BEIRUT — The escalating confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is surreal, as both sides repeat broad policies and tactical moves that they have used many times over during the past 40 years, ever since Israel first occupied Gaza in June 1967. In the past few days we have watched Israeli armed forces continue their relentless air and land assault on the Palestinian communities of Gaza, while the Palestinians in some places fight back, and in most places hold their ground and resist by defiantly not being scared of Israel’s military might.

None of this is new. It is particularly disquieting, though, to hear Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz say 05 July that, ”We have no intention of drowning in the Gaza swamp.”

He says this, of course, while he creates and expands the swamp, and leads his troops and people into its heart, soul and belly, as Israeli politicians and generals have done many times before. Are these people so stupid that they do not learn from their own experiences and pain, or simply obstinate in their failed policies to the point of national self-flagellation? It seems that the talk we heard recently about the significance of civilians leading this Israeli government, rather than the usual array of ex-generals, is a load of nonsense.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz seem just as clueless about dealing with the challenge of Palestinian Arab nationalism as were former Israeli soldier-leaders like Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. This is so obvious in the current escalating warfare, as Israel repeats three failed policies that it has used many times before. It hits Palestinian civilian communities very hard and subjects millions of people to prolonged suffering; it assassinates Palestinian political and military leaders in the occupied lands and around the region; and, it sends its great and noble army to establish a buffer zone along the frontier that is supposed to protect Israeli villages, towns and cities.

But the great and noble army is a political dud, and a serial catastrophe when it comes to dealing with the Palestinians. It has brought Israel two humiliating military retreats from Southern Lebanon and Gaza, an intensified Palestinian and Arab will to resist and fight, and more hard-line elected leaders from Hamas. Somebody should please tell these vaunted Israeli civilian leaders and their powerful army that Ariel Sharon tried these policies for many years on three fronts, and we see this week the ugly balance sheet of his monumental futility.

This week the Palestinians fired a few longer range rockets into the southern Israeli city of Ashkalon — or Asqalan as it is known in Arabic. This makes the Israeli concept of a buffer zone imbecilic, because the Palestinians only become more determined and more proficient at sending rockets over the zone. There is no security in geography, alas. It is similarly foolhardy to believe that brutally punishing the Palestinians will cause them to surrender. The evidence is exactly to the contrary. Israeli attacks, occupations, assassinations, destruction of homes and orchards, and mass reprisals against civilians are reaping a more decentralized Palestinian resistance movement that is harder to deter; a much wider popular support for the militants who resist and fight Israel; and, a hard-line, united national government grouping all Palestinian factions.

This is happening because millions of Palestinians and hundreds of millions of Arabs this month are reaching the same conclusion: The American- and now European-backed Israeli policies have made it clear to the Palestinians that they are not allowed to use any means whatsoever to resist the Israeli occupation of their land and the denial of their national rights. Palestinians cannot fight Israel by attacking civilians, but Israel can do so; Palestinians cannot attack Israeli army targets as they did last week when they killed two Israeli soldiers and kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit, but Israel can routinely attack and destroy Palestinian official targets; and, Palestinians cannot practice electoral democracy and choose their own government, as they did when they elected Hamas and reaped a massive Israeli-American-European boycott, but Israel can boast that it is the only democracy in the region.

If Palestinians cannot resist, cannot fight militarily against the Israeli army, and cannot vote democratically for their own leaders, then what exactly can they do to affirm and practice their humanity? Is their role in this world merely to applaud Zionist colonialism, collude in their own national disintegration, and aspire for sterile invitations to the White House?

The swamp that threatens Peretz and Israelis as a whole is not located in the land of Gaza; it is anchored in the mindset of modern Israel that seems able to deal with the Palestinians only through beating, killing and occupying them while being blind to the fact that such policies only strengthen the Palestinians’ will to resist and affirm their humanity.

Stupidity and stubbornness are bad policy-makers, and Israelis should look for something more functional and humane, because the Palestinians are not going away, are not scared, and are not simply going to roll over and surrender. Sounds like a noble page from Jewish history, which is defined by so much wisdom, passion and determination to live in dignity — without ghettos, or swamps.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 08 July 2006
Word Count: 870
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BEIRUT — Public opinion polls around the world routinely show that public perceptions of the United States have generally deteriorated consistently. More noteworthy, we learn this week that the British public — long the American partner in a “special relationship” — also has broadly negative views of the United States and its foreign policies.

Citizens and governments around the world respond to Washington flexing its military, economic and diplomatic muscles abroad by rejecting what they see as a hegemonic American foreign policy. They are responding on at least three separate but parallel tracks that often feed off one other, and drive many aspects of global power politics.

A small number of militants and terrorists (a la Osama Bin Laden) use indiscriminate violence. A few governments — Syria, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, among others — explicitly, often theatrically, defy Washington, and explore ways to forge a global political resistance movement against it. The third and largest response comes from the billions of ordinary citizens who do not resort to violence, but quietly reject what Washington says and does.

Two polls in recent weeks confirm this continuing trend. The 16-nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey released last week shows that despite some small improvements, “the United States remains broadly disliked in most countries surveyed, and the opinion of the American people is not as positive as it once wasŠ. Indeed, opinion of the U.S. continues to be mostly unfavorable among the publics of America’s traditional allies, except Great Britain and Canada. Even in those two countries, however, favorable views of the U.S. have slipped over the past two years.” ( for more details).

