BEIRUT — How much are the Arabs responsible for their own political dysfunction, national fragmentation and rampant violence, and how much of their troubles can be blamed on foreign interference and military interventions in the region? Two recent articles in quality American journals highlight how low-class Arab politics that are widely dissatisfying to their own citizens can reflect both indigenous autocracy and foreign mischief-making.

In an article in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs entitled “The price of the surge: How US strategy is hastening Iraq’s demise,” former US National Security Council official and current Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Steven Simon methodically discredits the year-old “surge” of additional American troops. He sees it as a short-term fix that will have negative long-term consequences for Iraq, because it promotes forces that can degrade national integrity.

He notes: “The surge may have brought transitory success… but it has done so by stoking the three forces that have traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states: tribalism, warlordism, and sectarianism. States that have failed to control these forces have ultimately become ungovernable, and this is the fate for which the surge is preparing Iraq.”

He sees the American surge being anchored in the “retribalization” of Iraq, because it pays cash to induce Sunni insurgents who used to fight the United States to switch sides and work alongside the US and the Iraqi government to fight Al-Qaeda-allied terrorists and other nationalist insurgents. Strengthening tribes tends to splinter national cohesion and weaken the power and even the legitimacy of the central state — a state that was painstakingly if hastily created in much of the Arab world after WWI by incorporating the tribes into state structures and payrolls.

Similarly, the surge strategy is promoting competing local warlordism by arming and “empowering tribes and other networks without regulating their relationship to the state,” thus allowing them to compete with one another for local control and “what is mostly criminal revenue.”

Sectarianism is on the rise also, Simon argues, because Sunnis who have been bought back into national politics may see the US strategy as aiming to have them challenge Shiite supremacy, which will spark long-term sectarian strife.

“When it withdraws from Iraq,” Simon concludes, “the United States will be leaving a country more divided than the one it invaded — thanks to a strategy that has systematically nourished domestic rivalries in order to maintain an illusory short-term stability.”

For those who ask why the Arabs cannot run stable, peaceful countries, this article offers at least one explanation that highlights the negative consequences of continuing foreign-armed interference.

The second article notes instead the indigenous Arab causes of political tensions and potential extremism. It was published in the January issue of the Journal of Democracy, by Michael McFaul of Stanford University and Tamara Cofman Wittes of the Brookings Institution, and is entitled “Morocco’s elections: The limits of limited reforms.”

The authors argue that Arab instability often reflects the lack of democracy. The parliamentary elections in Morocco last September, they argue, offered important insights into what might happen when Arabs are given a chance to engage in democratic politics — along with the dangers of autocratic leaders perpetually controlling and limiting democratic transformations from the top.

They said there are three interesting results emerging from those elections: First, when they were allowed to enjoy free and fair elections, Moroccans did not sweep Islamists into power, as had been widely expected. Many dissatisfied citizens chose other options to express their concerns, including not voting or casting spoilt ballots.

Second, the dominant Islamist party in Morocco, the Justice and Development Party, should not be seen as a threat to democracy, but its intentions can only be truly tested if it is allowed to share genuine power.

Third — and most importantly in my view — the authors argue that, “limited reform has a limited shelf life.” Opening parliament to democratic and free elections while keeping all other powers in the firm grasp of the king does not advance democracy. Voters were not fooled to rush to embrace a parliament that enjoys “few core powers of governance,” and they registered their discontent by staying away (only 37 percent of registered voters cast ballots) or by spoiling about one-fifth of all cast votes.

If Arab regimes shun outright rigging of elections, and instead “configure the political system to contain the impact of popular Islamist parties… the regime may compromise the democratic legitimacy of the process by distorting the link between the ballot box and the parliament chamber, making each new government look much the same as the one before.”

The authors conclude that democratic reforms could lose legitimacy, and tightly managed liberalization may push Arabs away from peaceful politics and toward extremists.

Home grown dysfunction and state collapse at the hands of foreign armies are equally deplorable, but they remain concurrently active in the Middle East today.

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

—————
Released: 23 April 2008
Word Count: 807
—————-

For rights and permissions, contact:

rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

BEIRUT — One of the paradoxes of the complex relationship between the Arab World and the United States relates to the rhetoric and reality of democratic values. The George W. Bush administration has made democracy promotion a central pillar of its foreign policy in the Middle East at the level of rhetoric, but in practice it pays little heed to behaving democratically in its interaction with the Arab people.

If democracy means the rule of the people, ideally a country’s domestic and foreign policies should reflect the majority sentiments of its citizens. The Arab world lacks credible democratic systems. Existing institutions like parliaments are controlled in a manner that sees them reflecting the will of small powerful elites who dominate the country, rather than accurately expressing public sentiment. This control has been overcome to a large extent in recent years by good public opinion polls, conducted by local Arab groups as well as established international firms.

One of the major trends that has been repeatedly identified and reconfirmed in polls during the past decade has been the gap between the aims of American policies and Arab public perceptions of the United States. Arab citizens, individually and collectively, do not have the means to translate their sentiments into policy. But in recent years they have enjoyed more and more opportunities to express their opinions, through mass media outlets and also in public opinion surveys.

