For the Muslim world, it’s not a safe and easy path to modernity

Posted on January 21, 2012 | Comments Off on For the Muslim world, it’s not a safe and easy path to modernity

By DOUG SAUNDERS-
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail January 21, 2012-

Countries like Tunisia and Egypt are changing the same way France did, with wild swings of revolution and reaction

A year ago, as he watched the great uprisings in Tunis and Cairo, French scholar Olivier Roy declared that they marked the end of Islamist politics. “If you look at the people who launched these revolts,” he wrote, “it is clear that they represent a post-Islamist generation. … The new revolutionaries are perhaps practising or even devout Muslims, but they separate their religious faith from their political agenda. In that sense, it is a ‘secular’ movement that separates religion from politics.”

Well, you might say, how awkward. Those January protesters may have been secular and liberal, but, when I visited Tahrir Square six months later, Islamists commanded the stage. We’ve recently watched Egypt’s first somewhat free elections give 48 per cent of the vote to a party controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, plus 20 per cent to 28 per cent to Salafists, who aren’t just Islamist but want an actual theocracy. Secular liberals were left with a rump of 15 per cent to 20 per cent. If this is “post-Islamist,” it sure has a lot of crescents and guys with beards.

This week, Dr. Roy – probably the world’s most respected scholar on Islamic societies and politics – was asked to explain himself on French radio. Did the Islamist electoral victories in Tunisia and Egypt pour cold water on his “post-Islamist” prognostication? Quite the contrary, he said. They proved it. The new individualism behind the Arab revolutions, he said, has led Arabs to vote for parties with an Islamic identity (in large part, because “secularism” was strongly associated with the dictatorships they overthrew) – but, in the process, it’s forced those parties to abandon the Islamist goal of a pure religious society governed only by the Koran.

“Islamist movements like Ennahda in Tunisia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt can no longer even be called Islamist,” he said. “They are conservatives analogous to the religious right in the United States.” Much as socialist parties in the West had to abandon the revolutionary goals of Marxism to become electable, the new Islamist parties have had to give up actual Islamism: They can’t impose the Koran on people, but rather combine “a religious reference” with democratic bids to influence “family values.”

I don’t quite share Mr. Roy’s optimism. While an Iranian-style theocracy isn’t a possibility in Egypt, there are leaders in the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party whose views on women and Israel are alarming enough and whose ties to Egypt’s military overlords appear authoritarian enough that the result could look a lot like Islamism.

Where the “post-Islamism” scholars do have a point is in their reading of the trends that led people to vote for the Islamist parties. These, paradoxically enough, are driven by a shift to secularization of private life. Egypt and its neighbours are in the midst of the same demographic change that revolutionized the West two centuries ago: Fertility rates are falling to European levels, and institutions such as first-cousin marriages are becoming increasingly rare. Religion has become a badge of identity, not a way of life.

This shift has made Islamists desperate to seize influence, because social influence can now only be won through politics. And it has put them in a unique position to gain it. Former Ottoman states such as Egypt never bothered to replace the religious obligation to give alms with a secular obligation to pay taxes. So the imams and mullahs became not only the leading voice of dissent but also the leading source of welfare. That, more than the Koran, wins them votes.

“The fundamental contradiction of Islamism is that its leaders think of themselves as guardians of a tradition, whereas the popular wave behind them is the result of a modernizing mental revolution,” demographers Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd write in their analysis of Muslim-country modernization, A Convergence of Civilizations. “Political victory is inevitably followed by cultural defeat.”

In between comes a tumultuous time. The Muslim world is becoming modern the same way France did, with wild swings of revolution and reaction. “Westerners would like to forget,” the two demographers conclude, “that their own demographic transitions were also strewn with many disturbances and a good deal of violence.” It’s not a safe and easy path, but it’s progress.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/doug-saunders/for-the-muslim-world-its-not-a-safe-and-easy-path-to-modernity/article2309955/

Comments Off on For the Muslim world, it’s not a safe and easy path to modernity

Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, Religion

Is Zabadani the Syrian Benghazi?

Posted on January 20, 2012 | Comments Off on Is Zabadani the Syrian Benghazi?

The army is showing strength and restraint. Zabadani as a ‘safe haven’ was a bad choice, it has no future: It is bordering Lebanon whose government officially support Bashar’s regime. The Lebanese will control the passage of people and weapons.
The FSA fighters and their mercenaries are therefore trapped and cannot move to any other place. If the hope that a ‘safe haven’ will encourage soldiers to defect, I doubt any soldier would want to find refuge into a besieged town. I think it may be the other way around.
The SNC was expecting that the death toll of the shelling will create the “Hama’ effect on the international community. It did not happen. In a way, it looks like the regime has been able to neutralize a large part of the armed rebels without killing anyone ( only one death was reported, despite the ‘heavy shelling’). Zabadani is now a prison for the rebels. Their freedom will be the subject of negotiations with their patrons, Turkey, Qatar and the SNC, under the auspices of the AL.

If the FSA/SNC thought they would create a Benghazi, it is a failure.

On Thursday  19 January, the FSA claims that Zabadani is Benghazi.

http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=13169&cp=3#comment-291833

Comments Off on Is Zabadani the Syrian Benghazi?

Posted in Syria, Syrian Opposition

There is no ‘Turkish model’ for Egypt

Posted on January 17, 2012 | Comments Off on There is no ‘Turkish model’ for Egypt

January 17, 2012 –
By Sebnem Gumuscu The Daily Star-

In Egypt, a number of younger and more moderate Islamists have pointed to Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as a source of inspiration, citing legal reform, successful economic management, and electoral victories as models to be emulated.

