BEIRUT — A look back at this eventful year in the Middle East shows three broad significant historical developments related to the citizen, the state and the foreign powers who intervene here. Important changes are underway at all three of these levels of identity, without predicting where they will lead.

The most positive development has seen the citizen in many Arab countries start to rebel against the many indignities and inequities that had been endured in silence for decades, mostly variations of abuse of power by unelected, unaccountable elites from their own country or abroad. In Lebanon and Palestine, large-scale popular resistance and opposition were expressed, respectively, to Syrian domination and Israeli occupation. The citizenry’s rebellion in other Arab lands has primarily taken the form of small vanguard groups of democratic activists who openly but peacefully challenge the state’s monopoly on power (Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco), or mainstream Islamist parties that challenge the ruling elite through democratic elections to parliament or local city councils (Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon).

Changes at the level of state and country were largely negative this year, the most troubling one being the continued fragmentation of 20th Century sovereign Arab states into much more brittle collections of ethnic, religious and tribal groups. The most common new trend I encountered throughout the 12 different Arab countries I visited this year — without exception — was the tendency to analyze each country in tribal rather than national terms. Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and most other Arab lands are now routinely seen through the prism of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Alawites, Druze, Palestinians, Darfurians, Turkmen, and assorted Christian groups such as Maronites, Copts or Greek Orthodox.

The Arab state is in the midst of being fractured, retribalized and redefined in much smaller configurations.

Three principal causes of this process would seem to be:
a) the largely incompetent, often brutal, rule practiced by the reining Sunni Arab-dominated power elites during the past half century;
b) a clear Israeli penchant for weakening central Arab states and promoting the emergence of smaller, weaker minorities with whom it can engage to its advantage (as it has done for years with Kurds in Iraq and some rightwing groups in Lebanon); and,
c) the current American formalization of ethnic politics in Iraq as a possible model for the entire region.

This leads to the third important trend that has defined the Middle East this year, but without clear indications of whether the end results will be positive or negative for the people of the region. This is the stepped up international direct engagement in the internal affairs of countries, including Arab states, Iran and Turkey.

(Sorry, but a necessary small aside: Peculiarly, and running against the dominant trend, foreign intervention tends to vanish when it comes to intervening in the policies and conduct of the Israeli government, even when Israeli actions are explicitly and repeatedly condemned by the international community through respectable institutions such as the World Court and the UN Security Council. A thought for the cold months of early 2006: if freedom and democracy are universal values, and should be spread around the world by diplomatic muscle and occasional force, does the same apply to the rule of law, and the state of Israel?).

The enduring exception of Israel aside, the international community’s intervention inside the Middle East this year has been striking for its audacity, but imprecise in its legitimacy and consequences. I would identify four dominant patterns of such intervention.

The first is the essentially unilateral American brute use of force, with window dressing hangers-on, as has happened in Iraq. We will need more time to discover if this epic intervention proves to be valiant or catastrophic, for the people of Iraq and the rest of this region. The second is the multilateral, diplomatic, patient, focused, consensus-driven, and UN Security Council-based approach used to intervene in Lebanon and pressure Syria, after the murder of Rafik Hariri last February. A variation of this patient, deliberate approach is being used to engage Iran on its nuclear industry plans.

The third form of foreign intervention is the painstaking, step-by-step prodding of domestic institutional and legal reforms of Arab societies that has been championed by the European Union since 1995, and more recently in a slightly more inept form by the U.S.-dominated G-8 group of industrial powers. Gains have been thin to date. The fourth, most intriguing, intervention technique, also dominated by the U.S., has been to pressure individual countries on specific issues, using a combination of public statements by American senior officials and private warnings and cajoling. The best examples of this have been the quests to push forward electoral reforms and expanded franchises in Egypt and Kuwait. Activists in both countries say privately that Washington’s pressure played an important role in pushing these two Arab systems to evolve somewhat.

The cumulative lesson from this year’s three political trends, it seems to me, is that under certain conditions there is indeed a middle ground where Arabs and Westerners can meet and work together for common political goals. Indigenous Arab activism and external diplomatic engagement can fortify each other if they jointly define a common set of goals that respond to reasonable demands on both sides, and they anchor the entire process of change in legal and political legitimacy, whether the UN, international law, or negotiated accords.

My hunch is that the good trends of the past year, including citizen activism and small steps to democracy, tend to include sensible cooperation between Arabs and Westerners; conversely, the bad news of Iraq, Palestine, Sudan and elements of the Lebanese situation usually reflects the consequences of unilateralism, gangsterism, and militarism. Why Israel consistently gets a free ride from all this remains more than intriguing; it often also drives some of the resentment that translates into extremism and violence throughout this region. Some grad student in Belgium should look into this for us this year.

Happy New Year to all, especially to my fellow average Arab citizen, whose stoicism, heroism and impregnable humanity remain the defining characteristic of these troubled but valiant lands.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 01 January 2006
Word Count: 1,016
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BEIRUT — Ever since some enterprising scribes, a few thousand years ago in the city-state of Byblos, now in Lebanon, identified a global market for a better way of keeping records and invented the modern alphabet, Lebanon and its people have always been a peculiar mix of the local and the global. The country today seems like the stage on which ever-changing constellations of local, regional and international actors meet and play out their drama. If so, the central character in this season’s political production has changed — if only momentarily — from Syria to Hizbullah.

The significance of Hizbullah’s role in Lebanon and the region is precisely that it is not static. As such it provides a timely, real-life example of the sorts of challenges that simultaneously face the people of the Middle East and interested international powers, especially the U.S. and the European Union.

Correctly analyzing and addressing the issues that revolve around Hizbullah these days will be a valuable key to unlocking some of the other big challenges and opportunities around the Middle East, especially in relation to other mainstream Islamist movements like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The immediate issue in Lebanon is the tension within the government, where a handful of cabinet ministers representing the two Shiite movements Hizbullah and Amal have suspended their attendance at cabinet meetings. They have done so ostensibly because they thought the ruling majority, headed by the Hariri-led Future Party, was taking political initiatives in cabinet related to the recent string of bombings and assassinations in the country, without first defining a national consensus on these sensitive matters.

But this quickly gets more complicated. Many people in Lebanon and abroad see Hizbullah mainly as a political or even military extension of Iranian and Syrian interests. They suspect that Hizbullah’s move was dictated by Syria and/or Iran, both of which are locked in slow-motion confrontations with the United States over a range of issues, including nuclear industry plans, the Rafik Hariri assassination investigation and Iraq.

