LCCC
ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
August 27/09
Bible Reading of the day
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 23:27-32. Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which
appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and
every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside
you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of
the righteous, and you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we
would not have joined them in shedding the prophets' blood.' Thus you bear
witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the
prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out!
Free Opinions, Releases, letters & Special
Reports
Hezbollah categorizes the Lebanese
as those who have honor and those who don’t/Hanin Ghaddar, Now Lebanon 26/08/09
Ghajar
and the Shebaa Farms: the view from the other side-By
Eyal Zisser 26/08/09
Iraq and
Syria need state-to-state contact to solve their impasse.The
Daily Star 26/08/09
Islamists and the Grave Bell-The National
Interest Online
26/08/09
Poverty and privilege: Lebanon's flawed prison system-AFP
26/08/09
Latest
News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for August
26/09
March 14 condemns campaign against
patriarch, warns against delay in cabinet formation-Now Lebanon
South Lebanese villagers oust Hezbollah-United
Press International
Aoun: I Will Not Pay Any Visits; those Wanting to Negotiate Can Visit Me-Naharnet
Inhabitants of the
Northern Border Town block Highway in Protest-Naharnet
Arslan: Domestic Obstacles Are Hindering Cabinet Shape-Up-Naharnet
Jumblat Expects Initiatives as Hizbullah Resumes Activity with Rabiyeh-Naharnet
MPs: Berri Says Situation
Requires 'Extraordinary' Government-Naharnet
Tahbish Denies Involvement in Murder of 4 Judges-Naharnet
Dalloul: Jumblat Knows who Wrote Der Spiegel Report, Fears Sunni-Maronite
Alliance-Naharnet
LEBANON: Security forces destroy 'one third' of
hashish plantations-Los
Angeles Times
Fears of Shiite-Sunni violence breakout in Lebanon-The
Associated Press
Elder
statesmen push to resume Middle East peace talks-(AFP)
British
PM upbeat after Netanyahu talks-
(AFP)
Hariri
insists on Hizbullah participation in unity cabinet-Daily
Star
'I am not a lunatic,' pleads 'Toronto 18' member. AFP
Australia's Terror TV-Wall Street
Journal
Secret Tapes Surface in Trial of 3 Charged With Supporting Hezbollah-13WHAM-TV
Iran slams 'interfering' Argentina-ABC
Online
Iraq and Syria recall envoys in bomb suspects
row-Reuters
Iraq's al-Qaida claims Baghdad government bombings-The
Associated Press
Amal: Some states ignoring Israeli
breaches
Army
detain suspected Israeli trespasser-(AFP)
Hizbullah won't comment on Sfeir's criticism of weapons-Daily
Star
French-Libyan sparring holds up UNIFIL mandate extension-Daily
Star
Siniora
mulls schemes to boost power production-Daily
Star
Geita
Grotto makes final 14 in New Seven Wonders contest-Daily
Star
Workshop
aims to boost civil society networking-Daily
Star
Jean
Dunn appointed Australian envoy to Beirut-Daily
Star
Baroud,
Tabourian discuss attacks on EDL staff-Daily
Star
First
Tripoli-Famagusta tourism sea route kicks off-Daily
Star
Interior, Health ministries join to improve primary health care-Daily
Star
Nahr
al-Bared becomes test case for security at camps-By
Inter Press Service
Aridi
says cleaning of water pipes a 'matter of urgency-Daily
Star
Guards
arrested in Cyprus over UNIFIL assault-Daily
Star
TV
series strives to topple sectarian, ethnic animosity-Daily
Star
March 14
condemns campaign against patriarch, warns against delay in cabinet formation
Now Lebanon/August 26, 2009 /March 14 General Secretariat issued a statement
following its meeting on Wednesday condemning the campaign against Maronite
Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, “whose stances of freedom have protected
Lebanon.”A reference to Prominent Shia cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah
who criticized Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir’s call for a majority
cabinet, saying there should be a referendum that shows the “actual popular
majority.” The statement also warned against another smear campaign against the
Orthodox church. On the cabinet formation, March 14 forces said the delay in the
government formation makes Lebanon vulnerable to threats. The statement added
that “the parties obstructing the cabinet are raising tension in the country,”
stressing, “The absence of an effective government will push Lebanese into the
international economic crisis after it managed to avoid it for so long.”
Put off life for the sake of Hezbollah
Hezbollah categorizes the Lebanese as those who have honor and those who don’t
Hanin Ghaddar, NOW Staff , August 26, 2009
On my way to the South last weekend, I couldn't ignore the dozens of Hezbollah
billboards addressing the party’s southern constituents. “You are the most
honored people”, “You are the most dignified people”, and “You are a loyal
people”. The message was clear: If you are not with Hezbollah, you have no
honor, dignity or loyalty.
The slogans made me realize that, for the time being at least, I am not part of
the “chosen people”. And yet I was born, raised and lived in the South until I
was 18. Today apparently, to be a real southerner, one should blindly support
Hezbollah and accept its decisions on war and peace, no matter how much pain and
suffering they cause. One must acknowledge the sacredness of Hezbollah’s
mission.
Anything else is treachery. This rhetoric, which categorizes the Lebanese as
those who have honor and those who don’t, can only polarize Lebanese and further
isolate the Shia. It creates rising tensions, escalating hatred and a gnawing
fear of the other.
A number of incidents in which the power of this fascist rhetoric widened the
gap among the Lebanese came to my mind that day. In June 2006, LBC’s “Bas mat
Watan” comedy show broadcast an interview with a character satirizing Hezbollah
Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah supporters took to the
streets. It was a supposedly spontaneous reaction, but the party leadership did
not seek to restrain the mob, which blocked streets with burning tires and
attacked Christian neighborhoods near the Shia-dominated southern suburbs of
Beirut. A dangerous strike against freedom of speech was apparently a fair price
to pay for the sake of “the Sayyed” and the sacredness of his mission.