The second, more striking, poll of British public opinion published by The Daily Telegraph 03 July, showed that most Britons feel the United Ststes is doing a bad job in Iraq and is indifferent to what the rest of the world thinks of it. More than two-thirds of respondents said their overall opinion of the Uniied States had worsened in recent years. When such close American allies and war-making buddies as the British express this kind of disrespect, perhaps Americans should ponder this a bit more seriously — after the 4th of July celebrations and the baseball All Star Game are over in the coming week.

Many Americans find it easy, if sincerely so, simply to write off such growing worldwide criticism of the United States as a combination of foreigners’ jealousy, obsession, spite, and a manipulated diversion of their simple minds by their own autocratic Third World governments. Others will criticize writers and politicians who raise these irritating issues. Right on cue — thanks to the neat predictability of hegemony — this is what the American embassy in London did two days ago when, commenting on the British poll, it charged that the British news media had ignored success stories about the United States. Perhaps, though repeated global surveys suggest the bigger story is that a growing majority of people around the world feel that Washington routinely ignores their concerns and their rights.

Regardless of anthropological or psychological analysis of global perceptions of the United States, the important thing is to reach some sensible consensus on this. Either American power is applied abroad in accordance with accepted global norms — as happened in the war to liberate Kuwait from Iraq’s grip — or it must be checked and sheathed in accordance with the same norms.

Otherwise, we may all pay a very high price for letting current trends drift along towards greater chaos, threats, and militarism, as evident in Iraq, Palestine, Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan and other troubled lands. It is certain, as we already see, that demagogic and nationalistic leaders will exploit growing resentment of U.S. policies among publics around the world to forge defiant state policies, perhaps leading to more confrontations and senseless wars.

A fine analysis of this issue has just been published by Graham Fuller, former vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA. In his article “Strategic Fatigue,” in the Summer 2006 issue of The National Interest (www.nationalinterest.org), he says the global system of states cannot embrace a unipolar world for very long. We may be witnessing now the backlash from “genuine global concern with the overwhelming character of American power,” as the world chips away at the current unipolar world order. Washington has alienated foreign partners and public opinion alike because of the controversial and often questionable conduct of its foreign policy on the levels of strategy, tactics and style, he argues. Therefore the U.S.’ “strategic fatigue” will likely grow “as more and more Lilliputian arise to tie new knots in the web of nets that hold down the superpower whose military power is ill suited to changing the existing political situation.”

The idea that the United States only promotes goodness, freedom, democracy and light around the world is rejected by most of the world, at a time when most of this same world sincerely covetsŠ goodness, freedom, democracy and light. Sounds like we have a mutually desirable discussion topic here — for those inclined to listen, ponder and talk, rather than to threaten, invade and shoot.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 04 July 2006
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BEIRUT — While Gaza and Iraq understandably dominate Middle East news these days, the issue with the most significant long-term impact on the region and the world is the status of Iran’s nuclear industry and Western attempts to curb it. This issue is a technical matter about nuclear proliferation; a regional determinant of the balance of power; and, a global reflection of the informal emergence of a bloc of nations countering the worldwide dominance of the United States.

Quite amazingly, the debate on Iran is defined primarily by uncertainty on most of its crucial aspects:
* the exact nature and pace of the Iranian nuclear conversion and enrichment activities;
* whether Iran is simultaneously working on weaponizing its nuclear capabilities;
* the details of the US-EU proposals to Iran on June 6 to suspend enrichment in return for direct talks with the US-EU on a package of trade and nuclear energy incentives;
* who exactly in the Iranian regime decides on these issues;
* and, how far the Russians and Chinese will go in assisting Iran technologically, and siding with the Americans and Europeans diplomatically.

Clearly, three years after European-Iranian talks started, this third round of discussions is the most serious, because Iran has successfully achieved small-scale and low-level enrichment of uranium using a small number of centrifuges. The changed technical and diplomatic landscape reflects Iranian confidence and defiance. This was symbolized most recently by Iran blatantly ignoring the original deadline of June 23 that the West had set for its response to the proposals delivered in Tehran on June 6, by European foreign policy chief Javier Solana. The Iranian president said recently that his country would reply in August. Two days ago in Moscow, the G-8 foreign ministers set another deadline for Iran’s response: July 5, next Wednesday.

So mid-to-late-July seems like a pretty good guess of when Iran might reply.

The diplomatic game of dueling dates symbolizes an important element of this process on all sides: The West cannot unilaterally dictate terms or timetables to Iran on its diplomacy or its nuclear industry. Threats will be met with defiance and faster Iranian work on its nuclear research and development. If diplomatic progress is to happen, it will do so on the basis of negotiations between equal parties that deal with each other with respect, rather than on the basis of ultimatums, warnings and threats.

On the technical level, Iran insists its nuclear research and conversion only aim to produce electricity. But it still has not answered all the questions raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including plutonium experiments, centrifuges, unexplained traces of enriched uranium, and indications of a military nuclear program undertaken at military facilities. The West remains convinced that Tehran continues to hide a nuclear weapons program.

