American Footprints

Technology Sanctions

Brian Ulrich — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:47:25 +0000

The Obama administration has announced new sanctions on those who provide Syria and Iran with technologies of repression:

“On Monday, he (President Obama) announced an executive order that allows U.S. officials for the first time to impose sanctions on foreign nationals found to have used new technologies, including cellphone tracking and Internet monitoring, to help carry out grave human rights abuses.

“The order specifically targets companies and individuals aiding the Iranian and Syrian governments, but administration officials say it could be expanded to include other countries using technology to crack down on dissent.

“Under the order, the administration announced new sanctions, including a U.S. visa ban and financial restrictions, against Syrian and Iranian agencies and individuals. Those include the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate, the Syriatel phone company and Ali Mamluk, the director of Syria’s general intelligence services.

“In Iran, the sanctions target the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the law enforcement forces and Datak Telecom.”

The logical next Middle Eastern country to be targeted by such sanctions is Bahrain, and in fact its absence from this initial wave is already conspicuous. However, I’m not holding my breath, and will be pleasantly surprised if it happens.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Not Just Islam

Brian Ulrich — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:10:41 +0000

One attitude I often see is that Muslims are somehow uniquely intolerant of other religions. A Get Religion blogger named Mollie said in the context of the Saudi mufti’s call for mosque destruction: “Can you imagine the coverage if, say, the Pope or some other major religious leader called for similar destruction? Even if it were a minor Christian or Jewish figure using such rhetoric, one imagines it would receive tremendous coverage.” Actually, comments of foreign religious figures seldom receive any coverage regardless of their faith.

Last year the government of Moldova moved to recognize Islam as a religion in the country. The Moldovan Orthodox Church went ballistic. The metropolitan of the Moldovan Orthodox Church was among those critical, and the the prime minister finally pledged to review the decision, though I can’t find an indication it was revoked. On the specific issue of houses of worship, I read this: “For the time being, the Muslims are pleased that the government has finally recognized them and that Muslims in the nation’s capitol Chisinau can worship freely. Someday, they hope they might even be able to build a mosque. ‘Now we have a prayer room and for us this is our mosque. As for building a mosque in accordance with Islamic norms, with a minaret and all, maybe it is not the right time now, not now,’ a local worshhipper Ismail Wahab Wahab said.” Meanwhile, one Bishop Marchel said, “Our ancestors’ idea of cleansing the land of pagans is under threat now.”

Meanwhile, also in 2011, an Israeli Jewish publication called “Fonts of Salvation” called for death camps for “Amalekites.” In religious Zionist narratives, the Palestinians are usually said to be the new Amalekites, who attacked the ancient Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt. Two years ago, Rabbi Yitchak Shapira said it was permissable to kill babies if they might grow up to harms Jews. Shapira was supported by a rabbi named Dov Lior who said of Baruch Goldstein’s 1994 machine gun massacre of Muslims at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron: “He took action for no other reason than to sanctify the holy name of God.”

What I take from these stories, as well as the statements by radical Muslim leaders, is that your inclination be a violent and hate-filled fanatic has to do with lots of cultural factors of which religious background is but one, and I’m not convinced an important one.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Shenouda III Dies

Brian Ulrich — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 20:31:32 +0000

Pope Shenouda III of the Coptic Orthodox Church has died. Although in the years immediately following his 1971 ascension he was a politically active critic of the regime, a house arrest from 1981 until 1986 seems to have led him to become more conciliatory, and he became more a voice for Coptic rights within Egypt’s existing political universe, even discouraging Copts from participating in the 2011 anti-Mubarak protests. His death comes at a time when many Copts are becoming alienated from a hierarchy they see as out of touch, especially in terms of Egyptian politics, but also when all Egyptian Christians face a time of uncertainty as individuals and as a community, one which in many areas faces persecution.