Later that year, following the destructive 34-day war between Hezbollah and
Israel, Hezbollah and Amal ministers withdrew from the government of Prime
Minister Fouad Siniora. Immediately after the walk-out, Sheik Afif Nabulsi, the
head of the Association of Jabal Amal clerics, issued a fatwa forbidding any
Shia politician from participating in the government because only Amal and
Hezbollah represent the Shia community. Although this “fatwa” did not come from
the Hezbollah leadership, the party, along with Amal, supported Nabulsi after a
lawsuit was filed against him by a group of prominent independent Shia
intellectuals. Hezbollah launched a countersuit, while pro-Hezbollah media in
Lebanon accused those independent Shia of being CIA or Mossad agents.
Recently, Nasrallah told us that the murderous Hezbollah-led attacks on West
Beirut and the mountainous areas of Aley and the Chouf in early May 2008 were
“glorious”. Those words sent a clear signal to the Lebanese that they live in
the shadow of an ideologically totalitarian organization, despite the existence
of what purports to be a democratic system.
Which brings us to the current crisis: The formation of the cabinet following
peaceful, fair and democratic parliamentary elections that resulted in a
majority for March 14 and the nomination of MP Saad Hariri as prime
minister-designate. His task is now to form a cabinet in coordination with
President Michel Sleiman.
However, it appears that in Lebanon the constitution does not have to be
respected, and neither do state institutions, nor the votes cast during a
supposedly democratic process. Why? Because in Lebanon, those who have the arms
control everything, paralyzing, in the name of the “Glorious Resistance”, all
institutions and ridiculing the aspirations of the other Lebanese who want to
move on and build a strong state. These “other” Lebanese do not deserve hope
because they are not part of an “honored and dignified people”.
According to Hezbollah, Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun – with his
impossible demands and plans for his son-in-law’s ministerial ambitions – has
more honor and dignity than the hardworking Lebanese who live in fear of another
civil war or an Israeli attack and who have already put their lives on the line
because of the decisions taken by the Resistance. If these people declared that
they want peace, they would lose every grain of dignity or honor they have,
because that would amount to doubting the sanctity of the Resistance and the
wisdom of its leadership. We are asked to submit our free will to the leaders of
the Resistance, accept their verdicts and suffer the consequences, because
Israel is a danger. No one else has the right to assess or deal with this
danger, diplomatically or otherwise. Only Hezbollah can do this, and as long as
the Arab-Israeli conflict persists, it appears that everything must be put on
hold, including rehabilitating state institutions and social reform. Now is not
the time! How many times have we heard this statement? Postpone your life. But
if you are a Shia, you have to put off much more. Otherwise, you have no honor
and no dignity.
Documented Footage: Lebanese
Villagers Evict Hezbollah Operatives
25 August 2009 , 22:25
Incident took place in Marwahin village mostly where Sunni Lebanese reside
Footage of a conflict between Lebanese villagers and terror operatives of the
Hezbollah organization has been released. According to the Alsiasa paper that is
distributed in Lebanon, Hezbollah possibly intended to turn the village houses
into warehouses for weapon storage and shooting posts. During the two day
incident in the Sunni village, exchanges of fire between both sides took place.
In the video released today for publication, the Lebanese Armed Forces are seen
in the Marwahin village trying to calm the tension between both sides. The
incident conveys the growing tension within the Lebanese population,
specifically in the village of Marwahin. This is because of Hezbollah activities
in South Lebanon have intensified ever since the Second Lebanon War. The
Hezbollah organization is trying to turn the residents of the area into human
shield.
'I am not a lunatic', pleads Canadian bomber:
OTTAWA (AFP) - A Canadian man convicted in a foiled bomb plot made a bold plea
for clemency Tuesday, telling the judge he was "not a lunatic hell-bent on
destruction" of the West, local media reported.
Saad Khalid, the first of the so-called "Toronto 18" to enter a guilty plea
following his 2006 arrest, spoke from a prepared statement at the start of his
sentencing hearing at a court in Brampton, a suburb of Toronto.
"Everyone makes mistakes," Khalid was quoted as saying in court by the daily
Globe and Mail. "The reason we fall down is so we can learn to get up again."
"I am not a lunatic hell-bent on destruction" of the West, he added. "I never
wanted to hurt anybody."
The 18 alleged plotters were arrested during a police sting operation in 2006
for planning three days of attacks on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canada's spy
agency and an undisclosed military base in Canada.
The scheme, which involved filling three rented vans with explosives, was to be
deadlier than the July 2005 London Underground and bus bombings that killed 52
people, and was designed to pressure Canada to withdraw from Afghanistan.
In September 2008, one of Khalid's co-accused, a minor, was convicted of
"terrorist activity." He was sentenced to two and a half years in jail, but was
immediately released as he had spent three years in custody awaiting trial.
Nine other alleged accomplices remain in prison awaiting trial, while seven were
released after charges were dropped.
Khalid was among 14 adults and four minors charged after they allegedly sought
to purchase three tonnes of the bomb-making ingredient ammonium nitrate from
undercover police officers.
The officers had replaced the ammonium nitrate with an inert substance.
Khalid is to be sentenced next month.
The trials of the remaining adults are expected to begin next year.
