in the West. He was viewed as a guardian of regional stability having crushed the Islamist groups in the 1990s and maintained the peace accords with Israel. At the same time, Mubarak’s government used Israel and Islamist groups, largely in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood, to justify its heavy handed security service and continued state of emergency. The Muslim Brotherhood was allowed to remain as a part of the domestic political equation in order to be employed internationally as the scarecrow, which embodies the alternative that the West would have to face if they failed to support him and his government. Paradoxically, it is mistaking security bought with oppression and corruption for real peace and stability that was one of the key contributing factors to the January protests, which took the world and the Egyptian government by surprise.

Succession and Indications of a Coming Crisis This false sense of security resulted in the inability to read indications that the Egyptian street would not remain passive. With Mubarak’s health obviously failing, the question of succession increasingly gripped Egyptian analysts and the wider Egyptian people. The consensus was that Muabarak’s son Gamal would “inherit” the presidency from his father. In an article published

by The Majalla in July 2000—which led to the magazine being banned in Egypt—Saad Eddin Ibrahim coined the term jumlukiyya, or republicarchy, which pointed to the transformation of the Egyptian system into a new monarchy while it is still constitutionally defined as a republic. A similar process was at

The Arab Predicament Widely regarded as a seminal work in the field of political science related to the Middle East, The Arab Predicament was Fouad Ajami’s first published book—appearing just a year after he took up the position of director of Middle East Studies at John Hopkins University, in 1980 .

The book is held in such high regard chiefly due to the academic rigor with which Ajami interrogates the socio-political discontent which afflicted the Arab world following the so-called Al-Naksa (setback)—the military defeat to Israel endured in 1967—as well as the limited victories of 1973.

Arriving soon after the ousting of the Shah in Iran, Ajami also presciently examines the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Arab nations, largely attributing its momentum to a failure of secular political thought.

Critics have suggested that the notion of a blanket crisis, covering the many and diverse nations of the Arab world, raises problems. As does Ajami’s status as an American Arab, which places him in a predicament of his own—perhaps keen to play down the influence of international interference in the Middle Eastern malaise.

He is also the victim of a curious irony; that his name in Arabic can literally be taken to mean “non-Arab”.

Nevertheless, Ajami’s dissection of intellectual history in his early work has laid the foundations of a stellar academic career. The author of numerous books and the winner of a prestigious MacArthur Prize fellowship, he is a frequent commentator on international politics in world-renowned periodicals and journals. Ultimately, The Arab Predicament has stood the test of time and is rightly seen as an indispensible guide to the politics of the Middle East, for any serious student of the region. the time underway in Syria after a constitutional amendment was implemented in order to deliver authority to Bashar, the son of Hafez Al-Assad.

In Egypt, the state propaganda machine played the stability card and tried to pave the way for succession by portraying Gamal as the only figure able to continue the stable regime of his father. On Al-Jazeera TV, on 2 February, Muhammad Sabra—previously Mubarak’s office manager for 18 years—exposed the details of the plan for Gamal Mubarak’s succession.

When Sabra was in office, he was asked to forward the daily presidential reports to Gamal. The president’s son—who was working for a London branch of the Bank of America at the time—suddenly became the head of the political committee of the NDP. Then his father called for the controversial constitutional amendments of articles 76 and 77, which were seen publicly as an attempt to legitimize succession.

But the government clearly failed to understand that for many people the prospect of Gamal Mubarak continuing where his father’s presidency left off was a final straw. This prospect closed the door on an opportunity for a change in the character of the government. Without the hope of change people had

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nowhere to channel the frustrations emanating from economic hardship and political repression. This has been clear in the gradual increase in protests, for example, those in Al-Mahalla in 2008 and the springing up of resistance groups such as the April 6th movement—culminating in the extraordinary events of this year.

Looking into Egypt’s Future Undoubtedly, Egypt is witnessing a historic moment. The protests that began on 25 January have pushed people to reconsider the present and future shape of Egypt, and the Middle East’s most populous state now finds itself at a crossroads.

While there have been indications of a changing mood on the Egyptian street in recent years, the timing and scale of these protests and the reactions of different parties involved, were unpredictable. Though Mubarak has gone, the situation still remains in flux, making it difficult to predict the possibilities for political change and the implications for policy in the short term. But regardless of the developments in the coming weeks and months, the lessons of the past 60 years should be heeded in creating a political system to meet the requirements of the Egyptian people and to avoid further violence and upheaval.

To achieve this it is necessary that the Egyptian government learns to connect with its people and not impose change, whether economic, ideological or political, simply from the top down.

This is particularly crucial when the directive is less about the needs of the country and more of an impulse to distinguish the legacy and heroism of its former president. Since Mubarak resigned under pressure from millions of Egyptian demonstrators, a military high council has taken power in Egypt and a new history is being written. Three steps are required to achieve progress in the next stage in order to break the endless circle of mistakes.

Firstly, the curbing of presidential authority by amending the constitution to limit the number of terms the president can hold office and the broadening of the field for potential presidential candidates. Secondly, the end of the state of emergency, which undermines the widespread aspiration to create a civil state governed by the rule of law. Thirdly, the distinct separation of the military and executive political bodies, so that they become a check and balance on each other instead of simply one and the same leadership—this third point may prove to be the biggest challenge in the long term.

Clearly there will need to be an ongoing national dialogue to move Egypt forward. The next president should source his legitimacy from the people rather than in representing himself as a military hero or pioneer of a dramatically new political system. There are two crucial outcomes of what has happened in Egypt that could potentially impact on the future of all Arab politics. The first is the rejection of the stability versus chaos paradigm that has governed both the international relations of the Middle East, as well as the domestic politics of several Arab nations. The second is limiting presidential authority and therefore making the fate of each Arab nation less conditional on the person of the president. While this will generate uncertainty in the short term, in the long term national stability has the potential to be broadly based, rather than imposed from the top through the means of a single autocrat.

Thirty years on, Ajami, who has become a prominent scholar in North American circles and a political advisor to several American administrations, continues to follow Egyptian affairs Issue 1562 • March 2011

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carefully and with great enthusiasm. Despite a possible rejection of his earlier thesis, Ajami’s current writings fully resonate with the events in Egypt, if not the entire Middle East. Of the five republicarchies existing today, Egypt and Iraq are gone. Libyan leader, Muammar Qadhafi, has lost the entire eastern side of his country to popular revolt. Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh is under severe pressure from the south to step down. And Bashar AlAssad of Syria, where the concept of hereditary presidency originated, and which inspired Saad Eddin Ibrahim to write about the republicarchy trend, may have his turn yet.

In a February 2011 article for Newsweek, Ajami writes, “The realists tell the Arabs that they are playing with fire, that beyond the prison walls there is danger and chaos. Luckily for them, the Arabs pay no heed to these realists, and can recognize the “soft bigotry of low expectations that animates them.

Arabs have to quit railing against powers beyond and infidels and foreign conspiracies. For now they are out making and claiming their own history.”

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.

Minas Monir – Cairo-based journalist, translator and writer. The author of several books, his main areas of expertise are Egyptian affairs and political theology.

This article was published in The Majalla 28 February 2011

The Shifting Nature of Egypt’s Constitution The Egyptian constitution has undergone a series of amendments since it came into force in 1971 once President Anwar Al-Sadat took the presidency. After years of political repression under Nasser, Egyptians found some reprieve under their new president, who, among other things, formally established a multiparty political system, replaced Egypt’s original label as a socialist country with a democratic one, and succumbed to the results of a public referendum conducted in May 1980, which requested that Islamic law be the “the source of legislation.”

The most controversial amendments, however, took place in 2005 when Mubarak amended articles 76 and 77 to drastically restrict the criteria for presidential candidates. According to the amendments, presidential candidates would have to be approved by at least 250 members of parliament, continuously dominated by the president’s National Democratic Party (NDP), and they must belong to one of the recognized political parties.

With such an impossible task set ahead of them, as well as the likelihood that Mubarak would pass his position onto his son, most politicians and their parties found themselves a political straightjacket—coerced and stripped of any power.

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Corporate America is its Economy’s Cancer Why exports should be at the center of America’s economic recovery Iran and Iraq have been intrinsically linked for centuries, and recent months have seen trade ties only strengthen between the two neighbors. While more unrestrained trade may bring mutual benefit to each economy, serious concerns linger.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain

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he debate over America’s long term economic recovery is exhausting. Republicans want smaller government, as long as they are not running it. Democrats want to limit spending, as long as they don’t control the White House. Both parties seem uncreative. They sometimes talk about innovation, at other times about education reform.

But perhaps what leaders from both sides of the aisle are really missing is a single idea: America should reinvent itself as an export-led economy. Export creates jobs and brings fortunes to America and Americans. In his State of the Union, President Barak Obama talked about the creation of 300 thousand jobs because of trade deals with Asian countries. He also expressed interest in education reform.

But experts have shot holes in both arguments. On the agreement of selling China $45 billion worth of exports, many analysts argued that this potential surge in US exports comes on the back of America finally transferring aircraft technology that the Chinese are determined to copy. Once China can manufacture its own jets, Americans will be taking their trips in airplanes “made in China.”

On education, many argue that America’s schooling suffers from fundamental flaws. Even where the government has shown the money, students are still low-ranked by international standards.

Mind-boggling, isn’t it? Not really.

America falling behind in export, innovation and education is all related. The reason is simple. Just look at Germany and learn why the Germans—a developed nation with no cheap la-

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bor—have remained competitive in manufacture and exports.

The Germans understood that, for a developed country to remain competitive, the model of shareholders must be replaced with that of stakeholders.

Shareholders are people who buy stocks of a given company.

They are never interested in the long term health of the company. They seek instant profit. When the company’s returns decline, shareholders jump to the next company with best revenues. The more yields a company returns on its stocks, the bigger bonuses CEOs receive. As long as shareholders and CEOs make easy money, companies are depicted as prospering.

This model is wrong. There is no eternal cash cow in the world. Take American airlines that have been producing profit for a long time, more often than not through back scaling or turning capital assets into liquidity.

Meanwhile over the past decade, American airlines have shrunk seating space, scrapped their free meals and started charging for luggage. Since American airlines monopolize domestic flights, they have been locked in a competition over who offers crappier service, at lower prices, and still turn profit.

Compared to world competitors, no one wants to fly American airlines overseas. But hey, lobbyists convinced Congress to approve the “Fly America Act.” Now, for any governmentfunded business with trips overseas, federal contractors have to fly American. In a sense, lobbyists of American airlines succeeded in imposing tariffs of sorts on government-funded trips.

Partial government protection, however, does not mean that American airlines are competitive worldwide or prosperous as business models.

In Germany, famed car factories felt the heat of globalization and world competition. Instead of scaling back or liquidating capital assets to turn maximum profit on every quarter, German automakers invited to meetings shareholders, workers unions, government officials, education professionals and mayors of cities that host factories among others. All of these have stakes in seeing German car industry remain competitive and prosperous. This makes them stakeholders.

Automakers then told everyone that their factories were the cash cow that the German economy needed to survive. Therefore, it was everyone’s responsibility to make concessions here or there to ensure the industry remained competitive worldwide. When everyone agreed to compromise, German cars maintained their high quality at competitive prices. Car factories remained open in Germany, despite some off-shoring, and next to them in German cities, Research and Development continued alongside educational institutions.

America’s shareholding business model, also known as Corporate America, has grown alone like cancer that killed all the cash cows. But America’s economy retained some vital organs that have survived so far, like the huge consumer market. This organ cannot survive independently of manufacturing, which puts money in consumers’ hands. Still the Corporate America cancer invented yet another ingenious survival tactic: National Debt and household credit cards.

Debt, however, can go only so far. In September 2008, the debt bluff was called and America’s house of cards fell. Now the government has stepped in to give a hand, but even the government cannot live off debt forever.

The cure for America’s economy will have to get rid of the Corporate America cancer by shrinking it back to the size of Issue 1562 • March 2011

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Equal Rights Corporate America has a curious history and one that is inextricably linked to the development of the modern United States. Today, it is difficult to think of a USA that isn’t economically beholden to the power of giant corporations, but it was only in the twentieth century that corporate power really took hold in America.

Corporations could not have achieved such sway without the incredible protection afforded them by the change in law that came with an amendment to the American constitution. On 9 July 1868, in a landmark event for civil rights, the 14th amendment declared that: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

This was in response to legislature in some southern states that had sought to find loopholes in the law after the abolishment of slavery. In essence the amendment was introduced to ensure equal rights for recently emancipated slaves.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the Supreme Court had ruled that American corporations were entitled to the same rights and protections as human beings, as stipulated in the 14th amendment. As a result the corporation became, to all intents and purposes, a legal person.

The consequences of this legal curiosity are still being felt today, not just in America, but across the world. Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT, Noam Chomsky, neatly sums up the central concern of the corporation’s vaunted legal status. “Corporations were given the rights, of immortal persons. But then special kinds of persons.

Persons who had no moral conscience. These are a special kind of persons which are designed by law, to be concerned only for their stockholders. And not, say, what are sometimes called their stakeholders, like the community or the work force.” other stakeholders. Limiting bank and credit card company risk-taking adventures and curbing corporate lobbying power was an Obama step in the right direction. Next is cultivating the concept of stakeholding and making it hard for Corporate America to cheaply manufacture overseas and dump products in American markets.

When America’s manufacturers come back home, the market will fix education and take care of innovation, just like in the past when shareholders were as responsible as everybody else.

This article was published in The Majalla 7 February 2011 31

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Is China the Next Tunisia?

The lessons Beijing learned from Tunis The lessons Beijing learned from Tunis

With rising unemployment among its youth and a food crisis looming on the horizon, China, at first glance, appears to be as ripe for change as Tunisia was on the eve of the Jasmine Revolution. China, however, is all-too aware of the similarities.

