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Iraq:

 

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 14th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

At the UN meeting of women commemorating Beijing+15, we picked up a TerraViva IPS handout that made us aware that THE WOMEN OF IRAQ MISS SADDAM. The fscts are that under secular Dictator Saddam Hussein the women had it better then under the present touted democracy.

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Women Miss Saddam.
Abdu Rahman and Dahr Jamail, March 13, 2010
 http://original.antiwar.com/jamail/2010/…

BAGHDAD – Under Saddam Hussein, women in government got a year’s maternity leave; that is now cut to six months. Under the Personal Status Law in force since Jul. 14, 1958, when Iraqis overthrew the British-installed monarchy, Iraqi women had most of the rights that Western women do.

Now they have Article 2 of the Constitution: “Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation.” Sub-head A says “No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.” Under this Article the interpretation of women’s rights is left to religious leaders – and many of them are under Iranian influence.

“The U.S. occupation has decided to let go of women’s rights,” Yanar Mohammed, who campaigns for women’s rights in Iraq, says. “Political Islamic groups have taken southern Iraq, are fully in power there, and are using the financial support of Iran to recruit troops and allies. The financial and political support from Iran is why the Iraqis in the south accept this, not because the Iraqi people want Islamic law.”

With the new law has come the new lawlessness. Nora Hamaid, 30, a graduate from Baghdad University, has now given up the career she dreamt of. “I completed my studies before the invaders arrived because there was good security and I could freely go to university,” Hamaid tells IPS. Now she says she cannot even move around freely, and worries for her children every day. “I mean every day, from when they depart to when they return from school, for fear of abductions.”

There is 25-percent representation for women in parliament, but Sabria says “these women from party lists stand up to defend their party in the parliament, not for women’s rights.” For women in Iraq, the invasion is not over.

The situation for Iraq’s women reflects the overall situation: everyone is affected by lack of security and lack of infrastructure.

“The status of women here is linked to the general situation,” Maha Sabria, professor of political science at Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad tells IPS. “The violation of women’s rights was part of the violation of the rights of all Iraqis.” But, she said, “women bear a double burden under occupation because we have lost a lot of freedom because of it.

“More men are now under the weight of detention, so now women bear the entire burden of the family and are obliged to provide full support to the families and children. At the same time women do not have freedom of movement because of the deteriorated security conditions and because of abductions of women and children by criminal gangs.”

Women, she says, are also now under pressure to marry young in family hope that a husband will bring security.

Sabria tells IPS that the abduction of women “did not exist prior to the occupation. We find that women lost their right to learn and their right to a free and normal life, so Iraqi women are struggling with oppression and denial of all their rights, more than ever before.”

Yanar Mohammed believes the constitution neither protects women nor ensures their basic rights. She blames the United States for abdicating its responsibility to help develop a pluralistic democracy in Iraq.

“The real ruler in Iraq now is the rule of old traditions and tribal, backward laws,” Sabria says. “The biggest problem is that more women in Iraq are unaware of their rights because of the backwardness and ignorance prevailing in Iraqi society today.”

Many women have fled Iraq because their husband was arbitrarily arrested by occupation forces or government security personnel, says Sabria.

More than four million Iraqis were estimated to have been displaced through the occupation, including approximately 2.8 million internally. The rest live as refugees mainly in neighboring countries, according to a report by Elizabeth Ferris, co-director of the Brookings Institution-University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement.

The report, titled, “Going Home? Prospects and Pitfalls For Large-Scale Return Of Iraqis,” says most displaced Iraqi women are reluctant to return home because of continuing uncertainties.

The Washington-based Refugees International (RI) says in a report “Iraqi Refugees: Women’s Rights and Security Critical to Returns” that “Iraqi women will resist returning home, even if conditions improve in Iraq, if there is no focus on securing their rights as women and assuring their personal security and their families’ well-being.”

The RI report covered internally displaced women in Iraq’s semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region and female refugees in Syria. “Not one woman interviewed by RI indicated her intention to return,” the report says.

“This tent is more comfortable than a palace in Baghdad; my family is safe here,” a displaced woman in northern Iraq told RI.

The situation continues to be challenging for women within Iraq.

“I am an employee, and everyday go to my work place, and the biggest challenge for me and all the suffering Iraqis is the roads are closed and you feel you are a person without rights, without respect,” a 35-year-old government employee, who asked to be referred to as Iman, told IPS.

“To what extent has this improved my security?” she asked. “We have better salaries now, but how can women live with no security? How can we enjoy our rights if there is no safe place to go, for rest and recreation and living?”

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(*Abdu, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who reports extensively on the region) (Inter Press Service)

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 26th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

This posting is about four events on New York snowy day – Thursday February 25, 2010 and one previous event.

Yesterday, Thursday, started for me by walking in between the snow flakes along First Avenue, to a 10-12 am book launch and discussion called for by the UN University in the new -so-called northern temporary UN Headquarters building.

The topic was: “FAULT LINES OF INTERNATIONAL LEGITIMACY” which is also the title of a new book released by Cambridge University Press, New York www.caambridge.org, and edited by Hilary Charlesworth and Jean Coicaud.

Dr. Jean-Marc Coicaud is the Director of the UNU office at the UN Headquarters in New York City. He was also one of the three people of the panel, and was responsible for at least one quarter of the 400 page book. The other two members of the panel were also participants in the book itself – responsible each for a chapter in the book. They were:

Ian Johnstone, Professor of International Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, who prior to joining Fletcher, served as a legal and political officer at the United Nations at the time of UNSG Kofi Annan, including five years in the Office of the Secretary-General, one in the Department of Peace-keeping Operations, and one in the Office of Legal Affairs. He wrote the chapter – “Legal Deliberation and Argumentation in International Decision Making.” (30 p)

Vasuki Nessiah, Professor in International Relations and Gender Studies at Brown University. Before that she was Senior Associate and Head of Gender Program at the International Center for Transition Justice and with SIPA at Columbia University. She wrote the chapter – “From Berlin to Bonn to Baghdad: A Space for Infinitive Justice.” (30 p)

The introductory remarks by Dr. Coicaud made it clear that the topic is about the relation between power and principles. Since the establishment of the League of Nations and later the UN we started to outline what is International Law and what it should do. Further – the basic question is international security and at the UN this is embodied in the Security Council.

When the mike was passed to Prof. Johnstone it became clear that from a legal thinking point of view – a main stage in order to have justice is the stage of presenting arguments by both sides. This is the way in a deliberative democracy and what most lawyers would say that neither Iraq, nor Kosovo, evolved at the UNSC in such a way that the outside intervention was a legal act. But he also said that the theory of deliberative democracy says that voting alone cannot be the decision maker. The UN has to operate by consensus, but the Security Council takes up voting when there is no consensus – but then not all votes are equal. Also, the participants in a democratic deliberative debate are supposed to have similar backgrounds and share values, history … but at the UN they do not even share a language. We have a four teared structure – the Permanent equal 5 united by their individual veto, then the added temporary 10, then the broader UN membership with their interests, eventually the even larger real broader level of the interested public opinion. The public opinion level creates that “Interpretive Community” that is supposed to be neither objective nor subjective but intersubjective including lawyers and experts. But then experts are just as good as the interests they pursue. Eventually a legal case is decided by precedents.

On Iraq, President Bush went to the UN to launch a very intensive deliberative exercise. The fact that the US shifted interpretation to terrorism shows that the interpretive community mattered.

To the matter of our posting here, I would like to emphasize that wherever we discussed the issues in the Q & A period of the UNU meeting we had to come back to Iraq. The demonstration of most of what the issues meant can be found in this case.

I for one raised the question of the legitimacy of the UN itself according to – if it adheres to its constitution – The UN Charter?

There it says clearly WE THE PEOPLES – NOT WE THE GOVERNMENTS ELECTED OR UNELECTED. Here we have thus a big shadow overhanging this UN community. I also mentioned that to redress this somewhat the UN under UNSG Kofi Annan established THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT but this is not adhered to. The problem that when Iraq invaded Kuwait this was a clear UN transgression against a neighboring government, but when Iraq gassed and killed its own people that was seen as OK it is an internal problem.

Prof. Johnstone said – yes, established in 1945 that was the language but clearly it is now governments and more and more investigations into what they do internally – but in the end the veto-power has it. Chapter 7 of the Charter can be interpreted that what a government does to its own people can disturb international peace. A comment from the floor came back to the issue saying that the Responsibility to Protect is at a very low bar level but the bar is set much higher for action.

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My second event was 12:30 – 1:30 pm at the New York University Wagner School in the old Puck Building (295 Lafayette Street).

Part of the  Conflict Security and Development Series – Issues, Actors, and Approaches – co-hosted by NYU’s Center for Global Affairs, NYU’s Masters in Global Public Health Program, and the Office of International Programs at NYU Wagner.

The topic was: “PEACEBUILDING IN IRAQ – WHAT ROLES CAN UNIVERSITIES PLAY?

Thomas Hill, Associate Research Scholar, Center for International Conflict Resolution, Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).was the speaker.

The Announcement said: Among the most well-respected and stable institutions in Iraq, universities allow representatives of different communities to interact and peacefully contest the country’s future. The recent establishment of a master’s program in peace and conflict studies at one Iraqi public university, and the development of a center dedicated to peace and security studies at a private university suggest a growing acceptance of responsibility for a role in peacebuilding by Iraq’s academics. Drawing on experiences teaching in Iraq, this discussion focuses on both the possibilities for, and the limitation of, university-led peacebuilding efforts in Iraq and elsewhere.

This was terrific and honestly put everything else I will be covering in this posting to clear shame.

Dr. Hill was with the University of Dahuk on the Turkish border of Kurdistan. He pointed out that when talking peacebuilding in Iraq, today the only the university is the area where all Iraqis can come – irrelevant of the religion they have or do not have.

In other parts the neighborhood is mosque or church dominated – the university is free territory – perhaps even secular for those that wish it this way. He told us that when a new foreign teacher at the university was kidnapped for ransom by Muslims, Muslim students participated in raising the money to free him. That was something new in Iraq – and he was there last time November 2009.

The Iraqi head of that program told him that all what he wants is to educate a small number of leaders for the next generation. They take in just 4 students to the program per year and this is the second year of this particular program – similar programs sprout also at other Universities in Iraq. In some way, having a small number of students from various backgrounds forms an interactive community and this helps further the program – the Iraqi head of the program actually told him that had they accepted more students, groups could have formed and fights could have resulted – now they participate at each others events and learn also to do away with preconceptions on a personal basis.

Peace building he talks about is the social sciences meaning repair, strengthening, creating personal relationships. This leads to comprehensive conflict transformation – from an unpeaceful to a peaceful relationship. Conflict can be transformed into a constructive resolution. In this structure, obviously are according to John Paul Lederach  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_L…) who wrote about this in 2005, a high-level inspiration – Mid-level actors in this case the University Professors and Deans that educate the Grassroots Leaders. There is a CRITICAL MASS NOT OF NUMBERS OF PEOPLE BUT OF THE QUALITY OF THE PLATFORM. This happens with small groups of very dedicated people.

The Dahuk University itself is 16 years old. It is Kurdish in a Kurdish majority area. The Kurds are predominantly Sunni but religion is not a big issue. It was the politicians that manipulated the religion idea.

There is an Iraqi Peace Foundation – academics, civil society, activists and the Foundation head is from Baghdad – a Professor of Urban Planing – Dr. Kamal. He is a returnee who came from Canada. Iraq had Universities already 1300 years ago, Medicine and Engineering are the most seeked subjects. Students submit to an exam and the administrators of that exam would decide what they had to study. People could not control their own life but wanted to study – so they would accept their fate and study what was handed down to them. But the students wanted to take control of their life and their community. They are the society’s depository of knowledge and can be next generation that will carry Iraq to its future. This one University program’s contribution of 4 leaders per year is thus not negligible.

There are 18 governments in Iraq – the Iraq Peace Foundation has established relations with all of them. The central system does not yet support financially this program but they ought – because it is Iraq’s future. Indeed, until very recently, Iraq was a mixed society and, as said, it had a highly educated group of people that lived in harmony and it was not unknown for them to intermarry.

Professor Vera Jelinek, the Divisional Dean and Clinical Associate Professor, Center for Global Affairs, School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS) at NYU, who was in the audience, asked how to transfer these experiences to other peace-building areas like Kosovo, Bosnia …

The answer was that if you get a society that values higher education it could work. YOU MUST HAVE A HISTORY OF HIGHER EDUCATION he said. In Afghanistan there is no intellectual capital like Baghdad. Afghanistan may not be the place for it. Iraq – the paradox is that in its diversity is its strength. You can have in Iraq politi conversations between people that have been in government and those that will be. Dahuk University will contravene the first Peace-Making country-wide conference in Iraq. Baghdad University is very respected – it is the biggest and has convening capacity. Things will pick up in Baghdad.

Here I decided to ask if with all this introspection, if the Iraqi students will not end up forgetting that there are also other problems in the world?

I was amazed at the gusher of comments I got from the speaker who explained that he wished US students had so much global awareness as the Iraqi students. Clearly, they read all sorts of sources and are well rounded of what goes on in the world.

AHA I said, my follow up question is thus – why do they not rally with the understanding that they were manipulated and try to better their future with that knowledge? To this the answer was less satisfying because the reality is that they have been manipulated to the point that it is easier to comply and fight against each other – and it will be only with the change of leadership to people educated according to the lines we just listened to – that such change will indeed occur.

Another question came from an Arab gentleman who identified himself as belonging to the UN and involved with consortia of universities. I tried later to exchange cards with him but he had no card – told me of the great new plans that the UN Department of Public Information (UN DPI) is establishing with Universities and thought he had to explain to me what that department does. I flatly told him that I wish they keep out of this as they are not known for doing the right things. Besides – there is a UN University to handle contacts with academia – as academia is not the kind of place to swallow UN self serving propaganda. He did not seem happy and I wonder if he was really from the UN.

——————

My third event was 4-6 pm organized by Professor John Rajchman, an Adjunct Professor and Director of Modern Art M.A. Programs in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University.

He invited to his class  Dr. Wang Hui, Professor of Chinese  Language, Literature and History, Tsinghua University, Beijing, who among his many publications is included also the 2010 Verso, Brooklyn, NY,  release titled: “THE END OF THE REVOLUTION: China and The Limits Of Modernity.” Professor Rajchman just thought that his art history students ought to understand the interconnect between old established culture and political upheavals with a view of how far this could be feasable for a culture like China. That is an interesting Professor at a good University!

Wang Hui research focuses on contemporary Chinese literature and thinking. He was the executive editor (with Huang Ping) of the influential magazine Dushu (??, Reading) from May 1996 to July 2007. The US magazine Foreign Policy named him as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world in May 2008.

Wang Hui has his particular Chinese intellectual of our days view of globalization, neoliberalism, and finds the economic miracle of China these days as a deficient remedy for failures of socialism. I think it fortunate that I came to Columbia right after having hears the presentation, by the way also of someone from Columbia, on the promise of the Iraqi academia. Again – just in passing – let me again tell the UN DPI – the UN disinformation service – hands off please of Academia – this is just not your field of competence.

Wang Hui is worried that the later growth can be seen as legitimization of the early heavy-handed transformation of the Chinese farmer. Even now the basic issue is agriculture he said. In fact, it was the 1911 revolution that allowed for the precondition for the agriculture change. It also introduced new education system and in the economy.

The 80’s democratization ended with a democratic crisis and the traditional capitalization and international economics created a fiscalization of democracy.

In the 1980’s the idea was to separate the party from the State – but in Chinese tradition the Party represents the Will of the people. Will there be a democratization of the Party? People return now to sentimentalism towards Mao. The web is an issue for the population. They see in it a technological control – not just political. People are wary of China Americanization. They prefer an accent on developing nations. Now the involvement in Africa.

I tried to find out what he thinks of a G2 idea with mutual interest in developing a gren economy. His idea is that the population will be worried and are affraid of too close cooperation.

for more about Professor Wang Hui:
 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/world/…

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My fourth event for the day – 6-8 pm – was supposed to be at the SIPA Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University – the conversation of Mr. Alvaro de Soto with Sir Brian Urquhart. An actual throw-back to what the UN was meant to become at its creation in 1945.

Sir Brian was a British intelligence officer in WWII who was sent by the UK to assist in creation. He has been involved with every UN Secretary General since and was the organizer of the first UN Peacekeeping force. As UnderSecretary-General he was involved in the Middle East and Cyprus – clear British interests in those years.

Alvaro de Soto, from Peru, In 1982 he joined the United Nations staff as a special adviser to Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (1982-1991) – also a Peruvian. Alvaro de Soto continued to hold positions at the UN, mainly in Peasekeeping, till 2007.

I was prepared with questions, but the event got canceled because of the weather – very befitting the UN that is normally a fair weather institution.

—————–

That brings me to the last event that I would like to mention in this article. This was the Wedneday, February 17, 2010 UN University hosting of the Permanent Representative of Iraq to the UN, Ambassador Dr. T. Hamid Al-Bayati.

The topic was “IRAQ AND THE UN: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.”

This was clearly something new – an Ambassador making himself available for questioning to a forum at the UN that is not controlled by the UN Department of Public Information – kudos to the Ambassador.

The Ambassador explained the history of military takeovers 1968, a second coup of 1968 by the Baath Party bringing to power the Saddam regime and then the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the eventual undoing of the regime in 2003.

On the legal side – the first constitution was of 1950 and then the start of the new constitution of 2005. Elections is now the norm and next election will be in April 2010. He stressed the peaceful history in Iraq in past years, and delved even into the place Jews used to have in Iraqi society – and that is as far as we know quite accurate for past years. Will there be a return to more peaceful days after the experiences of more recent times?

He enlarged on security and transparency issues for the elections. He also explained that also Iraqis outside the country will be able to vote. This last item caused me to raise the question on how will they know that indeed Iraqis will vote in the outside-the-country voting? He answered that food ration tickets are base for the lists – but we know from the experience with the Palestinians that people are born but never die and others take over such cards as highly praised commodities. There will clearly be inflated voting that will skew the results. Further, as he said that Iraqis came back from neighboring countries, again, that will be another source of inroads by non-Iraqis. Whatever, it was – this meeting was quite enlightening because of the exchanges – something that even the press enjoyed more here then in the Briefing Room. I wish that event were after what I learned from the other first three events I mentioned above, so I could follow up with questions, but I feel confident that the Ambassador will answer directly a well structured question even now and that get-to=know you event at UNU was just clearly an asset.

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 6th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

Michael Klare, The Blowback Effect, 2020
Posted by Michael Klare, January 5, 2010, on TomDispatch.com
 http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175186/t…

You can already see a new style of writing about China emerging in our American world.  The New York Times set it off recently by publishing a front-page piece on a $3.4 billion Chinese investment in one of the planet’s last great copper reserves — in Afghanistan.  In passing, reporter Michael Wines also pointed out that Chinese energy companies had gained a stronger foothold in the future exploitation of Iraq’s massive oil reserves than had U.S. multinationals.  The ironies were legion and painfully visible.

Our two wars have been sucking us dry in two countries where state-owned Chinese companies have just scored significant economic victories.  “While the United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda [in Afghanistan],” wrote Wines, “China is securing raw material for its voracious economy. The world’s superpower is focused on security. Its fastest rising competitor concentrates on commerce.”