In some policy quarters, Turkey has even been presented as an overall model for the Arab world – a characterization which derives largely from its seemingly unique ability to couple secular democracy with a predominantly Muslim society. But those who talk of “the Turkish model” misunderstand that country’s transformation. The coexistence between Islam and democracy has come to pass in Turkey not from the AKP’s development of institutional and political structures that accommodated both Islamic and democratic principles, but rather because Islamists themselves came to accept the secular-democratic framework of the Turkish state.

This transformation primarily resulted from Turkey’s neoliberal transition in the 1980s, which would eventually lead to the emergence of a new class within Islamist constituencies – one that would became the force of ideological moderation. Economic liberalization created an organized class of powerful and devout businessmen from the provincial bourgeoisie who advocated greater political pragmatism and stability in addition to closer relations with the European Union as a major trading partner. These moderate Islamists broke away and established the AKP in 2001.

As a conservative party representing neoliberal interests, the AKP has worked to downsize the state, establish greater political and economic stability, and construct friendly relations with the outside world. The party has not only increased its support in secular businesses and the middle classes, but also rendered the idea of a powerful state – which commands the economy as well as the lives of Muslims through Islamic principles – an obsolete one.

For the most part, the AKP has maintained the basic constitutional and institutional structure of the Turkish state, but has enacted constitutional amendments for EU harmonization and curtailed the power of the military. In other words, Islam and democracy have become compatible in Turkey under neoliberalism.

Observers who credit other factors with this transformation – such as Turkey’s culture of secularism, pressures from the military, or the country’s geographical proximity to the European Union – ignore the fact that Turkish Islamism hitherto successfully resisted these influences, established long before the Islamism’s heyday in Turkey. Organized political Islam in Turkey resisted the transforming impact of secular democratic practices as well as pressure from the military and the broader establishment while remaining staunchly anti-Western (anti-EU and anti-NATO) for close to three decades.

Conversely, Egypt’s neoliberalism mainly benefitted President Hosni Mubarak’s cronies and failed to trickle down to smaller enterprises. There is no strong business constituency within the Egyptian Islamist movement to insist on neoliberal reforms, a smaller state, or political pragmatism. The movement is dominated instead by professionals (doctors, engineers, teachers and lawyers) who prefer a strong and expansive state as a source of employment, social security and public goods.

While the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) established by the Muslim Brotherhood supports private enterprise, such support should not be mistaken for support for neoliberalism. A closer look at FJP’s platform reveals that it reserves a substantial role for the state in production, planning, price regulation, social security and job generation.

Demands for greater social justice for wage earners and calls for an elimination of unemployment among the educated occupy an important place in the platform. The economic system the FJP envisions is much closer to corporatism, oriented toward import substitution and export promotion than it is to a neoliberal economy with a small state and free trade.

Further economic reform is unlikely to generate the pragmatism that Turkish-model advocates envision for Egypt in the near future. Even if a new class of Islamists should flourish, as it did in Turkey, its ability to have an impact similar to the AKP will depend entirely on Islamist movements becoming full-fledged political parties.

Unlike its Turkish counterpart, the Muslim Brotherhood is first and foremost a religious society; economic, political and cultural objectives are secondary to religious proselytism. The FJP relies on the existing rank and file of the Brotherhood for support in elections, and though the members of the Brotherhood fulfill the function of party organizers, they are recruited primarily in the name of Daawa, or the invitation to Islam. From there, they are organized according to a strict hierarchy and mobilized in the name of Islam rather than in terms of political or economic interests.

This structure of the party reinforces religious priorities, undermines internal accountability, and casts a shadow of Muslim Brotherhood control over the FJP. The Brotherhood’s decision – accepted by the main body of the party itself – not to nominate a presidential candidate under the FJP is another demonstration of its subordination of the political to the religious. Unless the FJP evolves into an independent political organization accountable to its own constituency and oriented toward that constituency’s political interests, it can hardly become answerable to the Egyptian people.

In short, there is no “Turkish model” for an Islamist democracy; rather, there are Muslims in a secular-democratic state working within a neoliberal framework. Structural and institutional factors in Turkey are historically unique and it is highly unlikely that we will see a similar process unfold in Egypt. Under Islamist leadership, Egypt will seek another framework – one that will require the Islamist movement to separate its political and religious functions and allow for the political party to represent the aggregated interests of a voting demographic.

Because of this, the task of Islamists in Egypt will be more difficult than that of their Turkish counterparts. They must shed deeply ingrained habits of hierarchy and proselytism to build a democratic system with unique institutions.