On the political level, a nuclear Iran means several frightening things to the US-led West. Already a victor of sorts from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, a nuclear Tehran would dominate the Gulf, prod a new round of regional Shiite empowerment, and probably trigger a race by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt to obtain nuclear weapons. This spells the death knell of the already wobbly Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Israel or the United States could attack Iran’s nuclear facilities militarily, which would further destabilize an already tense and violent region. Iran might confront the United States in other ways in the Gulf or the region. It is also hard to predict how China, India and Russia would react to a nuclear Iran, given their important energy, economic and geo-strategic interests in the Gulf region.

The key political dimension of all this may be Iran’s recent emergence as the Asian-Middle Eastern-Islamic fulcrum of a loose grouping of states and people who wish to resist American dominance of the region and the world. I suspect that robust and successful political defiance, rather than pure military threat, is what most worries the United States about Iran’s posture. We are probably witnessing the first significant move in the world to challenge U.S. hegemonic power since the end of the Cold War in 1989 — which explains why Washington’s initial hysteria has been replaced recently by more realism, to its credit.

Iran’s more measured response to Western offers in recent weeks suggests it is securing that which it most covets: national respect, serious political engagement, and the prospect of a normal relationship with the West, without the American threat of regime change or the UN-EU threat of sanctions. Consequently, Iran and the Western powers seem to be heading to a logical meeting point: Iran will continue uranium conversion and enrichment activities, and other small-scale research and development, but under strict IAEA supervision that effectively blocks the development of nuclear weapons.

Tehran has spoken in recent weeks in the more relative and nuanced vocabulary of realism and national interest, rather than absolutist rights and ringing ideology. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in recent days has named a new foreign policy strategy team, headed by experienced loyalists, to control policy as the moment of decision approaches on a reasonable deal with the West. The implications of an agreement for the Middle East and the world will be enormous and mostly positive if this issue is resolved through a meeting of minds rather than the use of muscle.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 01 July 2006
Word Count: 875
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GENEVA — On 26 June, Israeli troops began massing on the northern border of Gaza and threatened to invade in retaliation for continuing Palestinian rocket attacks against southern Israel and the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier. Why do I feel that we have been through this before without any real success?

Perhaps it is time for Israelis and the world to acknowledge something they have always preferred to avoid: Why did pullout from the Gaza Strip last year not result in the intended effect of rejuvenating a new Israeli-Palestinian peace process? Because the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank are not the main issue at conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

I have been attending in Switzerland this week, an annual conference of highly qualified American, Middle Eastern and European research scholars discussing all the major political issues in the Middle East, including Israel-Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, terrorism, nuclear non-proliferation, and domestic political cultures. Always an excellent window into the minds of well-informed scholars, the gathering this week confirmed for me how large is the variance between Arab analysts and the political establishments in the United States, Europe and Israel.

The basic divergence in perceptions of the Arab-Israeli conflict focuses on the causes, meaning and consequences of Israel’s three main ongoing unilateral moves:
* building the separation wall during the past two years;
* pulling out of Gaza last year; and, according to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s promises,
* pulling out of much of the West Bank in the coming years.

Most people in Israel and the West see these as major, bold initiatives that reflect historic change in the mindset of the Israeli public and political elite, who have decided that they must separate from the Palestinians in West Bank-Gaza lands occupied in 1967.

The reason that Israeli unilateralism has not triggered a renewed peace-making effort is very simple: This is not a unilateral conflict. Easy moves that only reflect the concerns of one side, while leaving the underlying causes of the conflict untouched, will only keep the conflict alive. The only way out of this is the hard way: coming to terms with the core dispute over the land of historic Palestine and the rights of all its people.

For the Palestinians, the dispute is not about Gaza and the West Bank only; it is a wider national conflict that can be resolved by addressing the full dimensions of Palestinian national rights in an integrated manner. This means statehood in the West Bank-Gaza, a capital in Arab East Jerusalem, and resolving the 1948 Palestinian refugee issue fairly, on the basis of international legitimacy and law. In return, the Palestinians have to make the hard decision to live in peace and mutual assured security with a predominantly Jewish Israeli state in its 1967 borders.

The Hamas victory in the last election was badly misinterpreted by Israel, the United States and much of Europe. The victory reflected a series of widespread Palestinian perceptions that must be grasped and engaged politically, including:
* the failure of nearly 40 years of Fateh- and Arafat-led policies;
* the failure of foreign diplomatic intervention, including recent European moves closer to U.S.-Israeli positions;
* the absence of solid Arab support;
* the Israeli center-right majority’s preference for unilateral moves that deny Palestinian national rights; and,
* subordination of Arab-Israeli issues to the American-led “war on terror.” Thus, Palestinians feel they are more or less on their own, and must prepare for a long political and military struggle with Israel.

The Hamas victory represents a reaction to all these perceptions, and reflects the dominant Palestinian strategic approach that aims to achieve three main goals:
* resist Israel militarily and politically, while always exploring opportunities to negotiate with it on equal terms — not the unequal, humiliating and failed terms of the past;
* continue to develop the republican institutions of a pluralistic democracy; and,
* rebuild Palestinian society on the basis of good governance, local security, and a revived economy.