Already, the follow-up pieces are starting to come out and heady cocktails they are:  one part awe and one part bitterness mixed with one part despair.  In Esquire online, Thomas P.M. Barnett put it this way:  “Worse still: Will the rest of the world end up profiting from our blood and money?… The reason why Obama neglects to mention any regional interests like Pakistan’s? Admitting the larger logic of regionalization would make too painfully obvious the nature of our current strategic bankruptcy. Because it would suggest that the only ‘victory’ to be found would be ‘won’ by those neighboring powers who did nothing to stabilize the situation. In other words, their ‘treasure’ and our ‘blood.’”  At Foreign Policy online, Stephen M. Walt chimed in:  “While we’ve been running around playing whack-a-mole with the Taliban and ‘investing’ billions each year in the corrupt Karzai government, China has been investing in things that might actually be of some value, like a big copper mine.”

Under George W. Bush, the U.S. set out, in part, to turn the Greater Middle East into an American “lake” of energy reserves via two invasions, and you know how that worked out.  The Chinese, on the other hand, only last year sent their warships abroad — to hunt pirates as part of an international flotilla in the Gulf of Aden — for the first time since the eunuch Zheng He commanded a Ming dynasty armada that reached Africa six centuries ago.  Unfortunately, as Michael Klare, TomDispatch regular and author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, makes clear below, China’s leaders are as unlikely to learn from our deepest mistakes as they were 30-odd years ago when China’s post-Cultural Revolution leadership looked our way and made a logical but calamitous decision: that the auto industry — all those millions of individual cars burning fossil fuels — would be a crucial pillar of their future industrial development.

Right now, they may still seem to be acting out a key lesson of this American moment:  Stay off the hard stuff.  You know, all that advanced weaponry (and the military-industrial complex that goes with it), all those aircraft carrier battle groups, all those “expeditionary forces” ready to be sent thousands of miles from home to fight “little wars.”  Once again, however, as Klare suggests, our present symbols of “power” are likely to be their paragon and the future will be a mess.  It’s not enough, it seems, to make money, not war.  Once you have the money, it has to be spent on something and our imaginations remain so limited.

Too bad.  Here’s where you could only wish the future might be a little less predictable.  No such luck, Klare tells us, when it comes to military power as the measure of greatness on planet Earth in the second decade of the twenty-first century.  Tom

The Second Decade
The World in 2020

By Michael T. Klare

As the second decade of the twenty-first century begins, we find ourselves at one of those relatively rare moments in history when major power shifts become visible to all.  If the first decade of the century witnessed profound changes, the world of 2009 nonetheless looked at least somewhat like the world of 1999 in certain fundamental respects:  the United States remained the world’s paramount military power, the dollar remained the world’s dominant currency, and NATO remained its foremost military alliance, to name just three.

By the end of the second decade of this century, however, our world is likely to have a genuinely different look to it.  Momentous shifts in global power relations and a changing of the imperial guard, just now becoming apparent, will be far more pronounced by 2020 as new actors, new trends, new concerns, and new institutions dominate the global space.  Nonetheless, all of this is the norm of history, no matter how dramatic it may seem to us.

Less normal — and so the wild card of the second decade (and beyond) — is intervention by the planet itself.  Blowback, which we think of as a political phenomenon, will by 2020 have gained a natural component.  Nature is poised to strike back in unpredictable ways whose effects could be unnerving and possibly devastating.

What, then, will be the dominant characteristics of the second decade of the twenty-first century?  Prediction of this sort is, of course, inherently risky, but extrapolating from current trends, four key aspects of second-decade life can be discerned: the rise of China; the (relative) decline of the United States; the expanding role of the global South; and finally, possibly most dramatically, the increasing impact of a roiling environment and growing resource scarcity.

Let’s start with human history and then make our way into the unknown future history of the planet itself.

The Ascendant Dragon

That China has become a leading world power is no longer a matter of dispute.  That country’s new-found strength was on full display at the climate summit in Copenhagen in December where it became clear that no meaningful progress was possible on the issue of global warming without Beijing’s assent.  Its growing prominence was also evident in the way it responded to the Great Recession, as it poured multi-billions of dollars into domestic recovery projects, thereby averting a significant slowdown in its economy.  It spent many tens of billions more on raw materials and fresh investments in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, helping to ignite recovery in those regions, too.

If China is an economic giant today, it will be a powerhouse in 2020.  According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), that country’s gross domestic product (GDP) will jump from an estimated $3.3 trillion in 2010 to $7.1 trillion in 2020 (in constant 2005 dollars), at which time its economy will exceed all others save that of the United States.  In fact, its GDP then should exceed those of all the nations in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East combined.  As the decade proceeds, China is expected to move steadily up the ladder of technological enhancement, producing ever more sophisticated products, including advanced green energy and transportation systems that will prove essential to future post-carbon economies.  These gains, in turn, will give it increasing clout in international affairs.

China will undoubtedly also use its growing wealth and technological prowess to enhance its military power.  According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China is already the world’s second largest military spender, although the $85 billion it invested in its armed forces in 2008 was a pale shadow of the $607 billion allocated by the United States.  In addition, its forces remain technologically unsophisticated and its weapons are no match for the most modern U.S., Japanese, and European equipment.  However, this gap will narrow significantly in the century’s second decade as China devotes more resources to military modernization.

The critical question is:  How will China use its added power to achieve its objectives?

Until now, China’s leaders have wielded its growing strength cautiously, avoiding behavior that would arouse fear or suspicion on the part of neighbors and economic partners.  It has instead employed the power of the purse and “soft power” — vigorous diplomacy, development aid, and cultural ties — to cultivate friends and allies.  But will China continue to follow this “harmonious,” non-threatening approach as the risks of forcefully pursuing its national interests diminish?  This appears unlikely.

A more assertive China that showed what the Washington Post called “swagger” was already evident in the final months of 2009 at the summit meetings between presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao in Beijing and Copenhagen.  In neither case did the Chinese side seek a “harmonious” outcome:  In Beijing, it restricted Obama’s access to the media and refused to give any ground on Tibet or tougher sanctions on key energy-trading partner Iran; at a crucial moment in Copenhagen, it actually sent low-ranking officials to negotiate with Obama — an unmistakable slight — and forced a compromise that absolved China of binding restraints on carbon emissions.

If these summits are any indication, Chinese leaders are prepared to play global hard-ball, insisting on compliance with their core demands and giving up little even on matters of secondary importance.  China will find itself ever more capable of acting this way because the economic fortunes of so many countries are now tied to its consumption and investment patterns — a pivotal global role once played by the United States — and because its size and location gives it a commanding position in the planet’s most dynamic region.  In addition, in the first decade of the twenty-first century Chinese leaders proved especially adept at nurturing ties with the leaders of large and small countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that will play an ever more important role in energy and other world affairs.

To what ends will China wield its growing power?  For the top leadership in Beijing, three goals will undoubtedly be paramount: to ensure the continued political monopoly of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), to sustain the fast-paced economic growth which justifies its dominance, and to restore the country’s historic greatness.  All three are, in fact, related:  The CCP will remain in power, senior leaders believe, only so long as it orchestrates continuing economic expansion and satisfies the nationalist aspirations of the public as well as the high command of the People’s Liberation Army.  Everything Beijing does, domestically and internationally, is geared to these objectives.  As the country grows stronger, it will use its enhanced powers to shape the global environment to its advantage just as the United States has done for so long.  In China’s case, this will mean a world wide-open to imports of Chinese goods and to investments that allow Chinese firms to devour global resources, while placing ever less reliance on the U.S. dollar as the medium of international exchange.

The question that remains unanswered:  Will China begin flexing its growing military muscle?  Certainly, Beijing will do so in at least an indirect manner.  By supplying arms and military advisers to its growing network of allies abroad, it will establish a military presence in ever more areas.  My suspicion is that China will continue to avoid the use of force in any situation that might lead to a confrontation with major Western powers, but may not hesitate to bring its military to bear in any clash of national wills involving neighboring countries.  Such a situation could arise, for example, in a maritime dispute over control of the energy-rich South China Sea or in Central Asia, if one of the former Soviet republics became a haven for Uighur militants seeking to undermine Chinese control over Xinjiang Province.

The Eagle Comes in for a Landing

Just as the rise of China is now taken for granted, so, too, is the decline of the United States.  Much has been written about America’s inevitable loss of primacy as this country suffers the consequences of economic mismanagement and imperial overstretch.  This perspective was present in Global Trends 2025, a strategic assessment of the coming decades prepared for the incoming Obama administration by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an affiliate of the Central Intelligence Agency.  “Although the United States is likely to remain the single most powerful actor [in 2025],” the NIC predicted, “the United States’ relative strength — even in the military realm — will decline and U.S. leverage will become more constrained.”

Some unforeseen catastrophe aside, however, the U.S. is not likely to be poorer in 2020 or more backward technologically.  In fact, according to the most recent Department of Energy projections, America’s GDP in 2020 will be approximately $17.5 trillion (in 2005 dollars), nearly one-third greater than today.  Moreover, some of the initiatives already launched by President Obama to stimulate the development of advanced energy systems are likely to begin bearing fruit, possibly giving the United States an edge in certain green technologies.  And don’t forget, the U.S. will remain the globe’s preeminent military power, with China lagging well behind, and no other potential rival able to mobilize even Chinese-level resources to challenge U.S. military advantages.

What will change is America’s position relative to China and other nations — and so, of course, its ability to dominate the global economy and the world political agenda.  Again using DoE projections, we find that in 2005, America’s GDP of $12.4 trillion exceeded that of all the nations of Asia and South America combined, including Brazil, China, India, and Japan.  By 2020, the combined GDP of Asia and South America will be about 40% greater than that of the U.S., and growing at a much faster rate.   By then, the United States will be deeply indebted to more solvent foreign nations, especially China, for the funds needed to pay for continuing budget deficits occasioned by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon budget, the federal stimulus package, and the absorption of “toxic assets” from troubled banks and corporations.

Count on this, though:  in an increasingly competitive world economy in which U.S. firms enjoy ever diminishing advantages, the prospects for ordinary Americans will be distinctly dimmer.  Some sectors of the economy, and some parts of the country, will certainly continue to thrive, but others will surely suffer Detroit’s fate, becoming economically hollowed out and experiencing wholesale impoverishment.  For many — perhaps most — Americans, the world of 2020 may still provide a standard of living far superior to that enjoyed by a majority of the world; but the perks and advantages that most middle class folks once took for granted — college education, relatively accessible (and affordable) medical care, meals out, foreign travel — will prove significantly harder to come by.

Even America’s military advantage will be much eroded.  The colossal costs of the disastrous Iraq and Afghan wars will set limits on the nation’s ability to undertake significant military missions abroad.  Keep in mind that, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, a significant proportion of the basic combat equipment of the Army and Marine Corps has been damaged or destroyed in these wars, while the fighting units themselves have been badly battered by multiple tours of duty.  Repairing this damage would require at least a decade of relative quiescence, which is nowhere in sight.

The growing constraints on American power were recently acknowledged by President Obama in an unusual setting:  his West Point address announcing a troop surge in Afghanistan.  Far from constituting a triumphalist expression of American power and preeminence, like President Bush’s speeches on the Iraq War, his was an implicit admission of decline.  Alluding to the hubris of his predecessor, Obama noted, “We’ve failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy.  In the wake of the economic crisis, too many of our neighbors and friends are out of work and struggle to pay the bills…. Meanwhile, competition in the global economy has grown more fierce.  So we simply can’t afford to ignore the price of these wars.”

Many have chosen to interpret Obama’s Afghan surge decision as a typical twentieth-century-style expression of America’s readiness to intervene anywhere on the planet at a moment’s notice.  I view it as a transitional move meant to prevent the utter collapse of an ill-conceived military venture at a time when the United States is increasingly being forced to rely on non-military means of persuasion and the cooperation, however tempered, of allies.  President Obama said as much:   “We’ll have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power…. And we can’t count on military might alone.”  Increasingly, this will be the mantra of strategic planning that will govern the American eagle in decline.

The Rising South

The second decade of the century will also witness the growing importance of the global South:  the formerly-colonized, still-developing areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  Once playing a relatively marginal role in world affairs, they were considered open territory, there to be invaded, plundered, and dominated by the major powers of Europe, North America, and (for a time) Japan.  To some degree, the global South, a.k.a. the “Third World,” still plays a marginal role, but that is changing.

Once a member in good standing of the global South, China is now an economic superpower and India is well on its way to earning this status.  Second-tier states of the South, including Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, and Turkey, are on the rise economically, and even the smallest and least well-off nations of the South have begun to attract international attention as providers of crucial raw materials or as sites of intractable problems including endemic terrorism and crime syndicates.

To some degree, this is a product of numbers — growing populations and growing wealth.  In 2000, the population of the global South stood at an estimated 4.9 billion people; by 2020, that number is expected to hit 6.4 billion.  Many of these new inhabitants of planet Earth will be poor and disenfranchised, but most will be workers (in either the formal or informal economy), many will participate in the political process in some way, and some will be entrepreneurs, labor leaders, teachers, criminals, or militants.  Whatever the case, they will make their presence felt.

The nations of the South will also play a growing economic role as sources of raw materials in an era of increasing scarcity and founts of entrepreneurial vitality.  By one estimate, the combined GDP of the global South (excluding China) will jump from $7.8 trillion in 2005 to $15.8 trillion in 2020, an increase of more than 100%.  In particular, many of the prime deposits of oil, natural gas, and the key minerals needed in the global North to keep the industrial system going are facing wholesale depletion after decades of hyper-intensive extraction, leaving only the deposits in the South to be exploited.

Take oil:  In 1990, 43% of world daily oil output was supplied by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (the major Persian Gulf producers plus Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Libya, Nigeria, and Venezuela), other African and Latin American producers, and the Caspian Sea countries; by 2020, their share will rise to 58%.  A similar shift in the center of gravity of world mineral production will take place, with unexpected countries like Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Niger (a major uranium supplier), and the Democratic Republic of Congo taking on potentially crucial roles.

Inevitably, the global South will also play a conspicuous role in a series of potentially devastating developments.  Combine persistent deep poverty, economic desperation, population growth, and intensifying climate degradation and you have a recipe for political unrest, insurgency, religious extremism, increased criminality, mass migrations, and the spread of disease.  The global North will seek to immunize itself from these disorders by building fences of every sort, but through sheer numbers alone, the inhabitants of the South will make their presence felt, one way or another.

The Planet Strikes Back

All of this might represent nothing more than the normal changing of the imperial guard on planet Earth, if that planet itself weren’t undergoing far more profound changes than any individual power or set of powers, no matter how strong.  The ever more intrusive realities of global warming, resource scarcity, and food insufficiency will, by the end of this century’s second decade, be undeniable and, if not by 2020, then in the decades to come, have the capacity to put normal military and economic power, no matter how impressive, in the shade.

“There is little doubt about the main trends,” Professor Ole Danbolt Mjøs, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said in awarding the Peace Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore in December 2007:  “More and more scientists have reached ever closer agreement concerning the increasingly dramatic consequences that will follow from global warming.”  Likewise, a growing body of energy experts has concluded that the global production of conventional oil will soon reach a peak (if it hasn’t already) and decline, producing a worldwide energy shortage.  Meanwhile, fears of future food emergencies, prompted in part by global warming and high energy prices, are becoming more widespread.

All of this was apparent when world leaders met in Copenhagen and failed to establish an effective international regime for reducing the emission of climate-altering greenhouse gases (GHGs).  Even though they did agree to keep talking and comply with a non-binding, aspirational scheme to cut back on GHGs, observers believe that such efforts are unlikely to lead to meaningful progress in controlling global warming in the near future.  What few doubt is that the pace of climate change will accelerate destructively in the second decade of this century, that conventional (liquid) petroleum and other key resources will become scarcer and more difficult to extract, and that food supplies will diminish in many poor, environmentally vulnerable areas.

Scientists do not agree on the precise nature, timing, and geographical impact of climate-change effects, but they do generally agree that, as we move deeper into the century, we will be seeing an exponential increase in the density of the heat-trapping greenhouse-gas layer in the atmosphere as the consumption of fossil fuels grows and past smokestack emissions migrate to the outer atmosphere.  DoE data indicates, for example, that between 1990 and 2005, world carbon dioxide emissions grew by 32%, from 21.5 to 31.0 billion metric tons.  It can take as much as 50 years for GHGs to reach the greenhouse layer, which means that their effect will increase even if — as appears unlikely — the nations of the world soon begin to reduce their future emissions.

In other words, the early manifestations of global warming in the first decade of this century — intensifying hurricanes and typhoons, torrential rains followed by severe flooding in some areas and prolonged, even record-breaking droughts in others, melting ice-caps and glaciers, and rising sea levels — will all become more pronounced in the second.  As suggested by the IPCC in its 2007 report, uninhabitable dust bowls are likely to emerge in large areas of Central and Northeast Asia, Mexico and the American Southwest, and the Mediterranean basin.  Significant parts of Africa are likely to be devastated by rising temperatures and diminished rainfall.  More cities are likely to undergo the sort of flooding and destruction experienced by New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.   And blistering summers, as well as infrequent or negligible rainfall, will limit crop production in key food-producing regions.

Progress will be evident in the development of renewable energy systems, such as wind, solar, and biofuels.  Despite the vast sums now being devoted to their development, however, they will still provide only a relatively small share of world energy in 2020.  According to DoE projections, renewables will take care of only 10.5% of world energy needs in 2020, while oil and other petroleum liquids will still make up 32.6% of global supplies; coal, 27.1%; and natural gas, 23.8%.  In other words, greenhouse gas production will rage on — and, ironically, should it not, thanks to expected shortfalls in the supply of oil, that in itself will likely prove another kind of disaster, pushing up the prices of all energy sources and endangering economic stability.  Most industry experts, including those at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, believe that it will be nearly impossible to continue increasing the output of conventional and unconventional petroleum (including tough to harvest Arctic oil, Canadian tar sands, and shale oil) without increasingly implausible fresh investments of trillions of dollars, much of which would have to go into war-torn, unstable areas like Iraq or corrupt, unreliable states like Russia.

In the latest hit movie Avatar, the lush, mineral-rich moon Pandora is under assault by human intruders seeking to extract a fabulously valuable mineral called “unobtainium.”  Opposing them are not only a humanoid race called the Na’vi, loosely modeled on Native Americans and Amazonian jungle dwellers, but also the semi-sentient flora and fauna of Pandora itself.   While our own planet may not possess such extraordinary capabilities, it is clear that the environmental damage caused by humans since the onset of the Industrial Revolution is producing a natural blowback effect which will become increasingly visible in the coming decade.

These, then, are the four trends most likely to dominate the second decade of this century.  Perhaps others will eventually prove more significant, or some set of catastrophic events will further alter the global landscape, but for now expect the dragon ascendant, the eagle descending, the South rising, and the planet possibly trumping all of these.

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Owl Books). A documentary film version of his previous book, Blood and Oil, is available from the Media Education Foundation at Bloodandoilmovie.com.

Copyright 2010 Michael T. Klare

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on December 23rd, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What it Will Mean for Our World.
Vali Nasr introduced by Joanne J. Myers at the Carnegie Council, New York, December 7, 2009.