Sebnem Gumuscu is a political scientist at Istanbul’s Sabanci University who specializes in Islamic political movements. This commentary first appeared at Sada, an online journal published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2012/Jan-17/160089-there-is-no-turkish-model-for-egypt.ashx#axzz1jiVTb6Qd

Comments Off on There is no ‘Turkish model’ for Egypt

Posted in Egypt, Turkey

Shiite Proselytizing in Northeastern Syria Will Destabilize a Post-Assad Syria

Posted on January 17, 2012 | Comments Off on Shiite Proselytizing in Northeastern Syria Will Destabilize a Post-Assad Syria
September 15, 2011 –

Iran’s ties to Syria go beyond the geo-politics of the “Axis of Resistance.” This is evident in the remote, volatile, and oil-rich al-Jazirah region of northeastern Syria, where there has been a noticeable increase in Iranian investment in religious and cultural centers over the last decade. Information gathered from interviews with Arab shaykhs, tribal youth, Kurds and Assyrians from the region suggest that Iranian financed Shi’a proselytizing, including cash handouts for conversion, is having an impact on conversion rates in the region.  Arab shaykhs representing the six largest tribes in the region assert that the Assad government covertly supports a missionary effort that has affected both the Sunni (Arab and Kurd) and Christian (Assyrian) communities. [1]

The Jazirah region encompasses the areas including and surrounding the cities of Hasakah, Raqqah, Qamishli, Deir al-Zawr, Mayadin and Abu Kamal. This region includes the Euphrates River and its major tributary, the Khabour River. Al-Jazirah is considered to be the agricultural “breadbasket” of Syria. It is also the locus of Syria’s oil industry and a major transit point for the entry, whether legal or illegal, of goods and livestock. [2] Arab tribal society is strongest in this region of Syria, which is comprised of tribal and mixed ethnic communities. Approximately 60% of Syria’s Arab tribal population resides in this complex ethno-linguistic zone, which also includes significant numbers of “politically sensitive” (non-Arab) communities of Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians and Turkomans.

Lingering ethnic conflicts and Kurdish nationalism have resulted in an extremely heavy security presence in al-Jazirah.  The Syrian government has historically employed a divide-and-conquer approach that has negatively impacted civil society and social cohesion in the communities of this region. Scores of individuals from al-Jazirah interviewed by the authors assert that the Syrian government is trying to create a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, especially between the Kurds on the one hand, and Arabs and Christians on the other. In addition to the intelligence and informant networks deployed by the regime in the northeast, other tactics to inhibit local level authority and autonomy are also utilized.  These include land nationalization, restrictions on farming and grazing rights and even forced relocation of whole groups of people (e.g. tribal Arabs and Kurds). The Syrian government’s attempts to assert total control over this oil-rich region have included blocking outside aid agencies from bringing relief to the area during the multi-year drought and subsequent famine that began in 2003.

The economic situation in al-Jazirah is dire.  The Hasakah Governorate in particular has been fiercely impacted by the economic crisis, precipitated by a multi-year drought that crippled the local agricultural economy and forced 36,000 families to leave the land they once farmed. Over 1.3 million people have been affected by the drought, and more than 803,000 Syrians have lost their work because of its impact on successive harvests (Executive [Beirut], November 2009). Even the more wealthy shaykhs of northeastern Syria are feeling the economic effects of the drought. Many of them are in debt to either the Ba’ath Party (through government-controlled banks) or to private lenders who cooperate with the Ba’ath Party. Shaykhs who refused to pay the exorbitant fees of the loan sharks were forced to leave thousands of acres of their land uncultivated for the 2009 planting season. [3]

While there are no generally accepted figures for conversion rates to Shi’ism in Syria, information provided to us by local shaykhs is informative. Shaykhs representing the six largest tribes in the region stated repeatedly that Shi’a missionaries were having an impact on Sunni to Shi’a conversion in the region, especially among the economically vulnerable young men forced to seek work outside of al-Jazirah. A Baggara shaykh reported that a Shi’a religious center near Aleppo, for example, sustains young tribesmen who leave al-Jazirah in search of jobs with financial support, information on safe housing and a place of refuge where they can interact with other youth from their home region. When questioned about the financing of the mosques, one local shaykh from the Jabbour tribe became uneasy, and would only state that the mosques were financed by “outsiders,” although he would not state who these outsiders were.

In a 2009 discussion with two tribal leaders, the Baggara shaykh (whose community is based both in al-Jazirah and south of Aleppo) stated that fully 25% of his tribe had converted to Shi’ism. While the second shaykh from the Shammar tribe (whose community is based in Hasakah) concurred with this figure regarding Baggara conversion, he stated that for his own tribe the conversion rate was less than one percent.  He added that the reason the Shammar are largely immune to religious conversion is their very strong adherence to what he termed “traditional Bedu values.”  He went on to explain that the Baggara were never historically “noble” camel herders and thus were “weak” in terms of adhering to traditional Arab tribal or “Bedu” norms.  In an interview that took place in June 2011, a local contact of one of the authors stated that the entire population of Qahtaania (a Baggara village between Qamishli and Malakiyya) has converted to Shi’ism, praying in the Ali ibn Abu Talib mosque built there in 2007. [4]

Conversion to Shi’ism is a contested phenomenon in the region. According to our interview data, the majority of converted Shi’a in al-Jazirah are secretive about their practices, preferring to practice their faith with fellow converts in husseiniya-like study groups in private homes. The main reason for this secrecy is the disapproval of the converts’ families and/or tribes. A contact of one of the authors, a young convert to Shi’ism from the Walde tribe that live near Raqqah, stated in September 2010 that: “There is a problem between the tribes and the Iranians, but between the leader [Bashar Al-Assad] and the Iranians, there is no problem.” Influential Sunni Syrians such as Ali Sadr al-Din al-Bayanouni of the Muslim Brotherhood have warned against “Shia-ization” in Syria. In a May 2008 interview, al-Bayanouni stated that: “on the cultural level, the Shi’ite school of Islam is spreading in Syria, funded by Iran and supported by the Iranian regime… This situation is exploited by people who give financial incentives, and pay the salaries of some tribal leaders, imams, and shaykhs, in order to convert these influential people to the Shi’ite school of Islam” (al-Arabiya, May 2, 2008).

