BEIRUT Lebanon The relative silence of the Arab world has been one of the striking dimensions of the tragic events in the Darfur region of western Sudan in the past 18 months. Up to 50,000 people may have died and over a million have been made refugees there, as a result of attacks by Arab militias. The international consensus was reflected in the recent UN Security Council resolution giving the Sudanese government one month to disarm the militias and restore security. Human rights groups and governments in the West have described events in Darfur as “ethnic cleansing” and even “genocide”, while the Sudanese government rejects these accusations and claims that no more than 5000 people have died in the region.

Based on documentation by credible international human rights groups and the UN itself, the world finally moved to stop the human suffering in Darfur when the United States and the UN took the lead to act in June. Throughout the past 18 months, as the tragedy has unfolded in Darfur, the Arab world has been conspicuously absent from the debate. While a few voices in the region have spoken out for decisive diplomacy to restore security and calm in Darfur, many other voices in the media and among government officials have taken a much more relaxed stance, even accusing the US of meddling in the region to secure future oil interests.

The Arab silence on this issue probably is not specific to Darfur or Sudan, but rather reflects a wider malaise that has long plagued our region: Arab governments tend to stay out of each other’s way when any one of them is accused of wrongdoing, and most Arab citizens have been numbed into helplessness in the face of public atrocities or criminal activity in their societies.
The modern history of the Arab world over the past 50 years has been defined by two broad trajectories that are intimately related: the concentration of economic and military power in the hands of small numbers of people who form the governing power elites, and that governing elite’s steady provision of basic services and job opportunities to the citizenry. As the average citizen experiences a relatively consistent improvement in basic life conditions (water, electricity, telephones, hospitals, schools, jobs) he or she tends to leave the government alone in its conduct of other political policies – including violent or predatory actions against one’s own citizens.

This basic governing contract explains much of the silence and acquiescence by otherwise decent Arabs people in the face of atrocities or criminal activity carried out by fellow citizens, or even by their own government. Darfur in Sudan is only the latest in a string of violent domestic episodes within Arab countries that have been largely ignored by other Arab countries. The long and depressing list includes rebellions, civil wars, repression and other forms of violence in key Arab countries like Algeria, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, and Libya.

Because most Arab governments use violence as a policy instrument – legitimately to secure public order, they would argue – the consequence is that Arab governments turn a blind eye to the violence practiced by their fellow governors. This is a strange sort of professional courtesy among fellow autocrats and security state managers who rationalize it by saying that Arab states do not interfere in the domestic affairs of other states. Therefore, Colin Powell and Kofi Annan visit Darfur and call world attention to its plight before Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa or any Arab foreign minister considers making the same trip.

Most ordinary Arab citizens do not speak out against the atrocities in Sudan or other Arab countries because their modern history has taught them that they have neither the right nor the ability to impact on the policies of their own government, let alone other Arab governments. The Arab citizenry collectively has been numbed into a sad state of helplessness and docility in the face of government policies, especially in the field of domestic security and foreign policy. We watch Darfur today like we watched Algeria, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Egypt and Jordan in decades past – as pained but powerless spectators.

Darfur troubles us all, but moves few to action in the Arab world. Darfur is very far away for most Arab citizens, and pains closer to home are more urgent — whether the pain of inequity, corruption and economic stress in one’s own country, the impact of Israeli occupation policies in Palestine and neighboring states, or the American war machine in Iraq. We grieve in our hearts for the suffering of Sudanese nationals in Darfur, but as individual Arab citizens we can do little to change facts in faraway lands – because we can do equally little to change realities in our own neighborhoods in Beirut, Amman, Rabat, Damascus, Riyadh or Cairo.

The more troubling consequence is that small groups of bombers and terrorists have exploited this state of Arab helplessness and numbed public political consciousness, seeking public support for their militancy. Thus large numbers of ordinary, decent Arab citizens instinctively reject the atrocities against fellow Arabs in Darfur, but do not speak out or act to stop them; and equally large numbers of Arabs – majorities in some troubled lands, the polls tell us – similarly do not speak out when Arab terrorists bomb Arab, American or other targets.

A troubled Arab citizenry’s silent acquiescence in violence, and passivity in the face of homegrown atrocity, is today the single most important, widespread symptom of the malaise that plagues this region. It would be a terrible mistake to misdiagnose the Arab silence on Darfur as reflecting some Arab, Islamic or Middle Eastern cultural acceptance of violence. This is, rather, a troubling sign of Arab mass dehumanization and political pacification at the public level, which are largely our own fault due to our acceptance of poor governance and distorted Arab power structures over a period of decades.

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

Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 11 August 2004
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BEIRUT, Lebanon- The issue of Arab political reform has generated much discussion recently in the Middle East and abroad, along with numerous agendas and proposals for action. Yet the Arab reform debate within this region lacks credibility because it is directed by individual leaders who have held power for decades. Therefore, I offer a modest proposal: that individual Arab presidents remain in power for no longer than four consecutive terms, or a single human generation (25 years), whichever comes first.

This is not a facetious or sarcastic proposal, but a considered and serious one. It is dictated in particular by the reality in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, whose three current presidents – Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak – have been in power for a total of 65 years and still counting. The purely political and historical in Arab leadership balances on the threshold of the eternal – to our collective detriment.

President Mubarak in Egypt assumed office in October 1981, has been “elected” to four consecutive six-year terms, and his National Democratic Party has routinely won over 75 percent of seats in parliament.

President Ben Ali in Tunisia took over the presidency in a bloodless coup in November 1987, has been “elected” for three consecutive five-year terms (the last time, in October 1999, with 99 percent of the vote), and two years ago held a referendum that changed the constitution to allow him to run for more than three terms. His Democratic Constitutional Assembly Party won 92 percent of the votes in the May 2000 municipal elections.

