BEIRUT — A year-end look at trends in the Arab world during the past 12 months reveals little to be optimistic about. The core weaknesses, distortions and dysfunctionalities of the Arab world all seemed to worsen during the past year. Here are the major trends that I believe define our region these days, and will persist for some years to come.

I. A strange combination of self-assertion and reliance on foreign actors is the major characteristic of the Arab world, reflecting the massive polarization of our societies into two opposing camps.

On the one hand, many in our region continue to look abroad for protection or salvation, in the form of countries, ethnic groups or political movements that rely on foreign patronage for their survival more than they do on their own people.

We remain deeply mired in a colonial-era mentality in many respects. The massive attention paid to awaiting the new Middle East policies of the Obama administration in the United States is the most dramatic manifestation of this trend.

On the other hand, the single most important change in the Arab World in the past two decades has been the attempt by several hundred million people to break away from this “vassals-of-the-West” mentality, and instead to assert one’s own identity and interests. The various Islamist movements in the region have been the main vehicles for such self-assertion, but these movements have not been able to translate their proven credibility into coherent state-building momentum.

Islamists remain primarily defensive and reactionary movements — very effective at confronting Western powers, Israel, and some domestic forces, but lacking any proven capacity to address mass needs in sectors such as job creation, environmental protection and political modernization.

II. Formerly integrated and cohesive societies throughout the Middle East continue to fracture into four main components: state-run bureaucracies with a heavy security element; the private sector with a heavy globalized consumerist dimension; assertive traditional identities (mainly Islamism and tribalism); and, assorted criminalized groups, including youth gangs, militias, illegal migrants, drugs networks, and structured theft networks that live off government resources. These four different sectors of society coexist relatively comfortably with one another, each occupying its own space in society and relying on its own resources.

The big loser in this trend has been the cohesion and integrity of the modern Arab state, which has broadly failed to develop a viable sense of citizenship among its nationals.

III. Political liberalization and democratization are dormant for the time being. These remain buried beneath the stultifying weight of corruption-riddled Arab security states, emotion- and fear-driven mass movements, and the debilitating impact of Israeli, American, and other foreign interventions.

Like nationalism, genuine politics and peaceful electoral contestation of power in the Arab world are victims of our own excesses. As economic stress throughout the Middle East increases in the wake of the current global downturn, prospects for political democratization will further recede on the regional priority list.

IV. As a consequence of the above three trends, major political issues of importance to the people of this region are increasingly inconsequential to most people and powers around the world. The electoral politics of the Metn region in Lebanon, the tribal politics of Gaza, the human rights conditions in Syria and Morocco, and the forty years of Moammar Gaddafi’s rule in Libya are issues that no longer occupy any serious time or thought among leaders in the world’s most powerful countries, regardless of whether we accept that or not.

The worst ramifications of the Middle East’s dysfunctions — terrorism, illegal migration, ethnic strife, corruption, police states, and assorted atrocities perpetuated by both state and private actors — are only occasional irritants for the rest of the world, not pressing strategic threats. We have marginalized ourselves as serious players on the global political stage, and now assume the role of nagging annoyances and miscreants.

V. The oldest and most powerful driver of discontent, disequilibrium, and radicalism in our region — the Arab-Israeli conflict — remains totally stalemated, more an object of insincere and unconvincing “peace process” rhetoric than any genuine sense of diplomatic urgency. It is also now more difficult to resolve than ever, given complicating new factors.

These include mass skepticism from many recent failed peace-making attempts, Iran’s growing regional role, the rise of powerful and increasingly independent Islamist groups like Hizbullah and Hamas, a structurally pro-Israeli American position, a steady shift towards the racist right within Israel, and genetic Arab incompetence in pushing the 2002 Arab peace plan as a serious prod to a comprehensive settlement.

This is a depressing list of broad trends in the Arab World — but also a volatile one that the people and states of the region cannot withstand for many more years. The good news is that these trends are all the consequences of man-made decisions and policies that can all be corrected by more constructive and equitable policies in the future.

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 © 2008 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 30 December 2008
Word Count: 811
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BEIRUT — God punished the arrogance and hubris of the Hebrews in the Old Testament by making them wander the wilderness for 40 years before allowing a later, more humble, generation to enter Canaan. The current generation of Israeli Jews is not as proficient at learning these 40-year lessons, it seems, to judge from Israel’s current ferocious attack on Gaza.

It was exactly 40 years ago to the day — December 28, 1968 — that Israeli commandos raided Beirut airport and destroyed 13 Lebanese civilian aircraft, in retaliation for a Palestinian attack against an Israeli airliner in Athens. Israel aimed to inflict a revenge punishment so severe that it would shock the Arabs into preventing the Palestinians from fighting Israel.

Today, 40 years and countless attacks and wars later, Israel again uses massive retaliatory and punitive force to pummel the Palestinians of Gaza into submission. Hundreds of Palestinians have died in the first 24 hours of the Israeli attack, and several thousand might die by the time the operation ends. For what purpose, one wonders?