Michael Martin

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he spark that ignited the recent North African uprisings, 26-year-old Tunisian youth Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight because of unemployment. Bouazizi has lesser-known precedents in what is increasingly Africa and the Middle East's most important business partner—the People's Republic of China.

Late last year, unemployment also pushed an unnamed 22-year-old university graduate living in China's Northeast to jump seven stories to her death, according to Chinese newspaper People's Daily.

Bouazizi's suicide drew attention to a part of the globe that international analysts and news consumers are now recognizing was previously ignored by its own leaders and foreign press.

Never penetrating the international consciousness at all, the Chinese suicide victim remains unnamed.

But after the recent North African uprisings, analysts are highlighting the striking similarities between Bouazizi and his unnamed Chinese counterpart. They say that Beijing is aware that despite China's overall burgeoning economic success, unemployment—particularly among the youth—and food supply concerns in the People's Republic both threaten to destabilize the country as they did in Tunisia and Egypt.

“The catalyst for the Tunisian revolution was the deep feeling of frustration of the youth—the absence of economic opportunities,” said Malika Zeghal, professor of Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life at Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Zeghal is French, of Tunisian origin.

Drawing a comparison with China, Zeghal described the People's Republic as a place “where the economy is still expanding at a rapid rate, and this in spite of all the difficulties experienced by the youth.”

Commenting on the unrest in Tunisia as it rose to a boiling point in early January, Olivier Kempf, a professor specializing in NATO at Parisian university Sciences Po, wrote an article comparing Tunisia with China entitled “Tunisia, an omen for China?”

Comparing both nations, Kempf's chief observation was that both the Tunisian and Chinese populations are “relatively educated, frustrated by, above most political considerations, difficulties in finding work, and above all, profiting from the overall growth of their countries of several years.”

Unemployment among Chinese university graduates is increasing, despite a series of measures in recent years to increase their employment rates and encourage professional training, according to Yanzhong Huang, PhD, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), who noted that in 2008 China's unemployment rate reached over 12 percent, and that in 2009, more than 25 percent of university graduates were unable to find jobs.

This kind of large group of educated, jobless youth has been a recipe for uprisings in China's recent past, Huang explained.

“In China, the May 4 Movement in 1919 and the June 4 Movement in 1989 were both initiated and led by university students.

While the new generation of Chinese students has become more

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pragmatic and less idealistic, having their materialistic hope shattered could nurture a strong sense of marginalization and deprivation, which may lead to calls for radical social change.”

Recent revolutions are creating the potential for a strong group of frustrated, jobless youth more feasible. Prior to the two revolutions, youth unemployment in Tunisia reached around 30 percent, and in Egypt it reached 25 percent, according to estimations from multiple sources.

And Beijing is aware of the potential comparisons with faraway Africa. After protests started raging in Tahrir Square and the government blocked all internet connection—realizing the role of Twitter and Facebook in mobilizing Egyptian youth, China also blocked all searches of “Egypt” on a social media network popular with its young people—Sina Weibo—the Chinese version of Twitter.

China's response to a recent drought may represent another sign that Beijing is following current events in North Africa and is worried by the social unrest caused by failing to put bread on a nation's tables.

A special alert from the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) last Tuesday, on 8 February, noted that a dry winter sweeping across the northern Chinese provinces is bound to affect agricultural production, particularly in provinces charged with producing the bulk majority of China's wheat supply as well as other food staples.

After Beijing hadn't seen any precipitation for 108 days—the longest dry spell in some 60 years, Xinhua reported that the Beijing Weather Modification Office shot silver iodide into the clouds in nine counties surrounding the nation's capital on 9 February. Beijing's Central Business District saw a brief period of snowfall until 10 February in the afternoon. Another brief period of snowfall hit the city on the morning of 12 February.

The Beijing Meteorological Bureau confirmed that in the first instance, snowfall was at least partially triggered by the authorities, explaining that atmospheric conditions need to be relatively close to those necessary for natural snowfall before operations can be conducted.

The bureau also reported on 10 February that several different provinces mentioned in the UN alert also experienced temporary rainfall after a long period of no precipitation. An Agence France-Presse report out of Henan province, one major wheat-producer deeply affected by the drought, confirmed with Henan local officials that weather modification measures had been carried out.

Wheat production represents a major quandary for the Chinese government. China's food supply concerns arise at the tail end of Egypt's revolution, provoked as much by a wheat crisis as the highly symbolic suicide of one unemployed Tunisian youth.

Unlike China, which has produced around 95 percent of its own total agricultural consumption for the past several years, Egypt's main supplier of wheat—Russia—responded to a flurry of fires and droughts by halting wheat exports to Egypt until December 2010. The UN's FAO announced that between June and August of 2010, global wheat prices doubled. Pressure weighed down heavily on a population designated by the World Bank as “lower middle income.”

After 30 years in office, with a regime marked by an elongated period of stagnation, police brutality and corruption, analysts say it was a natural disaster in Russia and less wheat in Egyptian bellies that finally ousted Mubarak.

Food shortages may anger Chinese citizens who haven't benefited as wildly from China's rapid-fire development, and color revolutions in North Africa may fluster the Chinese government. But there's still no indication that Tunisia's monumental uprising will go farther East.

"There are simmering state-society tensions in both countries.

But the existence of these structural similarities does not necessarily lead to a color revolution in China," CFR's Huang said.

"In addition to the above structural factors, we have to take into account the choices made by the repressed, the government responses, and the strategic interaction between the two."

Beijing's recent gestures to avoid a food crisis show that the nation is positioning itself with its people in order to avoid instability—even if that means tampering with the weather.

Citing China's several anti-corruption measures in the past several years as an example, Kempf also drew a line between the Chinese government and the Ben Ali regime, where a great deal of national assets were tightly guarded by the ruling family's friends and relatives.

“The Chinese regime seems much more lucid than the kleptocracy of Ben Ali,” he said.

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 in The Majalla 22 February 2011 Commodity Food Price Index Monthly Price

Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=food-price-index China Unemployment Rate

Source: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/ Unemployment-Rate.aspx?Symbol=CNY

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• THE HUMAN CONDITION

Grassroots and Palmshoots The new wave of environmentalism in the Gulf

The environmentalist movement has been growing in the Gulf in recent years. Resource stressed and polluted, these conditions have motivated citizens to become more involved in environmental protection.

The Gulf’s brand of environmentalism however, is not akin to that of the West although it has been inspired by it, rather local culture and politics have shaped this movement in an original way.

Glada Lahn

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esource stress, pollution and climate change all threaten to aggravate instability and inequality in the Gulf, but have so far failed to capture public imagination. Now a wave of grassroots initiatives is trying to change this. Springing up in response to local problems, often employing Islamic narrative and spreading through Facebook, the movement is characteristic of the Gulf ’s new generation and its rapidly evolving approach to ecology.

“It’s growing like crazy” says the effusive Khayra Bundakji of the environmental movement in Saudi Arabia’s coastal city of Jeddah. A surprising fact, perhaps, in a country not known for its ecological values. What’s more, women are leading the movement. Of the 17 groups Bundakji found active in Jeddah on environmental issues, 15 of them were initiated by women.

Bundakji, a computer science major and internet blogger, founded Faseelah (palmshoot), Effat University's first Islamic environmentalism organization in 2010. She also works with Naqa’a (purity), the brainchild of two nursing students, which calls itself a youth driven “environmental enterprise.” Naqa’a’s educational campaigns emphasize “the three Rs”—reduce, reuse, recycle—of the western mantra, the Islamic duty of stewardship over the environment, as well as concepts of purity and reining in excessive consumption.

Despite these examples, the environmental movement is still a small world, composed mainly of the educated middle class.

Exposure to ecologically conscious societies in the West and efforts in other Gulf cities are the most commonly cited influences feeding the Gulf ’s environmental movement, according to Bundakji, who lived in the US and Dubai for 11 years.

Environmental campaigns in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are at least a decade ahead and have been impacted by the large expatriate community (over 80 percent of the population). A former government official, Habiba Al-Marashi, established the Emirates Environmental Group in 1991 and has become a onewoman tour de force in railing against over consumption and engaging the private sector in sustainability drives. The international World Wildlife Fund (WWF) opened its first office in a Gulf State in Abu Dhabi in 2001, where it conducts conservation projects and tracks the heavy environmental footprint of UAE citizens. High-profile events such as the Sharjah Art Biennale, initiated by Sheikh Qasimi whose 2007 theme was ecological art, have also raised awareness in the region.

“People in the West often view these initiatives as either a drop in the ocean in countries which rely on oil exports or as plain hypocrisy because of their high levels of consumption”

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says Professor Jeremy Bendik-Keymer, a former lecturer in environmental ethics at the American University of Sharjah.

But he cautions against cynicism. “In fact, what you see in the Emirates is just an intensified version of the material system we have in the US…the advantage they have is their ‘can do’ attitude and the capital to back it up.”

While the glamour of green activity in the UAE may have offered inspiration to Jeddah, it was the tragic floods of November 2009 that really kick-started local activism. One group, Muwatana, began as an emergency volunteer relief effort for the victims and has become active in subsequent local environmental improvements such as beach clean-ups—a look at its Facebook page reveals 1,751 members and it has served as an initial network and model for other groups.

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“Before the floods, there was interest in the environment but it was not considered a priority” says Dr Majdah Aburas, member on the board of directors of the Saudi Environmental Society (SENS), an organization begun in 2006 under the auspices of Prince Turki bin Nasser. “After the floods, people became a lot more active—SENS organized a campaign of 900 volunteers from many different [informal] groups to help with the clean-up operation—and there was much more interest in acting to improve their local environment.”

SENS is now leading a national cleaning campaign in collaboration with the Mayor of Jeddah and Prince Sultan bin Salman’s Charitable Heritage Foundation, which explains the penalties for dumping waste but also regenerates deprived neighborhoods. “Every Thursday, we are in a historical area of Jeddah” says Aburas, herself a renowned specialist in the bio-remediation of crude oil pollution on desert soil. “One of the projects is getting volunteers to redesign a small garden in a neglected, poor area that will both fit with traditional aesthetics and provide a nice recreational space for poor families.”

Most volunteers are young people—from the ages of 4 to 30.

And yes, SENS abides by Saudi law and custom in separating the male and female volunteers during activities. “This is why we will be successful” she says “because we take into account tradition and social development needs as well as the environment.” Al-Marashi is likewise impressed by the volunteering spirit in the UAE. “For example, the recent Clean Up UAE campaign witnessed the participation of 20,000 volunteers across the country who collected 91 tons of waste!” she says.

Greenpeace-style activism this is not. Political status is also ambiguous. Aburas terms groups like Muwatana “voluntary committees” as they do not have status as organizations under Saudi law. Can we even use the terms grassroots or civil society? Dr Chris Davidson, author of Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond, thinks not in the case of groups in the UAE, “you will find that they usually have patronage from the rulers and it would be very hard for them to publicize government crimes against the environment…it doesn’t help that the press is one of the most controlled in the region.”

“We can’t speak of a coherent civil society movement in the UAE as such—because of the politics, that is tricky” says Bendik-Keymer, “but we can see three broad areas of environmental action in the UAE: community philanthropy, ‘green business’ initiatives, and stunningly futuristic engineering projects.”

Under the first category come groups like EEG and Emirates Diving that organize voluntary beach and reef clean-ups, and social efforts like Adopt-a-Camp—a volunteer group helping to improve sanitary conditions in the South Asian worker camps. The second is manifest in the media saturation with environmental claims from the business sector which vary from greenwash to seriously innovative conservation projects. The third, like Masdar City (a sustainable city planned for 2025) and the associated solar farm, have an effect on people’s minds according to Bendik-Keymer, “they could send a powerful message about the kind of civilization the Emirates aspires to be.”

In spite of their comparative newness and less sophisticated PR, the Saudi initiatives benefit from a more investigative press and the much larger indigenous university-aged population.

They have steered clear of any conflict with the state but informal conversations reveal disdain for local management of the environment and concerns about the lack of mechanisms for 37

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• THE HUMAN CONDITION

accountability. Nevertheless, all express hope for more support from the national government and senior figures of society in putting this to rights.

Professor Hussain Fouad Sindi, project manager with independent Saudi think tank Al-Aghar, is leading a professional team in drawing up a practical water strategy for the Kingdom.

He went on national television last year to criticize both the bureaucracy for mismanaging water and the general public for wasting it. But he stresses, “our King is determined to tackle the issue [of water] no matter what it takes, that I am personally sure of. So, when finished, an executive report of this study will be handed to His Majesty.”

Kuwaitis, who have a longer tradition of open political debate and suffered some of the worst effects of oil pollution during the 1990-91 Gulf War, are more outspoken. Last May, 15,000 students were reported to have staged a two-day walk out over heavy industrial emissions in Kuwait’s Umm Al-Haiman area, which are thought to be causing cancer and respiratory illnesses. This and a public demonstration by 200 people was organized by the local volunteer environmental protection committee and supported by Kuwait’s Greenline Environmental Group—an NGO started in 2001 by journalist Khalid al-Hajeri, who frequently lambasts the government on environmental issues in the national and regional press.

Interest in the environment is most often provoked not by global dialogue on climate change or biodiversity but health and business risks closer to home. As one Saudi scientist put it, “ok, we need to reduce Co2 emissions but we have to put the national interest first…we should focus on reducing sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide—have you seen satellite pictures of the huge orange cloud over Riyadh? This is causing serious health problems.”

