Big Changes In Middle East

[John Uskglass]

1) Mubarak allows Democratic reforms (wait, sorry, pushes for it)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4300039.stm

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has asked parliament to change the constitution to allow multiple candidates in presidential polls.

The surprise announcement followed US and domestic pressure for reform in the Arab world's most populous nation.

Mr Mubarak said the move was aimed at bringing the law "in line with this stage of our nation's history".

The US state department welcomed what it described as a step towards a "more open political system".

"As a friend of the Egyptian government and people, we've urged Egypt to broaden the base of political participation," said state department spokesman Steven Pike.

Historic step

There will be a referendum on the proposal before September's presidential poll.


For the first time since the days of the pharaohs, the Egyptian people will choose their ruler
Mohamed Ulwan, opposition activist

Mubarak's shrewd move
Mubarak speech excerpts

Currently, Egypt holds presidential referendums on a single candidate approved by parliament.

Mr Mubarak's National Democratic Party has dominated the assembly since political parties were restored in the 1970s and he was expected to use the system to secure a fifth six-year term in September.

The US has been pressing for democratic reform in the Middle East, including in close allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

In Egypt, opposition and civil society activists have recently been calling for political reform.

Opposition activists welcomed the announcement, though some were sceptical about President Mubarak's motives.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the influential but outlawed Islamic organisation, said it would consider putting up a candidate.

An official in the opposition Al-Wafd party, Mohamed Ulwan, said it was a historic step.

"For the first time since the days of the pharaohs, the Egyptian people will choose their ruler," Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.

But others were more cautious.

"What the president proposed today is a just a crack in the wall... This step is not enough," said Abdel-Halim Qandil, editor of an opposition newspaper.

He said President Mubarak should not be allowed to stand again.

Guarantees

"This morning I have asked the parliament and the Shura Council to amend Article 76 of the constitution, which deals with the election of the president," Mr Mubarak said in his speech, carried live on state television.

He said he wanted "to give the opportunity to political parties to enter the presidential elections and provide guarantees that allow more than one candidate to be put forward to the presidency".

Protesters on 21 February
Protesters have taken to the streets to say "Enough" to Mubarak

Until Saturday's surprise announcement, Mr Mubarak had ruled out constitutional change.

The government and opposition parties had only a few days ago agreed to postpone discussing the constitution until next year.

A meeting in Cairo of G8 and Arab foreign ministers was recently cancelled because it was expected to raise sensitive issues about reforms in Egypt.

But the president will now be able to silence his critics, says the BBC's Heba Saleh in Cairo.

She says it is unlikely that any candidate from an opposition party will be able to win against Mr Mubarak in the short term.

A feminist author and doctor, Nawal Saadawi, announced last year that she would stand for election - but at the time there seemed no way her candidacy could go forward.

Hosni Mubarak is Egypt's longest-serving ruler since Muhammad Ali in the early 19th Century and one of the longest-serving leaders in the Arab world.

He succeeded President Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated in 1981, and was re-elected in 1987, 1993 and 1999.

2) Lebanese Independance?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4304639.stm
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...u=/ap/20050228/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_syria_1

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Defying a ban on protests, about 10,000 people demonstrated against Syrian interference in Lebanon on Monday, as opposition lawmakers sought to bring down the pro-Damascus government two weeks after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.


Hundreds of soldiers and police blocked off Beirut's central Martyrs' Square, but there was no violence, even as protesters evaded the cordon, waving hundreds of Lebanese flags, climbed the martyrs' statue and prayed before candles at the flower-covered grave of Hariri, which lies at the piazza's edge.

Protest leaders urged their followers not to provoke the security forces, who refrained from trying to disperse the crowd. About 3,000 people spent the night in the square to beat the ban on demonstrations, which took effect at daybreak Monday.

The assassination of Hariri has intensified world and Lebanese opposition pressure for Syria to withdraw its 15,000 troops from Lebanon. Those soldiers came to Lebanon as peacekeepers during the 1975-1990 civil war.

"We want no other army in Lebanon except the Lebanese army!" protesters chanted.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview published Monday that those soldiers will remain until he received a guarantee of peace.

"Under a technical point of view, the withdrawal can happen by the end of the year," he told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. "But under a strategic point of view, it will only happen if we obtain serious guarantees. In one word: peace."

Syrian officials said last week the troops would withdraw from mountain and coastal areas in Lebanon in line with a 1989 agreement.

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield met Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud on Monday and said afterward that all Syrian forces should leave Lebanon, as "the time has come for the Lebanese people to be able to face their own national decisions."

By Monday, there was no sign that the redeployment had begun.

Assad also denied involvement in Hariri's killing, telling La Repubblica that would have been an act of "political suicide" for Damascus.

Opposition legislators sought to bring down the pro-Syrian government of Prime Minister Omar Karami in Monday's confidence debate. It was the first time the legislature discussed the Feb. 14 assassination of Hariri, who was killed with 16 other people in a massive bomb blast.

"The assembly seeks answers to one question: 'Who killed Rafik Hariri?'" parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri said as he opened the debate, calling on the government to expedite its investigation.

Many Lebanese say Karami's administration and Syria were behind the attack — a charge both governments deny.

"I accuse this government of incitement, negligence and shortcomings at the least, and of covering up its planning at the most ... if not executing" the bomb attack on Hariri, lawmaker Marwan Hamadeh told parliament, his words broadcast on television and by loudspeakers to the demonstrators.

Hamadeh demanded the dismissal of three chiefs of Lebanese intelligence, the head of the police and the commander of the Presidential Guards.

The session began with a moment of silence for the slain legislator.



Then Hariri's sister, legislator Bahiya Hariri, addressed the parliament and called on the government to resign.

"All the Lebanese want to know their enemy, the enemy of Lebanon who killed the martyr Rafik Hariri, those who took the decision, planned and executed it, those who ignored and prevented the truth from coming out," Bahiya Hariri said, struggling to hold back tears.

Karami asked parliament for a vote of support, outlining his government's accomplishments and promising to hold elections as scheduled in April and May.

Shortly before Satterfield met with a Sunni Muslim spiritual leader Monday, about a dozen plainclothes gunmen carrying assault rifles appeared on a Beirut street, Lebanese security officials and witnesses said.

An advance team of U.S. security guards detected the gunmen and alerted the Lebanese military, the officials said. Lebanese troops went quickly to the Aisha Bakkar neighborhood where the country's Sunni Muslim grand mufti, Sheik Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, has his offices.

By the time soldiers arrived, the gunmen had left, Lebanese security officials said on condition of anonymity.

Hariri was seen as quietly opposing Syria's control over Lebanon and had been expected to oppose Karami in the elections.

Opposition leader Walid Jumblatt urged legislators to vote against the government Monday, saying a vote of confidence in the government would be "another assassination of Hariri."

Speaking on local TV, Jumblatt said Lebanese were not hostile to Syrians, "but we tell them: 'Leave us. Leave us. Leave us.'"

