As President, the question before Barack Obama is whether he is prepared to act on those farsighted words.
Declaring his intention to speak at a “major Islamic forum” within his first 100 days in office, using his first morning as President to halt prosecutions at Guantanamo Bay, repeating his desire to “redefine our struggle” against Islamic extremism and “author our own story” about what America really stands for, all demonstrate that Obama understands the importance of changing the symbolic vocabulary governing how the United State talks about the Muslim world.
But symbols can be dangerous, especially when it comes to the Middle East. Not because the people of the region are too easily taken in by them, as Western Orientalists and viceroys have for two centuries claimed about the “Arab mind.” In fact, quite the opposite: The West, and the US in particular, has a habit of taking its symbols too seriously; of assuming that because our leaders claim that we stand for democracy, peace and development, the policies supporting these goals naturally flow from those words.
As many friends in the Muslim world have said to me, America needs to “walk the talk” of supporting democracy, freedom and development if it wants to begin a new chapter in its relations with the region. Doing so, however, will necessitate President Obama navigating a tightrope of competing agendas and hypocrisies, which have long been the stock and trade of foreign policy-making for great powers.
From “Hope” to Reality
Obama's Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, was also a “man from Hope,” promising to refocus American policy towards our highest ideals. Yet when it mattered, he caved in to powerful institutional interests--backing down from his pledge to push China on human rights, allowing Israel to greatly expand its settlements during the peace process he was supposed to shepherd, uttering nary a word as Pakistan built the Taliban into a formidable political and military force, and the region's autocratic leaders maintained their grip on power, many of them helped by continued US aid.
George W. Bush pushed his “freedom agenda” until his final days in office. But most people stopped listening years ago precisely because his policies so clearly vitiated his noble rhetoric.
And herein lies Obama's problem: His view that “America must show -- through deeds as well as words -- that we stand with those who seek a better life” flies in the face of half a century of American policy towards the Middle East. During this time the United States has most always stood not with the people, but with their leaders, regardless of how corrupt, repressive or autocratic they have been.
Americans might be, as Obama eloquently declared, “a compassionate nation that wants a better future for all people.” But like most wealthy countries, the US has rarely helped the world's poor and oppressed obtain a better future if doing so cost its corporations profits or interfered with its strategic interests.
Similarly, Obama's desire to focus US support on “helping nations build independent judicial systems and honest police forces” will quickly come up against the harsh reality that most of our allies in the Middle East and North Africa remain in power precisely through shackled judiciaries and corrupt and repressive police forces.
The President wants to open “America Houses” across the Muslim world to educate Muslims about the United States. But Muslims—particularly those with the education and language skills to visit such places—know our history as well as most Americans (a 2007 Newsweek poll concluded that when it came to history, America was a “dunce-cap nation”), certainly better than most when it comes to the history of US engagement in the Middle East.
Obama's Misreading of History is at the Root of His Policy Dilemmas
There is some evidence that the new President understands this dilemma. In his inaugural speech, Obama explained that “our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.”
A thoughtful, purposeful writer, one can imagine that Obama placed those sentences next to each other because he understands the link between our own greed, irresponsibility and collective failure to understand that an American way of life based on six percent of the world's population consuming 24 percent of its resources, is inevitably going to produce violence and hatred among those at at the wrong end of the remaining 94 percent. As the US Strategic Space Command (whose mission is to dominate space in order to “protect US interests and investment”) explained in 2000 in its Vision for 2020, globalization is producing a zero-sum game of winners and losers, in which American foreign policy must do whatever it takes to “win.”
In that context, does President Obama understand that Muslims have every right to “blame their society's ills on the West,” at least partly? Well over a century of occupation, imperialism, support for undemocratic leaders and control of local resources, have earned Western governments the opprobrium of the peoples of the Muslim world, and the developing world more broadly.
Indeed, In an inteview with the Dubai-based al-Arabiya network, President Obama argued that "America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that."
The is a dangerous misreading of US-history, which began, after all, with the thirteen colonies. As most school children will confirm, the westward expansion of the United States could not have occurred without the genocidal confinement of Native Americans, and several wars that severed most of the American southwest, from Texas to California, from Mexico.
Certainly the President well knows these facts; that he cannot acknowledge them publicly does not augur well for the possibility of his administration pursuing an honest dialog with the Muslim world.
Similarly, the idea that the United States had "respect and partnership" with the Muslim world only a few decades ago is also inaccurate. The US government had "successful" (strategically and economically) relations with governments of various countries, almost all of whom were authoritarian and extremely corrupt. But the US government has never supported the rights of the peoples of the region to democratic government, freedom, and autonomous development. Quite the opposite.
If President Obama thinks that turning the clock back 20 or 30 years will improve America's standing with the masses of people in the Muslim world, he is in for a rude surprise.
A Welcome Focus on the Middle East, But Hard Choices Lie Ahead
It is clear that President Obama has made the Middle East and larger Muslim world the primary foreign policy issue for his first 100 days—the newly updated Whitehouse.gov website lists only Middle Eastern countries, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Israel-Palestine, as his main objectives. And in his inaugural address, he exclaimed: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
The words are eloquent, but the reality beneath them will not be easily changed. Does President Obama really expect Hosni Mubarak willingly to take the hand that must usher him off the Egyptian stage if Egypt is to move towards democracy and sustainable development?
Will the leaders of most every other country in the Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq, really reverse their pattern of stifling dissent and hoarding wealth that has long ensured their hold on power, unless compelled to do so?
Judging by his initial conversations with the leaders of the region, the answer to these questions is likely no. According to the White House's first press release, the President “appreciated the spirit of partnership and warm nature” that characterized is calls to Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Jordan's King Abdullah, and PA President Abbas.
The reality is that a Mideast policy based on the principles Obama outlined at his inauguration will find few partners or warm conversation among the leaders on the other end of the phone line. Indeed, Mubarak, Olmert and Abbas each would have likely hung up the phone cursing.
Sending Special Envoy George Mitchell to the region demonstrates engagement, but not the fundamental rethinking of American policy that is necessary for any change in its relations with the peoples of the Muslim world. Indeed, a look at the text of its Administration's first press release offers an unsettling glimpse at what the substance of Obama's policies toward the region might be.
First, there is not a hint of criticism of Israel's conduct in the war on Gaza (A week later, Secretary of State Clinton similarly refused to criticize Israel during first press conference). Obama “emphasized his determination to work to help consolidate the ceasefire,” but his sole focus will apparently be on stopping Hamas smuggling and supporting the corrupt and ineffective PA President Abbas.