The spread of Shi’ism in al-Jazirah, a majority Arab Sunni tribal region, adds another element of complexity to the dynamics of identity politics and organization of resistance to the regime there. Tribal, ethnic and sectarian differences exacerbated by decades of oppression and years of economic decay and out-migration, now coupled with Iranian cultural penetration through Shi’a missionary work, have destabilized the region and will have an impact on any attempt to form a post-Assad government in Syria.  It is the view of the authors that Iran has “soft” tools or resources in place that it can draw upon in a post- Assad Syria that reach beyond military and political power politics into the sociocultural realm.

Carole A. O’Leary is a Visiting Scholar at the Columbus School of Law’s Program in Law & Religion within the Catholic University of America (CUA).

Nicholas A. Heras is an M.A. Candidate in International Communication at the American University (DC) and a former David L. Boren Fellow.

Notes:

1. This article draws extensively from interviews conducted by the authors in 2008-2011 in Lebanon and Syria. The interview data suggests that there has been an increase in the number of Shi’a Muslim mosques and attendees at these mosques in al-Jazirah over the last decade.

2. See “On the Ground from Syria to Iraq,” Harmony Project. (Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point: July 22, 2008), p. 86.

3. Information drawn from author interviews. See endnote 1 above.

4. The village of Hatla, near Deir ez Zawr in Hasakah Province, is also described as having been completely converted from Sunni Islam to Shi’ism (Washington Post, October 6, 2006).

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=38401

Comments Off on Shiite Proselytizing in Northeastern Syria Will Destabilize a Post-Assad Syria

Posted in Iran, Religion, Syria

A year after Jasmine and Tahrir

Posted on January 14, 2012 | Comments Off on A year after Jasmine and Tahrir

By Chinmaya R. Gharekhan- January 14, 2012-
It is still early to come to any conclusion about the dénouement of the churning in West Asia. Things are far from settled.

The euphoria generated by the Jasmine and Tahrir revolutions has all but dissipated during the past year. The unrealistic expectations, the hype built up mainly by the western governments and the media have given way to doubt, disappointment and even despair over the fate of ‘Arab Spring.’ The concern of most observers in the international community is now focussed on the direction in which “people’s movements” in various countries will proceed, and on the loss of lives that occurred in Libya, Yemen and, to a less extent, Egypt, and that is continuing in Syria and can be expected to happen in some other countries in the region in the coming months. It is a sad commentary on the rest of the international community that it unhesitatingly adopts the terminology coined by the West to describe the historic events in West Asia. ‘Arab Spring’ or ‘Arab Awakening’ is a condescending description; it suggests that the people of West Asia have been sleeping all these decades, not caring for freedoms enjoyed by people elsewhere. The fact is that non-regional governments have been supporting the authoritarian regimes through massive supply of deadly weapons and technology, which were used to suppress the people.

Increased Shia-Sunni tensions

There are some who would like the Egyptians to believe that their revolution would not have happened but for the speech of President Barack Obama in their capital two years ago. The fact is that the people of Tunisia, followed by the people of Egypt, owe their revolutions to no one except themselves; they are the owners of their revolutions. If anything, the intervention of external powers, as in Libya, has complicated matters for the most part, created space for more extreme forms of Islamic thought to gain ascendance and, perhaps unwittingly, greatly accentuated the tensions between Shias and Sunnis. It is still early days to come to any conclusions about the dénouement of the churning in the region. Things are far from settled, except to some extent in Tunisia where it all began a year ago. Some broad trends, however, may be attempted.

Strengthening of Islamist groups

In all countries which have witnessed some degree of protests, Islamist groups have gained significant ground. In Tunisia, a ‘moderate’ Islamic party has won plurality of the vote. In Libya, where regional forces are refusing to give up their arms or disband their militias, hard-line Islamists, including loyalists of the al Qaeda, have secured influential positions. Egypt has surprised most observers, including knowledgeable Egyptians, by giving a huge electoral mandate to the Muslim Brotherhood and, more ominously, to Salafists; together, the two Islamist groups will control about 70 per cent seats in Parliament, to the great disappointment of the ‘secular’ forces. Similarly, in Yemen, the extremists have gained ground and will emerge as the most influential force as and when President Saleh leaves the country. The same phenomenon is evident in Syria in an acuter form. Bahrain is possibly an exception in the sense that the conflict there is between the minority Sunni ruling family and the majority Shia community.

The success of the Islamists by itself need not be seen as a negative outcome, except perhaps by Israel. Their success is an indication of the disillusionment of people with the ‘secular’ authoritarian regimes as well as the reward for the socially useful work they have been doing such as running hospitals and schools. Whatever the nature of the new governments, people will enjoy more freedoms and will have a greater say in running the affairs of the state. The most amazing phenomenon of 2011 is the shedding of fear by the people, first in the Arab world and, subsequently almost everywhere else, including Russia and China. (This does not apply much to India since we always were free and unafraid to protest and demonstrate, although Tahrir Square could have provided some inspiration.) The Time magazine is absolutely right in naming the unnamed ‘Protester’ as the person of the year. This means the Islamists, as and when they occupy positions of power, will not be able to manipulate people in any way they like. In the medium term, the Islamists-led regimes will insist, at the least, on all legislation being compliant with the Sharia, whatever it means in practice.

