BEIRUT — The news this past week was a sign of the times, and of the days ahead: The British government said it was resuming contacts with the civilian wing of Hizbullah, and the American government said it was interested in exploring contacts with “moderates” among the Taliban in Afghanistan who might be separated from the more extremist faction allied with Al-Qaeda. This highlights a phenomenon that will surely prove to be a central issue in the months and years ahead: How do Western and other governments who see themselves as law-abiding, God-fearing, and all-around righteous connect with, or even negotiate with, armed and militant movements that defy, challenge and occasionally attack their local allies and surrogates?

The Taliban and Hizbullah are two very different movements, reflecting diverse national contexts, aims, tactics and degrees of legitimacy. They are only two of dozens of other such groups around the Arab-Asian region that are viewed negatively and shunned by the United States, most other Western states, Israel, and many Arab countries, but enjoy substantial support in their own countries and around the region. Islamist groups, political parties, militias, rebel movements, tribal movements, insurgent forces, and occasional semi-criminal gangs traditionally had been strictly shunned and actively fought by the American-led camp that liked to speak of itself as the guardian of universal enlightened values. American presidents and other allies, clients and surrogates often said that groups like Hizbullah, Hamas, the Taliban, and even some shunned governments who wished to join “the civilized world” and the “community of nations” had to change their ways and stop opposing or fighting the US-led camp.

It is now obvious that this once strict policy of isolating and opposing Islamist and other militant groups until they unilaterally changed their ways has not worked, and will not work. One of the most important political lessons of the past decade or so has been the failure of sanctions and threats that aimed to change the policies of target movements or governments. Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria and Iran in particular have been targeted by the US, Israel, and elements of the European Union and the UN system; but they have largely ignored the sanctions and threats, and have persisted in their policies. The wisdom or stupidity of such a response will be revealed by history in the near future. For the moment, all we can conclude is that punitive sanctions and threats do not work very well, and should be replaced by more effective approaches.

The initial signals from the Obama administration suggest it understands this and is probing for other means of dealing with or politically engaging governments and movements that it had traditionally confronted or tried to isolate. Obama himself has spoken of affirming “respect and mutual interests” as guiding principles for dealing with those whom it sees as foes, threats or mere troublemakers. This approach has elicited positive initial responses from some of those target groups, and it is very likely that we will see serious political discussions soon among the United States, Syria and Iran.

While this shift in American and British attitudes is positive, sensible and to be applauded, the lingering danger is that some in the United States and the West will offset their neo-rationalism with a resurgent Orientalism, i.e., they will say that “carrots and sticks” should be used to test the troublemakers and see if they are really able to have a meaningful political dialogue and eventually change their ways. The unspoken subtext in such an attitude is that you have to deal with these countries and groups like you deal with a donkey you are trying to train — hit them when they misbehave, and feed them to entice them to follow your lead.

The “carrots-and-sticks” approach is only a mildly different version of the previous policy of threats, attacks, sanctions and regime change. It will fail, as the former policy failed, because it is based on the assumption that the policies and approach of the US-led camp is legal, righteous and generous, and that this camp defines the rules that others in the world must abide by. This is very similar to the dynamic that defined the colonial era, which thankfully largely ended nearly a century ago — with the exception of lingering threads such as this approach to defiant folks in the Arab-Asian world.

Despite these misgivings, some signs of change are in the air, and they are encouraging. How far they will go and what impact they will have remain unclear. Rhetoric is the first step to action, so adversaries talking to each other is a good start, and could lead to changes in policies that reduce tensions and promote mutual well-being.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.



Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 16 March 2009

Word Count: 810

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BOSTON — The United States in the greater Middle East is doing the equivalent of walking and chewing gum at the same time, i.e., doing more than one thing at a time, and tackling more than one political issue at a time. The Obama administration has sent envoys to the Middle East peace process and Afghanistan-Pakistan, and is simultaneously re-establishing lines of communication with Syria and Iran. President Obama this week said the US should consider speaking with some elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan in order to wind down that country’s war.

This is a worthy approach that will probably be supported widely in the United States and abroad. It was also one of several key themes that dominated a fine two-day conference I just attended at the Issam Fares Center of the Fletcher School at Tufts University near Boston. The knowledgeable and experienced participants — academics, journalists, former senior military and political officials — kept returning to two core issues: a “grand bargain” is likely to be needed to resolve the tensions between the US and Iran that are so pivotal to other conflicts in the Middle East, and, the US has much work to do on this because Washington knows nothing about key aspects of Iran’s strategic aims, nuclear goals or motivations, or decision-making system.