The Palestinian mindset and the Hamas victory both reflect these broad analyses and aims. Palestinians look at themselves and their national issues as an integrated whole, not as a narrow West Bank-Gaza matter or the “demographic threat” to Zionist purity that Israel sees. Palestinian priorities therefore include resolving the refugee issue from 1948, reclaiming all lands occupied in 1967, and stopping Israeli attacks, assassinations and colonial expansion, in return for coexistence with a non-colonial, law-abiding Israel.

The message is very simple: If Israel will not allow Palestinians to live in peace, dignity, and national integrity, Israelis themselves will not be permitted to enjoy those same rights. If Israel is prepared to negotiate seriously and fairly, and resolve the core 1948 issues of the conflict, rather than the secondary ones from 1967, a fair and permanent peace is possible.

Sending yet another Israeli assault brigade to kill and torment more Palestinians in Gaza this week will only heighten that reality, not override it. Israelis must wise up one day and accept the fact that unilateralism — whether invading or retreating with their army — does not solve the problems of a bilateral conflict.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 28 June 2006
Word Count: 841
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Beirut, Lebanon
June, 2006

Dear Dr. Rice,

Since in the past year you have passionately and sincerely expressed your hopes for an Arab future of freedom and democracy, I thought you might benefit from some equally honest and humble thoughts in return.

The American civil rights movement and the Arab quest for freedom and democracy have effectively framed my own life — as a student in the United States in the1960s and as an adult working in the Arab world for a democratic future. I was especially moved when you spoke last October, during your visit to your hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, about your childhood friends who were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church by white racists in 1963. You’ve spoken of your own life’s transformation — from a segregated childhood to success in academia and then joining the world’s top decision-makers “as an example of a very American story.”

Indeed, it is an inspiring story, but you should be fully aware of how that story plays out when viewed from abroad, in the context of America’s policies at home and abroad.

The epitome of the racist mentality in Birmingham in your youth was police chief Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor. He routinely unleashed fire hoses, baton-swinging deputies and vicious police dogs against the non-violent demonstrators who demanded only that they be treated as human beings.

The individual and collective quest for freedom and dignity may be the strongest force on earth. It pushes ordinary people to do extraordinary things, as happened in Birmingham when young children marched into the fire hoses and stood their ground against Bull Connor’s police dogs. The spirit of Birmingham is about transcending fear, and affirming humanity. It takes special courage and moral certitude to stand one’s ground in front of the violent, intemperate hatred and ignorance that Bull Connor represented.

I see that same spirit around me in the Arab world today. I have many courageous Arab friends and colleagues who stand up today to their own violent, intolerant governments, or foreign military occupiers, knowing they may be killed, injured or imprisoned. They stand up and resist fearlessly, defying danger and intimidation, because they are fired by the same passions that fuelled the civil rights movement in your country.

So I write you today because in my passion for your twin nods to American civil rights and Arab democratic freedoms, I also see a fatal flaw that causes your exhortations to fall on deaf ears in most of the Middle East. That saddens me, because I sense that your sentiments are sincere, and I also firmly believe that your mission must not fail — for your sake and ours. But your drive to promote Arab freedom can only succeed if it sheds its inherent flaw. The main flaw is somewhat personal for you, which is why I send you this letter. It is simply this: In the eyes of most people in the Arab world, the United States is the Bull Connor of our generation. The worst symbol of this is that your country, on your foreign policy watch, has sent police dogs to Iraq to humiliate and terrorize prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers. In the same way, the use of Bull Connor’s police dogs to degrade your fellow citizens in the early 1960s became a lasting symbol of American racism and American anti-racist heroism.

Of course, these are only symbols, not the full story. Bull Connor’s dogs are now long gone. Some abusive American soldiers at Abu Ghraib have been tried in court. But the symbols matter — for they do reflect realities and are not imagined evils, they burn deep images into human minds and hearts, they endure for generations. You should be careful about using the imagery of the civil rights movement to promote Arab freedom because your government and its policies look to many of us like Bull Connor — complete with the dogs. You simply are not credible when you evoke the civil rights struggle to inspire us, and then send police dogs to torment us. We love your inspirational exhortations, but we despise and reject your dogs.

The dogs are symbols, of course, of a wider policy and a larger reality. But the images of the dogs — in Birmingham and Baghdad — remain the most sharply etched in my own mind. Many other images and symbols come to mind, too. Young children killed. Old people degraded. Terror bombs hurled against innocent civilians. Houses destroyed. Young men lynched. Families and entire communities finding solace in their holy books and their shared God. Police and armies using massive force against marching schoolchildren or rock-throwing kids. And inspiring leaders thrown into jail.

We can choose any of these, and many other, images that permeate your nation’s recent struggle for dignity, and our ongoing one. In the final analysis, these struggles have validity only if they are truly universal. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous letter from a Birmingham jail, wrote in your city when you were a child: “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

If you want us in the Arab world to respond to your powerful analogy of the American civil rights movement as a harbinger of what is possible in a single lifetime, you must deal more honestly with the problem and the symbolism of your dogs — official American dogs, sent with your army, as part of your foreign policy.