Security forces, the army and police, will continue to wield significant, even decisive, influence in the stability of governments. The Turkish model will not be followed consciously given past history but some variation of it should be expected to emerge at some stage. Libya has to go through the difficult process of creating an army out of disparate armed militias and will take longer to achieve stability. In Egypt, the armed forces, which have been used to wielding power for nearly five decades, will hold on to it for quite some time, especially since they also have significant vested interests in the economy.

More attention on Palestine

The Palestinian issue will receive much more attention and focus from the new regimes, which probably would mean more support for Hamas. Israel, which already feels threatened by Iran’s nuclear programme, will be under increased pressure to suspend settlement building. Israel’s posture will harden and its military spending will increase. The U.S. is in no position to bring effective pressure on Israel, especially in an election year, but it might appeal to Israel to be more reasonable on the Palestinian track in return for tightening the screws on Iran.

Syrian issue

Syria is a complex case but certain facts are clear. (1) There is genuine popular demand for reform. (2) There is repression and use of ruthless force by the regime — at the same time, it continues to enjoy the support of the security forces and significant sections. (3) There is open intervention by external powers and groups such as the Brotherhood as well as elements subscribing to the al-Qaeda ideology, if not the al-Qaeda itself. (4) Many dissident groups are well armed and have killed a number of security forces. (5) Western powers are determined to bring about regime change. (6) Israel is greatly interested in seeing Bashar Assad removed even if the alternative will be a fundamentalist regime. Its priority is Iran and whatever weakens Iran in the region is considered to be in Israel’s interest. Bashar’s removal will greatly diminish the Hezbollah’s ability to threaten Israel and also reduce Hamas’ clout. (7) Unless a solution is found soon, the country will be headed towards a bloody civil war.

The Shia-Sunni tensions and Saudi-Iranian rivalry will intensify. Iraq presents a most discouraging example in this respect. After so many years of American shepherding, society in Iraq remains deeply divided on sectarian fault lines. Prime Minister Maliki, now that he is liberated from whatever moderating influence American presence might have exercised on him, is dealing with the Sunni community in exactly the wrong way. The sectarian violence seems all set to return to the horrors of the 2005-07 period. Iraq’s Sunni neighbours, especially Saudi Arabia, will definitely intervene to protect their Sunni brethren across the border. It is not a coincidence that Iraq’s Shia government has been voting against the Arab League’s decisions on the Alawite Shia-led Syrian regime. The Saudi hostility to Damascus has everything to do with the Shia-Sunni divide. Turkey’s current antagonism to Syria has many explanations and the Shia-Sunni factor is one of them. The Turkey-Syria-Iraq triangle offers quite a few fertile grounds for conflict — water, the Kurdish problem, Shia-Sunni hatred, etc. There is a tendency to downplay the Shia-Sunni tension but it is very much a fact of the Muslim life and it is better to recognise it.

In sum, the region is likely to remain unstable for quite some time. It would become destabilised should the Iranian nuclear issue lead to extremely harsh sanctions — and the process has begun — or worse, military action.

Some Indian experts would like India to take a more proactive role on the happenings in West Asia, to be on ‘the right side of the forces of history.’ It is no doubt good to feel self-righteous and earn an occasional pat on the back from the western or any other government. But it is more important to think of our national interests. Compared to our friends in the West, we are more dependent on the energy resources of West Asia. Most importantly, unlike other countries, we have to worry about 6 million of our compatriots who are working there and sending billions of dollars to their families back home. It makes sense to take a cautious stance, make as thorough an analysis as possible of the evolving situation and try to be on the winning side. That is our challenge. That challenge is coming sooner that we would like, in Iran.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2799237.ece

Comments Off on A year after Jasmine and Tahrir

Posted in Egypt, Religion, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen

Year Later, U.S. Can Nurture Arab Spring’s Economic Roots: View

Posted on January 14, 2012 | Comments Off on Year Later, U.S. Can Nurture Arab Spring’s Economic Roots: View

-By the Editors Jan 13, 2012-
Saturday marks one year since uprisings in the Arab world for the first time extirpated an autocrat: Tunisia’s Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Tunisians will mark the anniversary by commemorating Mohamed Bouazizi, the young fruit vendor who sparked the Arab Spring when he set himself afire in front of a government office after police confiscated his cart. Today, it’s worth remembering that as much as the region’s rebellions are about the yearning for political freedom, they are also about the desire to make a decent living, unfettered by tyrants large or small.

In responding to the Arab Spring, the Obama administration appropriately promised considerable economic support to the region — especially to Egypt, the largest and most influential country attempting a transition to democracy. For a variety of reasons, this promise has yet to be fulfilled. With some of the obstacles now removed, it is important to accelerate action now.

Congressional gridlock over the U.S. budget delayed two important components of economic assistance. Only with the Dec. 23 passage of the federal omnibus spending bill did the administration get the approval it needed to follow through with planned Enterprise Funds for Egypt and Tunisia. Modeled after successful programs in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the funds will be capitalized using U.S. foreign assistance money — initially $60 million for Egypt and $20 million for Tunisia — and charged with making loans to and investments in the private sector. Now the onus is on the government to get the funds up and running.

A Debt Swap

The omnibus bill also provided the necessary authorization to make good President Barack Obama’s promise to relieve Egypt, whose economy is a shambles, of $1 billion in debt. The offer, however, is not forgiveness — a simple scratching of a line through an obligation — but rather a debt swap. Egypt doesn’t have to pay back the money. Instead, the U.S. will simply subtract $1 billion from the amount of aid it is scheduled to send to Egypt over the next three years.