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Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What it Will Mean for Our World

Introduction

JOANNE MYERS: Good morning. I’m Joanne Myers, Director of Public Affairs Programs. On behalf of the Carnegie Council, I would like to thank you all for joining us.

Today it is my pleasure to welcome the renowned Middle East expert, Vali Nasr. Some of you may recall listening to Professor Nasr when he spoke here a few years ago. At that time he discussed his widely acclaimed book, The Shia Revival, in which his insightful analysis reframed the debate over the Iraq War and taught us a great deal by explaining how the Sunni-Shia rift was driving the insurgency.

Today when he discusses Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World, I believe he will once again shine a beacon of understanding on the complex landscape that is the Middle East.

As one of the foremost scholars and original thinkers on Muslim society, Vali has a reputation for painting a picture of the Middle East that is different from the one you may read or hear about in the media. In Forces of Fortune, he has once again produced a work in which he encourages us to reshape our opinions and increase our understanding of the broader changes taking place within the Muslim world.

He writes that, although we must be vigilant against fundamentalism and extremism, there are other forces at work in this region. What he is referring to is a new business-minded middle class that has tied its future to commerce. These upwardly mobile individuals of entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, and avid consumers are reshaping religion, social, and political life and tipping the scale away from extremist belligerence. He reveals how this is happening in Iran and has already taken place in Turkey and Dubai, last week’s news notwithstanding.

He makes a compelling argument that the way to win over the Muslim world and to counter the threat from the Islamic extremists is to engage it over business, capitalism, and trade, and not to fight it over religion. As he poignantly says, we will do ourselves a disservice if we think only in terms of extremist ideologies in determining how the Middle East interacts with the world.

To help us look inside this unfolding phenomenon, please join me in welcoming a very special guest, my friend Vali Nasr.

Thank you for joining us.

Remarks

VALI NASR: Good morning. Thank you, Joanne, for that very generous and wonderful introduction. It’s very good to be back at the Council for one of these sessions.

Let me begin by saying that it’s very clear that, although we are dealing with very different issues today than we did a few years ago—with a very different war, with a very different set of circumstances—the Muslim world still occupies a great deal of the United States’ attention. It continues to be an important foreign policy issue, not only an immediate issue, but a much longer-run issue. We are as a nation worried about extremism, about what it means, about what its potential is. But more so, we still grapple with this larger issue of what the future of relations between the West, the United States, and the Muslim world would be.

A good deal of thinking, particularly in the public arena, has gone into the issue of extremism: Where does it come from? What do they say? What do they want? How to deal with them? The other side of this argument is, how do we get the Muslims to sort of snap out of this fetish with extremism, how to get them to think about the future differently.

These are very important issues. They are important for us to think about, to consider, et cetera. But they have also, in my opinion, completely dominated the entirety of the universe of our thinking about 1.3 billion people spread from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Dealing with these issues, traveling in the region, talking to people, it was clear to me that extremism is not the only story in the Muslim world. It is the story that most preoccupies us, but it clearly is not the only story. In fact, the long-run way in which to get past extremism actually lies in those stories that we are not paying attention to.

Let me begin by saying that when we look at the Muslim world, there are some things that strike Westerners most obviously—for instance, the religiosity in the Muslim world or their penchant for particularly harsh anti-Western political attitudes or what the West believes to be support for acts of violence, although this is not as pervasive as the media make it sound.

But one of the most important and interesting issues is the following: Large parts of the Muslim world sit outside of the global economy. Where that’s the case, extremism is worse. Where the Muslim world is most integrated into the global economy, extremism is a lesser problem.

By integration into the global economy, I don’t mean selling oil and buying military aircraft. That’s not the kind of economic engagement I’m talking about. I’m talking about the phenomenon of globalization that we all understand, that dominated the global economy from the 1990s on, brought new parts of the world—Latin America, East Asia, Eastern Europe, India ultimately—into its fold, integrated those economies into, if you would, one single supply chain, where things that are made in one part of the world are consumed in another part of the world.

Most of the Muslim world is not part of this picture. If you went to Walmart, you are not going to find many things saying “Made in Saudi Arabia” on them. But you will find things that say “Made in Malaysia” on them or “Made in Turkey” on them.

My argument is that that’s actually a very, very striking issue. There is a cross-section between the two major global trends of the past two decades. One is the rise of a single global economy because of increasing trade and integration of economies, which is a major story of our time. The other one is the rise in extremism. In the Muslim world, these two trends have a trajectory which is quite interesting. The problem in the Muslim world, in my opinion, is not too much religion; it’s too little global economy.

If we look at the Muslim world, we see many parts of it. The heartland of the Middle East is dominated by government-run closed economies. Some are wealthy; some are not. But the economic structure is fairly simple: The government dominates the majority of economic activity. The public sector is huge. The majority of the population relies on government entitlement programs, government contracts, government salaries. Entrepreneurs don’t matter much, in the sense that it’s not their taxes that are running the economy. So their opinion doesn’t matter much.

When, for instance, we look at a country like Pakistan, taxes, in a country of 180 million people, account for only 3 percent of the GDP. Something like a percent of the population pays real taxes. If you look at a country like Turkey, which is actually integrated into the global economy much more, that percentage approximates advanced economies.

Remember recently, about a year ago, when the Turkish military was considering intervening in Turkish politics because the ruling party nominated a presidential candidate who, in their opinion, was too Islamically oriented, which is the current president, Abdullah Gül. I asked a very wealthy Turkish tycoon what would happen.

He said, “Nothing. Whoever rules Turkey has to listen to us. We pay for the government.”

That’s the way it is here. That’s the way it is in Europe. That’s the way it is in many places. In the Muslim world, that’s not the case.

When we say that’s not the case, what are you missing in the Muslim world? It is a very, very important class. Call them entrepreneurs, call them middle class, call them a bourgeoisie. They go by different names, but in the West, it’s a very familiar class. It’s the class that accounts for wealth generation, for innovation, and for social transformation.

You can go all the way back to 16th-century Europe. What produced modernity in Europe was the middle class. We all think about Reformation, for instance, in Scotland and Germany. Well, Reformation in Scotland was kind of like Taliban’s Kabul. It was a highly puritanical, rigid place. It was not that puritanical attitude that made Scotland into the seat of the Industrial Revolution, the place whereAdam Smith and David Hume came from. It was trade, it was commerce, and it was the social classes that were connected with commerce that made that transformation.

So conclusion number one is that the big problem in the Muslim world is this missing class. This class is missing because the economies are not set up right and not integrated into the global economy. We are trying often to force open Islam to modern ideas. We forget that you have to first force open the economies to modern economics before the economic forces make that transformation.

How do we know that that is right? It’s a question I grappled with a lot. There is plenty of evidence. It is happening, on a small scale, in places. Where it’s happening, it is showing positive results. What we see is that when it happens, Muslims can be just as capitalist as the next guy and behave in ways that are embracing of the world, not rejecting of the world.

There are countries, from Iran to Pakistan—and I’ll talk to you about that—where there is evidence of that. But there are some parts of the Muslim world where there is a lot of evidence of that. You can go to Southeast Asia, to Malaysia or Indonesia or to Turkey or Dubai in the Middle East, and there’s plenty of evidence of that.

Let’s consider, for instance, Indonesia. For most Americans, Indonesia appeared on the Islamic map with the Bali bombings. We had the same kinds of fears for Indonesia that we had for Pakistan or the Arab world.

There were these religious schools, equivalents of madrasas, that were training people we believed to be too conservative and violent. There was a very big organization called Jemaah Islamiyah who we believed to have ties with al-Qaeda, who was committed to violent overthrow of the Indonesian government, was anti-Western, and carried out heinous acts of terrorism—the Bali bombings, attacks on hotels in Jakarta, et cetera.

Fast-forward to 2009. It’s very clear that Indonesia has moved in a very different direction than was expected. In the last elections in the country,President Yudhoyono’s party defeated the fundamentalist party. By and large, the country as a whole voted for, if you would, much more moderate political choices.

Terrorism is still in Indonesia. Only this last summer, there was another attack on the same Marriott Hotel in Jakarta. But what’s clear is that the Indonesians are not interested in supporting terrorism as a whole.

What happened in Indonesia is that Indonesia has been steadily integrating into the global economy. It’s going the way of Asia rather than the way of the Middle East. Its oil income now accounts a lot less for its national income. It relies on producing things that we buy at Walmart. Therefore, it’s part of the global supply chain.

Why does that work? Let me take another country, Turkey. Turkey is now one of the world’s top 20 economies. When the Pittsburgh meeting happened, Turkey was one of the G-20 countries. It has produced a relatively stable democracy that at least is better than anything else we see in the Muslim world. It has a very robust economy that is integrated into the European economy. Istanbul has become a prime destination, not just for tourism, but for business. It has become a global city in the context of Caucasus, Eastern Europe, Europe. Turkey did have a secular legacy, but Turkey did not get to where it did because of being a rigid secular state. That brought Turkey so far, but it couldn’t get it to where it is.

What happened was that Turkey was virtually bankrupt as a country in the 1980s. It had high inflation, high unemployment. It was a lot like Mexico or Argentina or Brazil in the same time period. So it did the same thing as those countries did. It went to the World Bank and IMF and asked for loans, and they gave it money, conditional that Turkey would change its economy to begin to integrate into the global economy. The Turks did that. There was profound change. Turkey became an export-oriented economy.

There is a little town in the middle of Turkey called Kayseri, from which the Turkish president comes. I don’t know if you have been to the tourist site, Cappadocia, in Turkey. It’s literally maybe 50 kilometers south of Cappadocia.

It’s a very small town. I would say, in an American context, it’s like South Bend, Indiana. If Istanbul stands for New York, where all the power elite and the old businessmen tied to the government are, Kayseri was nowhere.

Now if you go to Kayseri, it is a sort of industrial hub of Turkey. When Turkey reformed its economy, these small businessmen, who were not part of the elite, began to set up factories using labor, producing things that they sold abroad. For instance, about 6 to 7 percent of all denim that goes into blue jeans in the world is produced in Kayseri. One company alone produces 1 percent of all the denim jeans in the world. The city is a massive exporter of leather, of furniture, et cetera.

It’s now a very wealthy city, a very wealthy small city. It’s very conservative. People go to mosques. Women abide by traditional ways. But it’s wealthy and it’s capitalist and religious exactly the way in which Middle America is. Its moral values are very strong, but it’s also very capitalist.

And there is no interest in jihad in Kayseri. It’s very simple. In talking to these businessmen, if you are selling leather to Ferragamo, you know jihad is not good for business. You do care about Turkey’s image. They are interested in religion as moral values, not as political action. They are interested in religion the same way that many American businessmen are—as pro-capitalist, life-embracing, moral values about a code of ethics in our daily lives, and the dos and don’ts that get you to heaven. They are not interested in agitation and social action.

It is not because we came up with a program to reform them. It’s not because we preached it to them. It came from within. It is the same dynamic that we see in other world religions, that we saw in the history of Europe. The dynamic is very clearly there.

This is not happening among people who were already secularized by Kemalismin Turkey. These people were always religious. They were always living in a very small town—except that they became part of the global economy in a way in which Arab businessmen are not part of the global economy.

This businessman I was talking to who sells directly to Ferragamo made the deal himself. It’s not a government-to-government deal. He doesn’t owe anything to the Turkish government. He owes as much to the Turkish government for this deal as an American businessman feels that he owes to the U.S. government for a deal. He believes that actually he is providing money for Turkey; it’s not the other way around. When you go to countries like Saudi Arabia, it’s very clear that the government is providing money to the businessmen. Therefore, the government doesn’t owe them anything. Here it’s very clear that the dynamic is very different.

So when you look at Turkey, you see that when you have businessmen and a middle class that looks like other middle classes, then it actually behaves like other middle classes.

I think this is reflected nowhere better than in Dubai. I know Dubai is not a good investment opportunity now. I’m not touting Dubai as an investment opportunity. I would just say that capitalists everywhere, including in this city, make bad decisions and everybody else pays for it. Even in that, the Muslims have proven that they are not an exception to the rule. When there is too much money, as happened in NASDAQ, as happened elsewhere, you make bad decisions and you have to pay for them.

But what fascinated me about Dubai was not whether or not it could continue to deliver double-digit rates of return on investment. What it was, was that Dubai didn’t have much money, like Turkey or Indonesia. It’s actually the poorest of the Persian Gulf emirates. Its oil was never too much and it has been declining. It had to earn its keep. So it came up with the idea that if it created a regulatory environment and it created the right situation, other people would come and do business in Dubai. It actually became a virtual business place.

Who did business in Dubai? There were Americans and Europeans and Indians and Chinese, et cetera. But a lot of Muslims went to Dubai. What you saw in Dubai was that when they were freed from the rigid economies of their own countries, they behaved exactly like the businessmen in Kayseri, which means that they engaged the global economy in meaningful ways.

But also equally interesting is that Dubai, for a time period, became the most desired destination for Muslims to go to, for holiday or to live in. Why did the Muslims love Dubai? It’s not because it’s a Taliban-like Shariah land. It’s because it was a cross between Las Vegas, Rodeo Drive, and Disneyland. That’s what they liked about it.

Who would go to Dubai? It was the upwardly mobile Muslim middle class. So the consumption habits of Muslim middle classes is not jihad. They don’t go to Dubai to die. They go to Dubai to eat well, live well, stay in chic hotels.

I quote in my book one businessman who said, “What I love about Dubai is that you stay at five-star hotels and you pray at five-star mosques.”

It’s the mark of affluence. When middle classes emerge and they are affluent, they behave like middle classes everywhere else. They want quality of life. It doesn’t mean they automatically secularize overnight. But it means that their consumption choices, what they demand, are in tune with their station in life.

This should be intuitive to us, because we clearly understand that part of the problem with extremism is frustration and lack of opportunity and lack of jobs. I remember a few years ago, I asked the father of somebody who had gone to jihad in Kashmir from Pakistan why he would want his son to risk his life and go fight a jihad.

He said, “Let him go and die in a jihad. There is absolutely no future for him, no life for him.”

At least if he died in a jihad, he would bring honor to his family and to his village. That’s the best thing he can actually hope for. It was a rational choice he was making.

But we often don’t understand the obverse of this. We say we need to create jobs for these young people and we need to clean up poverty as a form of social action. But we don’t look at the other side. When there is wealth in society and when you actually do have a middle class, then societies will begin to stabilize. They will be much more likely to be open. You will even get a very different discussion about religion.

For instance, there is now ubiquity of satellite television in the Arab world. It’s something like 280 channels. If you look farther afield to Turkey and Malaysia, there are even more. There is plenty of religious programming on this TV, and a lot of it is the same old material.

But what’s interesting is that some of the most popular religious television programs are by a new breed of televangelists, who dress in three-piece suits or in polo shirts and don’t speak from mosques, but in town halls or in chic hotels, address much more affluent audiences. The message is conservative, but it is pro-globalization and it’s pro-business. It’s the kind of religiosity, again, that the affluent would favor.

The phenomenon is there because there is a market for it. We know where a phenomenon is by looking at its footprints. You look at this television phenomenon and you say, who watches these? Who goes to these town halls to listen to these New Age televangelists? It’s those same middle classes that also like to go vacation in Dubai. That’s their vacation destination; it’s their choice of religiosity.

Is it sizable? It is growing. It’s not growing as fast as we would like, but it is growing. We are not doing much to help it, let’s put it that way. Even though we are worried about the Muslim world, we’re not quite on par with what needs to be done.

If you looked at another interesting indication in the Muslim world, we would see what the potential is. Religion of Islam, much like medieval Catholicism, does not allow you to charge interest. You have to have banking services, financial services, that are interest-free. That makes for very difficult banking. For a very long time, sort of woolly-brained clerics would come with half-baked ideas in Pakistan and Egypt about interest-free economics. And it never worked. It never worked until Citibank and Deutsche Bank and Bank Paribas, et cetera, decided to make it work. They made Islamic finance profitable.

Why would bankers do that? Bankers would only do that if there is a market. Bankers would always look for new products to sell to a niche market, where there is money. Western banks understood that there was a huge demand for Islamic finance. Why is this demand growing? This demand is growing, obviously, because there are people who have money to put there. It’s not just oil money.

The point is that there is a middle class that is growing, that would like to mix capitalism with religion. In the past years, Islamic finance has been the most rapidly growing segment of global finance. It’s still a drop in the bucket, but it has been growing. Even last year during the downturn in the global economy, the size of the Islamic finance market grew by 30 percent globally.

And it’s not just banking; it’s insurance, it’s mutual funds, and it’s also Islamic bonds. In other words, there are plenty of people in the Muslim world who will not buy regular bonds, because they pay interest.

If you want their money, if you want to bring their money into the system, you have to give them a product that they will buy. Plenty of companies and countries are doing that. Ford Motor Company financed the purchase of Aston Martin partly by issuance of Islamic bonds. Caribou Coffee, which is America’s second-largest specialty coffee retailer after Starbucks, was purchased by a company in the Persian Gulf with issuance of Islamic bonds. There are now governments that are issuing Islamic bonds as sort of solvent bonds to raise money for a variety of projects.

Kuala Lumpur and Dubai have been so far the capitals of Islamic finance. The city that is most aggressively competing for Islamic finance is London, which is trying to become a hub for Islamic finance activity.

Islamic finance is one area, but again it shows the importance of this phenomenon in the Muslim world.

We want the Muslim world to follow the history of Europe, basically, which means to go through Reformation and Enlightenment and arrive at secularism, at some level. We hope that it will follow the same historical trajectory. But whether that’s right or wrong, there’s one big piece of this which we have factored out. This didn’t happen in Europe because of an intellectual debate. Europe did not go through this process because of an intellectual debate.

In other words, a very big part of the process in the West was the rise of capitalism and what capitalism and markets did to societies. Within society, what was the engine of change?

It wasn’t the poorest of the poor. It wasn’t the peasants that were championing new ideas and new ways of doing things and pushing for technology and ideas. It was the middle class. And “middle class” does not just mean the middle belt of society. It means a social class that’s tied to the market.

In a lot of parts of the Muslim world, the market is missing. It’s not tied to the global economy. Therefore, you don’t have a middle class—the right kind of middle class. Therefore, it’s not a surprise that the Muslim world is not embarking on the historical process that the West would like to happen.

When you look at countries like, for instance, Iran—you look at the elections last summer. We only looked at the political end result of the process. The Iranian economy has been opening up from the 1990s to greater privatization. It gave rise to a middle class in Iran. It’s not all-powerful. But if you look at who supports reform in Iran, it’s the middle class. They are the ones who, because they are wealthier, want to consume better culture, have more opportunities, have access to the world. They want to do trade with the world. They want to get financing with the world. They have an interest in transformation. They have the knowledge, skills, they have literacy, et cetera.

Who resists this change are those who depend on government entitlements, who have no interest in the market, have no interest in any change in the current status quo.

Ultimately, the force for change there, too, has to do with the market.

Just in conclusion, none of this is really rocket science. It’s not new. We’ve had many parts of the world go through this process. We have Latin America going through this process in the 1990s. We have Eastern Europe going through this process, Asia going through this process. We single-handedly helped Mexico, in a sense, to hitch its wagons to globalization and transform that area of the world.

It doesn’t mean that the problems everywhere have been solved. There is plenty of poverty in Mexico, even though the country’s economy is part of the global economy and it’s developing a democracy. Still there is a massive drug problem in Mexico. The state has a lot of weaknesses.