I hope you accept these thoughts in the spirit in which they are written — with profound awe and humility before those who struggled for civil rights in your country, and in deep solidarity with those in the Arab world who muster the same spirit in their own fight against oppression and foreign domination. You need to do some more work and introspective thinking to credibly connect those two worlds and eras, as we are trying to do here every day.

In the battle for freedom and justice in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world, one cannot simultaneously preach the morality of Martin Luther King, Jr. and pursue the policies of Bull Connor, and expect to be taken seriously.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 26 June 2006
Word Count: 1,076
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BEIRUT — George W. Bush said a few days ago he’d like to close the Guantánamo Bay detention center, “but I also recognize that we’re holding some people there that are darn dangerous, and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts.”

Well, most of the world, and many Americans, also believe that there are some darn dangerous people running the White House these days, which is why Guantánamo is in the news again. Any day now the United States Supreme Court is expected to deliver its verdict in a case raised by Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni national who has been held at Guantánamo along with another 460 other detainees. Hamdan is challenging the constitutionality of the American military “commissions,” or special courts, that were established to try him and other “unlawful combatants.”

It is important to separate the two very different strands that define the Hamdan case and the larger issue of the Guantánamo detainees: On the one hand are the fine points of law, and on the other is the more blunt projection of American power globally. It can be hard to separate these two issues, due to the devastating emotional and political impact of terrorism. The crimes and willful inhumanity of 9/11 were so severe that this American government believes it can do anything it wishes to capture and punish the perpetrators, regardless of international or American law.

The Guantánamo Bay detention facility and its key questionable attributes — the treatment of prisoners, the lack of due process of law protections, the special “trials” the prisoners will be given — do not emanate from a political vacuum. They reflect a wider attitude among the Bush administration that savages sovereign foreign lands and sacred American constitutional traditions at the same time. Guantánamo is a place; but it is also a political mindset that defines the Bush White House and touches the lives of billions of people around the world. The Guantánamo mindset that has guided Washington’s policies since 9/11 is the unfortunate consequence of an unprecedented convergence of anger, fear, ignorance and power.

The anger, understandably, is a result of the 9/11 attacks. The fear that Americans felt that day has been grotesquely cultivated by the Bush White House as an enduring foundation for partisan politics at home and something approaching lynchings and posse justice as a foreign policy.

Ignorance defines how the Bush folks woefully misdiagnosed two key things: the nature, causes and aims of the terror that was directed against their land five years ago; and, the cultural and political landscapes of the Arab-Asian region where they have deployed their army in strength. Power, finally, is the asset that the United States has in greatest supply, especially military, technological and economic power, but that it has used in an erratic and often counter-productive way. Not surprisingly, most governments and people around the world today fear the consequences of American foreign policy.

Guantánamo captures the dilemma of this land and culture with impressive values that are distorted and momentarily diminished by the convergent furies of its own anger, fear, ignorance and power. Since 9/11 the American government has done many strange things, for a democratic beacon on a hill: waged unilateral wars, changed regimes at will, generated false and ideologically-driven proof of imminent threats, mangled its own intelligence agencies, tapped the communications of its own citizens without securing required court orders, ignored the will of the world at the United Nations, held hundreds of detainees at Guantánamo and elsewhere without giving them the due process of law, abused prisoners at Abu Ghreib and other such centers, sent prisoners around the world for torture and mistreatment, continued to threaten countries if they do not fall in line, and turned a blind eye to Arab and Asian despots and dictators who cooperate with its “global war on terror”.

Guantánamo and its mindset is all of this and more, and seems distinctly un-American, which is why the judiciary has been called in to sort things out. The Supreme Court intervened in June 2004 to overrule George W. Bush’s 2001 executive order authorizing indefinite detention of suspected terrorists or any other bad guys, without due process of law (i.e., detainees having a lawyer, being formally charged in court, or being told the accusations and evidence against them). The court affirmed that, according to international law and the American Constitution, the Guantánamo detainees must be given access to American courts of law to challenge their detention and trials.

This is why so many of us out here in the swamp of the Middle East still admire America and wish to emulate so many of its core principles. When the chips are down, the law is what matters; and the single most important operative principle of law is that it applies equally to all human beings in the land — or in its custody.

The Supreme Court’s decision on Guantánamo will show American culture at its best, defining and affirming the rule of law and also curbing the political excesses of an enraged executive branch.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 21 June 2006
Word Count: 843
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BEIRUT — The past decade suggests that any Arab transformations into well governed, productive, non-corrupt states will happen through some combination of four existing political dynamics: foreign pressure or armed intervention to change regimes (Iraq), mass indigenous peaceful democratic transformations with a strong Islamist tone (Palestine), populist mass street demonstrations (Lebanon), or quiet pressures exerted by respected establishment figures working within the system (to be confirmed).

The most low-key and slowest means of change among these four categories is quiet pressures exerted by respected establishment figures. In the long run, though, I suspect this approach will prove vital to transforming current corrupt systems into ones that are democratic and accountable. Entrenched Arab regimes that control large budgets and armies will always resist foreign armies and diplomatic pressure, as well as indigenous street protests. Ultimately they will not be able to resist the insurrectionary dissent and challenge of their own elites — ex-officials, doctors, lawyers, economists, professors, journalists, bankers, businesspeople, and ordinary men and women of principled conviction who refuse to acquiesce in the prevailing mismanagement and militarization of the Arab world, and who demand decency and integrity instead.