Hizbullah’s motives and goals have been analyzed extensively from a thousand perspectives in the past year, without a consensus on the key issues of what they want, what motivates them, who drives or influences them, and how to deal with them.

These important questions, to be fair, are also universal. They could be asked about, say, the American leadership in the White House, whose foreign policy goals in the Middle East are equally inconsistent and imprecise in their motives, drivers and goals. The United States is struggling with itself and its place in the world, due to a series of powerful transformations that it has not yet digested and absorbed. These include the triumphalism of its post-Cold War victory, the vulnerabilities of its post-globalization economic dependence on foreign money, markets and natural resources, and the trauma, fear and confusion of its post 9/11 quest for an effective foreign policy that combines brute lethal revenge with sensible policy-making.

The Hizbullah situation is intriguing, and reflective of realities throughout this region, because it is so much more complex and multi-faceted. It is too simplistic to accuse Hizbullah of being an arm of Iran, an agent that Syria can manipulate, or any of the other attributes that it has been given. Hizbullah in fact has played half a dozen important roles in its history, and these roles keep evolving, while some disappear to be replaced by others. It is one of several Islamist political groups throughout the Middle East that have played a significant role in resisting foreign occupation or domestic autocrats, but now see their future mainly as representatives of national constituencies in governance systems based on democratic elections.

Throughout its short life of a quarter of a century, Hizbullah’s credibility and power have rested on five broad pillars: delivering basic social welfare needs mainly to Shiite communities in different parts of Lebanon; resisting and ending the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon; being part of the Iranian-inspired pan-Islamic movement that also challenges American hegemonic aims; providing efficient, non-corrupt good governance at the local level; and, more recently, emerging as the main representative and protector of Shiite communal interests within Lebanon’s explicitly sectarian and confessional political system. In recent decades, it also benefited from close ties to the Syrians, who had dominated Lebanon for 29 years, until last spring.

In recent months, however, the five legs on which Hizbullah stands are changing, or disappearing in some cases. The Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, Iran’s increasing diplomatic angst vis-à-vis the West, the Israeli departure from South Lebanon in 2000, and recent international pressures via UN Security Council resolutions have forced Hizbullah to review and redefine its national role in Lebanon. This partly reflects the increased local and global talk, after Israel’s retreat from the south, about the need to end Hizbullah’s status as an armed resistance group that operates beyond the control of the Lebanese national armed forces. This is required both by UN resolutions and the intra-Lebanese Taif accord that ended the Lebanese civil war 15 years ago.

Hizbullah seems to recognize that it must continue the transition it has been making in recent years — from primarily an armed resistance to Israeli occupation and a service delivery body operating in the south, to a national political organization, sitting in parliament and the cabinet and operating on a national political stage. It is unrealistic to deal with Hizbullah as a one-dimensional group that is only an armed resistance force, a political adjunct of Iran, a friend of Syria, the main interlocutor for Shiites in Lebanese politics and power-sharing, a growing force in parliament, or an Islamist voice of global, anti-imperialist resistance.

It is all these things, and always has been. Local or global parties who want to nudge it towards more involvement in national democratic politics, and away from political and armed militancy, should resist the simplistic tendency to paint it — or any other group, including the White House crowd — in one-dimensional terms that are politically convenient, but factually and historically wrong.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 28 December 2005
Word Count: 998
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DUBAI — The recent British press revelation that President George W. Bush last year told U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair that Washington was considering bombing the Qatar headquarters of the pan-Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera (denied by the White House) brought to new levels of intensity and idiocy the ongoing tension between the American government and some Arab satellite channels. This is the most dramatic edge of a wider phenomenon that is being extensively discussed in the Middle East and throughout the West: the virtually unregulated Middle Eastern and global Arabic-language satellite services, and their impact on Arab people’s social and political sentiments, especially their views of the U.S. and Israel.

I have had the pleasure this month of participating in two gatherings here in Dubai that treated this important issue, which has potentially significant consequences for the region, and also for the world. For there is a direct relationship today between mass media output, public opinion attitudes and political or military action by small groups of dynamic activists and leaders in society who believe they have a divinely-mandated mission to change the world for the better — including Osama Bin Laden-type Arab terrorists, Dick Cheney-type neo-conservative American militants, and Tony Blair-style British neocolonialists who represent the long and seemingly perpetual tradition (now in its third consecutive century!) of British leaders sending their troops to Basra in southern Iraq.

Having spent just three and a half decades in this business of mass media communication and miscommunication between the Arab world, Western Europe and the United States and Canada, I sense that we must avoid at all costs the serious mistake that seems to drive American views of Al-Jazeera and other pan-Arab media: we must not confuse the messenger that carries the bad news — i.e., most Arabs are deeply critical of American and Israeli policies — with the reality and causes of that bad news for the U.S. and Israel.

Unlike most American officials who routinely criticize Al-Jazeera and other pan-Arab media, I’ve actually watched these stations virtually daily since their inception during the past decade, and have spent hours talking with their correspondents and senior staff to better understand their own views of the world and their place in it. My conclusion is that any useful, accurate analysis of the Arab satellite media must separate their professional conduct from their political impact. With half a dozen serious, news-oriented Arab satellite stations (among a total of 240 Arab satellite channels) and nearly a decade of experience to judge by, we can assess these channels on the basis of facts, rather than cultural fantasies and other imagined realities.

The facts suggest that these channels’ professional focus is to provide audiences with a relevant and useful package of news, analysis, opinion and entertainment. Increasing competition in recent years has seen influential news-oriented channels expand to include Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiyya, Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC), Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC), Abu Dhabi Television, and, to a smaller extent, Lebanon’s Future Television, Hizbullah-owned Al-Manar, Orbit, and Egyptian television.

Such competition has sharpened the channels’ professionalism in delivering the news and offering lively political and social debates. In the past three years, covering the Anglo-American led war in Iraq and its messy aftermath, I’ve made it a point to watch Arab, European and American television services in order to compare their coverage. On the basis of what I have witnessed during the past 1000 days, I would like to bet Donald Rumsfeld a double cheeseburger, and Karen Hughes two tickets to a Yankees-Rangers baseball game on a balmy July evening, that the overall coverage of Iraq on the mainstream Arab satellite services has been more comprehensive, balanced and accurate than the coverage of any mainstream American cable or broadcast television service.