"We don't want Lebanese and Syrian intelligence controlling Lebanon. We want to know who killed Rafik Hariri," said the leader of Lebanon's Druse.

He spoke from his ancestral mountain palace in Mukhtara, 19 miles southeast of Beirut, where he has been holed up for days for fear of assassination.

Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh banned protests on grounds of "supreme national interests and maintaining national peace." He ordered all security forces to take "all measures necessary to maintain security and order and prevent demonstrations and gatherings."

Security forces did manage Monday to stop protesters from reaching the prime minister's office, which was cordoned off by soldiers, anti-tank obstacles and barbed wire.

Hundreds of troops, many in armored personnel carriers, set up roadblocks at entrances to central Beirut, turning back flag-waving teenagers, reducing traffic to a trickle and making the city appear as if it were under siege.

The debate in parliament began late as many legislators were delayed by the traffic jams. Many commuters abandoned their cars on the side of the road and walked through the roadblocks to the city center.

___

Associated Press reporter Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.

 

[welsh]

Hey CCR-

Try using quote boxes a bit.

Ok, quick thoughts-
(1) Hosni Mubarak has learned much from Africa. A common strategy of an essential dictator that his time is limited is to hold an election when his party is greatly favored. That gives him a mandate to undertake what reforms he wants.

Mubarak is seeing signs on the walls, wants to play nice to the US and the Israelis, figures this way he could stay in power a few more years without so much trouble.

So do the election when the time is right.

(2) Is Lebanese independece such a good thing? The civil war in Lebanon was a fairly tragic business that had much to do with the political ambitions of local strongmen who were heavily armed and who took advantage of the Israeli invasion to pursue their own objectives.

Fighting in Lebanon probably would have continued until all the strong men had been killed off and there were was one strong faction left. Instead Syria intervened and installed peace. This process included coming down on Hezbollah militants. In exchange Lebanon became essentially a protectorate of Syria.

Should the Syrians leave, might not civil war break out again? The key here will be whether Lebanon can sustain a viable political order, and such issues become more pressing during times of transition.

But let's add one more wrinkle-

Bin Laden's message- Bin Laden Said Getting Help for Attacks

WASHINGTON Mar 1, 2005 — Osama bin Laden is enlisting his top operative in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to plan potential attacks on the United States, U.S. intelligence indicates.

Al-Zarqawi, who rivals bin Laden as the nation's public enemy No. 1, has been involved in attacks in the Middle East but has not been known before to have set his sights on the United States.

Now when I heard this I thought the message was that Bin Laden wanted to spread the attacks outside of Iraq, but not necessarily the US.

We can criticize Bush for failing to catch these guys, but that will do little. To be honest, I am surprised it took them this long to begin planning such attacks. For almost three and a half years there has been nothing in the US, and a justification for the war in Iraq "better there than here" rationale. THat might change soon.

However, those attacks might take place elsewhere- undo Egypt's elections, create crisis in Lebanon, undo Palestinian-Israeli ties, more pressure on Saudi Arabia- a lot of local US interests could be threatened.

Furthermore the costs of responding to all this might be outside the US budget. Consider how much is spent in the US against terrorism and in Iraq, on democracy/nation building, such attacks could stretch US foreign policy further than we can afford it.

 

[John Uskglass]

(1) Hosni Mubarak has learned much from Africa. A common strategy of an essential dictator that his time is limited is to hold an election when his party is greatly favored. That gives him a mandate to undertake what reforms he wants.

You are mostly right. However, I'd still say it is nice that enough pressure is on him to at least feign democracy. This is a first.

Also, forgot to mention first elections in Saudi Arabia.

(2) Is Lebanese independece such a good thing? The civil war in Lebanon was a fairly tragic business that had much to do with the political ambitions of local strongmen who were heavily armed and who took advantage of the Israeli invasion to pursue their own objectives.

That's bullshit. The Lebanese civil war was not started by natives, it was started by Palestinian refugees who wanted to dominate politics. With an improving situation in Palestine, there really is no reason for another civil war; not to mention that there just are'nt enough Christians left to really put up a fight.

Furthermore the costs of responding to all this might be outside the US budget. Consider how much is spent in the US against terrorism and in Iraq, on democracy/nation building, such attacks could stretch US foreign policy further than we can afford it.

Outside of our budget maybe if we invade another country or go thru another series of useless tax cuts. We seem to be doing fine right now in terms of money; our home taxes are, if anything, too low rather then too high at the moment, so there is always lots of untapped recources at the government's fingers.

 

[John Uskglass]

I hate to double post, but I don't want to make another topic and this is damn important. First a John Stewart conversation.

Stewart: This book--it talks about the superpower myth of the United States. There is this idea, the United States is the sole superpower, and I guess the premise of the book is we cannot misuse that power--have to use it wisely, and not just punitively. Is that--

Soderberg: That's right. What I argue is that the Bush administration fell hostage to the superpower myth, believing that because we're the most powerful nation on earth, we were all-powerful, could bend the world to our will and not have to worry about the rest of the world. I think what they're finding in the second term is, it's a little bit harder than that, and reality has an annoying way of intruding.

Stewart: But what do you make of--here's my dilemma, if you will. I don't care for the way these guys conduct themselves--and this is just you and I talking, no cameras here [audience laughter]. But boy, when you see the Lebanese take to the streets and all that, and you go, "Oh my God, this is working," and I begin to wonder, is it--is the way that they handled it really--it's sort of like, "Uh, OK, my daddy hits me, but look how tough I'm getting." You know what I mean? Like, you don't like the method, but maybe--wrong analogy, is that, uh--?

Soderberg: Well, I think, you know, as a Democrat, you don't want anything nice to happen to the Republicans, and you don't want them to have progress. But as an American, you hope good things would happen. I think the way to look at it is, they can't credit for every good thing that happens, but they need to be able to manage it. I think what's happening in Lebanon is great, but it's not necessarily directly related to the fact that we went into Iraq militarily.

Stewart: Do you think that the people of Lebanon would have had, sort of, the courage of their conviction, having not seen--not only the invasion but the election which followed? It's almost as though that the Iraqi election has emboldened this crazy--something's going on over there. I'm smelling something.

Soderberg: I think partly what's going on is the country next door, Syria, has been controlling them for decades, and they [the Syrians] were dumb enough to blow up the former prime minister of Lebanon in Beirut, and they're--people are sort of sick of that, and saying, "Wait a minute, that's a stretch too far." So part of what's going on is they're just protesting that. But I think there is a wave of change going on, and if we can help ride it though the second term of the Bush administration, more power to them.

Stewart: Do you think they're the guys to--do they understand what they've unleashed? Because at a certain point, I almost feel like, if they had just come out at the very beginning and said, "Here's my plan: I'm going to invade Iraq. We'll get rid of a bad guy because that will drain the swamp"--if they hadn't done the whole "nuclear cloud," you know, if they hadn't scared the pants off of everybody, and just said straight up, honestly, what was going on, I think I'd almost--I'd have no cognitive dissonance, no mixed feelings.