The past 40 years offer a credible guide, if anyone in Israel or Washington cares to grasp the historical record instead of merely wallowing in a cruel world of political lies and deceptions. Israel’s use of its clear military superiority against Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arabs has consistently led to five parallel, linked, and very predictable results:

1. Israeli power has momentarily shattered Palestinian and Arab military and civilian infrastructure, only to see the bludgeoned Arabs regroup and return a few years later — with much greater technical proficiency and political will to fight back. This happened when the Palestinians, who were driven out of Jordan in 1970, eventually re-established more lethal bases in Lebanon; or when Israel destroyed Fateh’s police facilities in the West Bank and Gaza a few years ago, and soon found themselves fighting Hamas’ capabilities instead.

2. Israel’s combination of military ferocity, insincerity in peace negotiations, and continued colonization has seen “moderate” groups and peace-making partners like Fateh slowly self-destruct, to be challenged or even replaced by tougher foes. Fateh has given way to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and to militant spin-offs from within Fateh like the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Hizbullah emerged in Lebanon after Israel invaded and occupied south Lebanon in 1982.

3. Israel’s insistence on militarily dominating the entire Middle East has seen it generate new enemies in lands where it once had strategic allies — like Lebanon and Iran. Israel once worked closely with some predominantly Christian groups in Lebanon, and had deep security links with the Shah of Iran. Today — the figurative 40 years later — Israel sees its most serious, even existential, threats emanating from Hizbullah in Lebanon and the radical ruling regime in Iran.

4. The massive suffering Israel inflicts on ordinary Palestinians transforms a largely docile population into a recruiting pool for militants, resistance fighters, suicide bombers, terrorists, and other warriors. After decades of Israeli policies of mass imprisonment, starvation, strangulation, colonization, assassination, assault and terror tactics against Palestinians, the Palestinians eventually react to their own dehumanization by turning around and using the same kind of cruel methods to kill Israeli soldiers and civilians.

5. Israeli policies over decades have been a major — but not the only — reason for the transformation of the wider political environment in the Arab world into a hotbed of Islamism confronting more stringent Arab police states. The Islamists who politically dominate the Arab region — whether Shiite Hizbullah, or Sunni Hamas or anything else in between — are the only Arabs since the birth of Israel in 1948 who have proved both willing and able to fight back against Zionism.

All these trends can be seen in action during the current Israeli attack against Gaza: Palestinian and Arab radicalization, Islamist responses amidst pan-Arab lassitude, the continued discrediting of President Mahmoud Abbas’ government, and regional populist agitation against Israel, its U.S. protector, and most Arab governments. None of this is new. And that is precisely why it is so significant today, as Israel’s war on Gaza paves the way for a repetition of the five trends above that have plagued Israelis and Arabs alike.

The biblical 40-year time span between Israel’s attack on Beirut airport on December 28, 1968 and its war on Gaza on December 27, 2008 is eerily relevant. It is time enough for frightened and arrogant Israelis to learn that in all these years their weapons have promoted neither quiescence among neighboring Arabs, nor security along Israel’s borders. The exact opposite has happened, and it will happen again now.

Here’s something to ponder as the next 40-year period starts ticking down: The only thing that ever did bring Israelis and Arabs genuine peace was equitable, negotiated peace accords — with Egypt and Jordan — that treated Arabs and Israel as people who must enjoy equal rights to security and stable statehood.

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 © 2008 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 29 December 2008
Word Count: 804
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BEIRUT– Incoming American President Barack Obama faces major challenges and opportunities in the foreign policy realm, and he is getting plenty of free, unsolicited advice. Here’s my contribution on an issue that he — in an interview with the Chicago Tribune earlier this month — defined as a priority for his administration: improving the U.S. image in the Muslim world.

He plans a major speech in an Islamic capital, to emphasize that the United States is not waging war against Islam or Muslims. This is a simplistic approach that he should drop quickly, because it reflects the failed strategy of George W. Bush that treated Muslims as simpletons who could be swayed by nice words, rather than adults who react to how people and countries behave, not merely what they say.

Bush devised a two-pronged counter-productive foreign policy in the Middle East that was defined by:
a) sending troops to Iraq, largely ignoring the Arab-Israeli issue, misreading Islamists’ real power and legitimacy, misdiagnosing the terror phenomenon, and supporting freedom and democracy in most of the Middle East, while also supporting police states and life-long autocrats; and,
b) aggravating all these facts on the ground by sending Karen Hughes and her battalion of public diplomacy cheerleaders to tell us that Americans love their children. The combination was deadly — and was aptly, if unceremoniously, captured forever by the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush ten days ago.