Shenouda’s successor will come from the monastic ranks, which have expanded dramatically over the past generation as part of the general Egyptian religious revival. Here is the election procedure:

“Under the church’s bylaw issued in 1957, the next pope shall be elected by bishops, former and current Coptic cabinet members and MPs, Coptic notables, and Coptic newspaper owners and editors. Once the vote is completed, a blindfolded child will choose the pope from the three candidates with the highest number of votes. Candidates must be at least 40 years old and have spent at least 15 years in monastic life.”

The influence of laymen in Coptic politics dates back at least to the Middle Ages, when Christian government ministers under the sultans were often the community’s conduit to political influence. I wonder, however, if the role of former government officials in today’s Coptic Church could become a source of controversy, given that they will be tainted by connections with the Mubarak regime.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Global Poverty Falls

Brian Ulrich — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 20:53:38 +0000

It came out a little while ago, but here is some great news:

The best estimates for global poverty come from the World Bank’s Development Research Group, which has just updated from 2005 its figures for those living in absolute poverty (not be confused with the relative measure commonly used in rich countries). The new estimates show that in 2008, the first year of the finance-and-food crisis, both the number and share of the population living on less than $1.25 a day (at 2005 prices, the most commonly accepted poverty line) was falling in every part of the world. This was the first instance of declines across the board since the bank started collecting the figures in 1981.

“The estimates for 2010 are partial but, says the bank, they show global poverty that year was half its 1990 level. The world reached the UN’s “millennium development goal” of halving world poverty between 1990 and 2015 five years early. This implies that the long-term rate of poverty reduction—slightly over one percentage point a year—continued unabated in 2008-10, despite the dual crisis.

“A lot of the credit goes to China. Half the long-term rate of decline is attributable to that country alone, which has taken 660m people out of poverty since 1981. China also accounts for most of the extraordinary progress in East Asia, which in the early 1980s had the highest incidence of poverty in the world, with 77% of the population below $1.25 a day. In 2008 the share was just 14%. If you exclude China, the numbers are less impressive. Of the roughly 1.3 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day in 2008, 1.1 billion of them were outside China. That number barely budged between 1981 and 2008, an outcome that Martin Ravallion, the director of the bank’s Development Research Group, calls ‘sobering’.

“If China accounts for the largest share of the long-term improvement, Africa has seen the largest recent turnaround. Its poverty headcount rose at every three-year interval between 1981 and 2005, the only continent where this happened. The number almost doubled from 205m in 1981 to 395m in 2005. But in 2008 it fell by 12m, or five percentage points, to 47%—the first time less than half of Africans have been below the poverty line. The number of poor people had also been rising (from much lower levels) in Latin America and in eastern Europe and Central Asia. These regions have reversed the trend since 2000.”

Khamene’i on the Bomb

Brian Ulrich — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:29:56 +0000

Juan Cole talks about Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamene’i's views on nuclear weapons:

“A week and a half ago, Khamenei gave a major foreign policy speech in which he said:

“‘The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.’

“Now, you could maintain that Khamenei is lying when he says he holds that possessing nuclear weapons is a grave sin. (You could also maintain that the Popes are lying when they say using birth control is a grave matter, but you’d have to explain why they put their papal authority on the line for a lie they weren’t forced to utter). But even if you think it is a lie, you have at least to report what he says. I guarantee you that Khamenei’s speech opposing nukes was not so much as mentioned on any of the major American news broadcasts.”

Khamene’i's consistent views on this matter may or may not be truthful, but Cole is right that they should be reported. They are credible given Iran’s victimization by weapons of mass destruction deployed by Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, and the nuclear program is consistent with the desire of many nations to have nuclear power as a sign of national status.