Washington and Tehran have not talked for 30 years, since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. The list of things the United States and the West do not know about Iran is long, including crucial things like how the inner circle of decision-makers really operates, what Iran will settle for in a deal on its nuclear enrichment capabilities, whether it wants a nuclear bomb or just the capability to make one if needed one day, and how it sees its vital national interests served through long-term relations with partnerships and alliancews in the Arab world.

Iran has already achieved its important first goal, despite intense American-led threats, warnings and sanctions. It has established a spinning-centrifuge-based system of enriching uranium. Having faced down the demand to stop enrichment, Iran probably feels that it can negotiate from a position of strength. Faced now with the Obama approach of talking rather than only sanctioning, this opens the door for many possibilities.

The most intriguing but complex one is the idea of a “grand bargain” in which multiple players reach agreements to resolve several problems at once. Iran (like Syria on a smaller scale) is strategically placed to talk and work on many fronts. Its links with Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas, for starters, provide opportunities for new understandings that could be strategically valuable for the United States. It can certainly cooperate to make the American withdrawal from Iraq easier, and perhaps help cool down the conflict in Afghanistan.

In return, it will want American and Western recognition of its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, along with more intangible things like “respect” for its status and acknowledgment of its role as a major regional power. Conceding enrichment should be no problem, as Iran has already achieved this. Preventing the ultimate move towards creating a nuclear bomb will be the main issue to be negotiated here, and that will require the Iranians to be clearer about precisely what they desire and what they will settle for in their negotiations.

Yet some Iran experts who actually go there and know the country warn that the Iranian leadership might actually fear a grand bargain deal with the United States because the tension with the US is a major source of regime legitimacy in Tehran. The only way to find out, they say, is for the Iranians and their adversaries in the West to meet and talk. Such a process will quickly sort out the real grievances that both sides have against each other, from the side issues or the third party concerns of Israel or Gulf Arab states that have been taken up by the US.

Achieving a grand bargain is a very complex operation, requiring juggling several different issues, and placating multiple interests among many players. The Americans, though, should have no trouble achieving this, because they have an impressive national legacy of this sort of thing in their world of sports: the three-way trade among professional basketball teams. This time-consuming endeavor requires knowing the precise weaknesses, strengths, aspirations and needs of several different teams, then crafting trades that send players moving around among three teams.

The process works — and can be very elegant at times — because those making the deal take the time to study its component elements realistically, and try to work out a deal that satisfies the minimum needs of each team. A grand bargain on Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Arab-Israeli peacemaking would require the same sort of complex analysis leading to agreements that satisfy the needs of all sides.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 11 March 2009
Word Count: 807
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BOSTON — Well, well, what do we have going on this week? The US State Department invites the Syrian ambassador for a long chat, and then sends two senior envoys for more chats in Damascus. The US Secretary of State announces a few days later that she wants Iran invited to a meeting of Afghanistan’s neighbors to discuss conditions in that country. The following day, the British government announces it is resuming contacts with the political wing of Hizbullah in Lebanon.

What we have going on, I suspect, is that the two leading proponents of Western arrogance in the form of colonialism and neocolonialism — the United States and United Kingdom — have recognized that their approach has failed, and that they are better off having normal diplomatic talks and negotiations with the three leading centers of resistance to them, namely Iran, Syria and Hizbullah. The pace of change in American policies, in particular, has been impressive since President Barack Obama’s administration took over six weeks ago, though it will take some time for the results of the current shifts to materialize.

What is happening is meaningful because it signals the possible start of a healthy shift in attitudes by all concerned. Barack Obama is doing exactly what he pledged to do as a candidate: talk to those with whom the United States has disagreements, or considers foes. This should not be such a surprising turn of events, especially given that Iran, Syria and Hizbullah do not threaten the US or the UK — or actively work to damage their national interests. The fact and process of starting normal diplomatic discussions does not ensure any outcome or success, but the lack of normal relations did and would ensure continued tensions that could have erupted into active strife.

One of the fascinating sub-plots of what is occurring is the temporary sidelining of Israel, which has a long history of seriously influencing, if not often effectively dictating, American contacts and policies in the Middle East. It is noteworthy that the United States and the United Kingdom — in various degrees — are talking with Iran, Syria and Hizbullah, when Israel has worked overtime for some years to prevent such normal contacts. It is probably only a matter of time before the US, UK and others open talks with Hamas also.

What does this mean? For one thing, it means that the United States is becoming more humble, and ending its failed and quite silly policy of acting as if every country in the world aspired above all to have normal ties with the US. The total failure of the American-Israeli policy of sanctioning and threatening Iran, Syria and Hizbullah has finally given way to a more sensible American approach.

For another thing, this means the United States is also engaging with the rest of the world on a more normal basis, which requires negotiating relationships with other countries based on mutual interests. This was triggered by the realization that the use of force or the threat of force by Washington did not elicit compliance with its dictates, but rather spurred on Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and others to defy and resist the US. Now Washington understands that a give-and-take approach is more sensible, but it remains unclear what will be given and what will be taken.