President Gadhafi in Libya, who took power in a military coup in 1969, largely defies historical analysis, because every few years he changes his own title and position, the country’s governance system and ideological orientation, and his relations with neighbors and other states in the region. The current power elite with him has ruled for 25 years – a full generation.

I have never personally met nor have any claim against these three leaders. I appreciate the good things that they have done for their countries, in security, stability and economic growth. But it is clear that no matter how decent, patriotic and caring a president may be, the perpetual incumbency of individuals and their narrow circle of supporters has done more harm than good in the modern Arab security state. It is time to honor those who have served selflessly for decades, and to ponder alternatives to the prevailing tradition of Arab presidents-for-life.

I raise this issue now because in the coming year the Egyptian and Tunisian presidents are expected to run again for a new presidential term. I urge them to think again, and to show their highest possible form of patriotism by announcing that they will reject the call of their masses who love them dearly to run for another term. Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gadhafi should make modern history by instituting a vital democratic practice – presidential term limits.

My suggestion for them collectively to renounce serving another term is not primarily a criticism of their persons. Rather it is a call for implementing a precious principle that has always been key to successful democracies (as the respected Lebanese law professor and democracy activist Chibli Mallat rightly reminds us): the routine and peaceful rotation of executive power.

This is not an issue of ideology, but rather of biology: human beings who enjoy unchecked and unaccountable power for decades at a time inevitably slip into a pattern of distorted decision-making that exaggerates their own sense of wisdom and infallibility. It narrows the band of people who design national policies, and who benefit from them. Even the most honest and enlightened leader in the world should be rotated after a certain period of time. Perpetual power and unaccountable incumbency inevitably breed a combination of artificial, know-it-all self-confidence that usually spills over into arrogance and intolerance of other opinions.

Our creator did not program our human flesh and genes for life-long rule. Perhaps that is why in the holy books of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, the most common dictate for human behavior, after the love of God, is humility and kindness to one’s fellow human beings. This is also why proven democracies in the past two centuries have all instituted presidential term limits. Where the Divine and the temporal converge, Arab leaders should dare to go. Now would be a good time to start this noble march.

Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gadhafi have all spoken about the need to reform their political systems, as have all Arab leaders. These three North African leaders are deeply beloved and appreciated by their people, to judge by the amazing repeated re-election victories they have notched up in the past quarter century, usually with victory margins of over 90 percent. This unremitting, intense love of the people for their wise and caring leaders is astounding, often defying rational analysis. I suggest, though, that if these three leaders want to reciprocate the love and loyalty of their people, their most effective move would be to refuse to serve another term. They should announce their adoption of presidential term limits as their personal contribution to implementing the first steps to genuine Arab political reform. Great, historic, and very durable leaders, as these men seem to be, do not only speak the language of reform – they put it into action.

I know that reform has to be homegrown and gradual in the Arab world, which is why I recommend that we ease into this, and not overdo it. I do not want to propose something drastic and unreasonable, like asking Arab presidents to serve for only two or three terms, or just 20 years. This is why I suggest we adopt a limit of four consecutive presidential terms, or 25 consecutive years (each year being no more than 365 days, and impervious to constitutional amendments), whichever comes first. That would mean that Mubarak should not run again because he is finishing his fourth term, but it allows Ben Ali in Tunisia to serve one more term, for a total of 20 years as president. Gadhafi has ruled for 25 years, which seems a decent amount of time to implement one’s policies, and serve one’s beloved people.

Just a modest proposal to ponder from a humble citizen who loves the Arab people as much as their leaders do.

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

Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 4 August 2004
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BEIRUT, Lebanon – US Secretary of State Colin Powell is on a trip that will take him to several Arab states this week to discuss the situations in Iraq and Palestine-Israel, among other things. His departure was inauspiciously preceded by the publication of the results of a Zogby International public opinion poll in six Arab countries that showed a sharp and continuing slide in America’s standing among Arab citizens.

Powell’s trip is both heroic and tragic, because the very policy that he promotes leads to Washington’s ever more precarious standing in this region. Troubled as many of us are in the Mideast and the US by this widening gulf between our two societies, the evidence on the ground suggests no sign of change. Bitterness, anger and violence are likely to continue to define the interaction between American government policies and the sentiments of Arab public opinion.

The issue becomes ever more urgent in view of the continuing stream of statements, accusations, and threats in the US vis-à-vis Syria and Iran, because of those countries’ alleged secret plans to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Washington also occasionally throws barbed darts at Hizbullah, Hamas and other non-state groups in this region, charging them with using terrorism or acquiring weapons that threaten Israel.

The problem that Colin Powell will encounter when he visits Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab countries this week is that the vast majority of their citizens think very poorly of the US, largely due to Washington’s policies on Palestine-Israel, Iraq, and terrorism. In Saudi Arabia, for example, a naturally conservative society that adopts many aspects of American lifestyles and technology very easily, the approval rating of the US in the period 2002-2004 dropped from 12 percent to 4 percent. In Egypt the drop was from 15 to 2 percent, and in Jordan from 34 to 15 percent.

Wake up, Colin, and smell the qahwa: in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the “pillars” of American strategic interests in the Arab World, respectively 2 and 4 percent of the populations have a positive view of the United States. When I played hockey on unevenly frozen ponds north of New York City as a reckless 10-year-old, this was known as skating on thin ice.

So, when the US State Department spokesman says, as he did Monday, that on his trip in the Middle East Colin Powell “will discuss with our close friends there the situation in Iraq, cooperation in the war on terror, the situation between the Israelis and Palestinians, the opportunities created by the Gaza withdrawal, and the issue of reform in the broader Middle East and North Africa,” he captures the intellectually bizarre and politically self-defeating nature of America’s engagement with the Arab Middle East. For it is precisely the US policy on all these issues that alienates the overwhelming majority of ordinary Arabs, and distances them from Washington.