The impacts of pollution are increasingly discussed by the Gulf ’s media. From an American study reported in October estimating some 600 air pollution-related deaths in the UAE in 2007, to the official Iranian announcement in December that around 3,600 people a month die from smog inhalation in Tehran. Poor sewerage treatment also poses a risk to the reputations of richer Gulf countries. In 2009, raw sewage dumped in Dubai’s storm drains closed the luxury Jumeira Beach resort. Lake Salwa in Qatar is another example of rapid development outpacing infrastructure. “This is threatening to pollute the already dwindling national water table” warns Doha-based UNESCO project officer Mark Sutcliffe.

Bundakji is a strong believer in the power of grassroots driven movements to promote real change in society towards sustainability. She attended a think tank workshop prior to the Saudi Water and Power Forum (SWPF) last October and says; “I met so many passionate ministers and heads of companies like Philips and GE who would love more attention and time dedicated to these issues. However, I feel that it will take the voluntary leaders to push influential [government] bodies in the direction.”

She immediately saw the empowering role SENS could play in coordinating and focusing what she feels is a fragmented and ill-equipped movement. She liked Aburas’s reference to SENS as a “tent” for the informal committees. “What would really help us is if SENS could list all the different groups with websites and contact details on one page of its website.”

“It is helpful that Facebook is such a big part of our culture, because causes and campaigns spread at an exponential rate through it.” However, she warns, “the majority of the initia-

Emirati Inspiration The trend towards environmental responsibility and local eco-activism in Saudi Arabia is encouraging, but it is the neighboring United Arab Emirates that has a real head start in the region. The Emirates Environmental Group (EEG) was set up in 1991 by Habiba Al-Marashi, and its work has gone a long way in changing entrenched attitudes.

Ostensibly simple campaigns to collect paper, aluminum cans, glass and plastic have made a real difference, as have the 193 recycling centers set up throughout the country. Putting the emphasis on education, since 2001 the EEG has run environmental workshops in schools, which have enjoyed great popularity amongst UAE students.

Today, by running nationwide projects such as the Million Tree Campaign (which is part of the international Billion Tree Campaign), the EEG has helped to place the UAE at the forefront of the ecological movement in the Gulf.

As everywhere else in the world, the task facing UAE environmentalists is a daunting one. The simple stated aim of the EEG is “to encourage the public at large to accept that each individual has a responsibility to help preserve and protect the environment.” Far easier said than done, but by diligence and commitment— epitomized in the founder, Al-Marashi—the group continues to be a source of regional, and international, inspiration. tives are based on half-baked ideas” not necessarily based on a solid understanding of the local context and ecology. “For instance, many an Earth Day has been celebrated by planting trees that have not been proven to be indigenous to the region.

The fall of such initiatives comes when the initiator realizes they don't have enough time to educate themselves on local conservation needs, let alone the masses.”

Nationwide education is Aburas’ ambition. Her mission is to convert SENS into an independent not for profit company and get the government and some private sector sponsors to sign up to its ten-year strategy aimed at a transition in behavior in the country. “This would be the first national awareness program for sustainable development in the Arab World; it would use many tools but concentrate on schools to not only raise environmental understanding but change habits in the country.”

As a way forward for fledgling environmental groups where legal political status is not an option, the idea of social enterprise is catching on. Many are seeking company, rather than charity status. This fits with both the religious support for voluntary philanthropic work and government support for private sector-led development and avoids the politically antagonistic field of the lobby group or even the NGO. Glada Lahn – Research Fellow specializing in energy and development at Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) in London.

This article was published in The Majalla 01 January 2011

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The Road Ahead

Women’s rights and the future of Iraq The unstable security situation in Iraq already made women particularly vulnerable. As violence spread across the country, women’s mobility and access to the public sphere was dramatically reduced. Still, Iraqi women are doing their best to hold their own. Will opportunities created by and for women be allowed to continue?

Isobel Coleman & John T.Chen

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ivisions between secularists and Islamists represent a major fault line in Iraqi society in the post-Saddam Hussein years. Indeed, ideological conflict is enshrined in Iraq’s new constitution, adopted in 2005: while several clauses guarantee personal freedoms and gender equality, Article 2 specifies Islam as the official religion of the state and a basic source of legislation. It also states that “no law shall be enacted that contradicts the established provisions of Islam.”

How tensions between secularism and Islamism will be resolved remains unclear. In the contested March 2010 parliamentry elections, Ayad Allawi narrowly won the most votes running on a largely secular platform that seemed to bridge sectarian divides. However, he could not form a government. Instead, Shi’ite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr emerged as Iraq’s kingmaker, throwing his weight behind incumbent Nouri Al-Maliki, who formed a coalition government with his support. Though this restored a measure of stability, the tension between secular and Islamist visions of Iraq’s future reverberates through a host of issues.

For women, the stakes are particularly high. In the 1970s and 1980s, Iraqi women benefited from progressive laws promoting their political and economic participation. The Baathist regime pushed female education and women’s participation in the workforce and politics. By the late 1980s, Iraq had one of the region’s highest female literacy rates. All this proved reversible, however, as Saddam’s turn to social conservatism in the 1990s, as well as sanctions, took their toll. Female unemployment rose and literacy plummeted. With the upsurge of religious identity politics after Saddam’s fall, the secular framework that had benefited women was rejected by powerful elements within Iraq’s political matrix.

Today, legal uncertainty looms over women’s rights. One of the first warning signs for women’s rights came in December 2003 when the US-appointed Interim Governing Council (IGC) slipped through Resolution 137, replacing Iraq’s personal status law with a sharia-based system that would have put family affairs in the hands of clerics. Relentless lobbying by Iraqi women’s groups managed to overturn the resolution, but the Shi’a religious parties had made clear their intent. Despite the strong showing of secularists in the 2010 parliamentary elections, the return of Muqtada Al-Sadr in January 2011 from self-imposed exile in Iran could push Iraq toward more rigid Islamism. Sadr’s faction remains just seats shy of a parliamentary majority. Even Allawi—hailed as a moderate, secular figure—was willing to make “concessions” when they met in Damascus in July 2010. A government has since been formed, but the country’s political contract remains as delicate as ever.

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In such situations, with major sectarian and material interests hanging in the balance, women’s rights are often among the first items pushed off the table. The unstable security situation in Iraq already made women particularly vulnerable. As violence spread across the country, women’s mobility and access to the public sphere was dramatically reduced. Police did little to stop religious vigilante groups from brutalizing and murdering women who declined to wear the headscarf or who appeared too much in public.

As security has improved, women are beginning to find their voice again, but enormous challenges remain. The constitutional clause allocating 25 percent of seats in parliament to women has still not been met; age of marriage is declining for Iraqi girls as parents, fearful of the future, marry off their daughters at younger ages.

Still, Iraqi women are doing their best to hold their own. Nearly a third of candidates in the March 2010 parliamentary elections were women, representing unprecedented participation and a substantial improvement over the 2005 elections. This flatly contradicted arguments that there were not enough interested or competent women to fill the quota. Women constitute a majority in five of the twenty-four parliamentary committees, with two women serving as committee chief and several more serving as deputies. Moreover, women parliamentarians have demonstrated better attendance and preparation than their male counterparts, and their presence in parliament seems to be a bulwark against rigid ideology since women are more likely than men to vote across party and sectarian lines. They also serve on committees focused on the practical tasks of rebuilding the country: Education, Labor and Services, Human Rights, Investment and Reconstruction, and Women, Family, and Children.

Women are also moving into other spheres such as business and civil society, often with international support. Development organizations like the World Bank and USAID recognize the potentially transformative impact of women’s involvement in the private sector. USAID reports that 60 percent of its small business grants in Iraq through 2006 were awarded to women. Meanwhile, beginning in 2003, the World Bank launched its Capacity Building Training Program for Iraqi Women in Business. This in turn was in response to a request made in 2003 by Dr. Rajaa H. Khuzai—one of three female members of the IGC and later elected to the National Assembly—for international assistance in developing Iraqi women entrepreneurs. As the security situation improves, additional international companies entering Iraq can benefit from partnering with women-led businesses.

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Before the War According to a 2003 report by the independent international group Human Rights Watch, Iraqi women were in a better position than women in many other Middle Eastern countries prior to the 1991 Gulf War. In 1968, the newly established Ba’ath party attempted to strengthen its authority and achieve rapid economic growth. Labor shortages meant women’s participation in the workplace was vital, so laws were enacted to improve the status of women in the public and limited private spheres.

Before the coup d’etat of 1968, women’s organizations played a strong role in civil society. The Ba’ath party dismantled most of these civil society groups after seizing power and established the General Federation of Iraqi Women (GFIW). The Iraqi Provisional Constitution (1970) ensured women could vote, attend school, run for political office and own property. It declared all citizens equal before the law, regardless of gender, heritage, social origin, or religion.

Middle and upper class Iraqi women had attended universities Since the 1920s. But due to illiteracy in rural areas the government passed a compulsory education law—requiring that all Iraqis attend school and complete the primary level. In December 1979, new legislation was passed and all illiterate persons between ages of 15 and 45 were required to attend classes at local literacy centers, many run by the GFIW. Labor and employment laws were passed to ensure that women were granted equal opportunities in the civil service sector, as well as maternity benefits and freedom from harassment in the work place. The policy towards women’s employment counteracted traditional reluctance to let women work outside the home and later, during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), greater numbers of women assumed roles in the workforce.

In many areas, Iraqi women are pushing boundaries and regaining ground lost over three decades of war and chaos. In 2009, the first fifty women graduated from Iraq’s police officer training academy alongside a thousand male counterparts. The rank of officer is among the highest-paid jobs in Iraq, and among the most dangerous. In a New York Times profile of the first cohort of female graduates, the women admitted that at the beginning of the ninemonth course, they were shy about physical training and handling firearms—but now “we are ready to do anything.” Many note the distinct advantage to the country in having more female law enforcement officers: they can handle many cases and problems that men perhaps cannot or will not. The class of 2010 enrolled one hundred women.

The question is whether such opportunities created by and for women will be allowed to continue. Tension remains between Article 2 and other sections of the constitution. Although the compatibility of women’s rights and Islamic law is a matter of much debate, the fact is that many have used Islamic law to justify curtailing women’s rights. This is why the form of Islamic law that will be adopted in Iraq is of utmost importance. Will it be of moderate inclination, as in Morocco, or tend toward stricter interpretations?

This question is embodied in the contrast between Iraq’s two leading Shi’ite Islamists: the aging Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who

Modest changes were also made to the personal status laws in 1978. Divorce laws were altered to favor women, as were as laws concerning polygamy and inheritance. The right to vote and run for office was granted to women in 1980 and in 1986 Iraq became one of the first countries to ratify the convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Despite reforms, the traditional application of familial law undermined the guarantee of equality. Therefore, most female advancements occurred within the public sphere.

Following the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein embraced Islamic and tribal traditions as a political tool in order to consolidate power. As a result, positive advancements of women's status in Iraqi society were overturned. Additionally, the UN sanctions imposed after the war and families' financial inability to send their children to school meant that girls were often kept at home. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1987 approximately 75 percent of Iraqi women were literate; however, by 2001, the percentage of literate women had fallen to less than 25 percent.

Women and girls were also affected by the government’s appeasement of conservative religious groups and tribal leaders—negatively impacting on women's legal status in the labor code, criminal justice system and personal status law.

In an effort to ensure employment for men in a struggling economy, the government pushed women out of the labor force. In June 2000, a law was reportedly enacted placing restrictions on working women. Restrictions were also placed on women traveling abroad and previously mixed high schools were required by law to provide single-sex education. has some relatively progressive stances on issues pertaining to women, and the ascendant Muqtada Al-Sadr, who adheres to more radical interpretations of Islam’s role in personal and state affairs. This question will only be settled over a long period of debate in fields from education to the political system to women’s dress. In recent months, for example, clerics have been calling for gender segregation in universities, a demand Iraq’s minister of higher education has so far rejected.

The international community can best support Iraqi women by keeping a spotlight on issues affecting women’s legal standing. It should also continue investing in women’s leadership training, higher education, and political and economic opportunities. It is time to recognize that Iraqi women can help turn conflict into consensus, with all the virtuous cycles that result.

Isobel Coleman – Senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and director of the council’s Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative. She is the author of “Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East.”

John T. Chen – Research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This article was published in The Majalla 15 February 2011

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• A THOUSAND WORDS

Devastation in Japan A house sits on top of a bridge in the city of Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture, Japan. Ten days after the massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that swept away or levelled entire communities, the country grapples with a massive natural disaster and resulting nuclear crisis which has left 8,649 people dead and 13,262 missing.

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Images © Getty Images

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• CANDID CONVERSATIONS

Tactical Delivery An interview with Saudi journalist Jamal A. Khashoggi

Prominent Saudi journalist Jamal A. Khashoggi talks to Caryle Murphy about new plans for a proposed news network. He discusses the strategies the new channel may adopt and how it might appeal to its audience, as well as the many changes taking place in modern news media. The conversation also covers Khashoggi’s personal insights into political Islam and what role the media has to play in that debate.

Caryle Murphy

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orn in Medina, Jamal A. Khashoggi, 52, is one of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent and outspoken journalists. Controversial at times, he set perhaps a world record for the shortest tenure as a newspaper editorin-chief: 52 days. That was in 2003, when he was fired from AlWatan after editorials criticizing the country’s religious police and the narrow-mindedness of some religious figures.

Khashoggi, who received his BA from Indiana State University, went on to become advisor to Prince Turki Al-Faisal while the prince served as Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to London and Washington.

In 2007, Khashoggi returned to Saudi Arabia and to his first love, journalism, when he was re-appointed editor of Al-Watan. Last May, he was asked once again to resign after the paper ran a column questioning Saudi Arabia’s prevailing religious ban on shrines.

Once again, Khashoggi landed on his feet with what promises to be an even more interesting job: Head of a new, 24-hour, allnews television channel being set up by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a Saudi businessman reputed to be among the world’s richest men. Set to launch in about 18 months, the still unnamed channel will compete with Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.