If Obama's pre-inauguration silence about Israel's conduct of the Gaza war was troubling to the peoples of the Muslim world, his Administration's refusal upon taking office to offer any criticism of Israel's actions (particularly when many Israelis and American Jews are apoplectic at the government's actions), or to mention the problem of continued settlements, is deafening.
If this silence continues, it will drown out even the most sincere calls for reform, democratization, or moderation in the Muslim world by his Administration. Even the much-anticipated opening of low level discussions with Hamas will not change the dynamic.
Positive Changes Are Apparent, But Will have Limited Impact
More positively, the President's commitment to change the tenor of American policy towards the Muslim world was demonstrated by the issuing of executive orders that announced the closure of the Guantanamo Bay and other CIA-run prisons, as well as prohibiting the CIA from using coercive interrogation methods.
These measures are extremely important in their own right. But the reality is that they will effect only a few hundred prisoners at most. Far more impactful will be the substance of the Obama Administration's relations with key allies and adversaries in the region, which will impact hundreds of millions of people. Here the President's call for “direct and unconditional” negotiations with Iran is welcome, as is his commitment to focus more energy and money on building accountable political and social institutions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But moving beyond words to actions will require Obama make some very difficult choices. Despite its current economic problems, Iran is not a particularly poor country. Indeed, with its massive oil and gas reserves (both of which are likely the second largest in the world) it will not be bought off by offers of US aid or foreign investment, no matter how generous.
Iran will not foreswear its nuclear ambitions unless it can claim a prize equal to such a sacrifice. That prize will undoubtedly be a denuclearization of the region that would include Israel's relinquishing its nuclear weapons. The new Administration in fact is calling for a nuclear-weapon free world, and the Middle East is no doubt among the most important regions for such a process to begin.
But will Obama be willing to pressure Israel to give up its nuclear deterrent for the sake of greater regional, and global stability and security? If Israel's leaders balk, is he prepared to go over their heads to the Israeli people, and failing that, to place America's national security interest ahead of the strategic desire of “America's strongest alley” in the region to maintain its nuclear weapons stockpile?
Will Iraq Set the Pattern?
Obama's pledge to withdraw all US forces from Iraq was a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. Specifically, Obama's stated aim was to remove all troops from the country within sixteen months of taking office. The Status of Forces agreement signed between the US and Iraqi governments last November explicitly mandates a full American withdrawal by December 31, 2011.
Yet almost since the moment the agreement was announced, there have been strong indications that American military leaders would do their best to ensure the timeline is not met. The main thrust of their strategy, which was communicated to Obama by Defense Secretary Gates in December, involves reclassifying tens of thousands of combat troops as “support troops,” tasked with continuing to train and support Iraqi forces and “fight al-Qa'eda” in Iraq.
Obama seems to have gotten the message, because the Administration's plan as described on the White House website states that the US will remove all “combat brigades,” admitting that a “residual force” would remain for an indeterminate period of time. Moreover, while the plan declares that the United States “will not build permanent bases in Iraq,” the reality is that the US doesn't need to build any permanent bases now because they were already constructed amidst the fog of the first years of the occupation.
In fact, already in 2003 Pentagon officials described the money being spent to build long-term bases as “staggering,” and by 2005 at least four “super bases,” housing upwards of 20,000 soldiers each, were in operation. The White House has said nothing about dismantling them, and if tens of thousands of ambiguously named “support troops” are to remain in Iraq, as the Los Angeles Times reported on Obama's first full day in office, there will be no reason for it to do so.
If the Obama Administration blinks on carrying out its signature foreign policy commitment, what are the chances that it will show more spine when taking on even more intractable issues, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the massive corruption in Afghanistan that has developed under US occupation and tutelage? And who will trust that the United States will keep its word to do so?
Indeed, Obama's challenge in Iraq points to the reality that the Administration cannot attempt merely to change Israeli, Egyptian, or Iranian policies. At the same time the President must begin a transformation in the very structure of political and economic power in the United States that will inevitably bring him into conflict with some of the most powerful forces in the country.
Israel and Egypt receive well over $5 billion dollars in US aid per year, much of it direct military transfers. This aid is the lynchpin of the larger system of military aid and sales that has been worth many tens of billions of dollars just in the last half decade (only last year, the US signed a $20 billion arms sales agreement with Saudi Arabia, which was promptly followed by a $30 billion agreement with Israel, while allies such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Jordan clamored successfully for increases in their military military assistance packages).
Such massive arms transfers make no sense in a region filled with democratic countries at peace with one another. Rather, they've always required a combination of autocratic or repressive governments, manageable levels of conflict with occasional spikes that help ensure sufficiently high oil prices to enable the cycling of petrodollars back and forth between the United State and the region.
In this context, taking on Mideast corruption and authoritarianism will necessitate Obama's taking on what is likely the most powerful industrial and political coalition in the United States. Israeli economists Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler have described this loose grouping as the “Arma-Core Petro-Core coalition,” and for half a century and through at least four wars, it has ensured that the financial and strategic interests of the arms and petroleum industries have profoundly shaped American foreign and security policy—culminating with a Bush-Cheney Administration that was cut whole cloth from these industries.
As the last eight years have shown, peace, democracy and sustainable growth cannot come to the Middle East in such a political-economic environment. But can Obama, or any American President, take on this coalition and win? And if he can't, what hope is there for substantive change in US policy towards the region?
Obama Must Take Control, Quickly
In her final weeks as Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice's predicted that the incoming administration's policies would show a marked continuity with those of President Bush. If Obama cannot take control of the competing Middle East agendas within the American foreign policy, military and security establishment, they will frustrate and even sabotage his core foreign policy goals.
To assert his leadership across the board, President Obama will have to put aside diplomatic pleasantries in future conversations with the region's leaders and lay out a clear and unambiguous set of guidelines for US policy. President Mubarak will have to be told in no uncertain terms that he must release political prisoners such as jailed Presidential candidate Ayman Nour and Muslim Brotherhood leaders, and allow a rapid transition to full democracy. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert or his successor must be told that no more US military aid will be forthcoming until Israel begins pulling out of West Bank settlements and commits itself firmly to the creation of a viable Palestinian state.