Soderberg: The truth always helps in these things, I have to say. But I think that there is also going on in the Middle East peace process--they may well have a chance to do a historic deal with the Palestinians and the Israelis. These guys could really pull off a whole--

Stewart: This could be unbelievable!

Soderberg:---series of Nobel Peace Prizes here, which--it may well work. I think that, um, it's--

Stewart: [buries head in hands] Oh my God! [audience laughter] He's got, you know, here's--

Soderberg: It's scary for Democrats, I have to say.

Stewart: He's gonna be a great--pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, "Reagan was nothing compared to this guy." Like, my kid's gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.

Soderberg: Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's hope for the rest of us.

Stewart: [crossing fingers] Iran and North Korea, that's true, that is true [audience laughter]. No, it's--it is--I absolutely agree with you, this is--this is the most difficult thing for me to--because, I think, I don't care for the tactics, I don't care for this, the weird arrogance, the setting up. But I gotta say, I haven't seen results like this ever in that region.

Soderberg: Well wait. It hasn't actually gotten very far. I mean, we've had--

Stewart: Oh, I'm shallow! I'm very shallow!

Soderberg: There's always hope that this might not work. No, but I think, um, it's--you know, you have changes going on in Egypt; Saudi Arabia finally had a few votes, although women couldn't participate. What's going on here in--you know, Syria's been living in the 1960s since the 1960s--it's, part of this is--

Stewart: You mean free love and that kind of stuff? [audience laughter] Like, free love, drugs?

Soderberg: If you're a terrorist, yeah.

Stewart: They are Baathists, are they--it looks like, I gotta say, it's almost like we're not going to have to invade Iran and Syria. They're gonna invade themselves at a certain point, no? Or is that completely naive?

Soderberg: I think it's moving in the right direction. I'll have to give them credit for that. We'll see.

Stewart: Really? Hummus for everybody, for God's sakes.

Then a Gaurdian article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Colum...1428452,00.html

The war's silver lining

We need to face up to the fact that the Iraq invasion has intensified pressure for democracy in the Middle East

Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday March 2, 2005
The Guardian

Tony Blair is not gloating. He could - but he prefers to appear magnanimous in what he hopes is victory. In our Guardian interview yesterday, he was handed a perfect opportunity to crow. He was talking about what he called "the ripple of change" now spreading through the Middle East, the slow, but noticeable movement towards democracy in a region where that commodity has long been in short supply. I asked him whether the stone in the water that had caused this ripple was the regime change in Iraq.
He could have said yes, insisting that events had therefore proved him right and the opponents of the 2003 war badly wrong. But he did not. Instead he sidestepped the whole Iraq business.

Perhaps he was simply reluctant to reopen a debate that came to define, if not paralyse, much of his second term. Or maybe he calculated that it was best to keep the current democratic shift in the region separate from the Iraq war, so that people who opposed the latter might still rally to support the former.

But if he had wanted to brag and claim credit - boasting that the toppling of Saddam Hussein had set off a benign chain reaction - he would have had plenty of evidence to call on.

Most immediate and dramatic is the flowering of what looks like a Cedar Tree Revolution in Lebanon - a mass demonstration of people power on the streets of Beirut to match the Orange revolution last December in Kiev. After nearly three decades of living under Syrian influence, and 20 years of partial military occupation, tens of thousands of Beirutis have taken to the streets waving Lebanese flags - united in their desire to send the Syrians packing.

They certainly have the choreography of revolution right. They have their barricades and flags, and even a martyr - in the form of Rafik Hariri, the ex-prime minister whose assassination last month triggered the current unrest. Hariri had made loud demands for the Syrians to leave and most Lebanese, and many beyond, believe his murder was Damascus's punishment.

So far, the protesters have brought down Lebanon's pro-Syrian government and seem determined to press on until they get what they want: mastery of their own country. One cautionary note: whether this movement reflects the full range of Lebanon's diverse population is hard to tell.

Elsewhere in the region, the ripple of change has been quieter but no less significant. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak stunned his people at the weekend when he announced that presidential elections later this year will no longer have just one name on the ballot - his. Multi-candidate elections are promised, though whether these will be free and fair seems more doubtful.

Equally hard to rely on is Saudi Arabia's round of elections this year and its promise that women will be able to take part - not this time, but next. Britain and the US also take satisfaction in Libya's decision to abandon its attempt to build weapons of mass destruction and Iran's recent promise to halt production of enriched uranium. It's not as if these countries have undergone some ideological conversion: rather, they're hoping to get America off their backs.

The big prize - the one the prime minister was so keen to show off at his London conference yesterday - is progress in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. After four years of stalemate and worse, the Palestinians are now led by a man who describes those who murder Israeli civilians as "terrorists" and who seems serious about putting the Palestinian house in order. Meanwhile, the Israelis are led by a man who, whatever his past, is now ready to risk his life to pull out of Palestinian land. The combination of Abu Mazen's embrace of the reform agenda demanded of him yesterday and Ariel Sharon's iron determination to pull out of Gaza - even in the face of a growing and credible threat of assassination - has made the prospects for their two peoples brighter than in years.

Of course, each one of these hopeful developments has its own origins and dynamics, distinct from the Iraq war. Syria may well have set in train the current Lebanese revolt last year when it sought a change in the country's constitution to keep a pro-Damascus president in place. If that was not provocation enough, the murder of Hariri in the heart of Beirut and in broad daylight seems to have been the last straw.

It's true, too, that those Gulf states now embarked on tentative reform, including Saudi Arabia, were spooked less by the Iraq war than by a post-9/11 fear of a US crackdown on the Islamist extremists in their midst. And in Israel-Palestine, the key shifts have been the death of Yasser Arafat, which has unblocked movement on the Palestinian side, and the realisation on the Israeli right that retention of Palestinian lands spells demographic peril for Israel's chances of remaining a Jewish state. Neither of those have anything to do with the bombing of Baghdad.

Even so, it cannot be escaped: the US-led invasion of Iraq has changed the calculus in the region. The Lebanese protesters are surely emboldened by the knowledge that Syria is under heavy pressure, with US and France united in demanding its withdrawal. That pressure carries an extra sting if Damascus feels that the latest diplomatic signals - including Tony Blair's remark yesterday that Syria had had its "chance" but failed to take it and Condoleezza Rice's declaration that the country was "out of step with where the region is going" - translate crudely as "You're next".

Similar thinking is surely at work in the decisions of Iran and Libya on WMD and Saudi Arabia and Egypt on elections. Put simply, President Bush seems like a man on a mission to spread what he calls the "untamed fire of freedom" - and these Arab leaders don't want to get burned.

This leaves opponents of the Iraq war in a tricky position, even if the PM is not about to rub our faces in the fact. Not only did we set our face against a military adventure which seems, even if indirectly, to have triggered a series of potentially welcome side effects; we also stood against the wider world-view that George Bush represented. What should we say now?