Despite Prince Alwaleed’s business relationships with international news magnate Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp owns Fox News, the channel now in development is solely and entirely Prince Al-Waleed’s project, Khashoggi said. However, like Fox news, it will attempt to appeal “to the masses,” he added. During an interview at his new office in Prince Al-Waleed’s Kingdom Tower, Riyadh’s tallest building, Khashoggi discussed the proposed channel as well as his personal views about political Islam.

What are the plans for the new television station?

It is Prince Al-Waleed’s project. He wants something in between Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. And I’m quoting him now, he said “I want the channel to be to the right of Al-Jazeera and to the left of Al-Arabiya.” I put it differently. I say, I like the objectivity of Al Arabiya but I will add heart to it.

What does that mean exactly?

It is the Fox News tctic. Fox News appeals to the masses. Even though it is wrong to overdo it—and Fox is overdoing it … they manipulate the truth sometimes, they tell half the truth.

Are you going to follow that strategy?

No, no, but we have to have a little bit of … reaching to the masses and trying to understand what they want, what they want to hear, the issues they want us to address. For example, Arabs will always like to hear—and they should hear about—Palestine. So we should tell them about Palestine. But not in a negative way. But I might also be wrong. I’m sure I’m going to have a department at the news channel which studies the market, the audience, to see what the people like, what they dislike, whom they like, whom they do not like. Ask me a difficult question: “How you are going to handle or cover this debate you are having now in Saudi Arabia about allowing girls, women, to work in the supermarkets?”

Okay. How will you cover the current debate on women working in supermarkets?

I want to support it, because I think it is the right thing to do. Even though I know this is counter to the Fox News strategy [in that] I know that the conservative masses of Saudi Arabia are opposing this. So what we’re going to do is explain the reality of the situaIssue 1562 • March 2011

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tion, try our best not to make it an ideological issue. It is not an ideological issue. It is a development issue. It is a business matter.

It is aspiration for a better life. It is an economic matter. It is not a hallal and harram matter, but the conservatives want to make it a hallal and harram matter. I will try to avoid annoying or challenging the conservatives. I will try my best to bring them to the government, to the practicality fold, to make them more practical.

Is Rupert Murdoch is a partner with Prince Al-Waleed in this televison venture?

No, it is one hundred percent Al-Waleed’s entity. Murdoch is involved in a separate company [of Prince Al-Waleed], Rotana, [which] News Corp bought 7 to 8 percent stake in last year.

So there is no connection between Rotana and the new channel?

No, no relation whatsoever. [The new channel is] not under Rotana … [Initially] there was some misconception, which I always try to rule out completely, that it is Fox or it is related to Fox. We always denied that … Many people are welcoming the idea. They think there is a need for a station between Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera.

How is the project developing, what are you doing at the moment, and where will the Network be based?

We are assembling the staff, mainly the leadership of the channel, and trying to choose the location [of the head office].

Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Doha are possibilities. There is no law which allows a [privately-owned] news channel to be broadcast [in Riyadh]. But of course we will have offices in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, and I’m hoping even in Abha.

What about staff ? And what are the start-up costs Prince Waleed is advancing?

We are trying to be budget-conscious, around 250 to 300 [starting personnel]. He’s not going with the budget of Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera but we’re going to be just as good. We plan to launch in about one and a half years ... We are taking our time.

We want to do it just right.

Will the format will be news only?

Just news. With whatever will make the people come and see it. If somebody comes to me with an idea to make a game show news program, I might go for it, if it is related to news. I’m as open as that.

I’m very interested also in the concept of interactivity. I believe that television watching habits are going to change very soon. People are going to [watch] mainly on their iPads. I imagine one day a family will be sitting and watching and each one will be watching whatever he wants from his iPad. The way we watch television is going to change, and news television is going to change.

All the Arab news channels come out from the closet of the BBC. We have to be different. We have to avoid being a copy of that old concept. You tune in at 10 or 11 o’clock at night and in Al-Jazeera you have ‘Today’s Harvest’ in Al-Arabiya you have ‘The Last Hour.’ Basically both programs are similar. We have to be different. I don’t know how. But we have to be different.

Do you have concerns about censorship and where do you see press freedom in Saudi Arabia going?

Oh they will get angry over this report or that report [but] it’s not [a major concern]. We are experienced enough.

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Al-Arabiya vs Al-Jazeera When Jamal Khashoggi talks of a future television news network “something in between Al-Jazeera and AlArabiya,” he cannot help but implicitly allude to the fierce rivalry between the two most prominent news providers in the Middle East. However, the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya and the Qatari Al-Jazeera are more than mere rivals in a tawdry competition for audience figures. The two channels share an interwoven history which, like much in the region, is laden with political significance.

Al-Jazeera was born first of the stations, going on air in late 1996 thanks to initial funding from the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani.

The new channel quickly earned a reputation in the region for unprecedented levels of editorial freedom and a somewhat groundbreaking approach to topics previously considered taboo. Large audience figures soon followed, as well as evident displeasure from several countries in the Middle East, the governments of which took objection to the aggressive tone of the station—as well as the fact that there was now an alternative news resource to state-run TV. Prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon buildings in September 2001, the United States had openly applauded Al-Jazeera for its apparently independent voice in the region. Soon though, and especially after the initiation of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the channel would whip up more opposition to its methods, this time in the West.

By broadcasting graphic images of dead British and There are two things about press freedom in Saudi Arabia.

Number one is the force of history, the technological change.

Censorship is a thing of the past, and if you try to gag your media, your people will look elsewhere and you will lose, because elsewhere the information is available right now.

The king genuinely believes in more freedom. I had the honor of listening to him a number of times. And he just keeps saying, ‘Publish what you want, as long as it is truthful, as long as you have your facts checked.’ And I heard the king calling upon the ministers to speak to the media, talk to the media, [and telling them] don’t be annoyed by their criticism. [However] ministers seldom talk to the media. They treat the media with a great deal of arrogance. It’s really difficult to get some of the ministers to give us an interview, not to mention to call him at 2 o’clock in the afternoon to ask for a clarification about something.

I saw how [British] ministers go to the BBC at 8 o’clock in the morning, when I was working there at the embassy ... and I admired that. They feel it is their responsibility to speak to the British audience. Our ministers do not feel the same way. It should change.

Is this new press freedom in Saudi Arabia going to continue?

[Long pause] Yes. Why did it take you so long to answer?

Because everything is possible. But I believe the world did change.

American soldiers Al-Jazeera was considered by many to have strayed into the territory of propaganda—an accusation often repeated by critics who suggest that the broadcast of several messages by Iraqi insurgency leaders was tantamount to an incitement to violence.

Al-Jazeera maintains that it only ever aired so-called contentious material in an objective manner, without editorial comment.

It was therefore from this fractious and hostile media environment in the Middle East that Al-Arabiya was born. Envisioned by its creators as something of an antidote to radical polemics and violent hysteria, the station—partly owned by the Saudi Middle East Broadcasting Center—went on air in March 2003. The station has since been credited with inculcating a more moderate tone across the spectrum of Arab media.

The more neutral language and careful objectivity of Al-Arabiya has managed to influence other networks, in particular Al-Jazeera—though the Qatari network is still by far the principal player in the region, with over 50 percent of the audience share for international news.

Unsurprisingly, both networks remain a magnet for controversy. Accusations and rebuttals that the respective backers of each organization use these stations to further their own political agenda continue to be the most common complaint. One need only examine the fallout from continuing social unrest throughout the Middle East to find one group or another leveling charges of conspiracy—particularly concerning the prominent role Al-Jazeera has played in covering the successive downfall of the regimes in Tunisia and Egypt.

Nobody has the sole monopoly on media any more. Right now as we talk there are alternative sources of news in Saudi Arabia to the six to eight dailies. They’re online and they’re doing good.

What led to your second departure from Al-Watan?

[There was an] article which was addressing the concept of sufism and salafism and respecting shrines. It dealt with a sensitive issue in relation to our salafi indoctrination background. I wasn’t in the paper that day, and if I saw that article, I would have stopped it from publishing, even though I still say it is some writer’s reflection on the issue. He wasn’t calling for respecting shrines.

Why would I not have published it? Because it’s not crucial to the debate. It’s not crucial to the development of Saudi Arabia. I’m willing to stick my neck out for an issue like women’s driving or women’s empowerment or reforming the [school] curriculum because that will have a positive impact on Saudi life. But really, what we think about shrines has no positive impact. In fact I am against shrines.

I don’t believe in shrines. What I admire the most in Wahhabism is that it empowers me to reach God directly without the need of anybody else. And I like that and I call that positive Wahhabism.

How did you feel about being asked to resign?

I felt betrayed. I felt bad about it. Okay I got a better job, and everything. But I love my country. I wasn’t working for myself. I think Al-Watan served the country, served the purpose of the country …

It’s still a good paper.

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So Prince Al-Waleed snatched you up?

Yes, he called me the same day.

What would you like to do if you hadn’t had this job offer?

I want to write a book about Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.

I lived through it. And everybody who wrote about Osama talked to me about him. I would write a book about the rise and decline of the Islamic movement through my personal experience because I lived through it and was active in it. I would write a book about this transition time in Saudi Arabia because we are in a transition, a big one.

How did you meet bin Laden?

Osama and I are from the same generation. Almost the same background. We were young Muslim activists who believed in our responsibility to support Islam and create an Islamic state. I was a journalist. One day somebody came to me and wanted to see if I was interested in coming to Afghanistan and writing about the Arab mujahidin. That was 1988. Of course I grabbed the opportunity. It was a scoop. I met Osama in Jeddah right after [returning]. It was a cover story in Majalla. And ever since, I developed a close relationship with him.

When did you last see or speak with him?

It was in 1995 in Khartoum. In that time, he was in the opposition.

He had turned against his country. And I went with coordination with his family in order for him to denounce violence in Saudi Arabia. So we could break the ice and start a reconciliation which could lead him to come back to Saudi Arabia.

And he did denounce the terrorist acts in the discussion I had with him. But he would not let me have it on the record ... and I flew back to Jeddah. That was the last time I saw him or spoke to him.

What did you believe in when you were active in the Islamic movement?

I was a Muslim Brotherhood type [and believed that by] establishing the Islamic system throughout, it will lead to the [return of the] caliphate.

Now, I believe this is the work of God. If God wants [the caliphate] to happen, He will make it happen. But it is not really my work.

Why did I come to this conclusion? I saw how Muslim activists and Muslim leaders, how they fight, they assassinate, they lie, just like any other politicians. The other conclusion I came up with [is that] creating an Islamic state will lead to forcing people into accepting God, accepting a certain role, certain practices. And that defies the freedom which God wants us to enjoy. I will never enjoy my prayer if I am forced to go to the mosque to pray.

Was this a gradual change in your ideas?

It was a gradual process...in my 30s. I would say it started after 1992 when the Afghans began killing each other in a very brutal way. [Then came] the events of Algeria, the failure in Sudan.

I still have a great respect and I think there should be always a role for religion in our life. And a role for Islam in our life. But I will never work for a state run by clerics and religious people.

I think most Islamic movements see the Turkish [Islamic] movement as the example because it is a success story. And the Turkish model is the model which will allow the Egyptian [Islamic] movement, for example, to claim victory. Let’s assume that one day the Ikhwan won in Egypt. They will have a serious Issue 1562 • March 2011

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problem with the economy, what to do with the tourist industry.

The Turkish model has the solution.

Look, we cannot reverse history. The women in Syria 60 years ago were under the veil. No way are they going to go back there. That tradition of the past which some Islamists have nostalgic views of, when women were totally separated from the men and men were dominant, this will never come back again. This is a different time. If anybody of the Islamic movement anywhere will try to do that he will start immediately an opposition among the people and he will have to subject the people by force and by jail, like what the Iranians are doing.

Do you think Islam is facing difficulties?

There never has been a challenge to Islam as much as [there is] today. Look at the amount of books which are coming out criticizing or debating or critiquing the hadiths, for example. Those books are available now everywhere. [Also] the advancement of science.

[In addition] we grew up saying that the Muslims were the light to civilizations in history. But I traveled to Rome and I saw how Rome was like. Rome was way more advanced than Baghdad.

Those things do influence Muslims.

One of the most important challenges facing Islam is that Muslim nations are at the bottom of any development list. India’s future is much brighter than Pakistan’s future. Who are we going to blame? Another challenge facing Islam is Al-Qaeda and our reaction to Al-Qaeda. Why have we failed to ban suicide bombings, which is killing us right now? We failed. When did you last hear of a mass rally in Pakistan against Al-Qaeda?

It’s really scary. Why are we being tolerant, as if we assume this is the right Islam, as if we admire Al-Qaeda but we are not good enough to be like them. We should despise them. Look at the reaction of the Muslims against the Danish cartoons, and compare it to the reaction of the Muslims against Al-Qaeda.

Our reaction to it was way more vocal than our reaction to AlQaeda. That is a challenge.

Maybe it’s easier to be angry at Westerners than at another Muslim?

But another Muslim who is distorting Islam? Why don’t we see the distortion of Islam? So there are really serious challenges facing us now.

Now, the true power of Saudi Arabia is the middle class… who are looking to the rulers for aspiration, for leadership.

That’s why King Abdullah has become so popular, because the people want to grow up. They want to move from old-fashioned ideas without turning their back on our heritage and traditions.

We should continue to have the utmost respect for the founding fathers of Saudi Arabia. But we shouldn’t just be stuck in the past. What matters now is the middle class, the producing forces, education, getting jobs for the young, for women, for men.

But again, during Ramadan time we debate if we should have a singing ceremony in Eid. We are still debating those issues of irrelevance, which can be controlled and addressed by a solution: It is a matter of choice. You want to attend? Then attend.

Well, at least you can’t be fired from this job for speaking your mind.