Cole is also right that Khamene’i's views matter a lot more than those of President Ahmadinejad. From 1997-2005, when the reformist Muhammad Reza Khatami was president, conservatives compared the Iranian presidency to the head of a high school student council with the Supreme Leader as principal. That was an exaggeration, but the fact it was suddenly dropped when convenient villain Ahmadinejad came into office shows the duplicity of the rhetoric.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Electing the Ninth Islamic Majlis

Brian Ulrich — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 01:08:50 +0000

Geneive Abdo reports on the eve of Iran’s parliamentary elections:

“Now, just hours before the polls open on March 2, Khatami and many other Iranians for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution will stage a boycott. This is the only election in which a major political faction will remain on the sidelines. All the ‘signs,’ as Khatami put it, are there — the only candidates allowed to compete are largely from three conservative factions among the regime’s shrinking cast of political elites. All others were banned from running candidates.

“But what is more significant than the rigged vetting process is what the election sadly reveals for many — a changed Iran. Gone is the euphoria that energized millions of Iranians before past presidential elections in 1997 and 2009 and parliamentary elections in 2000. Instead, this week’s elections will take place under the watchful eyes of 50,000 election ‘monitors’ nationwide, thousands of basij fighters designated just for Tehran, and the heaviest police presence since after the disputed presidential election of 2009…

“The scripted election also illustrates a political realignment that has occurred since 2009 and the consolidation of power around Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In addition to ensuring the reformists’ — and even quasi-reformists, such as Hashemi Rafsanjani — departure from politics, Khamenei’s loyalists have also paved the way for the demise of the ‘deviant’ faction, as it is called, which represents President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad…

“After this election, assuming Khamenei will succeed in eliminating Ahmadinejad’s faction, only two political trends will remain relevant inside the political system. One is the conservative traditionalists who are members of the old guard, such as Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani. The other is the far right, comprised of hardliners, grouped around Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, an aging revolutionary figure who proclaims to be committed to the ideological purity of the Islamic republic, at last as he interprets it.”

With regards to the last paragraph, Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi and Ahmadinejad actually represent the same movement. Mesbah-Yazdi’s political party, the JPEE, has expressed support for Ahmadinejad’s presidency, and the cleric’s son Mojtaba Mesbah-Yazdi has said that his 2005 election “revived the true Islamic discourse.” However, Mesbah-Yazdi would most like to ascend to the Leadership after the death of Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, and the Assembly of Experts, which will make that decision, was cleared of many of his supporters during those last elections.

Iran, in other words, is well along the way to becoming a clerical monarchy, one in which Khamene’i may even be succeeded by his son Mojtaba. In the minds of those running them, these elections aren’t for the people to choose, but rather to ratify choices already made.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Expulsion from Sharbat

Brian Ulrich — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:40:26 +0000

The most recent prominent sectarian incident in Egypt began, as so many do, with allegations of an affair in which, given the patriarchal culture, the male is seen as dishonoring the female. Christians were attacked, some Muslims protected them, and property was destroyed. Then then this happened:

“A ‘committee’ of local figures — Muslim and Christian religious leaders, Mussolini and others — gathered in what is known as a ‘reconciliation session’ in an attempt to diffuse and resolve the situation. They decided that eight Christian families, including Abu Suleiman and his relatives, would be made to leave the area.

“These sessions are common practice in Upper Egypt, where state law is frequently superseded by tribal justice. But their use in sectarian crimes during the Mubarak years led to strong criticism. Critics say that these ‘customary law’ solutions failed to hold perpetrators to account and created an atmosphere of impunity that encouraged more violence.

“The use of a reconciliation committee, the involvement of Salafi figures and the decision it reached has proven particularly controversial as Egypt’s majority Freedom and Justice Party (the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood) holds a majority in Parliament with the Salafi Nour Party in second position. There is growing speculation, and on occasion concern, about the possibility of the Islamic conservatism that is the ethos of these two parties translating into law, and what this might mean for Egypt’s religious minorities.”

The whole affair goes with what I’ve said before: that violent anti-Christian prejudice in Egypt is primarily found in rural areas and the poor neighborhoods in Cairo filled with recent rural migrants. Where Islam was invoked in these proceedings, it was far more cultural identity than belief system, and the expulsion was carried out by local tribal custom.