Hariri insists on Hizbullah participation in unity cabinet
Fneish says his party ‘taking initiative’ to end disputes
By Elias Sakr /Daily Star staff
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
BEIRUT: Premier-designate Saad Hariri stressed Tuesday Hizbullah would be part
of the national-unity cabinet despite recent Israeli threats warning against the
party’s participation. “Hizbullah will be part of the government since the
country’s interests necessitate the party’s participation,” Hariri said during
an iftar at his residence in Qoreitem. “The national-unity cabinet will include
both the March 14 Forces and Hizbullah whether the Israeli enemy wanted or not,”
Hariri said. Tackling the country’s security situation, Hariri hailed the
efforts of the Lebanese Army and other security forces to preserve Lebanon’s
stability. Hariri stressed that alongside Israeli threats Lebanon faced social
and economic challenges which necessitated the collective efforts of Lebanese
political parties. “We face many challenges which no party can handle on its
own,” Hariri said. However, he added that national unity “should not marginalize
the principles of democracy and freedom. “We won in the [June7] parliamentary
elections and then we reached out to all Lebanese groups based on our awareness
of the size of the challenges and the threats to be addressed,” Hariri said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Hizbullah also expressed its readiness to cooperate with
Hariri in order to expedite and facilitate the formation process. Caretaker
Labor Minister Mohammad Fneish urged the “swift” formation of a cabinet through
dialogue “without trading accusations in the media.” Concerning Hizbullah’s role
in the cabinet-formation process, Fneish said his party was “taking initiative”
in cooperaing with Hariri to end political disputes and guarantee a calm
atmosphere for dialogue in order to reach a “satisfying” conclusion to the
process.
Speaking to reporters following a meeting with President Michel Sleiman, Fneish
called on Hariri to pursue his efforts to reach a fair compromise on the cabinet
issue, and said Hizbullah made efforts to reach a general accord on the
government, a reference to the 15-10-5 formula. The formula grants the majority
15 ministers, the opposition 10 and the president five seats which guarantee him
the tipping vote; both March 14 and the opposition would respectively be denied
absolute majority or veto power.
Media reports said on Tuesday that Hariri held talks Monday night with Hizbullah
leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s political assistant Hussein Khalil. The reports
added that Khalil informed Hariri of Hizbullah’s support for the demands of
their ally Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leader MP Michel Aoun. Aoun insists
that his son-in-law be reappointed for a second term as telecommunications
minister. Aoun is also demanding that his party gets a “sovereign” ministry.
Sovereign ministries include the defense, interior, finance and foreign affairs
portfolios.
Sleiman urged political leaders on Tuesday to “tone down the sharpness of
political rhetoric in order to re-start the necessary deliberations and break
the political deadlock.”
Also on Tuesday, a source close to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri denied to The
Daily Star a report by the Central News Agency (CNA) claiming that Berri was
expected to disclose on August 31 the parties responsible of obstructing the
formation process.
The CNA said Berri would tackle in detail the cabinet issue during a speech to
mark the anniversary of Imam Mousa al-Sadr’s disappearance, if no breakthrough
was reached by that time.
The CNA also reported on Tuesday that Syrian-Saudi contacts concerning the
formation of a cabinet slowed down while Lebanese parties awaited new regional
political developments to conclude an agreement on the next cabinet.
During an iftar at his residence in Qoreitem Monday, Hariri said: “Each party is
entitled to take its own stances and submit its proposals, but nevertheless the
formation process is constitutionally associated to the premier-designate in
collaboration with the president.” He added that discussions on the cabinet’s
formation did not call for public statements but rather dialogue among political
parties.
“I see a need for dialogue since matters that bring us together are far more
than what divides us,” Hariri said, adding that he fulfilled his duties “by
deliberating with all groups.” The premier-designate stressed that he was “keen
to form a cabinet as soon as possible through calm dialogue among all political
groups.”
“We seek a national-unity cabinet to strengthen the country and put into action
the promises we made to the Lebanese citizens during the June 7 parliamentary
elections,” Hariri said.
The Future Movement leader highlighted the need to meet people’s everyday needs
with regard to health care, power and water supplies as well as education.
Hariri also emphasized that “political disagreements should remain part of the
political framework,” adding that national-unity guaranteed the country’s
stability.
Echoing its leader, the Future Movement stressed on Tuesday the need for all
parties to respect the Lebanese Constitution with regard to the powers allotted
to the premier-designate and the president when it comes to the formation of a
cabinet.
Following a meeting headed by Caretaker Premier Fouad Siniora, the Future
Movement bloc stressed its commitment to the Taif Accord as well as Lebanon’s
Arab identity and its democratic sovereign regime.
The bloc described “obstacles deliberately established” by certain political
groups to delay the formation of the government as “unconstitutional maneuvers.”
The Future Movement also condemned “foreign public rhetoric,” which further
hampered the formation process, a reference to remarks published on Sunday by
Al-Baath, a Syrian state run newspaper that criticized Hariri’s visit to Saudi
Arabia. It called on Hariri to “steadily” continue his efforts to form a
national-unity cabinet based on calm dialogue so as to resolve differences among
the Lebanese away from controversial rhetoric.
Ghajar and the Shebaa Farms: the view from the other side
By Eyal Zisser
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
In recent weeks, international pressure on Israel to advance a solution for the
Ghajar village and Shebaa Farms problems has increased considerably. The
pressure has intensified in light of the June 7 Lebanese parliamentary elections
that gave a victory to the March 14 camp led by Saad Hariri, the head of the
Sunni community in Lebanon. The electoral successes of Hariri and his partners
constituted a painful defeat for Hizbullah, its Lebanese partners, and of course
Syria and mainly Iran.
The pressure on Israel in regard to Ghajar and the Shebaa Farms thus stems to a
large extent from the hope in the international community that a resolution of
those issues will assist the moderate camp in Lebanon in its struggle against
Hizbullah and consequently erode that organization’s legitimacy inside the
country, especially over its arms and their use against Israel. In other words,
it is assumed that an Israeli withdrawal from the northern part of Ghajar and
from the Shebaa Farms in the framework of a political arrangement will remove
Hizbullah’s justification for continuing armed resistance against Israel.
Israel’s response to these pressures has been marked by skepticism and
hesitancy. A number of considerations inform Israel’s reluctance to act. First,
while many in the West may view the Lebanese government as an actor that can
assure quiet and stability on the Israeli-Lebanese border, Israelis tend to view
the government as part of the problem. The Lebanese government lacks teeth in
confronting Hizbullah. It has never done anything to prevent Hizbullah from
arming itself. Indeed, not only is the Lebanese government powerless vis-a-vis
Hizbullah, in practice it shelters and embraces the organization: the
government, after all, includes Hizbullah representatives.