That’s what Prince Al-Waleed said to me. He said, ‘With me you are un-fireable.’

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Who are the Arabs and What Do They Want?

An interview with Dr. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute

In this interview with The Majalla, president of the Arab American Institute, Dr. James Zogby, shares his views about American political society and Arabs’ place in it, as well as the many faults and failures of US foreign policy in the Middle East. On the other hand, however, popular uprisings in the region have the potential to set the United States on a different path in its relationship with the Arab world, perhaps one that also considers the needs of Arabs as well as those of its own.

Jacqueline Shoen

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To what extent do American policymakers make decisions based on public opinion polls?

They don’t consult opinion polling in the rest of the world when they act in the world. This is one of the reasons why I suggest that they need do a better job of listening. They neither listen to what people are saying and what their needs are, or how they are perceiving American politics, nor do they listen to how their words or their policies are being understood in the rest of the world. And that creates a terrible disconnect.

Image © Getty Images

any Americans still struggle with the question, “Who are the Arabs and what do they want?” Despite the growing presence of Arab communities in the United States, and the interaction, often antagonistic, between the US government and Arabs abroad, most American politicians and policymakers have done little to understand the diverse identities and needs of Arab voters at home, and even less so of Arabs around the world, where many of America’s interests still lie.

Dr. James Zogby, founder and president of the DC-based Arab American Institute, has recently published a book called Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to US and Why It Matters, in which he explores the answers to these questions using opinion polls conducted across the Middle East and the US. As a first generation Lebanese American, lecturer and scholar on Middle East issues, and senior polling analyst, Dr. Zogby has been a crucial behind-the-scenes figure in US politics, as well a strong and passionate leader of the Arab-American community in its quest to achieve political empowerment.

In 1975, Dr. Zogby received a doctorate in Islam from Temple University’s Department of Religion, and he was an Endowment for the Humanities Post-Doctoral Fellow at Princeton University in 1976. He writes “Washington Watch,” a weekly column on US politics printed in major newspapers in South Asia and the Arab world, and has written a number of books, including What Ethnic Americans Really Think (2001) and What Arabs Think: Values, Beliefs and Political Concerns (2002).

In this interview with The Majalla, Dr. Zogby shares his views about American political society and Arabs’ place in it, as well as the many faults and failures of US foreign policy in the Middle East. He also discusses the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the growing partisan divide in America that is making it more difficult for Arabs and Muslims to make their voices heard. A catalyst for change, however, may be the popular uprisings in the region, which have sent a clear message to the United States and its allies that from here on out, policymakers must consider not just a government’s requirements, but also the requirements of the citizens themselves.

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Do you think that this is a matter of listening or is it indifference on the part of American policymakers?

Following this over years, as difficult as it may seem, we don’t factor “the other” into the equation. We may have started to in recent years, but I would say for decades as we’ve handled the Israeli-Palestinian issue…the equation that is understood in most American minds is Israeli humanity versus the Arab problem—an abstraction that didn’t exist as fully human with opinions that counted.

I remember during the period right after the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri. We saw one demonstration in Lebanon, and it was interpreted as if the entire Lebanese people were behind us.

I was on television debating this with somebody from the Pentagon and a famous and very respected American journalist, and I said no, unfortunately, I can tell you, we just finished polling in Lebanon, and the country is split right down the middle. But it wasn’t accepted; it wasn’t believed. We knew what we wanted to do and we were moving it forward, despite the reality on the ground.

In Iraq, we did a poll. Not only did they ignore the poll, worse than that, they fudged the results of the poll. Dick Cheney goes on television saying, “great poll done by Zogby.” He said, “we’re loved in Iraq, they want us to stay there and they think we are doing a great job.” The results said exactly the opposite.

For over 25 years we’ve been polling, and we’ve pointed out that our policies are enormously problematic, and that friends, allies of America, leaders who have been supporting us, put themselves at risk in their own countries because of their support for these policies. They are completely ignored. I wouldn’t want to go so far as to say it’s racism, but I would say that they

do not factor the fact that Arabs are real people with real sentiment into their equation when they make policy decisions.

They do that with other countries, how will it play, how will it be understood, will the Israelis be able to do this or that, will their leadership accept it, if Netanyahu does it will his government fall. I mean we’ve pushed Arabs around, we’ve pushed Abu Mazen around. We did what we did ultimately resulting in a deep polarization in the society without even blinking.

Why did it take eight decades for Americans to poll Arabs?

Why poll if it doesn’t matter. We knew the answer: They hated us for our values. When we polled and said it was other, people were shocked. They like our values. They didn’t know what to do with that. Eighty percent of Americans still think that Arabs hate our values, despite the fact that when we poll in the Arab world, 65 percent of Arabs like our values. The disconnect is huge.

Why is it that people’s perceptions of Arabs and Muslims today in the US are more negative than they were immediately following 9/11?

Because two things have occurred. One is that the people were asking questions; Americans were asking questions. If people were providing the answers… You know it was very frustrating to turn on television or to be invited to do a show to talk about how Arab-Americans are being treated. The segment before me was somebody doing an analysis of the Arab world from the Foundations for the Defense of Democracy or some other neo-conservative, ideologically-based think tank that was virulently anti-Arab. I would come on and talk about what is going on in an Arab country and the person I am debating on that topic would be so virulently anti-Arab that if he were Arab and he were talking about Israel, they would denounce him as anti-Semite.

But these guys early on latched on to this; they created an almost cottage industry of being Saudi experts or Islam experts or Arab experts, and they are largely people who are very anti-Arab, and they were the ones providing the answers. Three books written on Saudi Arabia right after 9/11; all three did very well on the market; all three of them testified in Congress; and not one of them had been to Saudi Arabia.

And the books had titles like the devil’s this, or you know, it was just just horrible. That was one reason.

The other was that partly as a result of that, and partly as a result of the very specific work done by some Republicans in the last few years, Islamophobia has caught hold within the grassroots of the Republican Party. They’ve used it as a base-building exercise, as a theme like they use gay marriage to unify their base and pull out the vote. So last election we had many Congressional candidates doing ads about victory mosques or Islam trying to conquer America and where does my Democratic opponent stand on this. It was a rather shameful display, but it was used and therefore created a situation where it’s not just that opinion itself has dropped towards Arabs and Muslims, but that it’s dropped because now there’s a partisan split. It’s not that overall opinion has dropped, but that it has occurred among one group.

What are the three most important foreign policy issues for Arab Americans?

Based on the fact that three-quarters of Arab Americans are American-born, and therefore very much tied and defined by American priorities, and also because the largest component group of Arab-Americans are Lebanese, the three top foreign policy issues are going to be, in no particular order, Lebanon,

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Communication Breakdown The relationship between Arabs and Americans has been tense to say the least. While non-Arab Americans claim that the antagonism stems from a difference of values, Middle Eastern and American Arabs say it is strong disagreement with America’s foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa, which lacks a civilian component and is plagued by double standards. Such a serious misunderstanding on the part of America has created a fallacious foundation for engagement between the two groups, from which has stemmed long periods of frustration and hostility. Further complicating the relationship has been the nasty and debilitating consequence of inequality, whereby Arabs are often treated as subhuman.

As a result, Muslims, Christians and Jews are becoming more alienated from one another, thus minimizing hopes for genuine reconciliation. If the communication breakdown is not resolved, then this tense relationship, marred by state-sponsored and non-state violence, will only validate the actions of the extreme few, thereby ensuring that the situation is intractable.

Despite such an alarming forecast, however, Arab Americans are “among the nations leaders in income and education; and in recent decades, [they] have produced three four-star generals, four governors, five senators and more than a dozen members of congress,” Dr. James Zogby, founder and president Palestine and getting out of Iraq. I couldn’t rank them, because it will vary according to the news. I would say that right now they are going to be following Egypt just like the rest of the country.

What are Arab Americans doing to affect American foreign policy in the Middle East? And how are they trying to influence American public opinion to these ends?

Increasingly, the community identifies as Arab Americans, especially if you get into the generations born here. They stop seeing themselves as exiles or immigrants, and begin to see themselves as part of America, and they don’t distinguish between the different [Arab] groupings. They think of themselves as a community. Now that’s not all of them, but that’s enough to begin to see something starting to gel. There is a communal sense gelling.

If I look at what we’ve been doing, we’ve been working on Lebanon. In the main, we supported the tribunal. We met with the administration on that. We met with members of Congress on it. We have not wanted to see them play an either-or game with Lebanon; we thought that was ill advised. But we did say we should be supporting justice and stability. And that it was a false choice to suggest it was one or the other.

With regard to Palestine we’ve been very active in coalitions with groups like J Street and Peace Now and Churches for Middle East Peace. We are right now unifying to support the continued US assistance to UNRWA, because there is an effort in Congress to cut that aid.

It’s too early to say what we’re doing about Egypt, other than we’ve been bringing together Egyptian-Americans in

of the Arab American Institute, writes in his new book, Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why It Matters. For this reason, the Arab community in the US constitutes a vital partner in the quest for mutual respect and understanding with non-American Arabs.

In the context of his comprehensive analysis of Arab opinion, Dr. Zogby attributes the deeply flawed relationship between Americans and the Arab world to not just mutual misunderstanding, but primarily to America’s refusal to listen to what Arabs are saying, particularly as it relates to the superpower’s forays in the Middle East. September 11 was the tragic culmination of America’s “hearing problems,” yet, instead of looking to themselves for an answer, 80 percent of Americans collectively believed that the attacks were due to Arab hatred of American values. This, we find out, is a complete fallacy, as illustrated in one Zogby poll, which found that Arabs actually “admire” American culture, and its values of freedom and democracy.

From missed opportunity to missed opportunity, Americans have pushed themselves up against a wall. If they continue to ignore those Arab voices that are screaming out, then the consequences may be more catastrophic in the long run than September 11.

Certainly the consequences have been outright fatal for the millions of Arab civilians living in the Middle East.

To read the full review, visit the Book Reviews section of “The Majalla” at www.majalla.com/en conference calls and creating lists, because what we want to do is a kind of summit of Egyptian leadership to talk about Egypt in the future and where we go. But we’ve been plugging Egyptian-Americans into press; we’ve had conversations with the White House on Egypt policy; we’ve had two conference calls already with the White House. And that’s basically the kind of thing we do.

Given that you have worked with Al Gore, Jesse Jackson and other American politicians, how have they sought to capture the Arab American vote? Have you noticed an increased interest on their part to garner the support of Arab Americans?

I think the same way they go to capture any ethnic-community vote. They work with the community groups. They do outreach to them. Sometimes showing up is what you need to do.

Just going to an event and saying I want your vote. Sometimes that speaks worlds to different communities. And when you’ve been a community like ours, 30 years ago nobody came to us.

When we had our event in 2003, every Democrat, all eight Democrats who were running came to our event, and that really gave the community the sense that they were going to matter.

We still see it happening. The Obama people that outreach to Arab-Americans, they formed an Arab-American community, they sent messengers to the community. John McCain unfortunately did not; George W. Bush did; John Kerry did not. Some candidates do, some candidates don’t, but the ones who do usually are able to swing some votes for it, their way..

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There is no question that what happened in Tunisia created a wave of self-empowerment that has spurred on revolt in several of these trouble spots

There is no real full time effort by any Arab principle in the US at all. So we’ve been doing it with allies of the Jewish community and allies in the peace community, but it’s just never been enough. Unless we were able to make change and create a situation where the American president would say to Israel, enough, this is going to stop or else, and follow through on the or else, with the support of Congress rather than a rebellion in Congress, peace isn’t going to happen.

Did this interest increase after 9/11, or has it been a more gradual process?

I think it’s been a gradual change and it’s one that we’ve been gratified to see. From the early Eighties when candidates were giving money back, to the Jackson campaign in ’84 and ’88, to the Clinton campaign in ’90, when all of the sudden the doors sprang wide open and both political parties welcomed us in.

All the way through the Nineties it was great. In 2000, we were involved deeply in both campaigns on leadership levels. And then 2001 came, and there really has been no setback in that regard. We’ve continued to make advances. If those advances had not occurred, I think 9/11 probably would have been a devastating blow to the community, because we wouldn’t have had allies; we wouldn’t have had support, but I think the fact that we did have allies, and people knew that we’d actually registered our voters, organized our voters, then they wouldn’t have come to seek our support, as I said they did in 2003. But I think it’s actually been an important story of how we have moved forward

Why, at this time, are Arabs speaking out against their governments in the Middle East?

First of all, not all Arabs are speaking out against their governments. Some Arab governments have greater degrees of legitimacy and support than others. The ones that have fallen, or are at risk, have long-standing problems that have erupted at times, been squashed, and continued to simmer. This problem of legitimacy was further exacerbated by the destructive policies of the Bush era and the support that some of these same governments gave to wildly unpopular US policies in the region— this resulted in widening the gap between the governments and the people.

There is no question that what happened in Tunisia created a wave of self-empowerment that has spurred on revolt in several of these trouble spots, causing them to boil over.

What this reaffirms is that there is an "Arab world." The lawyers' protests and mass uprisings in Pakistan that brought down the government there didn't make a blip in the Arab region, while the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt created contagion catching on in Yemen, Libya and elsewhere.

As for new media or satellite TV, these were tools, not causes.

Contagious revolts spread across parts of the Arab world before the advent of these new media—for example after the 1948 war.

Many have said that political rhetoric in the US towards the Palestinians is improving. Can we expect to see a policy change as a result?

The rhetoric has changed. I mean everyone accepts the twostate solution, but policy and practice haven’t changed. And so I used to say I was hopeful but not optimistic, but I’m not as hopeful anymore either. I really feel that while people may want to solve it, the problem has become so deeply entrenched on so many different levels, and the partisan nature of the fight in America is such that it’s harder for an American president to take the actions that need to be taken to do what needs to be done. I mean it’s the worst possible government in Israel at the worst time.