More broadly, leaders from Morocco to Pakistan, will have to be told that the US is adopting a new standard for judging its relations with the countries of the region. Those countries that fully democratize, put an end to censorship, political imprisonment, torture, and other draconian practices, and respect human, civil and political rights, and work to address growing inequality in their societies, will receive ample support of the United States. Those that don't, won't.
Whether its allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, or adversaries such as Iran or Syria, the message and policy has to be the same. If they don't like the terms, they are free to seek aid and support from China or Russia. Governments might find such allies attractive, but their peoples won't, putting the United States in precisely the position of moral authority that President Obama has said should be a major goal of US foreign policy.
At the same time, such a clear and balanced policy will also free Obama to focus on the all-important goals of addressing the challenges posed by global warming, water and food shortages, while beginning the long term process of transforming a global economic system that forces roughly half the world's population to live on $2 per day or less, into one that more equitably and sustainably distributes the world's natural and economic bounties.
Even here, however, the struggle will be far greater than it's being described now. If, as he pledged in his inaugural address, the President wants to work alongside the world's poor “to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow”—he will have to take on Archer Daniels Midland, Bechtel, Monsanto and a host of European, Japanese and Chinese competitors who, aided by US-run institutions like the World Bank and USAID, are gobbling up the world's supplies of fresh water and agricultural land for their own profit, regardless of the social, economic and environmental cost. But their political and financial power is inextricably tied to those supporting the status quo in the Middle East. To win either battle, the President will have to fight both simultaneously.
Obama's historic rise to the Presidency has demonstrated how the “audacity of hope” can spark profound social and political transformation. The President has the power to help spark a similar transformation in the Middle East. If he has the political courage to do so, he will find millions of people across the region willing to carry the flame. The real question is, will Americans push him--and themselves--to make the hard choices necessary to live up to the lofty ideals his election represents.
Re: US "support" of Iraq in 1980s: addendum
The purveying of those missiles was no ordinary deal. It represented a powerful and very specific lever for Iran to balance Iraqi power in the war.
Re: the turkish view
You may well be correct. I, for one, take European newspapers very skeptically. They tend to act as cheerleader for goals that seem far fetched and ill-considered.
You are almost certainly correct that Turkey's future as a democratic and moderate state depends on limiting the influence of Islamists such as those in the current Turkish government.
I do not know the reason for US or European policy regarding Turkey and its Islamists. They seem to be ill-conceived policies.
Re: US "support" of Iraq in 1980s: addendum
You write: The preponderance of evidence suggests that from at least 1982, when Reagan proclaimed that an Iranian victory was unacceptable in Iraq, official U.S. policy was that Iran was a terrorist state that must be isolated, and that any nation who traded with Iran, especially helping their war effort, would be considered hostile to the the U.S.
You may be correct that the US government did not want Iran to win. That does not mean, by implication, that the US government wanted Iraq to win. Had we really wanted Iraq to win, we would have armed the country directly.
Instead, we sent secret missions to Iran at the same time we were acting to help Iraq diplomatically. Those are the facts - the picture of the policy pursued, whatever Reagan may have intended (assuming he gave the matter any serious thought).
Presumably, the missions to Iran, selling them arms, had a purpose connected to the Iran Iraq war and presumably - whether the Reagan administration had internal tension or not - Reagan had some connection with the policy his underlings advanced.
I think it is playing politics to argue that when the US arms Iran, it really does not mean the implications of such act - as if we can rely on public statements to trump those acts. So, I do not see your argument as well considered. More than likely, we meant to have it all ways at once.
Re: 1967 and 1979
That it was the Jews who inflicted such a defeat raised devastating theological issues as well--as one can see from the Egyptian terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri's famous "long night of the soul" in June 1967. Had Allah deserted the Faithful? Or...was there no such God as God and Mohammad wasn't his Prophet? We know the result, of course--a redoubling of Zawahiri's religious fanaticism. He wasn't alone--hence the world-shaking events of 1979, twelve years later.
But in any case the United States had NOTHING to do with the Israeli victory of 1967. As NF points out, in 1967, the US was NOT the patron of Israel at all. For instance, the frontline IAF consisted solely of FRENCH aircraft (esp. Mirages).
Re: False premise
Tim Furnish's book on Mahdis discusses the 1979 incident at the Great Mosque in great detail. The attack was to establish a Mahdi, which no doubt sent shivers down the bodies of the Saud family. Why? Because the event called their claim to be legitimate and moral rulers into question.
So, your point is very, very well taken. The one point I would add is that the year 1967 was also a very important one. It was the year where Arabs suffered a great humiliation. After more than a decade of promising that Israel and its population would be dispatched to the Sea, the war led instead to the utter defeat of the Arabs. This helped undermine the moral authority of the pan-Arabists and other less religion oriented movements and abetted the effort of Islamists to spread their message.
That, of course, was not the US's doing - since the US was not Israel's patron before the war. It was, in any event, the fact of the backwardness of the Arab regions that was exposed to Arab population by that war. And, the movement that was prepared already to replace the existing movements was a religious one. That movement has grown ever since (and it was, to note, growing before that time as well) but, as you note in your point, that movement grew exponentially after the Iranian revolution and the assault on the Great Mosque.
Re: US "support" of Iraq in 1980s: addendum
I never said or implied either of these points. But your contention that "the U.S. pursued a Machiavellian balanced neutrality policy" seems equally far-fetched. The preponderance of evidence suggests that from at least 1982, when Reagan proclaimed that an Iranian victory was unacceptable in Iraq, official U.S. policy was that Iran was a terrorist state that must be isolated, and that any nation who traded with Iran, especially helping their war effort, would be considered hostile to the the U.S.
This policy was blatantly violated by the U.S. itself in 1985 when we secretly sold arms to the Iranians. You might see this a stroke of Machiavellian genius, but I think most historians would chalk it up to the chaotic state of the Reagan White House at the time, in which various factions in the Pentagon, State Dept., CIA, etc., battled it out without clear direction from the President. At any rate, when this episode passed, the U.S. resumed its previous policy.
So what did the Iraqis gain from our support? Intelligence, to be sure, but even more importantly our help in isolating their enemy. Our boycott largely worked--Iran got precious little outside aid, while as you note, Iraq was showered with favors, with our blessing. No, they got no arms from us, but our approval certainly made it easier for them.
In the end, our dispute, like most historiographical quarrels, is not mostly about facts, since we are largely in agreement, but about how to interpret those facts.