The conclusion from Israel’s point of view is that the Lebanese government
cannot be relied upon, and the hope that an Israeli withdrawal from Ghajar or
the Shebaa Farms would assist and encourage it to act against Hizbullah is
nothing but an illusion. In this regard, we should recall the threat issued by
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who warned that if Israel’s northern border
heated up again, Israel’s military response would be addressed to the Lebanese
government because of the legitimacy it grants Hizbullah.
Second, Israel is convinced that the Ghajar and Shebaa Farms issues are simply
excuses to justify continued Hizbullah military action against Israel; if these
excuses are removed, Hizbullah will find new ones. For example, it might call
for the return of the bodies of prisoners that Hizbullah claims Israel still
holds, or the handing over of the seven Shiite villages located in Mandatory
Palestine that were destroyed in the 1948 war; or any number of other matters
from the past that could be raised. In other words, Israel holds that not only
will any concession to Hizbullah fail to assure quiet and stability, the
opposite will occur.
Finally, the explosion at a Hizbullah ammunitions depot in Khirbet Silm in
mid-July proved that under the nose and half-closed eyes of UNIFIL, Hizbullah
continues to construct a military infrastructure – not only north of the Litani
River, but also south of it. From Israel’s point of view, given UNIFIL’s
limitations in preventing Hizbullah activity, handing Ghajar to the UN is liable
to create enormous difficulties.
For example, UNIFIL is prohibited from entering villages, and consequently
homes, without a Lebanese army escort, and UNIFIL’s ability to act vis-a-vis
Lebanese citizens in general is definitely limited. Yet the compromise proposal
formulated by UNIFIL provides for the northern part of Ghajar to be handed over
to its full control, and in return it would prevent the infiltration of
Hizbullah into the village.
Nevertheless, in Israel’s view there is a difference between Ghajar and the
Shebaa Farms. Israel acknowledges that the northern part of Ghajar is located in
Lebanon. Israel knows that sooner or later it must withdraw from the area. The
only question is how to find a suitable policing arrangement that will meet
Israel’s security needs. Against this backdrop, the declaration made by Foreign
Minister Avigdor Lieberman in July was interesting. Lieberman, who was appointed
to deal with the Ghajar issue, said it was a humanitarian matter and the option
should be weighed of removing the residents in the northern part of the village,
in Lebanon, to the southern part, which will remain in Israel’s hands, and in
this way to put an end to the affair.
It goes without saying that the village’s residents are opposed to such a
solution, which involves significant legal problems similar to those that arose
with the evacuation of the residents of the Katif Bloc in the Gaza Strip in
summer 2005. On the other hand, any other solution that presently appears
possible, such as dividing the village and letting UNIFIL become responsible for
the northern part, would surely entail insoluble security problems for Israel.
In contrast to its attitude toward the northern part of Ghajar, Israel views the
Shebaa Farms as Israeli territory in every sense, since it is part of the Golan
Heights that Israel took over in 1967 and annexed in 1981. This means there is
no apparent solution to the issue at this time. Israel does not acknowledge any
obligation to withdraw from this territory, and it is difficult to see any real
resolution of the issue in view of the impasse between Syria, Lebanon and the UN
over the question of Syria formally relinquishing the territory to Lebanon.
Damascus’ position is that the resolution of the Shebaa Farms issue can only
come as part of the resolution of the entire Golan Heights issue.
Since Israel has no interest in continuing to hold the north of Ghajar, which it
recognizes as Lebanese, this issue will evidently find its solution in the near
future. In contrast, the question of the Shebaa Farms will continue to occupy
Israel and the international community until a way is found for Israel and Syria
to make peace or, alternatively, until Damascus recognizes the area as Lebanese,
which seems highly unlikely.
**Eyal Zisser is director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies,
Tel Aviv University. This commentary first appeared at
bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.
Amal: Some states ignoring Israeli breaches
Daily Star staff/Wednesday, August 26, 2009
BEIRUT: The Amal Movement criticized in a statement issued on Tuesday “some”
Security Council permanent member states for ignoring Israeli violations of
Lebanon’s sovereignty while focusing on “what they claim to be” Lebanese
breaches of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which put an end to the summer
2006 war with Israel. “At a time when the Security Council is working on the
renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
for another year, as stipulated by Resolution 1701, a number of decision-making
states are only focusing on what they claim are Lebanese violations [of the
resolution] while turning a blind eye to Israel’s innumerable, repeated and
flagrant violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty,” said a statement by the
movement’s central bureau for foreign relations. It urged these states to
“oblige Israel to implement Resolution 1701 and to withdraw from all Lebanese
territories.” – The Daily Star
Army detain suspected Israeli trespasser
By Agence France Presse (AFP) /Wednesday, August 26, 2009
BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army detained an unidentified man who had crossed into the
country through a barbed wire fence separating it from Israel on Tuesday, a
security source said. “He does not seem to speak Arabic and he does not have any
identification on him,” the source told AFP. “He could possibly be an Israeli
citizen.” The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said the Israeli army had
informed it that a man had crossed the fence on Tuesday morning, but that it had
no information on who he was or why he had done so.
“This morning UNIFIL was informed initially by the Israeli army about a man
crossing the technical fence from Israel into Lebanese territory in the general
area of Aaytaroun,” UNIFIL deputy spokesman Andrea Teneti told AFP. Tenenti said
the man was located and detained by the Lebanese army around 3:00 p.m (1200 GMT)
on the basis of the description provided by Israel. Aaytaroun is a small village
five kilometers from the border. “We are still interrogating him to identify who
he is and what he was doing,” an army spokesman told AFP. UNIFIL was set up in
1978 to monitor the border with Israel and was expanded after Israel’s
devastating war on Hizbullah in 2006. – AFP
Hizbullah won't comment on Sfeir's criticism of weapons
Daily Star staff/Wednesday, August 26, 2009
BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir slammed Hizbullah’s possession
of arms, adding that the Lebanese state should maintain monopoly over weapons.