The evidence continues to pour in, week after week, poll after poll: the five pillars of US policy in the Middle East are all seen by the Arab people of this region to be unfair and imbalanced, favoring Israel and autocratic Arab leaderships, and harming the sentiments and interests of ordinary Arabs who otherwise embrace most aspects of American life and values. The five pillars that all generate powerful anti-American sentiments are the Arab-Israeli conflict, the regime change and occupation of Iraq as part of the “war on terror”, calls for reform, support for non-democratic regimes, and threats against other countries or parties in the region for their alleged WMD plans.

Precisely whom is Colin Powell kidding? Who are America’s “friends” in the Middle East that he will engage this week? The truth is that he will be holding talks with Arab government leaders who enjoy limited political respect at home. Even more troubling is the reality that the US-backed policies of many Arab leaderships in recent decades proved to be the reason why so many angry young men in Cairo, Riyadh, Amman and Beirut turned to terrorism, and targeted their own governments as well as the US.

There is an unreal, almost fantastic, dimension to official American engagement with the governments and peoples of the Middle East. Washington feels it pursues a noble mission to bring peace, prosperity and democracy to the region; yet the vast majority of the people of this region vehemently reject and shun Washington’s policies. A dramatic example of this was the statement by Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi – hand-picked and installed by the US – a few days ago here in Beirut, that Iraq would not normalize relations with Israel before the other Arab states did so. Allawi rejects the American-Israeli desire for Iraq unilaterally to establish normal working relations with Israel, presumably because he understands that the majority of Iraqis and other Arabs strongly oppose current American-Israeli policy to the Palestinians. America has no dearer Arab “friend” than Allawi — and yet even he cannot go along with America’s preferred policy options for Iraq’s ties with Israel. Wake up, Colin.

If Washington refuses to acknowledge that most of its Middle East policies elicit intense, widespread Arab opposition, it will continue to suffer the cycle of violence, war, occupation, and terror that now defines its engagement with the Middle East. Some Americans, though, do embrace reality more honestly than the present administration. The final report of the 9/11 Commission in the USA last week clearly pointed out the need for Americans to better see and understand Middle Eastern mindsets – specifically to recognize the political, social and economic issues that gave rise to the twisted mindset and worldview among small numbers of Arabs and Asians that ultimately led to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

Instead, we seem to witness failed business as usual in a make-believe Washingtonian world: a continuing string of accusations and threats from Washington against Syria, Iran and others, based on very thin evidence (reminiscent of the initial accusations against Iraq), along with a slightly mystical State Department perception of America’s Arab “friends” who share its values and its policy goals and means. Washington believes it can ignore the stunningly low, and steadily dropping, 2 and 4 percent favorable Arab public opinion perceptions of America. Iyad Allawi obviously feels otherwise. America’s man in Baghdad – like the 9/11 Commission report – is trying to tell something to Washington about acknowledging Arab public opinion and addressing its root causes, rather than ignoring it in a muscular show of disdain, and even racism.

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

Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 28 July 2004
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(Beirut, Lebanon)
The rapid deterioration of the domestic political order in Gaza and the West Bank reflects a range of underlying tensions, problems and failures that have manifested themselves for over a decade, and most of them are self-made Palestinian failures. They also mirror similar dilemmas that plague most of the Arab world, largely revolving around a single common practice: the tendency of small power elites or single men to monopolize political and economic power in their hands via their direct, personal control of domestic security and police systems.

The Gaza chaos therefore is really about two issues: first, the clear failure of the current Palestinian leadership under Yasser Arafat to achieve its people’s national rights to statehood, security and a normal life, and the consequent need for a combination of new leadership blood and better policies; second, Gaza is yet another warning about the failure of the modern Arab security state, and the need for a better brand of statehood based on law-based citizen rights rather than gun-based regime protection and perpetual incumbency.

It is not surprising that the catalyst that sparked the current tensions in Gaza is the issue of who controls the security forces in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories. Many younger Palestinian activists and militia members revolted against Arafat last week when they briefly kidnapped the Gaza police chief and Arafat crony Ghazi Jabali. They wanted to make the point that Palestinians are fed up with the continued prevalence of corrupt, ineffective politicians and security appointees. Arafat made things worse when he consolidated 12 security services into three and then appointed his cousin Moussa Arafat to head them in Gaza. This sparked street demonstrations and attacks against Palestinian police posts, and Arafat had to retract the appointment of his cousin. The resignation of the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmad Qorei, only added to the political chaos and highlighted the ineptitude of Arafat’s rule.

In this ongoing and evolving situation, the many underlying failures of the current Palestinian leadership all coalesce into a simple single fact: Yasser Arafat has led the Palestinian national movement for nearly 40 years now. While his policies have kept alive the Palestinian cause they have done so at a very high cost. Both he and his people live in miserable, often pathetic, conditions today, and Arafat incredibly has alienated virtually every potential partner, including many of his own political party activists and his own people, the Arab regimes, the Israeli left, the US, and now even the UN special envoy to the Arab-Israeli peace process.

The current revolt in Gaza against Arafat and his failed men and policies is no surprise. It reflects the Palestinian quests for better domestic governance and a more effective war-or-peace policy vis-à-vis Israel. The Palestinian Authority that Arafat heads is more vulnerable to popular rebellion in part because Israel and the US have isolated and imprisoned Arafat in his Ramallah compound, and have systematically degraded the Palestinian security and police services. Israel’s announcement that it plans to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza next year has also prompted the various political forces in Gaza to start competing for their share of power when the time comes for the Palestinians themselves to run the place again.