The prevailing view among experts and scholars of the Middle East seems to be that the several major conflict regions and issues in the Middle East and South Asia must be dealt with in a manner that reflects the linkages among them. So it is noteworthy that the United States, for one, seems willing to make diplomatic gestures and moves simultaneously on the three fronts with active wars — Israel-Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now that the United States has initiated diplomatic engagement with Syria and Iran, Damascus and Tehran will feel new pressure to say what they want — rather than mainly to criticize the US and say what they reject. They can both feel satisfied with their performance to date, but they must also be ready soon to negotiate new relationships around the region and with powers further away. Iran has essentially won the first phase of its political showdown with the US, and now it has to figure out how to behave in a new arena where the US wants to talk, rather than to sanction and threaten.

(A last little point about this week’s historic shifts in attitudes is about Secretary of State Clinton, who leads the re-engagements with Syria and Iran. As a presidential candidate just months ago, she harshly mocked candidate Obama for his willingness to talk to Syria and Iran. Today, she spearheads that process. This is a good example of why we should never take seriously what politicians say in the heat of electoral battle.)

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 09 March 2009
Word Count: 805
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BEIRUT — The international pledges of some $4.5 billion in aid to the Palestinians to rebuild the Gaza Strip and promote the development of the West Bank seem like a monumental folly in view of the surrounding political context of this gesture. The financial generosity of the donors is largely offset by their political cowardice on two fronts:

• Challenging Israel to live according to the norms of law in its treatment of Palestinian land and people under its occupation; and,
• Coming to grips with Palestinian political realities, especially the legitimacy and role of Hamas.

On both counts, generous donors seem unwilling to admit that they are perpetuating a wasteful cycle of Palestinian and international construction in Palestine that is set back by repeated Israeli destruction through war, followed by repeated rounds of reconstruction. This recurring cycle is striking for its sheer waste, but also for what it reveals about the willingness of the international community to use reconstruction aid as a political tool — a failed tool that should be abandoned in favor of a more productive approach.

It was bad enough when the Israeli government in recent years was able to convince the United States to largely adopt its positions in the Arab-Israeli conflict; it was another step backwards two years ago when the four Quartet members (United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russia) also sided with Israel by refusing to deal with Hamas until the latter recognized Israel and stopped military resistance. This trend has now gone one step further by lining up a wide range of donors who seem to be willing to use their aid to try to bolster the government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, while denying Hamas any international legitimacy and ignoring Israeli actions on the ground that make peace-making seem so distant.

This occurs while Israel makes it clear that it plans to continue expanding its settlements in the occupied West Bank, and the expected coalition that will rule in Israel seems to represent a step backwards — in its unwillingness to formally accept the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza as a realistic element of a permanent peace agreement. Throwing large amounts of money into Palestinian reconstruction while reinforcing a political context that only perpetuates Israel’s regular destruction of Palestinian institutions is wasteful folly at best, and complicity in criminality at worst.

The latest danger is that major external players like the United States and the Europeans will now try to equate the Israeli colonization of the West Bank and Jerusalem with the small and largely harmless mini-rockets that Hamas and others fire mostly into the desert of southern Israel. These are not parallel or equal actions and should not be bundled into a package of moral or political equivalence. Both must stop if peace and normalcy are to rein one day for both people, but lasting peace requires the ability to grapple with the deeper causes of the conflict.

This means, from the Palestinian perspective, addressing the siege and strangulation of Gaza, the colonization of the West Bank by Israeli settlers, and the wider issue of Palestinian refugeehood from the 1947-48 period. From the Israeli viewpoint, peace requires the Palestinians and Arabs to live with a predominantly Jewish Israeli state that is seen as legitimate, and to stop armed resistance against it. This is the equation that touches on the core, existential needs and rights of both sides.

Camouflaging the Israeli colonization of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem under a cloak of money while the underlying colonization remains unchanged has not worked in the past and will not work today. Hillary Clinton will discover this for herself soon enough as she enters the difficult world of Arab-Israeli politics. Her statement at the Gaza reconstruction conference Monday that the United States supports the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel will remain void of credibility or impact if American policy continues simultaneously to acquiesce silently in the Israeli colonization of Palestinian land.

Resolving a conflict must start with a clear, honest, complete acknowledgment of the basic causes of the conflict. In this case conflict resolution requires ensuring the integrity of statehood for Palestinians and Israelis, and removing the causes of their mutual communal exile, disenfranchisement, and sense of vulnerability in the recent past. Using billions of dollars in international aid to maintain much of the Israeli siege of Gaza while trying again to prop up the Abbas government and ignoring the role of Hamas will not move anyone closer to genuine peace or security. Repeating the mistakes and biases of the past seems like a foolish way to approach peace-making.