What’s more, the offer is not without conditions. The U.S. expects Egypt to spend the $1 billion it would have spent servicing its debt on badly needed vocational training centers and an economic innovation center. The U.S. should stick to its guns to ensure this money is put to productive use, but it’s going to take some creative diplomacy. At the moment, negotiations over these projects have been delayed by tensions over Dec. 29 raids by Egyptian authorities on a dozen organizations, including three U.S. groups, working to support democracy.

In many ways, Egypt has proven hard to help. Its government has held up approval of plans for $1 billion in U.S. loans to finance infrastructure projects and job creation. In June, it also rejected a $3 billion International Monetary Fund loan, which the U.S. had encouraged. The country’s military rulers cited public concerns that the IMF’s requirements for economic reforms represented external meddling.

There will be another chance to get this one right. IMF officials plan to return to Cairo next week with a new offer, probably with tougher conditions, given the worsened shape of Egypt’s economy. The best advice U.S. diplomats could give the generals would be to take it, but only after laying the groundwork for public acceptance of the package by having the government propose it to the IMF rather than the other way around.

Unlocking the Aid

U.S. officials should also use their recently elevated discussions with the Muslim Brotherhood, which will dominate the newly elected Egyptian Parliament, to gently present the reasons the IMF deal is good for Egypt in the short and long term. Only the sealing of an IMF deal will unlock the large amounts of aid European and Persian Gulf countries have pledged but not yet delivered to Egypt.

The Obama administration’s plans for two major economic projects for the wider region are more or less on track. The president hopes to roll out a promised trade and investment partnership in Chicago in May at the next summit of the G8 summit, which the U.S. now chairs. Famously, the countries of the Arab world trade with one another and with the rest of the world at remarkably low levels.

The program — initially including the U.S., Morocco, Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia — is meant to facilitate trade by standardizing such things as investment regulations, border transactions and tariffs. The sooner the system is functioning and shows benefits, the sooner other Arab countries can be added to it. It will also be valuable to include the E.U. in time.

One project is already reaping benefits. Since March, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the U.S. government’s development finance institution, has been working with Arab banks, guaranteeing up to 70 percent of the loans they make to small businesses in the region. In less than a year, the program has committed $650 million of its $2 billion.

For too long, tyranny in the Arab world has allowed the ordinary person no voice, no choice, and few ways to eke out a living. Those were privileges to be dispensed by the dictator. Creating the freedom and means for citizens to make a dignified living is not only the best way to combat authoritarianism, it is a worthy way to honor Mohammed Bouazizi.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-13/year-later-u-s-must-nurture-arab-spring-uprising-s-economic-roots-view.html

Comments Off on Year Later, U.S. Can Nurture Arab Spring’s Economic Roots: View

Posted in Egypt, US Middle East Politics

Turkish belly-dancing to Persian santouri

Posted on January 11, 2012 | Comments Off on Turkish belly-dancing to Persian santouri

BURAK BEKDİL-January/11/2012-

In Tehran, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu may have told his Iranian hosts that the X-band NATO radar on Turkish soil would be used to intercept missile threats from Bolivia. His Iranians hosts may have nodded and smiled.

And next month, Mr. Davutoğlu may tell U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Turkey could perfectly parent the naughty mullahs in Tehran; that everything would soon come up roses in the Middle East thanks to Turkish polity; and that, by the way, Iran never intended to build the atomic bomb. Mrs. Clinton, too, may nod and smile. The fact is, Turkey has never been the maverick interlocutor in the Islamic world that it claims it has been.

Turkey’s belly-dancing around the Western-Persian conflict is not new. Ankara naively thinks that it can win hearts and minds in Tehran by opposing the sanctions; in Washington, it thinks it can do so by agreeing to host the NATO radar hostile to Iran. Professor Davutoğlu may confidently believe that his powers of persuasion work more than perfectly in Tehran and Cairo – like they more than perfectly worked in Damascus and Beirut!

The foreign policy wizard may think that “the rise of a ‘Shiite Crescent’ could turn into an opportunity if Turkey and Iran enhance their dialogue.” And, in response, the Iranian soldiers may have shot two Turkish villagers who had illegally crossed into their territory to smuggle fuel.

Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have grinned at Mr. Davutoğlu’s not-so-creative pleasantries. But he, too, probably nodded and smiled. In other words, the sky is the limit! Mr. Davutoğlu may even have gone as far as to believe that he fully agreed with influential Shiite politician Muqtada al-Sadr on the future of Iraq. What future? A Shiite Crescent over the skies of Iraq? The Shiite Crescent which will turn into an opportunity?

All the same, sadly, Mr. Davutoğlu and his briefcase full of neo-Ottoman ambitions are simply not so wanted in Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus or in influential office rooms in Beirut. Soon, they will be unwanted in Egypt and Libya, too.

Instead of living in his make-believe world, Mr. Davutoğlu should think over and over again to find out why the Algerian government told Ankara to stop referring to French colonization in Turkey’s fight with France over the Armenian genocide denial bill. Or why does one Arab leader after another should keep on saying the “Turkish model” is just unwanted in the “new Arabia.”

Ankara increasingly fears that a sectarian split, which has been a bitter fact of life in the Islamic world in the last millennium, would finish off the remaining bits of Turkey’s ambitions to play the leader of Middle Eastern “Islamdom.” Ankara has hoped to play the “Muslim leader” role in the entire region, not just in its selected parts divided along warring sects.