This also reflects the steady fragmentation of Palestinian political life that has occurred in the past two decades. Palestinian national institutions continue to fray under the constraints of the Israeli occupation and are being replaced by a combination of new forces: Hamas and other Islamist movements, local militias and warlords, freelance, gangs and local thugs, regional or breakaway factions of the leading Fatah movement that Arafat founded four decades ago, armed resistance movements to fight Israel, and grassroots movements for democracy and human rights, to name only the most obvious. The Arafat-led Fatah movement remains the core of Palestinian political life, but because of its repeated failures to deliver national rights and a better life to its people it has lost much credibility and is vulnerable to the multiple challenges it faces these days.

The lightening rod for such challenges – no surprise in the Arab world – is the police and internal security system that many Palestinians accuse of being autocratic and corrupt. With around two-thirds of all Palestinians in Gaza living below the poverty line, such homegrown abuse of power on top of the indignity of occupation and poverty has become too much to take. Some of those who challenge Arafat – Hamas elements, former security officials and local militia chiefs such as Mohammad Dahlan, younger Fatah activists, breakaway Fatah groups such as the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – seek a share in power. But most ordinary Palestinians and political activists are not in revolt because they want to rule, but because they want to be ruled by an efficient, humane government – something that Arafat and his men have failed to deliver.
The street revolt against Arafat in Gaza should not be seen primarily as a local power struggle by groups competing to take over if the Israelis withdraw next year. It reflects a much deeper malaise in Palestinian society. Its consequences may prove to be as significant as the changes in Palestinian leadership and policy that occurred after the1967 war. After that Arab defeat a new generation of Palestinians took over from the traditional leaderships that had failed to meet the challenge of Palestine’s dismemberment and Israel’s creation in 1948. We are probably witnessing today the shift to the third generation of Palestinian leadership, as the generation that led the Palestinian national movement since 1967 succumbs to an increasingly vocal vote of no-confidence from its own people. The key moves will be visible in who controls the security services, and if political power is accountable to elected civilian institutions.

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

Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 21 July 2004
Word Count: 954 words
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GENEVA, Switzerland – I have always admired the Swiss people and government, and more so than ever this week because of a fascinating seminar that I have had the privilege to attend here. The Swiss government recently established an independent research institution called the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, which this week inaugurated a research program on military, police and security system governance throughout the Middle East (see http://www.dcaf.ch).

Promoting civilian control over armed forces and security institutions in the Middle East is something of a last taboo in this region, which has already broken through previous red lines on addressing sensitive issues such as democracy, regime legitimacy, religion, gender equality, and personal morality and sexuality. Yet civilian control of military establishments is a critically important goal, if the current jamboree of Middle Eastern “reform” initiatives is to be taken seriously by anyone.

The exercise of power in Middle Eastern or any other societies fundamentally reflects who controls two key forces: the money and the guns. The former is changing in our region, the latter is not.

Central governments’ and ruling families’ exclusive control of fiscal policies and monetary assets in many Middle Eastern countries is slowly opening up, under the pressures of privatization, commercialization, decentralization and globalization. The urgent responsibility for creating new jobs is slowly being transferred to the private sector, and with it the power that comes from controlling the money. Nothing similar has started to happen in the military and security fields.

The dilemma for most Middle Eastern countries is that they have always had to put the immediate dictates of security and stability above those of the long-term benefits of constitutionalism and citizenship rights. This has been understandable to a large extent in view of the turbulence and warfare the region has experienced in the last eight decades or so of independent statehood. But most of these states have also proved their durability and legitimacy by now. It would seem that they could afford to relax strict security controls in order to promote greater democratic citizenship rights and the rule of law.

The military establishments of the Middle East are central to two parallel governmental goals dear to every country in the region: preserving the security and territorial integrity of each country (a universal goal for all countries in the world), and ensuring the long-term political incumbency of each ruling regime and elite (a persistent Middle Eastern mission that most of the rest of the world has dropped, in favor of democratic rotation of executive power, except for Cuba, North Korea, Myanmar, and other relics of decades past.)

The military and security systems of the Middle East are not topics of much public discussion. They tend not to fall under the control or oversight of civilian political institutions such as parliaments or cabinets, but rather report directly to the head of state or effective ruler. Constitutional provisions for civilian control of the military usually exist, but are rarely implemented in practice. Defense, police, and security budgets also are rarely published, scrutinized or debated.

Our military/security establishments have not experienced the same sort of analysis, policy reforms, and practical transformations that have already started to be felt in sectors such as the economy, education, technology, water management, and even parliamentarianism and politics to some extent. The papers and discussions at this week’s seminar in Geneva suggest that if such assessment and transformation are done in an orderly, responsible manner, everyone benefits, including the military, which can carry out its important tasks more efficiently and with greater support and cooperation from its citizenry.

Two important countries where the military/civilian relationship has started to change are Turkey and Iran. Turkey’s military is slowly coming to terms with a reduced role in governing the country, in favor of greater civilian controls through the elected government and parliament (the biggest impetus for this being Turkey’s desire to make the necessary changes in order to join the European Union). In Iran, on the other hand, various religious and civilian institutions compete for power (the religious ones still dominate) and provide a novel form of checks-and-balances. National policy, including in military/security fields, reflects the consensus that ultimately emerges from the competition between religious and civilian authorities.

No Arab country mirrors these two important examples of domestic power centers that generate national policy through compromise and consensus. The Arab governance model sees a single ruling establishment with military and civilian wings reporting to one national leadership, in most cases. Iraq is in transition, so we will have to wait and see what kind of military-civilian relationship emerges there.

Military/security sector governance issues will inevitably rear their heads in the Middle East, in line with ongoing political, economic and social reform processes. Those countries in our region that have started to liberalize their economies have also started to outpace others. Those that open up economically and also democratize politically will do even better in terms of achieving stability and prosperity. Those that allow their social values systems to evolve naturally also tend to be more relaxed, productive, self-confident societies. And those that then take on the last challenge of reforming their military/security establishments are likely to be the first to aspire to the kinds of national gains that are so evident in stable, prosperous countries like Switzerland.