“Hizbullah has become stronger than the Lebanese state,” he said. Hizbullah’s
Loyalty to Resistance bloc head MP Mohammad Raad, however, refused to comment on
Sfeir’s statement according to remarks published by An-Nahar newspaper on
Tuesday. In remarks to Lebanese Forces-affiliated magazine Al-Massira to be
published Saturday, Sfeir called on the March 14 Forces to form a majority
cabinet so as to work toward securing the country’s stability and halt the
emigration of the youth. Sfeir stressed that the previous Cabinet’s experience
was not encouraging since it proved that a government embracing the majority and
the opposition was subject to obstruction. The patriarch added that “if the
majority governed and the minority opposed, matters would progress better.” “A
government based on a horse in the front and another in the rear would mean the
wagon remains broken and at halt,” Sfeir said.
When asked about whether he was satisfied with March 14 maintaining the majority
in Parliament following the June 7 elections, Sfeir said: “Wouldn’t a shift in
the parliamentary majority from the March 14 to March 8 mean that Syria and Iran
would take control of the Lebanese situation?” Sfeir added that Lebanon had no
interest in boycotting the West since Lebanese immigrants were settled in the
US, Canada and Europe. Tackling the issue of Hizbullah’s weapons, Sfeir said the
party became stronger than the Lebanese state, adding that the situation was
“abnormal.” “Is the liberation of occupied territories an exclusive right to
Hizbullah, while others are not concerned with liberating their country?” Sfeir
asked. Sfeir added that people wanted to live in a state where citizens were
treated equally. – The Daily Star
Islamists and the Grave Bell
by F. Gregory Gause III
08.25.2009
From the September/October 2009 issue of The National Interest.
AMERICANS HAVE short memories, at least when it comes to the Middle East. Once
again pundits and opinion makers are jumping aboard the democracy-promotion
train. There seems to be a renewed longing for the heady days of the Bush
administration when the Washington conventional wisdom held that democracy
promotion was the best antidote to regional anti-Americanism and terrorism. Two
Middle East elections in June 2009—in Lebanon and Iran—were enough to bring the
democracy mavens back to their laptops. When the expected victory of Hezbollah
and its Christian ally, the Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun, did not
materialize in the Lebanese parliamentary election, it was hailed as the dawn of
a new day. That was a Middle East election with a good outcome for America. And
then there was the Iranian debacle: an election that seemed to expose both the
fading electoral strength of anti-American Islamists (who apparently felt they
had to steal the election to stay in power) and the growing street-level support
for “moderates” and “secularists.”
The enthusiasm with which these events, before they had even run their course,
animated very sensible American commentators on foreign policy was remarkable.
The scenes of brave Iranians standing up to a regime that respected neither
their votes nor their intelligence were certainly inspiring. However, it was
less inspiring to see how quickly those scenes were extrapolated to become a new
data point in a supposed trend of non-Islamist and pro-American democratic
movements in the Middle East. One election might be an aberration, but two
elections cannot be anything but a trend. Or so one might think from reading the
op-ed pages of America’s leading newspapers.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman unsurprisingly saw new
social-networking technologies as the driving force behind the events in Iran.
In the recent past, it was only the Islamists who could resist the authoritarian
state in the Middle East, because they had mosques to use as the focal point for
political organization. But now, Iran gives evidence that:
the more secular forces of moderation have used technologies like Facebook,
Flickr, Twitter, blogging and text-messaging as their virtual mosque, as the
place they can now gather, mobilize, plan, inform and energize their supporters,
outside the grip of the state.
The flatter world will benefit the secular moderates. Friedman saw in Lebanon,
Iraq and even the Palestinian territories, as well as Iran, evidence that
“centrist majorities, who detest these Islamist groups” are finally mobilizing
against them.
At the Washington Post, the normally more cautious David Ignatius was not as
technology driven as Friedman, but also saw a similar trend:
Muslim parties and their allies have suffered election setbacks over the past
several years in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco and Pakistan. .
. . The reasons for these political setbacks vary from place to place. . . . But
there’s a common theme: “The Muslim parties have failed to convince the public
that they have any more answers than anyone else.” [quoting Marina Ottaway of
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]
Former–American Enterprise Institute scholar Joshua Muravchik, again in the
Washington Post, took this purported tide shift against Islamist groups and
parties in electoral politics and extrapolated it out to proclaim the “death of
radical Islam.” He saw the failure of al-Qaeda in Iraq as part and parcel of
this shift, both evidence of Islamists’ decreasing relevance and a cause of
their decline.
If the Islamists are in fact losing ground and “secular moderates” are on the
rise, then the neoconservative thesis that the promotion of Middle East
democracy will advance American interests would be vindicated. On cue, prominent
neoconservatives wasted no time in unfurling their tattered banner of Middle
East democracy promotion on the intellectual battlefield. Elliott Abrams, who
managed Middle Eastern and democracy-promotion portfolios on the George W. Bush
National Security Council, argued in the New York Times that free elections,
like the one in Lebanon, lead to results favorable to the United States. Corrupt
and facade elections, like the one in Iran, do not. Therefore, Abrams concluded,
“what the United States should be promoting is not elections, but free
elections.” Fellow neoconservatives Robert Kagan and Michael Gerson sang from
the same hymnal in the Washington Post. The Iraq debacle, unfortunately, has not
extinguished their fervor for meddling in the domestic politics of Middle
Eastern countries.
On the opposite side of the ideological spectrum, James Traub, the New York
Times Magazine contributor and author of The Freedom Agenda: Why America Must
Spread Democracy (Just Not the Way George Bush Did), made a somewhat similar
point just before the Iranian election on Foreign Policy online, but with a very
different logic. He argued that President Obama’s global popularity has opened
up new possibilities for the United States to encourage more secular,
pro-American political movements to good effect. He presented a questionable
causal argument based on the sequence of recent events:
News accounts assert that the president’s Cairo speech helped tilt the Lebanese
election to the secular March 14 coalition. . . . The Lebanese outcome, in turn,
as well as reverberations from the speech, may give a boost to challengers in
Friday’s election in Tehran.