Well it’s clearly a continuous battle on American soil between Americans. How can we change this?

It’s always been that. I mean America has chosen a way of a solution, and America has turned a blind eye to Israel’s settlement construction, its policies of oppression, and once America was in a position to stop giving that blank check support, Israel’s behavior was never going to change, because it was never Israelis versus the Palestinians, it was Israelis with America having their back and holding their coats versus the Palestinians.

The question is how to change America. The Arabs have done nothing in that regard. They’ve made very little effort other than quiet diplomatic meetings here or there, expressions of frustrations here or there, but an intensive campaign in America that would make it be taken seriously, they haven’t done that. And so we’ve been doing it on our own. I mean the pro-Israel lobby has Israel working full time on America.

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Do you think that the American leadership is prepared to accept real democracy in the Arab world? Or will we see more pandering to the ideal of democracy without the willingness to support it in the long run?

What we still don't know is whether these uprisings will result in "real democracy.” The final chapters have not yet been written and too many questions remain unanswered. Will the militaries in Tunisia and Egypt cede power and create sufficient space for real democracy? Will the militaries in these countries place themselves under elected civilian control? Will real and sustainable political parties emerge capable of competing in elections and then governing?

Whether or not the US will accept these new governments is, on one level, irrelevant. If they become fact and are democratic and stable, they will have to be accepted. Whether or not they succeed in becoming "real democracies," public opinion has become a new factor that both the US and whatever governments take shape in the region will now have to take into consideration in shaping policies in the region. This will provide some constraints on US policy—which some in the US, no doubt, will not like—and, in all likelihood, will make Arab leadership less accommodating to US interests and behaviors if they are perceived to be unpopular at home—which the US will also not like, but will now need to factor into its policy calculations.

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• COUNTRY BRIEF

Morocco Timeline 8000 BC Morocco is inhabited by Neolithic cultures until 12th Century BC, when Phoenician sailors establish trading posts along Morocco’s coast.

24 AD Morocco is ruled by the Roman Empire until 253 AD, when Rome withdraws and Vandals invade the North coast.

714 Arab incursions into Morocco and Spain. Berbers embrace Islam and invade Spain under Arab leadership.

1669 The present day Alouite dynasty is founded by Moulay Rashid.

Image © iStockphoto

788-1060 Idriss I, who is exiled from Baghdad is welcomed by Berber tribes in Volubilis and establishes Morocco’s first Islamic and Arab dynasty. In 802 Idris II founds the city, Fez.

1997 A bicameral legislature is established.

1873-94 Sultan Abd El Aziz incurs foreign loans, leaving Morocco open to European encroachment. In 1906 The Act of Algericas recognizes France’s “privileged position” in Morocco.

1999 Hassan II dies and is succeeded by his son Muhammad VI, a strong advocate of social change and economic improvement.

1912 The treaty of Fez. France occupies virtually the entire country. Spain assumes the role of protecting power over the northern and southern Saharan zones.

2003 Over 40 people are killed when suicide bombers attack several sites in Casablanca including a Spanish restaurant and Jewish community center. Moroccans react with public marches against anti-Semitism.

1934 A group of young Moroccans present a plan for reform, marking the beginning of the nationalist movement. In 1944 the Istiqlal party form their manifesto.

1950s A vast number of Moroccan Jews emigrate to the newly formed state of Israel. In 1953 the French depose and exile the Sultan Sidi Muhammad and replace him with the unpopular Muhammad Ben Arifa.

Sidi Muhammad is restored to the throne in 1955.

1956 Morocco regains independence and control over certain Spanish-ruled areas.

1961 Hassan II ascends to the throne and stages the Green March into the Sahara. Western Sahara's Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia al-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario) embark on a protracted war of independence against Morocco. Border hostilities with Algeria in 1963 cost both sides many lives. A final agreement on the border is reached in 1970.

1990s Hassan II makes some strides towards economic and political liberalization. In 1991 The Polisario and Morocco agree to a UN-negotiated cease-fire. This is contingent on a referendum regarding independence.

2007 The editor and another journalist at a Moroccan news weekly that published jokes relating to Islam are convicted in court and given threeyear suspended sentences. In the same year, three suspected suicide bombers blow themselves up in Casablanca. This follows a suicide blast in an internet café a few weeks earlier.

July 2010 Morocco’s King Mohammed VI grants pardons and reduces the sentences of nearly 1,000 people to mark his 11 years on the throne.

November 2010 In the Western Sahara a paramilitary gendarme and a fireman are killed and almost 70 people badly injured when Moroccan forces raid a camp outside Laayoune. A Moroccan raid to clear a refugee camp in the Western Sahara leave at least 12 refugees dead and more than 700 wounded, while another 159 are missing. Moroccan authorities announce 11 deaths on their side after the clash.

February 2011 Thousands of people take part in rallies in Rabat and other cities calling for political reform and a new constitution curbing the powers of the king.

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Rich History Morrocco is part of the Maghreb and shares cultural and historical ties with the region’s other countries, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Mauritania. The current day population is predominantly made up of Arabs and Berbers who speak a dialect of Maghrebi Arabic, although the present-day gene pool is also a mix of Iberians, Phoenicians, Sephardic Jews and Sub-Saharan Africans. The Berber language is believed to have arrived at the same time as agriculture and the earliest well-known independent Moroccan state was the Berber kingdom of 110 BC. Arabs first arrived in Morocco in 680 AD, bringing Islam with them.

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Key Facts

Image © iStockphoto

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he people of Morocco are eclectic in ethnicity and this diversity is mirrored in the region’s scenery. Away from its golden palaces and manicured lawns, the country’s real beauty lies within the unkempt gardens of its rich past. Over time Morocco has come to be considered by the western world as a mysterious bohemian haven and a dreadlocked backpacker’s paradise. Indeed, in addition to portraits of the country’s King Mohammed VI adorning walls across the region, there are many posters up in homage to the late musician, Bob Marley. Morocco’s so called mystery can be attributed in part to its associations with magic. Interspersed between market-shops selling groceries and electrical goods, apothecaries sell “pickled reptiles” and other strange substances designed for the ridding of Jinn (magical spirits). The country also caters for wanderlust as its eclectic landscape ranges from Saharan desert sands, green countryside and rocky terrain to ancient Medinas and contemporary French influenced streets. There is even skiing in the mountains during winter, though the facilities are somewhat rudimentary there is something both novel and mystifying about an Austrian style snow village in North Africa.

Away from the mystique, and despite recent attempts to address the issue, Morocco still faces persistent social problems.

Widespread unemployment and lack of a social benefit system has led to areas of extreme poverty and as town life in Morocco shuts down at approximately nine pm, it is not wise to wander the darkened streets alone. Lurking behind the murky corners in Fez—Morocco’s culture capital—shabby looking characters sniff glue from plastic bags, a sad reminder of the consequences of an ever expanding and forgotten youth.

The country’s roaring imperial city, Marrakesh, is a dynamic city. In contrast with its ancient monuments and the frenetic pace of the market—filled with food stalls, men with monkeys, ladies with henna needles and the odd storyteller (now a dying art but still vital given that 40 percent of Moroccans are illiterate)— modern restaurants cater for wealthy Moroccans and the expat community. The laid-back mountain village of Chefchaon, decorated in shades of blue, and coastal town of Essouaira, home to a ‘sand dune’ beach, are often subject to an influx of tourists. Fez is also popular, a leading cultural and religious centre with over one thousand years of history, the city is home to the impressive tanneries, the production and structure of which, have remained unchanged for centuries.

Here, the deep red hue of the famous sunset, enjoyed from old rooftops and by the local children as they take time out from a game of after-school football, still colors the architecture of ancient civilizations.

Full Name: The Kingdom of Morocco Capital: Rabat Independence from France: 1956 Government: Bicameral Parliament Leader: King Muhammad VI Prime Minister: Abbas EL Fassi GEOGRAPHY Area: 710,850 sq km (274,461 sq miles) (including W Sahara) Bordering countries: Algeria, Mauritania, Spanish enclaves Ceuta and Melilla Climate: Minimum 9°C Maximum 27 °C PEOPLE Population: 32.3 million Ethnic Groups: Arab, Berber Major religion: Islam Main languages: Arabic, Berber ECONOMY GDP: $153,257 billion GDP per capita: $4,740 Currency: Dirham their own image, retained their customary laws and embraced divided Muslim sects. In many cases this was simply folk religion thinly disguised as Islam as a way of breaking from Arab control.

Morocco has in fact been inhabited since 5,000 years ago by Neolithic cultures that left behind cave drawings of animals. In the 12th century Phoenicians set up trading posts leaving behind Punic remains in the country’s present day Melilia, Tetouan, Tangier and Rabat—named the country’s capital in 1912. The ensuing Roman Empire, which dominated the area for four centuries until 429 AD, established outposts of Roman settlements including the famous and impressive remains at Volubilis near present day Meknes. The following Vandal invasion in 429 AD wiped out the remainder of Roman Christian civilization and it is believed this may also have given way to the nomadic Berber way of life. Soon after came the Byzantine Empire, but all the while Berbers in the North managed to retain control of their high mountain dwellings. In 780, the Idrissid dynasty unified Morocco as the first Islamic state in Africa autonomous from the Arab empire, and established the city of Fez. The country became a center of learning and a major new power. Later it would be dominated by a series of Berber dynasties such as the Almoravid dynasty and Almohad dynasty—during which Morocco dominated the Maghreb and Muslim Spain—then the Merinid, the Wattasid and the Saadian, to the present Arab Alouite Dynasty, founded in 1669 by Moulay Rashid.

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table pre-colonial sultans Moulay El-Hassan was succeeded in 1894 by Sultan Abd El-Aziz who incurred foreign loans leaving Morocco open to European encroachment. In the treaty of Fez in 1912, Morocco was divided between France and Spain, with Spain assuming the protectorate role over Northern and Southern Sahara zones. However, a rise in the young Moroccan intellectual sphere would give birth to nationalist movements with a manifesto from the Istiqlal party calling for independence. Following increased nationalist agitation, the French—who feared civil war—decided to replace the reigning Sultan Sidi Muhammed Ben Youssef (who supported the independence movement) with Sidi Muhammed Ben Arafa, a 70 year old distant relative. Active opposition led to Muhammed Ben Youssef ’s re-instatement in 1955. When Morocco regained its independence in 1956, he changed his title to King Muhammed V. The king was considered a moderate and magnanimous ruler and during his reign Morocco joined the Arab League, became a founder member of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and cultivated cordial relations with France and Spain, who helped create the Royal Armed Forces and supplied aid for economic development. New agriculture and phosphate-based industries arose and schooling and health conditions improved.

However, with the subsequent growth of population, providing work, housing and social services in Morocco became and remains a grueling task.

Modern Issues Upon the death of his father in 1961, King Hassan II ascended the throne. In 1986 he took the daring step of inviting then-Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for talks, becoming only the second Arab leader to host an Israeli leader. A move helped in part by the existence of Israel’s Moroccan Jewish population.

Though his rule would serve to strengthen the Alouite dynasty it was also characterized by a poor human rights record and the years from 1960s to 1980s became known as “the years of lead,” when thousands of Moroccan dissidents were jailed, killed, exiled or disappeared. King Hassan II survived two assassination attempts, the most serious being carried out by the Moroccan military. It was also during his reign that in 1975, 350,000 unarmed Moroccans claimed the Western Sahara for Morocco, having demanded its reintegration from Spain after independence. Morocco annexed the territory and a guerrilla war with Algerian-backed pro-independence forces broke out, ending in 1991. Disputes surrounding the unresolved status of this area remain a heavy issue.

In 1999 King Hassan II died and was succeeded by his son Muhammed VI who started to enact reforms in Morocco—the plans of which had already been set out by his predecessor. At the end of his reign in the mid-1990s, Hassan II freed some of Morocco’s political prisoners and even called on an opponent he had condemned to death to run the government. He also rehabilitated the country’s economy, talked of press freedom and women’s rights, and hinted at a possible referendum to grant autonomy to the Western Sahara.

Morocco has experienced marked social change during the rule of Mohammed VI—a king once dismissed by some as a “bachelor playboy.” Shortly after his assumption to the throne, King Muhammed VI vowed to tackle Morocco’s poverty and corruption, create jobs and improve its human rights record.

He subsequently freed 8,000 political prisoners and reduced the sentences of another 30,000. In 2003 Berber language instruction was introduced in primary schools. In the same year, after a series of suicide bombings in Casablanca, Morocco launched a crackdown on suspected Islamist militants. Morocco has subsequently been given the status of non-Nato ally by Washington, which has praised its support for the US-led war on terror. The country is a reliable European ally in fighting terrorism, drug trafficking and illegal immigration and in 2008 was granted an Advanced Status from EU. In 2004 the government implemented reforms of the family code improving the status of women, something that was first proposed in 2000 to the objections of traditionalists, and in 2006 it also appointed 50 women as state preachers for the first time—as part of the government’s drive to promote a more tolerant version of Islam.

Unresolved Problems Despite these improvements towards creating a more liberal way of life, Morocco’s media is still far from free and must still avoid sensitive topics such as the monarchy, religion and the Western Sahara for fear of legal prosecution. It has been suggested that Morocco’s parliament is simply a token gesture and there is believed to be a fair amount of corruption within its judicial system. Similarly, many have criticized the reforms for their somewhat erratic implementation.

Morocco’s economy apparently weathered the impact of the global crisis impressively well. The country has a large reserve of foreign exchange and a decreasing foreign debt. It is also characterized by its large opening towards the outside world and in 2009 the country was ranked among the top 30 countries in the off-shoring sector. France is its primary trade partner and also the primary foreign investor. As of 2005, Morocco has the second largest non-oil GDP in the Arab world behind Egypt. Phosphates and tourism and sales of fish and seafood are important resources though 36 percent of Morocco’s population depends directly on agriculture production, which is susceptible to rainfalls, and in 1999, drought depressed activity.