That said, Christians are clearly suffering as a community in post-Mubarak Egypt. As a religious minority, they are vulnerable when law and order is weak. I don’t expect the Egyptian government to get a handle on this quickly, but imposing a standard of law and order that protects human rights throughout the country should become a priority as soon as government institutions are established, whenever that turns out to be.

(Crossposted to my blog)

The Safe Haven Plan

Brian Ulrich — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:06:37 +0000

The Economist‘s proposal for Syria shows just how powerless the international community is:

“Far better to attack Mr Assad’s regime where it is vulnerable—by peeling away his support, both at home among Syria’s minorities and abroad, especially in Russia, its chief defender on the UN Security Council. Both Syria’s Alawites and Vladimir Putin cling to this dictator because they think that, despite his faults, he is better than the alternative. Yet under Mr Assad Syria has no future. Before the Arab spring his attempts to modernise the economy enriched a coterie of his cronies but did little for ordinary Syrians. Were he to see off today’s uprising, he would be left ruling over an isolated, impoverished and angry country. Surely the opposition can offer enough Syrians of all creeds a better future than that?

“To make that promise credible, Syria’s fractious opposition must unite. A contact group of outside powers and the opposition could channel money into Syria, as well as help with communications and logistics. With a single voice and a credible leader, the opposition could seek to reassure the merchants, Kurds and Christians who back Mr Assad that they will be safer and more prosperous without him. The Russians would also begin to shift ground. Mr Putin enjoys standing up to the interfering West, not least for domestic political reasons (see article), but sticking with a doomed leader could cost Russia its naval-supply base in Tartus and its arms exports. The more senior officials and army officers defect from the regime, the more likely Mr Putin is to change sides too.

“To help persuade them, Turkey, with the blessing of NATO and the Arab League, should create and defend a safe haven in north-western Syria. The FSA can train fighters there, and a credible opposition can take shape. Turkey seems willing to do this, providing it gets Western support. The haven would be similar to that created for the Kurds in northern Iraq; Mr Assad would suffer only if he attacked it.”

This has not just one, but two major weak points. Working from the proposed action, it assumes first that the creation of a safe haven can somehow unite the opposition, and second that this opposition could persuade Assad’s supporters within Syria to switch sides. Unfortunately, I don’t see much in the way of mechanics for how either actually works.

(Crossposted to Brian’s Coffeehouse)

Hamas’s Popularity

Brian Ulrich — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:15:40 +0000

Ha’aretz reports that the last Hamas leaders have left Damascus:

“A senior member of the Hamas movement politburo, Imad el-Alami, previously based in Syria, returned to the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

“Hamas sources said he was the last remaining member of the movement’s Damascus-based politburo to leave Syria.

“Hamas decided to leave Syria in order not to be seen as endorsing the regime of President Bashar Assad in his bloody crackdown against his own people.”

By leaving Damascus, Hamas has placed itself squarely on the same side as Arab public opinion, and Sunni Arabs especially. Along with Khaled Mesha’al’s decision to stand down from power within the organization, it suggests to Palestinians that the organization embodies the values of the Arab Spring. This also comes on the heels of its use of Gilad Shalit to liberate hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Hamas may be taking advantage of these popularity boosts to attempt a comeback in the West Bank:

“According to the officials, over the past few weeks, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security service have intercepted relatively large amounts of funds that Hamas activists abroad have tried to smuggle into the West Bank as part of these efforts…

“However, following last October’s prisoner-exchange deal that saw Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit freed from Hamas captivity in return for the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, Hamas’ standing in the West Bank has been boosted.

“One indications of this has been the seized money, which, security officials believe, was intended to help reignite Hamas activities following a long period during which the organization had difficulty in operating in the West Bank.

“It appears that in the initial stage, Hamas is trying to spark activists back into action in various parts of the West Bank. By and large, Hamas has refrained from staging terror attacks from the West Bank in recent years, due both to operational difficulties and political considerations.”