The idea of democracy as an answer, if not the answer, to America’s problems in
the Middle East is premised on this basic idea that Islamist political groups
are declining in popularity. The problems that Islamists in power present for
American policy are clear: they have not resigned themselves to accepting Israel
as a permanent part of the Middle Eastern map and thus do not support the
Arab-Israeli peace process; they reject the extent of American influence in the
region as a whole and would not cooperate with either American defense plans or
the “war on terrorism”; they most certainly would not be willing to host
American military facilities. Our experience with the Islamist revolutionaries
who took power in Iran in 1979 has not, to put it mildly, been encouraging. It
was the victory of Islamists in the Iraqi and Palestinian elections that took
the wind out of the sails of the Bush administration’s democracy-promotion plans
in 2005–06. So a revival of democracy promotion in Washington requires the
underlying assumption that Islamists will not win Middle Eastern elections.
And the broad agreement about this among the punditocracy, across ideological
lines, should be the first warning that their arguments require a very critical
review.
IRAN AND Lebanon simply do not serve as indicators of a larger regional
democracy shift. Islamic parties have continued to do remarkably well in
elections across the Middle East over the last few years. And, where we have
seen setbacks, trends cannot be extrapolated. Most certainly, any waning of the
fortunes of violent groups like al-Qaeda does not speak to the outcomes of
electoral processes as a whole.
Contrary to the punditocracy’s analysis, the June 2009 Lebanese parliamentary
election was far from an anti-Islamist referendum. It was more an exercise in
sectarian community mobilization, and the key swing voters were Christians. As
Lebanon is the only Middle Eastern country with an electorally significant
Christian community, it can hardly be a bellwether for trends elsewhere in the
Middle East. Lebanese Shia Muslims voted overwhelmingly for Hezbollah, despite
the fact that the party had drawn them into a damaging and pointless conflict
with Israel in 2006 and had shown its contempt for both the Lebanese government
and democratic processes by using its militia to briefly occupy downtown Beirut
in 2008. Sunni Muslims, including Sunni Islamists, by and large supported
Hezbollah’s rival, the Future Movement of slain Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, now
headed by his son Saad. Druze voters backed their sectarian chieftain, the
mercurial but always-interesting Walid Jumblatt. In the Muslim community, this
election was not an ideological contest; it was a sectarian census.
The real contest in Lebanon’s election this June was among the Christians, where
the “March 14” movement allies of Hariri and Jumblatt confronted Michel Aoun’s
Free Patriotic Movement, which sided with Hezbollah. Aoun, for all his faults,
has stood for both Lebanese nationalism and root-and-branch reform of the
Lebanese sectarian system since the late 1980s, when he was commander of the
Lebanese army. He justified his alliance with Hezbollah, forged immediately
after the 2005 elections, by pointing out that the sectarian leaders of his
rivals—the March 14 movement—represented the old Lebanese order, the one that
had produced almost two decades of civil war and foreign intervention. Though he
used to enjoy the support of the Maronite Church, which saw him as a strong
defender of Lebanese identity and Christian rights, over time his Hezbollah
alliance chipped away at his credibility among Christians. It was hard to
maintain his position as defender of Lebanese nationalism when his partners were
closely allied with Syria and Iran. Hezbollah’s dramatic takeover of downtown
Beirut in the summer of 2008 seems to have frightened some of the Christian
voters who supported Aoun four years ago. In fact, just before the elections,
the Maronite patriarch, Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, signaled his support
for Aoun’s opponents. So, it was Aoun who was defeated within his community in
the June elections, not Hezbollah within its community.
Moreover, as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was quick to point out, his
coalition actually received over one hundred thousand more votes total than his
March 14 rivals. The Christian communities are overrepresented in Lebanon’s
parliament and the Shia drastically underrepresented. March 14’s comfortable
parliamentary majority in fact was drawn from fewer than 50 percent of the votes
cast in the election. While Nasrallah is not openly challenging the results, his
distinction between the “parliamentary majority” and the “popular majority” does
not bode well for Lebanese political stability or democratic development down
the line. It also could present important challenges to America’s interest in
Arab-Israeli peace and stability. With the election ratifying the overwhelming
support of Hezbollah in the Shia community, Nasrallah has a mandate to continue
his policy of confrontation with Israel, independent of the Lebanese government.
The chances of a repeat of the summer 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war have not been
reduced by this election. All told, hailing the Lebanese vote as a blow to
Islamist political fortunes more generally is a profound misreading of events.
And heralding Iran as data point number two on the Middle East–secularism trend
graphs only shows the pundits’ multilevel misunderstanding of the politics and
dynamics at play in the Middle East. The consequences of Iran’s recent vote for
president are still playing out, and it is a mug’s game to predict what the
ultimate result of the opposition, in the streets and among elites, to the
Khamenei-Ahmadinejad ruling clique will be. But regardless, the battles raging
in Tehran are unparalleled. Iran is the only major regional state where
political Islam has been in power for a long period of time. (The moderately
Islamist Justice and Development Party, AKP, in Turkey has been ruling only
since 2002.) It has been thirty years since the overthrow of the Shah and the
institution of the Islamic Republic. That is plenty of time for people to get
fed up with the system, or at least its leaders. Iranian voters have regularly
expressed their desire for change in presidential elections. Mohammad Khatami’s
victory in 1997 came against the designated candidate of the clerical ruling
elite. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ran as an outsider in 2005, crushing former-President
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the runoff after holding him up as the symbol of
everything that had gone wrong in Iranian politics. While we will likely never
know the actual vote totals in this past election, plenty of Iranians were
willing to put their personal safety at risk to express their desire for change.
In Iran, this electoral phenomenon is a reflection of disillusionment with the
powers that be, who happen to be Islamists—a “throw the bums out” mentality that
is a standard trope of politics everywhere.