The truly historic development in the Arab world these days is that elites and street activists alike are standing up and publicly, explicitly, repeatedly challenging the existing governments and their associated military control systems.
A meeting in Beirut last week highlighted several important aspects of this process. It was the first public event held by the one-year-old Arab Anti-Corruption Organization, operating from its head office here in Beirut. The gathering discussed international and regional attempts to promote political and economic reforms in the Arab world, with a particular focus on the relationship between political development (democratization), economic development, and reducing corruption.

When I asked the director general of the Arab Anti-Corruption Organization (AACO), Dr. Amer Khayyat, if he and his colleagues had gauged the magnitude of the corruption problem, his answer was shocking. He quoted studies indicating that accumulated Arab income in the period 1950-2000 was estimated at $3000 billion. Of this, around $1000 billion was allocated to armaments, and another $1000 billion went to develop infrastructure and the industrial, agricultural and service sectors. The last $1000 billion, he said, “is presumed to have been acquired by persons and establishments involved in promoting and facilitating projects in fields of armaments and national development.”

If the estimates are correct, that’s a polite way of saying $1000 billion of Arab national wealth has been stolen by corrupt Arab officials and private sector accomplices. Had those funds been distributed directly to people, he says, the average income of each Arab citizen would have risen by $200 per year for every year of the last 50 years, not to mention the quality-of-life benefits of investing in the education, water, and agricultural sectors.

AACO believes the legacy of large-scale, systematic corruption in Arab private and public sectors has thwarted competition, increased project costs, and sidelined the most qualified people from the labor market. It views corruption as a “disease” that damages the ethics and value structures of our society, and retards sustained economic and social development.

In response, it has gathered a very distinguished group of Arab professionals and former officials to form its board of trustees, providing a platform from which the organization can speak and act with credibility. AACO’s chairman is former Lebanese prime minister Selim Hoss, and among its highly respected members are Ali Fakhro (Bahrain), Ghassan Salameh and George Corm (Lebanon), Taher Kanaan and Ahmad Obeidat (Jordan/Palestine), and Tarek Bishri and Nader Fergani (Egypt).

The organization initially will work primarily by raising public awareness of the importance of combating corruption and protecting public resources and interests; promoting a culture and practices of transparency; and, motivating citizens and civil society organizations to participate actively in anti-corruption activities, including ongoing monitoring activities. Its website, www.arabanticorruption.org, provides more information about their aims and activities.

The significance of AACO’s launch rests on the impact it may have over time. Men of this caliber are not only highly respected for their own integrity; they are also deeply knowledgeable of how government operates, and how corruption happens. As they raise their voices to fight corruption and demand better governance across the Arab world, they will also mobilize others in society to stand up and speak out.

While AACO’s launch has been a low-key affair, its symbolism and potential impact are far more dramatic. These are the Arab world’s most experienced, talented, knowledgeable and honest public servants and professionals, who have put their heads together to change a system they also served honorably. They will be difficult to co-opt or intimidate. It is important that they find a way to connect with the grassroots activists, populists, democrats, Islamists and others who peacefully challenge the prevailing Arab order from below, so that the sad legacy of Arab corruption and mediocrity can be attacked by its own sons and daughters from above and below at the same time.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 17 June 2006
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AMMAN — The events in Palestine Monday highlighted dramatically the reasons why representatives from a dozen research centers in the Arab World, Europe and the United States gathered in Amman this week to explore the issue of reforming Arab armed forces and security agencies. When men with guns, in uniform or not, roam the streets and shoot at buildings that house parliament and security offices, you know you have a serious problem.

Hamas gunmen Monday fired rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank rockets at the Gaza headquarters of the Fateh-dominated Preventive Security Forces; in return Fateh gunmen in Ramallah burned the Palestinian parliament and cabinet buildings in Ramallah. This spectacle of military forces taking to the street, shooting people, and burning public offices they believe to be controlled by their rivals brings that society closer to the point where armed gangs and party militias effectively take over the political process.

This reflects the wider problem that has plagued many Arab societies for much of the past half a century: Who holds power and makes policy in Arab countries, elected civilian authorities or gunmen on the street?

The Amman gathering of research institutions exploring the issue of Arab security sector reform is the first multinational effort of its kind that is driven by non-governmental groups, under the aegis of the one-year-old Arab Reform Initiative. It comes at a particularly pertinent moment, when armed groups, private armies, neighborhood gangs, and party militias seem to be a growth industry throughout the Middle East.

In some ways, events in Palestine merely follow the same experience that defined many other Arab countries in their early years, when prominent families or tribes with their armed men seized power and ran their countries like private fiefs. It is fascinating in this respect to see Iraq repeating this pattern, as armed militias of the main political, ethnic or religious groups play an increasingly important role in state formation — in this case, state re-formation. Families and tribes with their private militias are a common precursor to statehood in much of the Arab world.