There is a major research project to be done here by a combination of American and Arab university journalism schools who should do a content analysis of the output of selected American and Arab television services during the past five years, on issues such as Iraq, Palestine-Israel, or promoting democratic reforms in the Middle East. Such research would show that the problem is not the coverage of the news, but rather the fact that these Arab media accurately reflect the rampant criticism of the U.S., U.K. and Israel that defines the Arab world today.

This is the political dimension of these media companies. They should be thanked rather than attacked for providing something valuable that had been denied us for many decades: an accurate and timely reflection of how ordinary Arab men and women feel about their world, alongside the rich variety of views within Arab public opinion.

These stations, in fact, have provided a vibrant television form of precisely that which George Bush and his string of dizzy dames of public diplomacy have been calling and warring for in this region: democratic pluralism, at least in television news and opinion. The U.S., Israel and others understandably dislike the criticisms of their policies that they see and hear on Arab television. To respond by attacking the Arab journalist messengers who carry the bad news, however, rather than addressing the contentious underlying political dynamic between the U.S., Israel and the Arab world, is a sign of political amateurism and personal emotionalism.

The deadly, peculiarly American, combination of foreign policy drivers has already caused the United States enough trouble around the world. The kids and confused adults running this show in Washington need to adopt a more thoughtful and constructive approach to dealing with the Arab world and its fast developing satellite television news services, especially because these media are potentially valuable partners in any drive for democratic transformations in this region.

There are many valid criticisms to be made of these still young Arab television services, such as their limited probing of their own national power structures, and lack of in-depth investigative journalism. Whatever we do, though, we should act like adults in this analytical process, by separating the three distinctly different phenomena of professional assessments, political irritations, and emotional anxieties.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 24 December 2005
Word Count: 999
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BEIRUT — Every day as I drive to my office at the Daily Star newspaper in downtown Beirut, the pictures of the dead and wounded stare at me from posters and banners throughout the city, attesting to the pain and suffering of the Lebanese people, but also to their heroism and determination. The pictures are of those people who were the targets of vicious bomb attacks in the past 14 months, starting with Marwan Hamade in October last year, then Rafik Hariri and Basil Fleihan last February, and since then Samir Kassir, George Hawi, Mai Shidiak and now Gebran Tueini.

Hamade and Shidiak survived with terrible injuries, but the others were killed, along with some 25 other people who died in a total of 11 bombings during that period. A UN-mandated international investigation is underway to identify those who killed Hariri and his party and it may also shed light on the other criminal acts. Many in Lebanon blame Syria for the attacks, while the Syrians repeatedly reaffirm their innocence. Other possible culprits are frequently mentioned. Soon enough the investigation will reveal the identity of the phantom bombers who have terrorized Lebanon for the past 14 months.

Last week, the Tueini murder regalvanized the spirit of the Lebanese people to push ahead to find the killers and to hold them accountable before the law. This marks the third phase of the dynamic that started in late summer last year, when some brave Lebanese leaders such as Kassir, Tueini, Walid Junblatt and others publicly defied the ultimately successful Syrian decision to extend the term of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud against the wishes of most Lebanese people. The second phase was the spontaneous mass mobilization that followed the killing of Hariri, which in the spring parliamentary elections this year resulted in a small majority for those who opposed Syria’s role in Lebanon.

The third phase now has launched renewed political moves on the domestic and international levels, fraught with both peril and promise. The promise is that the public anger will be channeled in a constructive, sustained, democratic and peaceful process that will bolster the investigation and ultimately lead to catching and trying in a fair court of law those who are responsible for these crimes. Ultimately, this could lead to an important breakthrough for the entire Arab world, perhaps bringing to an end the ugly modern era of political cultures defined by chronic intimidation and political violence.

The peril is that this process will put so much pressure on the fragile Lebanese domestic political system that it will once again fracture, leading to either chronic instability and immobilization, or recurring internal violence.

The heroism I see in the Lebanese people reflects their ability to endure this sort of criminality, yet persevere in their determination to live in freedom and dignity, and, more importantly, to affirm the rule of law. This has been manifested this week by two parallel developments, one collective, and the other personal.

The collective action has been the quick moves by the Lebanese government headed by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which is backed by the new parliamentary majority, to assert itself in the face of the continuing killings. It asked that the investigation into the Hariri murder be expanded to include the other bombings, and also called for an international tribunal to try suspects named in the investigation. This was quickly followed up by a meeting of political forces at the Bristol Hotel Monday which issued a statement, “The Freedom Intifada,” calling for a constitutional mechanism to remove the president from office and to rebuild a legitimate, independent and efficient Lebanese security and judicial structure.

The participants in the meeting, which included MPs and ministers from the Future Movement, Progressive Socialist Party, Lebanese Forces and Phalange Party, insisted that the Taif Accord that ended the Lebanese civil war 15 years ago “should be the only reference to reflect the agreement of the Lebanese over building their national government.”

Equally importantly, the statement said that peaceful dialogue should define interaction with the important movements that have rejected dismissing the president or openly accusing the Syrians of the string of bombings, notably Hizbullah, Amal, and the Free Patriotic Movement.

Lebanon has already witnessed serious tensions from these developments, including the decision of the five cabinet ministers representing Hizbullah and Amal to suspend their participation in cabinet meetings. President Lahoud has threatened to boycott cabinet meetings if these ministers stay away, thus opening the prospect of a stalemated government at a time when the country needs exactly the opposite.

These are trying times for Lebanon, which once again confronts the terrible specter of being the terrain on which regional and international forces fight out their ideological battles. The difference today, however, is the enduring message and example of those courageous and principled Lebanese whose lives were shattered or ended in the strong of recent bombings, and who look down upon us all from the posters and banners throughout their city.

That message was best expressed in recent days by the actions of a single person, the father of the murdered Gebran Tueini, the noted journalist, public servant and intellectual Ghassan Tueini — a giant of a man who exemplifies the best of the Lebanese and Arab character. He proclaimed, even during his son’s funeral, that the Lebanese people should not seek revenge for his son’s murder, but justice, and should respond to political violence only with a steadfast commitment to the rule of law and constitutionalism.