Re: the turkish view
I think as things stand it is up to the US and Europe to give a clear signal that they will not allow islamists to ruin Turkey. As long as influential organs of the European press praise them as democratic and moderate and condemn the opposition, I remain convinced that they are only interested in short term gains, which the AKP liars promise them.
Re: False premise
I certainly agree that the printing press does not automatically lead to reason. However, we have no obverse truth that correlates. Which is to say, the absence of the printing press is almost certainly an invitation - a great foment - to irrational religious and political movements. And, that is what we see in the Arab regions, where literacy is not well established.
As for the US, it has fomented some hostility by its actions. Of course, before the end of WWII, the US had little impact on the region while the irrational Islamist movement was already a substantial movement. In that the US has far more control over Korea than Arab states (apart from, just now, Iraq) over the years, one would think, if Professor LeVine's theory were correct, that Korea would, like the Arab regions, be up in arms against the US, with NGO groups interested in flying planes into buildings here. Yet, we find that Koreans now make cars that compete fairly well with American and Japanese cars. By contrast, Arabs have difficulty manufacturing pins (and pretty much everything else). In fact, Westerners found and dig up the oil for Arabs who lack the skills, thus far anyway, to do the same. In Iran - not an Arab country but a country in the same region -, the regime is unable to repair its machinery used to dig up oil, with the result that there are oil shortages - and Iran is more advanced than any Arab country!!!
As for Jews, their main sin to Arabs is their refusal to submit to being ruled by Arabs. In that regard, they share the same problems as the Maronites in Lebanon except that, unlike the Maronites, Jews managed to retain their independence from domination by Muslim Arabs.
Whether Israelis defend themselves or not, either approach seems to be a source of hostility. When land is ceded, it leads to rockets being shot into Israel. When Israel shoots, it leads to hostility.
So, worrying about creating hostility among Arabs ought to be pretty low among the concerns of Israelis. Their concern - a product of a region where the rule of law between states is all but nill - is survival. And, their cost of survival includes fomenting more hostility among neighbors who would hate the Israelis anyway - again, for their refusal to submit to Arab governance.
Re: False premise
1. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, which the U.S. opposed.
2. The seizure of the great mosque at Mecca by Islamic radicals, also in 1979. Although this rebellion was put down by the Saudis (with FRENCH help), it changed the policy of the Saudi regime. From that time onward, the image of the Saudi regime, which previously had been a modernizing and technological one, became increasingly based on hyper-religiousity One result was the Saudi govt funding of narrowly fundamentalist Wahabi/Salafist madrassas throughout the Muslim world (buying off radical mullahs) to the tune of at least $100 BILLION in the past 30 years. (Some people claim its $100 BILLION in Egypt alone.) This huge Saudi expenditure of money on missionary work for the narrowest and most bigotted form of islam has had a huge impact on really-existing Islam, all of it negative.
And this has nothing to do with Israel. And this has little to do with the U.S., except indirectly in that the U.S. is generally a force for modernization.
One CANNOT blame these tidal changes within Islam on Israeli or U.S. policy. Israel and the U.S. may play a role but it is a peripheral one. The two world-shaking events of 1979 are where the religious evils and Islamic totalitarianism which we now see are coming from, and these were developments primarily (not totally, but primarily) from WITHIN the ummah. They were in a general way a response to the multi-front failure of Arab Nationalism (and national socialism) to provide the Muslims and the Arabs with POWER. So they have turned to the most narrow forms of their traditional religion to do it.
You must learn, Mr. Stout, to give Muslims AGENCY and RESPONSIBILITY for these developments. Otherwise, you are still claiming that the West is somehow in control over Muslims and over these events--an attitude which is, um, a fundamentally imperialist one.
US "support" of Iraq in 1980s: addendum
Fahrettin argued that the US saw Iran as a potential weapon vs. the USSR (which at that time was of course in Afghanistan and which was also...well...fervently supporting IRAQ at that time with, e.g., thousands of tons of weapons, hundreds of tanks and SAMS, plus thousands of Iraqi officers--THOUSANDS, Mr. Karr--trained in the USSR. Iraqi officers trained in the U.S. in this period? NONE).
Now, I think that Fahrettin went way too far the other way from you regarding U.S. policy, Mr. Karr. I don't think the U.S. sided esp with Iran, rather it was neutral, helping and hindering both sides a bit. But one can see from the facts I presented above why Fahrettin would posit his position that the U.S. eventually sided with IRAN in the 1980s, and not Iraq.
As I said, it looks to me that the U.S. pursued a Machiavellian balanced neutrality policy.
But if your general point, Mr. Karr, is that Saddam was all along a creature of the U.S., or that the U.S. supported the Saddam regime in some special way, then that is simply WAY off the mark.
Other great powers--France (Germany too) but especially the USSR--were FAR FAR more involved with Saddam's regime. And the very deep involvement of the USSR in support of Saddam should bring you up short in terms of sheer logic regarding Saddam as a creature of the U.S. But in addition to the logic here, there are the FACTS about, e.g., where U.S. military hardware went.
Re: the turkish view
If the US is really supporting the Islamists in Turkey, that is not a very smart move.
Attaturk's revolution was a great one and he was a great man, worthy of respect and admiration. To empower those who might jeopardize his and his followers' accomplishments strikes me as shortsighted and naive.
I hope you are wrong. I would be interested in seeing some evidence for what you write.
Re: False premise
Professor Crone is a terrific scholar. I read her book God's Rule - Government and Islam: Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought and began, but did not finish, her book Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World.
Regarding the first mentioned book, it is fascinating and brilliant. The second book, Hagarism, struck me as rank speculation. Moreover, writing a history of Islam's beginnings that ignores almost entirely Muslim sources is not, to me, well premised since, as I see it, it does not follow automatically that such sources are all wrong or that where they disagree with non-Muslim sources, the Muslim sources must be wrong. So, I gave up on that book after reading about half of it.
God's Rule, on the other hand, is worth slugging through. Moreover, it provides evidence for the sort of NGO terrorism we have today. Described is the fact that Muslims would move to the remote regions of Muslim ruled land and raid into infidel lands, often in direct opposition to what a ruler wanted.
Be that as it all may, the issue with the failure of intellectual independence for immigrants from the Muslim regions is a real one.
Re: False premise
Re: Obama and the Muslim World
So it wasn't even the thousands of U.S. anti-tank missles that went to Iran--they were part of a broader diplomatic effort to re-engage with the mullahs. But insofar as we are talking weapons, the score is: Thousands of U.S. anti-tank missles went to Iran, whereas Saddam's armed forces never received one single weapon from the U.S. That's not a pro-Iraqi position!