The intimate structural links between armed forces, security agencies and ruling families and elites in the Arab world is one of the defining characteristics of this region. It explains in part why we have countries where individuals rule for 30 or 40 years at a time and often pass on incumbency to their children. Breaking this cycle requires transforming the national military and security organizations into bodies that protect national security and sovereignty, rather than enforce the rule of a few men and their cousins.

It has become clear, therefore, that security sector reform is imperative if other reforms — economic, political, social — are to have a chance of succeeding in Arab lands. The cost of not reforming is high. In countries where a ruling elite or family uses the military to maintain its hold on power, the result is stagnation, corruption and tensions due to abuse of power, as we have witnessed in recent decades in Iraq, Syria, Libya and other such systems. In less developed or poorer countries where incumbent leaders make the military or private armies their main source of legitimacy, governance systems break down, leading to chaos and lawlessness, such as Somalia, and, in a slightly different version, Lebanon and Yemen during their civil wars. In Palestine today, we also see the common habit of trying to dictate political policy through the use of gunmen on the streets.

Reforming Arab security sectors will be a long-term project, as men with guns do not easily give them up, or share power with civilian bodies like parliaments, political parties, or courts. Two other constraints stand in the way of bringing security systems under the control of civilian authorities.

The first is the need for efficient security agencies to fight terrorism, corruption and other plagues that threaten most of the Middle East. We are reminded that security is a legitimate and crucial task, and it is best performed by professional agencies working closely with elected civilian bodies, according to laws enforced by an independent judiciary.

The second is that if foreign countries, especially the United States, adopt security sector reform as a primary goal — as they have done in Palestine and Iraq — the consequences are likely to be negative. Any goal that is seen to emanate from Western capitals, no matter how good or appropriate it may be (e.g., democracy, human rights, free press) is likely to generate stiff resistance in Arab societies that are fed up with being manipulated and reconfigured by Western armies.

The security organizations of the Arab world tend to be very secretive bodies, so their own views and concerns are not well known. What do we know, for example, about the political sentiments of the Fateh and Hamas gunmen burning public buildings in Ramallah and Gaza? Are they fighting for a noble concept of an independent Palestine living in democracy, freedom and peace? Or are they more interested in holding on to power and sharing the material spoils of incumbency?

This is why it is so important to engage the security services and armed forces in deep dialogue, and bring them out of the shadows.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 14 June 2006
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AMMAN — It was no coincidence that on the day that Jordanian intelligence services were involved in the successful effort to kill Al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Jordan’s King Abdullah II was holding official talks in Amman with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. These parallel efforts symbolize key aspects of the security challenges that face many Arab countries.

The underlying forces that foment these challenges are becoming more diverse and intertwined. Zarqawi was a phenomenon that encapsulates the complex mesh of forces fueling contemporary terror movements and threatening state stability in the Arab region. These include political, territorial, socio-economic, national, personal identity, and traditional police/security issues, including foreign military occupations in Iraq and Palestine.

To find out more about how such security threats are perceived and fought, I came here to Amman, Jordan, a few days ago and spent the better part of an evening chatting with authoritative senior Jordanian intelligence officers, who increasingly focus on how angry young men respond to indigenous socio-economic and political tensions by joining organized terror networks.

Jordan has always been a close friend and ally of the United States, and has had good working relations with Israel since the 1994 peace treaty. It is no surprise that Amman sees the global, Al-Qaeda-like takfiri and salafi terror movements as their main immediate concern. It is more noteworthy that Jordanian officials also highlight two other worries: Iranian attempts to expand their regional influence through allies and surrogates (they specifically mention Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad), and concerns that aspects of Israeli and American policies also indirectly create conditions of radicalism and national fragmentation.

Jordan’s recent feud with Hamas reflects Amman’s wider concern about Iran’s aim to become the dominant power in West Asia, balancing the influence of Israel. Some influential Jordanians view Hamas as an external arm of Iran, but also as deeply divided internally. One official said privately that “we can identify at least five strands of Hamas: the external wing in Damascus that gets its instructions from Iran, the Hamas leaders in prison, those in the Haniyeh government, others in Gaza, and members in the West Bank. We can only deal with the Hamas members in the Palestinian government.”

Amman reacted harshly to the discovery last month of what it identified as Hamas weapons caches in Jordan (including TNT, missiles, machine guns and handguns with silencers), along with detailed plans to attack security facilities and officers. Why Hamas would do this remains unclear. One theory, detained Hamas members allegedly said, was “to settle old scores.” Another is that the weapons were stockpiled to use against Jordanian, Israeli or foreign targets should Iran need to retaliate after an attack against its nuclear facilities.

Amman analyzes such threats in the context of wider regional trends that could fragment existing states into smaller, weaker entities, including potential domestic instability threats in Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Lebanon. The nightmare scenario sees Arab failures and American-Israeli policies causing problems to Jordan’s immediate east and west.

Some officials here fear that Olmert’s unilateral disengagement plan in Palestine would lead to a series of continuous intifadas in the long run, possibly spurring civil war and opening the door to Al-Qaeda-related groups or Iran. To the east, a fast American exit strategy from Iraq could leave behind a Kurdish state in the north, a Shiite federated region in the south, and a disgruntled, weak Sunni statelet centered on Anbar Province, along the Jordanian border. And Amman is again concerned that the Palestine issue may be resolved at its expense and on its land, through the dual agency of Israeli unilateralism and American acquiescence.