There may be other bombings, deaths and injuries in the months ahead, until the perpetrators of these crimes are identified and brought to justice. But I am certain that Lebanon ultimately will emerge from this traumatic period in better shape, and as a beacon for the entire Arab world. For along with the posters and banners of some of its dead and maimed leading citizens, Lebanon’s cities, citizenry and the very core of its human spirit are fortified anew by its powerful will to live in freedom and dignity — forever governed by law, tempered by mercy, and enriched by its democratic pluralism.

That is what human heroism on a national scale is all about. That is what I and millions of others witness, honor and are humbled and inspired by every day, when we walk and drive past the pictures of Marwan Hamade, Rafik Hariri, Basil Fleihan, Samir Kassir, George Hawi, Mai Shidiak and Gebran Tueini.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 21 December 2005
Word Count: 1,068
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NEW YORK — The center of gravity of the discussion on Iraq has shifted dramatically in the past two months, from the mess the Americans created to the mess the Iraqis must deal with. Change and transition are in the air in the U.S. and Iraq, as the Bush administration grasps that most Iraqis and Arabs, and now most Americans, want a clear plan for the U.S. to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

The two most visible changes within the United States that a visitor witnesses are the altered nature of President George Bush’s rhetoric, and the prevalent expectation that the U.S. will start withdrawing some of its troops in the coming months.

Behind the dizzying political rhetoric in the U.S. and Iraq lies the one dynamic that overrides all others: Will this week’s election usher in a legitimate Iraqi political government and parliament, replacing what is seen as an illegitimate American military occupation and political administration?

In four speeches he gave in recent weeks, two of which I watched on television in the United States during a short visit, President Bush has adopted a slightly more humble and realistic tone, while insisting that American troops will remain until the day of an imprecisely defined “victory”. He seemed unconvincing, repeating old arguments that most Americans no longer find credible, according to opinion polls.

But this rhetorical onslaught is less important than developments on the ground in Iraq, where this week’s parliamentary elections may usher in an important transitional phase in which we might finally witness the transfer of genuine power from American troops to Iraqi politicians. Much debate will continue about whether the elections Thursday were legitimate or not, and whether the new Iraqi parliament and government, with the growing national army and police system, will be able to restore stability and security throughout the country. In the coming months, Iraqis themselves will answer these questions, but they only do so if they are free of American political and ideological tutelage.

The most important and urgent task at hand now is to speed up the creation of a stable national government and governance system that Iraqis themselves judge to be legitimate and representative. Elections can be a significant starting point for this, but only a fully sovereign, independent and credible Iraqi government can move quickly on improving security and bringing normalcy back into the lives of most citizens.

The fastest way to move towards that goal would be for the United States to announce that it is starting its military withdrawal from Iraq and does not intend to maintain long-term bases there. As long as American troops and political meddling define Iraqi politics, any new Iraqi government — even elected by the people — will be seen as a puppet regime. It would remain a target of Iraqi skepticism as well as armed resistance by Iraqis and other foreign militants.
Starting the American military retreat from Iraq is important because American troops in Iraq will continue to be a divisive and destabilizing force, just as the American military presence in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 war was a major provocation of Osama Bin Laden-style resistance and terror. Washington could link the speed of its withdrawal to how fast Iraqis generate a credible political and security system, but should give 18 months as a target date for leaving the country. Such a strategy would have a good chance of impacting quickly and positively on several crucial dimensions of Iraq today.

It would show Iraqis that that they can soon anticipate the benefits of both national sovereignty and a politically legitimate government that is neither protected nor choreographed by American vice-consuls. It would also spur Iraqis to reach faster agreement on key constitutional and power-sharing issues that remain undefined to the satisfaction of all. A legitimate Iraqi government can do that which the mighty American army could not: mobilize the popular will necessary to restore day-to-day security and stop attacks against infrastructural facilities such as oil, electricity and water networks.

The American experiment in Iraq unfortunately has accelerated the retribalization of the country. The former sense of Iraqi citizenship has been replaced by a growing allegiance to sect and tribe – Sunni, Shia, Christian, Kurdish, Turkmen — as the units that define the citizen. An American military and political exit would help to slow down or even reverse this national fragmentation into ethnic and religious subgroups, most of which also have armed militias.

America’s adventure in Iraq has generated fear and meddling by neighbors like Syria, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, some of whom find the U.S. in Iraq an easy target. A military withdrawal ideally would instead engage the neighbors’ cooperation in working for stability and cohesion in Iraq, and also perhaps forging regional security arrangements, including, ideally, improving ties with Syria and Iran.

Similarly, a sovereign Iraq free of American troops would have a better chance of attracting the vital Arab and international assistance that has shunned the country for fear of being associated with the controversial American presence. At the same time, American troops leaving Iraq would take the wind out of those insurgents and terrorists who are motivated primarily by liberating this part of the Islamic realm from foreign dominance.

It’s hard to think of a single act that would generate as much positive hope for Iraqis during their current delicate transition to sovereignty and normalcy as the announcement of the start of an American military withdrawal. If the anticipated good things happen as I have envisaged them above, George Bush could also proclaim mission accomplished. Once again.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 17 December 2005
Word Count: 929
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THE UNITED NATIONS, New York — Two nearly simultaneous events Monday in Beirut and New York both complicate and clarify the increasingly tense diplomatic relationships that now bind Lebanon, Syria, the United States and the United Nations Security Council in something akin to a dance of death. But who is most in danger is not clear.

The assassination of leading Lebanese publisher and anti-Syria critic Gebran Tueini in Beirut occurred just hours before Detlev Mehlis, the head of the UN commission investigating the similar assassination last February of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, submitted his second report to the UN Security Council.

From the perspective of New York City and the United Nations headquarters, where I have spent the past few days, it seems likely that Lebanon or Syria, or possibly both, will emerge rather damaged from the ongoing diplomatic tug-of-war. Yet this is also an important test of the ability of the international community, acting through the UN Security Council, to pressure a country like Syria to comply with its legitimate demands, now that Syria has adopted a defiant tone in resisting what it terms American hegemonic plans to bring it to its knees.

Syria’s behavior in recent months reflects its classic tactics of comply and confound: on the one hand is complies slowly but steadily with the key technical demands of the UN investigating committee headed by Detlev Mehlis, while on the other hand it drags out the process for months and simultaneously works to discredit the investigation on both political and procedural grounds.