India, similarly, is a great story but still has to solve a lot of poverty and social issues.

But we understand the process. When it comes to the Muslim world, in my opinion, we don’t look at it in the right way. If we really were to think long-run about how you get the Muslim world from where it is to a completely different plane, you have to think about how you would open their economies to the global economy, how you would make more countries go the way of Turkey or Indonesia, and how you would want to create a middle class across the Muslim world, from Morocco to Malaysia, who would be vested in the global economy, who would want to vacation in Dubai, whose views would be much more in tune with global views.

We shouldn’t care so much that the Muslim world is secular. We should care a lot more that the Muslim world is capitalist. That matters a lot more.

Thank you.

Questions and Answers

QUESTION: You’ve used the word “we” over and over again in your remarks: “We aren’t doing the right thing.” “We have to do something different to transform the Muslim world.” Most people talking these days about Iran, Afghanistan talk about the government, the United States government or the European Union governments.

Could you talk a little bit more about what you mean by “we”? Then you put a verb next to it—”should do” this, that, or the other to develop a capitalist economy. Is this the banking system of the West that you’re talking about? Is there a role for governments or multilateral institutions? Maybe you could just explain this a little more.

VALI NASR: Sure. The process that we have experience with is a process in which a combination of Western governments, international financial agencies, like the IMF, and private banks deal with governments as a whole to help them reform. The basis of this reform, very generally put, is that they need to remove their tariff barriers, change their laws, become receptive to direct foreign investment, change the regulatory environment, change their currency levels—so to go from being a protected economy to a much more open economy.

In response to that, then you would begin to encourage direct foreign investment in those countries, based on what they can produce. Then you also have to open your markets to them.

That’s what we did when the Mexican economy was collapsing in the 1980s, to force on Mexico a devaluation of the peso, the removal of the tariff barriers. That went hand in hand with giving close to $40 billion in loans and other forms of immediate support to stabilize the Mexican economy, but also opening global markets—in this case, particularly the American market—to Mexican goods.

Sure, there are political costs associated with this. But there are political costs associated with not doing it as well. That’s a debate one ought to have.

The same happened in Eastern Europe. How Germany there led the way, with Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, et cetera, was to infuse a huge amount of money into their industrial infrastructure, to rebuild it, rejuvenate it. Money went in to take those Soviet-era industries and retool them, build them up, in exchange for which those countries agreed to reform their laws, their economic structures, and then Western Europe opened itself to goods that came from those economies.

QUESTION: Vali, you mentioned at the beginning that this kind of thing has to come from within, that it can’t be imposed from the outside. Then you also, fascinatingly, talked about the televangelists and the amount of communication in the Muslim world. Is the word getting to some of the hard nutcases? You mentioned Iran, but how about Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia? Are there individual people in those societies who are looking at the examples of Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey that you have talked about this morning?

VALI NASR: Some are. For instance, Morocco has been looking at Turkey, very clearly. Morocco is a little bit farther along because it has some kinds of arrangements for economic integration with Europe. Jordan, similarly, has a free-trade deal with the United States. But these haven’t gone forward. These are sort of the first steps that have been taken.

Countries are most interested in doing something that are in the same spot that Mexico or Argentina or Brazil was in the 1980s. Countries that are very oil-rich or get a lot of money from the outside tend not to have an incentive for change. First of all, change is painful and it’s difficult. Nobody wants to do it unless you have to. A lot of these countries—changing them is kind of like trying to restructure GM. You’re not going to do it unless you really have to do it, and then there is a lot of difficulty managing it.

Let me put it this way. It does help if you have more Turkeys and Indonesias in the Muslim world. That means that we should look for cases that are not near success and help them become successful. That means that Yemen or Somalia is not a good place to start, because that’s such an uphill battle. There are plenty of countries that have relatively good industrial infrastructure, large economies. They are more like where Argentina and Brazil were 15, 20 years ago. You want to create a sort of wave effect over there.

The other countries that are not good to go after are places like Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is too oil-wealthy to really need a middle class. If the government doesn’t really need the money that the business community would generate from trade, why exactly would it want to open up?

That actually goes to the heart of the debate in Iran. Iran began to privatize its economy when oil was $30 a barrel in the 1990s. When oil went to $140 a barrel, it decided that it can just have a very simple economy. The government gets the money and it funds the entitlement programs. Even if you thought about what would eventually make the decision in Iran, it will be decided by the economics of the country.

QUESTION: Thank you for being so perceptive and so encouraging. I just thought of another question. The first one is about Iran, which you know very well. You talked about present-day Iran. But there was the Iran under the shah, where the middle class became quite influential. Here you have a case study where the middle class was doing fine, but other things intervened, and now there are new possibilities.

The second question is about history. If we talk about Turkey, you have to remember the Ottoman Empire, when Turkey was the center of a vast trading network and was very wealthy. This is true throughout the area.

A country you haven’t mentioned is Syria or Lebanon—very much on the trading routes, very influential centers, Aleppo, Damascus, whatever it is, that have had influence in the past. Is this strengthening the possibilities for the middle class in these countries?

VALI NASR: Let me answer your second question first. When you meet a Lebanese, you understand what a businessman ought to be. The Lebanese, as you said, have a long history of business. In fact, it’s very clear that the problem is not that they don’t understand business or they have woolly-brained ideas about abandoning the world. They’re all about business. The problem is not them. It’s not their ethics. It’s not their culture or their abilities. The problem is the environment in which they operate. Lebanon had a relatively open state. It could do very well. The problem is the fractured nature of the country. In other words, you don’t have a state. There is no agreement about the state. You cannot do business or build a business economy where you don’t have an actual country.

It’s the same problem in Iraq right now. There is a boundary, but there’s no functioning political society there.

Syria is a rigid dictatorship. It’s not open to the world. If you were to open up Syria, you would have to tell them to remove tariff barriers, change their laws, make Syria business-friendly, let outside investors come and build things. You would have an impact. Some of this, actually, Turkish businessmen, as they are becoming wealthier, are beginning to do. Western businessmen don’t go into Syria, but Turkish businessmen have begun to expand their horizons and do this.

The wealth and history of Levant—this is the sort of the Mediterranean area—and the Ottoman Empire does matter. It makes them more receptive.

But it’s true of everywhere. You have places that have more tendency of inventing the wheel; there are the right circumstances. But once the wheel is invented, you don’t need to invent it again; you just need to copy it and borrow it. So the Turks may have been better positioned to do what they did. But others can merely copy that model. They don’t need to do all of it again.

The country that would have been closest to Turkey is Iran. In fact, my book deals extensively with the middle class under the shah. It was the wrong kind of middle class. It was a middle class that was wealthy and secular, and it became Marxist and it became religious and it essentially destroyed its own future in that country. Why did it do that? Because it had no relationship to markets. It was a middle class that became wealthy because the country had oil. It was a lot more like the Saudi middle class.

So the lesson of Iran is that it doesn’t matter if your middle class is secular. It matters that it’s a real middle class. The problem with Iran was that they were all secular. But so what? They had no relationship to global markets. They had no relationship to capitalism. They turned left and they became a facilitator for the Islamic Revolution.

QUESTION: As far as trade and development and the subjects that you were discussing are concerned, what is the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference] position? What is their influence on doing exactly what you say?

VALI NASR: Not much on these issues. OIC works as an international organization, much like an Islamic subcategory, say, to a United Nations. It does more in terms of conflict resolution, getting consensus on issues, whether they are medical issues, health issues, or political issues. But organizations of this kind don’t interfere in one another’s domestic affairs. They are much better at solving international-conflict issues than dealing with domestic issues.

So not much. Actually, OIC doesn’t have anything similar to, say, UNDP, the United Nations Development Programme, which then, you would say, has been charged specifically with helping with economic issues. For instance, there are no funds in the Muslim world that were created to help countries who want to undergo financial restructuring, to provide them with the kinds of things that the IMF provides to others.

At the end of the day, every Muslim country that wishes to embark on this—or we, say, at some point, force them to embark on this—would have to deal with the same international bodies, which are the World Bank and the IMF, Western banks, and then Western economies.

This may change in the future. If you begin having a Turkey that becomes a much bigger global, regional player, then it may play a much more influential role in the economies of countries where you have a lot of Turkish businesses functioning. These are typically, right now, countries like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, et cetera, where now a lot of Turkish multinationals are very active. But we’re not there yet.

QUESTION: I think your example of Turkey is quite instructive, in the sense that it is indeed a Muslim country that is far more modern and advanced than many in the region. However, there are two tendencies in Turkey, the way I see it. You have two rising modern middle classes. One is, traditionally, the secular class that also represented the military, which was promoting secularism in the tradition of Kemal Ataturk. At the same time, it was really behind the scenes, I would say, running the economy. Today we have a Muslim-rooted new middle class, which is becoming very wealthy. It’s Islamic, but it’s wealthy.

In the first case, the military, of course, in my view, used, to some extent, religion, Islam, as an instrumental value, not necessarily for modernization, but for Turkish nationalism. In the second case, the new rising middle class, which is Muslim-rooted, is using modernity, if you wish, also as an instrument for Turkish nationalism.

So one is tempted to apply the Huntingtonian kind of view, where a country is becoming more modern or wants to apply modernity, but not necessarily become Western in the sense of liberal democracy as such. In both cases, the military and the Islamic-rooted government, you have more resistance at the same time as you have a tendency to engage in globalized economy and become more modern. There is a resistance to what we term Islam liberal democracy.

VALI NASR: You are very correct in your assessment. I would say liberal democracy in Turkey would have to come over time. It has to come with practice. In other words, the longer the experiment continues, the more elections you have, the more the process goes through, the more likely it is that it would improve and become open and better.

Clearly, the door of Europe being closed has not been good, because it was a compass and a set of criteria that kept the Turks in line. I think Turkey may have made a turning point and at least it’s on the right path. It may not get there as fast as it would have if it was joining Europe, but it may still get there.

About the two middle classes, it’s absolutely true. Nowhere else do you see this other than in Turkey, that you have an old middle class, which is similar to the one that existed in Iran, that was created by Kemalism, is very secular. It was the culture of Kemalism. It was very connected to the Turkish state and to the old Turkish economy, which was these large enterprises. Then you have this new middle class that came. They didn’t have a seat at the table when you had government-controlled economies. Only when the economy opened up did they get the opportunity. They are sort of your Kayseri businessmen, whereas the other ones are your Istanbul businessmen.

There is a lot more cross-fertilization. They are culturally very different. In other words, one is secular. The women would not be wearing any headscarves. They would be Westernized. They would see Turkey as very European. The other ones would be culturally much more traditional, if not Islamic, at least a sort of conservative Anatolian culture.

But what’s important is that the businessmen in these communities have a set of shared interests. One is that they have shared interests around what is good for the Turkish economy. An economy that in the past five, six years brought in $50 billion of direct foreign investment or has so many exports—whether you’re secular or you’re religious, you have a vested interest in that. That comes up in issues of whether or not the Turkish military should intervene. For instance, the secular businessmen also now begin to say no, because as much as they like it, the military’s culture may not be favorable to the impact it might have on the economy.

The second one is that there is a consensus between them over democracy. A global economy ultimately functions best if you have a certain political openness. But democracy, by definition, brings all kinds of views out. If you’re religious, you’re going to vote for somebody who is more religious. Democracy cannot keep you out of the process, unless you violate a particular law.

So what we have in Turkey—they are negotiating. There is consensus and there is disagreement. But the main driver here is business, capitalism, which has sort of created this dynamism. Turkey is not done yet. We’re not at the end. But the important thing is that the experiment continues.

QUESTION: I have a question about the difference between the two banking systems that you talked about. Can you explain that a little better, the banking system in the Muslim world and the banking system in the Western world?

VALI NASR: Most of the banking system in the Muslim world is secular banking here. It’s just that there is now a niche market that is emerging that is catering to pious Muslims, who do not want to engage in banking practices that they believe are against their religion.

What it is that the Muslims most have a problem with is interest rates. In Islam it’s forbidden to charge interest or to give interest, because in Islam the belief is that you can only make money based on effort and skill, and interest as seen as usury. Catholicism found a way around this. The Muslims have not theologically found a way around it. But the banking system has found a way around it, which is to make banking compatible with finance.

In Islam also it says that you cannot speculate on—well, I’ll explain. First of all, financial products are made like profit sharing. In other words, the bank won’t give you an interest. It essentially treats you as a partner in a venture, and then you are subject to risk and reward accordingly. It’s much more like putting money in a company. It’s much more like venture capital than finance.

If you take out an Islamic car loan—and there are plenty now available in Chicago, in the West—and some of this may be sleight of hand at times, but the point is that there is a need to do that—they can structure all the payments into a deferred payment. At the end of the day, they end up paying the same amount for the car, except it’s not interest. The price of the car is a lot higher, and you just get a deferred payment on it.

There’s a lot of debate about which of these work, which don’t work. Most financial institutions now have a CSO, which is a chief Shariah officer. It rhymes with “CFO.” They give verdicts on things that are a bit shady.

In Islam you are not allowed to speculate on speculation. In other words, all financial activity has to be tied to something tangible, which means assets. That’s why real estate figures so importantly. That’s one of the problems that caused difficulty for Dubai—overinvestment in real estate.

So, yes, it has limits. Nobody is saying that Islamic finance is a great solution and we ought to do it. I look at it essentially as an indicator of a certain kind of demand, which then signals to you the presence of a particular class.

There are all kinds of innovative ways of allowing Muslims to engage in economy without paying interest rates. When you put your money in a bank, the bank also turns around and loans the money. The bank essentially doesn’t loan the money. The bank invests in the business, and you are part investor with the bank in that business. You cannot invest in air. You cannot invest in a lot of the speculative financial products we do. Most often it has to be connected to some kind of tangible business. Either it’s a factory or it’s real estate or it’s something else.

In the case of Dubai, there was so much money coming in because of the boom in the region that there were not enough tangible businesses. It was much easier to keep putting the money in real estate. So you created a real estate bubble because of the absence of the ability to lend, for instance, to interest-bearing banks in the West, et cetera.

QUESTION: Thank you for your very invaluable comments.

Based on my experience as ambassador to Kuwait, I buy your arguments as very useful tools for prediction of the future of Muslim society. Generally speaking, the financial crisis has some adverse impact in terms of dismantling or weakening the middle class. That is a general observation. It varies in terms of how it could terminate the middle class. But based on such kind of a negative impact of the financial crisis in the middle class, I wonder if that kind of general observation could be applicable to the Middle East case.

VALI NASR: That’s a very good point.

QUESTIONER: That’s my first question. I have one comment.

I narrow down my comment on why people go to Dubai. The expansion of Dubai was accelerated in the wake of 9/11. There are many reasons. But they tried to find other spots to visit. In the wake of 9/11, the issues of visas were very cumbersome for the Arab countries. Even though they got some U.S. visas, they do not want to be understood as neighbors of extreme terrorists. That’s why they were seeking some other place as an alternative to going to the United States.

My observation is that Dubai is kind of a byproduct of U.S. policy in the wake of 9/11. That’s why the U.S. foreign policy has some great impact on that issue. That’s my general comment.

VALI NASR:
On your first point, you’re correct. There are two things that make it much more difficult for this process to happen. One is the downturn in the global economy, for the reason that there’s less money to invest and it does create certain protectionist tendencies. Also there is less demand available in the West with which to support the rise of a middle class where it doesn’t exist. That’s a challenge.

But one ought to think that ultimately, post the global financial downturn, when there is the opportunity—one ought to look at how the global economy can solve this problem in the Muslim world.

The other issue is that, whether there is a downturn in the global economy or upturn, in my opinion, there’s no other way for the Muslim world. Really, when you look at these countries—Egypt, Yemen, Bangladesh, Pakistan, each with over 60 percent population under 25, with their economies not generating jobs, and also with no middle class that would provide for innovation, for culture, for the kinds of directions that you want—these countries are going to lag further and further behind other areas of the world that have globalized.

You look at social composition—take Korea. You say in Korea the middle class is this percentage of the economy and this percentage of the population. You look at a similar-size country in the Muslim world, and you say the middle class is absent altogether.

So unless we come around and say, “You know what? We’re not going to solve extremism and fundamentalism. We just have to find a way to live with it”—that’s one answer. But if we are looking for a solution, in my opinion, there is no solution outside of an economic solution. Even if the global downturn causes a challenge to us because a lot of automatic mechanisms are not there, we have to still think of ways to persevere.

Your point about Dubai is actually correct. There are others who benefited from this. For instance, Qatar’s Education City also benefited because a lot of people don’t want to get or cannot get student visas. The education system in Australia and New Zealand benefited enormously from the closure of the American education market to many aspirants.

Your point is well-taken. There are two things that helped Dubai. One was that not as many Muslims could go to the West, and also not as many Muslims wanted their money in the West, either because of the Patriot Act or because they were angry. Dubai was smart enough to understand that there was business opportunity in both of these.

But, still, the class that is most affected by the U.S. policy is the middle class and above. In other words, whether it’s education, visas, travel, it’s not the poor in Egypt or in Yemen or in the Arab countries which will be going to Geneva or London or Washington for vacation. It would have been this middle class. So the fact that this middle class then turned to Dubai, either to invest its money or to do business or to go on vacation, allows us to see its footprint and its behavior.

Yes, Dubai became the Mecca for the Muslim middle class, initially because it took advantage of the opportunity, but then it ultimately became idealized. But the interesting point is that when you see a particular market, you tend to generate your product in the direction of that market. If the Muslims coming to Dubai only wanted religion, then you would have had to create something very different for them. But it was very clear that those who came really wanted a middle-class quality of life, and that’s what Dubai had to produce for them.

But you’re right. Dubai was a beneficiary of that and then of a higher oil price boom as well.

Thank you very much.

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on December 21st, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

In Iraq, an opening for successful diplomacy. Remember Iraq? For months our attention has been focused on Afghanistan, and you can be sure that the surge will be covered exhaustively as it unfolds in 2010. But next year could be even more pivotal in Iraq.

By Fareed Zakaria
An Opinion Column in The Washington Post. Monday, December 21, 2009
The country will hold elections in March to determine its political future. Months of parliamentary horse-trading are likely to ensue, which could provoke a return to violence. The United States still has 120,000 troops stationed in Iraq, and all combat forces are scheduled to leave by August, further testing the country’s ability to handle its own security. How we draw down in Iraq is just as critical as how we ramp up in Afghanistan: If handled badly, this withdrawal could be a disaster. Handled well, it could be a significant success.

Let’s review some history. The surge in Iraq was a success in military terms. It defeated a nasty insurgency, reduced violence substantially and stabilized the country. But the purpose of the surge was, in President George Bush’s formulation, to give Iraq’s leaders a chance to resolve their major political differences. It was these differences — particularly between Sunnis and Shiites — that fueled the civil war in the first place. If they were not resolved, the war might well begin anew or take some other form that would doom Iraq to a breakup or a breakdown.

Iraq’s political differences have not been resolved. The most fraught remains the tussle between the Shiites, the Muslim sect that comprises a majority of the population, and the Sunnis, a minority that has traditionally been the country’s elite. The simplest indication that issues between these two communities remain unsettled is the fact that only a few of the 2 million Iraqis who fled the country from 2003 to 2007 — the vast majority of whom were Sunni — have returned. (Firm numbers are hard to come by, but they did not add up to more than a few tens of thousands as of this summer.) This month the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reaffirmed that Iraq remains a dangerous place for members of minority groups and that they should therefore not be forced to return to Iraq.