Saddam did receive some intelligence, yes. That's why I said that the U.S. was neutral in the war.
Re: False premise
As an example, when "Dr. Fadl" the terrorist theorist revoked his belief in killing innocent civilians, he was castigated by those of the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot of which he was a leader for leading them down the wrong path. They took no responsibility for their own decisions (for instance, in killing dozens of European tourists in Upper Egypt): if there had been a moral failing, it was the imam's responsibility; he was the leader.
When you then have ignorant or bigoted imams (a real problem now in Europe, let alone the Middle East), you see where that leads in terms of dealing with society.
NONE of this has ANYTHING to do with "imperialism", etc. It is a weakness inherent in Muslim society as it has evolved over the past 200 years or so.
The problem is made worse by the disapperance of the western-influenced class of notables who used to have moderating influence in the Middle East: destroyed by national socialism policies in (e.g.) Egypt and Iraq, destroyed by fanatical versions of Islam in Iran. Again, these are devlopments WITHIN Muslim Middle Eastern society. Though if you want to look outside to blame national socialist policies for destroying the notables, the candidate is the USSR, who supported these policies in Egypt and Iraq.
No doubt there will be some here who will somehow blame the US for the fanaticism of the Iranian mullahs which destroyed the Iranian notable class, but that would be a very strained argument, since it would be assigning no agency at all to internal developments within Iranian Islam, or Iranian Muslim-influenced beliefs and decisions, or to charismatic leaders such as the vile Khomeini.
Re: False premise
Re: False premise
The culture that arrived in America had been exposed to the printing press for centuries. So, your point is nonsensical.
Re: False premise
That there are Americans who still have religious sensibility is something to be considered in understanding the US. On that score, you are correct - although Jews do not see typically see Israel in eschatological terms. That is more of a Christian thing and it is hardly limited to the US. I should add that much objection to Israel has its roots in religion as well, most particular among Christians in Europe who believe in supersessionism in its neo-Marcion Palestinian Replacement Theology approach.
My point, in any event, is not that superstition or religion has been driven out of the West including the US but that it plays a far more dominant public and private role in the Arab regions. And, a driving force for that was the late arrival of the printing press, most particularly to the Arab regions.
Your comment related to the arrival of the printing press to America, however, misses the point. When settlement became seriously established in America, the press - already a part of the fabric of life in Europe - arrived here as well. In that regard, your point was way off base.
Re: False premise
Not that newspapers don't make effective propaganda--look at the highly literature culture of Nazi Germany! But this does mean that we are dealing with large parts of a population that depends for information on, um, vivid images culled from al-Jazeera, and the fulminations of imams who are often themselves ignorant.
Example of the latter point: Irshad Manji once asked al-Hindi, one of the heads of Hamas, what exact passage in the Koran justified suicide bombing of civilians. There was a long and excruciatingly embarrassing scene in which al-Hindi searched fruitlessly through the Book, and then had his aides do the same. Then her camera-batteries died, and she had to leave. She was lucky, her translator said--"Better that the camera dies than you."
Re: Obama and the Muslim World
Re: Obama and the Muslim World
Re: False premise
I do not doubt the reputation of those involved in determining literacy. What I do doubt is the possibility of such a dramatic improvement between 2002 and 2007. During that time, schools were not exactly operating on a normal schedule. And, on top of that, doing surveys was hazardous business - life threatening, to be exact. And, before that, doing surveys under Saddam was no easy feat either, although it perhaps did not carry as strong a threat of death.
So, reputable or not, I do not believe that they knew in 2007 the literacy rate although clearly it was very low by world standards. My bet is that the earlier figure is closer to the facts of things. And, given the war, I do not believe that the literacy rate could have improved so dramatically.
What I also do believe is that literacy is not sufficiently ingrained in Iraq or anywhere else in the Arab regions, which is why superstition is so widespread. If, for example, you read Nonie Darwish's book, Now They Call Me Infidel, she describes how reference to the "evil eye" remains an everyday part of life in the Arab regions where she lived. That is something which has largely disappeared in more literate, modern cultures.
In short, the lack of literacy had lead to a society which has been retarded as compared with more literate parts of the world. And, a major part of that is not even the question of literacy per se but the late arrival of the printing press and what it represents to society.
Re: Obama and the Muslim World
A few months later, Saddam was threatening to wipe out half of Israel with his A-bomb. A few months after that, Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of that same year. Now, all of the empires were involved in intrigue with Iran and Iraq and other Middle Eastern states. One reason cited for Bush Sr's war to free Kuwait was that the Saudis were upset with Saddam. At that time, it was not so fashionable to blame Israel for the US attacking Iraq [which Walt-Mearsheimer did falsely]. Anyhow, the politics and history of the modern Middle East are very complex and cannot be clarified by simplistic, left-right, East-West, capitalist-Communist, Orientalist-Islamist, jihadist-Crusader paradigms or slogans.
Re: Obama and the Muslim World
The Dutch gave 4,261 tons of precursors for sarin, tabun, mustard, and tear gasses to Iraq. Egypt gave 2,400 tons of tabun and sarin precursors to Iraq and 28,500 tons of weapons designed for carrying chemical munitions. India gave 2,343 tons of precursors to VX, tabun, Sarin, and mustard gasses. Luxembourg gave Iraq 650 tons of mustard gas precursors. Spain gave Iraq 57,500 munitions designed for carrying chemical weapons.
Get the point?
Re: False premise
These are not improvements in which Ms. Paul will wish to believe, but I don't see how one can avoid the general trend.
In general, of course, LP's view of Iraq as somehow a paradise of Ph.D.'s before March 2003 is absurd. The illiteracy rate was 58% according to PBS Frontline, which is not much different from the general illiteracy-rate in Muslim countries from the Magreb to the Gulf (about 55%).
Re: False premise
The printing press was first used in America in 1639. Three hundred and seventy years later, how many millions of Christians and Jews in the USA firmly believe in, and long for, an apocalyptic eschatology centered on "Israel"? (Dubya no doubt among them, but he would have to ask his AEI theologians first.)
error about the Oslo accords
First, the Oslo accords do not forbid Jewish settlement in those places.