It’s not the cows or the mountains that make Switzerland such a rich and respected country. It’s the economic, political and military governance system that is anchored in civilian participation and oversight.

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

Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 13 July 2004
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The preliminary court hearing in Baghdad last week to start the trial of
Saddam Hussein and 11 of his senior officials (on charges of war crimes and
killing his own people) launches a powerful process whose impact will be
felt far beyond the new and old Iraq. This is a long overdue and positive
step. Justice is the inalienable right of all Iraqis, and also of Iranians,
Kuwaitis and others who have been hurt by the former regime in Baghdad. I am
delighted that Saddam Hussein and some of his key associates are facing the
full force of judicial accountability. I wish them a fair trial, and an
appropriate verdict and fate as determined by the rule of law. I also wish
all this were so simple, because it is not.

As seen from the perspective of the wider Middle East and its complex
relations with other powers, Saddam Hussein is not the only person on trial.
Four distinct parties sit in the dock in that Baghdad courtroom: Saddam
Hussein and his deputies, all other Arab regimes and leaders who often rule
with impunity, the United States government and its hand-picked interim
government in Iraq, and the state of Israel.

Why these four? For two main reasons. First, because the very important
principle being applied in the trial of Saddam Hussein and his former regime
– the judiciary holds individuals accountable for their exercise of
sovereign power – is a universal principle whose very validity stems from
its equal application to all leaders, governments and countries. Second,
because the criminality that happened in Iraq under the Baathists did not
occur in a vacuum, isolated from the behavior of other Arab regimes or
totally alien to the self-interest of American foreign policy. Trying Saddam
Hussein while simultaneously acquiescing in the wider abuse of power
throughout the Middle East, and the double standards of American and Israeli
policies, is only partial progress – but progress nevertheless that must be
built upon.

The tantalizing combination of universal values being enforced in this trial
– the accountability of rulers and the rights of citizens – was first
broached in antiquity, and finally found anchorage and generated global
momentum in the 18th Century, with the French and American revolutions.
These principles have now reared their head again in Baghdad, but they are
not only about Iraqi tyrants or justice.

The mixed reactions to the court proceedings we witness this week will
continue to define how many in the Middle East will react to any development
– however noble its intentions – that emerges from the barrel of an American
gun. This trial of Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime, like the declared
American intent to democratize Iraq or rid it of mythical weapons of mass
destruction, will always be judged by most people in this region in a
regional and global context. Is the US sincere in its aims? Is it consistent
in defining goals and promoting values? Is it fair in using force to achieve
its stated goals? Do UN resolutions apply to Israel as well as to Iraq and
even Libya? Are other tyrannical Middle Eastern regimes subject to regime
change via the US military, followed by accountability via a US
military-appointed native judiciary?

Such judgment criteria based on universal equity are not very popular in
Washington, or in Fallujah for that matter. And that is the persistent
dilemma that troubles me and so many others. The continuing American
adventure in Iraq and the wider Middle East continues to highlight the
criminal dimensions of many Middle Eastern rulers and regimes; but it also
perpetuates distinctly American official disdain for the universality of the
rule of law – to the absurd point where the United States demands that its
troops and officials be exempted from accountability before the
International Criminal Court. This makes American policies seem chronically
hypocritical to most of the world, which in turn degrades the otherwise
strong appeal of fundamental American values, including the US
Constitution’s assertion of the “self-evident” truth that all men are
created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.
If some truths are self-evident and universal, why does the US demand an
exemption?

As we watch the trial of Saddam Hussein and his deputies, we see part of
this principle applied, and part of it savaged. The United States may or may
not grapple with these issues in due course, but for the rest of us in the
Middle East our deeper dilemma remains undented by events in Iraq: How can
autocratic and irresponsible regimes throughout the Middle East be held
accountable? Who can do this if the citizens themselves are unable to do so?
What is the appropriate role for the international community in fighting
tyranny and promoting good governance? How can all nations in this region
live according to a single standard of international law and legitimacy?

These issues touch on the power structures and policies of all Middle
Eastern countries, Israel, and the US. It is good that the tyrants of Iraq
are facing justice. It is more urgent to keep working to determine how two
related problems in this region can be addressed: the abuse of power in many
other countries, and the hypocritical double standards that are such an
integral part of the policies of Arab, Israeli and American governments
alike. We can truly rejoice for the triumph of justice and liberty when they
are defined more by their universality than by their selectivity.

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

@2004 Rami G. Khouri, distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 6 July 2004
Word Count: 955
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DUBAI – The world’s feared doomsday scenario in the oil-producing Gulf region is not yet here —but in Iraq and Saudi Arabia we may have our first peek at what it looks like and how it is developing. Beyond the waters northwest of Dubai, Iraq is a tempest of occupation, resistance, terror and insecurity. Beyond the desert lands to the west, nearby Saudi Arabia is slowly being transformed into a killing ground. In one of the powerhouses of the Arab world, Saudi terrorists attack the oil industry, and methodically hunt down Americans and Britons, butchering them in cold blood.

The spectacle of widespread, organized violence and unstable conditions in these two oil-producing giants brings fear and worry to most of the world. Reactions in recent days include oil prices of over $40 a barrel. Most frightening for the Arab world is seeing two of its most powerful and influential countries offering the world almost daily scenes of terror, organized political criminality, and widespread fear.

Three main actors help explain the tragic trends in Iraq and Saudi Arabia:
• the local Arab governing elites,
• indigenous Islamist radicals, and
• the United States military presence.

The relationship among these three parties has resulted in some ugly consequences to date —and these are still early days. The bewildering prospect is that the dysfunctional and destructive combination of American military might and indigenous Arab power elites are repeating in Iraq the same divisive policy that has brought Saudi Arabia to fomenting homegrown terror.