One of the most important regular surveys over the past decade is the Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll, conducted by Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland with the respected polling firm Zogby International. The latest survey, conducted in March 2008, covered a representative sample of over 4000 people in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (1.6 percent margin of error). It provides a good overview of Arab public opinion on key issues of the day, and deserves study every time it comes out.

This year’s poll revealed strong and widespread opposition to American policies in the region — not particularly newsworthy, as this has been known for years — but it is particularly interesting for showing the substantial disdain that defines Washington’s engagement with the Arab world. I am not surprised that Bush’s democracy-promotion strategy in our region has gotten nowhere, given that American policy tends to totally discount the will of the Arab people as it is expressed in repeated polls.

The three most important topics covered in the latest Telhami/Zogby poll in my view are about Iraq, Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict, which are now pretty much synthesized into a single dynamic in the perceptions of many Arabs. On Iraq, the poll showed that only 6 percent of Arabs polled believe that the American “surge” has worked. Over 61 percent believe that if the United States were to withdraw from Iraq, Iraqis will find a way to bridge their differences. A massive 81 percent of Arabs polled outside Iraq believe that the Iraqis are worse off than they were before the Iraq war.

Unlike many Arab governments that oppose Iran’s nuclear program, Arab publics do not appear to see Iran as a major threat, the poll found. Most believe that Iran has the right to its nuclear program and do not support international pressure to force it to curtail its program.

A consistent element in Arab public opinion over the past half a century has been solidarity with the Palestinian people — at least at the level of rhetoric. The latest poll found an increase in the expressed importance of the Palestinian issue, with 86 percent of the public identifying it as being at least among the top three issues to them. A majority of Arabs continues to support the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, though an increasing majority is pessimistic about its prospects.

Attitudes toward the United States remain highly critical, with 83 percent of the public viewing the US unfavorably, and 70 percent expressing no confidence in the US. Nevertheless, the poll found once again that Arabs see the United States as among the top countries with freedom and democracy for their own people, but a whopping 65 percent this year, as in 2006, said they do not believe that promoting democracy is a real American objective in this region. Equally important, four out of five Arabs polled said they based their views on American policies in the region, not on their perceptions of American values.

When asked what two steps the US government could take that would improve their view of the United States, a plurality of respondents (50 percent) said brokering a fair Arab-Israeli peace and 46 and 44 percent respectively said withdrawing troops from the Arabian Peninsula and from Iraq.

This data suggests that while large majorities of Arabs oppose and actively resist American policies, there are also middle grounds where the two could meet — especially democracy and Arab-Israeli peace-making. A missing element is leaders on both sides who are daring enough to put democratic values into practice by actually responding to the will of their people.

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

—————
Released: 21 April 2008
Word Count: 841
—————-

For rights and permissions, contact:

rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

BEIRUT — As oil prices and income to some Arab producers continue to rise, we can witness sharper polarization between the wealthy energy-producing, small population states of the Gulf, on the one hand, and the more populous, energy-importing Arab countries all around it in the Levant region, the Nile Valley, and further west into North Africa. Any person who travels to such places as Dubai, Doha, Bahrain, Amman, Cairo, Casablanca and Beirut moves between two very different worlds that are united by investment and labor flows but are being pushed further apart in most other spheres of life.

A set of polarizations defining the Arab world today lie along fault lines largely drawn by way of income levels, but also comprising other criteria. The Arab world is steadily disaggregating into two very different sub-worlds, characterized by the following polarizations:

1. Wealth vs. poverty: The continued rise in oil and gas prices has seen the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) amass enormous sums of cash income — trillions of dollars in the past decade — which they cannot spend, and may increasingly have trouble investing safely. Per capita real incomes and real purchasing power in the rest of the Arab world remain flat and, in some cases, are even in decline.

2. Growth vs. stagnation: Wealth in the hands of the public and private sectors in the GCC has translated into increasingly ambitious projects in real estate, entertainment, public works, education — even entire new cities conceived and designed from scratch. Some of these novel lifestyle ventures and real estate developments are now being exported to other countries in the form of gated communities and massive shopping complexes that cater primarily to the rich.

Most of the rest of the Arab world finds itself in a situation where macroeconomic growth often registers impressive levels of five to seven percent, yet the fruits of this growth rarely filter down beyond a small elite segment of the population. The vast majority of citizens continues to see family budgets squeezed, as government budgets are pared down and inflation rises steadily.

Demonstrations protesting retail prices and the availability of basic foodstuffs and services are on the rise again throughout the Arab world outside the Gulf.

3. National cohesion vs. fragmentation: Security and material development are fostering a growing sense of national identity and social cohesion in the GCC states, while the rest of the Arab world suffers varying degrees of social fragmentation and national fraying. Countries like Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, and Algeria already experience varying degrees of national dysfunction.