In Iran, “throwing the bums out” would be good for America. The problem with
seeing Iran as a model for the Arab world is that, for the most part, the “bums”
who would be thrown out of power in real democratic elections in the Middle East
are our allies, the leaders who cooperate with the United States, host our
military bases and maintain peace treaties with Israel. Since throughout the
Arab world the most important and organized political-opposition forces are
Islamist, a “throw the bums out” sentiment would lead to more Islamist
governments, not fewer. It is entirely possible that Islamist parties would
provide better governance for their people than the incumbents—more
representative, less corrupt—but there is no assurance of that. What is
indisputable is that Islamist governments would oppose the United States on all
those issues most vital to our national security.
Quite simply, neither Lebanon nor Iran provides a good basis upon which to build
a case for making democracy promotion a major platform of American policy in the
Middle East.
THE SUPPOSED regional trend against Islamist groups of which the Iranian and
Lebanese elections are purported to be a part is highly suspect. If we take 2005
as a starting date, indeed not so very long ago, we see victories by Islamist
parties and coalitions in national parliamentary elections throughout the
region. This was the case in Iraq, Palestine and Turkey. In Egypt, despite
increasingly blatant government intervention against them, the Muslim
Brotherhood won 20 percent of the seats in the 2005 Egyptian parliamentary
election. More importantly, they won nearly 60 percent of the seats they
contested. And it doesn’t end there. Rival Sunni and Shia Islamist groups took
almost all the seats in the Bahraini parliamentary race in 2006. These are
certainly not signs of a growing anti-Islamist Mideast-wide movement.
There are some states in which Islamists have suffered electoral setbacks. But
very specific circumstances were at play in each and grandiose generalizations
made based on these few cases are far from good social-science practice. In
Kuwait, Sunni Islamists lost seats in the 2009 elections for parliament, but
only after doing very well (particularly the Salafi Islamists) in the 2008
votes. The Kuwaiti Shia Islamists basically held their ground. And, all told,
Islamists still outnumber more liberal members in the Kuwaiti parliament. The
governments in both Jordan and Algeria worked actively against Islamist groups
in their most recent parliamentary elections. In Algeria, the major Islamist
party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS in the French acronym) which won the
aborted parliamentary elections of 1991, is still banned. In Jordan, the
government changed the electoral system, including increasing the number of
members of parliament, and worked actively on behalf of its favorites to reduce
Muslim Brotherhood representation from 23 parliamentary seats (out of 80) in
1989 to 6 (out of 110) in 2007. In Morocco, the Islamist Party of Justice and
Development (PJD) finished second in the elections of 2007. It did not do as
well as expected, getting only 14 percent of the seats. But, unlike other Arab
countries, in Morocco there are a number of well-established, independent
political parties against which the PJD had to run. All told, these cases are
too idiosyncratic to amount to a trend.
It is an analytical error to take single elections in an array of countries and
extrapolate them into a regional trend. Only when we see a number of elections
within each country can we establish trend lines in each of those states, and
then see if they aggregate regionally into a broader shift. We have seen single
elections in some Middle Eastern countries where Islamist groups did not do as
well as in previous polls, or as well as they were expected to do. These could
be anomalous or temporary results, reflecting voters’ natural tendency to punish
the winners of the last elections if they have not made things better. But that
same impulse can work for Islamists in the future. The bottom line is that the
jury is still out on whether political Islam, as an electoral force, has peaked.
IF IT is far too early to declare the waning of political Islam based on Middle
Eastern election results, it is even more suspect to take the decline in the
fortunes of al-Qaeda and other violent, extremist Islamist groups as an
indicator of the overall prospects of moderate Islamists. This is worse than
mixing apples and oranges. This is mixing apples and hand grenades. Joshua
Muravchik is right that “radical” Islam, if we define it as violent Islamist
groups like al-Qaeda, is on the wane in terms of public support in the Muslim
world and in terms of the terrorists’ political fortunes in particular
countries. Al-Qaeda has been dealt serious setbacks in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and
that is a great thing. But that process had nothing to do with voting, and, in
any event, al-Qaeda was never going to run in, or win, an election anywhere. Its
defeat in the Sunni areas of Iraq, for example, says little about how Iraqi
democracy might develop, just that it has a better chance of developing. In
Egypt, a brutal security crackdown begun in the mid-1990s combined with a
sophisticated ideological campaign broke the violent Islamist group Gama’a
Islamiyya. But as the 2005 elections demonstrated, the Muslim Brotherhood
continues to hold great sway with the Egyptian people. In Pakistan, extremist
Islamist parties with a violent ideology failed miserably at the polls, but they
have hardly disappeared as a force in the country’s politics—unfortunately. So
what we see may at best be a marginalization of violent groups, but certainly
not of Islamist parties.
Armed extremists play into politics through bullets, not ballots. Their fortunes
tell us little about electoral tendencies. It is incorrect to conflate the very
positive trends regarding the decline of al-Qaeda and its ilk in Muslim public
opinion and politics with the fortunes of mainstream Islamist political parties.
FINALLY, IT is a mistake to attribute recent events in the region to an “Obama
effect” of rising pro-American sentiment. There is little—if any—Obama effect in
the domestic politics of Middle East states. It is undoubtedly true that
President Obama is popular in the Muslim Middle East. His history, his name, his
background and the fact that he is not George W. Bush all work in his favor. His
position on Israeli settlements in the West Bank has raised hope in the Arab
world of a new American approach to the peace process. But there is absolutely
no evidence that his rhetoric or policies had much to do either with the
Lebanese elections or the events in Iran. It was Christian voters who determined
the Lebanese outcome, and Obama’s outreach has been to Muslims. Far from
encouraging opposition to the Iranian regime, the Obama administration has made
its willingness to engage Tehran’s rulers a centerpiece of its new Middle East
policy. It is local dynamics, much more than American policies, that drive
electoral outcomes in the region.