Not surprisingly, Jordanians these days simultaneously hunt down terrorist leaders in Iraq while engaging Israeli and American leaders on a negotiated diplomatic solution in Palestine-Israel. Time will tell if their analysis of Iranian ambitions and Tehran’s links with Hamas and Hizbullah is correct or exaggerated. For now, they understand more clearly the organic links among grassroots Arab political discontent, socio-economic stress, the impact of Israeli and American foreign policies in Iraq and Palestine, and the continued growth of Middle Eastern and global terror movements.

More significantly, in my view, is their growing appreciation, as one senior security source told me, “that we must fight Al-Qaeda with all our strength and resources, but police actions alone will not solve the problems and threats the region faces. We also need information strategies, economic and social solutions, effective anti-corruption campaigns and serious reform efforts.”

Jordan and its policies played a major role in the birth and death of the Zarqawi phenomenon, though the region remains plagued with vulnerable Arab states and growing terror movements. Ending this hard phase of modern Arab history requires implementing an appropriate mix of political, economic, social and police methods, to achieve the elusive Arab goal of sustainable security, stable statehood, and satisfying citizenship. Jordan’s current approach is worth watching, for it suggests that we should find out in this decade if this quest is seriously underway, and in this generation if it does succeed.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 10 June 2006
Word Count: 840
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NEW YORK — The American neo-cons who have driven policy in the Middle East for the past five years blinked on Iran last week, and made an offer to engage Tehran directly and diplomatically. This coincided with my working visit to the United States, where it has been fascinating to observe close-up the political neo-cons in their natural habitat as they evolve and adapt to the changing world around them.

Iran is Washington’s first serious political challenge since 2001. The American response suggests that the neo-cons’ hold on power is changing slowly but steadily, and that the Bush administration is capable of clear thinking and diplomatic sobriety when it puts its mind to it. This dynamic is not primarily about Iranian nuclear power and weapons. It is also about the nature of American power, and how that power is projected around the world and subsequently resisted by the world.

The new offer on nuclear power, trade, security and other issues that was given to Iran on June 6 by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana is an important symbol of Washington’s evolving worldview. The United States’ foreign policy-making team is slightly humbled, having been stunned by the realization that Iran almost single-handedly resisted both many years of American-Israeli threats, and a few recent years of European and United Nations diplomatic engagement, cajoling, inspections, and mild intimidation. Iran achieved significant technical breakthroughs in enriching small amounts of low-grade uranium, despite the Western threats, warnings and constraints. Washington has grasped that its aggressive policies have failed, and more of the same would lead only to new forms of failure.

So it is important to acknowledge the change in the American position vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear industry ambitions that is inherent in the offer given to Iran this week. We should give the United States a small round of applause for behaving with more realism than romanticism, and more maturity than militarism.

This is partly due to the recapture of American foreign policy-making by more sensible centrists who are driven by the dictates of realistic and reasonable compromises, rather than by a chauvinistic and predatory vision of American greatness that is destined to define the whole world. Five years after the neo-con crowd actively took control of Washington’s foreign policy in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the first signs of a slow shift back to rational and sensible diplomacy are symbolized by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acting like the diplomatic bunny that has just been given a fresh set of batteries to go along with a new policy line.

Iran must respond wisely in order to move this process forward, so that negotiations could lead to an agreement whereby Iran has its nuclear industry while also assuaging Western fears that it will also develop a nuclear bomb. The terms on offer by the UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany reportedly require Iran to immediately suspend its uranium enrichment activities in return for a package of economic and technical incentives, including talking with the United States as part of the existing European delegation. This is unlikely to fly, but it certainly offers the basis for an agreement that can be worked out, for three reasons.

First, the United States continues to treat Iran like a truant child that must be scolded and punished. Second, Washington projects bravado rather than realistic diplomacy, by making a direct dialogue with the United States a prize worth Iran’s unilateral suspension of its enrichment program. This is presumptuous and deeply offensive to Iran, which has just shown that it can manage very well without the invitations to tea at the White House that seem to drive the policies of so many other leaderships in the Middle East. Third, Iran should have no problem in principle suspending its small uranium enrichment program.

Tehran has suspended other parts of its nuclear program in recent years within the context of dignified, balanced diplomatic engagement with the West, via the Europeans. It can do so again if it secures important gains such as security guarantees and a full nuclear fuel cycle on the horizon. This will not happen if Condoleezza Rice continues to simultaneously woo Iran and warn it of dire woes if it rejects its new American suitor. Psychological therapy may be important today for confused American leaders who continue to learn about how to live in a world that is not afraid of their threats and does not agree to their easy resort to military assaults and regime change policies; but, it is not a serious basis for formulating American foreign policy.

This is a potentially historic moment that must not be wasted or missed. As the United States subdues its triumphalist tendencies in the face of a defiant and determined Iran, and makes important if limited gestures of realistic accommodation, the government in Tehran should offer reasonable concessions in return, including suspending enrichment for a while, in order to secure the real prize of winning the respect of the United States and the world.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 07 June 2006
Word Count: 836
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