As one UN official who works closely on these issues told me privately, the Syrians may be scoring some public relations points with audiences in the Middle East, but they are increasingly cornered on the substantive matters that count when the Security Council considers this matter.

Behind all this is another level of perceptions and actions related to how the United States uses its military and diplomatic power around the world. Central here is the Middle East region that Washington has chosen as the crucible for experimenting with various formulae to change the behavior of Arab and Iranian regimes. With the United States in the midst of a slow turn to pull its troops out of Iraq in the coming few years, what happens in the American-Syrian confrontation could have a major impact on American credibility and clout in other parts of the region and the world.

Americans and others at the UN are constantly pondering what kinds of sanctions could be applied if Syria refuses to comply fully with the Security Council’s demands. As one UN official noted, the worst thing to happen would be for the UN to impose open-ended sanctions on Syria without a clear agenda or outcome, which Syria could probably resist for years.

Today as last February, many Lebanese spontaneously accused Syria of Tueini’s death, and many, including government ministers, also want a wider international tribunal to investigate and try those people found to be complicit in these and several other assassinations and bomb attacks in Lebanon since February. While much public opinion in Lebanon has been swift to point the finger at Syria once again, the sentiments in the Security Council and among foreign policy analysts in New York are more cautious, and focused sharply on completing the investigation into Hariri’s death.

The critical arena for this effort is the Mehlis-led investigation, whose second report to the Security Council in the past two months explicitly reaffirmed the basic points made in the first report, which accused Syrian and Lebanese security services or officers of being involved in the Hariri murder. While initial reactions among some American analysts here tended to see the second Mehlis report as containing little new, a closer reading shows it to be more damaging to Syria.

The report said that new information gathered from witnesses and material sources in the past two months “points directly at perpetrators, sponsors and organizers of an organized operation aiming at killing Mr. Hariri, including the recruitment of special agents by the Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services, handling of improvised explosive devices, a pattern of threats against targeted individuals and planning of other criminal activities.”

The report is even more interesting now because slowly, quietly, the UN Security Council in the past three months has expanded its focus from the Hariri investigation to include the behavior of the Syrian government. The second Mehlis report is most intriguing on this count. It accuses Syria of obfuscation, delay and deliberate attempts to sabotage the probe, while noting Damascus’ compliance on the key issue of providing most but not all Syrians whom the investigators want to question.

Damascus will need to respond quickly and unambiguously to the report’s disclosure that the investigation has obtained new evidence that Syria appeared to be shielding two important Syrian witnesses, Ziad Ramadan and Khaled Midhat Taha, had destroyed crucial documents, threatened witnesses, and that a high-level Syrian official had supplied arms and ammunition to people in Lebanon to stage attacks “in order to create public disorder in response to any accusations of Syrian involvement in the Hariri assassination.”

One European diplomat at the UN intimately involved in monitoring the Lebanon-Syria issue expressed the wider exasperation of the Security Council members, and also their determination to pursue the Hariri investigation to its end, when he said privately that the Syrians had clearly “not understood the meaning of ‘unconditional cooperation’ as demanded by Resolution 1636.”

“We passed Resolution 1636 because of the lack of cooperation by Syria on Resolution 1559. We had to change the rules of the game, and Syria does not seem to understand this,” he said.

So, diplomats and officials at the UN note, the second Mehlis report issued here in New York Monday should be understood as a final warning to Syria to comply fully with Resolution 1636, by cooperating more quickly and efficiently with the UN investigators.

The Tueini murder has been viewed with great shock and anger here. Its most likely impact will be to strengthen and deepen the Security Council members’ resolve to complete the Hariri investigation, even if it reaches to the highest levels of the Syrian or Lebanese governments and security services.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 14 December 2005
Word Count: 1,034
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BEIRUT — The moment of reckoning about the next stage of Arab political development is upon us faster than anticipated, with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt winning 88 seats out of a total of 444 in the Egyptian parliamentary elections. Many people will debate whether this is a danger, an inevitability that we have to adapt to, or a positive opportunity that could help shape the elusive historical transition from autocratic Arab security states to something more democratic and satisfying.

We should not collectively watch this unfolding process on CNN, Al-Jezira and Al-Arabiyya television, but rather we should embrace this opening with a combination of rationality, courage, equity and vision that have been sadly lacking from modern Arab governance systems. Arab, Western and Israeli political establishments must quickly respond with policies that can transform this into a positive force and a win-win situation for all.

While small groups of radical militants exploit Islamic sentiments and iconography to carry out their murderous deeds in this and other regions, the vast majority of mainstream Islamists have started to engage the peaceful, democratic political processes that are available to them in more and more countries. Legitimate political expression and power-sharing, rather than some vague moderate religious expression of Islam, is what will finally defeat the Ben Ladenist jihadi terrorists, and we must all work wisely to encourage the continued emergence of legitimate Islamist democrats.

Such groups as the MB, Hizbullah, Hamas, Islah in Yemen, and others around the region have done and will continue to do well in Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, and any other Arab land where they are given a chance to compete in political elections with a modicum of fairness. The most important thing about the Egyptian results is not that the Muslim Brotherhood now controls around one-fifth of parliament, or that it has more than doubled its previous best performance of holding 36 seats. It is that it won 88 seats while only contesting around one-third of all 444 seats, so as not to provoke the government and its ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). The MB candidates also did not officially run under the movement’s banner, given that it is not a legal organization or party in Egypt. Furthermore, the NDP panicked when the MB did well in the first rounds of voting, so it used thug-like tactics in later rounds, including arresting hundreds of Islamist campaign workers and putting obstacles in the way of voters with Islamist leanings.

Despite all this, the Islamists won around 50 percent of the seats they contested. This suggests that if they ran in all electoral districts and did not suffer the crude disruptions of the state’s and the ruling party’s goons and gangs, they would certainly win a plurality, and possibly a majority, in parliament. The same situation pertains in Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and other lands, where Islamists who express the simmering discontent and indignities of large swaths of citizens find their political representation in “democratic” systems severely curtailed by the consequence of rigged voting, gerrymandered electoral districts, skewed electoral laws or tacit agreements that limit the number of seats the Islamists contest. Consequently, Islamists can participate in the political system, but can never accurately reflect the weight of their true constituency.