In some cases, these countries find themselves ruled by multiple authorities and armed forces that coexist uneasily.

4. Pluralism vs. insularity: One of the striking aspects of the GCC states — check out any airport, shopping mall, restaurant, or other prevalent form of public space — is the very rich variety of nationalities that live and work there. Most of the individuals do not mix with each other beyond commercial or service encounters, making a sense of community elusive; yet the sheer variety of nationalities is impressive. The trend in many parts of the rest of the Arab world is in the opposite direction, towards slow separation of diverse populations that traditionally lived together peacefully. In the most extreme cases, ethnic cleansing is practiced.

Vibrant cosmopolitan quarters with a variety of faiths, ethnicities and nationalities are now restricted to just a few pockets of the Arab world.

5. Order vs. disorder: Wealth and developmental strategies have seen the Gulf countries place a high premium on order and security, with only occasional acts of violence. In many other parts of the Arab world, violence is an increasingly common norm, intermittently expressing itself in recurring warfare.

Militias, private armies, and commercial security firms are among the fastest growing sectors in that part of the Arab world where the state is unable to provide the basic security that citizens expect from it.

6. The rule of law vs. lawlessness: One level below the dichotomy of order vs. disorder is the deeper fact that some Arab societies are governed by the rule of law, while others are sliding into greater lawlessness. This transcends security and warfare, and is reflected in two common phenomena: ordinary citizens’ growing need to pay bribes, commissions and generous tips to complete basic public sector transactions where these are available; and, growing delinquency in the state’s provision of basic services — security, water, education, telephones, and health care — to all its citizens.

7. Religiosity vs. secularism: Some quarters of the Arab world that enjoy material wellbeing and basic security tend to become more secular; other large segments of the Arab population increasingly turn to religion for the sense of hope and dignity that they do not receive in their status as citizens of a state.

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

—————
Released: 16 April 2008
Word Count: 797
—————-

For rights and permissions, contact:

rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

BEIRUT — The controversy over whether former US President Jimmy Carter should meet with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus during Carter’s upcoming visit to the Middle East can usefully spark a serious debate about two important current issues in the Middle East: Hamas’ ideology and policies, and the US government’s attitude to it.

Israel, the United States, and some other countries reject dealing with Hamas because they see it purely as a terrorist organization dedicated to the “destruction of Israel.” The reality is more complex than that. Hamas certainly has committed acts of terror against Israeli civilians, and it must be held accountable for such deeds — in a context in which all who commit murder and terror in the Middle East are similarly held accountable, including Israelis, Arabs, Iranians, Americans and British.

Hamas argues that its actions are legitimate resistance in the context of a much more brutal Israeli war against Palestinian civilians. One that uses terror, assassination, kidnapping, starvation, imprisonment, colonization, Apartheid-like segregation and racism and other nasty policies. We remain stalemated, but also at war.

This important issue may hold the key to progress towards true peace. To do so, the world should judge and engage Hamas on the same basis that was used in the case of other militant or terrorist groups around the world, including the IRA in Northern Ireland, the Viet Cong in Vietnam, SWAPO in Namibia, the ANC in South Africa, and, more recently, the “insurgents” in Iraq, and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This approach typically comprises four critical components: Talk to the group in question rather than boycott them; make clear their objectionable and unacceptable actions that must stop; identify their legitimate nationalistic or political demands that can be met; and, negotiate in a context of equality to achieve a win-win situation that stops the terror, removes the underlying reasons for it, satisfies all sides’ minimum demands and rights, and achieves peace and security.

The key to achieving a peaceful win-win situation is to analyze and deal with Hamas in the total context of its actions, and not only through the narrow lens of terror acts. This means understanding and addressing the six R’s that Hamas represents: resistance, respect, reciprocity, reconstruction, rights, and refugees.

1. Resistance against Israeli occupation and aggression is Hamas’ main task, and the key operative verb in its Arabic language name “harakat al-muqawama al-islamiyyah” (“Islamic resistance movement”). It resists, defies and actively fights Israel, including delegitimizing it, refusing to acknowledge Israel’s legitimacy — until Israel decides in return to acknowledge Palestinian national rights and integrity.

2. Achieving respect is an intangible but crucial part of Hamas’ battle against Israel; it has been achieved in part by Israel’s agreement to two cease-fire accords with Hamas, with a third likely on the way, perhaps followed by a prisoner exchange.

3. Reciprocity — the application of respect in tangible political form — requires Israelis and Palestinians to deal with each other, and to be treated by the world, according to the same rules and criteria, e.g., on the use of violence, application of the Geneva Conventions, political engagement, and implementation of UN resolutions. It also applies to reciprocal statehood with Israel, which Hamas now says it accepts if Israel withdraws from the 1967 occupied territories and implements UN resolutions on refugee rights.

4. Reconstruction of Palestinian society, and ending the chaos, corruption, insecurity, abuse of power and political floundering that defined the Fateh-dominated years — especially the Oslo process era — are key reasons why Hamas has grown in stature and credibility in recent decades. Much of its attraction to voters is related to domestic issues, and a quest for dignified, normal daily life, as much as it is to resisting and fighting Israel.