First, we ought to admit that the dark cloud of the Iraq war may have carried a silver lining. We can still argue that the war was wrong-headed, illegal, deceitful and too costly of human lives - and that its most important gain, the removal of Saddam, could have been achieved by other means. But we should be big enough to concede that it could yet have at least one good outcome.

Second, we have to say that the call for freedom throughout the Arab and Muslim world is a sound and just one - even if it is a Bush slogan and arguably code for the installation of malleable regimes. Put starkly, we cannot let ourselves fall into the trap of opposing democracy in the Middle East simply because Bush and Blair are calling for it. Sometimes your enemy's enemy is not your friend.

 

[welsh]

Well CCR- A couple thoughts-

(1) I think it would be a mistake to consider the Iraq war as the revolutionary pivot in democratization of the middle east. This had been going on for years before 9-11 and can be traced back to the end of colonialism. Similar processes happen in Africa where strongmen clothe themselves in independence struggles and liberation and then fall to systems of tyranny. In some places it was external actors that upset democratic movements in lieu of national security interests.

Democratic transitions often require social groups to overcome difficult collective action problems or they come internally because of divisions within the state over the share of the spoils.

(2) Lebanon- Ok, yes the Palestinians had a hand in it. But it was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that chased the Palestinians in Beirut, and political consequences of that invasion to different groups within Lebanon that led to that civil war. The system of governance, in which the French constructed a system in which different communal groups had representation, no longer reflected the status quo. So yes, it was just the Palestinians who got moved out. It was different factions within Lebanon that start blasting each other- the Phalange, the Druze, the Hezbollah, the Amal militia- lots of parties to the dance with different goals.

Peace in Lebanon came with Syrian intervention. External actors can do this by detering social groups from political violence. That the Lebanese want the Syrians out does not mean that they can live amongst each other in peace. That said, it's no surprise that the Lebanese want them out. Who wants your neighbor controlling your house?

As mentioned-
Libya- had been trying to get out of the sanctions for years, including making peace with the Pan Am victoms. It was also not the first country to have gone for a WMD program and decide to give it up when the costs of the program outweighed the gains.

Egypt- has been having a problem with miitants for years. As mentioned before, this is a nice place by Mubarak to stay in power for another few years.

Saudi's have always been behind the curve on rights of women. But women's right have been slowly on the increase. They need only to Bahrain or Qatar to see how the other half lives.

 

[John Uskglass]

From The Times of London

What have the Americans ever done for us? Liberated 50 million people...
Gerard Baker

ONE OF MY favourite cinematic moments is the scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian when Reg, aka John Cleese, the leader of the People’s Front of Judea, is trying to whip up anti-Roman sentiment among his team of slightly hesitant commandos.

“What have the Romans ever done for us?” he asks.

“Well, there’s the aqueduct,” somebody says, thoughtfully. “The sanitation,” says another. “Public order,” offers a third. Reg reluctantly acknowledges that there may have been a couple of benefits. But then steadily, and with increasing enthusiasm, his men reel off a litany of the good things the Romans have wrought with their occupation of the Holy Land.

By the time they’re finished they’re not so sure about the whole insurgency idea after all and an exasperated Reg tries to rally them: “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

I can’t help but think of that scene as I watch the contortions of the anti-American hordes in Britain, Europe and even in the US itself in response to the remarkable events that are unfolding in the real Middle East today.

Little more than three years after US forces, backed by their faithful British allies, set foot in Afghanistan, the entire historical dynamic of this blighted region has already shifted.

Ignoring, fortunately, the assault from clever world opinion on America’s motives, its credibility and its ambitions, the Bush Administration set out not only to eliminate immediate threats but also to remake the Middle East. In the last month, the pace of progress has accelerated, and from Beirut to Kabul.

Confronted with this awkward turn of events, Reg’s angry successors are asking their cohorts: “What have the Americans ever done for us?” “Well, they did get rid of the Taleban in Afghanistan. ’Orrible bunch, they were.”

“All right, the Taleban, I grant you.”

“Then there was Iraq. Knocked off one of the nastiest dictators who ever lived and gave the whole nation a chance to pick its own rulers.”

“Yeah, all right. Fair enough. I didn’t like Saddam.”

“Libya gave up its nuclear weapons.”

“And then there’s Syria. Thousands of people on the streets of Lebanon. Syrians look like they’re pulling out.”

“I just heard Egypt’s going to hold free presidential elections for the first time. And Saudi Arabia just held elections too.”

“The Palestinians and the Israelis are talking again and they say there’s a real chance of peace this time.”

“All right, all right. But apart from liberating 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan, undermining dictatorships throughout the Arab world, spreading freedom and self-determination in the broader Middle East and moving the Palestinians and the Israelis towards a real chance of ending their centuries-long war, what have the Americans ever done for us?”
It’s too early, in fairness, to claim complete victory in the American-led struggle to bring peace through democratic transformation of the region. Despite the temptation to crow, we must remember that this is not Berlin 1989. There will surely be challenging times ahead in Iraq, Iran, in the West Bank and elsewhere. The enemies of democratic revolution — all the terrorists and Baathists, the sheikhs, the mullahs and the monarchs — are not going to give up without a fight.



But something very important is happening now, something that will be very hard to stop. And, although not all of it can be directly attributed to the US strategy in the region, can anyone seriously argue that it would have happened without it? Neither is it true, as some have tried to argue, that all of this is merely some unintended consequence of an immoral and misconceived war in Iraq.

It was always the express goal of the Bush Administration to change the regime in Baghdad, precisely because of the opportunities for democracy it would open up in the rest of the Arab world. George Bush understands the simple but historically demonstrable thesis that freedom is not only the most basic of human rights, but also the best way to ensure that nations do not go to war with each other.

In a speech one month before the start of the Iraq war in 2003, Mr Bush laid out the strategy: “The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life.”

I doubt that anybody, even the most prescient in the Bush Administration or at 10 Downing Street, thought the progress we are now seeing would come as quickly as it has.

But what was clear to the bold foreign policy strategists in Washington was that the status quo that existed before September 11 could no longer be tolerated. Much of the Muslim world represented decay and stagnation, and bred anger and resentment. That was the root cause of the terrorism that had attacked America with increasing ferocity between 1969 and 2001.

America’s critics craved stability in the Middle East. Don’t rock the boat, they said. But to the US this stability was that of the mass grave; the calm was the eerie quiet that precedes the detonation of the suicide bomb. The boat was holed and listing viciously.

As a foreign policy thinker close to the Administration put it to me, in the weeks before the Iraq war two years ago: “Shake it and see. That’s what we are going to do.” The US couldn’t be certain of the outcome, but it could be sure that whatever happened would be better than the status quo.

And so America, the revolutionary power, plunged in and shook the region to its foundations. And it is already liking what it sees.