Second, Jews who go to live in those places are exercising their fundamental human right to live in those places. Further, this right was recognized as a national right by the League of Nations in the Mandate for Palestine [1922] which set up the Jewish National Home, obliging the UK to foster "close settlement" of Jews on the land. This principle was not affected by the UNGeneral Assembly partition recommendation of 11-29-1947, which was rejected by the Arab side.
Third, two gross misinterpretations of international law seem to support your position. It is falsely claimed a) that these areas [Judea-Samaria are "occupied territory," whereas they are parts of the Jewish National Home occupied by Jordan between 1948-1967. Neither SCRes 242 nor 338 nor the Oslo accords have cancelled that status.
b) that Geneva Convention IV forbids Jewish settlement in those areas. Indeed, Geneva IV forbids "transfer" of population to "occupied territory," which was meant to fill in the void in international law which did not forbid German Nazi transfer of Jews from throughout the occupied countries to Poland and its death camps. However, the Jews moving to Judea-Samaria go willingly, indeed eagerly. They are not transferred in the sense of Geneva IV. Further, as said in point a), Judea-Samaria are not "occupied," but even if they were the movement of Jews to those areas would not be forbidden.
Methinks, Sir, that you ought to think more about Jewish human and national rights.
Re: error about the Oslo accords
As you point out, the UN charter [Article 80] retained the "Palestine Mandate," more correctly called the Jewish National Home, which was not affected by the partition recommendation or the Arab rejection of same [see, inter alia, my article in Midstream, Feb-March 1999]. Further, the 1949 armistice accords made between Israel and Arab states at Rhodes did not fix borders or legal boundaries but merely armistice lines. This was at the insistence of the Arab states which refused to make peace with Israel, all the less to set legal boundaries. Jordan's UN delegate reiterated this position a few days before the start of the 6 Day War of 1967. He clearly stated: "The Agreement [at Rhodes] did not fix boundaries; if fixed a demarcation line." Now, since there was no accord on the partition recommendation then the whole territory rightfully belonged to Israel as the Jewish state envisaged by the San Remo decision and the League's Mandate of 1922, which recognized the historical connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel ["Palestine" in the League's parlance]. Egypt in Gaza and Jordan [earlier Transjordan] in Judea-Samaria were therefore occupiers of territory --from 1948 to 1967-- belonging to the Jewish National Home.
Now, to the problematic terms "occupation" and "occupied." Since "occupation" is a legal term, Israel's military capture of them in 1967 can be called a "liberation" in a legal sense, since those areas belonged to the JNH, according to the League of Nations and UN charter. As to SC resolution 242 [restated by 338], it uses the word "occupied" without delineating just which territories were "occupied." Sinai had long been part of Egypt [since a pre-WW One British-Ottoman accord]. As to the Golan Heights, they had been part of the Roman province of Judea [IVDAEA] and was thickly settled by Jews in the Roman period, as attested by plentiful archeological remains]. The first survey to set bounds for the Jewish National Home --by French & British experts-- left part of the Golan in the JNH. Later, however, the UK transferred [probably unlawfully] the parts of the Golan in the JNH to the French mandated territory of Syria. So the Golan and Sinai could be considered "occupied" by Israel in 1967. In any case, the Security Council res 242 did not delineate boundaries of "occupied" territory. Further, since the Judea-Samaria & Gaza Strip areas rightly belonged to Israel, then they could not be considered "occupied" by Israel and the Security Council could not legally assign them post-6-Day War to Egypt and Jordan. That is, even if the SC considered JS&G to be "occupied," it was mistaken and did not have the right to reassign JS&G. Hence, "occupied" as a legal term does not apply to JS&G, not even now since there was never any int'l legal instrument to make such an assignment lawfully. The Oslo accords of course did not set up an Arab state but rather autonomous zones. Nor did the Oslo accords forbid Jewish settlement in these areas.
Now, supposing that the territores in question, JS&G were "occupied." Then we ought to look at precedents elsewhere in the world. After WW2, the major powers approved vast annexations of territory by Poland and the USSR at the expense of Germany, Finland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and Japan, as well as annexations of Italian lands to Yugoslavia.
In my view, the genocidal aims of the Arabs' 1947-1949 war against the Jews in Israel [recall that Haj Amin el-Husseini, the chief Palestinian Arab leader, had incited the Germans and their satellites to murder more Jews] justified annexations of territories captured from the Arabs whether or not within the Jewish National Home.
In short, the label "occupied" territories does not apply to Judea-Samaria & Gaza Strip. And even if it did, the post-WW 2 precedent of annexations at the expense of Germany and Japan justifies Israeli annexations.
Re: error about the Oslo accords
UN 242 refers to the captured land as land that is occupied. Such is part of one of the two principles set forth for resolving the dispute. That provision reads:
1. Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:
(i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force
Further, the acceptance or rejection by Arab states of partition does not alter the Palestine Mandate which was, in fact, made part and parcel of the UN Charter, per its provision on existing mandates.
paradox of democracy in Arab lands
Re: paradox of democracy in Arab lands
The term "democracy," and functioning simulacrae therof, are tools in the valiant struggle for international socialism and mandatory, internationally-imposed policy of Palestinianism. Thus, the correct interpretation of "democracy" should be as a "dictatorship of the proletariat." Fore some inexplicable reason, the term "dictatorship" throws the ignorant masses off a besides this (as any other) concept can only understood by an enlightened few in Middle eastern studies faculties and the halls of the UN and not to forget, your very own State Department. So, let's not waste time on dancing angels; "it's good thing," is all anyone here needs to know.
Hostile reactionary types like you say that democracy requires "preconditions," such as developed free enterprise economies, equality under and the rule of law, freedom of expression, individual liberties, complex legal systems, instituted checks and balances and a slew of other egg-heady twiddle. Nice try! Like, as if anyone out there can assemble all that junk together in one place.
Forget all that. To be called a "democracy" (for tax purposes, or impressing one's date) all you really need to do is to declare that everyone has a vote and to go through photogenic motions of elections...at least once. The media will help with that. Just have a lots of women and children milling around rubble for the cameras. No one will mind if there is really only one party to vote for, if there are a number of inconsequential or pretend opposition parties, or if you use bribery, expropriation and outright murder as part of your "democratic strategy." Names are important too, hence don't forget to append "Democratic Republic of..." before your country's name.
So, where's the problem?