We have enough adults in the Middle East who act like animals; the last thing we need is adults in the international donor community who act like children.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 04 March 2009
Word Count: 807
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BEIRUT — I have no doubt that the American-Iranian bilateral relationship is the most important issue in the Middle East — and perhaps the world — in which there is room for progress (unlike the equally important Arab-Israeli conflict, where progress seems unlikely, other than on the Syrian-Israeli front perhaps).

If this is the case, and Washington is likely to pay more attention to both Syria and Iran, how can we transcend the current legacy of tensions, hostility, threats and defiance among them?

What has not worked in recent years and has kept tensions high has been Washington’s treating Iran and Syria as delinquents who need to show signs that they are capable of rehabilitation, and the Syrians and Iranians thumbing their noses at the United States and needling it everywhere they could in the Middle East, including through hostile rhetoric against Israel or active support of Arab groups fighting against Israel.

In most of the recent meetings and conferences I have attended on Middle Eastern issues, a recurring theme asks whether Barack Obama’s administration will try a new approach to relations with countries like Iran and Syria — while also asking if Syria and Iran wish to turn a new page with their ties with Washington. Speaking regularly as I do with officials and politically engaged citizens from Syria, Iran and the United States, my hunch is that the answer to both questions is “yes” — all parties prefer to have normal, even cordial relations.

They will only move towards that goal, however, on the basis of negotiated relationships that take into account their respective national interests. (Personal egos and national pride also come into play, but when cold and hard national interests are satisfied the ego factors become less important.) The American re-engagement in Arab-Israeli peace-making with the appointment of George Mitchell, and the review of Pakistan-Afghanistan policy with the appointment of Richard Holbrook, both indicate a serious American will to change policy for the better. Iran and Syria are crucial players in both arenas.

What can the Obama administration learn from the mistakes and failures of the Bush years? How can Iran and Syria also engage in more constructive diplomacy?

I would suggest that three R’s should define the manner in which the U.S., Iran and Syria re-engage with each other in the coming months and years, reversing the contentious legacy and failed policies of recent years: Respect, Reciprocity and Rights.

Respect is the most difficult of the three to implement because it is an intangible quality related to style as much as it is to substance. It means dealing with each other as equally legitimate negotiating partners rather than as dangerous deviants or genetic ogres. It also requires an end to Washington’s insulting tendency to speak of Iran and Syria as criminals who have to prove their desire for rehabilitation in order to be allowed into the club of normal or civilized nations. The more that the United States in recent years has tried to pressure and threaten Damascus and Tehran, the more defiant these two ancient Middle Eastern power centers have become, and the more they have resisted significantly changing their policies or rhetoric.

Reciprocity is an easier concept to apply because it simply requires that principles of policy, national conduct or compliance with international norms be applied even-handedly to all concerned actors, without perpetuating the legacy of making exceptions that reflect American or Israeli interests, i.e., on implementing UN resolution, applying international humanitarian law in times of war, or inspecting nuclear facilities. It is perfectly fair for both sides to demand that basic international norms of conduct be respected, but such a demand will only be taken seriously when it is applied consistently across the region, and not selectively.

Rights issues fall somewhere between reciprocity and respect, because national rights in particular are often relative to perceptions of one’s vulnerabilities and one’s place in the world. Basic rights issues like territorial sovereignty, regime legitimacy and freedom from occupation or invasion should be easy to affirm, especially when linked to a diplomatic approach that includes the principles of respect and reciprocity.

Iran, Syria and the United States (with the U.S. being a proxy for Israel on many of the issues at hand) would probably find themselves on friendlier terms if they focused on identifying and acknowledging the core national rights and interests they wish to safeguard, rather than reacting to the hostile intentions and aspirations that they perceive in each other — namely, their mutual “hegemonic” ambitions in the region. All sides raise legitimate issues and concerns that are political in nature and therefore have political solutions.

The last eight years of mutual threats, sanctions and defiance have only intensified tensions. Reconnecting on the basis of a common commitment to respect, reciprocity and rights might offer a more effective path forward, if more mature officials all around risk attempting such an approach.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 25 February 2009
Word Count: 817
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BEIRUT — When you get off a train in many countries, a sign tells you to “mind the gap” between the platform and the train car door. We need a sign like that over the entire Middle East, which witnesses the dangerous trend of the growing gap between an increasingly extremist Israel and the more pragmatic Arabs, Iranians, Americans, and Europeans.