There is also a clear need to improve educational standards in Morocco. Figures from the High Planning Commission (HCP) reveal a literacy rate of just 58.7 percent in 2007. In the same year a report by the World Bank on education in the Arab world cited small school budgets, poor quality teaching and rising dropout rates as just some of the problems within Morocco’s education system. Despite a liberalizing atmosphere and relaxing restrictions, the burden of a growing population on inadequate education institutions, and a well-publicized problem with corruption, have created prominent cracks in Morocco’s society. These cracks have expanded to create a vast gap between Morocco’s rich and poor.

Since Mohammed Bouazizi’s self-immolation act in Tunisia, regimes across the region have been rattled and Morocco has recently experienced its own wave of demonstrations. Whether Morocco’s government needs to feel concerned over the possibility of a repeat of events seen in Tunisia and Egypt remains to be seen. However, it would seem that what is really being called for by the Moroccan people is not necessarily a deposition of their ruling government, but simply a government that better addresses the needs of its people.

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• THE ARTS

Pushing Back the Boundaries of Good Taste Taboos in Turkish television Are Turkish series as taboo breaking as the western media (and Turkish conservatives) make them out to be? As the content on Turkish television becomes increasingly liberalized, claims that these images are changing the status of women in the Arab world are growing. But liberals in Turkey are skeptical that television can have such an effect.

Nicholas Birch Homosexuality and sexual violence on prime time. Blockbuster soap operas telling convoluted stories of forbidden love. There is plenty of shocking content on Turkish television screens these days. A month ago, a third of Turkish television viewers tuned in to watch one of the country's most popular young actresses being gang-raped in the first episode of a new series. A couple of days later a television channel—bought recently by a businessman close to the former Islamist government—broadcast the first ever Turkish-made soap opera to show two men in bed together, naked. Turkish conservatives are horrified.

"These screen writers are mentally ill, they need to take their unconscious in for a check up," Halide Incekara, a deputy for the ruling Justice and Development Party, thundered in parliament on 14 November. A columnist for the radical Islamist daily Vakit, Arzu Erdogral, was more blunt: "Fatmagul's crime is that she is immoral", she wrote, referring to the victim of the gang rape.

The western press has taken a very different view. Just two days after the gang rape scene was broadcast on Turkish TV, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera published an opinion piece praising the way Turkish soap operas, hugely popular in the Arab world, "are revolutionizing the culture of the region" with their image of "a new, freer type of woman." In June, The New York Times described the same phenomenon as a "triumph of western values."

All this talk of social revolutions makes some Turkish analysts— all of them considerably closer in their political opinions to The New York Times readership, than to Ms. Incekara and her familyvalues-obsessed parliamentary colleagues—somewhat skeptical.

Allowing yourself to be wowed by the attention-grabbing sex scenes, the “taboo” subjects and the plunging necklines, they argue, is to make the same mistake as secular Turks who insist that all women who cover their heads are Islamist bigots.

Look past the glitzy surface of these soap operas, they say, and the underlying message is often deeply conservative. They point, for instance, to Ask-i Memnu, a hugely popular series which topped the Turkish ratings last year and had an estimated 85 million viewers in the Middle East.

The script-writers and director cannot be blamed for the final scene, when the adulterous female lead commits suicide: that's the way it ends in the book that inspired the series, an Ottoman novel written by a man with a fondness for Madame Bovary. But they have had a hand in more subtle instances of conservatism.

Take what could be described as the symbolism of kissing.

The series is peppered with sultry scenes showing the seduc-

tress, Nihal, passionately kissing the hero. The demure girl who eventually marries him does not get so much as a kiss on the cheek. Instead, at the very end, when the hero proposes to her and she accepts, she is rewarded with a kiss... on the forehead.

One of Turkey's leading cultural critics, Orhan Tekelioglu says forehead kissing has "spread like an infectious disease" across Turkey's television screens.

"These series belittle women by granting only 'wicked' women the right to kiss," he argues. "You cannot modernize women—we are not talking about little girls here—by infantilizing and pacifying them. What do you suppose these screen heroes who decorously kiss their girls' foreheads when they are pleased with them do to them when they are angry?"

A columnist for the secular daily Milliyet, Can Dundar is disturbed by the tawdry tone of the extended advertising campaign for the series depicting the gang-rape.

"For weeks," he says, "we were softened up for the big day with advertising spots asking things like 'where will [actress] Beren [Saat] be raped', 'who will rape her' and 'was she raped better or worse than Hulya [Avsar]?'" a well-known actress who starred in a 1980s version of the same series.

What makes this doubly tasteless, Dundar says, is that the series is based on a novel about a rape victim who is blamed for what happens to her: "By using the rape scene to sell the series, you are strengthening the macho culture that the book was criticizing."

A notoriously media-shy actress, Beren Saat would probably agree. Shops in Turkey are now selling Fatmagul underwear for women hoping to electrify their man. For men unable to electrify anybody, a Fatmagul blow-up doll is due on the market soon. "I get obscene remarks wherever I go," the daily Bugun reported Saat as saying on 15 November. "I wish I had never accepted the part."

The face-off between pure-hearted provincial Turks and the immorality of the West and urban, westernised Turks has been a major theme of Turkish literature since the modernisation of the Ottoman Empire began to accelerate in the mid-nineteenth century. Orhan Tekelioglu discerns a more obviously hypocritical version of the same duality in on-going debates about television series today.

People are perfectly happy to watch characters in western films behaving “badly”, he argues, because of the "folkloric belief that foreigners have a penchant for this sort of thing."

They only kick up a fuss when Turks show they are no less predisposed. It was a piece of hypocrisy Osman Sinav, producer of The Day of the Sword—the new series with the homosexual scene—made use of when asked to justify the scandal triggered by the series.

"In our plot, we talk about the palace of the Pharaoh and such things happen in the Pharaoh's palace," he told the private television station Haberturk. "We are not making propaganda for immorality. We are simply showing the profile of these sorts of people. We have to do something to portray these people and their immorality without stepping beyond the bounds of morality ourselves."

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 31 January 2011

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Contemporary Odalisque Carolinda Tolstoy, an installation of her own art Artist Carolinda Tolstoy, with a natural gift and a constant hunger has become a successful entrepreneur in an industry often difficult to break into. Constantly innovative, she is developing new collections, new projects, and new exhibitions.

Juliet Highet No one realizes their dreams like Carolinda Tolstoy, nor lives the dream as she does. “I have become an installation of my own art,” she says. With a constant hunger to create and with an unusual gift for an artist, she has become an extremely successful entrepreneur. The day might start at 7 am, spent pummeling clay, or painting a silk shawl, probably interspersed with a seminar or master class given by her, to be followed by a power lunch for art historians, publishers and museum curators.

Come the evening, Tolstoy will be working a room of ambassadors, extreme avant-garde art collectors and interior designers at the first of four receptions that night. From time to time she will dip into the folds of her flowing silk Scheherazade robe for a tiny gilded notepad, on which to sketch an inspiration.

Returning to her London home, way past the Cinderella hour, either the finery will be flung off and the kiln fired up, or Carolinda’s on her computer, checking global marketing strategies for her work.

So what is the dream? Like a latter-day empress, Countess Carolinda Tolstoy wants to conquer the universe with her ethereal yet sensual confections—which sounds a trifle megalomaniac. But nothing could be further from the truth. This is a

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warm, compassionate mother of three, who has empowered herself to integrate dream, work and life, and then take her finger off the control button. She would rather use her hands to share her aspiration, “with brush and paint to change the world,” into her world, of exquisite finesse and transcendence.

“If it stays still long enough, I’ll decorate it,” Tolstoy has said, and driving up to her south London home for the first time, the impression on the street is distinctive already, the windows protected by swirling lilac-painted grills, their frames lilac too.

Through a purple door one enters one of the most original homes in London, featured in House & Garden, and other international interior design magazines and books.

It seems like every surface of this purple, pink, lilac and black, very Oriental world is covered with golden scrolls, arabesques and leaf tendrils. Eastern antiques blend with cuttingedge contemporary art; the ambience achieved is one of opulence, sensuousness, femininity and creativity. The dream is the theme, the home, the work, the woman, the life. In a sense it is a tailor-made dream, for Tolstoy has recently re-created her home to her own specifications, as a showcase for her ceramic pieces, as well as her other creative work, a meeting-place for clients, a palace for entertainment (of which there is a great deal), and of course, an effective working environment. Her two sons, both of whom are photographers, have a minimalist apartment on the top floor.

Curved niches have been carved covering an entire wall of the dining room to display the sources of inspiration for her work. These include Ottoman Iznik dishes, Persian Safavid and Damascus tiles, and lusterware from Manises and Moorish Andalusia. Upstairs, in the gallery, where one senses shades of the harem, a large undulating lilac velvet divan is scattered with silk cushions, which Tolstoy has decorated, inspired by Persian

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miniatures. A long wall of delicately fiber-optic lit niches displays her ceramics. The exquisite vases, bowls and chargers shimmer in their gilded, lustered pastels, while collections of individually decorated shoes, silk gowns and cushions add to the extravagant visual and tactile feast.

Tolstoy has developed a unique process she calls “Brush Embroidery,” a freehand decorating technique with which she covers an entire surface equally. “It doesn’t matter whether the pattern gets larger or smaller. It continues to cover the surface with the same density.”

Constantly innovative, she is developing new collections, new projects, new exhibition concepts all the time. Freed from the round of the wheel, and of the symmetry of thrown pottery, she is concentrating on design, rather than the ceramics for which she is internationally known, particularly on silk. And curiously, all of her new series of ceramic work—Misshapen World, Phormiskoi, Clouds and Treasures—have the sinuous fluidity of fabric, freeing clay to behave like silk, in its movement, sheen and opulence. First came Misshapen World, strangely sensual abstract ceramic sculptures, which seem to slither along the floor. “The shapes are unexpected, moving and transforming softly and voluptuously. They are emotional, not visual. It’s the feelings expressed of whom I am, the continual undulating motion, which you can see in all my decoration.”

On a hot day in Tolstoy’s gallery/drawing room, the diaphanous pink silk curtains waft around a metal olive tree on which hang gilded Phormiskoi. Tolstoy drew on her Greek ancestry to uncover legends about golden leather pouches hanging in olive trees to catch olives which have turned into gold coins, olives symbolizing wealth around the Mediterranean. She in turn transforms the leather pouches into gilded clay.

The alchemist moved on to create Clouds, ceramic wall hangings which appear to move in waves like draped material. They encapsulate her mastery of faience—tin-glazed earthenware brushed with luster and gold. “The Clouds have two sides, as people do. One is the disguise or illusion that we present to the world; the reverse aspect is earthy, the natural reality of our being.”

The most recent collection, Treasures, also make clay “dissolve” into silk, small free-flowing sculptures glowing with the signature faience, luster and gold. Treasures are embedded with semi-precious stones, like rose quartz, turquoise, amethysts and rubies.

And then there is the Odalisque herself. A head-turning beauty, and not just for how she looks and what she wears, but for the confident serenity she radiates. Removing her pink sunglasses, she reveals dark kohl-rimmed eyes, lined with gold and shaded with pink for parties. Except when working, she is swathed in her own hand-painted pink, lilac or purple silk clothes and drips with real rocks—rubies and amethysts set in gold, of course. What a contradiction that this petite, ineffably feminine Oriental queen has such energy and strength. The working potter, mind you, has short nails.

The descendant of an old Middle-Eastern and Greek family, Carolinda was born in England, and studied fine art in Paris and London. Then began a seven-year apprenticeship at The Chelsea Pottery, during which time her tastes and work increasingly diverged from those around her. Minimalism was beginning its reign; eminent potters like Bernard Leach were entranced by the refined simplicity of South East Asian ceramics. But Tolstoy was drawn to the Islamic collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum. While fellow students were turning out spare Modernist

pottery, she was soaking up abstract geometric Islamic designs, which were complex and ornate. Seminally, she took up the traditions of Middle Eastern pottery in her own unique way.

Moving on from geometric forms, she began working with stylized floral and vegetal designs, eventually creating her own abstraction of scroll and arabesque decoration. Several constant features began to emerge—rounded, sensuous, feminine shapes, and a certain almost decadent sumptuousness. To this day, it’s certainly not to everyone’s taste, this highly ornate ceramic bridge between East and West, then and now. But enough people were placing one glorious gilded piece in their minimalist Docklands lofts, that buyers from London’s premier stores began beating a path to her door; and the first of literally hundreds of solo and group exhibitions publicized the work.

In an important monograph titled Carolinda Tolstoy Ceramics, its author, Ernst J. Grube, highlights Tolstoy’s immersion in the “Orientalist” genre. Professor Grube is president of the New York-based East West Art Foundation, and First Curator of the Islamic Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He writes, “Countess Tolstoy is undoubtedly the major contemporary representative of a considerable English ‘Orientalist’ tradition.”

On a recent visit to this house where “dreams are realized, not just dreamed,” the irrepressibly energetic Tolstoy was creating gilded ceramic jeweler of Byzantine brilliance. She showed me another new departure, a collection of “flat art”—canvases painted with oils and acrylic, luminous with accretions of marble dust, gold and silver leaf. If you’re lucky enough to be invited to one of Tolstoy’s parties, you enter a magical world in which the raven-haired Odalisque who has created it swirls silkily around. Phormiskoi and little lamps hang from trees containing fragrant candles, casting arabesque shadows on the painted terrace. Tolstoy has created everything—lamps, plates, flasks and Oriental food.