Obama can get off on a better foot by accurately diagnosing how and why his predecessor failed on both the policy and public diplomacy fronts, and making sure that he does not simply repeat those mistakes. By planning a speech in an Islamic capital aimed at making Muslims feel better about American foreign policy aims, Obama would perpetuate the core mistake that helped make Bush-Hughes such a catastrophe: a focus on words that seek to explain American foreign policy aims, while ignoring that the vast majority of Muslims and others around the world, in fact, react to American deeds, not speeches.

Saying that he sees “a unique opportunity to reboot America’s image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular,” Obama told the Chicago Tribune of his unrelenting” desire to “create a relationship of mutual respect and partnership in countries and with peoples of good will who want their citizens and ours to prosper together,” adding that the world “is ready for that message.”

That’s very sensible, and the world indeed is ready to re-connect with the United States. The best way for him to do this would be to quickly articulate, but simultaneously put into practice, some basic principles that will define his administration’s foreign policy.

For example, he could say that the United States will provide more support for countries that hold certifiably free elections, enjoy a truly independent judiciary, give boys and girls equal educational opportunities, or have term limits for presidents, and, conversely, will reduce support for countries that ignore such values.

No need for regime changes, sanctions, or threats. Just state the policies the United States values and supports — and that Muslim men and women universally share — and stand by those countries that put such principles into practice.

He has followed that exact principle vis-à-vis how to improve race relations in the United States, showing that he understands how actions speak louder than words and transcend ethnic, racial or religious divided. In the same newspaper interview he said: “The biggest challenges we face right now in improving race relations have to do with the universal concerns of Americans across color lines.”

“If we are creating jobs throughout this economy, then African-Americans and Latinos, who are disproportionately unemployed, are going to be swept up in that rising tide. I think that, more than anything, is going to improve race relations, a sense of common purpose.” When he was a candidate, he made a historic speech about race relations in the U.S. As president, he understands that speeches are not enough to improve race relations. More critical are a sense of common purpose and improving all citizens’ well-being through job creation and other practical improvements to their lives.

He should quickly understand that the same principle applies to what he calls “the Muslim world” — that there is no Muslim world, any more than there is a monolithic Christian or Black world in the United States.

There are around 1.3 billion Muslim men, women and children whose living conditions vary considerably, depending on the political and economic systems they live in. If he truly wants to develop a relationship of “respect and partnership,” and if he really values “common purpose,” he needs simply to understand their legitimate grievances, and work with them to address those issues through sensible domestic and foreign policies by all concerned. Speeches are easy. Sensible policies are much more effective.

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 © 2008 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 24 December 2008
Word Count: 805
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BEIRUT — The full impact of the current global economic crisis on the Arab world is likely to be very bad, because the major income sources of the region are all dropping simultaneously.

Oil and gas income is down by over two-thirds. Income from funds invested abroad and at home is down by at least one-third. Unemployment will rise everywhere, and remittances sent home by workers from non-oil-producing Arab states will drop steadily in the coming few years.

One aspect of the Arab economies that is widely discussed abroad yet is almost totally absent from the domestic public debate is the pool of trillions of dollars in the so-called Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs). This blackout situation has been slightly ameliorated with the publication this week of a 25-page paper by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Beirut Center Visiting Scholar Sven Behrendt, entitled When Money Talks: Arab Sovereign Wealth Funds in the Global Public Policy Discourse.

It starts with useful descriptive information on the number, size and nature of the SWFs, which are the funds managed by a handful of oil- and gas-exporting Arab countries that accumulated large surpluses when the price of oil tripled in the last few years. It also calmly reviews important political dimensions of the discussions about SWFs, especially related to how major Western financial and political centers view these funds. This important discussion needs to be expanded beyond the often hysterical treatment in the Western media that sees these funds either as dangerous alien predators that seek to control the Western economic nerve-centers, or as God-sent saviors that will rescue these same Western economic nerve-centers from collapse.

The prevailing best estimate of Arab SWFs’ total value is around $1.5 trillion as of last summer (held by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar), which is thought to have dropped by around 20 percent in the past half year. Behrendt correctly notes the relatively modest size of these funds in relation to much larger pools of money managed by leading Western financial institutions, such as $21 trillion by investment companies and $15-16 trillion each by insurance companies and pension funds.

He also notes both the positive and negative views of this Arab money in the West, and calls for more mature interaction between Arab investors and Western political decision-makers and regulators who seem to need each other more than ever. His most important suggestion is for Arab public opinion, civil society and the media to take more interest in these funds, “and to demand a more transparent accounting of how their nations’ funds are being invested. In particular, the Arab public could legitimately ask what social and economic goals are being served by the investments and to what degree they are serving broader regional objectives.”

The nature, use and fate of these SWFs matters directly and primarily to the citizens of those energy-exporting countries that possess them. But recent decades have suggested that the development of these countries — including their investment abroad, in some cases — is closely linked to conditions in energy-poor Arab countries around them. On issues of labor movement, trade, food production and supplies, real estate and other investments, tourism, some aspects of security, and a few other fields, the wealthy and poorer Arab states are increasingly linked to one another.