A flurry of recent developments — statements, gestures, hints, trips — suggests that the United States, Iran, the Arab states and some Europeans seem interested in exploring reconciliatory moves and are beginning to make noises to that effect:

• American members of Congress visit Syria and Gaza;
• the Iranian and American presidents allude to resuming talks and normal relations;
• the Syrian president stresses the centrality of the United States for peace talks in the Middle East and welcomes a visit by head of U.S. Central Command General David Petraeus to discuss Iraq;
• Italy ponders inviting Iran to the next G-8 meeting;
• and assorted European legislators hold quiet talks with Hamas,
• whose leaders just sent a letter to President Barack Obama.

The common denominator is that key parties that had been estranged now seek to resume normal contacts. This is a critical first step towards sensible behavior, and then, perhaps, peace and security for all. The critical element that could lead to breakthroughs on several fronts is that all of these players have something to gain and something to lose, and they are not comfortable with the status quo — that is, they are willing and able to negotiate, and are well placed to make a deal.

A deal is in everyone’s interest, which is why I suspect we may soon see senior American diplomats meeting more regularly with Syrians and Iranians. If that happens, Hamas and Hizbullah will both find that they will have to adjust to new realities. They will probably do so quickly, because they too are reality-based players who cannot afford to be left out in the cold waving the banner of eternal resistance to a shrinking constituency — while everyone else around them is busy negotiating deals on coexistence, acceptable accommodation, and mutual rights.

The important element in the current trend is the clarification that the root causes of tensions between the United States and Europe, on the one hand, and assorted Arabs, Iranian and, occasionally, Turkish parties are political — not religious, cultural or civilizational.

Political problems — including occupied lands or nuclear power — have political solutions.

Israel, on the other hand, seems to be moving in a direction in which it will take off the table the items that could prompt political negotiations and lead to peaceful coexistence. The rightwing majority in the new parliament — with a sprinkling of Zionist fascists, some of whom might be in a new government — now explicitly rejects serious peace negotiations with the Palestinians, in favor of only “improving economic conditions” for the Palestinians.

Israelis will deal to get back the soldier Gilead Shalit who is in Hamas’ hands, and might agree to a medium-term truce with Hamas, but otherwise the majority of Israelis and their members of parliament seem uninterested in a serious peace negotiation that requires Israel to make major concessions that would see the Jewish state comply with international law. What a supreme irony this is, in view of the fact that the Jewish people, in the accepted biblical narrative, were the chosen instrument through which God passed on a set of laws to humankind to guide ethical and peace-seeking behavior, through the great law-giver Moses.

The likely Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks only of improving economic conditions for Palestinians, rather than negotiating Israeli withdrawal and an end of Jewish colonization, or achieving Palestinian statehood and an end to refugeehood. While everyone else in the region explores how to achieve mutually agreed equal rights, negotiated through mechanisms that affirm their common dignity and sovereignty, the Israeli public and political establishment both are moving in the opposite direction towards an almost pathological addiction to militarism, colonialism, and racism against Palestinians that is now ratified by the voting public.

There is great danger in the gap between Israeli extremism and the more accommodating realism and pragmatism of everyone else in the Middle East — including an America that seems slowly to be coming to its senses again.

Historically, the U.S. government in such situations was the only external party with enough leverage with Israel to craft a diplomatic process that sought to tone down extremist tendencies, and instead address the legitimate concerns of both Israelis and Arabs alike. The same approach is needed again today. It will succeed if it acknowledges that Israelis, Arabs, Iranians and Turks in this region all have equal rights that must be implemented simultaneously. It will fail, and trigger Gaza-like destruction on a wider regional scale, if it tries mainly to appease Israeli political pathologies and ideological extremism.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 23 February 2009
Word Count: 806
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DOHA, Qatar — Is a new page being turned in Arab/Islamic-American relations? It would seem so, to judge by many of the interactions at the three-day annual United States-Islamic World Forum that is hosted every year by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center in Washington and the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The latest gathering last weekend of over 160 engaged scholars, activists, journalists, scientists, officials, religious figures, artists and ex-officials from across the Islamic world and the United States seemed to reflect important new attitudes and subtle changes in perceptions between the two groups.

The first is due to the changes in policy and style of the new Obama administration in Washington, whose symbolic and substantive gestures in its first weeks in office send clear signals of its desire to improve relations with Islamic societies and peoples. The second is the realization within many Islamic societies that they are heading for catastrophe if they remain on their current trajectories, including perpetual warfare, deep internal divisions, and mass emigration of their most talented young men and women. And the third is that windows of opportunity may be opening — perhaps only for a brief period — to reverse the deterioration in Arab-Islamic-American relations.

A powerful signal of the new start that appears to be occurring in United States-Muslim world ties is the anticipation strongly felt among many in Muslim societies that the Obama team is going to usher in a more reasonable set of foreign policies that could stem rising anti-Americanism. Many Arabs and Muslims look to Obama with some expectation of change and anticipation of better days ahead, and this already indicates better than anything else — as one former Pakistani ambassador noted — a revived reservoir of goodwill towards the United States in the Muslim world.