For over a decade, one of Osama bin Laden’s main accusations against the Saudi ruling establishment has been the presence of American bases and troops on sacred lands. Too late, the US finally got the point and moved its main regional military facility from Saudi Arabia to Qatar. The anti-regime anger of bin Laden acolytes in Saudi Arabia had already been unleashed in the form of systematic attacks against the Saudi security establishment and foreign workers, especially in the oil and defense sectors.

If the United States goes ahead, as reported, and builds long-term military bases for its troops inside Iraq, we are likely to see the same sort of resentment against the US develop in Iraq as it has among Saudis. We have already seen how Iraqis who were grateful for the regime change in Iraq quickly became resentful of American forces and occupation officials dictating policy to them. The backlash in Iraq was swift and widespread, and the Americans got the message quicker in Iraq.

The biggest mistake they could make now is to fake their departure from Iraq and continue to rule the country indirectly.

Events in Saudi Arabia are deeply worrisome. Most frightening are the common reports and assumptions that some Saudi security personnel sympathize with, and even assist, the terrorists who now routinely attack targets in the kingdom. Evidence for such a charge has not been forthcoming, but the charge itself will not go away. This is the most dangerous consequence of foreign troops overstaying their welcome.

A somewhat parallel situation developed in Iraq. In April and May, when Iraqi and American troops and police fought against insurgents in Fallujah and Najaf, and elsewhere, many Iraqi policemen and soldiers deserted their units. Some even joined the insurgents fighting against the US and Iraqi troops. Thus, in two of the richest, most powerful and influential Arab countries, the large-scale presence of US troops acts as a major stimulant to resentment, then to resistance and terror and, perhaps, breakdown of native security systems.

If the United States maintains 140,000 troops in Iraq for a long time; if it builds permanent military bases; if it staffs a 1000-strong embassy that indirectly controls Iraq’s economy and security from behind the scenes; then, Iraq is likely to generate the same sort of anti-US resentment that has driven bin Laden and Al-Qaeda for the past decade and more.

American noble intentions and pure motives would not matter in this case, because American policies on the ground would be the determining factor. If the United States armed forces were in Iraq to deliver only freedom and Tootsie Rolls, their long-term presence would still be seen by most Arabs as bad news.

You’d think that someone in Washington beyond the hallucinogenic spell of the neoconservative radicals would have studied the last decade in Saudi Arabia and come to the obvious conclusion that a large Western military presence is not a recipe for happy Arabian nights or days. Yet Washington insists that its military is needed in Iraq to ensure security.

Say what?

The evidence suggests that it does precisely the opposite: it stimulates terror against Americans and against Arabs. That’s why two of the world’s most important oil producers are exporting images of death, bombing and burning these days, almost as regularly as they export energy.

From the Arab perspective, the full tragedy is not only the distress and suffering in these two Arab lands, not even the role of the United States per se. It is that these are not unique cases.

Many other modern Arab countries have suffered similar episodes of occupation, rampant violence, terror against the state, or terror by the state. My generation has watched assorted aspects of this ugly drama play itself out in Lebanon, Algeria, Syria, Sudan, Palestine, Jordan, Somalia, Yemen, Egypt, Kuwait, and other places. Iraq and Saudi Arabia are only the latest landscapes of Arab political intemperance and violence.

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

Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 16 June 2004
Word Count: 903
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I was just starting a year’s studies in the Boston area in September 2001, when a few hours after the Sept. 11 attacks an American friend asked me what I thought would be the consequences of that day’s events. I said the attacks might spark a process by which the US would finally enter into modern world history. By that I meant the US might drop its self-perceived status as a special and blessed nation, geographically and ideologically apart from the world, divinely safeguarded, and destined single-handedly to change human civilization for the better. The US has essentially lived outside of world history for much of its life, treating most other nations mainly as markets or targets, i.e., engaging the world through trade and warfare, but not with the normal give-and-take of negotiated relationships that serve the needs of both sides.

The American response to Sept. 11 was primarily military: the US had to fight to preserve its way of life, and spread it to other countries — by force as necessary. So the US did not reenter modern world history right after Sept. 11, but it may be doing so now. Perhaps Washington has learned the negative consequences of treating the world’s countries primarily as markets and targets. In recent months, the US has shown important signs of negotiating relationships with the rest of the world, instead of dictating to, attacking, and threatening others.

This may just be a short-term tactic to get the US out of Iraq, and get Bush re-elected in November. Yet we should not rule out the possibility that it could indicate a change in America’s dealings with the world: with realism replacing romanticism, the possible replacing the ideal, and negotiated compromises replacing demands made at gunpoint.

The two best examples of this revised form of American engagement of the world are Iraq and the drive to reform the Arab and Islamic countries of the greater Middle East region. The United States went into Iraq 15 months ago with guns blazing to bring about regime change, and loudspeakers blaring about the promise of a new Iraqi democratic governance model that will spread throughout the entire region.

In recent months, Washington has shown admirable flexibility in how it deals with the internal transition in Iraq. It has quietly dropped or significantly changed most points of principle or policy that it had championed last year.

To mention only the most obvious:
• dumping the ridiculous plan for transition to Iraqi sovereignty via a combination of local caucuses and appointed councils;
• allowing the United Nations in, instead of keeping them out of, the transition process;
• now bringing in, instead of banishing, former Iraqi Baathists, into the business of governance and security; and,
• negotiating with rebellious Iraqis, instead of fighting them to the finish.

The two episodes of local Iraqi military resistance to the US occupation – in Fallujah in the north, and Najaf and other towns in the south – started with the US saying it would disarm the militias and capture or kill militant Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr. Instead, and wisely, it has negotiated truces in both places, and learned to live in the real world. In these instances at least, Washington put away its cowboy doctrines and learned instead that sometimes the higher worth of stability and security for an entire society requires that you coexist and make deals with people you might prefer to fight, lock up, kill, or ignore.