Re: False premise
Well, 5 years is not enough time, especially during a period of unrest as was the case in Iraq, to account for the improvement in literacy. More than likely, neither figure tells the complete story, which is that literacy came late to the Arab regions, in large part due to the absence of the printing press for Muslims (as was the law in the Ottoman Empire) until the 18th Century in Turkish areas and the 19th Century in many Arab areas. As a result, literacy is not deeply ingrained in the thinking of average people in that part of the world. And, that has bad consequences, as can be plainly seen.
What was Europe like for the century or two after the printing press came into use? It was still in the throws of superstition and its effects.
So, I do think that this is important to understanding things.
Re: False premise
Not at all. She'll simply say that "her sources" show nothing of the kind, that she doesn't trust the internet as a reliable source of information, and that your facts are a Zionist Likudnik running-dog capitalist-colonialist-imperialist trick..."Jewish science," as it were.
Re: False premise
Tthe 2007 literacy rate among adults in Iraq was 74%, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affaris:
http://iys.cidi.org/humanitarian//hsr/iraq/ixl16.html
By contrast, in November 2002, according to a PBS Frontline story, the adult literacy rate was...58%.
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iraq/facts.html.
NF, I somehow think that our ineffable propagandist Lorraine Paul is going to be VERY disappointed with these facts...
Re: False premise
As for Iraq and its literacy, statistics say it is about 74%, which is not all that high, even for the Arab regions. For example, the rate in Saudi Arabia is 84.3% - which is not a high figure by world standards. The rate, by contrast, in Vietnam is about 90.3%. And, that is the real point here. I might add that the rate for women in the Arab regions is about 52%.
And, of those who are literate in the Arab regions, the level of literacy is extremely low. And, that is as true in Iraq as in the rest of the Arab regions. Which is to say, while Iraq has more PhD's than, for example, Egypt, they are the tip of an iceberg which is not very literate.
Now, people who are illiterate are prone to listen to religious demagogues who tell them to go kill themselves for a cause and to believe that, in the afterlife, 72 virgins will comfort them for their martyrdom. There was a time when European Christians could be similarly motivated to do heinous things.
This is not to say that literate people cannot be motivated to do bad things. They can. It is to say that illiteracy is fertile territory for those interested in motivating people to do bad things.
the turkish view
For the turkish motivations in ww1 I will refer to karl marx, leo trotsky and winston churchill. Karl marx writes in one of his articles about the crimean war, taht the turkish paschas would know how to modernize turkey but the russians would not let them. Russia made war on turkey every 20 years between 1774 and 1912. When it was not making war it was organising terrorism of the christian minorities in Turkey. In this time 5 million moslems were killed to make islam disappear from europe. Leo trotsky who covered the balkan war 1912, when turkey in europe was erased from the map after the europeans encouraged the balkan christinas to attack turkey, writes that the major powers had agreed on the partition of anatolia. It was clear: this was to be the end not only of the ottoman empire but the turks as a people. Churchill writes that they had offered the ottoman government a limited period in which turkey could continue to exist but these had seen the chance to finish tsarist russia, with which they were obsessed, off for once and for all with german help. Indeed, this is exactly what happened. Communist russia was not as aggressive against turkey as the tsarist empire, the british incited greek invasion of anatolia in 1920 could be defeated by whatever was left of the imperial army and modern turkey could be born and later supported by the nato. The policy was brillant and successful. You can only criticize it if you can presume that Turkey was not threatened. This is simply not true.
The Shah of Iran was installed in power by the british, as musaddeq tried to nationalize the oil and overthrew the shah, they brought him back to power. When he later nationalised the oil and iran began a very rapid economic development the ayatollah revolution took place. The shah was heard complaining that the us had used her influence on the iranian army to prevent him from ending the ayatollahs revolt. The point would be of course to prevent iran from becoming strong enough to dominate the middle east and destabilize the soviet union by using radical islam. The ayatollah fulfil the requirement that they do nothing to economically catch up with the west, which would really change the balance of power in the world. They are a containable nuisance as long as they don’t have the bomb.
Egypt was a country which had her own automonous political culture in the ottoman empire, wheras syria and iraq were not. They were directly rules provinces and when they were made independant countries could not develop one in the time available. They were grabbed by horrible baas people. This is why Egypt is a relatively sane place wheras syria and iraq are not.
Turkey was being run by elected and incompetent secularist people until 2002. In 2001 the us engineered a run on the turkish lira and used her influence on some turkish politicians to make an early election in the middle of the crisis to hieve the akp into power. Later us representatives complained that the AKP had promised to support them in the iraq war but had not done so. This is no attempt to excuse the secularists or the people who vote for them, just one of the factors which made the akp the governement party. In 2008 the economist was threatening turkish army that they would not be able to pay the debts if they ovethrew the akp. In germany the influential frankfurter allgemeine zeitung is full of comments that the akp is the new calvinist islam and that they are the new democratic elite which is replacing the old nationalist generals. It does not bother them that erdogan is on record as saying democracy is a streetcar, he gets out when he reaches the station where he wants to go to.
The influential trio running Turkey are PM erdogan, president gul and behind the curtains a certain fethullah gulen. Translated the man’s name means the laughing conqueror for allah. He escaped to the us after he was filmed telling his supporters that they first had to take over the state institutions before they can take over the the state. 2008 he applied for a us residence visum saying he was running a 25 bn$ business empire. His people control 500 schools worldwide to propagate his islamist ideology, he is training the elites of his planned islamist greater turkish empire. You must remember that most of central asia speaks turkish. In all over 200 million people. It is not clear where the money comes from but the turkish left is convinced that the cia is financially and organisationally behind him. He represents the islam they want to see, at least until he is strong enough. His people are growing ever more influential in the justice and police organisations and are behind the ergenekon conspiracy with which they are trying to knock out the army.
Turkish secularists are convinced that the islamist are supported by the us and are geeting ever more anti western, the talk is of cooperating with china and russia to get rid of the islamists and the us.
Re: False premise.
Thank you for your kind words.
False premise
The same problems afflicted those countries where the US had influence as afflicted those where the US had no influence. How, then, can the US be blamed so broadly?
More broadly, if Western influence is bad, then how is it that Korea has thrived with a large US army in that country?
In short, the thesis of the article is wrong.
There are real issues for Muslim Arabs. Most of them stem back to Ottoman times, where the Arabs fell further and further behind. One reason for this is that the printing press did not appear in much of the Arab world - at least for Muslims, anyway - until the 19th Century. As a result of retardation in developing a literate culture, literacy remains remarkably low in that part of the world. And, that is the main reason - that plus the fact that the presence of oil means that Arabs can afford not to become more literate.