 

[Big T]

What, so the writer has discovered that much anti-Americanism (just like most xenophobia, specific or generalised) is largely illogical?

Whoop - De - Do.

Meh. There are things the Americans have done (and the ways in which they have done things) that are wrong, but there are many good things they have done. (For "Americans" read "American Military/Government")
Just because people protest against Bush, or against the unjust invasion of Iraq (and it was unjust, regardless of the mostly favourable consequences) does not make them anti-American.

Stupid media.

Also, since when has it been "The Times Of London"?
It's just called "The Times".

 

[John Uskglass]

There is a Cedar Revolution going on. In my pants.

Remember, someone tells you Lebanese women are not the most beautiful in the world, kick them in the pants.

 

[welsh]

CCR- you need to get laid.

ANyway, here is another bit on this topic-

Sorry- this is a long damn article-

Something stirs

Mar 3rd 2005
From The Economist print edition

Two years after the invasion of Iraq, the Arab world is beginning to show tantalising signs of change. But it is too early to talk of a year of revolutions, as the three prime exhibits being used to make the case for democracy—Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine—are in many ways special cases

SINCE the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003, many of those who vehemently opposed it have mocked America’s neo-conservatives for having believed that the Iraqis would greet their foreign liberators with flowers and gratitude. Now it is the turn of the neo-cons to mock. A lot of people in the anti-war camp predicted that the war would cause upheavals across the Middle East, fanning hatred of the West and tipping friendly regimes into the hands of Islamist extremists.

It hasn’t worked out that way. On the eve of the war’s second anniversary, the Middle East does indeed seem to be in the grip of some sort of change. But, right now, much of the change seems to be pushing in a welcome direction, towards a new peace chance in Palestine and the spread of democratic ideas around the Arab world.

Arabs everywhere were affected by the spectacle in January of Iraqis defying terrorists to cast their vote and elect a new government, and of Palestinians managing to hold a free election even while under Israeli occupation. The past week has brought even more transfixing scenes, as Lebanese thronged the streets of Beirut with their flags in an unprecedented show of “people’s power”, forcing the country’s pro-Syrian government to resign. At the same time, Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president for the past 24 years, has astonished his countrymen by calling for constitutional changes to allow rival candidates to vie for his position for the first time.

To the instigators of the Iraq war, all this is manna from heaven. Having failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, George Bush and Tony Blair have been forced to emphasise instead the gift of freedom their toppling of Saddam Hussein delivered to its people. This “gift” was hardly free: chaos and murder continue to stalk Iraq. This week alone, at least 120 people were killed in a single suicide bombing in Hilla. And yet the Iraqis do still seem impressed by the novelty of being able to vote a government out of power.

In Bratislava a fortnight ago, Mr Bush drew a link between Iraq’s vote, Czechoslovakia’s “velvet revolution” of 1989, Georgia’s “rose revolution” at the end of 2003, and Ukraine’s recent “orange revolution”. He would say that. But a growing number of Arab voices are chiming in, too.

In a widely noticed interview, Walid Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon’s Druze, told the Washington Post that Iraq’s election was the Arab equivalent of the fall of the Berlin wall. Hisham Kassem, a former publisher of the Cairo Times, called the elections the “start of a ripple effect”. Khaled al-Meena, the editor of Saudi Arabia’s Arab News, says that if elections can be held under foreign occupation in Iraq and Palestine, it should be much easier to hold them in Arab states said to be “free”.

How far-reaching is this new spirit? The Arab world is large and diverse, so there is always a risk of connecting the dots in a way that produces a distorted picture. One oddity is that Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon—all three of the prime exhibits being used to make the case for democracy—happen to be under foreign occupation, by America, Israel and Syria respectively. Each is in many ways a special case.

A cedar revolution?

The foreign occupation of Lebanon began in 1976, when Syria’s dictator, Hafez Assad, sent his army to intervene in Lebanon’s brutal three-cornered civil war between Maronite Christians, Muslims and Palestinians. The mass protests that forced Lebanon’s pro-Syrian government in Lebanon to resign this week would probably not have happened but for a powerful shock: last month’s murder of Rafik Hariri, the country’s former prime minister and most popular politician. This was the catalyst for a chain reaction. For the Lebanese, what some are calling a “cedar revolution” and others a “peaceful intifada” carries the promise of an end not just to Syrian occupation but also to a corrupt spoils system that has long sapped the country’s talent and morale.

Broad-based popular movements such as this are unlikely to emerge soon in other countries. Lebanon’s experience is in many ways unique. Famously fractious, the Lebanese are well educated and politically sophisticated. Their central government is weak, meaning it lacks the instruments of control enjoyed by other Arab states. It cannot co-opt enemies with oil money, because it has none. It cannot suppress protests effectively, because it lacks even a trained force of riot police. And it cannot silence dissent, because Lebanon’s vibrant press has remained in private hands. The enthusiastic, non-stop coverage of the Beirut intifada on opposition TV channels emboldened tens of thousands of ordinary citizens to ignore government bans, and take to the streets.

Just now, something else distinguishes the Lebanese: they have a focus for their anger. Mr Hariri had come to embody the country’s post-war reconstruction. His assassination united Lebanon’s multiple factions in outrage. A beleaguered minority movement, led by Christian and Druze politicians who once fought each other, was reinforced by members of Mr Hariri’s own Sunni Muslims, as well as thousands of others whose indignation transcended the old sectarian loyalties.

Lebanon’s anger has a cause as well as a martyred hero: freedom from domination by Syria, whose regime many Lebanese instinctively blame for the crime. Over the years, Syria’s occupation helped to smother the flames of civil war and bolster Lebanon’s resistance to Israel’s occupation of the south. But the war is long over, the Israelis have gone and the Syrians have overstayed their welcome. They are blamed now for imposing some of the ills that afflict other Arab countries, such as grotesque corruption, intimidation of political opponents, and the subversion of the courts. When the Lebanese demand the return of national sovereignty, it is as much a call to restore local freedoms as for Syria’s troops to leave.

Democrats in Palestine

In Palestine, too, the advance of democracy may have been helped by the weakness of the government. The Palestinian Authority (PA), created by the 1993 Oslo accords to run the occupied territories until a final deal on statehood was reached, is missing many of a sovereign state’s usual attributes. Israel controls natural resources, borders, coast and airspace, the currency, the collection of customs duties, and, in most areas, security and internal freedom of movement. Yet Palestine’s political system is vibrant and pluralistic.

Ironic, but no accident: Israel’s occupation is directly responsible. The two intifadas bred a powerful grassroots movement, subverting the Middle East’s usual authoritarian tendency. Yasser Arafat’s periodic attempts to placate Israel by cracking down with his brutal security services alienated the population, as did graft among his officials. In polls done for January’s presidential election by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, 26% of voters rated corruption and lack of reform as the most serious problem facing Palestinians, only slightly behind the occupation (31%) and poverty (33%).