Sunnis in Iraq remain politically marginalized. And there are growing tensions with the Kurds, who run an autonomous quasi-state in Iraq’s north. The Kurds control three of Iraq’s 18 provinces but lay claim to three important cities just across the border from Iraqi Kurdistan that have mixed populations. They have also been flouting the central government’s authority regarding oil contracts, negotiating 30 deals of their own and blocking the flow of oil out of the Kurdish region. Add to these problems disputes over the drawing of boundaries and election rules.

The basic challenge sounds simple but is extremely difficult to meet. Iraq needs a stable power-sharing deal that keeps all three groups invested in the new country. To make this happen, all three will need to compromise. And the central positive force in all of this can be the United States. In the early years of the occupation, the Bush administration never pushed the Iraqi government enough to force officials to cut deals. This was a historic error because Washington had enormous political leverage with the Iraqis at the time. Even later, the Bush administration shied away from pressing the Iraqis too hard, a common thread in its relations with Afghans and Pakistanis, too.

Yet the United States continues to have considerable influence in Iraq. By all accounts, U.S. diplomacy has been crucial to getting the Kurds to agree to the March elections. President Obama is reported to have called Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and pressed him to withdraw his objections to the election legislation, removing the final obstacle. As American troops draw down, American diplomacy should get aggressive and persistent, pushing the three groups to resolve the basic issues of power sharing.

The costs of the Iraq war have been great and perhaps indefensible. But Iraq could still turn out to be an extraordinary model for the Arab world. Its people are negotiating their differences for the most part peacefully; its politics is becoming more pluralistic and democratic; its press is free; its provinces have autonomy; its focus has shifted to business and wealth creation, not religion and jihad. At a conference in Baghdad last October, the Iraq government focused on its current obsession — investment. It released a well-produced document, “Open for Business,” that details the business opportunities that await capitalists in Iraq. Politics in Iraq feels different from other Arab countries. Friday sermons in Baghdad are mostly about the corruption and competence of Iraq politicians, not the evil designs of America of the perfidy of the Jews. It could be the weakening of the victim complex in which the Arab world has been stuck — forever seeing itself as acted upon by foreign forces and never in charge of its own destiny.

In 2010, the Obama administration has a window of opportunity to push these positive trends forward. If they stay engaged, are successful, and get lucky, perhaps this is what America will ultimately be remembered for in Iraq.

Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International. His e-mail address is  comments at fareedzakaria.com.

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 6th, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

Troubling Portrait of Suspect Emerges.
By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE ,  AP

WASHINGTON (Nov. 5) - His name appears on radical Internet postings. A fellow officer says he fought his deployment to Iraq and argued with soldiers who supported U.S. wars. He required counseling as a medical student because of problems with patients.
There are many unknowns about Nidal Malik Hasan, the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base. Most of all, his motive. But details of his life and mindset, emerging from official sources and personal acquaintances, are troubling.

For six years before reporting for duty at Fort Hood, Texas, in July, the 39-year-old Army major worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center pursuing his career in psychiatry, as an intern, a resident and, last year, a fellow in disaster and preventive psychiatry. He received his medical degree from the military’s Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.
While an intern at Walter Reed, Hasan had some “difficulties” that required counseling and extra supervision, said Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.
Grieger said privacy laws prevented him from going into details but noted that the problems had to do with Hasan’s interactions with patients. He recalled Hasan as a “mostly very quiet” person who never spoke ill of the military or his country.
“He swore an oath of loyalty to the military,” Grieger said. “I didn’t hear anything contrary to those oaths.”
But, more recently, federal agents grew suspicious.
At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.
They had not determined for certain whether Hasan is the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.
One of the officials said late Thursday that federal search warrants were being drawn up to authorize the seizure of Hasan’s computer.
Retired Army Col. Terry Lee, who said he worked with Hasan, told Fox News that Hasan had hoped President Barack Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Lee said Hasan got into frequent arguments with others in the military who supported the wars, and had tried hard to prevent his pending deployment.
Hasan attended prayers regularly when he lived outside Washington, often in his Army uniform, said Faizul Khan, a former imam at a mosque Hasan attended in Silver Spring, Md. He said Hasan was a lifelong Muslim.

“I got the impression that he was a committed soldier,” Khan said. He spoke often with Hasan about Hasan’s desire for a wife.
On a form filled out by those seeking spouses through a program at the mosque, Hasan listed his birthplace as Arlington, Va., but his nationality as Palestinian, Khan said.
“I don’t know why he listed Palestinian,” Khan said, “He was not born in Palestine.”

Nothing stood out about Hasan as radical or extremist, Khan said.
“We hardly ever got to discussing politics,” Khan said. “Mostly we were discussing religious matters, nothing too controversial, nothing like an extremist.”

Hasan earned his rank of major in April 2008, according to a July 2008 Army Times article.
He served eight years as an enlisted soldier. He also served in the ROTC as an undergraduate at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg. He received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry there in 1997.
Associated Press writers Lara Jakes, Pam Hess, Lolita C. Baldor and Brett Zongker in Washington and Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

—————-
Press Release from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee:
ADC Appalled by Attack on Fort Hood, Community Urged to Take Safety Precautions.

Washington, DC | November 5, 2009 | www.adc.org | The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is appalled by the attack that took place earlier today against soldiers and others at Fort Hood, Texas. Preliminary news reports have indicated that a rogue Army Major Malik Hasan and two others shot and killed at least 12 people and injured numerous others.

ADC President Mary Rose Oakar said, “This attack is absolutely deplorable. ADC has been consistent and on record in condemning any attacks aimed at innocents, no matter who the victims or the perpetrators may be.  Such violence is morally reprehensible and has nothing to do with any religion, race, ethnicity, or national origin.  ADC urges the FBI and law enforcement agencies to make every effort to see that justice is served.” Oakar continued, “ADC also calls upon law enforcement agencies to provide immediate protection for all Mosques, community centers, schools, and any locations that may be identified or misidentified with being Arab, Muslim, South Asian or Sikh as a clear backlash has already started.  The actions of a few should not invite a backlash on innocent members of any community and we urge law enforcement and others to keep that in mind.

Additionally, due to these tragic developments, ADC is releasing the following advisory statement to members of the Arab, Muslim, South Asian, and Sikh American communities. ADC feels it prudent to issue this advisory statement due to the potential of a backlash against these communities and given the historically documented acts of hate-motivated violence including vandalism against these communities.

ADC would like to emphasize that it is issuing this advisory based on experiences in the community in recent years, and purely as a precautionary measure. ADC presents these suggestions for the consideration of the Arab, Muslim, South Asian, and Sikh American communities, to be evaluated by each family and individual according to their own best judgment and in the context of their own situation and relationship with their local community. ADC urges everyone to exercise common sense and rely on their own best judgment, but offers the following as suggestions should the need arise:

1) IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW IS PLACED IN PHYSICAL DANGER BECAUSE OF YOUR ETHNICITY, RELIGION, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN:

Call the police (dial 911 in most communities)

Contact the local FBI office, It is the FBI’s job to investigate hate-motivated crimes and specific threats of violence. A list of FBI field offices is included on our website, please see: http://adc.org/fbi_field_office.htm

If the threat is imminent, go to a safe location such as a police station or church.

If you feel threatened in your home or community, move to a friend’s house, or a hotel for as long as necessary.

Contact ADC to file a complaint by emailing the ADC Legal Department at<  legal at adc.org > or by calling (202) 244-2990.

2) IF YOUR PLACE OF WORK, PLACE OF WORSHIP, OR SCHOOL IS IDENTIFIED OR CAN BE MISIDENTIFIED WITH ARABS AND/OR MUSLIMS:

Make sure the location has an open line of communication with law enforcement.

Make sure you know all the exits to your building.

Make sure the location has a current emergency plan that is defined and can be implemented should the need arise.

3) IF YOUR CHILD CAN BE IDENTIFIED AS ARAB OR MUSLIM, OR MAY BE CONFUSED FOR BEING OF MIDDLE-EASTERN ORIGIN:

Make sure you discuss the events with your children and that they feel comfortable speaking with an adult if they face harassment by others.

Make sure your children know what steps to take to avoid confrontation with other students.

Work with your children’s school to implement an anti-discriminatory policy.

Click on the following link for a list of the FBI Field Offices across the country: http://adc.org/fbi_field_office.htm

ADC would like to emphasize that it is issuing this advisory based on experiences in the community in recent years, and purely as a precautionary measure. ADC presents these suggestions for the consideration of the Arab, Muslim, South Asian, and Sikh American communities, to be evaluated by each family and individual according to their own best judgment and in the context of their own situation and relationship with their local community.
NOTE TO EDITORS: The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which is non sectarian and non partisan, is the largest Arab-American civil rights organization in the United States. It was founded in 1980, by former Senator James Abourezk to protect the civil rights of people of Arab descent in the United States and to promote the cultural heritage of the Arabs. ADC has 38 chapters nationwide, including chapters in every major city in the country, and members in all 50 states.

The ADC Research Institute (ADC-RI), which was founded in 1981, is a Section 501(c)(3) educational organization that sponsors a wide range of programs on behalf of Arab Americans and of importance to all Americans. ADC-RI programs include research studies, seminars, conferences and publications that document and analyze the discrimination faced by Arab Americans in the workplace, schools, media, and governmental agencies and institutions. ADC-RI also celebrates the rich cultural heritage of the Arabs.

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 11th, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

The Nobel Prize Committee that dishes out the Nobel Peace Prizes, included Barak Obama in the list of candidates just only two weeks into the Obama Presidency of the United States – let us face it – JUST BECAUSE HE WAS NOT G.W. BUSH – this in full recognition that the whole world had just felt extreme relief by having celebrated “good riddance”  of that US Presidency.

Now, less then nine full months of the Obama Presidency, with the papers full with news that the US will attain a 1,4 trillion deficit this year, with Obama deep in the mud in his effort to extricate the US from the Iraq oil war, and being pulled deeper into the Vietnam-alike Afghanistan war that was set on the back burner by the Bush people in their attempt to take over the oil of Iraq, thus creating the present AfPak disaster, those Republicans that can see nothing wrong with imposing on the US and the world the dependence on oil interests, just foam and furry about the world’s celebrating Obama.

Norway is a complicated State. It is an oil country, but it has a clear strata of pure humanists. They do not back a strong Europe as what they see as their national interest, but they love to see a strong US as they got their lesson in WWII that you must have a strong outside ally. A strong US is not the US of Abu Ghuraib or Guantanamo. They would rather see for the 21-st century a US of good education, racial calm, and national health care system. A US of high technology and science and that has vision and power to lead the world at a time that it becomes clear that global leadership is moving anyway away from the cross-Atlatic to the cross-Pacific. They hate the revival of monkey-trials and back sliding to middle ages that the US never had, but Europe knew so well. Rush Limbaugh found his European ally in Vaclav Klaus, and the Norwegians have no use for either – so they decided to give the prize to progressive America and hope that this will strengthen Obama in his efforts to change the America as it was left behind by the Cheney-Bush Washington DC forces.

The Republican leadership is left to chose between honest US patriotism, or back-stabbing mindless infighting.

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capitolist_newpatricia-murphy_picpatricia-murphy_name

Columnist
From Silence to Outrage, Republicans React to Nobel News
POSTED: 10/9/09
FILED UNDER:THE CAPITOLIST
1052 Comments   Even before President Obama stood in front of the Rose Garden microphones to react to the news of his Nobel Peace Prize, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele sent out a statement asking, “What has President Obama actually accomplished?”

Steele went on to rap both Obama and the Nobel committee, saying, “It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has out-shined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights. One thing is certain – President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.”

Steele’s harsh words fell at one end of the spectrum of Republican reaction Friday as party leaders and pundits navigated the tricky terrain of discussing an international honor for an American president. And, even some Democrats were left scratching their heads.

Rush Limbaugh took to the airwaves Friday to slam Obama’s “incompetence” and the Nobel committee’s bias.”I think the people who used to run the election board for Saddam Hussein’s government were hired by the Nobel committee here to tally the votes,” he said.

Fred Thompson, the former Republican presidential candidate and current radio host, wrote on his Twitter feed, “I awoke 2 THE ONION headline Obama had won Nobel Peace prize by appeasing all dictators of world.”

Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, said, “I don’t mean to compare Barack Obama to Gorbachev, who was, whatever his faults, a truly historic and courageous figure. But let’s hope the parallel extends this far: that a year from now the Democrats suffer a major electoral repudiation.”

Beyond media types and media seekers, elected Republican officials and potential candidates took a more muted, even positive, approach to the Nobel news.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a possible 2012 presidential candidate, said in a radio interview, “Regardless of the circumstances, anytime somebody wins a Nobel Prize I think an appropriate response is to say, ‘Congratulations’.”

Mike Huckabee, another possible 2012 contender, counseled Republicans on his Web site, “There will be an outcry from those on the right who will say that Obama’s nomination, made two weeks into his presidency, is impossible to justify, but I think such an outcry will sound like right-wing whining. The better response is simply to allow those on the left to explain what he did in his first two weeks as president that merited such recognition.”

Lou Zickar, editor of the moderate Republican Ripon Forum, said Republicans would have done themselves a favor by doing what the rest of America did: “scratch their heads and accept the award for what it is — an honor.” Zickar said Obama’s muted reaction showed his ability to find the right tone and “the complete inability of Republicans to do the same thing.”

Of course, Republicans weren’t the only ones guilty of post-prize hyperbole. In response to Steele’s missive, the Democratic National Committee fired off a statement saying the GOP had “no boundaries, no shame,” and had “thrown its lot in with the terrorists — the Taliban and Hamas this morning — in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize.”

In the meantime, the truly powerful Republicans in Washington took a different approach entirely. By the end of the day Friday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner had said nothing at all.

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 28th, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

IRAQ MUST STEP UP OVERSIGHT OF ITS RESOURCES, SECURITY COUNCIL SAYS – as reported August 28,2009 - in UN News.

The Security Council believes the Iraqi Government must take greater responsibility for the management of its own resources, the head of the United Nations body said today. 

The Council was briefed in a closed meeting today by UN Controller Jun Yamazaki on the fund administering proceeds from export sales of petroleum from Iraq, known as the Development Fund for Iraq. 

That Fund was established in 2003, the same year the Security Council phased out the oil-for-food programme, under which a sanctions-bound Iraq was allowed to use monitored oil sales revenue for humanitarian purchases. 

Also discussed in today’s meeting was the International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB), an independent body set up by the Council. 

“Council members expressed some concern about the need for further steps to improve the internal controls” in the Fund, Deputy Permanent Representative Philip John Parham of the United Kingdom, which holds the Council’s rotating presidency this month, told reporters following the consultations. 

In a report to the Council made public yesterday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the IAMB has found that the Committee of Financial Experts, created by Iraq’s Council of Ministers in 2006, is ready to assume oversight responsibilities of the Fund. 

“It will be important to ensure that a proper succession mechanism and process be considered,” the Secretary-General wrote. 

From its establishment in 2003 till the end of 2008, the Fund has received nearly $180 billion from oil exports, the balance of the oil-for-food funds held under escrow by the UN and proceeds from frozen assets, according to the report. 

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 13th, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

Smoking in Iraq

Butt out, please

Aug 13th 2009 | BAGHDAD
From The Economist print edition

Imposing the mother of all cigarette bans


AP More lethal than terrorists

IT’S the health and safety measure Iraqis have not been waiting for. The government in Baghdad last week banned smoking in public buildings. Anyone found lighting up will have to pay a fine equivalent to $4,300, enough to buy 17,200 packs of cigarettes at the local price of about 25 cents. “Do the politicians have nothing better to do?” asks Abu Yasser, as he takes a drag while filling up his car at a petrol station. “My cousin was recently murdered by terrorists, my neighbour was tortured by the police, my electricity is cut for most of the day, the same is true in most hospitals in the city. And they are worried about smoking?”

As soon as parliament ratifies the cabinet-imposed ban, Iraqi smokers will be forced to loiter on street corners exposed to car bombs and 45-degree heat in the summer. But according to a recent study, smoking kills an average of 55 Iraqis a day, compared to a current average of ten deaths daily from terrorist shootings or bombings. So the government argues that it is perfectly reasonable to outlaw smoking on public-health grounds.

Nonetheless, the ban has done nothing to improve the already low opinion many Iraqis have of their democratically elected government. “Bring back Saddam,” says a cigarette vendor. “We were free to smoke anywhere then.” Others link the ban to reports of torture in official detention. “Prisons are public buildings, right? So will they now prevent guards from stubbing out cigarettes on the arms, legs and backs of inmates?” asks one university student. With nerves jangled from years of upheaval, nicotine is often the first and only comfort. Stuck at checkpoints, Iraqis pass around cigarettes. Faced with recalcitrant bureaucrats, they do the same.

In parliament though, the ban is popular. Islamists want to get rid of tobacco outright. Of course, many ministers and MPs smoke too, often in their offices. But, given their elevated positions, few rules apply to them.

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 13th, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-arab-future-conspiracy-vs-reality

The Arab future: conspiracy vs reality.

In OpenDemocracy, Hazem Saghieh,  12 – 08 – 2009
A legal conflict between the daughters of former Egyptian presidents is a sad commentary on the Arab world’s condition, says Hazem Saghieh.
12 – 08 – 2009
he predicament of the Arab world is exposed in unexpected ways. Consider the following passage, part of a lengthy news-item in the 28 July 2009 edition of the London-based Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi:

“The judgment-enforcement services visited Dr Hoda Abdel Nasser’s apartment in the new Egyptian suburbs in order to seize her assets and furniture, in execution of a court judgment in favor of Ruqaya Sadat, daughter of late president Anwar Sadat. The south Cairo court had ordered [the daughter of Sadat's predecessor as Egypt's president, Gamal Abdel Nasser] to pay a 150,000 Egyptian-pound indemnity to Ruqaya, whom she had accused of tainting her father’s image after she had accused him of masterminding a plan to kill Gamal Abdel Nasser.”

Hazem Saghieh is senior commentator for the London-based paper al-Hayat

Hazem Saghieh’s articles onopenDemocracyinclude:

Rafiq al-Hariri’s murder: why do Lebanese blame Syria?” (21 February 2008)

Syria and Lebanon: keeping it in the family” (14 December 2005)

How the European left supports Lebanon” (14 August 2006)

Lebanon’s internal struggle: two logics in combat” (19 December 2006)

The Arab defeat” (11 June 2007)

Lebanon’s ‘14 March’: from protest to leadership” (1 April 2008)

Lebanon’s elections: reading the signs” (12 June 2009)

Iran: dialectic of revolution” (23 June 2009)

Arabs and the Iranian upheaval” (9 July 2009)

Hizbollah’s ‘divine victory’: three years on” (20 July 2009)

Israeli settlement, Arab movement” (28 July 2009)Hoda Abdel Nasser, the paper continued, had in 2008 lost a court case after describing Ruqaya Sadat as “the killer of my father” because he is “an American agent, and American newspapers have said this.”