5. A central pillar of Hamas’ legitimacy and popularity is its insistence that the Palestinian people have individual and collective national rights that must be exercised in freedom, sovereignty and security; if they must battle for their rights militarily, as many others in the world have done, then so be it.

6. An important aspect of Hamas’ political program is its insistence that the Palestinian national struggle comprises several dimensions that together form an integrated whole, including territory, comprehensive individual and national rights, and compensation and a just resolution of the refugee issue, according to UN resolutions. Hamas reminds the world and Israel that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about the events of 1947-48, not only of 1967. It says that a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is neither a just and comprehensive resolution of the conflict, nor anywhere near compliance with international law and legitimacy.

These six basic aspects of Hamas’ worldview and political program should be appreciated more clearly by those who claim to seek to promote an Arab-Israeli peace-making process. They form a coherent foundation for potential negotiations, peace, security and coexistence — but only on the basis of respect, reciprocity and a single rule of law that applies to all.

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

—————
Released: 11 April 2008
Word Count: 815
—————-

For rights and permissions, contact:

rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

BOSTON — The United States is a confused and frustrated country when it comes to dealing with the wide variety of voices and actions coming out of Islamic societies. Everywhere in the public sphere, discussions of foreign policy issues inevitably touch on how to deal with “Islamic extremism,” often revolving around the “terrorism” and “violence” of Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran, Muqtada Sadr and other such parties that the United States dislikes.

The debate on these issues in the United States is disturbingly juvenile. I have rarely if ever heard discussions in this country about ordinary, normal, non-violent Arabs and Muslims who make up 99 percent of their societies. Only the intemperate and militant in the Arab/Islamic world are seen and discussed in America.

The really troubling aspect of this is that the tendency to view entire societies through the lens of a few rascals, criminals and militants is not confined to racists. Politicians and experienced public servants alike frequently offer rhetoric that veers uncomfortably close to the hateful, vengeful rants of radio and television demagogues and purveyors of filth. The widespread fear of and criticism of Arabs/Muslims broadly fails to differentiate between a small number of criminal terrorists and the vast majority of Arabs/Muslims who are peace-loving citizens of their societies.

Two problems here need to be separated. One is the threat of terror by a very small number of people who emanate from Islamic societies and wrap their war-making in the vocabulary of faith. Osama bin Laden and colleagues reflect Islamic societies to the same degree that the cult of polygamous Christian nuts that was just broken up in Texas represents American society. The Yearning for Zion Ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a freak of American culture and society, not a symbol for it. Radical Muslims who wage war against the United States similarly represent a fringe of their societies, not its essence.

The second problem, therefore, is about how Americans perceive and deal with the threat of such radical militants. To date, I sense, most Americans, including top officials and opinion-makers in society, have dealt with this very badly, ineffectively and immaturely. The latest example among many I can cite was Henry Kissinger’s op-ed article earlier this week noting that among the three revolutions in the world that the United States was having trouble coming to grips with was “the radical Islamist challenge to historic notions of sovereignty.”

“Radical Islam rejects claims to national sovereignty based on secular state models, and its reach extends to wherever significant populations profess the Muslim faith,” Kissinger says. This is a classic example of the exaggerated and dangerous generalizations that now permeate American public discourse, starting with the flippant use of terms like “radical Islam” that conflate a handful of criminals with an entire benevolent religion. This in turn reflects severe misreadings of what Islamist movements really want, why and how they developed, and how they can be dealt with.

The reality that I witness every day throughout the Arab-Islamic world where I have spent my entire adult life is very different from this kind of pontification that strives for erudite analysis, but sadly collapses into dangerous over-simplification.

The overwhelming majority of Islamist activists are clearly anchored in their nation-states, and work for their rights as citizens of those states. A very small number of militants professes to pursue a global jihad. You have to be a fool — or a poorly-informed politician — to focus on the handful of cult-like Salafist fundamentalist criminals and ignore the billion-plus Muslim good citizens who aspire only to being treated like human beings and enjoying their civil and human rights as citizens of their countries.

The United States has had five traumatic encounters with Islamic militants in the past generation, and seems unable as a society to get beyond the trauma of those encounters in order to engage with Muslims and Islamist politics in an orderly and rational manner. Those five encounters were the Iranian revolution and the American embassy hostages in 1979-80; the bombings of the American embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983; the short but ugly American military move (for humanitarian reasons) into Somalia in 1993; Al-Qaeda’s several attacks against American targets, culminating in the September 11, 2001 assault; and, attacks against the United States by militants and terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan since the US invasions those lands in 2001 and 2003.

For the wellbeing of their own society and the world, Americans would do well to grasp the aberrant nature of those episodic encounters, while also appreciating the symbiotic nature of attacks against the United States and the projection of American military power around the world. American society needs to free itself from its own traumas, and react more rationally to the real dimensions and nature of Islamist movements around the world. A good starting point would be for Americans to distinguish between the tiny fringe cults and the mainstream majorities — in our societies as they do in theirs.