Fatah cannot compete with this, as its signature policies of negotations and the UN statehood campaign were both stymied by the Netanyahu government with the Obama administration actively campaigning against the UN bid and acquiescing in practice to whatever Netanyahu does at the negotiating table.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Already One State

Brian Ulrich — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:55:58 +0000

Much like me, Yoav Peled and Horit Herman Peled don’t see much future for the two-state solution in the Arab-Israeli conflict. They argue, however, that a single state already exists:

“Instead of pursuing the mirage of a two-state solution, would-be peace makers should recognize the fact that Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in fact constitute one state that has been in existence for nearly forty-five years, the longest lasting political formation in these territories since the Ottoman Empire. (The British Mandate for Palestine lasted thirty years; Israel in its pre-1967 borders lasted only nineteen years). The problem with that state, from a democratic, humanistic perspective, is that forty percent of its residents, the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, are non-citizens deprived of all civil and political rights. The solution to this problem is simple, although deeply controversial: establishing one secular, non-ethnic, democratic state with equal citizenship rights to all in the entire area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.”

What’s striking is how intuitive this is. U.S. Presidential Rick Santorum recently committed a gaffe by saying that all the inhabitants of the West Bank were Israelis because they lived under Israeli rule. The Israeli government refuses such a formulation because giving Palestinians in the Occupied Territories citizenship would, in fact, mean that Israel is no longer “the Jewish state” as that has usually been defined. However, the fact that Santorum’s is a mistake commonly made tells you a lot about the political configuration in practice on the ground.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Shippensburg in Iraq

Brian Ulrich — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:07:27 +0000

I don’t intend to become my university’s new publicist, but this month saw the beginning of an initiative to have Shippensburg assist with the development of business education in Iraq:

“The two-year grant has three components and different individuals will work on the components simultaneously. Their initial visit will be to assess the present situation. Kooti has no illusions about the state of colleges and universities in Iraq as ‘higher education has suffered significantly since the 1980s and it has continued to decline until recently.’

“The first component will be to conduct a feasibility study on establishing a center for excellence in finance and banking. ‘We will work with the government, the ministry of higher education in Iraq, as well as the private sector banking and financial (businesses) to see how we will be able to establish the center in Baghdad.’

“The second component will be to establish a center for excellence for Iraqi colleges of management and economics. ‘The objective is to improve the business programs in selected universities to improve their curriculum to update and upgrade their programs. We will look at capacity building, working with their faculty and their staff to determine what resources are needed. It will be a center for teaching excellence.’

“The third component will be to use the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) standards to assure quality of the programs, the development of administrative capacity and guidance. Grove College has long held AACSB accreditation. By employing the process that AACSB provides, Kooti believes Iraqi colleges and universities will provide a high caliber education, which will be needed as Iraq transitions into a new government, economy and way of life.”

(Crossposted to my blog)

Rafsanjani Falling

Brian Ulrich — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:05:44 +0000

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who served as Iran’s president from 1989-1997, lost to Ahmadinejad in 2005, and was a behind-the-scenes mover of Mir Hussein Musavi’s 2009 campaign that led to the Green Movement, has been taking major political hits for at least a year, possibly as payback for his 2009 actions. Tehran Bureau reports:

“Two websites connected to Ahmadinejad and the security forces claimed that when the current term of the chairmanship of the Expediency Discernment Council expires next month, Khamenei will not reappoint Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as its Chair. Bultan News, a website linked with the security forces, speculated that Hassan Rowhani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator during the Khatami administration, will be the new Chair of the Council. Rowhani is a member of the Council, as well as the head of its Center for Strategic Studies.

“Then Shabestan News Agency, run by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, analyzed the possibility that Rafsanjani might be assassinated, but dismissed the notion, pointing out that he is no longer an influential figure after losing the Chairmanship of the Assembly of Experts and control of Islamic Azad University. He also no longer serves as the Friday prayer Imam of Tehran. It then speculated that he will not be reappointed as the Chairman of the Council.