The main characters in this drama are not ordinary ones: the daughter of Nasser, who ruled Egypt for eighteen years (July 1952-June 1970), and the daughter of Sadat, who ruled it for eleven years (June 1970-October 1981) – and the link between them nothing less than a murder accusation! It is obvious that there is enough material here to produce a long and entertaining soap opera.

The plot is irresistible, and rewrites Egypt’s modern history. The myth that Sadat was Nasser’s loyal companion, his vice-president, speaker of parliament and heir is at last exploded. Rather, he is an anti-Nasser plotter; and since he killed him politically (by turning away from his policies) couldn’t he also be his biological killer, and in the pay of the CIA?

The mix of farce and bathos here is accentuated by the story’s timing: days after the commemoration of the “July 23 revolution”, referring to themoment in 1952 when the young Nasser and his “free officer” colleagues seized power and changed Egypt for ever. The memory of this “revolution” is today so emptied of all meaning that the Israeli president Shimon Peres and his prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu could celebrate it in the Egyptian ambassador’s house in Tel Aviv. Indeed, the daughters’ dispute is all that this year has had to energise the occasion and refill its void with content.

But this content gives no ground for celebration. For what is on display here is only an exaggerated form of the conspiracy theories that are reaching unprecedented levels in Egypt and the Arab world. The leading Palestinian politician Farouk Qaddumi has accused the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas of killing Abbas’s own predecessor Yasser Arafat. It is surely time to ask: can the “natural” death of any Arab leader be taken as a fact? Is it possible for an Arab leader to die without being murdered?

The shared feature of the “murder victims”, Nasser and Arafat is that these very different political figures represent a way of thinking and behaving that is now dead. Since admitting its death is hard, a resort to conspiracy theories becomes for those who seek to “keep them alive” an urgent duty and necessary outlet.

The alternative, after all, is hard. It would require the parties involved to discard conspiracies and summon the courage to face the death of the political current that prevailed between the mid-1950s and the early 1970s, known as the Arab national-liberation movement.

The evidence, from the Maghreb to the Mashreq, is plain. The Algerian revolution, the jewel of this movement, produced a regime that incubated a civil war costing around 200,000 deaths. The Yemeni revolutions of north and south were followed by military coups, mutinies, and assassinations; the dream of “unity” between the two states has for many Yemenis turned into a nightmare. The Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi marries pan-Arabism one day only to divorce it the next. Sudan has been transformed from the time of Jaafar Nimeiri (who initiated his regime by liquidating Sudan’s Communist Party) into a state ruled by Islamists responsible for the Darfur genocide.

The Ba’ath party itself, crucible of the Arab nationalism mission and of the drive to unit the “eternal Arab nation”, split into two groups centred on Damascus and Baghdad; each then gave birth to further rival claimants. Before and since Saddam Hussein’s demise, the record of theBa’athists in power in both capitals was characterised by voices of family betrayal, siblings at war, sons and daughters exchanging shrill accusations of violating the scared cause. The circle here loops back to the daughters of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat – the repetition of history, but “the second time as farce”.

This spectacle, the death of an entire project, does not need conspiracies to grasp it. It only requires the tracing of the adventurous journey of the corpse, including Ayatollah Khomeini’s attempt to inherit it in 1979 and George W Bush’s very different effort to appropriate it in 2003.

Now, the decomposition is well advanced. To evade it, to prefer conspiracy to reality, is to allow the putrefaction to grow. Arabs can’t keep quiet much longer. Hoda and Ruqaya are the latest to disclose our family secret.


Also in openDemocracy on the Arab world in 2009:

Ghassan Khatib, “Gaza: outlines of an endgame” (6 January 2009)

Tarek Osman, “Egypt’s dilemma: Gaza and beyond” (12 January 2009)

Khaled Hroub, “Hamas after the Gaza war” (15 January 2009)

Prince Hassan of Jordan, “The failure of force: an alternative option” (16 January 2009)

Fred Halliday, “The greater middle east: Obama’s six problems” (21 January 2009)

Khaled Hroub, “The ‘Arab system’ after Gaza” (27 January 2009)

Joost R Hiltermann, “Iraq’s elections: winners, losers, and what’s next” (10 February 2009)

Prince Hassan of Jordan, “Palestine’s right: past as prologue” (11 February 2009)

Faisal al Yafai, “What makes the Arabs a people?” (25 February 2009)

Tarek Osman, “Democracy-support and the Arab world: after the fall” (17 March 2009)

Ginny Hill, “Yemen: the weakest link” (31 March 2009)

Zaid Al-Ali, “Lebanon: chronicles of an attempted suicide” (20 May 2009)

Robert G Rabil, “Lebanon at the crossroads” (5 June 2009)

Karim Kasim & Zaid Al-Ali, “The Cairo speech: Arab Muslim voices” (8 June 2009)

Zaid Al-Ali, “Iraq: face of corruption, mask of politics” (2 July 2009)

Fred Halliday, “Yemen: travails of unity” (3 July 2009)

Akiva Eldar, “Iran, the Arabs and Israel: the domino-effect” (27 July 2009)

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 12th, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

Shiites in Iraq Show Restraint as Sunnis Keep Attacking

12shiite.span.600

Moises Saman for The New York Times
Shiites prayed at a service in the Sadr City district of Baghdad in June. The area has been a frequent target of Sunni extremists.

BAGHDAD — Shiite clerics and politicians have been successfully urging their followers not to retaliate against a fierce campaign of sectarian bombings, in which Shiites have accounted for most of the 566 Iraqis killed since American troops pulled out of Iraq’s cities on June 30.

Related

Times Topics: Shiite Muslims

12shiite.inline.190

Ali al-Saadi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In one of many recent attacks on Shiites, a bomb hit a mosque in the Shaab district of Baghdad on July 31, killing 41 people.

“Let them kill us,” said Sheik Khudair al-Allawi, the imam of a mosque bombed recently. “It’s a waste of their time. The sectarian card is an old card and no one is going to play it anymore. We know what they want, and we’ll just be patient. But they will all go to hell.”

The patience of the Shiites today is in extraordinary contrast to Iraq’s recent past. With a demographic majority of 60 percent and control of the government, power is theirs for the first time in a thousand years. Going back to sectarian war is, as both Sunni extremists and Shiite victims know, the one way they could lose all that, especially if they were to drag their Sunni Arab neighbors into a messy regional conflict.

It is a far cry from 2006, when a bomb set off at the sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra killed no one, but ignited a fury at the sacrilege that set off two years of sectarian warfare.

This year the equally important shrine of Kadhimiya in Baghdad, the tomb of two revered Shiite imams, was attacked by suicide bombers twice, in January and April. More than a hundred people were killed, but there was no retaliation.

Bombing Shiite mosques has become so common that Sunni extremists have been forced to look elsewhere to provoke outrage — much as they did in 2005, when Shiites similarly showed patience when attacked. They have attacked groups of Shiite refugees waiting for food rations, children gathering for handouts of candy, lines of unemployed men hoping for a day’s work, school buses, religious pilgrimages, weddings, marketplaces and hospitals in Shiite areas and even the funerals of their victims from the day before.

Iraq’s Shiites, counseled by their political and religious leaders and habituated to suffering by centuries as the region’s underclass, have refused to rise to the bait — for now. Instead, they have made a virtue of forbearance and have convinced their followers that they win by not responding with violence. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has brought once violent Shiite militiamen into the fold, while the Shiites’ spiritual leader, Grand AyatollahAli al-Sistani, has forbidden any sort of violent reprisals.

“I wouldn’t look for this to become a repeat of 2006,” said the American ambassador to Iraq, Christopher R. Hill. “It’s very different.”

No longer are there tit-for-tat bombings of Sunni mosques after Shiite mosques are hit.

Now, even some of the most violent of Shiite extremists of past years are clamoring to join the political process. Last week, the Maliki government announced that Asa’ib al-Haq, one of the so-called special groups that continued to fight after other Shiites had stopped in 2008, now had renounced violence against Iraqis.

To some extent, the recent attacks against Shiites were expected, as many Iraqis braced for a general increase in violence after the American military withdrawal from towns and cities on June 30. On Monday, several bombs went off around Baghdad, and two huge truck bombs destroyed an entire village of Shiites from the Shabak minority near Mosul, in the north.

Ten days earlier, five mosques were bombed during Friday Prayer in poor areas around Baghdad, where followers of the anti-American cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, are numerous. In the bloodiest attack, at the Shoroufi mosque in the Shaab area, a car bomb hit an outdoor prayer area, killing 41 of Mr. Sadr’s followers.

More mosque bombings followed during Friday Prayer last week, and on Tuesday night, at least eight people were killed in twin bombings at a cafe and a mosque in the predominantly Shiite Al Amin area of the capital.

Sheik Allawi, the imam at Al Shoroufi, recounted the lesson another preacher gave a week after the bombing there. “He reminded them of Imam Hussein and drew a connection between his suffering and the Shoroufi bombing,” he said. “Blood will spill on the ground until the Mahdi shows up.”

Shiite Islam is all about patience and the long view, waiting for the hidden 12th imam, the Mahdi, to return and redeem the faith’s followers. And it is also about enduring suffering, as illustrated by the annual and always passionate commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the seventh-century Shiite saint, when many flagellate themselves in bloody displays of regret.

Anger after such bombings is common, but now it is more likely to be directed against failures by Iraqi security forces, not against Sunnis.

In 2006, people had little confidence in the security forces to protect them, so they turned to the militias instead. “The Iraqi Army is not the one people worried about three years ago,” said Ambassador Hill. “They were considered part of the problem a few years ago; now it’s an army that is broadly understood not to be engaged in sectarian violence.”

Militias got a bad name during that period, even among the people they were supposed to protect. Many were blamed for extorting money from their neighborhoods and carrying out kidnappings for profit. “The time of the militias is over and they will not come back,” said Sheik Abdullah al-Shimary, leader of the Shiite Al Shimer tribe in Diyala. “There are security forces now, and they are the ones who have the responsibility to control our areas.”

Another important factor is the influence the Shiite clerical leadership has over its followers, with Grand Ayatollah Sistani and other members of the howza, the top religious leadership, condemning any sort of violent reprisals.

“Sayid Moktada al-Sadr has told us in his instructions that we have to follow the orders of the howza,” said Sheik Jalil al-Sarkhey, the deputy head of the Sadr office in Sadr City, the huge Shiite slum in Baghdad. “We are all agreed; there will be no spilling of Iraqi blood.”

Another important difference has been the rejection by Sunni politicians of attacks on the Shiites, which was rarely heard in 2006. “The Sunnis openly and clearly are condemning these attacks,” said Ghassan al-Atiyyah, a political analyst who directs the Iraq Foundation for Democracy and Development. “And they’re all emphasizing that this is trying to stir up sectarian violence.”

Majid al-Asadi, a cleric in Najaf, said, “We will not react against these efforts to ignite sectarian conflict because that is exactly what our enemies want and not what our Iraqi people want.”

Still, some Shiite leaders warn that their patience will not be infinite. “As human beings, every person has his limits,” Sheik Sarkhey said. “So we ask God to protect us from any sectarian war.”

Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Basra, Karbala, Diyala and Baghdad.

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 26th, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED COLUMNISTS

* * *

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: July 25, 2009
Jalozai Camp, Pakistan

THE LOSERS HANG ON.

After spending a week traveling the frontline of the “war on terrorism” — from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan in the seas off Iran, to northern Iraq, to Afghanistan and into northwest Pakistan — I can comfortably report the following: The bad guys are losing.

Yes, the dominos you see falling in the Muslim world today are the extremist Islamist groups and governments. They have failed to persuade people by either their arguments or their performances in power that their puritanical versions of Islam are the answer. Having lost the argument, though, the radicals still hang on thanks to gun barrels and oil barrels — and they can for a while.

Because, while the radicals have failed miserably, our allies — the pro-Americans, the Muslim modernists, the Arab moderates — have not really filled the void with reform and good government of their own. They are winning by default. More on that later.

For now, though, it is obvious that everywhere they have won or seized power, the Islamists — in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon or Gaza — have overplayed their hands, dragged their societies into useless wars or engaged in nihilistic violence that today is producing a broad backlash from mainstream Muslims.

Think of this: In the late-1970s, two leaders made historic trips — President Anwar Sadat flew from Egypt to Israel and Ayatollah Khomeini flew from Paris to Tehran. For the last 30 years, politics in the Middle East and the Muslim world has, in many ways, been a struggle between their competing visions.

Sadat argued that the future should bury the past and that Arabs and Muslims should build their future based on peace with Israel, integration with the West and embracing modernity. Khomeini argued that the past should bury the future and that Persians and Muslims should build their future on hostility to Israel, isolation from the West and subordinating modernity to a puritanical Islam.

In 2009, the struggle between those two trends tipped toward the Sadatists. The fact that Iran’s ruling theocrats had to steal their election to stay in power and forcibly suppress dissent by millions of Iranians — according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Iran has surpassed China as the world’s leading jailer of journalists, with 41 now behind bars — is the most visible sign of this. The Taliban’s burning down of secular schools that compete with its mosques, and its peddling of heroin to raise cash, are also not exactly signs of intellectual triumph.

The same day that President Obama spoke to the Muslim world from Cairo University, Osama bin Laden released a long statement on Islamic Web sites and on Al Jazeera. As the Egyptian Middle East expert Mamoun Fandy noted: “Obama beat Osama hands down. Ask anyone about the content of Obama’s speech and they will tell you. Ask them what Osama said and most people will say, ‘Did he give a speech?’ ”

In Iraq’s elections last January, nationalist and moderate Muslim parties defeated the sectarian, radical religious parties, while in Lebanon, a pro-Western coalition defeated one led by Hezbollah.

Here in Pakistan, the backlash against the Taliban has been building among the rising middle class. It started in March when a mobile-phone video of a teenage girl being held down and beaten outside her home by a Taliban commander in Pakistan’s Swat Valley spread virally across this country. In May, the Pakistani Army began an offensive against Taliban militants who had taken control of key towns in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and appeared to be moving toward the capital, Islamabad.

I followed Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he visited a vast, choking-hot and dust-covered refugee tent camp in Jalozai, where some 116,000 refugees have fled the NWFP, as the Pakistani Army moved into their hometowns to smash the Taliban in a popular operation.

“People are totally against them, but the Taliban don’t care,” a Pakistani teacher, Abdul Jalil, 41, told me while taking a break from teaching the Urdu alphabet to young boys in a sweltering tent. “They are very cruel. They chopped people’s heads off.”

To the extent that the radical Islamists have any energy today, it comes not from the power of their ideas or examples of good governance, but by stoking sectarian feuds. In Afghanistan, the Taliban play on Pashtun nationalist grievances, and in Iraq, the Sunni jihadists draw energy from killing Shiites.

The only way to really dry up their support, though, is for the Arab and Muslim modernists to actually implement better ideas by producing less corrupt and more consensual governance, with better schools, more economic opportunities and a vision of Islam that is perceived as authentic yet embracing of modernity. That is where “our” allies in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have so consistently failed. Until that happens, the Islamist radicals will be bankrupt, but not out of business.

* * *

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: July 25, 2009
MEERWALA, Pakistan

NOT A VICTIM, BUT A HERO.
After being kidnapped at the age of 16 by a group of thugs and enduring a year of rapes and beatings, Assiya Rafiq was delivered to the police and thought her problems were over.

Then, she said, four police officers took turns raping her.

The next step for Assiya was obvious: She should commit suicide. That’s the customary escape in rural Pakistan for a raped woman, as the only way to cleanse the disgrace to her entire family.

Instead, Assiya summoned the unimaginable courage to go public and fight back. She is seeking to prosecute both her kidnappers and the police, despite threats against her and her younger sisters. This is a kid who left me awed and biting my lip; this isn’t a tale of victimization but of valor, empowerment and uncommon heroism.

“I decided to prosecute because I don’t want the same thing to happen to anybody else,” she said firmly.

Assiya’s case offers a window into the quotidian corruption and injustice endured by impoverished Pakistanis — leading some to turn to militant Islam.

“When I treat a rape victim, I always advise her not to go to the police,” said Dr. Shershah Syed, the president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Pakistan. “Because if she does, the police might just rape her again.”

Yet Assiya is also a sign that change is coming. She says she was inspired by Mukhtar Mai, a young woman from this remote village of Meerwala who was gang raped in 2002 on the orders of a village council. Mukhtar prosecuted her attackers and used the compensation money to start a school.

Mukhtar is my hero. Many Times readers who followed her story in past columns of mine have sent her donations through a fund at Mercy Corps, at www.mercycorps.org, and Mukhtar has used the money to open schools, a legal aid program, an ambulance service, a women’s shelter, a telephone hotline — and to help Assiya fight her legal case.

The United States has stood aloof from the ubiquitous injustices in Pakistan, and that’s one reason for cynicism about America here. I’m hoping the Obama administration will make clear that Americans stand shoulder to shoulder with heroines like Mukhtar and Assiya, and with an emerging civil society struggling for law and social justice.

Assiya’s saga began a year ago when a woman who was a family friend sold her to two criminals who had family ties to prominent politicians. Assiya said the two men spent the next year beating and raping her.

The men were implicated in a gold robbery, so they negotiated a deal with the police in the town of Kabirwala, near Khanewal: They handed over Assiya, along with a $625 bribe, in exchange for the police pinning the robbery on the girl.

By Assiya’s account, which I found completely credible, four police officers, including a police chief, took turns beating and raping her — sometimes while she was tied up — over the next two weeks. A female constable obligingly stepped out whenever the men wanted access to Assiya.

Assiya’s family members heard that she was in the police station, and a court granted their petition for her release and sent a bailiff to get her out. The police hid Assiya, she said, and briefly locked up her 10-year-old brother to bully the family into backing off.

The bailiff accepted bribes from both the family and the police, but in the end he freed the girl. Assiya, driven by fury that overcame her shame, told her full story to the magistrate, who ordered a medical exam and an investigation. The medical report confirms that Assiya’s hymen had been broken and that she had abrasions all over her body.

The morning I met Assiya, she said she had just received the latest in a series of threats from the police: Unless she withdraws her charges, they will arrest, rape or kill her — and her two beloved younger sisters.

The family is in hiding. It has lost its livelihood and accumulated $2,500 in debts. Assiya’s two sisters and three brothers have had to drop out of school, and they will find it harder to marry because Assiya is considered “dishonored.” Most of her relatives tell Assiya that she must give in. But she tosses her head and insists that she will prosecute her attackers to spare other girls what she endured.

(For readers who want to help, more information is available on my blog at: www.nytimes.com)

Assiya’s mother, Iqbal Mai, told me that in her despair, she at first had prayed that God should never give daughters to poor families. “But then I changed my mind,” she added, with a hint of pride challenging her fears. “God should give poor people daughters like Assiya who will fight.”

Amen.

###

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 20th, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

Turkey Gets Boost from Pipeline Politics.

by Helena Cobban

WASHINGTON, Jul 19 (IPS) – The political geography of the modern Middle East has been affected for one hundred years by the appetite of westerners and other outsiders for the region’s hydrocarbons. Last week, the region’s “pipeline politics” took another step forward with the signing in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, of an agreement to build a new, 3,300-kilometre gas pipeline called Nabucco, running between eastern Turkey and Vienna, Austria.