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

—————
Released: 09 April 2008
Word Count: 833
—————-

For rights and permissions, contact:

rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

BOSTON — One of the strengths of the American system of government is that a vibrant civil society and private sector usually keep track of what the government is doing, often challenging the president and party in power with independent research and analysis. A case in point is the current debate in the United States that has been sparked by a troubling new book just published by Nobel Prize winner economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Harvard University professor Linda Bilmes.

Entitled The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, the book is both a sobering analysis of the real cost of this (and any other) war, as well as a sharp indictment of the Bush administration’s array of concealment and self-deception in selling the Iraq war to an angry American public that perhaps saw the campaign as a legitimate response to the terror of September 11, 2001.

When I listened to the authors at a panel discussion earlier this week at the Kennedy School at Harvard University, along with founder and director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association, Paul Rieckhoff, I found myself in the familiar position: deeply impressed by the diligence, professionalism and courage of individual Americans such as these three, but simultaneously profoundly shocked by the recklessness of the Bush administration in waging this war and unleashing the consequences that it has.

The authors’ research offers a chilling reminder of exactly how costly the Iraq war has been and will continue to be, in both economic and human terms. Their estimate of $3 trillion (or three thousand billion dollars) for the total cost of the war and its consequences covers the estimated $600 billion cash cost of having the troops on the ground, along with a few other major costs that are routinely ignored in the public discussion of the conflict.

These include:
a) disability and compensation for veterans (1.7 million troops have been deployed to date, with 70,000 wounded or diseased and 120,000 having already sought mental health care);
b) replenishing the military to its normal level of soldiers and equipment; and,
c) repaying the debt (with interest) that was raised to pay for this war, which has been fully funded by borrowing.

Other costs that can be calculated include the lost economic contributions of those who went to war, the withdrawal from the economy of family members who quit work to care for loved ones injured in the war, and the cost to allies and Iraq. Rieckhoff concluded, “We now understand the true costs of the war much better, in economic and human terms,” noting also that one of three veterans returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has sought help for some kind of mental health issue.

Among the conclusions the authors draw are three key ones:
• the US government needs better accounting systems that take into account both the current cash costs and the payments that will accrue later;
• comprehensive accounting should tally budgetary and economic costs of war along with the costs paid by society (medical costs, higher oil prices, experienced workers who quit jobs to care for injured family members, etc.); and,
• the government should fully fund a war and let the citizens feel the pain of the full cost of waging war.

Baines concludes: “The seminal issues of the Iraq war for Americans are about accountability and transparency.”

Perhaps the most depressing thing is that all this was predicted before the war. I was reminded of this a few days ago when I was reading through a prescient 85-page monograph published in 2002, well before the war, by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, entitled War with Iraq: Costs, Consequences and Alternatives.

Its five authors (Carl Kaysen, Steven Miller, Martin Malin, William Nordhaus, John Steinbruner) methodically went through the potential consequences of a war, including many of the scenarios that have materialized, such as rising energy costs, a prolonged conflict that keeps the United States in Iraq, America’s loss of respect around the world, rising resistance to the projection of American power around the world, and greater instability throughout the Middle East. If George W. Bush’s boundless optimism turns out to be wrong, Miller predicted accurately, “this will turn out to be a very costly and possibly counterproductive adventure.”

When I had a chat at Harvard this week with Martin Malin, now director of Harvard’s Project on Managing the Atom, he recalled that theirs was just one of several such attempts to predict the consequences of the war, aiming to respond to any real threat from Iraq in a more rational manner than war.

That pre-war analysis, and the publication of the Stiglitz-Bilmes book today, remind us that skeptics of war should be listened to more carefully in the future. This is especially true in moments of political and emotional trauma, when populist anger and political demagoguery can lead otherwise sensible societies into irrational — and very costly — foreign policy adventures.

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

—————
Released: 07 April 2008
Word Count: 829
—————-

For rights and permissions, contact:

rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

BOSTON — It is hard to tell if US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is being deliberately innocent and juvenile, or, as the highest American foreign policy official, is genetically incapable of being honest when it comes to Palestinian-Israeli issues.

There is now only one real test of progress, or criterion of political seriousness, in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the short term: Can the United States make Israel stop expanding its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories? If not, talk of peace is a cruel hoax that will only raise and then dash expectations, leading to unknown consequences when the backlash occurs.

Continued Israeli settlement in occupied Palestinian land is the single most destructive and dangerous reflection of the long-running Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It captures in a single dynamic the predatory nature of Zionist aims, the conquest and settlement of Arab land by Israelis, and the continued dispersal and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. If peace-making is to have any chance of success, Israeli colonization of Arab lands must be halted, and then largely reversed under final status agreements.