“Since the June 2009 presidential election, the hardliners’ pressure on Rafsanjani has increased tremendously. In addition to losing all his influential posts, the website that reflected his views has been blocked, his daughter Faezeh Hashemi has been sentenced to six months in jail, and his 16-year-old grandson is under investigation. The family of one his sons has also been barred from leaving Iran.

“As a result of a quasi-coup, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has finally succeeded in taking control of the Islamic Azad University, Iran’s largest university system, one of the largest of its kind in the world. It happened at the end of a meeting of the board of trustees of the university, which Rafsanjani leads. After the former president and his supporters left the meeting, the representatives of Ahmadinejad’s camp on the board announced that Farhad Daneshjoo, a brother of the Minister of Science, Research and Technology, which overseas the universities, has been elected by the board as the new president of the university, replacing Rafsanjani’s ally Dr. Abdollah Jasbi, who has led the university since its inception in 1982. Rafsanjani said that he will not sign the order for Daneshjoo’s appointment, but Daneshjoo has said that he will not back down because the Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution, an extra-constitutional body that control cultural affairs, has confirmed him as the new president of the university.”

Some of that is unconfirmed or still being battled over, but the trend is clear. Leadership of Islamic Azad University is a big deal financially as well as politically, as it has well over one million students. It has been the scene of political fighting at least since mid-2010.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Al-Qaeda and Syria’s Uprising

Brian Ulrich — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:48:12 +0000

Nicholas Blanford examines the question of whether al-Qaeda is involved in Syria’s uprising:

“The Assad regime insists that the opposition protests that have rocked the country since March are being driven by ‘armed terrorist groups’ and ‘Islamic militants.’ It has blamed Al Qaeda for three suicide bomb attacks over the past month against security offices in Damascus, which left 70 people dead.

“Analysts say there is little proof – at least for now – that suggests that Al Qaeda, or its militant affiliates, are seeking to play an active role in the Syrian uprising…

“(However,) as the violence has steadily worsened, some commentators on jihadist websites are openly calling for waging a jihad against the Assad regime. In November, Osama al-Shehabi, the leader of Al Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon, called for an armed struggle in Syria.

“‘The regime’s brutal oppression of the Syrian people proves that it is time to change direction and use real weapons against the regime,’ he wrote in an article that was published by the Shumoukh al-Islam online forum. ‘The revolution is a jihad; it is a war; prepare for jihad for God; scrutinize your intentions and take up arms, for they are your obligation.’

“Last month the jihadist website Minbar al-Tawhid Wa al-Jihad posted a fatwa, or religious edict, by an influential Salafist cleric, in which he sanctioned the use of violence against the Assad regime.

“‘Why do you insist on confining yourselves to peaceful protests?’ wrote Sheikh Abu Mundhir al-Shinqiti. ‘Is it a disgrace to kill those who kill us?… It has come to a stage where nothing will avail except taking up arms.’”

The answer to the question probably depends on the meaning of “al-Qaeda.” The intelligence coup from the Bin Laden raid revealed that al-Qaeda central did have a larger coordinating role over al-Qaeda branded groups than most scholars had previously suspected. However, all these local groups still had their own levels of affiliation, as well as favored local causes. The Libyan Islamic Fighters Group was always primarily interested in their struggle against Qadhafi, and now that he’s gone, there’s been no evidence of their attacking other topics. It sounds like Lebanon’s Fatah al-Islam has an interest in the Syrian cause, as well. Even then, however, if Syria did rank high on the agenda of the al-Qaeda movement as a whole, I’d expect to see more happening in Aleppo, which as I recall had an underground jihadist community which supported foreign fighters en route to Iraq.