The project underlines the new influential role that Turkey, a majority Muslim nation of 72 million people, is playing in the Middle East, and far beyond. The new project’s name was chosen, Austrian officials said, after the Verdi opera that representatives of the five participating countries – who include Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary, along with the two terminus states – saw together during an earlier round of negotiations in Vienna.

But the name also gives clues to two intriguing aspects of the project’s geopolitical significance. The theme of the opera is the liberation from bondage of slaves held by the ancient Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (‘Nabucco’) – and it is a widely discussed feature of the Nabucco project that many European nations want access to a gas source that is not under the control of Russia. Last winter, several European nations suffered severe gas shortages after Russia, locked in a tariff dispute with transit-country Ukraine, closed off the spigots completely.

But the other implication of the name is more strictly Middle Eastern. The modern-day home of Nebuchadnezzar is Iraq. Washington has given strong support to the Nabucco project – and one of the reasons U.S. officials give for this support is their hope that once Nabucco is up and running in 2015, Iraq can be one of the nations that reaps large profits by feeding gas into it. However, construction of the pipeline is estimated to cost some eight billion dollars, and many officials in the participating countries are still unclear where they will get enough gas to make it economically viable.

The Nabucco participants had been hoping that a key feeder state would be one of Turkey’s eastern neighbours, Azerbaijan. But on the eve of the project’s inauguration in Ankara, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev took the CEO of the vast Russian gas company Gazprom to Azerbaijan, where they signed a contract with the state gas company that will force Nabucco to compete hard against Gazprom for any purchase it wants to make from Azerbaijan. One fairly evident other source for Nabucco’s would be Iran, which is reported to have considerable amounts of new gas coming online in the next five years.

###

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 10th, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

The US got into the middle of the Kurdish-Sunni – Shiia tangle in its effort to hold on to the Iraqi oil and keep Iraq in the old Sunni image to please the Saudi king. We knew it will not work and it was clear that if Iraq will have to be held together it will be the Shiia majority that will rule and Iran will be part of the decision making process. And so it was.

Comes now a bright new US President – Mr. Barack Obama – he sees the need to find non-petroleum energy for the US and decides that fighting for Iraqi oil did not make sense before and does not make sense now – so he wants out.

The problem is that in Washington he changed only the Secretary of State, while he left in place the old hands in the Department of State, and these people have not gotten yet the idea that sticking together three departments of the old Ottoman Empire and importing a King from Hashemite Arabia, this for the sake of British Petroleum, is not something that the US should hold holy some 80 years later.

So, the US better let the Iraqis fight it out among themselves if that what they prefer, or have them sit down for an amicable three-way divorce if that works better. That is a job for a Richard Holbrooke or a George Mitchell. Do not let a single further American soldier die for the the unity of Iraq cause. So far as the Saudis, their new neighbors in Iraq will be a Shiia state one way or the other. They will have to learn with this idea and as well with the idea that it is Shiia and not Sunnis that live on top of some of the best oil wells of Saudi Arabia as well – even those folks may speak up for themselves some day.

Today’s New York Times sees the future – please read it!

Kurds Defy Baghdad, Laying Claim to Land and Oil
10kurds_600.jpg
Hadi Mizban/Associated Press

Members of the Kurdish parliament read a draft of the proposed new constitution, which claims disputed natural resources, in Erbil on June 24, 2009
By SAM DAGHER
The New York Times,: July 9, 2009

BAGHDAD — With little notice and almost no public debate, Iraq’s Kurdish leaders are pushing ahead with a new constitution for their semiautonomous region, a step that has alarmed Iraqi and American officials who fear that the move poses a new threat to the country’s unity.

Related

Insurgency Remains Tenacious in North Iraq (July 10, 2009)

Times Topics: Iraq | Kurds


10kurd1_190.jpg

Hadi Mizban/Associated Press
An employee at a Kurdish oil field.

The new constitution, approved by Kurdistan’s parliament two weeks ago and scheduled for a referendum this year, underscores the level of mistrust and bad faith between the region and the central government in Baghdad. And it raises the question of whether a peaceful resolution of disputes between the two is possible, despite intensive cajoling by the United States.

The proposed constitution enshrines Kurdish claims to territories and the oil and gas beneath them. But these claims are disputed by both the federal government in Baghdad and ethnic groups on the ground, and were supposed to be resolved in talks begun quietly last month between the Iraqi and Kurdish governments, sponsored by the United Nations and backed by the United States. Instead, the Kurdish parliament pushed ahead and passed the constitution, partly as a message that it would resist pressure from the American and Iraqi governments to make concessions.

The disputed areas, in northern Iraq, are already volatile: There have been several tense confrontations between Kurdish and federal security forces, as well as frequent attacks aimed at inflaming sectarian and ethnic passions there.

The Obama administration, which is gradually withdrawing American troops from Iraq, was surprised and troubled by the Kurdish move. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., sent to Iraq on July 2 for three days, criticized it in diplomatic and indirect, though unmistakably strong, language as “not helpful” to the administration’s goal of reconciling Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds, in an interview with ABC News.

Mr. Biden said he wanted to discuss the proposed constitution with the Kurdish leadership in person but could not fly to Kurdistan because of sandstorms. Instead he spoke to Kurdish leaders by telephone on Tuesday, and Christopher R. Hill, the new ambassador in Baghdad, met with them in Kurdistan on Wednesday.

American diplomatic and military officials have said the potential for a confrontation with the Kurds has emerged as a threat as worrisome to Iraq’s fate as the remnants of the insurgency.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is already not on speaking terms with the Kurdish region’s president, Massoud Barzani. Iraqi political leaders have vociferously denounced the constitution as a step toward splintering Iraq.

“This lays the foundation for a separate state — it is not a constitution for a region,” said Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni Arab member of the national Parliament. “It is a declaration of hostile intent and confrontation. Of course it will lead to escalation.”

Kurdish officials defended their efforts to adopt a new constitution that defines the Kurdistan region as comprising their three provinces and also tries to add all of hotly contested and oil-rich Kirkuk Province, as well as other disputed areas in Nineveh and Diyala Provinces. Iraq’s federal Constitution allows the Kurds the right to their own constitution, referring any conflicts to Iraq’s highest court.

Susan Shihab, a member of Kurdistan’s parliament, said she no longer had faith that the rights of Kurds under the federal constitution from 2005 would be respected.

“What is missing the most in the new Iraq is confidence,” she said.

At the same time, though, some Kurds acknowledge that they have grown frustrated with the halting talks to resolve territorial disputes and other issues involving Kurds’ political power in Iraq.

“This is a punch in the face. We are fed up with them,” said a senior Kurdish official, referring to the government in Baghdad, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his role in the United Nations negotiations.

The dispute started when the term of Kurdistan’s parliament ended June 4, before local presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for July 25. But the parliament, which is firmly in the grips of the two parties that have ruled the region for nearly 20 years, approved an extension and overwhelmingly passed a new draft of the constitution on June 24.

The Kurdish government announced that it wanted the document put to a referendum during the July elections, a vastly accelerated timetable given that most people in Kurdistan say they have not even heard of the constitution.

Iraq’s electoral commission, which oversees elections nationwide, said Monday that the earliest it could hold the referendum was Aug. 11.

The regional parliament said Thursday that it did not oppose a postponement but that it stood by the constitution and was “determined to hold a referendum” by September, according to its spokesman, Tariq Jawhar.

Most expect that the new constitution will be approved. The Kurdish ruling parties — the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan — control all levers of power in the area and maintain legions of loyal followers through jobs and patronage.

But many people in Kurdistan are deeply troubled by how the constitution was hastily passed and the extraordinary powers it gives the president, without meaningful checks and balances.

A group of civil society organizations in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya began a campaign last month opposing the constitution. Namo Sharif, an activist involved in the effort, said a Kurdish government official called him a “traitor.”

Kwestan Mohammed, a member of the regional parliament who joined a new coalition running against the two ruling parties in the July elections, said that Kurdistan needed its own constitution but that the document in its current form planted the seeds of endless conflict with the central government and made the region’s president an “absolute” ruler.

“It turns all the other powers, including parliament, into cardboard figures,” Ms. Mohammed said.

Gareth Stansfield, an associate fellow at Chatham House in London, a nonprofit organization that focuses on international issues, who is an expert on Kurdish politics, said the Kurds’ insistence on a separate constitution was an unequivocal message to the central government that they were serious about their claims, especially as the clock ticks on America’s presence in Iraq.

“They are not backing down anymore,” Mr. Stansfield said. “They are being very forceful.”

###

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 3rd, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

 Monday, June 29, 2009, The Foreign Policy Association of New York had an event with Mr. Richard J. Shmierer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State at the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs,   titled THE FUTURE OF US POLICY IN IRAQ.

Mr. Schmierer is an Arabic speaking Senior Foreign Service professional who served in Gemany, Saudi Arabia and Iraq where he was in June 2004 with the reopening of the US Embassy. in 2005, while with the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University he published a book “Iraq: Policy and Perceptions.” Then in July 2007 assumed the position of Director, Office of Iraq Affairs, and in June 2008 got his present position of Deputy Assistant Secretary.

Mr. Schmierer pointed out the importance of the milestone of the US policy of withdrawal from the Iraqi cities and called it a watershed day. The target is that by 2o11 all US troops will be out of Iraq and only diplomats and NGOs will come instead.

Further, he said that the center of gravity of US relations with Iraq will shift from security to economic development – there will be a growing effort to get the NGOs take over the main role he said.

January 2010 there will be national elections to council representatives and this will lead to a new Iraq leadership.

Iraq had a subsidized socialist economy that was inefficient – this economy must thus be restructured. They need foreign investment and are open to it but investors want to see first the infrastructure taken care of.

Today more then half of the Iraqis work for the government and what is needed for the future is an entrepreneurial economy. They have significant debt to the neighboring Arab States.

A question about capitalist takeover of the Iraqi assets was answered – every country is specific so is Iraq. Oil exports from Iraq can provide support for the Iraqi people – be this health care, education etc. There will be a ballance of support for the people and private enterprise. There is no such balance yet today so there is no support for the people either. Iraqis get now advice from the IMF and other sources, but it is that they could benefit from international investment in development. Ultimately it will be for the Iraqis to decide. The problem is the level of corruption. The US is not out of the reconstruction business altogether – what we support is capacity development.

A question about the composition of Iraq brought out for the first time the issue of ethnicities, extreemists, sunni terrorists – and that raises animosity

A question on how we are prepared to react to the Iranian events was answered that we are prepared to support Iraqi security forces to provide security for Iraq.

——–

As said, above event took place the day before the festivities in Iraq that the locals tried to view as a start of the “good riddance” process. That following day was also going to be the day when the Iraqi government intended to auction off for the first time oil development rites.

I obviously had mixed feeling about the way the US State Department explained the situation in Iraq.

(a) there was no single indication why the US fought so hard to keep the three parts of Iraq glued together – after all it was the outside Hashemite King imposed by the British, and the pipelines built by the British, that were the only reason that Iraq was formed in the first place.

(b) which foreign oil companies will be alllowed now to reenter Iraq. Will indeed the US gain anything out of this war, and if so how will the British and the Chinese look at what the US calls normalization?

I knew that we will soon find out where the wind blows, and we post this after the first indications we got – just a couple of days after that Iraqi independence   show.

———

First, let us see a British-experience reaction:

Iraqis are too shrewd to fall for an ‘invisible’ occupation.
By Priya Satia
The Financial Times, July 1 2009 20:03


We are at the beginning of the end. On Tuesday, US troops left Iraq’s cities, and in two years they will leave the country. Or so the official story goes. In reality, most of the “withdrawing” forces are merely relocating to forward operating bases where they appear to be hunkering down for a long entr’acte offstage in expensive, built-to-last facilities.

Still, Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, is touting this redistribution of American power as a “great victory” against foreign occupation, akin to the Iraqi rebellion against the British in 1920. The US media appear bemused at the comparison, as they continue to miss the point of the Iraqi insurgency. But Mr al-Maliki is more right than he knows about the historical echo: 1920 turned out to be a sad year for Iraq, as the brutal British suppression of that uprising inaugurated four decades of British rule, lasting until the 1958 Iraqi revolution.

Today, too, victory is tinged with fraud. And the Fallujah bombers – the “patriotic resistance” – know it. Mr al-Maliki may claim US participation in maintaining public order is “finished”, but everyone knows public order depends on Iraqi awareness of the offstage presence of US troops.

US operations will be suspended for a few days to promote the perception that Iraqi forces are actually in control; Ali al-Adeeb, a senior leader of Mr al-Maliki’s Dawa party, says the Americans will become “invisible”.

But Iraqis are too shrewd to fall for invisible occupation again; indeed, they never fell for it the first time. Tuesday’s withdrawals echo the cynical British grant of “independence” in 1932 more than Mr al-Maliki’s selective memory of 1920. Then, too, the foreign occupiers co-operated in the local government’s efforts to create an impression of sovereignty, while continuing to pull the strings of real authority behind the scenes. Then, too, Iraqis saw through the ruse. The celebrations of 1932 rang hollow as British aircraft continued to patrol overhead and British personnel were renamed advisors, trainers, liaisons – “the same individuals with new and supposedly thicker cloaks”, one British official confessed. Today, too, the thousands of troops that will remain in Iraq will be restyled as “trainers” and “advisers”; American aircraft will retain their free hand. Moreover, the Iraqi and US governments’ focus on appearances has increased their need for secrecy about the true number and nature of the withdrawals, compounding suspicions of foul play.

Iraqis worry equally about the loyalty of Iraqi security forces, who will remain under the sway of thousands of embedded US “trainers”. Their takeover of the violent security work of the former occupiers also renders them suspect.

In sermons last week, Moqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric, warned of American loyalists in the military and government. Echoing 1920s and 1930s speculation that violence was the result of British machinations, he blames recent explosions on an American conspiracy to justify the US presence. His sermons inspired marches in Sadr City with shouts of, “No, no to America. No, no to occupation. No, no to terrorism. Yes for independence”. The current withdrawals are not seen as a step toward independence but to more covert and thus even more unaccountably violent American control – like the post-1932 British period.

American officials should heed the cautionary tale of the past, unwittingly invoked by Mr al-Maliki’s bluster. As the British ambassador in “independent” Iraq realised too late, Iraqis “never swallowed the fiction that [the advisers] are maintained as much, more even, for their good than for ours”. Independence remained a mirage as British trainers refused to entrust critical elements of Iraqi security to their trainees for fear of compromising British security. Security itself remained a pipe dream. As the isolated trainers grew increasingly susceptible to a paranoid groupthink about Iraqi politics, it became impossible for them to accept real withdrawal. The fortifications that protect US trainers from their trainees threaten to create a similar bubble.

In 1932 as now, rhetoric about withdrawal was aimed at global as much as Iraqi opinion. Instead of attending only to appearances, stoking the fears of a people familiar with nominal independence, the US and Iraqi governments should deliver the reality Iraqis and Americans want: “Yes for independence.”

The writer is assistant professor of history at Stanford University and author of Spies in Arabia.

———

Then let us see about the oil development concessions:

The only bid that was accepted was by a BP group in partnership with the China National Petroleum Company. So, one could say that the US led war makes space back for the Brits whom the US skillfully helped dislodge years ago, as they did also in Iran – but this time, as easily foreseen, the Chinese with their money will be the main beneficiaries. With all the nice talk about the Iraqi economy – nothing except US troops on the ground, in this post Saddam era, will hold Iraq from an economic Chinese invasion – this like in Africa, and like in Latin America. It is essential! The sooner the US realizes, in this new G2 Interdependence with China, that the stomach for living on the barrel and the bayonet is gone, the high talk about US benevolent activities in Iraq has gone to the archives as well. Iraq will try to price its oil, then there will be an internal fight to distribute the spoils. The sooner the US decides to leave the scene to the Iraqis and their new friends, the better it will be for this country. The Saudis have just contracted the building of frontier-walls on the long Iraqi border, as well as on their Yemeni border.

———

EDITORIAL
The First Deadline

The New York Times, Published: June 29, 2009

After six bloody, ruinously costly years, there is an end in sight to the American occupation of Iraq. Under an agreement with the Baghdad government, American combat troops are to leave Iraq’s cities by Tuesday. President Obama has pledged that by Aug. 31, 2010 — 14 months from now — all combat troops will be out of Iraq and by the end of 2011 all American troops will be gone.

For a badly overstretched American military it will certainly be time to go. Repeated deployments have taken a huge toll on soldiers and their families. The Iraq war — an unnecessary war — has diverted critically needed resources away from Afghanistan, the real front in the war on terrorism. Many Iraqis are eager to see the Americans gone. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has declared June 30 to be a day of “feast and festivals.”
But there is an enormous amount to do — and not a lot of time — to help Iraqis prepare for the withdrawal and to reduce the chances the country will unravel as American troops leave.

We once hoped that a clear timetable for an American withdrawal would finally persuade Iraq’s leaders to make the political compromises that are the only way to hold their country together without an indefinite occupation. That has not happened. The Parliament has still not passed a law to divide Iraq’s oil resources equitably.

Indeed there are worrying signs that Iraqi politicians are doing the opposite — looking for ways to shore up their communal interests in case the civil war reignites. Many of Iraq’s neighbors are making the same calculations. Violence is down, but extremists are still trying to spark a new cycle of attacks and retaliation. In June, more than 300 Iraqis and 10 Americans were killed.

Mr. Obama was right to commit to a carefully paced and responsible withdrawal, and he was right to say that the United States cannot solve all of Iraq’s problems before it leaves. But we are concerned that Iraq may not be getting all the attention it needs in Washington.

The top American military commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, is a strong leader, and Christopher Hill, the new American ambassador in Baghdad, is a talented diplomat. Still, Mr. Obama has a high-level adviser for Afghanistan and Pakistan, for Middle East peace negotiations, and for Iran, but there is no marquee name for Iraq to ensure that the president and the bureaucracy are fully engaged.

We understand that for political reasons, in both countries, the United States cannot be seen to micro-manage events. But there are still many problems that need sustained and high-level American attention.

Iraqi Readiness Until a few weeks ago, American commanders were hoping that Iraq’s government would invite them to keep combat troops in certain Baghdad neighborhoods and in the northern city of Mosul, where sectarian tensions are high and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is still active. It didn’t, and Washington decided not to insist, given Iraqis’ sensitivities.

Most analysts give the American military training program good marks. They differ on whether Iraq’s army — still plagued by corruption, discipline problems, equipment shortages and security breaches — is ready to keep the peace in the cities. The police force and the interior ministry need even more work.

A January report to Congress by the Pentagon said that as of last fall, 17 of the Iraq Army’s 174 combat battalions were capable of conducting counterinsurgency operations without American support. All of Iraq’s army is dependent on the American military for intelligence, logistics and air support.

For now American troops — there are 130,000 in Iraq — are not going far. Baghdad’s sprawling Camp Victory has been designated as outside of the city limits, although it is just a 10-minute helicopter ride from the Green Zone.

Before American troops can really go, Iraq’s Army will need to develop enough of those missing capacities to be able to fight on its own. The United States is also going to have to help Iraq build an air force and a navy so it can defend its own borders — an effort that will stretch far beyond the 2011 withdrawal deadline.

Iraq is in a dangerous neighborhood, but it also has its own history of menacing its neighbors. Washington is going to have to decide how much firepower it is willing to sell Iraq, knowing that Baghdad can buy elsewhere.