The Palestinians for their part have to reciprocate, of course, with a move of equal magnitude. But the Palestinians, especially President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fateh Party, who still head the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank, cannot make any meaningful or mundane move without Israeli permission. They cannot expand, equip or train their police force; they cannot import or export anything; they cannot drill water wells or build roads; they cannot go shopping in Paris; they cannot even hold a meeting of their full parliament, without explicit permission from the Israelis.

The Palestinian-Israeli “peace process,” in its current condition, has lost all seriousness, due to the severe imbalance in power between the two sides. Into this difficult situation steps the American government, vowing admirably, as it did at Annapolis four months ago, to exert vigorous efforts to achieve peace by the end of this year. Two things have been consistent since then, however: Senior American officials travel to Israel regularly to push the peace process forward, and with every such visit the Israeli government announces new settlement expansion plans.

The latest in this recurring cycle of predictable events happened in the past three days, when Rice was in Israel and the Israeli government announced plans to build 600 new homes in the occupied West Bank settlement of Pisgat Zeev. Soon after that announcement, the Shas Party said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had promised he would revive frozen plans to build 800 homes in a settlement in Beitar Illit.

The Israeli Peace Now movement that monitors settlement activity somewhat more diligently than the US government monitors Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the 2003 “roadmap” peace-making requirements, said this week that Israel has approved the construction of almost 1,700 homes in occupied Palestinian territory since the Annapolis gathering.

On Monday, Rice said in Amman that, “Settlement activity should stop, and expansion should stop; it is not consistent with roadmap obligations… My strong view is that the best thing we can do is focus on getting this agreement,” referring to Abbas-Olmert negotiations to achieve a broad framework for peace by the end of this year. She thought that, “it’s all moving in the right direction.”

Well, yes, like the man who was walking down the street unaware of the refrigerator that was falling from the adjacent skyscraper and was just about to fall on him and smash him to smithereens. It is difficult to understand why an otherwise apparently sensible and learned American secretary of state can live in a fantasy world when it comes to understanding the real significance of Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land. Soft rhetorical criticism of the settlements simply does no good to anyone — Americans, Israelis, Palestinians or those aliens in unidentified flying objects who also look down and see things “moving in the right direction.”

The continued expansion of Israeli settlements and colonies is a dagger simultaneously into the hearts of the Palestinian negotiators and the American mediators. One reason why so many Palestinians have lost hope in a negotiated peace, and have instead supported Hamas and others who fight Israel militarily, is the continued settlement activity by Israel and apparent acquiescence by the United States and the rest of the world.

Fateh and President Abbas have pleaded with the United States and Israel for years, to no avail. They point out the illegality of the settlements under Geneva Convention rules and UN Security Council resolutions, to no avail.

No wonder they keep pleading, and Rice believes things are moving in the right direction. They do not want to pause for a moment, look up, see the reality of their world, and catch sight of the refrigerator that is about to fall on them and ruin their lives.

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

—————
Released: 02 April 2008
Word Count: 802
—————-

For rights and permissions, contact:

rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

LONDON — It is depressing but not surprising that almost exactly five years after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq and the dissolution of the Baathist-led regime and state, we now witness just about every conceivable possible party fighting one another in Basra, Baghdad and other cities. Ironically, I have been following this during a trip between Geneva, London and Boston.

Ironically, I say, because the United States and the United Kingdom chose to launch this war that has caused and continues to spark immense damage and suffering, while I was in Geneva, involved in meetings at the International Committee of the Red Cross — where one of the issues discussed was impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

And now, we continue to witness the consequences of the war that the Americans and British unleashed so whimsically, following decades of brutal governance by the Baathist regime headed by Saddam Hussein. Whether he and his partners in crime and cruelty will be the only ones held accountable for their conduct will not be determined for some years. The issue is critical, though, if the Middle East is ever going to emerge from its evil and painful world where crime is a policy tool and routine mode of conduct.

Only when criminal behavior is actually punished or prevented by legitimate judicial action will the next generation of Arab leaders think twice before pursuing policies of death, destruction, corruption, terrorism, and intimation. A historic milestone in this respect will be the looming indictments that will trigger the trial of those to be accused of the assassination of the late Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, and more than a dozen others who have been killed in Lebanon since February 2005.

Preparations for the tribunal are complete and the investigations into the murders are also well advanced. Later this year will likely see a moment of reckoning in Lebanese-Syrian relations, related to the indictments, given the belief by many Lebanese that the Syrian regime was and remains behind the attacks against Lebanese public figures. The trials and the quality of the evidence against the accused will almost certainly resolve this once and for all. This will be a historic moment in the modern Arab world: Suspected criminals and assassins will have been identified on the basis of a rigorous investigation, and put on trial in a fair court of law that is convened through a process at the UN Security Council that enjoys international legitimacy.

Syrian-Lebanese tensions, however, are only a small part of a much larger problem in the region: whether or not all political leaders bear the consequences of their actions. Iranians, Turks, Israelis, and foreign armies and leaders — including the American and British in Iraq today — must be held accountable according to the same moral and legal standards, and judicial safeguards and procedures, that are being used in the case of the murders in Lebanon, or that apply to the trials of the former Iraqi Baathist leaders.