A sectarian conflict will completely push Turkey out of the “Shiite Middle East” and limit its target zone to the Sunni Middle East only, where Turkey will not be welcomed since it is too un-Muslim, too un-Arab, too western and too secular. Only in an undivided Islamic region would Turkey have had a limited influence. Hence the nervousness in Ankara…

Despite his sometimes illusionary policy-making, Mr. Davutoğlu, no doubt, is a hard-working, decent man of knowledge. But perhaps the pillar of his policy assumptions is not so strong. Simple populism based on “Zionist-bashing” is too weak of a bond to keep Muslim solidarity up and running.

There is more than enough empirical evidence, Mr. Davutoğlu, to suggest that Muslims, sadly, tend to slaughter each other over the Shiite vs. Sunni divide or, if this is not applicable, over the pious vs. secular one. All of that failing, there has been enough killing in the Muslim world over “who is more pious than the other (among the pious of the same sect),” and over “who is more nationalist than the other (among the secularists)” splits.

But don’t give up, Minister Davutoğlu. Just enough with your “neo-Third Worldism” based on the Muslim fraternity fallacy with the neo-Ottoman spice on top!

 

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-belly-dancing-to-persian-santouri-.aspx?PageID=238&NID=11166&NewsCatID=398

Comments Off on Turkish belly-dancing to Persian santouri

Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, Turkey

The new Crescenters: Turkey and Qatar

Posted on January 10, 2012 | Comments Off on The new Crescenters: Turkey and Qatar

FN-09/01/2012-

Qatar and Turkey are the new Crescenters ( in opposition to crusaders) of the Arab world. They are working to move the whole Arab world into becoming Sunni Islamic republic. They plan to  “moderate” these countries by injecting massive funds in economical investment.
For that, they have the full support of the USA and the western countries tired of fighting against extremists isla, supporting hopeless dictators and facing increased immigration of moslems to their countries.
As for Iran with which Turkey and Qatar enjoy good relationship, they consider that with a few adjustments, ultimately Iran would become another moderate Islamic republic.
Syria, Lebanon and Iraq  are most difficult countries to tackle because they are not homogeneous so the move to a ‘moderate’ Sunni or Shia islamic republic is not as straighforward as Egypt, Libya, Yemen or Tunisia where the religious or ethnic minorities are either unexistant or weak.
At first, Turkey and Qatar thought that Syria that has a majority of sunni will easily replace the alawite regime by a sunni islamic republic. After 10  months, that plan failed because the regime had the support of Iran who refuses to have its allies in Lebanon isolated.
The different strategies are the following 1) Let Lebanon, Syria and Iraq stay under the umbrella of Iran with the hope that Iran will move to a moderate Islamic republic, 2)Let these countries in limbo to find their own balance or 3) Use a military option make the necessary changes.
It seems that the solution 2) is the one being considered by Turkey and Qatar after many attempts to use solution 3)

Comments Off on The new Crescenters: Turkey and Qatar

Posted in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Middle East Geopolitics, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen

Iran holds key to democracy in the Middle East

Posted on January 7, 2012 | Comments Off on Iran holds key to democracy in the Middle East

McGill University law professor Payam Akhavan says Iran holds key to democracy in the Middle East

Akhavan claims that the Islamic regime is in its “death pangs”, which raises his hopes for more democracy in the region.

By Charlie Smith, January 5, 2012

A McGill University law professor says that Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in a “proxy war” for control over large parts of the Middle East. And the impact is being felt in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria. Bahrain, and Afghanistan, where Shiite and Sunni Muslims are often engaged in violent confrontations.

“These are often power struggles between Iran and Saudi Arabia,” Payam Akhavan, an Iranian-born expert on international human-rights and criminal law, told the Georgia Straight during a recent visit to Vancouver. “The Saudis are more than happy to eliminate Iran as a rival, but I think the biggest threat to Saudi Arabia will be when Iran becomes a secular democracy.”

During a wide-ranging interview in a downtown restaurant, Akhavan suggested that Iran’s future will have a profound impact on the region’s transition from tradition to modernity, and from authoritarianism to democracy. He declared that the Iranian regime is in its “death pangs” because the vast majority of citizens are thoroughly sick of “political Islam” after more than three decades of Shiite rule. Akhavan, who recently spoke in Tahrir Square in Cairo, contrasted that with the situations in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Bahrain, and other Arab countries that have never suffered under a religious dictatorship in the modern era.

“Egypt reminded me not of where Iran was in the 2009 uprising but where Iran was in 1979, when political Islam was still a romantic, utopian ideology,” he said. “The one place in the Middle East nobody wants political Islam is Iran, because people have lived for 30 years under this incredibly violent, brutal, corrupt rule and they see the reality. So why is Iran the epicentre of this wider transformation in the Middle East? Because Iranian civil society is 30 years ahead of Egypt’s. It’s 30 years ahead of Syria.”

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Iran after the 1979 revolution and, according to Akhavan, hijacked a secular, leftist national revolution against the Shah of Iran. The professor added that Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Hoseyni Khamenei, continues exercising ruthless control over the corruption-riddled country. Akhavan claimed that the “green revolution”, which was brutally repressed following the 2009 election, reflected a widespread desire for change among average Iranians.

“So civil society in Iran has turned against political Islam,” he stated. “It is thoroughly secular, including among Islamic reformists, who may be devout Muslims but who want a separation of state and religion. So Iran’s civil society is by far the most mature: its women’s movement, its students’ movement, its labour movement, its environmental movement. In a sense, they have become mature thanks to the excesses of totalitarianism.”