It’s like stepping into Tales of a Thousand & One Arabian Nights, with the same frisson of underlying passion and vigor in which someone might just lose their head—or their social standing, at least. It’s that emotional commitment that makes Tolstoy’s work so unique, so compelling, so desirable Juliet Highet – A writer, photographer and curator, Juliet Highet specializes in Middle Eastern heritage and contemporary culture. Ms. Highet is currently working on her second book, “Design Oman,” having published her first book, “FRANKINCENSE: Oman’s Gift to the World,” in 2006.

This article was published in The Majalla 04 March 2011

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• THE CRITICS

Rumsfeld’s Reflections Known and Unknown: A Memoir

by Donald Rumsfeld Sentinel 2011 Whether you agree with the version of events as told by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld or not, his book is certainly a primary source from one of the most remarkable people in the Washington decision-making circles.

The style of the actual writers, Eric Martin and Stephen Elliot, is entertaining and smooth. For the political junkies and the curious, Known and Unknown is an interesting read.

In 1968, a congressman from Illinois, only 36 years old, interviewed a 27-year-old for the position of intern. Even though the applicant did not impress the congressman and failed to get the job, a friendship started between the two men that would prove to influence the history of the United States and the world. The congressman was Donald Henry Rumsfeld. The intern applicant was Richard Bruce Cheney, or Dick Cheney, America’s 46th vice president under George W. Bush.

The anecdote is one of many in Rumsfeld’s 800-page memoir, Known and Unknown.

The book interestingly opens with Rumsfeld telling the story behind one of the most played footages on TV before, during and after America’s Operation Iraqi Freedom: A younger Rumsfeld shaking the hand of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

Rumsfeld, who served as chief of staff for President Gerald Ford and secretary of defense under Bush II, was also President Ronald Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East. The former envoy puts his 1983 visit to Baghdad— and meeting with Saddam—in context. He writes: “Iraq’s Ba’athist regime was at the time the bitter adversary of two nations that threatened the interests of the United States— Syria and Iran.” He argues: “Syria, under President Hafez Al-Assad, was a leading supporter of international terrorism and occupied portions of Lebanon, a country that when left to its own devices favored the West.” Iran, according to Rumsfeld, “had been a close friend of the United States until the 1979 coup by militant Islamists led by a radical cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini.”

From the perspective of Reagan’s America in 1983, as spelled out by Rumsfeld, “Iraq sat between these two menaces—Syria and Iran. It must have taken a good deal of effort, or more likely some mistakes, for America to be on the bad side of all three countries.” Therefore, in 1983, “there was a clear logic in trying to cultivate warmer relations with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”

As such, Rumsfeld flew to Baghdad where he met Saddam, and found him to be “reasonable.” He concluded: “I did not expect that Saddam’s regime would play such a prominent role in our country’s future—and in my life—in the years ahead.”

Even though the book covers Rumsfeld’s long career in politics, starting with his running for Congress in 1962, his invitation to the White House where he met President John Kennedy thereafter, his relations with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his role in the Ford administration, among other domestic issues, the greater part of the book focuses on the Middle East.

In the first chapter, Rumsfeld explains America’s thinking after 241 marines were killed in Beirut in 1983. The former defense minister takes aim at the Syrian regime, which he describes as one that “possessed in the extreme two qualities particularly dangerous in a military adversary—ruthlessness and patience.” He added: “Like all dictators, the [Syrian] regime had the advantage of not needing to cater to its domestic opinion. It could do whatever it deemed expedient to achieve its goals.”

Rumsfeld concluded that Damascus has been “playing a diplomatic game” with the United States for decades. He accused Syria and Hezbollah of assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, and argued that the international isolation that the US imposed on Syria—after the assassination—was paying off since the Syrians were willing to offer genuine concessions as they pulled out their troops from Lebanon. “In Bush’s second term, however, there was a change of course and the administration reengaged with Syria. The Department of State proposed relieving Syria’s diplomatic isolation and reverting to the practice of sending high-level US officials to Damascus for meetings.”

In Rumsfeld’s opinion, the American policy of engagement, combined “with our worsening difficulties in Iraq that were at least partly the result of Syria’s actions, sent a signal of weakness to Assad that he was quick to exploit.” Rumsfeld added: “He reverted to his earlier policies of greater hostility toward America and our interests. Yet even in 2007, the State Department invited Syria back to the negotiating table in pursuit of Middle East peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”

He concluded: “Seeing that the United States was again the supplicant, and with the ill feelings about their assassination of a democratic Lebanese leader seemingly having been forgotten, if not forgiven, the Syrians reverted to their tried-and-true ways: obfuscation and delay at the negotiating table and active support for terrorism and covert pursuit of illegal weapons programs.”

According to Rumsfeld, after the Abu-Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, he submitted his resignation twice to President Bush, who turned it down. The former official also goes into detail to showcase how the decision to go to war in Iraq was taken.

Since it is his memoirs, he tends to square the blame on other Bush officials, which is fair.

Whether you agree with Rumsfeld’s version of events or not, his book is certainly a primary source from one of the most remarkable people in the Washington decision-making circles.

The style of the actual writers, Eric Martin and Stephen Elliot, is entertaining and smooth. For the political junkies and the curious, Known and Unknown is an interesting read.

This article was published in The Majalla 7 February 2011

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Negotiating Sectarianism Hezbollah and the Shi’ite Community: From Political Confessionalization to Confessional Specialization.

Ziad Majed, The Aspen Institute, November 2010 The vagaries of Lebanese politics have already been thrown into harsh light in 2011. The convoluted representation system—which invariably guarantees a hamstrung leadership—has once again seen the collapse of another coalition government. This time around Hezbollah has emerged firmly in the ascendency after a hefty bout of politicking saw their favored candidate, Najib Mikati, named as the new prime minister. Though published at the end of 2010, it is exactly the kind of shenanigans seen so far this year that the report Hezbollah and the Shi’ite Community presciently examines. Ziad Majed—with The Aspen Institute—has put together a comprehensive analysis of the development of the Shi’a political elite in Lebanon, alongside the rise of Hezbollah as a major political force and chief representative of the Shi’a community.

Those who are intimately familiar with the modern history of Lebanon may find the initial background to the political situation, provided in the report, something of a tiresome history lesson. However, it is important to contextualize the development of Shi’ite influence within this arena and in doing so Ziad Majed cannot help but provide a wide-ranging description of the specifics of what he terms the Lebanese confessional and consociational system. The interplay between Moussa Sadr’s Amal movement and traditional Shi’a family power bases on the one hand, versus emerging leftist groups on the other, does give insight into the political evolution of the country. Majed also explores the early years of Hezbollah, looking at the circumstances of the party’s foundation and, naturally, the external influences of Syria and Iran in particular. Special mention is made of Hezbollah’s most notable ability to harness the persuasive ideological and political momentum available to a “services provider.” Indeed, all observers of Lebanon will be aware of the skill with which Hezbollah assumed myriad social roles, but Majed manages to highlight the significance of this feat—in a notoriously sectarian society—in a manner which offers fresh perspective. He claims, “The Shi’ism of Hezbollah became a minor detail in the eyes of its non-Shi’ite supporters, and the party took that into consideration in its official discourse and media propaganda,” which is a long-winded way of saying that the party was smart.

It is a fair way in to the report before the author draws any concrete conclusions or specific analyses. This is eminently forgivable, as a brief run-down of Sunni-Shi’a tensions—together with an account of how Rafik Hariri’s assassination affected the political climate—is also necessarily included. When the central points do arrive they are cogent, well backed-up, and concise—this remains true irrespective of whether or not the reader is sympathetic to the ideas floated, or even if they seem a little obvious.

The notion that Hezbollah’s military and political behavior “threatens the governing tradition in Lebanon” is nothing new, Issue 1562 • March 2011

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but is soundly put across. Likewise, the lucid description of how and why consociational politics is severely threatened by sectarian divisions is detailed and coherent, finishing on a strong assertion that fear of complete collapse is the real driving force perpetuating the system.

Once all obligatory contextualization is dispensed with, the report is able to couch the events and ramifications of history within an academic framework. Depending on the reader’s philosophical background, they will be either dismayed or enthused in equal measure by Majed’s unapologetic application of Gramscian political theory—specifically his assertion of hegemonic patterns within the Lebanese political arena.

Ultimately the report draws several discerning conclusions, which can be said to have foreseen the most recent developments in Lebanon, i.e. the collapse of the most recent coalition government. This is done without once mentioning the controversial (and even now unconfirmed) potential indictments of Hezbollah members by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, preferring to stick to the known facts and base any findings in rigorous academic integrity. Hezbollah and the Shi’ite Community specifically points out the various ways in which the strength of Hezbollah allows the party to undermine consociational democracy, without openly rejecting it (the party’s implicit objective). Having laid out a compelling analysis of this inherently unstable situation, the report closes by generously including a series of reforms—which the author, in a moment of dark humor or self-consciousness chooses to describe as “realistic” (his inverted commas)—as well as some softly-softly approaches to Lebanon (and Hezbollah) that the western international community might take.

The suggested reforms make good reading, and form the kernel at the center of the work. In brief, they are: drafting a new nationality law; designing a new electoral system; working on an administrative decentralization law; and creating a civil code. Perhaps the report will confirm its prescient abilities, and one day these reforms will come to pass. Until then, it serves as a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the contemporary Shi’a role in a factional Lebanese system.

This article was published in The Majalla 14 February 2011

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• THE FINAL WORD

Arab Unrest and the Regional Balance of Power Adel Al Toraifi

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f you consider what is happening in the Middle East to be a massive earthquake, then what lies ahead might be even more traumatic. In less than two months, two Arab regimes have been toppled, in Tunisia and Egypt respectively, whilst the Libyan regime is on its last legs, fighting in the districts of Tripoli. Furthermore, the security of other regimes has begun to fluctuate from day to day, such as in Yemen and Algeria. Even the Gulf states, which enjoy favorable economic and social conditions, have fallen under enormous pressure— consider the examples of Bahrain and Oman. However, I do believe that the Gulf states, with the introduction of serious reforms, would be more capable of overcoming these challenges compared to Arab republics, whose legitimacy is being exposed to fragmentation under pressure from the young enraged masses. Yet, the real repercussions of this earthquake have yet to strike the regimes that initially seemed the most volatile. Here I am talking about regimes such as Iran and Syria, not to mention the sectarian-based ruling systems of Iraq and Lebanon.

Nobody knows exactly when this youth uprising fever, which has now gripped the entire region, will come to an end. It is difficult to argue, or even hold dialogue, with the young revolutionaries, because the zeitgeist calls for change. While staunch believers in a set of values pertaining to the world of politics, freedom and democracy, the youth of today know little about the social, ideological and economic complexities that form the social and political fabric of their countries. They are not aware of the enormous responsibility involved in state building. But no matter how the existing regimes try to appease the masses, they will not be able to counteract this youthful energy except to minimize their losses.

Amidst this "idealistic" atmosphere, many intellectuals and writers have supported the “Youth Revolution,” which has achieved effectively what they failed to accomplish over the past four decades. Some of this support emanates from a sense of nostalgia for the revolutionary roots of a "leftist" culture during the 1960s. Other supporters are opportunists aiming to ride the wave of change in order to serve their ideological and material interests, and ensure their presence during the coming period.

The third category of support comes from figures within the political Islamic movement, the main pole of opposition during the 1970s and 1980s. They later converted to a coexistent discourse, maybe even a hypocritical one, with the Arab regimes toward the end of the 1990s. Today, all those who have engaged with the former republican regimes—now on the verge of collapse—have rushed to declare their innocence, and expressed their support and admiration for the youth revolutionary zeal, which has taken the region by storm.

Perhaps our major concern relates to the shift in alignments and alliances that will emerge after the revolutionary earth-

quake reaches its furthest limits. The new balance of power will depend on the results of the transitional processes in these countries. Here, I must stress that many Arab countries hit by the revolutionary fever are bound to experience a state of chaos and internal instability, whereby the final outcome will be hard to predict.

In my opinion, we might witness elected populist regimes suffering from economic weakness and mismanagement as a result of the sudden and extreme changes that will affect the bureaucratic structures in the service and economic sectors of those countries. Consequently, they will most probably be governed by fragile coalition governments, which are incapable of settling major and sensitive issues. Therefore, it is very unlikely that any new regime would venture to renege on important political treaties like the Egyptian-Israeli Camp David Accords of 1979. However, economic agreements won't enjoy the same measure of immunity, because newly appointed officials will be motivated by an overwhelming desire to establish a reformist economic direction, distancing themselves from the contracts and agreements signed by the former “corrupt” regime.

As for the regional balance of power, there is a possibility that we shall witness fast and frantic endeavors on the part of new ruling entities, aspiring for popularity and self-assertion. Just observe how the Egyptian revolutionary youth reacted to the current developments in Libya and elsewhere, and how the armed forces swiftly responded to their calls. In many revolutions in the past, revolutionaries have resorted to exporting their political and economic problems abroad to safeguard their revolutionary legitimacy. Such examples include parties, which have risen to power in South America over the past 10 years, particularly in Venezuela and Bolivia.

The populist regimes in these countries did not think twice about strengthening their relations with radical regimes like Iran and Libya, despite the absence of democracy in both of these states.

The Middle East is now liable to experience a revolutionary clash under the pretext of freedom and democracy. Many revolutionary enthusiasts will come to realize that the political reality is far more complicated than they expected, and cannot be bypassed by mere slogans. In short, the rising expectations in our region could create a romantic utopia that is unfeasible in reality. The youth have managed to topple authoritarian regimes, but do they possess the required awareness to build democratic states that are economically and administratively sustainable? The challenge is indeed a great one. Maybe it is time the youth considered regional stability, because states do not live in separate worlds. This is a fact that the young Iranian revolutionaries failed to grasp.

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