Which brings us back to Iraq this week, and the renewed large-scale fighting among multiple protagonists. The most dangerous new element in the fighting in Basra and other parts of southern Iraq is the warfare between different groups that are predominantly Shiite, alongside other warring groups. This confirms yet again that the Shiite-Sunni lens is too simplistic for analyzing developments in Iraq.

The post-2003 timeframe is also too short for a proper understanding of what is happening and what is at stake in Iraq today. Iraq and the Arab world have less than a century of modern statehood, and over 5000 years of history. Their concepts of nationhood and citizenship remain heavily constrained by more powerful allegiances to tribal, ethnic or religious identities. It’s hard to know if a typical fighter in Basra today is fighting for a neighborhood, a tribe, a religion, a gang, a state, a militia, access to economic assets, or an anti-imperial need for sovereignty and liberation.

The fighting will go on for years in Iraq, until Iraqis themselves decide if they wish to remain unified or break up into smaller countries. The state collapse, social fragmentation and widespread militancy, criminality and violence that were unleashed by the Anglo-American invasion of 2003 will play themselves out over many years to come, and may trigger similar turmoil in other Middle Eastern countries.

This is why I found it supremely ironic to hear US President George Bush Thursday say that, “There’s a strong commitment by the central government of Iraq to say that no one is above the law.”

That is exactly how many people around the world feel about Anglo-American policy in Iraq, which must be subjected to some sort of legitimate accountability, as were Saddam Hussein and his fellow killers — as will be the killers of Hariri and other murdered Lebanese.

Neither Middle Eastern tyrants nor American and British leaders should be allowed to unleash massive death and destruction with impunity.

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

—————
Released: 28 March 2008
Word Count: 819
—————-

For rights and permissions, contact:

rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

GENEVA, Switzerland — In the few days I have spent in Geneva this week, discussing such issues as Europe’s role in the world, the relevance and application of international humanitarian law, and Switzerland’s experience in impartially promoting conflict-resolution negotiations, the conversation inevitably returns to the Middle East. My pleasure at absorbing the lessons of Switzerland’s dynamic neutrality has been partially offset by the irritation of following the American vice president, Dick Cheney, in his travels around the Middle East.

Cheney speaks about promoting peace, but spends most of his time scheming to confront those nationalist and Islamist forces in the region that happen to represent a majority of citizens in Arab-Islamic societies. Defeating Hamas and Hizbullah, and checking the Iranian and Syrian governments, have become his primary diplomatic focus, rather than offering the United States as a truly even-handed and dynamic mediator that could actually make a historic contribution to peace if it really wanted to.

So, he noted a few days ago that Palestinian statehood is long overdue, but that continuing terrorism and rocket attacks could “kill the legitimate hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people.” He said that peacemaking required “a determination to defeat those who are committed to violence” and deny Israel’s right to exist, meaning Hamas.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to speak to a university class in Boston on what I saw as the main lessons of Arab-Israeli peace-making attempts in the last quarter century, especially at Camp David twice and in the Oslo process. Cheney might find it useful to ponder my response as he flies around our region and watches it become ever more violent and unstable. My ten lessons for Arab-Israeli peace-making are as follows:

1. The process from the start requires clarity of goals in terms of what both sides expect to get out of the negotiations; “promoting a peace process” is not enough, because it is a means and not a goal.

2. Asserting equality in the rights, and the sequence of implementation of rights, of the main parties to the quarrel is crucial. Palestinian rights to statehood and a normal life cannot remain secondary to Israelis enjoying security first. The two must happen simultaneously, not sequentially.

3. The external mediator must commit to doing five core things: prodding both sides equally vigorously and consistently; persisting in the mediation and facilitation, regardless of temporary setbacks; defining ambiguities that stall progress; monitoring compliance on both sides; and, proposing compromises that can bridge differences.

4. Public opinion on both sides must be engaged in the process from its inception. People-to-people contacts must be started to support official talks, because citizenries that desire lasting peace will push their leaders to make reasonable mutual compromises towards that end.

5. The existential issues and fears that define both sides must be addressed early and squarely, and not left to linger while easier matters are discussed. The really tough issues as I see them include Jerusalem, real sovereignty, and a refugees rights resolution for the Palestinians; and, for Israelis, Jerusalem, Arab acknowledgment of a legitimate Jewish historical link to the land, and a permanent end of conflict and claims.

6. The principal negotiators must be seen to be legitimate, primarily in the eyes of their own people. It is a waste of time to negotiate peace with political leaders who only represent a fraction of their people, as the United States and Israel attempt to do with the Palestinians.

7. Related to this, any peace negotiations can only hope to make progress if they include a mechanism by which Palestinian leaders consult their refugee population in the diaspora and agree on a consensus national position on the big issues.