Sunni Anger

Iraq is still awash in bitter resentments and the Sunni minority, which once dominated the country, is particularly resentful of the Shiite-dominated government. Areas with large Sunni populations are short-changed on services. Baghdad has not carried out a law allowing former members of the Baath Party to return to their positions or collect pensions.We are particularly concerned about the Iraqi government’s cavalier — or worse — treatment of the Awakening Councils. Those are the former Sunni insurgents who decided to switch sides, at Washington’s urging. Members have complained about delays in being paid. The government has barely made a down payment on its commitment to find jobs for the group’s 94,000 members in the security services, ministries or private sector.
Baghdad blames dropping oil prices and a budget squeeze for the employment problems. But keeping these fighters, and their relatives and neighbors, on the government’s side should be a top priority. Mr. Maliki has further alienated many Sunnis by ordering the arrest of several council leaders and a few high-profile Sunni politicians. Iraqi officials say the arrests are justified. United States officials need to impress on the prime minister the dangers he is courting.

Kurdish Ambition

Speaking privately, many American officials say they are even more worried about rising tensions between Arabs and Kurds in northern Iraq.

The disputes are over boundaries, oil and the power of Iraq’s central government. The autonomous Kurdish regional government insists that it has a historical claim to towns and villages in three provinces just over the present regional border that were forcibly purged of Kurds and repopulated with Arabs by Saddam Hussein. Since 2003 — often with Washington’s blessing — the Kurdish government has deployed its militia, the pesh merga, to some of these areas and spent millions of dollars on services in an attempt to assert its control.

Fearing displacement or Kurdish domination, Sunni Arabs have turned to hard-line politicians or extremists, including Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, to defend their interests. American troops have had to defuse confrontations between government forces and the pesh merga. Tensions are particularly high in Nineveh Province and its capital, Mosul. The Sunnis won the majority on the provincial council in January’s election and immediately stripped the Kurdish bloc, which came in second, of all positions and patronage.

The most dangerous dispute, however, is over control of the oil-rich, multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk and the surrounding province. In April, the United Nations issued a report with several options for Kirkuk, including making it an autonomous region jointly run by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens. Washington must press Baghdad and the Kurds to appoint responsible negotiators and urge them not to stake out extreme positions. If an agreement for Kirkuk cannot be reached, all three governments may have to consider outside administration, possibly United Nations-led, for some period.

Refugees One of the war’s great tragedies has been the forced flight of an estimated four million Iraqis — more than one out of 10 — from their homes. A small number, perhaps 100,000, have begun trickling back; a still smaller number have been permanently resettled abroad.

Millions live under extremely difficult conditions. Many are from the former Sunni elite. Others are Shiites whose mixed-population neighborhoods became Sunni during the upheavals of 2006-7. They all need the chance to return safely. Iraq needs their talents. Large numbers of refugees also put dangerous economic and political strains on Iraq’s neighbors.

Working out the politics and logistics of whether refugees return to their old homes (now occupied by others) or get new ones will require international aid and advice and enlightened leadership. While waiting for that to happen, millions of people need housing, food and education assistance. Syria and Jordan, which host the largest numbers of refugees, need continued international and American help. The United States needs to take in many more Iraqis, especially those who risked their lives to work with the Americans.

Governing More than anything, Iraq needs competent, inclusive government. To win public loyalties, the government must do a much better job of providing basic services to all Iraqis. With improved security, there has been an encouraging leap in electricity production, although there are still too many interruptions and shortfalls. Clean water is in desperately short supply.

American advisers have been working with Iraqi ministries, but United States officials say they are staggered by the lack of skilled managers and the pervasive corruption. Tackling those problems nationally and regionally must be a top priority. As American troops leave, the Pentagon must continue to provide security so civilian advisers can work throughout the country.Iraq’s politicians also need to show a far greater willingness to address and resolve long-deferred political problems. In February, on the same day he outlined his withdrawal plans, Mr. Obama said ” a lot of the ultimate outcome” in Iraq would depend on how difficult issues, including the oil law, are resolved. American officials now say that is unlikely to happen any time soon and they will be satisfied if legislators manage to pass a new election law in time for January’s national elections.
There are growing concerns that Prime Minister Maliki may be accumulating too much power, undercutting rivals and building a cadre of military and intelligence officers loyal only to him. Washington must make clear that it will not support any power grab and find ways to encourage other political leaders, while dissuading them from making their own power grabs.

Neighbors A stable Iraq is in the clear interest of all of its neighbors. Unfortunately few have seen it that way. Iran and Syria have meddled constantly — driving up the violence and backing off only when it looked as if the war could spin out of control and over Iraq’s borders or the Americans might retaliate. Tehran would still like to control Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government.

Meanwhile, many of America’s closest regional allies have withheld their support. Egypt’s Sunni-led government has only recently named an ambassador to Baghdad. Saudi Arabia’s Sunni royal family still has not.

Washington must do a lot more to persuade these allies that their interests would be far better served by building strong diplomatic and economic ties with Iraq. That is the best way to counterbalance Tehran. And with closer ties come more influence and more opportunity to help defend the interests of Iraq’s Sunni minority.

Relations with Tehran are particularly difficult right now, but at some point the Obama administration will have to renew its offer for dialogue. Iraq’s stability will have to be part of those discussions. We assume those discussions are already under way with Damascus.

The United States cannot fix Iraq. That is up to the Iraqis. But in the time left, this country has a responsibility and a strong strategic interest to do its best to help Iraq emerge from this disaster as a functioning, sovereign and reasonably democratic state.

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 1st, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

The United Nations mission in Iraq has condemned yesterday’s deadly bombing in al-Shourga market in Kirkuk, which killed and injured dozens of people, calling it yet another attempt to stoke up sectarian and ethnic conflict.

The attack is also aimed at “undermining the hopes of the Iraqi people for an improvement in their lives,” the mission, known as UNAMI, said in a statement issued today.

The mission “calls on all groups not to respond in the fashion that the killers want them to do: with revenge,” it added.

According to media reports, the car bombing took place in a predominantly Kurdish area of the northern city of Kirkuk on Tuesday evening, and led to at least 35 deaths and the wounding of 95 others.

The attack occurred on the same day that United States-led Multinational Forces withdrew from Iraqi cities, leaving security in the hands of the country’s own forces.

On Monday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke out against recent attacks in Iraq, calling on the people of the strife-torn nation to reject attempts to incite further violence as it takes full responsibility for security in its cities.

“The Secretary-General notes that Iraq has been benefiting from an improving security environment, and appeals to the people of Iraq to continue to reject these attempts to incite further violence in the country,” his spokesperson said in a statement.

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 1st, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

The Wall Isn’t Falling in Iran!

Fareed Zakaria – NEWSWEEK
Historical parallels don’t work in Iran.

From the Newsweek Magazine   issue dated Jul 13, 2009.

Whenever we see the kinds of images that have been coming out of Iran over the past two weeks, we tend to think back to 1989 and Eastern Europe. That time, when people took to the streets and challenged their governments, those seemingly stable regimes proved to be hollow and quickly collapsed. What emerged was liberal democracy. Could Iran yet undergo its own velvet revolution?

It’s possible but unlikely. While the regime’s legitimacy has cracked-a fatal wound in the long run-for now it will probably be able to use its guns and money to consolidate power. And it has plenty of both. Remember, the price of oil was less than $20 a barrel back in 1989. It is currently $69. More important, as Zbigniew Brzezinski has pointed out, 1989 was highly unusual. As a historical precedent, it has not proved a useful guide to other antidictatorial movements.

The three most powerful forces in the modern world are democracy, religion, and national-ism. In 1989 in Eastern Europe, all three were arrayed against the ruling regimes. Citizens hated their governments because they deprived people of liberty and political participation. Believers despised communist leaders because they were atheistic, banning religion in countries where faith was deeply cherished. And people rejected their regimes because they were seen as having been imposed from the outside by a much–disliked imperial power, the Soviet Union.

The situation in Iran is more complex. Democracy clearly works against this repressive regime. The forces of religion, however, are not so easily aligned against it. Many, possibly most, Iranians appear to be fed up with theocracy. But that does not mean they are fed up with religion. It does appear that the more openly devout Iranians-the poor, the rural-voted for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

There is one way religion could be used against Iran’s leaders, but it would involve an unlikely scenario: were Iraq-based Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to issue a fatwa condemning Tehran in any way, it would be a seismic event, probably resulting in the regime’s collapse. Remember, Sistani is Iranian, probably more revered in the entire Shia world than any other ayatollah, and he is opposed to the basic doctrine of velayat-e faqih that created the Islamic Republic of Iran. His own view is that clerics should not be involved in politics, which is why he has steered clear of any such role in Iraq. But he is unlikely to publicly criticize the Iranian regime. (He did, however, refuse to see Ahmadinejad when the latter visited Iraq in March 2008.)

Nationalism is the most complex of these three forces. Over most of its history, the Iranian regime has exploited nationalist sentiment. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power by battling the shah, who was widely seen as an American puppet. Soon after the revolution, Iraq attacked Iran, and the mullahs wrapped themselves in the flag again. The United States supported Iraq in that war, ignoring Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against Iranians-something Iranians have never forgotten. Over the past eight years, the Bush administration’s veiled threats to attack Iran allowed the mullahs to drum up support. (Every Iranian dissident, from Akbar Ganji to Shirin Ebadi, has noted that talk of airstrikes on Iran strengthened the regime.) And it is worth remembering that the United States still funds guerrilla outfits and opposition groups that are trying to topple the Islamic Republic. Most of these are tiny groups with no chance of success, funded largely to appease right-wing congressmen.

But the Tehran government is able to portray this as an ongoing anti–Iranian campaign.

In this context, President Obama is quite right to tread cautiously, extend his moral support to Iranian protesters, but not get politically involved. The United States has always underestimated the raw power of nationalism across the world, always assuming that people will not be taken in by cheap and transparent appeals against foreign domination. But look at what is happening in Iraq right now, where Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki boasts that America’s troop withdrawals are a “a heroic repulsion of the foreign occupiers.” Of course Maliki would not be in office but for those occupying forces, who protect his government to this day. But he is a canny politician and knows what will appeal to the Iraqi people.

Ahmadinejad is also a politician with considerable mass appeal. And he is already accusing the United States and Britain of interference. Our strategy should be to make sure that these accusations seem as loony and baseless as possible. Were President Obama to be seen as grandstanding and taking ownership of the protest movement, he would be -helping Ahmadinejad’s strategy, not America’s.
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Fareed Zakaria was named editor of Newsweek International in October 2000, overseeing all Newsweek editions abroad. The magazine reaches an audience of 24 million worldwide.

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 1st, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)


Pakistani Public Turns Against Taliban, But Still Negative on US.

 http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/a…

July 1, 2009
Full Report (PDF)
Questionnaire/Methodology (PDF)

Most Pakistanis now see the Pakistani Taliban as well as al Qaeda as a critical threat to the country–a major shift from 18 months ago–and support the government and army in their fight in the Swat Valley against the Pakistani Taliban. An overwhelming majority think that Taliban groups who seek to overthrow the Afghan government should not be allowed to have bases in Pakistan.

However, this does not bring with it a shift in attitudes toward the US. A large majority continue to have an unfavorable view of the US government. Almost two-thirds say they do not have confidence in Obama. An overwhelming majority opposes US drone attacks in Pakistan.

These are some of the results of a new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll conducted May 17-28, 2009. The nationwide random sample included 1000 Pakistani adults, selected using multi-stage probability sampling, who responded in face-to-face interviews. The margin of error is +/- 3.2 percent.

wpo_pakistan_jul09_graph1.jpg

“A sea change has occurred in Pakistani public opinion. The tactics and undemocratic bent of militant groups–in tribal areas as well as Swat–have brought widespread revulsion and turned Pakistanis against them,” comments Clay Ramsay, research director. However, he adds: “It’s crucial to understand that the US is resented just as much as before, despite the US having a new president.”

There has been a huge increase in those who think the “activities of Islamist militants and local Taliban” are a critical threat to Pakistan–a 47 point rise to 81 percent, up from 34 percent in late 2007. If the Pakistani Taliban were to gain control of the country, 75 percent say this would be bad (very bad, 67%)–though only 33 percent think this outcome is likely.

wpo_pakistan_jul09_graph2.jpg

Seventy percent say their sympathies are more with the government than with the Pakistani Taliban in the struggle over Swat. Large majorities express confidence in the government (69%) and the military (72%) to handle the situation. Retrospectively, the public leans (by 45% to 40%) toward thinking the government was right to try to make an agreement in which the Pakistani Taliban would shut down its camps and turn in its heavy weapons in return for a shari’a court system in Swat. But now 67 percent think the Pakistani Taliban violated the agreement when it sent its forces into more areas, and 63 percent think the people of Swat disapprove of the agreement.

On the Afghan Taliban, an overwhelming 87 percent think that groups fighting to overthrow the Afghan government should not be allowed to have bases in Pakistan. Most (77%) do not believe the Afghan Taliban has bases in Pakistan. However, if Pakistan’s government were to identify such bases in the country, three in four (78%) think it should close the bases even if it requires using military force.

Public attitudes toward al Qaeda training camps follow the same pattern. Those saying the “activities of al Qaeda” are a critical threat to Pakistan are up 41 points to 82 percent. Almost all (88%) think al Qaeda should not be allowed to operate training camps in Pakistan. Though 76 percent do not believe there are such camps, if the Pakistani government were to identify them, 74 percent say the government should close them, with force if necessary.

wpo_pakistan_jul09_graph3.jpg

This striking new public willingness to see the government directly oppose Taliban groups and al Qaeda owes little or nothing to an “Obama effect.” A 62 percent majority expresses low confidence in President Obama to do the right thing in world affairs (none at all, 41%). Only one in three (32%) think his policies will be better for Pakistan; 62 percent think they will be about the same (26%) or worse (36%).

Views of the US remain overwhelmingly negative. Sixty-nine percent have an unfavorable view of the current US government (58% very unfavorable)–essentially the same as in 2008. Eighty-eight percent think it is a US goal to weaken and divide the Islamic world (78% definitely a goal). The US Predator drone attacks aimed at militant camps within the Pakistani border are rejected by 82 percent as unjustified. On the war in Afghanistan, 72 percent disapprove of the NATO mission and 79 percent want it ended now; 86 percent think most Afghans want the mission ended as well.

Asked about the nation’s leaders, a large majority–68 percent–views President Zardari unfavorably (very, 50%), but–unlike the recent past–there are multiple national leaders whom most do view favorably. Prime Minister Gilani is seems untarred by negative views of Zardari and gets favorable ratings from 80 percent of Pakistanis. The restored Chief Justice Chaudry is very popular (82%), and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif is extremely popular (87%). The leader most associated with the Pakistani Taliban, Maulana Sufi Mohammad, is viewed positively by only 18 percent of Pakistanis.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Reporting from Washington DC

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 24th, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

The Funniest News In The Business (SM)
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Iraq Opens Bids For Oil Drilling To The World
But the information is seemingly based on 2008 data!

Posted in Business News, US News Now, World News: Iraq’s oil minister Monday opened international bidding on six oil fields that could increase the country’s oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day.

But the oil ministry continues to negotiate short-term no-bid contracts with several U.S. and European oil companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell, Total SA, Chevron Corp., and BP — a step recently criticized by two U.S. lawmakers.

Oil Minister Hussein Shahrastani announced Monday that 35 international oil companies can bid on long-term contracts for redeveloping the six oil fields, as well as two natural gas fields.

Then based on old data that also mentioned the number 35 in relation to the accepted companies for the bidding process:

The Iraqi Ministry of Oil says that 35 companies from a list of 120 companies that submitted registration documentation have pre-qualified to participate in the first licensing round for field development contracts. The qualified companies are Anadarko Iraq Company, BG International, BHP Billiton Petroleum Pty Ltd, BP, Chevron Iraq Ltd, CNOOC China Ltd, CNPC, Conoco Phillips, Edison International SPA, ENI, ExxonMobil, Hess Corporation, Inpex Holdings, Japex, JSC Gazprom Neft, Kogas, Lukoil, Maersk, Marathon International Petroleum Ltd, Mitsubishi Corporation, Nexen Inc., Nippon Oil, Occidental Petroleum, ONGC, Petronas, Pertamina, Premier Oil, Repsol, Shell Iraq, Sinochem, Sinopic Group, StatoilHydro, Total, Wintershall Basf Group and Woodside Petroleum.

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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 19th, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

United Nations Development Programme

برنامـج الأمـم المتحـدة الإنمائـي

Iraq

PRESS RELEASE

A UN supported Iraqi news agency nominated for prestigious award

BAGHDAD, June 19 2009—The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is proud to announce that one of its key projects in Iraq, Aswat al-Iraq (Voices of Iraq), an independent Iraqi news agency has been nominated for the prestigious One World Broadcasting Trust’s Special Award.

“It is a tremendous honour for UNDP to support and be associated with such an important and great part of Iraq’s independent press. Aswat al-Iraq is key in our efforts to develop a broader freedom of expression and a strong democracy in Iraq,” Paolo Lembo, Country Director of UNDP-Iraq, said.

Aswat al-Iraq is the country’s first independent news agency, set up in 2004 and supported by UNDP through a donation from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, with capacity development provided by the Reuters Foundation.

“For the Spanish government, to help the often painful transition for a country from dictatorship to fully-fledged democracy with all the institutions this entails, is an important foreign-policy objective,” said José María Fernández López de Turiso of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID.).

“Aswat al-Iraq is part of our support to Iraq on this front, and we are happy that this achievement has been honoured through a nomination to a prestigious international media award,” he added.

Aswat Al-Iraq covers political, business, sport, culture and civil society news in Iraq, is not affiliated to any political party and is recognized by its high professional standards of coverage.   Three of the agency’s journalists have been killed during the course of their reporting, while many others were forced to cease work as journalists following intimidation and threats.

“Our day- to-day challenge is to be journalists in the most dangerous place, Iraq. How to survive and to produce balanced coverage in post-conflict divided society? How to use variety of reliable sources, reporting all sides of the story and reflecting Iraq with all its political, ethnic and religious diversity?” noted Zuhair al-Jezairy, Editor in Chief of Aswat al-Iraq, adding:

“After 35 years of state control on one-voice media, it was a hard challenge to build an independent press and a news agency like ours, but we have done it. Not the least thanks to our supporters, the Spanish government and UNDP.”

A panel debate on Aswat al-Iraq and how independent media can be strengthened in today’s Iraq is scheduled to take place at the Foreign Press Association in London on Monday June 22, ahead of the One World Broadcasting Trust awards ceremony taking place in the evening of the same day.

Those interested in attending the panel debate should contact Ms. Alvhild Stromme ( alvhild.stromme at undp.org) for further details. Journalists with press credentials are welcome to attend without registering first, as long as they identify themselves and register upon arrival.

UNDP has supported the development and progress of Iraq since 1976, and currently implements over 50 projects from five offices across the country. In 2008 UNDP delivered 88.7 million US dollars in development aid to Iraq, bringing the total for the five-year period from 2004 to 2008 period to over 451 million US dollars.

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For more information, please visit:

 paal.aarsaether at undp.org

In New York:
Sausan Ghosheh, Tel + 1 212 906 5390; E-mail:  sausan.ghosheh at undp.org

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