The few Arab countries that control over a trillion dollars in their SWFs face some challenging decisions about how to invest those funds in the most effective and prudent manner. Their own and neighboring Arab economies are not mature enough to absorb such large amounts, and investing in the West has resulted in political pushback and, this year, some sharp financial losses.

This would seem to be the moment for Arab SWF managers and their political leaders to take advantage of the — probably momentary — leverage they enjoy globally and regionally, to help re-write the prevailing rules of international financial investment flows. Three areas seem ripe for serious reappraisal.

First, the ultimate owners of these funds — the citizens of the energy-producing states — should be provided with more information on how the funds are accumulated and invested, rather than leaving this task in the hands of small groups of specialists.

Second, inter-Arab investments in truly strategic industries like food production, water technologies, and solar energy should be considered much more seriously, now that basic infrastructure is in place in most Arab countries — which was not the case when the first oil boom hit in the early 1970s.

Third, Arab investors should use this unique moment to negotiate better and more reciprocally equitable terms of global financial flows with the leading Western powers.

This is a moment when some Arabs should be thinking more in terms of enhancing the wealth of their sovereignty, rather than merely bemoaning the erratic performance of their sovereign wealth.

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 © 2008 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 22 December 2008
Word Count: 808
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BEIRUT — The coming days will reveal much about the mettle and intentions of the Palestinian group Hamas which now effectively runs a mini-state in the Gaza Strip, after defeating its rival Fateh in a few street skirmishes last year. The six-month-old ceasefire with Israel ends this week and talks are going on now between Israeli and Egyptian officials about renewing it. Hamas leaders in Damascus and Gaza have given slightly different versions of their positions, some leaning towards a ceasefire extension and others towards a resumption of fighting.

Hamas has stated that it will extend the ceasefire — and indeed has offered Israel a long-term truce for many years — if the Israelis in turn meet their side of the deal, which is to stop killing and arresting Palestinians, colonizing their land, and strangling them economically. The fact that Hamas would consider letting the ceasefire lapse speaks much about its mindset and the options that it is willing to pursue. This moment of decision-making allows us to accurately gauge what Hamas is all about, rather than seeing it through the lens of exaggerated misperceptions.

Reasonable people would expect that Israelis and Palestinians alike prefer a ceasefire to active warfare, especially since mutual attacks have never resolved the core conflict. Hamas’ decision to extend the ceasefire is not going to be made on the basis of what makes its people more or less comfortable, or what entices Israelis into opening the gates a little bit wider to allow more consumer goods to enter Gaza. The basis on which Hamas makes such decisions reflects its wider worldview of the character and aims of Israel, and the nature of its confrontation with Israel.

Like other Islamist groups, Hamas calculates on the basis of a longer time frame than the next election, shifting public opinion sentiments, or whether or not it will get invited to tea in the White House. The single most important factor in the mind of Islamist leaders who decide such things is whether the agreement to renew the ceasefire reflects mutual respect and an acceptance of the principle of equal rights for Israel and Hamas.

If the deal proposed is seen to have forced Israel to change its position and respect the terms of the agreement, Hamas will extend. If it merely comprises vague Israeli promises in return for Hamas and other militant groups stopping their rocket attacks against Israel, the deal will collapse. Hamas’ view is that mutual needs, rather than Israeli security, must be assured for a ceasefire to happen.

The driving force for such a posture is the Islamist sense that the battle to defend and reclaim the land will be a long one, and it will require a heavy price in lives and suffering before Israel negotiates sincerely, and sees the Palestinians as humans worthy of the same rights as Israelis.

Hamas showed its strength a few days ago, when some 200,000 supporters rallied in Gaza to mark the group’s 21st anniversary. It has generated strong support as well as deep opposition among Palestinians and other Arabs, but more important for it is whether or not it has generated respect in Israel. If the Israelis feel Hamas can fight a long-term battle, then Hamas will feel it has achieved an important goal: the respect of its enemy.

Hamas is well entrenched in Gaza now and is prepared for an Israeli military attack, if such an attack takes place. These Palestinian Islamists clearly have learned from their colleagues in Hizbullah and other such groups, who have shown themselves to be the most adept Arabs at fighting Israel militarily. They have obviously used the past year to prepare for the eventuality of a new Israeli attack on their little statelet — making the cost to Israel likely to be similar to the price Israel paid when it went into south Lebanon years ago.

Israeli leaders have warned that they will have to take drastic measures if the rockets from Gaza do not stop falling on southern Israel. Hamas ignores such threats, because it knows that Israel has reached the limit of what it can do with conventional military force. Israel directly occupied Gaza for decades and used brutal force in trying to pacify it, which only succeeded in giving birth to Hamas. More Israeli tanks in the streets of Gaza would only reflect Israeli renewed perplexity about how to deal with the group, rather than a coherent plan to resolve the conflict.