This year represents a watershed in Arab Islamist movements engaging more routinely and openly in parliamentary elections and other forms of democratic governance, such as municipal elections, activism within civil society and the mass media, and engaging politically through the rule of law and the judiciary. It is vital that the mainstream ruling elites in the Arab world and beyond respond in kind, by simultaneously engaging and challenging the Islamists in return. They should do so in order both to strengthen Islamist tendencies towards democratic politics, and to activate the test of incumbency that all aspiring governing parties must pass. Islamists who win power or earn a place in governing coalitions must show that they can deliver — to their constituencies and to all citizens — services and policies that make sense, and that respond to the citizen’s rights and needs.

Islamist movements have broadly performed well in national resistance against, say, Israeli occupation, homegrown Arab autocracy, or Western hegemonic aims. If they prove their mettle as good managers and policy-makers, they will then be validated by their own societies as legitimate governors within a democratic, constitutional context in which power is routinely contested through elections, free media, civil society and other means. Turkey is an impressive example where Islamists challenged the ruling authority for years, were routinely beaten back with strong-arm tactics, but finally prevailed democratically and have ruled, broadly, with equanimity and efficiency.

An important dimension of the Islamists entering establishment politics in the Arab world is how they will be engaged by the U.S., Israel and other Western powers. The Islamists say they will honor existing laws and treaties, including peace treaties with Israel in Egypt and Jordan, and significant aid and military ties with the U.S. It is ironic but welcomed that the MB Islamists have done well in Egypt in part because the U.S. pressured the Egyptian regime to open up the political system and allow diverse political groups to contest elections, including the presidency in a very limited fashion.

The Islamists have won a significant victory in Egypt, and it would be appropriate now for those in the U.S. and the Arab world who long fought against the concept of democratic Islamists to engage them, work with them, sometimes embrace them, but always challenge them to prove their efficacy as wielders of power in a democracy, rather than only challengers of authority in an autocracy. This might be a good time for some thoughtful, non-hysterical U.S. senators and congressmen to invite a handpicked delegation of newly elected Arab members of parliament in several countries, including a few Islamists, to visit the United States for exchanges of views and perceptions on issues of common interest, including democracy, religion in public life, and the impact of American, Arab, Israeli, Turkish and Iranian foreign policies.

Who knows, maybe they would have a good chat on why we all love freedom and democracy, why Arabs tend also to stress sovereignty, liberation, self-determination and dignity as parallel goals, and how we could work together to promote those universal aspirations. This is a historic moment, and an opportunity not to be missed to promote democracy and stability in the Arab world.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 10 December 2005
Word Count: 1,071
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DUBAI — The overall security situation in the Middle East has become so complex in recent years that it is difficult to pinpoint the most dangerous single situation, country or political relationship. The candidates are plentiful, including Israeli-Palestinian ties, wider Arab-Israeli relations, the American-led pressures on Syria, trends within Lebanon, conditions inside Iraq, terrorism everywhere, Iran under its newly elected hard-line president, stability in Saudi Arabia, and potential regional tensions emanating from Kurdish northern Iraq.

My sense, however, after participating in two conferences on security in the Gulf region in Doha and Dubai in the past week, is that the bilateral relationship between the United States and Iran is probably the single most dangerous dynamic in the region. Conversely, forging stable, normal and peaceful American-Iranian ties may be the most important immediate contribution to long-term security, stability and prosperity in the Gulf region and the Middle East as a whole.

The flashpoint now in American-Iranian ties is the dispute over Iran’s nuclear aims and capabilities, which demands greater diplomatic efforts by all concerned. Fortunately, the three European powers of France, Britain and Germany are deeply engaged in negotiating an arrangement that would allow Iran to complete its plans for a nuclear power industry while also assuaging Western fears that Iran would clandestinely divert some of the fuel from its power plants to create nuclear weapons.

I’ve had the pleasure in the past week to discuss this matter with some of the key European and Iranian officials who have been actively negotiating this matter, and there are reasons to be hopeful that the issue is resolvable. We now have a pretty good idea of the core impediments and concerns on both sides, which include both technical and political issues, and the negotiators are steadily generating new compromise proposals to meet those concerns. The United States, the 800 pound gorilla in the room that is so central to this matter but is only indirectly involved in the discussions, seems to have recognized the need to adopt a more patient and less bellicose attitude toward Iran, in public at least, so that the ongoing discussions might have a chance to succeed.

The technical issues are complex enough on their own, but are resolvable if the political issues are addressed simultaneously, and these boil down essentially to a question of mutual trust. The U.S. and the West in general do not trust Iran’s declared aim of only generating electricity from its nuclear plants, given that Iran over a period of 18 years had not declared all the components of its nuclear facilities and procurements. Combined with Western accusations of Iranian involvement in terrorism during that period, this makes it impossible for the West to accept Iran’s pledges that all its facilities will be put under permanent inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Iran for its part is supremely bitter about the duplicity that it suffered at the hands of the West, when its 1975 contracts to purchase a nuclear power plant from Germany and the relevant fuel from France were not honored — due to U.S. pressure, it says — after the Iranian revolution that overthrew the Shah in 1979. Iranians have many good reasons to feel vulnerable, and therefore to demand confidence-building measures from the West, in return for their moves to build trust. Tehran is surrounded by American troops and NATO bases in all directions, with large contingents in Afghanistan and Iraq. It feels the world left it to suffer on its own when Iraq attacked it in 1980 and also used chemical weapons against its troops.

It feels that its peaceful intentions are manifested in its signing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and allowing the IAEA to undertake 12,000 person-days of inspections in the past ten years, including permanent inspectors at its Isfahan plant. Tehran sees only further hypocrisy and neo-colonial double standards in the Western demand that it should compromise and show transparency now, after the West did not honor contracts and placed it under assorted embargoes for the past 20 years.

These issues of trust underpin the complex technical issues. The negotiators and other officials on both sides continue to craft possible compromise solutions that bring their positions closer together, now also with Russian suggestions and a role in providing and reprocessing fuel. These compromise possibilities include third party states providing and reprocessing fuel, objective guarantees on IAEA inspections, allowing Iran to have a small pilot plant that includes a full fuel cycle under strict IAEA supervision, and timelines of a decade or more during which Iran would momentarily forego some of its rights under the NPT, mutual trust would be reestablished, and some of the strict restrictions on Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle would be eased.

It is unlikely that a breakthrough will happen soon under the policies of the hard-line new Iranian team under recently elected President Ahmadinejad. It could occur in the coming year, though, due to mounting international pressure, the ongoing political reconfiguration inside Iran, and a more urgent American need to come to terms with Iran in order to allow the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq and leave behind a stable country.