(Crossposted to my blog)

2011 in Arab History

Brian Ulrich — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:51:07 +0000

One year ago yesterday, I noticed a news item about protests in southern Tunisia. Although I had intended to take a blogging break until after the new year, I sensed in these protests a new social movement of some significance, and so put up a post, and continued following the story the next two days (1, 2, 3). I definitely did not expect them to succeed in toppling the regime, and even when they did I was skeptical that they would lead to similar movements elsewhere. They did, however, and the result was what many have called the “Arab Spring,” a year of popular activism which toppled old regimes and led to a rebirth of hope across the Arab world.

As a historian, I recognize the hubris in the title of this post, since we can only speculate what the immediate consequences of these uprisings might be, much less what will stand out about them after decades or a century. At most, we can say that these events will continue to be contested in political rhetoric, secondary education classrooms, and public history displays, as politicians and various social forces strive to shape their legacy and place themselves within it. Nonetheless, it seems worthwhile to offer some thoughts about aspects of these ongoing events that, to me at least, seem early candidates for consideration.

One of these aspects may lie in their origins. Leaving aside Kuwait, where popular protests have been having an impact for years, we can look at a group of countries where monarchies with colonial ties were, in the name of national independence, replaced by regimes based in the military or other security services. This also usually led to different social classes gaining power and influence in society, as the old urban notable and landowning families saw themselves targeted as a rival power center. Something like this also happened in Iraq in 1958, although the 2003 Anglo-American invasion meant that the successor regime of the 1958 “revolution” was gone before the year started. The exception which proves the rule is Syria, which had not had a king since 1920, but where the governing National Bloc was still based on the power of the old notables and landowners. As others have noted, the states which did not have these upheavals, which means those that remain monarchies today, as well as Lebanon and Algeria, have also seen little “Arab Spring” action. This is enough of a pattern that it could point toward some interesting socio-political roots of what we’ve seen in the past year and are seeing now.

Those regimes which had the least social basis fell most swiftly. Tunisia’s wealthy elite wasn’t going to take up arms to defend Ben Ali, and Egypt’s military chose to manage the transition rather than prop up Mubarak. Other countries have seen tribal or sectarian groups who stood to lose a benefactor fight on behalf of the old system, as happened with the Sunni insurgents in Iraq. A key issue going forward will be the ability of new government forms to have a broad constituency among the populace, ideally through elections providing for a rotation of power.

This, however, is tied to another issue. One framework we have seen the past year is that “the nation,” meaning the people, is rising up against internal oppressors so as to establish a new government on its own behalf. One question now is how the “nations” will be defined, or what identities will be on people’s minds as they act politically. In Iraq, probably moreso than under Saddam Hussein, loyalty to a community of Sunnis, Shi’ites, or Kurds competes with that to Iraq as a whole. Those “Arab Spring” countries with religious differences will face the question of deciding if those differences preclude national unity. This issue might be most explosive in Syria, but for the moment, it is also a subject for discussion in Egypt, where salafis see Christians not as equal citizens, but as a subject population under Muslim rule.

2011 also shows signs of introducing new norms into Arab political life, as the Arab League is now willing to at least pretend to be upset by rulers oppressing their people, especially if those people are Sunni Arabs. In addition, peaceful mass protests have become for many the preferred form of political action, even affecting Hamas rhetoric. This still doesn’t work if the government shoots back too much, but then it never has. This development, along with the death of Osama bin Laden, may have completely eliminated the already marginal al-Qaeda-like voices from the Arab political landscape, and could become a thorn in regimes’ sides for decades to come.

I have mostly ignored Bahrain in this because it really doesn’t fit the pattern, but I don’t think interferes with it, either. Although its activists joined in the “Arab Spring” wave, their models are more Kuwait and Iraq than Tunisia and Egypt, and unfortunately, it is a country where mass protests appear to have been successfully contained, though they continue in rural areas. Bahrain shows the effects of the troubling sectarian political framework emanating from Iraq which may prove the region’s biggest challenge in the 21st century.