The main criteria for a renewal of the Hamas-Israel ceasefire are not fear of the other or the ability to inflict military pain, but respect for the other and the willingness to deal as equals.

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 © 2008 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 17 December 2008
Word Count: 811
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BEIRUT — Sixty years ago, on December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a powerful, universal call to treat all human beings with dignity, respect, opportunity and equal rights. The 28 articles of the declaration are stunning in their simplicity, clarity and sheer human decency. The declaration remains a beacon of hope for those people around the world in situations of oppression, occupation or marginalization.

I especially admire the preamble, which says that, “…the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,” and adds that, “… if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.”

Also 60 years old this autumn is the Palestinian refugee situation. Curious about the linkage between these two anniversaries, I sat down for a chat in Beirut this week with Karen AbuZayd, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the body charged with meeting the basic needs of Palestinian refugees.

When I asked how she saw overall refugee conditions and needs, her reply was stark: “Of the 28 basic human rights in the Universal Declaration, not a single one is being observed in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”

In this anniversary week, it is worth recalling what happens when people’s fundamental rights are ignored or denied for decades on end. AbuZayd’s sole mandate is to provide the most basic human services to the refugees in the absence of a political agreement that ends their refugeehood. She knows about rights and refugees.

She notes that in three of the five regions where refugees live — Lebanon, West Bank and Gaza — conditions are very bad and deteriorating in some cases. In Gaza, where she lives, troubling and measurable new signs of human distress are emerging, largely due to the impact of the Israeli closure of the borders for normal commercial traffic. Israel only opens the border once a week or so to allow minimum replenishment of UNRWA’s stocks of food and medicine.

“Normal life has almost come to a halt,” she says. “There is no money and so the banks and businesses cannot operate normally. Products smuggled in through tunnels are expensive and beyond the reach of most people. Basic services are erratic, including power, water, sewage networks. Cooking gas shortages are the latest problem, and we’re now seeing people cooking with firewood in their apartments.”

Even when charitable societies from Jordan recently sent in clothes and toys for children for the Islamic Eid el-Adha holiday, Israel did not allow them to enter. Two-thirds of Gaza’s population is registered refugees who rely mostly on basic UNRWA food rations to survive, but these handouts only provide 60 percent of a person’s daily caloric needs. UNRWA can just about keep refugees alive, but not much more than that.

“We’re now seeing signs of the impact of the closures and the economic slowdown,” she explained. “About half the children under the age of 5 years are anemic, and we’re also seeing stunting among children, which takes years to develop.”

The attitudinal and political consequences of this are also clear. Anger, frustration and depression are fuelling two parallel trends: More and more people say they just want to leave in order to provide their children with an opportunity to live a normal life, while some politically active young men and women turn towards political extremism and militancy. The most troubling new phenomenon in this respect is the proliferation of very small groups of militants — in Gaza but also in other parts of the region, like Lebanon — who use the rhetoric of Al-Qaeda.

In contrast, in the two others areas where UNRWA operates — Syria and Jordan — refugees make good use of basic UNRWA services like education and health and otherwise largely take care of themselves. This is because in Syria and Jordan, she says, refugees are treated decently, enjoying virtually the same rights to work as citizens (most refugees are citizens in Jordan, despite living in refugee camps).

The juxtaposition is telling: when people enjoy basic rights, they focus on improving their lives and living in security and some hope for a better future. When they are mistreated and denied basic human rights, they become hopeless or desperate, and some embrace radicalism and militancy.

Sixty years ago this week, a Palestinian refugee population and a universal human rights declaration were both in their infancy. This is a timely moment to recall the relationship between the two concepts of refugeehood and human rights, and what happens when one is perpetuated, and the other denied.

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 © 2008 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 15 December 2008
Word Count: 808
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BEIRUT — In the past week, both President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have given us the intellectual equivalent of what lame ducks do when they paddle away into oblivion, as they offer one more flap of the wings and spread of the tail feathers.

Both Bush and Rice have been attempting valiant but ultimately pitiful efforts to attract some praise for what most would see as deserving of ignominy and isolation. In separate media interviews, they have tried their hand at real-time historical revisionism and plain old-fashioned political fantasy, by claiming that they leave the Middle East in better shape than it has been for decades.

It is hard to imagine a more false statement of fact, but perhaps this is no surprise for an administration that has based its policies in the Middle East on a foundation of falsehoods, constructed it largely of misdiagnoses, and buttressed it by recurring misperceptions.

These two otherwise honorable citizens rose far beyond their political and intellectual abilities, to wander in alien and confusing corridors where they have understood little, fantasized often, and done much more harm than good.

Their claim of leaving the Middle East in better shape than they found it is their ultimate insult and lie. Here, from the vantage point of the Middle East, is what Bush and Rice leave behind in our region:

1. The situation in Iraq is very delicate and violent, and is likely to remain so for years to come. Ethno-sectarian tensions in Iraq have been institutionalized, and have started to spill over into other countries (for instance, Shiite-Sunni tensions and occasional clashes in Lebanon are new, and a direct consequence of the Iraq war).