Most of the core issues at play are political, not technical. They are about American policies in the Middle East as a whole, and Iran’s sense of dignity and sovereignty. They are also about mutual trust and mistrust, emanating from actual policies by both sides rather than any imagined sense of the other’s sinister aims. A healthy, non-belligerent Iranian-American bilateral relationship is crucial for resolving or tempering many other conflicts and tensions in the Middle East, as well as for global stability and non-proliferation.

Washington seems to understand this better these days, to its credit, as the Europeans and Russians prudently press ahead with new ideas on the technical negotiations with Iran. Iran has much to gain from a successful negotiation, not least of which would be its natural role as the major power in the Gulf region, but a peace-loving power that would not strike the kinds of concerns that it does now among its Arab neighbors or foreign lands further afield.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 07 December 2005
Word Count: 1,019
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BEIRUT — The Washington-Damascus show is nearing its climactic dramatic moment. In the coming months, the protagonists must either conclude there can be no coexistence and accordingly fight it out to the death; or, they can clear up the ambiguities and falsehoods they hurled at one another, reconcile, embrace, and live happily ever after. A flurry of events in the past week has once again focused on the U.N.-led international investigation of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which has pointed possible blame in the direction of Syria.

The immediate issue of the two Syrian witnesses in the UN probe who seem to have contradicted or recanted their testimony is intriguing and entertaining, but it remains unclear how significant this is. The two Syrians, Husam Husam and Mohammed Siddiq, provided information to the investigation headed by UN-appointed investigating judge Detlev Mehlis that seemed to corroborate common Lebanese suspicions that Syria was somehow involved in the Hariri killing. Subsequently, these two witnesses were discredited as untrustworthy crooks, unstable liars, or planted witnesses designed to confound the Mehlis investigation. Husam in particular created a ruckus last week when he appeared in a televised press conference in Syria to claim that he had been pressured and bribed by Lebanese parties to point the finger at Syrians in his sworn testimony.

The UN investigators quickly responded by making it known via the press that these two witnesses were not central or primary sources of testimony that built up the case that implicated Syria in the killing. When I and a few other journalists spent a few hours talking with Mehlis and other members of his staff in his heavily guarded offices outside Beirut on Wednesday, the atmosphere was distinctly low-key and confident. Husam and Siddiq clearly had not sown any panic there. Mehlis dismissed the Syrian-orchestrated press conference as something that reminded him of Soviet-style propaganda 40 years ago — something he knows about because he experienced it first hand as a young man in Berlin. Clearly he was not impressed, or bothered, by the Husam show.

The use of the Soviet-style analogy to describe Syrian behavior was significant, in my view, because it links nicely with the wider analytical framework we need to use to really understand what is going on here. This gets us back to the main dynamics that have defined the American-Lebanese-Syrian relationship in the past 18 months or so: this is the last battle of the Cold War that ended in most other parts of the world in 1989-1990. Syria is one of the few countries of the world still run along former Soviet lines of centralized power anchored in a single or dominant party, and, more importantly here, one of the few countries in the world that still defies, challenges and resists the U.S. in various ways, often for valid reasons, at other times for the sake of obfuscating drama.

The Syrian-American confrontation is about the past and the future together. It is both a remnant of the Cold War and a new battle in the American-led “global war on terror” that was launched after the September 11, 2001 attack against the United States. The UN-led investigation of the Hariri murder is a central mechanism in the American confrontation with Syria, but it is also much more than that, which is why it is so wrong and simplistic for some Syrians, Lebanese and others to try and discredit the Mehlis probe as a tool of U.S. neo-colonialism.

It is important to remember that serious Lebanese-Syrian and American-Syrian tensions emerged on the scene at least six months before the Hariri assassination. The turning point was the summer of 2004, when noises were heard from Damascus about extending the mandate of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud. Some courageous Lebanese responded to this likelihood with a public rejection of the extension, and demands that the security-dominated governance system in Lebanon be dismantled. The U.S. itself six months before that, in late 2003, had passed a congressional bill pressuring and sanctioning Syria for its conduct in Lebanon. The European Union, meanwhile, was quietly negotiating an association agreement with Syria, in which it was broaching touchy issues like development of weapons of mass destruction.

The global response to the gravity of the Hariri murder simply funneled all these bilateral dynamics into a single, collective process, anchored in the UN Security Council. This sought to respond to murder with the force of the rule of law and the accountability of any person or state proven guilty in a fair court of law. The historic importance of the Mehlis investigation, and the assorted UN Security Council resolutions that frame the Lebanon-Syria situation, is very simple but very powerful: a legal process of accountability, based on patient and meticulous fact-finding, is being implemented in two Arab states (Syria and Lebanon), including questioning members of the security services and the national leaderships.

While most attention has focused on Mehlis’ team’s possible questioning of top Syrian security officials related to President Bashar Assad, I found it equally significant that the investigators recently spent hours questioning incumbent Lebanese President Lahoud. What a nice way to start the new millennium: credible, independent, legitimate international investigators questioning an Arab leader on issues related to a capital crime that occurred under his watch.

The historic significance of the Mehlis probe is the message it sends: Arab security organizations, governments and individuals can no longer act with impunity. This is why it is so important for the UN probe to keep working diligently and fairly, guided minutely by the dictates of law and fair play, giving every accused or suspected person the full protection of the law and the presumption of innocence until and if proven guilty.

For the same reason, the Syrians must stop resorting to televised drama with limited credibility and instead also anchor their response in the rule of law. If, as they say, their government was not involved in the Hariri murder, and any Syrian proven to have been involved would be turned over to the appropriate tribunal for trial, then Syria should see the Mehlis probe as a golden opportunity to affirm its commitment to the principles of law and justice that occupy such a central place in the lexicon and iconography of modern Syrian statehood.

If state or rogue elements in Lebanon, Syria or other lands killed Hariri, they will be held accountable by the law, and the incumbent governments should be able to carry on — but only if they adhere to the global consensus on the rule of law, rather than security systems, as the preferred way to govern.