Here’s where Akhavan’s views differ from those of many analysts of Iran, who liken the mullahs’ rule to a throwback to ancient times. The professor, on the other hand, characterized the Islamic regime as a thoroughly 20th-century aberration, similar to the rise of National Socialism in Germany or Stalinism in the former Soviet Union. He claimed that these “modern romantic ideologies” emerge to fill a vacuum, in effect becoming substitutes for traditional religion.

“When the ayatollahs say that the union of state and religion is consistent with our true Islamic identity before western corruption, it’s absolute nonsense,” Akhavan said, “because the tradition of 500 years of Shia Islam in Iran from 1501, when it became the official religion, was separation of state and religion—because the orthodox clerics believe that until the advent of the messianic 12th imam, all temporal authority was illegitimate.”

Under the Iranian constitution, however, Khamenei is the supreme temporal leader, and he decides who may run for president or be appointed to the judiciary. Akhavan noted that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s followers have complicated the picture by “circulating rumours that he has direct lines of communication with the 12th imam, which would obviate the need for the supreme leader”.

“So they’re setting the stage for a significant conflict,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Akhavan added, young people, who are the vast majority of Iran’s population, are highly literate and have middle-class expectations. And he claimed that they despise totalitarian Islamic rule. “They are Internet-savvy,” he said. “They are glued to satellite television. There is a huge diaspora abroad, highly successful, and a flow of information, so it’s not a country that you can indefinitely rule through terrorization.”

It remains an open question if revolutions in Arab countries will bring about religious dictatorships. Akhavan noted that Saudi Arabia is trying to promote Sunni fundamentalist rule in Egypt, Syria, and other countries by supporting Salafist political parties. He added that the Muslim Brotherhood, which is emerging as a powerful force in Egypt, is more moderate than the Salafists and more likely to work closely with the Egyptian army.

“Radical Islam is more like a modern totalitarian ideology, even though it speaks the language of tradition,” he stated.

However, he pointed out that if democratic rule emerges in Iran, it could create a powerful beacon for supporters of greater freedom and secular rule in Arab countries. “You have this revolution from below and the most mature and secular and democratic social movement in the Middle East,” Akhavan said. “So Iran could very quickly transform from night to day and become a force for stability in the region.”

According to Akhavan, any political transformation would be blocked if Iran were to be attacked, because this would strengthen the hands of fanatics ruling the country. “We jokingly say that Ahmadinejad prays every Friday at the mosque for Israeli air strikes because it’s the only thing that would prop up his regime: creating a common enemy, exciting people’s nationalist sentiment,” he said. “An Israeli air strike would set back the democratic movement by a decade, and it would give a pretext for mass execution of the regime’s opponents under the cover of war. And, at best, it would delay Iran’s acquisition of nuclear capability by a few years, so I think, for the most part, the Americans and the Israelis understand this.”

http://www.straight.com/article-575421/vancouver/law-prof-says-iran-holds-key-middle-east

Comments Off on Iran holds key to democracy in the Middle East

Posted in Iran, Middle East Geopolitics

Political theatre: Currents behind Iranian-Western standoff

Posted on January 6, 2012 | Comments Off on Political theatre: Currents behind Iranian-Western standoff

Published: 5 January, 2012, 23:49

If the EU puts its plan to sanction Iranian oil exports into practice, there will be hard consequences on the European economy. But experts say the West’s sanction policy is motivated purely by politics.

The sanctions could come into effect by the end of January, unless Iran backs down on its alleged nuclear weapons program.

Tehran has responded to the sanctions with its own threats to block oil trade through the crucial Strait of Hormuz, leading to a continued deadlock in the Persian Gulf.

American warships are also present in the region, with a mission to prevent any hindrances of passage.

RT talked to professor of political science Pierre Guerlain, from Paris West University Nanterre La Defense, who is certain that the standoff between the West and Iran is driven by politics, not economics.

“From the economic point of view, it [sanctions] is not wise” he says, but measures are “coming from leaders who are facing elections; Obama in the US. And Obama has to be very tough on Iran, because he is accused by the Republicans of being soft on Iran.”

Iranian leaders, Guerlain believes, also have strong political reasons to continue the standoff, making the current conflict a “game where everything is trying to benefit from the opposition of the other.”

“Being tough on Iran is good for Obama, being oppositional to the US is good for Iranian leaders, who are themselves quite discredited in their own country,” Guerlain explains, adding that “everyone benefits politically though economically everyone could be hurt.”

­US contributed into Iran’s geopolitical might

­Washington’s intercourse with Iran is nothing but “a strategic foreign policy problem” acquired since their failure in Iraq, says John Rees, a political activist and national officer at the Stop the War Coalition.

“The war in Iraq was meant to give them a stable pro-Western, pro-business base for operations in the Middle East,” Rees told RT. “What they ended up doing is making Iran a greater regional power than it was before. This is what the sanctions are about.”

The conflict is not just about nuclear weapons in the Middle East, or the US would be bound to pick on Israel, which is the region’s only nuclear power, continues Rees.

“The reason for this continued conflict is that the American administration simply cannot live with an Iran which has as much regional power as it has at the moment. They see its links with Syria, they see its links with Hamas, they see its links with Hezbollah. This is a challenge to the American power in an absolutely critical – economically and geopolitically – area of the globe.”

© Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”, 2005 – 2011. All rights reserved.

http://rt.com/news/iran-west-sanctions-politics-265/print/

Comments Off on Political theatre: Currents behind Iranian-Western standoff

Posted in Middle East Geopolitics