2. The precarious situation in Iraq could — if it deteriorates as the United States withdraws — spark trouble or active warfare with several neighboring countries, notably Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iran.

3. Iran’s influence in the region is far greater now than it was in 2001, due in large part to the Iraq war adventure.

4. Iranian relations with the United States and major Western powers have deteriorated badly, while the American-led strategy of confronting Iranian nuclear ambitions with sanctions and threats has failed. Iran has advanced rapidly in its nuclear enrichment industry, and this has generated new tensions with some Arab governments and Israel.

5. Major Arab allies of the United States — such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan — are in more precarious condition now than they were eight years ago. They find themselves uncomfortably perched between their own reliance on U.S. support and protection, and their people’s growing anti-American sentiments, and also between their fears of Iran and their people’s cheering on of Iran’s defiance of Israel and the United States.

6. The hysterical American over-reaction to 9/11 — a combination of warfare and aggressive ideological exhortations and pressures for freedom and democracy — has neither promoted democracy nor reduced terrorism. In fact it may have achieved the opposite: Terrorism is a continuing and expanding problem in the Arab-Asian region that has been exacerbated in part by on-the-job terror training and recruitment in Iraq; meanwhile, Arab allies in the U.S. “global war on terror” have strangled and silenced the few nascent liberal or democratic openings that existed in the Arab world eight years ago. Indigenous Arab democrats are an extinct species for the moment, partly due to their association with Washington’s deadly policies.

7. Worse than this perhaps is the damage done to the United States’ own standing in the Middle East, where Washington is deeply marginalized, and is neither feared nor respected — an astounding situation for a country of such immense global power, vital national interests in the region, and natural allies in the hundreds of millions of Middle Easterners who gravitate to its historical principles of justice, equality, freedom, democracy and opportunity.

8. Every internal or local political battle the United States has entered — such as in Lebanon, Palestine, Somalia — it has lost, and its enemies have been strengthened.

9. This has bolstered the broad regional alliance of forces that is headed by Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas, and that gravitates heavily — perhaps primarily — around resistance to American-Israeli policies.

10. Political violence that had once been episodic and locally anchored is now chronic and often inter-linked throughout the region, in part as a response to the actual or threatened use of force by the United States all over the Middle East and South Asia.

11. The Arab-Israeli conflict remains beyond resolution for the moment, partly due to the United States heavily siding with Israel and refusing to deal with Hamas, which is now entrenched in its own little mini-state that it will not easily give up.

This is the pathetic legacy of the Bush-Rice years, and an even more enormous tragedy and burden for the people of the Middle East who inherit this mess, and cannot retire to Dallas or Palo Alto. For Bush-Rice to claim they leave the region in better shape than before is to add both delusion and insult to their already formidable legacy of lies, illusion and destruction.

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 © 2008 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 10 December 2008
Word Count: 847
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BEIRUT — The appointment of Hillary Clinton as the next American secretary of state has generated much discussion and debate, most of it focused on personality and based on speculation and entertainment. The Obama team’s policies will speak for themselves in due course, which is how this administration will be judged.

Political election campaigns and running an administration are two different things. Politicians are not normal human beings, and do not respond to standard ethical values that define the rest of society. Like Shakespearean actors, they enjoy a mandate from the rest of us to perform on a large stage, to entertain, to exaggerate, dance, perhaps even occasionally to enlighten and move us emotionally. They make promises they do not expect to keep, and adopt some positions that they know they will reverse in office.

We should enjoy this for the good things it offers — like leadership anchored in the legitimacy of the consent of the governed — while noting the intemperance and expediency of politicians who can also embody the clarity and decency of ordinary Americans.

When she was a citizen and not a politician, Hilary Clinton came out strongly in favor of the rights of the Palestinian people in 1998, when she said that Palestinians should have a state of their own — years before this became an accepted position in the United States. Once she became a senator from New York State, though, she donned the politician’s hat and espoused fiercely pro-Israeli positions. In the presidential election campaign, she embraced every Israeli position on issues like Iran and Hamas. Speaking before the maniacally pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC in June, she said, “The United States stands with Israel, now and forever.”

To be fair, every other presidential candidate said virtually the same thing. But this is now in the past, and can be largely ignored. Henceforth, foreign policy-making will reflect the collective views of the national security-foreign policy team led by Barack Obama — one which is impressive for its sobriety and experience.

National Security Adviser James Jones, for example, has on-the-ground experience in Arab-Israeli issues. He will bring knowledge to this arena in Washington that is usually driven heavily by a confluence of ignorant and electorally vulnerable politicians who succumb to the dictates of pro-Israeli lobbyists. Other experienced men and women who are loosely associated with Obama, like Brent Scowcroft, also bring realism rather than rabid zealotry to the task of formulating foreign policy.