Several former senior American officials for their part reflected the softer tone that seems to be emerging in Washington vis-à-vis Arab-Islamic world issues. And for the first time in the eight years that I have participated in these annual meetings, American participants seemed less defensive — perhaps mainly because George W. Bush is no longer their president. They were more inclined to explore avenues towards solutions, and how both sides could work together in this direction, rather than merely reciting exasperation with the deficiencies of Arab-Islamic societies, including terrorism.

Citizens of mostly Arab and Asian Islamic societies for their part seemed this year to be more humble in acknowledging their own need to take the initiative to reform themselves, and not only to wait for others — especially the United States and fellow Western powers — to treat Arabs and Muslims more equitably, and less colonially.

This breakthrough for both sides probably reflects the fact they simultaneously realize that the antagonistic, violent, selfish paths they have both followed in recent years — and certainly since September 11, 2001 — have failed, and only aggravate matters. This is combined with the growing recognition all around that mutual “respect” is the key that will unlock the door to better days ahead, with security, stability and perhaps even some prosperity for all.

Obama’s election and the quick moves he made in his first three days in office — closing Guantánamo, banning torture, naming respected special envoys to the two burning fires of Israel-Palestine and Afghanistan-Pakistan, playing diplomatic footsies with Iran, and speaking directly to Muslims on an agenda of mutual respect and shared interests — sent an emphatic message that many Arabs and Muslims have heard loud and clear.

These policy changes and rhetorical flourishes need to be reciprocated now from our side, by both governments and those more nimble elements in civil society that have the courage and the capacity to engage the United States on an equal footing — leaving behind the bad old ways of American-Western colonialism, neo-conservatism, and Orientalism.

The Americans, as one former senior White House security official said, cannot understand or absorb the message they seem to hear from the Arab-Islamic world — that we want Washington to be more engaged, but also to leave us alone.

There remains one major, glaring weakness in the American approach to these issues, which is a persistent refusal to accept blame for those aspects of U.S. foreign policy that tend to aggravate violence, extremism and instability in the Arab-Asian world. Almost blind U.S. support for Israel — or almost total Israeli veto power over decision-making in Washington — remains an issue that American officials, and even ex-officials, cannot discuss comfortably. It is the black hole in their moral-political universe that they must grapple with more honestly if they expect the world to take them more seriously.

This is a rare moment of change and opportunity, as the mainstreams of American and Arab-Islamic societies seem today to focus on how to work together for real change based on policy adjustments by both sides. Expressions of mutual respect have unlocked a once closed door; we need to burst through it.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 18 February 2009
Word Count: 809
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BEIRUT — The Israeli elections Tuesday are expected to usher in a Likud-led right-of-center coalition. Regardless of the final result (I write this Tuesday morning, as the voting begins), one thing is already clear: Whoever wins, the chances of a negotiated peace based on a two-state solution are slim, and becoming more difficult every year.

But they are not impossible for two main reasons. The difficulties that plague peace prospects today are all man-made ones that can just as easily be reversed and removed by new men and women leaders who act with courage and wisdom. And, the resort to violence by all parties has emphasized the limits of militarism, and clarified that only a political resolution will bring peace and security. Neither side will surrender, or be eliminated.

Here is the very complex and challenging political context in which we operate today: The two-state solution is difficult but still possible, the one-state solution is often proposed by many Arabs but is not realistic in the near future, and the current configuration on the ground is in fact a three-state solution: Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

But the full truth is even more complex.

As my friend — the respected Palestinian scholar and analyst —  Ahmad Khalidi described it in a recent conversation, we now operate in the shadow of a four-state solution: Gaza, the West Bank, centre-left Israel that accepts a two-state solution, and right-of-center settler-colonial Israel that demands permanent Jewish control of much of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

The entire Israeli political system has steadily shifted to the right in the past 30 years — since Likud and Menachem Begin won power in the late 1970s. Today even the so-called centrists and moderates, like Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni and Labor Party Ehud Barak, would be classified as out-of-control rightwing hardliners in any other, normal government system in the world — in view of their vicious warmongering in the recent attack on Gaza.

It is telling testament to the condition of the Israeli political system that many leaders and even ordinary soldier-citizens now worry about traveling abroad for fear of being charged with war crimes, due to their disproportionately barbaric attacks against the civilian population of Gaza. Meanwhile, the center of gravity of Palestinian politics has shifted to the Hamas-Islamist-dominated right. The Israeli and Palestinian transitions, however, cannot be equated as mirror images of each other.