All this is not to proclaim the “Arab Spring” over, especially in the cases of Syria and Bahrain. As I said, it is simply a pause for reflection on the past year, thinking about where it might have come from and what challenges and opportunities might lie ahead, as the Arab world enters what will clearly be a new phase of its political history.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Requiem for a Two-State Solution

Brian Ulrich — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 21:23:24 +0000

Carlo Strenger believes a two-state solution is no longer a viable option in the Arab-Israeli conflict:

“Nousseibeh suggested (in a recent book that) the Palestinians relinquish their struggle for statehood. He even asked them to accept that, for a long time, they would not have full political rights, and that they should settle for civic and human rights to make life as bearable as possible. His deeply pessimistic conclusion was that, given the realities, the human cost of continuing the struggle for a Palestinian state was too high…

“From a historical perspective, the two state solution’s demise was, maybe, inevitable. Except for six years, the Likud has been in power for the last thirty-five years, and the Likud never relinquished its dream of the greater land of Israel. When Rabin won elections for Prime Minister in 1992, both he and Peres felt that this was a last chance; they believed that what they would not achieve in Rabin’s term would not be achieved at all.

“Rabin had to govern, with a minority of the Knesset supporting him, and Israel’s right never felt that he had a mandate for the Oslo process. Netanyahu spoke at demonstrations where crowds held posters depicting Rabin as a Nazi. He was later recorded taking pride in having killed off the Oslo process.

“Now he can take partial credit for having killed the two state solution. The other half goes to the Palestinians: As Mahmoud Abbas said more than a year ago, the Palestinian’s greatest mistake was the second Intifada. Indeed, together with Hamas’ win of the elections in 2006 and the shelling of southern Israel, the Intifada’s horrible violence has made Israelis averse to taking further risks for peace.”

I am not the one to say whether Strenger is right. I would still like to believe it could work, but do not see a realistic chance of it happening under Netanyahu’s leadership. Whether two states remain possible depends on the combination of facts on the ground and the political will to alter them. I cannot judge the former, and perhaps given the latter, it might be better to say that it has entered a persistent vegetative state from which no recovery is foreseeable.

How one apportions blame depends largely on what you think happened in the diplomacy under Ehud Barak in 2000. I’m not even going to attempt to untangle that mass of conflicting assertions. Strenger is right that the Second Intifada strangled the Israeli peace camp, but that in turn flowed from a belief in Israeli perfidy during negotiations. The uprising’s most violent aspects were also the terrorist attacks on civilians inside Israel, and in the history of the conflict’s violence, one should not forget that Hamas only turned to those tactics and made them a key part of its struggle after Baruch Goldstein committed the Hebron massacre in 1994, a massacre which stemmed directly from the inclinations toward ethnic cleansing on the part of many in the settler movement which the Israeli state tries to control, but also supports with defense and infrastructure. What Hamas did, in other words, was escalate dirty warfare in the region, not introduce it.

Strenger also addresses the future:

“Our long-term task is to develop new models of dealing with the emerging reality. I wish I could say something clear and constructive, but for the time being I can’t. I have not yet seen realistic models other than the two state solution.

“The one state solution, at this point, is an empty concept, so is that of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation. For neither case can I imagine how the parliament of the greater Israel-Palestine would function, or how equality of all citizens with respect to security could be achieved: I agree with Sari Nousseibeh that Jewish history from the Pogroms through the Holocaust, from the 1948 war to that of 1973, is too traumatic for Israelis to relinquish control of security for a long time to come…

“I am afraid that Israel will lose many friends in the gradual process of finalizing its sovereignty over the West Bank. Netanyahu and Lieberman have already aggravated many politicians and supporters of Israel, ranging from Hillary Clinton to Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. And they have deepened the alienation many Jews in the Diaspora feel towards the current government’s policies that they cannot accept.”

I actually think that what will happen is that, within 10-20 years, Israel will impose Netanyahu’s vision of disconnected cantons with nominal sovereignty under Israeli domination. The path toward any one-state solution depends on demographics and, perhaps, the fate of the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan.

(Crossposted to my blog)