A crucial early sign of how Obama will proceed in the Middle East will be the key personnel who will be appointed to handle core issues, like the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran, and counter-terrorism. If someone like Dennis Ross, for example, is named to handle Arab-Israeli issues, that would be a bad sign. Ross has been a dedicated public servant, but his record in and out of office is widely perceived — even by those who worked with him — to be more pro-Israeli than even-handed. His association with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a key player in Washington’s pro-Israeli lobbying universe, is a powerful sign of his political position.

There is nothing wrong with being associated with WINEP, AIPAC or any other pro-Israel group, other than that this should automatically disqualify such a person from a mediating position in Arab-Israeli issues (as, of course, also applies to anyone associated with pro-Palestinian groups in the United States). Ross’ track record is also one of consistent failure in terms of brokering Arab-Israeli peace. This reflects the weaknesses and biases of the administrations he has served, to be sure, but might also mirror his own shortcomings as an unbiased mediator in some cases.

The experience of people like Dennis Ross should be tapped by the Obama team in new councils that include pro-Israeli, pro-Arab and impartial Americans who enjoy both experience and credibility. Any officials who try their hand at mediation, however, must start off with the critical virtues of impartiality and trust. Appointments to come soon will reveal whether the Obama team really seeks to bring change to foreign policy, or will be happy to retreat to comfortable old positions and personalities that are largely driven by pro-Israeli interests and a quiet disdain for Arab rights.

This is crucial because the Arab-Israeli conflict remains the oldest, most destabilizing force in the Middle East, touching now on Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas, Syria, and other issues of tension and confrontation. Moving quickly to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict in a fair manner that ensures the equal rights of Israelis and Arabs would be the most effective way to reduce tensions and reconfigure alliances throughout the entire Middle East, and thus serve American national interests.

The right mix of effective policies and credible personalities for the Middle East has eluded the past four American administrations of Clinton and Bush. We will soon find out if more sensible minds now prevail in Washington.

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 © 2008 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 03 December 2008
Word Count: 808
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BEIRUT — One of the great weaknesses in the modern Middle East that explains much of the chronic violence and political thuggery of the past half century is the thin state of the rule of law in comparison with the rule of the gun.

Three separate developments now taking place in different parts of the Arab world might have real consequences for this region’s future: the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment against the Sudanese president Omar Hassan Bashir, the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) approved by the Iraqi parliament to see the United States withdraw fully by the end of 2011, and the mixed Lebanese-international special tribunal that will try those to be accused of killing former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and a dozen other public figures.

These three very different dynamics have one thing in common that is unusual and crucial for the Arab World: They bring into play law and accountability as antidotes to runaway homegrown political killings and brutality, and foreign military interference. They may well reveal whether we are destined long to remain plagued by political violence and dictatorship, or can anticipate a better future where citizens and entire societies are protected by the rule of law.

The Iraqi-American SOFA is the most complex of the three, because of its hazy moral legitimacy. The Iraqi law passed by an elected parliament emanates from a process of national rebuilding that took place under the nose, and in the wake of the invasion by, the American-led armada that dismantled the previous state structure. Nevertheless, it is a law, passed by a broadly representative parliament, in a sort-of-sovereign country, and such a law is always preferable to American and British soldiers orchestrating parliamentary elections or shooting up wedding parties in the desert.

Whether the rule of law takes hold in Iraq remains to be seen, because it is battling two other powerful and destructive forces that have been unleashed or exacerbated by the Anglo-American invasion and its aftermath: ethno-sectarian tensions and divisions among Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis and others in the country, and rampant resort to the gun — via freelance criminality, or local and foreign-supported political militias and tribal forces — that will take years to overcome.

Regarding Sudan, the ICC judges will soon decide whether or not to approve the July 2008 request by Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al Bashir, on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. Both legal and political arguments will decide this issue. In the final analysis a strong stance by the ICC to prevent and punish genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Africa would be a timely and welcomed move. If the evidence is credible and the ICC indicts and one day tries those accused of such crimes, there is a chance that others in future might be deterred from carrying out similar atrocities.

The most important of the three cases is the Lebanese-international tribunal for the killings in Lebanon, which is expected to start work in The Hague in March, according to an announcement this week by the UN Secretary General. This is a potentially historic development because the original decisions establishing the court and launching the investigating commission on the killings were unanimously approved by the UN Security Council.

With the commission now slowly moving from Lebanon to The Hague, its Canadian head, Daniel Bellemare, will take on the role of prosecutor at the tribunal. He is expected to release his final report on December 4, for review by the U.N. Security Council, with indictments expected in February

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon correctly stressed that the tribunal would “send a strong signal that the government of Lebanon and the United Nations remain committed to ending impunity in Lebanon…[by delivering] the highest standards of international justice.”