The flexible American attitude to revising the UN Security Council draft resolution on transferring sovereignty to Iraq is another case in point of realism and compromise triumphing over idealism and bullying tactics. The US deals with the UN today in a very different manner than it did two years ago, and thank goodness and Ayatollah Ali Sistani for that.

The other fascinating example of how the US may be learning to live inside of modern world history, rather than angelically and prophetically hovering above it, is in the compromises it makes as it pushes for political, social, educational, and economic reforms throughout the Middle East. The US unilaterally launched this reform initiative some eight months ago as a means of “draining the swamp”, or changing those distressed conditions in Middle Eastern societies that provided a fertile environment for terrorism. The original US reform initiative generally met with hostile reactions in the Middle East and Europe. These quickly sparked a series of consultations, and Arab and European counter-proposals.

This week, in the US state of Georgia, the G8 summit of industrialized powers is discussing the revised reform ideas with a handful of invited Arab leaders. This approach is much more likely to succeed than a unilateral plan blasted from the ideological loose cannons in Washington who want to change the world in order to make America safe.

The US has significantly changed, modified the scope and lowered the tone of its original Middle East reform initiative, making it much more acceptable to Arab and European countries. The Middle East reform initiative may not reform anything in the Middle East, but it already has done much good by reforming the way Washington does diplomatic business with Europe and the Middle East.

Let’s hope we are witnessing the first signs of Washington absorbing the lessons of the inefficacy of the past two and a half years of its unilateral military response to the Sept. 11 attacks. If the Neocons’ aggressive global military policies are losing ground in Washington, and the US is seeking a more effective way to engage in global affairs, the world should not miss these early signals of that change.

If the United States indeed decides it wants to enter into modern world history, it should be welcomed into the process, for its sake and the world’s.

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

Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 09 June 2004
Word Count: 962
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US President George W. Bush’s remarks Monday night on his country’s strategy to turn over sovereignty to Iraqis after June 30 were impressive as always at the level of emotional rhetoric about freedom and democracy, but unconvincing at the level of policy. There is no easy way out of the current unstable situation in Iraq, because the American-led invasion, regime change, and occupation of Iraq shattered the institutions that allowed it to function as a viable country, and replaced them with a series of power struggles that now bedevil the land.

These power struggles are so many and so fierce that they defy easy resolution. The remnants of the former Baathist regime are fighting to regain power, with the illusory hope that the Iraqis people will value stability enough to accept a strong-armed central government again. Many ordinary Iraqis are fighting against the US, UK and other foreign troops who now run the country, because of their disdain for foreign occupation. Different Iraqi ethnic, religious and tribal groups, including Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Christians and others, are vying for their share of power. Neighboring countries want to be sure their own interests and the power of their friends are preserved in Iraq. Some Islamist militants and fighters from nearby countries have come to Iraq to do battle against the US. Even within some major demographic groups in Iraq, such as the Shiites, we witness power struggles that sometimes spill over into violence.

The case of radical Shiite minor cleric Muqtada Sadr is a case in point of the convergence of several of these struggles into a single battle. Sadr has transformed himself from a marginal figure into a national or even a regional force by mobilizing thousands of supporters to confront the US. He is also simultaneously confronting his more respected fellow Shiite and other Iraqi leaders, seeking to win a place in the power structure of the new Iraq that will emerge one day after the current occupation ends. Obvious political tensions among Shiite groups tend to be somewhat camouflaged by the more public confrontation between Sadr’s forces and US troops, because the US presence in Iraq is more of a problem for most Iraqis and Arabs than is any inter-Iraqi or inter-Arab dispute.

The American president’s remarks, like those of Secretary of State Colin Powell last week to the World Economic Forum in Jordan, are not convincing to most people in the Middle East because they appear to come from a different planet. Washington insists on convincing us over and over again that it wants to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq and the Arabs, and that it will punish those Americans who committed crimes at Abu Ghraib prison to emphasize how American justice and democracy work. These are fine words about noble deeds – but they appear to most Middle Easterners like a rainbow in the sky at the same time that a thunderstorm is killing people a few miles away. We want to get out from under the American-made thunderstorm, and then we can find our own way to the rainbow.

The American leadership keeps digging itself deeper into a hole of its own making in the Middle East because it refuses to acknowledge the fundamental objection to its policies by the vast majority of people in this region and also the entire world: the US is not mandated morally or legally to use its armed forces to change regimes and to reconfigure regions of the world. When the US and the UK undertake such grandiose projects, they cross the important line that separates legitimate collective self-defense and deterrence from crass imperialism.

The US’ romantic and well-intentioned notions of how to remake Iraq and other Arab societies into instant democracies have been swamped and buried beneath the more complex and ugly realities of what happens when the combination of America’s massive foreign policy ignorance and military power are simultaneously deployed in a single Arab country. The dismantling of the Iraqi government, armed forces and security system was the first ever example of a foreign army coming into a modern Arab state, taking it apart, and rebuilding it, sector by sector. The exercise has proved to be very messy and violent. Imperial projects usually are.

By dismantling the state structure that existed in Iraq and held it together as a country, the Anglo-American occupation has also revealed the fundamental underlying weaknesses of that country’s national identity and cohesion – and also of most Arab countries, I would argue. Iraq is, and has been, a violent place in large part because of its repeated subjection to imperial adventures. These include the initial formation of the Iraqi state by the British in the early 20th Century, which ended up in a brutal Baathist police state, and the current chaos that is also a consequence of this renewed imperial frenzy.

The irony is that most people in the Arab world share the American call for democratic governance in our region, but they object to the attempt to achieve that goal through the violent means the US and UK are now using. There will be no easy way out of this situation in Iraq. President Bush will make many speeches to bolster his sagging electoral fortunes at home; yet his words about American resolve to make the world free will ring increasingly hollow in a Middle Eastern region that equates American foreign policy with promoting militarism, subjugation, occupation, human distress and chaos, in both Iraq and Palestine.