If the world is now serious about implementing the rule of law in Arab lands, this might be a good opportunity to ask again about whether other, equally valid UN Security Council resolutions related to Israel may soon get the same sort of attention. Specifically, those of us who respect UN resolutions, embrace the rule of law, and want all regimes in the Middle East held accountable to a single moral and legal standard of justice should push hard to complete the Mehlis investigation and let it lead where it may to any guilty party. At the same time we should quietly and repeatedly ask when UN resolutions that demand actions by Israel might elicit the same sort of enthusiastic investigative and implementation mechanisms that we have seen mustered for the Lebanon-Syria realm.

The two are separate but parallel processes that should not be conditional. The Mehlis probe must be completed so that we start putting an end to the impunity of killers in the Arab world. That should pave the way for putting an end to the official and private crimes of others in the region, including Israel, and Western armies, who kill Arabs on a routine basis.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 03 December 2005
Word Count: 1,303
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DOHA, Qatar — The small emirate of Qatar where I spent last weekend attending a gathering of NATO parliamentarians with officials, scholars and activists from the Arab Gulf states is well known for three things, and is trying to generate a reputation for a fourth. Its three attributes to date are its immense natural gas reserves, which lead to its second reality of being the main base for the American armed forces in the Gulf region. It is also known (and widely respected in most places, except the impetuous United States) as being the home of Al-Jazeera television.

For the past few years Qatar also has been busy developing a reputation as an open intellectual, educational and political meeting place in the Gulf region, where the best universities in the world open branches and people can freely discuss any public issue of concern. So it was no surprise to hear the honest, deep dialogue that took place last weekend in Doha during the two-day gathering sponsored by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, in collaboration with the Consultative Assembly of Qatar.

The theme of the gathering was the role of parliamentarians in relations between NATO and the ‘broader Middle East’, meaning everything between Morocco and Bangladesh. Unfortunately, most Arab parliaments and lesser cousins, such as appointed advisory, Islamic shura or consultative councils, neither accurately represent their citizenries nor play a true checks-and-balances function vis-à-vis the all-powerful executive and security sectors of society. This is why throughout the broader Middle East parliaments are also broadly lacking in credibility and impact.

Nevertheless, a very fine and honest discussion took place among the 60 participants, who were mostly non-parliamentarians from the Arab side. Three main themes emerged that should interest anyone who studies the Gulf states and their evolution: the importance for stability in the entire region of solving the Arab-Israeli conflict fairly; the enormous impact that ultimate conditions in Iraq will have on the entire region; and, the great dilemma that defines the smaller Gulf states and Saudi Arabia — they have no alternative to American military support for their security, but also suffer the destabilizing, terror-promoting consequence of having U.S. troops in their country.

The oil- and gas-fuelled Gulf states are not, as often perceived abroad, little wonderlands, basking in their bountiful revenues and able to get on with developing their societies, sometimes in fantastic and flamboyant ways. The reality is that there is great concern and even some fear of an existential nature here. This is because of their historic vulnerabilities to nearby Iran and Iraq, and the current contradiction between their immense natural wealth, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, their inability to protect themselves from political tensions in the region (both Arab and Iranian) or even from the possibility of turning into a battleground of competition for energy among the world’s current (U.S., Europe, Japan) and looming powers (China, India).

The combination of ongoing injustices and occupation in Palestine and the turbulent, violent situation in nearby Iraq, including the perhaps permanent presence of American troops, generates popular anger and angst throughout the Arab Gulf region. In some cases this meshes with home-grown anger at official policies, and at sometimes wasteful or corrupt use of the indigenous oil and gas income, leading a few disgruntled citizens to respond by joining Osama Bin Laden’s cohort of urban terrorists, targeting the Gulf Arab societies and regimes as well as their foreign protectors.

It is important to recognize that many astute members of these wealthy Gulf societies acknowledge their very real security dilemma. They know they cannot protect themselves and their coveted resources against traditional local powers like Iran and Iraq, and must rely on foreign protection (the British before 1971, the Americans since). Yet American military forces in Saudi Arabia after 1990 and in Iraq today are the main instigators of anti-American sentiments throughout the region, and the primary magnets that attract hundreds of young Arabs to fight in Iraq against the U.S. presence and what they see as an American-installed puppet government. This is a cruel but deep dilemma: their main source of security — foreign troops — is also the main reason for their insecurity in the face of homegrown terrorism.

There are no other realistic alternatives today to foreign security assistance and reliance today, most analysts and officials in the Gulf seem to agree, yet more effective new policies are required to deal with the consequences of such reliance. As the respected director of the Gulf Studies Center at the University of Qatar, Dr. Hassan al-Ansari, told the gathering, it is difficult to deal with terror only by force or by trying to fight it militarily from outside the region (i.e., Anglo-American armadas). What is needed also is a domestic Arab response that includes government reform, anti-corruption actions, and moves toward more participatory democracy. Until then, he said, the small, energy-wealthy emirates of the Gulf will choose to continue to rely on American and other foreign security protection, because their very survival may be at stake.

The former Information Minister of Kuwait, Saad bin Tifla al Ajami, offered a very succinct perception of the possible threats or positive repercussions from Iraq. He outlined four scenarios, as seen from the perspective of Kuwait and other small Gulf emirates. “Containable chaos” was the first one, in which Iraqis would engage in a protracted and bloody civil war without the interference of neighbors. The second was “uncontainable chaos”, where civil war in Iraq spills over into neighboring lands, of which there are six countries with conflicting agendas (Turkey, Syria, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan). The third scenario is Iraq splitting into three entities run by warlords, which would probably prompt regional confrontations, at least with Turkey, Syria and Iran. The fourth is a positive scenario — “a dream”, in his words — of Iraq emerging from its current condition as a united, democratic, prosperous and stable country.

There is no way to know today which scenario will prevail, because there are good reasons for both optimism and pessimism on Iraq. His conclusion for Gulf security in the long run, and his suggestion to NATO parliamentarians, is to get more actively involved in finding a fair solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict while a two-state solution was still possible. He also recommended that Gulf countries themselves confront the potential threat from Iran by working to strengthen civil society and democracy inside Iraq. Otherwise, he noted, Iraq will continue to promote the “Afghanization” of Salafi jihadi terrorists, who are radicalized and trained in military resistance and terrorism in Iraq and then go to attack other Arab countries.

Qatar does a real service to itself and all others in its neighborhood by continuing to promote this sort of honest public debate, which is starting to become one of its hallmarks and is badly needed throughout the region.

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

Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 29 November 2005
Word Count: 1,138
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