Arafat’s death has triggered a quiet cascade of mini-revolutions. January’s presidential election delivered a predictably solid victory to Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), his designated successor in the ruling Fatah party, but also a strong showing to Mustafa Barghouti, an independent without any of the benefits of a party structure, previous political jobs or slyly-used state funds.

In the early rounds of the municipal elections, Hamas, the main Islamist party, did unexpectedly well. This July it can expect to win a hefty minority in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), whose current members smell pretty ripe to ordinary Palestinians after a decade in their seats.

Hamas is popular for its armed efforts in the second intifada, which most Palestinians believe forced Israel’s planned withdrawal from Gaza, and for its broad network of local social services, trumping those of the PA. It also did well because many would-be Fatah candidates grew so sick of the old leadership’s habit of overriding internal primaries and imposing its own people that they ran independently, thus splitting the vote for the party. But these habits are changing: a frightened Fatah is beginning to heed its younger members’ calls for reform.

And there was another upset last month when the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei (Abu Alaa), tried to appoint a cabinet packed with Arafat loyalists. Shrewdly, rather than press Mr Qurei to make changes, Mr Abbas sat back and let him get into a showdown with PLC members who wanted their turn. The end result: a “technocrat” government, made up of politically inexperienced but professional people, and few Arafat cronies or PLC hacks in sight. How well it will govern remains to be seen, but Palestinians love it: shortly after the government was sworn in, a Ramallah street vendor was heard hawking “technocrat bread”.

Reform of the PA has been on the agenda since well before Mr Abbas. Salam Fayyad, the Authority’s determined finance minister, has spent nearly three years cleaning up the books, and says its revenue collection has gone up from $45m to $75m a month, even as the economy has withered under the intifada. Mr Abbas, mindful of Fatah’s plight and the fact that his own poll rating was close to zero before he became the party’s candidate, is carrying on with those plans.

The PA outlined them at a meeting this week in London with donors and Middle Eastern governments. Pension reform will help slim down the civil service, which until recently was a sponge for unemployment, by encouraging desk-jockeys to retire. There will be clear procedures for appointing judges and a shake-up in the court system. The dozen-or-so security services (not even PA officials agree on the exact number), which functioned as private fiefs, will be slimmed down, smartened up and brought under central control. There will be tweaks to fiscal management and business law, and a raft of other changes. In return, donors upped their pledges of support to $1.2 billion for 2005, and Palestine broke a new record for aid money per head of population.

Please may we have independence too?

Palestinians plainly welcome reform for its own sake. Above all they want the occupation to end. Yet Israel insists—and for now the Americans seem to agree—that the Palestinians must put their domestic house in order before they will be allowed to negotiate the final status of their putative independent state. As in Lebanon, therefore, the grassroots appetite for bottom-up democracy and the impulse for independence combine into a potent force.

That is no longer true of many Arab countries, where the kings and “national liberation” parties that took power after the colonial period have clung ruthlessly to office ever since. Yet in the past year or so, even governments of that sort have been making some concessions to democracy. In some cases this has been done for domestic reasons, in others as a response to pressure from the Americans. Morocco’s politics have matured lately into a lively multi-party system, albeit under the supervision of an almost absolute monarch. Another semi-constitutional monarchy, Jordan, plans to devolve central powers to elected regional bodies. Yemen, though still tribally fractious and backward, boasts a rowdy parliament and press.

Even the absolute monarchs of the Gulf have opened up to varying degrees of citizen participation. Qatar’s emir, the first Arab ruler to abolish his own ministry of information, actually congratulated the Lebanese for toppling their government. Kuwait, which has long had a noisy parliament, is on the verge of enfranchising women, now that Islamists back the idea. In Bahrain, Oman and Qatar, women already vote. And Saudi Arabia is in the midst of electioneering as polling for town councils continues across the kingdom.

Change, and the illusion of change

Needless to say, much of this top-down reform has been hesitant and shallow. In none of these cases has the real balance of power been threatened with change. Essential attributes of an open society, such as full scrutiny of state spending, an unfettered press, truly independent courts and accountable police and security forces remain unachieved. The changes often look less like Mr Bush’s forward strategy of freedom than like a rearguard strategy of regime survival.


Mr Mubarak’s initiative, for example, concedes none of his pharaonic powers, including the right to be re-elected in perpetuity. According to the draft forwarded to Egypt’s rubber-stamp parliament, presidential candidates would have to be proposed by legal parties. The hitch is that Mr Mubarak’s own party controls the legalising process. It may not sanction its most formidable opponent, the Muslim Brotherhood. After 50 years of virtual one-party rule, the political stage has been almost swept clean of potential contenders, aside from the 76-year-old Mr Mubarak and, perhaps, his 42-year-old son Gamal. Besides, Egyptians are so inured to electoral fraud and manipulation that it may prove hard to persuade them of the utility of voting.

The arrest in January of a prominent young opposition parliamentarian, Ayman Nour, underscored the sanitised nature of Egypt’s politics. Mr Nour’s secular, liberal al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party had only recently been legalised. Unlike tamer opposition politicians who had agreed to put off calls for change until after Mr Mubarak’s re-election, Mr Nour had been demanding immediate constitutional reform. For his pains he was accused of forgery, had his parliamentary immunity lifted, and was clapped in jail. He remains locked up, but responded to Mr Mubarak’s initiative by calling off a hunger strike.

The experience of Algeria and Tunisia, which already permit competition for the presidency, is not encouraging. Tunisia’s ruler of the past 17 years, Zeineddine Ben Ali, has twice crushed challengers, but these lightweight rivals were carefully vetted, and forced to play on a steeply tilted field. Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika handily won a fairer race last year, but with the full support of state media and other government institutions.

Arabs complain that their rulers’ gestures towards reform come more in response to outside pressures than to their own aspirations. Mr Mubarak’s proposal would not have been made but for the supposedly friendly nagging of Mr Bush and Condoleezza Rice, America’s new secretary of state. Yet pressure for reform is also building from within. Hollow or not, each grudging reform has whetted the public’s appetite for further change.

In the past, popular protests often took the form of riots over price rises or localised protests at police brutality. Now “people power” is increasingly being expressed in organised and peaceful movements by civil-society groups. Bahrain’s ruler, for example, brought himself immense popularity three years ago by ending martial rule, inviting exiled dissidents home, and running free elections for half the seats in the national legislature. Many Bahrainis, particularly among the disenfranchised Shia who make up two-thirds of the island kingdom’s native population, are now demanding more.

Jordan’s King Abdullah, likewise, faces a wave of unrest from trade unions angered by new rules that ban syndicates from political activity. In Egypt, Mr Mubarak’s election initiative was greeted not with gratitude, but with demands for wider freedoms and better guarantees that polls will really be clean. A small but vociferous reform movement has gained momentum in Cairo, drawing strength from the coverage of protests by satellite TV channels that are beyond state control, and a proliferation of groups promoting specific issues, such as ending torture.