The transition to Iraqi sovereignty will be messy and long, and there is no option for the moment other than to go along with the UN-US plan, quickly transfer authority to Iraqis, put the foreign military presence under an internationally mandated force, and allow Iraqis themselves to draw on their wisdom to quickly agree on a power-sharing formula that would permit a central government to restore stability. The Iraqis themselves will determine what kind of governance system they embrace, and what kind of balance they strike in the short term between freedom and security.

As long as the American leadership refuses to acknowledge that the vast majority of peoples and countries in the world rejects its premise for invading Iraq, we risk the danger of more tragic adventures like the current one in Iraq. If the US insists on preaching to the world about its fine values, it should not be surprised that the rest of the world only preaches back to Washington about its flawed, occasionally imperial, and sometimes criminal policies.

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

Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 27 May 2004
Word Count: 1,085
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(Beirut) In the current war in Iraq, and in Washington’s wider confrontation with the Arab world, the American and Arab mass media have become instruments and weapons of war, as well as targets of war. In the heat of battle, both sides’ mass media reflect the fear and anger that define their societies. Operating according to commercial dictates, they both seek to expand audience share and advertising income. They do this by pandering to, and reflecting, their public opinions.

The result is that Osama bin Laden uses Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya satellite channels to disseminate his views, and the US creates new Arabic-language media channels to send its views to Arab audiences. The Pentagon uses embedded American journalists to reflect its perspectives, and Arab television reporters go to Fallujah and Gaza to show the full consequences of American and Israeli military actions on the ground, revealing much more than the sanitized versions of the US and Israeli media. Arab and American reporters have been killed in the process, and Arab media offices in Iraq have been hit by American air strikes – deliberately, in Arab eyes, unintentionally according to Pentagon investigations.

The transformation of the media from detached chroniclers of events to active combatants on the information frontline reflects a profound change that is only now becoming evident: the mass media is the only sector where the Arab world can engage the United States on equal ground. In all other important arenas – diplomacy, the military, economy, technology – the US is vastly more powerful than the Arab world, and dictates policy to largely compliant client regimes. But within the power of mass media’s dissemination of information by report and analysis, the half-dozen established pan-Arab satellite channels have countered the US mainstream media and fought them to a draw.

Typically, the Pentagon says that its attacks in Fallujah carefully target militants, and Al-Jazeera’s reports on the ground and shows film of dead civilians and bombed mosques. Perhaps other than resistance fighters in Palestine, Iraq and south Lebanon, Arab satellite channels may be the only credible popular symbols of Arab self-assertion and success in a landscape defined by Arab weakness, docility, servility, and humiliation. No wonder 35 million viewers watch Al-Jazeera every day.

In the past two years, the United States has mobilized and deployed in the Arab world two offensive forces:

* battalions of coalition troops that overthrew the former Baathist regime in Iraq and now occupy and administer the country, and

* battalions of Arabic-speaking journalists who man three new American-launched mass media operations designed to change Arab perceptions of the US and its aims in the Middle East (Al-Hurra television, Radio Sawa, and Hi magazine).

US government military and media battalions are experiencing mixed results.

Washington policy-makers appear totally befuddled as to how to respond to the rise of Arab satellite television. Initial response has been embarrassingly naïve and ineffective – to whine and complain, and then attempt to provide new sources of information from, and for, the Middle East.

Senior administrators such as Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld routinely criticize pan-Arab television, especially Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya, for inaccurate reporting and inciting Arabs to kill Americans in Iraq. Just last week Powell raised this issue in public when he met the Qatari foreign minister in Washington (the state of Qatar launched and largely finances Al-Jazeera, which is autonomously managed). The Arab-owned stations reply that they are doing their best to report facts on the ground, including the fact of rising anti-American sentiments.

Arabs are angry when they see dead Iraqi infants with half their skulls blown away by American missiles. Arab satellite channels convey this reality, they don’t manufacture it. If Arabs are increasingly angry at the US – which they certainly are – this is mostly the consequence of American military and political policies in the Middle East and not the reporting of these policies by Arab television. This is very simple: most of the world disagrees with US policies in Iraq and Palestine, and the Arab media reflect this fact. Shooting the messenger won’t change the reality.

The American focus on the Arab mass media as bad guys is a classic example of irresponsible scapegoating and only aggravates the genuine problem. Mainstream American politicians and mass media seem desperate to find any plausible reason to explain away the rising tide of anti-American sentiment in the Arab and Islamic world and in most of Europe rather than face the actual reasons. Negative public reaction around the world is against the violent and hegemonic bias of American foreign policies.

The Arab media is a particularly inappropriate candidate for Washington’s misdirected ire also because the American mass media behave almost identically. American and Arab media mirror and pander to their publics. They promote a rising tide of patriotic sentiment, stereotype and even demonize the other, and resolutely and irresponsibly refuse to probe into the underlying reasons for the opinions of the other side.

The Arab media have done a poor job of explaining why Americans have supported their government’s foreign policy. American media have failed to explore in any depth why the US has been targeted by terrorists.

The counterposed opinions in the US and the Arab world are very troubling, for they comprise a volatile combination of anger, fear, ignorance, and an almost Pavlovian need for revenge and retribution. George W. Bush drives the common media message in the US that Islamist militants want to destroy American civilization, and Osama bin Laden drives the common corresponding message in the Arab world that the US and Israel are engaged in a campaign to re-colonize the Arab-Islamic world and transform its values and identity.

Both these perceptions are grievously flawed and exaggerated. Yet they tend to drive public opinion in both regions, and they define much of the tone of media coverage, which has become a proxy target in this widening war of our times.

Copyright © 2004 Rami Khouri
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Released: 5 May 2004
Word Count: 980
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