8. Legitimate and peaceful political means must be used early on to neutralize the militants in both camps who might try to wreck a negotiation that is desired by majorities on both sides — whether suicide bombers and rocketers from Palestine or settler-colonizers and assassins from Israel. This can be done by acknowledging and responding to the legitimate aspirations of the majorities on both sides. Most ordinary citizens will support diplomacy over fighting if they see and enjoy the fruits of serious negotiations.

9. External support for negotiations must be generated early, and sustained throughout the process. Europe, the Arab World, and Russia, primarily, should be consulted and brought in as real partners, not as the transparent fig leaves they are in the American-dominated and heavily Israeli-defined Quartet.

10. All the principal political actors must be involved in the process from the start, or it will have no chance of success. This means the United States and Israel must sit down with Hamas and Hizbullah, just as the Palestinians and Arabs have to sit down with Israeli settlers and rightwing racist zealots, who advocate ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Those who are seen to be legitimate actors in their own society must be included as diplomatic players.

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

—————
Released: 26 March 2008
Word Count: 810
—————-

For rights and permissions, contact:

rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757

BEIRUT — It has been a busy week for news — the fifth anniversary of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, Osama Ben Laden resurfacing with another audio tape threatening Western targets, sort-of elections in Iran, see-sawing global stock and commodity markets, a dramatic American presidential contest, Egyptian-facilitated quiet diplomacy among Israel, Hamas and the United States, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s official visit to Israel.

The most significant of these events in historical terms was probably Angela Merkel’s speech before the Israeli Knesset (parliament), in which she expressed contrition and shame for Germany’s Holocaust against the Jews some three generations ago.

This is the sort of event that can contribute to changing history — if we grasp its significance, and emulate its courage, sincerity, and deep substance. What just happened between Germans and Israelis should offer powerful lessons for others in conflict, especially in the Middle East where many conflicts appear unsolvable.

The first German chancellor born after World War II, Merkel is also the first German chancellor ever to address the Israeli parliament. She acknowledged the “special relationship” between Israel and Germany through the memory of the Holocaust, adding that, “The Holocaust fills us Germans with shame. I bow before the victims, I bow before the survivors, and before all those who helped them so they could survive.”

During the visit, eight German cabinet ministers and Merkel held a joint session with the Israeli cabinet, agreeing to broad cooperation across several fields. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that was “a unique event, perhaps even unprecedented.” He had earlier accompanied Merkel to Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, which she referred to as an “exceptional gesture.”

Yes, exceptional indeed, but not only because of the almost unimaginable magnitude of the Nazi genocide against the Jews and the mass murder of other victims. It was also exceptional because it showed how honest, decisive leaders can overcome the immense burdens and constraints of the past, and transform chronic, distrustful enemies into colleagues, friends and even partners in solidarity, mutual security, and development.

The shame and contrition that Merkel expressed before her Jewish Israeli hosts was not an easy deed to perform. Here is true leadership and statesmanship in action. It is important to know why this happened, and what it could lead to.

What sort of debate went on in her government to agree to her making these statements and gestures? How hard was it for German leaders to agree to go to the heart of global Judaism — the Israeli parliament — and bow in humility at historical German attempts to kill every Jew in Europe? Was this gesture made to cleanse a guilty German conscience? To rid this generation of Germans of the incessant feeling of responsibility for the crimes of many in their grandparents’ generation? To erase Israeli-Jewish mistrust and allow Germany to play its natural role in the Middle East? I hope one day the German leadership will share their thoughts with us on these important issues.

I say this because acts of acknowledgment, regret, shame, contrition and apology are absolutely crucial for resolving some of the most intractable conflicts of our world. Such gestures alone do not resolve a problem or end a conflict; astute politics and diplomacy are also needed to negotiate realistic agreements. The combination of technical accords and powerful human gestures or reconciliation can stop active warfare, and shift human energies on both sides of a divide into the business of coexistence, mutual development, prosperity and security.

One critical ingredient for resolving conflicts is reciprocal re-humanization among antagonists who had dehumanized each other through demonization and violence. Arabs and Israelis demonize and kill each other every day, with majorities on both sides expressing approval because of their existential fears. Palestinians and Israelis in particular often see themselves in a zero-sum contest, with one side winning all the land and the other side dissipating into the history books of forgotten and dispersed people.

Greek and Turkish Cypriots have experienced similar antagonism and fear, as did the two sides in pre-resolution Northern Ireland, and South Africa. Change happens, and peaceful coexistence and mutual security reign, when daring leaders acknowledge the realities of history, and the humanity and legitimacy of their fight-to-the-death foes.

So, of all the big events that occurred last week, Angela Merkel’s bowing in shame before the Israeli Knesset was far and away the most historically significant and emotionally moving. George Bush, Dick Cheney, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Osama Ben Laden look like clowns when compared to her.

Arab and Israeli leaders alike might consider pausing for a moment, to ask themselves if they have anything they should be ashamed of in their treatment of their foes, their neighbors or their own citizens. In the meantime, we can each in our own way salute our German friends for their timely lesson in humility and humanity.

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

—————
Released: 24 March 2008
Word Count: 806
—————-

For rights and permissions, contact:

rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757