The Israelis occupy, colonize and annex Palestinian land, jail over 10,000 Palestinian men and women (included elected members of parliament) who have not been charged in most cases, and routinely attack Palestinian areas that are largely inhabited by unarmed civilians. The Palestinians believe they are fighting a defensive war of resistance against an Israeli foe that colonizes or strangulates them, and refuses to abide by international norms that demand the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state and the just resolution of the refugee issue.

The shift to the right and the sharp polarization in Israeli politics means the country is defined by two very different forces that cannot easily coexist while “security” concerns keep pushing the center of gravity of society, psyche and politics to the right. Some among the right are outright racists and skinhead chauvinists. But most Israelis are more reasonable, yet they gravitate to the right because they feel more secure there.

This is a core dilemma for Israel as a whole: The more they rely on military force to kill and control Palestinians and other Arabs, the greater resistance they elicit from the Arabs, and the less secure all Israelis feel. Israelis broadly remain blind to the need to find true peace and security by coming to terms with Palestinian nationalism, and addressing their share of the blame for the dismemberment of Palestinian society and the birth of the refugee problem in 1947-48.

The militant and racist right in Israel is the fourth state in the four-state solution that looms as one ugly outcome of current trends: A Hamas-led state in Gaza, a Fateh-led state in pockets of the West Bank in between Israel’s Apartheid-like colonies and roads; a rightwing, militant, super Jewish-nationalist Israeli settler-colonial state in the West Bank, Golan Heights and greater Jerusalem; and, a Labor-left-led secular Jewish state in greater Tel Aviv and adjacent regions.

This is the tragedy of a land once defined by a pluralistic indigenous population of Christians, Jews and Moslems, now on the verge of becoming divided into four parts, two of which enthusiastically embrace the ethos of the warrior-nationalist.

Depressing as this is, we must remember that it is not an act of God or nature, but rather the work of stupid, irresponsible men and women on all sides. It can be reversed with the advent of wiser and more sensible leaders. In this land of miracles, everything is possible.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 11 February 2009
Word Count: 806
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BEIRUT — The world is a better place today because Condoleezza Rice has retired from American public service, and my water turtle Jerry has found a new home with friends in Beirut.

My water turtle Jerry has always been the best barometer I know of American diplomacy in the Middle East. For the entire five years of his life to date, his antics in and out of his water tank on our balcony overlooking the Mediterranean have always echoed larger worlds. He had the misfortune five years ago to be born into the era of Condoleezza Rice. He tried his best — within the limits of a water turtle’s world — to help the lady deal with the many challenges she faced.

Water turtles do not have many ways to communicate with humans, but Jerry and I understood the code he developed. His behavior was usually intimately associated with — and a response to — American diplomacy in the Middle East. When the United States was wreaking havoc in Iraq, Jerry would sulk for days on end, neither eating nor swimming. He would burrow under the mound of colored stones I bought him and remain there, signaling that events in progress were not to his liking, and that a change in direction was needed.

His most profound communication method was his frequent attempt to jump out of his water tank — often successful in his younger days when his body mass was much smaller than it is now. He did this first by paddling furiously across the length of the tank and then propelling himself over the edge with a flying leap, perhaps making believe he was a sailfish for just a fleeting moment. As he grew larger, he could no longer do this. Instead he used a different technique of grabbing the edge of the tank with his front legs and pulling himself over into a new and larger world. Sustainable freedom — he understood better than Condoleezza Rice — was attained by repeated, diligent self-effort.

Jerry’s escapes were always a household drama, as we would have to spend some time and energy looking under every piece of furniture to find him, including lifting large couches. I also eventually noticed a pattern: Jerry attempted a dramatic escape every time Condoleezza Rice was in the Middle East. He was always trying to tell her that success did not come easily, and required a major exertion of effort and expenditure of stored political capital, or, in his case, stored food energy. Success in Rice’s goals of promoting Arab-Israeli peace, democratic transformations, or counter-terrorism policies required the same sort of sustained perseverance and massive exertion of energy that Jerry demonstrated in his repeated escapes from his tank home. Like him, Rice had to dare to leap out of her tank to engage the world with courage and ingenuity.

We did not fully understand this at first. We thought Jerry simply liked the repeated challenge of a great escape, followed by sleeping in a less impressive hiding place (his most noteworthy destinations were the kitchen and a distant bedroom). Or we thought he simply wanted a larger tank, which we dutifully purchased.

I asked some biology professor friends about this and they explained that water turtles actually like to be in the open air on a regular basis. So we started taking him out of his tank once a day and letting him walk around. This brought him and us immense pleasure — a negotiated, win-win diplomatic success.