Goodbye Baathism

Even in Syria the feeling that change is inevitable has become palpable. Hafez Assad’s son Bashir has proved a weak leader, isolated both by the war in Iraq and his behaviour in Lebanon. Many other Arabs still share the Syrian regime’s sense of being under siege, its deep mistrust of the West, and its loathing for Israel. Yet they are also aware that the armed intifada in Palestine and the Iraqi insurgency have lost their sheen. They know that state socialism is a dud, and—after Saddam Hussein’s fall—that dictatorship is ultimately disastrous. Growing numbers are willing to say that Islam is threatened more by its own demons than by the West’s armies.

An Arab democratic opening will be long and tortuous. The regimes that block it are strong, cunning and ruthless. The rhetoric of “resistance”—Islamist, Arab nationalist, anti-American, anti-globalisation, or whatever—retains a powerful grip. Many Arabs still support groups such as al-Qaeda. A huge amount still depends on the outcome in Iraq: a descent into chaos or the failure of the political process there could crush democratic stirrings throughout the region. For all these reasons, it is probably too early for the Americans to crow about an Arab year of revolutions. All the same, the distance between George Bush’s talk of freedom and Arab aspirations, which only recently seemed to yawn so wide, may at last be starting to close.

 

[welsh]

Hey CCR-

Recent bombing in Lebandon
Car bomb in Beirut

and Hezbollah support for Syria suggests that a peaceful transition in Lebanon will be difficult.

 

[John Uskglass]

TNR is probably the only news source I frequently read cover to cover, this pertains to you pretty well.

Give liberals credit. Rather than churlishly dismiss signs that the White House may have jump-started Middle Eastern democratization, most liberals have taken the responsible course and applauded recent developments in Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq. "The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances," wrote the granddaddy of liberal opinion, The New York Times editorial page. Ted Kennedy seconded that sentiment on ABC's "This Week": "What's taken place in a number of those countries is enormously constructive. It's a reflection the president has been involved." Hardly the peevish response many conservatives privately expected.

But, if liberals aren't blinded by partisanship when assessing the dramatic events of these last few weeks, their response does have a certain grudging quality (reflective perhaps not only of discomfort with George W. Bush, but also regret that Bill Clinton did not make democratization in the Middle East his obsession). One detects this reluctance especially in the tendency to dwell far more on potential setbacks than opportunities, and to focus on advances in parts of the world where the administration can't plausibly claim credit. Take, for example, the preeminent liberal blog, Daily Kos, which spent thousands upon thousands of words chewing over Ukraine's Orange Revolution. So far, it has featured only two short posts on Lebanon's equally stirring Cedar Revolution--and both were notable mostly for their pessimism.

This is unfortunate. The administration's record of foreign policy cynicism and ineptitude is not easily forgotten (or forgiven). But it is precisely because of this track record that liberals must speak with a strong voice in the coming debate about democratization. Let us not lose sight of what is at stake. Democratic governments in Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt would constitute dramatic improvements in the lives of millions of people and put the three most contemptible regimes in the region--Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia--under intense pressure to reform. Were that effort to succeed, it would represent a significant blow against terrorism and a significant improvement in the security of the United States.

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But liberal democracy is more than just regime change and elections. It can succeed only if it is cultivated--which means devoting time and money to building civil institutions like a free press, nurturing liberal political parties and politicians, and generally inculcating liberal values through all available means, including popular culture. The administration has neglected many of these vital tasks in Iraq. There is little reason to expect it to perform much better in Lebanon. That makes it all the more incumbent upon liberals to offer detailed initiatives of their own.

In fact, given the administration's global reputation, it is hard to imagine its democratization efforts succeeding without domestic support from liberals. The United States, after all, comes to the project with dirty hands, having shown disdain for democracy in the twentieth century by toppling popularly elected leaders and supporting authoritarian governments when it served our narrow interests. The administration has, in many cases, only worsened these perceptions, most obviously at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, which had a devastating impact on world public opinion. American liberals, who have denounced these developments, will be central to persuading the world of the sincerity of U.S. intentions.

Beyond this contribution, liberals must realize their own future is at stake. Should democratization succeed with Democrats deeply involved, they will be able to claim a share of the credit. But, should it succeed despite their puerile detachment--or, worse, their objections--Democrats could well be branded as the party that opposes bringing human rights and responsible governance to people who don't yet benefit from them. And that could change U.S. politics for a generation.

More immediately, liberals must realize that they have to be willing to support the Bush administration in the Middle East if they want to have anything to say about democracy elsewhere in the world. Liberals rightly accuse the White House of talking up its democratic successes in the region while downplaying backsliding in places like Russia. But the same logic applies to the left. How can liberals be outspokenly in favor of democratization in Russia but only tepidly endorse it in Lebanon, just because an administration they detest might get credit for it? The answer is that they can't. When it comes to democracy-building, there's enough credit--and enough work--to go around.

 

[Brother None]

I do agree with Johnny there, but only up to a certain level.

It is a dangerous game right now and it's a sad sunday if "liberals" (WOULD YOU STOP FUCKING USING THAT WORD THAT WAY GODDAMN AMERICANS (and Canadians and Brits)) would rather see this newfound democracy wash up on empty shores just because that would prove them right rather than seeing a triumphant march of democracy that would prove them wrong...

However, John, the path you're taking is also dangerous and somewhat undemocratic. No matter what it is the duty of the opposition to point out possible flaws. The Republicans aren't going to look at this with a critical eye, they're taken away on a high-wave of happiness right now in being proven right (which is equally pathetic and short-sighted, but ah well). So if the "liberals" are also not going to take a critical eye, who will foresee possible problems?

What you don't seem to understand is that you can't just hit a country with democracy and expect it to do well. Look at Russia as an example. It was hit with democracy as a final victory blow in the Cold War, rather than taking the wiser path in deconstructing the authoritarian nature of this state that has no history of democracy whatsoever. The result? A paper doll democracy that is a paper doll not only because of corruption and cheating, but mostly because the people don't understand democracy. The whole concept of being capable of voting for anyone that is not the authoritarian figure does not occur to many Russians, because they were never slid into democracy, they were shoved in.

The same thing seems to be happening in the Middle East. Democratisation without any attempt to analyse has a tendency to turn out nasty. Afghanistan's democratisation is slowly dying for lack of interest and lack of control of the country. People forgot about it, now it's not a democracy and from the looks of it it never will be, even though the capital might survive as a democratic city under UN control. It's easy to forget that, isn't it?

Nobody took a moment to pause and reflect on the Iraqi elections. The right was too busy looking forward to it and how perfect it would be. The left was too busy protesting the war as a whole. Result? Nobody took the Sunnis into account properly. The current Iraqi democracy is a sham of a democracy. No other country in the world would accept an election where a significant and distinct (religiously distinct, in this case) portion of the country is disabled from voting or, note this, shows it democrating right in protesting against the concept of democracy by not voting (it's funny how it never occured to people to take it that way; if the Sunnis boycot the elections, that's their democratic right, THAT's their democratic voice, a voice that shouts "We don't want (this kind of) democracy"), especially not one with such a low turn-out.