What a nice change that would be, if political assassinations in Lebanon or genocidal crimes elsewhere in the Middle East, were subjected to the rule of law, a credible, independent court, and the highest standards of international justice.

Arab governments themselves have been unable to implement such basic elements of justice, human dignity and good governance. Foreign armies that routinely come into the region to promote democracy have usually only strengthened the local dictators who rally mass public resentment again the invaders.

The resort to the ICC and the U.N. Security Council represents a third option that deserves maximum support from the Arab world and elsewhere, even though the same standards of accountability applied to Arab culprits are not yet applied with the same moral clarity or political vigor to crimes and rampages against Arabs by Israel or Western armies. That must and will come with time. The critical first step is to implant the rule of law as an antidote to political violence and killings in the Arab World, and to stop the impunity that assassins, despots and criminals now enjoy.

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 © 2008 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 01 December 2008
Word Count: 818
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BEIRUT – Perhaps the most interesting case to watch in these days of American power transition is Iran.

Not the “threat” of Iran, or the “puzzle” of Iran – as some of the wild-headed in Washington and Israel refer to it; but, simply, the Iran that is developing a full uranium enrichment nuclear fuel cycle. The worst and best aspects of American political culture are on display here, as different domestic and foreign groups do battle to win the dominant position of influence on Washington’s policy towards Iran in the Obama administration.

The worst aspect is reference to those hardline ideological groups and surrogates for foreign (mainly Israeli) interests that want the United States to lead a global confrontation of Iran, using sanctions and threats to force Iran to stop its enrichment works and cut short its own technological progress as a nation. They fear that Iran wants to develop a nuclear bomb, dominate the Gulf oil-producing region, threaten or attack Israel, bolster allies like Hizbullah and Syria, and perhaps threaten Western powers. And their fears are based on assumptions that are either unproven or patently false.

But here enters the best of American political culture: the free flow of ideas based on quality scholarship, and a willingness to assess in public every aspect of a national or foreign policy issue. In recent weeks, the United States has witnessed a veritable gusher of studies and recommendations on Iran that mostly echo what many in the Middle East have been saying for years: Engage the Iranians through normal diplomatic channels, treat them with basic respect, abide by the same rules of law and international conventions that you want them to comply with, and negotiate mutually beneficial relationships based on equal rights for all, rather than the primacy of American or Israeli interests in the Middle East.

Two particularly solid texts in this respect caught my eye in recent weeks, which should provide some comfort to those who have feared that American foreign policy is largely crafted by ideological warriors who lack basic knowledge of the world and the global actors they must deal with. (The truth is that Washington is loaded with knowledgeable, sensibly-composed men and women who appreciate both the realities of the world and the limits of American power.)

One important paper was published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace a few weeks ago, entitled Iran: Is productive engagement possible? written by Carnegie Associate Karim Sadjadpour. He makes the point in his succinct ten-page analysis that Washington and Tehran share important overlapping interests on several issues of broad mutual interest, such as Iraq, energy markets, Afghanistan, nuclear proliferation, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and terrorism. He thinks the United States should initially engage with Iran on issues where mutual concerns might lead to cooperation and diplomatic breakthroughs — recognizing who actually makes decisions in Tehran and seeking to promote democracy and human rights in Iran by facilitating, rather than impeding, its modernization and reintegration into the global economy.

Just weeks later, another substantial report with recommendations on Iran was published in the United States, this time by a group of leading, experienced experts who actually know Iran and the Middle East, which is not always the case among American officials or lobbyists who formulate US foreign policy. Four non-governmental organizations put together a study group of 20 experts — co-chaired by former ambassadors Thomas Pickering and James F. Dobbins, and Columbia University professor Gary G. Sick — that decisively shattered a series of eight “myths and misconceptions” that have tended to define the public debate on Iran in the United States in recent years. (See http://americanforeignpolicy.org/).

They note clearly the failures of prevailing American policy that has tried for over two decades to manage Iran “through isolation, threats and sanctions…[that] have
not solved any major problem in US-Iran relations, and have made most of them worse.”

Dispassionate analysis, they say, “shows that an attack would almost certainly backfire, wasting lives, fomenting extremism and damaging the long-term security interests of both the US and Israel,” while economic sanctions are unlikely to coerce Iran to change policies.

They suggest another way that they feel is far more likely to succeed: “Open the door to direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations at the senior diplomatic level where personal contacts can be developed, intentions tested, and possibilities explored on both sides…sustained engagement is far more likely to strengthen United States national security at this stage than either escalation to war or continued efforts to threaten, intimidate or coerce Iran.”

The strength of these two texts and others like them emanates from their provenance: experienced scholars and former officials in the heart of the American establishment, who place American national interests and the rule of law at the top of their priority list. Such sensible people and positions have always lurked in Washington’s corridors. It would be refreshing if they actually influenced policy-making in the new American administration.

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 © 2008 Rami G. Khouri — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 26 November 2008
Word Count: 817
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