When Condoleezza Rice finally left public office last month, and the Obama administration quickly launched a new era of diplomacy with the appointment of Middle East special envoy George Mitchell, I took this as a reverse signal from American diplomacy to Jerry: Change has started. Time will tell if things improve in the Middle East also, but for Jerry the water turtle change has already happened. He is now living with young American student friends in another part of Beirut, in a spacious apartment where he roams freely. The last report I had was that he crossed the entire living-dining area in just under 90 seconds.

I am not totally sure of the geo-political significance of all this, but I do sense that there is a lesson here in the parallels between Jerry the water turtle’s escapades and the travails of American foreign policy. It is simply that perseverance, focus and diligence pay off in the end, and negotiated agreements must serve the interest of both sides — even in a power imbalance between a turtle and humans.

Jerry now enjoys the benefits of such a life-guiding philosophy. He is large, healthy and roams far and wide in his new home. Condoleezza Rice is out of public office, having failed to grasp the most simple principles of professional success and personal happiness that my water turtle Jerry mastered years ago.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 09 February 2009
Word Count: 805
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KUWAIT CITY — The stark juxtapositions within the Arab World — and the wider Middle East-South Asia region — were brought home to me one morning this week in Kuwait. I am here participating in a global gathering that seeks to increase the production of indigenous research in the Middle East in order to better influence policy-making. But our noble endeavor contrasted sharply with the morning newspaper headlines of suicide bombings in Somalia and Afghanistan, continued military strikes in Israel and Palestine, and even the provincial elections in Iraq, happening during a lull between a string of suicide bombings in that country.

Where, in this range of events, is the center of gravity of the Arab world? It is in none and all of these things simultaneously. For the Arab World is defined by both rampant violence — home-grown and foreign-instigated — and a deep desire to become democratic, productive, vibrant societies, intellectually and culturally.

A key to moving in that direction is understanding the main constraint and the common denominator in all these events. I believe it is the legacy of autocratic, top-heavy, centralized Arab governments, which range from relatively gentle monarchies on the one hand to hard police states on the other.

The modern Arab security state took hold for good in the early 1970s, and has been challenged in only two ways: by foreign armies such as overthrew the Iraqi Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein, and by slow disintegration or domestic challenge from within, in places like Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Yemen.

No Arab country has had the luxury of evolving normally and slowly into a modern, balanced nation-state that defines itself and controls its own resources.

The legacy of security-dominated states where power is concentrated in the hands of a family or small group of soldiers has led to two extremes: an almost total lack of indigenous production of cultural capital and intellectual knowledge (with very few exceptions, mostly in Beirut and Cairo), and widespread use of violence and terror by opposition forces trying to overthrow the incumbents.

The issue being addressed at this gathering of the Global Development Network, in Kuwait, clarifies a root problem of this sustained Arab autocracy. The production of knowledge and research that can influence policy-making is defined by deep tensions in the Arab World, because there are two concepts that violently contradict: Those who hold power for decades on end do not have an interest in prodding the sort of free intellectual enquiry and scientific research that are at the heart of knowledge production.

A telltale sign of the problem is that all the institutions of knowledge production — universities, research centers, media — must be approved and licensed by the government. Most Arab governments do not want too many nimble minds openly enquiring into how society operates and power is exercised. This is why most of the best Arab journalists and researchers live abroad.

Where there has been a positive move forward, such as in some Arab satellite channels that openly debate important public issues, the problem remains that providing citizens with more information and a variety of views does not impact on the political process. Better informed citizens do not become more politically empowered citizens.

The lack of real politics is reflected in the absence of peaceful contestation of power and equally peaceful and regular transitions from one government to the next. When some Arab governments do change, policies do not. Because policy is set by a higher authority than the formal cabinet of ministers.

The change of policy that normally accompanies a change of government is on show quite brilliantly these days in the United States, as many men and women move into high government office from positions in universities, think tanks and research centers. No such thing happens in Arab countries, because independent research institutions and think tanks remain very few in number, and limited in their resources and impact.

This situation can only change by homegrown evolution into more democratic, pluralistic governance systems, working with likeminded partners around the world. Foreign armies cannot do the job for us. Iraq’s transformation remains a fascinating ongoing process whose ultimate outcome remains to be seen. It was probably a one-time phenomenon that reflected a unique post-9/11 moment in America that will not be repeated — and should not be repeated, in my view.

For now, the cross-fertilization between politics and the world of ideas remains weak in the Arab world, which is one reason why our region counts more indigenous terrorists and exiled intellectuals than it does respected resident researchers and public policy analysts.

The fact that so many Arabs and their friends abroad insist on reversing this picture is a reason to remain hopeful, and to keep working hard for change — while rejecting the ways of the three demons that continue to plague us: incumbent security state autocrats, local terrorists, and foreign armies.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 04 February 2009
Word Count: 811
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