The "liberals" are there to reflect and to analyse. If they don't point out possible troubles I can assure you the government won't take the trouble to either, they've shown themselves spectacularly capable of turning a blind eye to possible problems, making both the Iraqi and the Afghani democracies non-existant or empty hulls. Heck, one could say America has a tradition of this, turning a blind eye as long as it helps them, the wave of empty democratisations that started under the Cold War is just another facet of this.

No, CC, say what you will, I hope this all turns out ok, I hope Iraq stays peaceful, giving the Sunnis the insight that they might also protest through actually voting and turning the democracy into a shiny, good one. I hope Afghanistan will turn more peaceful and become a democracy at last. I hope Russia will slowly integrate the concept democracy and become one.

But all these things are painfully unlikely and I'm not going to let you right-wingers forget that

 

[John Uskglass]

But all these things are painfully unlikely and I'm not going to let you right-wingers forget that

Fair enough I suppose. But the attempt was needed, and at the very least this is a remarkable moment in the inevitable transofrmation of the middle east; weather or not every Neo-Con wet dream comes true, I don't know.

Still, steps down the right path.

 

[welsh]

Interesting but you have not been posting on Lebanon, nor did you respond to the last post.

But- let's go back to Iraq-

Two months on, still no Iraqi government

Mar 30th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda


Iraq’s parliament, which has again failed to choose a government, is looking like a poor advertisement for democracy, two months after its election. Unless agreement is reached soon, an opportunity to quench the still-raging insurgency may be missed

IT WAS a farcical scene. For only the second time since a widely acclaimed general election two months ago, Iraq’s parliament met again on Tuesday March 29th—and achieved precisely nothing. This time, MPs did not even make florid appeals for national unity, as they did at the inaugural session two weeks ago. Instead, one after another, they got up to denounce the main parties for failing to produce a coalition government, and demanded to know what was going on behind closed doors.

After about 20 minutes of angry discord, the parliament’s acting speaker ejected the watching media from the chamber and Iraq’s state television, which had been beaming the proceedings, suddenly cut to a music concert. At this point, the interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi (whose Iraqi List did poorly in the election but may yet join a coalition government) got up and walked out. Across Baghdad, indignant Iraqis asked each other if this was what they had defied the insurgents on election day to achieve.

But things are not quite as bad as they look. The two main groups, the Shia Muslim-led United Iraqi Alliance and a coalition embracing the two main Kurdish parties, still say that they have resolved, at least temporarily, the biggest differences between them, deferring the thorniest one, over the final status of the disputed city of Kirkuk, until later. The final stumbling block to forming a government is over how to bring Sunni Arabs into it. And the main trouble in this respect is that, since most Sunni Arabs refused or were too afraid to vote in January’s election, no one knows who really represents them.

The Shias and Kurds had already agreed that parliament’s speaker and one of two vice-presidents should, among other posts, be Sunni Arabs. The latest hiccup has been caused by the outgoing interim president, Ghazi al-Yawar, a well-connected Sunni Arab who had been tapped for the speaker’s job but who suddenly announced that he wanted to be a vice-president instead. The Shias produced their own Sunni candidate, other Sunnis in the parliament bristled at having a representative forced on them and the fragile consensus collapsed. MPs now say that the Sunnis have until April 3rd to come up with a candidate—or the rest of the Shia- and Kurdish-dominated body will decide for them.

Compared with the Shias or Kurds, Iraq’s Sunni Arabs are badly divided. A number of Sunni-dominated groups ran in the recent general election but barely a score of Sunni Arabs, scattered across a number of different lists, won seats in the 275-member parliament. So no one knows who would have done well had the vast majority of Sunnis not stayed away from the poll. Moreover, many local Sunni leaders say that their constituents will accept no one who fought against Saddam Hussein’s regime from exile or who participated in the governments which followed his demise, which rules out nearly all of those Sunni Arabs who were elected in January.

Still, Sunni leaders are belatedly trying to get their act together. Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein (a monarchist), Adnan Pachachi (a liberal), Hashem al-Hassani (an Islamist) and a clutch of others have held a series of conferences with the aim of producing a coherent Sunni agenda. Sharif Ali, in particular, has won the blessing of at least some members of the Muslim Scholars’ Board, an influential but strongly anti-American Sunni clerics’ body which told its people to boycott the election and is insisting that the new government should meet a string of demands, running from the rehabilitation of purged Baathists to the release of political prisoners and a withdrawal deadline for American troops, as the price of co-operation.

The Sunnis also demand not just the speaker’s post and a vice-presidency, but also a security ministry, either defence or interior. If a Sunni Arab had one of those key jobs, he might be able to persuade at least some of the insurgents to put down their arms. As it is, they appear—for the first time since the insurgency got going in earnest 18 months ago—to be on the defensive. Attacks in February dropped to 40-50 a day, their lowest level since the Americans first assaulted the rebel stronghold of Fallujah a year ago. While the rate has gone up a bit in the last few weeks, the rebels are no longer massing troops to overrun police stations or take over Iraqi towns wholesale.

Iraqi troops are fighting more aggressively, while the insurgency's mystique is fading

In contrast, Iraqi government troops are fighting more aggressively, and the insurgents’ mystique is fading, thanks in part to popular television programmes such as “Terror in the Hands of Justice”, which shows broken rebel captives confessing to everything from contract killings to homosexual orgies. Iraqi police say this has led to a surge in the number of tips from citizens, who now take a more scornful and less fearful view of the guerrillas.

Many Sunni politicians who have embraced the new order (even though they have yet to be slotted into government) say that more insurgents now want to lay down their arms. That still excludes dedicated Islamists linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian who claims to be Osama bin Laden’s main man in Iraq, and criminal and Baathist networks. But many Sunni Arab regular soldiers from Mr Hussein’s era who took up arms in reaction to American raids and weapons searches in their homes, and to the apparently haphazard arrest of many of their relatives, may be thinking of giving up.

The success of the election has convinced them that they will not topple the new post-invasion political order; they would now rather make their peace with it. What is stopping them is fear for their and their families’ security. If they come out into the open and hand in their arsenals, they may be arrested by American troops or targeted for assassination by Shia militias. What might persuade them to give up is a trusted Sunni Arab military veteran sitting at the negotiating table as minister of defence or interior.

Iraq’s incoming rulers, however, seem loth to let that happen. The one of the two main Shia parties in the winning alliance, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, says there are already too many Baathist sympathisers in the new armed forces and intelligence service; and it wants to control the security ministries to purge them even more thoroughly. But if the Sunni Arabs and Shias cannot overcome these differences, the post-election window of opportunity for a negotiated settlement with at least some of the insurgents may close.