Where literacy is low, superstition and extremism flourish. Which is exactly what we see in the Arab world.
So, efforts to claim the US should appease Arabs by saying nasty things about Israel or about ourselves in the US or about the West in general miss the point. In fact, whatever sins we have committed contribute rather little to the main problems in that part of the world. Otherwise, Korea would have the same sorts of problems because, in fact, the US has more control over Korea than over Arabs.
Re: False premise.
Re: False premise
If this is true, Mr Friedman, how do you explain the high literacy rate in Iraq - before the invasion? It is my understanding that there were more PhD holders in Iraq than in the rest of the mid-east. Is my information wrong, if not, why was Iraq the exception to your statement?
Re: Obama and the Muslim World
I also enjoyed the image of the British, confronting the Ottomans in WWI, going to the bandits in the desert, who had no political culture, arming these bandits and making them rulers of polities, and the modern Middle East mess is the result. I'll never look at "Lawrence of Arabia" the same way again!
(Though surely the Sherifs of Mecca are not to be put in the same category as Auda abu Tayi...)
But you know, Fahrettin, the British and French governments had begged the Young Turk govt to stay out of WWI. The Turkish govt was seduced by the prospect of increased Turkish power via being on the winning side--Germany. Thus Turkish action was a large part of the story--of the tragedy that then occurred in the Middle East and is still occurring. So is Turkish responsibility.
And your paradigm about western responsibility doesn't work for Syria, Egypt or Iraq after the early 1950s at the latest. These are the major reigon states other than Turkey, and all those dictators were homegrown and definitely not bandits from out in the desert. They were backed by the USSR, not by Britain and the US.
And I don't think the U.S. backed the ayatollahs in Iran in the 1980s, as you say.
And surely the rise of the dangerous Islamsts in Turkey ( I agree with you about their ruthless character) is the result of the voluntary choice of a majority of Turkish voters, rather than the result of a plot by the US "to create a new Islam compatible with captialism". What is your evidence for such a U.S. conspiracy?
But like I say, I'll never look at "Lawrence of Arabia" the same way again...
Re: Obama and the Muslim World
Actually India is in a miserable state. It was one the richest countries on the world, when the British came and is now one of the poorest.
The colonial problem is not the 25 years of British rule in the Middle east. It is the Middle east the British engineered as a region which would allow them to steal the oil. For 1000 years the region was stable, the last 500 years of that as moslem provinces of the moslem ottoman empire, a country with a very elegant political culture, which continues in turkey but no longer in the arab world, except perhaps in Egypt. Remember the film Lawrence of arabia. The British went to the bandits in the desert, gave them money and weapons to fight the ottoman empire and made them the leaders of independant countries. Being bandits they had no political culture nor a real legitimacy to run the countries they were given. The british and later the USA helped them to stay in power in return for being let to steal the oil. To this day this has not changed. The oil money ends up in the usa, the arabs stay poor and miserable. And of course such people do not have the abilities to understand and address the problems of the middle east. By preventing the nationalisation of the iranian oil with a coup in the 1950ies and hoping to use the ayatollahs against russia in the 19080ies the USA assured that the ayatollahs came to power. Irak was invaded to steal the oil. Just as everybody thought nothing could be bloodier than saddam hussein, came W. In Turkey it was US intervention in form of an economic crisis at the wrong point which brought the islamists to power, and who knows where they will take the country. They are presently busy prosecuting the secularists with an invented conspiracy. That is how fascism begins. The US were hoping that the islamists would run the country to us instructions, which the secularist nationalists were refusing to do. Besides they are expected to invent a new islam which would be compatible with capitalism. This was nothing else than a repetition of lawrence of arabia going to the bandits in the desert to make them a force to fight the ottoman empire. Your beloved USA is a monster wrecking the middle east and then claiming that the arabs are too stupid to manage their business. Next they will bomb Turkey and say the islamo facists forced them to, conveniently forgetting that it was their own stupidity and greed which brought these people to power, just as it was the USA which had zia ul hak overthrow the secularist government of pakistan to have a base from which islamist nuts could wage a war against the russian supported government of afghanistan which was trying to send girls to school, thus committing a horrible crime against what idiots think is islam. By no coincidence this pakistan now scares everybody and afganistan the nuts trained by the us in the 1980ies are fighting anybody they can find and if they find nobody to fight then each other.
The positive side is that Mr Obama can now do a lot of things differently to put his satellites in order. My Churchill was right when he said the Americans would always dothe right thing after they did every thing wrong which they could. We shall see.
Re: Obama and the Muslim World
Obama and the Muslim World
We knew when Obama performed obeisance before AIPAC a second time during his campaign, and from the language he used there, that he could not be the complete "honest broker" with the Palestinians. His appointment of pathologic hardliner Rahm (Just how neocon is he? A Douglas Feith in sheep's clothing, likewise with the President's ear?) as Chief of Staff, and his nomination (i.e., appointment) of diplomat-antithesis Hillary for Secretary of State, firmly establish his severely limited political power, as presidents go, for the nonce. With so many having so much to lose from his "change", how can he accrue sufficient power to effect material change? Corporations are nowadays more powerful than governments, we've long since been told. I don't recall that the USA was cited as an exception.
Re: Obama and the Muslim World
Professor LeVine seems to forget that it was the USSR that supported and still supports the dictatorship in Syria; that it was the USSR that supported Nasser's "pharoah-ship" (after ca. 1955) and then Sadat's, until 1976; that it was the USSR that supported Saddam Hussein in Iraq until 1990 (and thereafter his weapons came from France, and NEVER from the U.S.), that it is the USSR and then Russia that has close ties of support to the Iranian mullahs.
Moreover, the idea that the Saudis need U.S. help to stay in power is absurd--they conquered Arabia by themselves, and they have powerful secret-police organizations of their own, and they can buy anything they need without the U.S.
The U.S. does prop up Mubarak now (though with occasional pressure on him to liberalize), and the Gulf States (some of which are liberal in Arab terms: Kuwait, Bahrein).
There is a strong tendency in "third-worldism" to view the "victim du jour" as not responsible for his or her own actions. India had 200 years of British imperialism and is not a dictatorship. The British were in the Middle East as rulers for 25 years. It's not "imperialism" that explains current dictatorships. There are deep pathologies in Arab (and, I fear, within broader) Muslim culture that lead to states with 14 different secret police organizations. This has to be faced, and these polities given agency in their own fates.