THE REDISCOVERY of Middle East democracy by the American punditocracy is based
on a premise—that Islamists are in decline—that is at best unproven and more
likely wildly exaggerated. So where does this leave democracy promotion in the
wider context of American policy in the Middle East? If we beat the
democracy-promotion drum, our efforts will lead not to nice, liberal,
“secular-moderate,” pro-American governments at peace with Israel, but to
Islamist regimes not at all friendly to the United States. However, if we talk
about democracy and do nothing about it, which has been the normal course of
American policy in the region since World War II, that leaves us open,
justifiably, to the charge of hypocrisy. But dropping the democracy element from
American policy in the region completely seems unfeasible, given the strong
ideological commitment to that principle in our foreign policy generally, and
even more so given the bureaucratic players now entrenched in the policymaking
machinery (like the State Department’s undersecretary for democracy and global
affairs and its Middle East Partnership Initiative) whose raison d’être is
democracy mongering.
It is hard to walk that fine line between our sense of self as a nation
committed to democracy and our foreign-policy interests that are not always best
served by pushing for elections in the Middle East. In walking that line, the
Obama administration should be guided by three principles. The first is “do no
harm to core American interests” in Arab-Israeli peace, Persian Gulf stability
and regional nonproliferation. That means giving up on the idea that we should
push key Arab allies—Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia—to move toward real democratic
elections. Our Iraq experience should have taught us that we cannot micromanage
the domestic politics of other states, even if we militarily occupy them. Real
democracy-promotion efforts—those that result in free elections in which
incumbents can be voted out of office—cannot be fine-tuned to fit America’s
policy preferences. We would take a great risk with core American interests in
the Middle East if we gambled that the next Egyptian or Jordanian or Saudi
government, chosen through real democratic elections, would be equally
pro-American as its authoritarian predecessor.
“Do no harm” also means not deluding ourselves about our ability to push
domestic politics in a more democratic direction in places where the United
States has little influence, like Iran and Syria. We have real strategic
interests at stake in engaging Tehran and Damascus, but if they think our goal
is regime change (which is what real democracy would mean), engagement will be
impossible.
Whether it is in dealing with our authoritarian allies or opponents, we need to
recognize that Middle East authoritarianism is a sturdy regime type. The Middle
East missed out on the “third wave” of democratization—which saw the growth of
democracy in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and East Asia—for a reason.
Buttressed by oil wealth, foreign aid and strong security services, Middle East
rulers have built political systems geared toward preserving their regimes. The
pervasive environment of regional conflict has encouraged the privileging of
security over freedom in local politics.
The Middle East authoritarians supported by these strong states also have little
personal or political incentive to run the risks that real democratic reform
would entail. With the fall of the Left globally in the 1980s, pro-American,
right-wing authoritarians in Latin America and East Asia could open their
political systems with little fear that their opponents, if they won elections,
would completely reverse the course they set for their countries. The United
States could encourage such openings without fear of disrupting its
foreign-policy goals. This is not the case for American allies in the Arab
world, where the Islamist opposition represents a real alternative to existing
regimes and offers a distinctly different model of both domestic politics and
foreign policy. The risks of reform for Arab leaders and their favored
constituencies go beyond merely losing personal power. They include the
possibility, if Islamists won free elections, of profound changes in the
structure and direction of the political systems, the loss of the wealth that
leaders and their allies have built up over decades, and perhaps even the loss
of the leaders’ lives. It would be hard to persuade any Arab leader that the
risk of real political reform was worth taking.
The resilience of regional authoritarians does not mean that change is
impossible, of course. But it is likely to come in unpredictable ways and later
rather than sooner, given the strength of authoritarian-state structures and the
absence of personal incentives for leaders to reform from above. With these
facts in mind, the second principle for the Obama administration in dealing with
the issue of democracy in the Middle East should be “no hypocrisy.” We should
not talk about democracy in places where we do not really want it among
America’s Arab allies.
The “no hypocrisy” rule will require an honest evaluation of existing American
foreign-aid programs in the Arab world. We are helping to nurture elements of
liberalism and good governance in places where we have influence through aid,
particularly in Egypt and Jordan. There is nothing wrong with that. But these
policies—strengthening liberal civil-society organizations, promoting judicial
independence and encouraging women’s rights—as laudable as they may be, are not
about democracy promotion. They might help lay the foundation for more liberal
polities in the distant future, but they are different from promoting democracy,
which means real elections, now. When dealing with these Middle East allies we
should be forthright that our work with civil society is not part of a push for
democratic elections at any time in the near or medium term. Some of the
advocates of these programs might not like it, and some of their clients in the
Arab world might not like it either, but the United States is much better-off
speaking the truth than trying to have it both ways—saying it is promoting
democracy but not really pushing for elections, or, as in the case of Hamas in
Palestine, pushing for free elections and then not accepting their results. That
is the essence of hypocrisy, and what we need to avoid.
Third, the Obama administration should prioritize helping to sustain those few
Middle Eastern democratic institutions and experiments where they exist and
where they do not contradict other American interests. Our principle should not
be “promoting democracy.” It should be “sustaining democracy.” There are three
countries where we can have real and immediate influence in this regard. Each,
for specific historical and geographic reasons that are not shared by its
neighbors, has a democratic or quasi-democratic political system. In each,
American influence is substantial. Each also is experiencing issues in its
democratic development in which the United States can be of assistance.
TURKEY IS the one place in the region that has thus far succeeded in the
moderate, democratic Islamist-governance experiment. The AKP, having won
overwhelming victories in the parliamentary elections of 2002 and 2007, has been
a responsible governing party and has maintained good relations with the United
States. It has not taken any steps that could be interpreted as preparing for a
suppression of democracy and a consolidation of one-party control. Its leaders
seem committed to the principle of rotation of power.
But there are those who are pushing secularism—various elites in the military
and the judiciary—and they are stirring up trouble. In the summer of 2008 the
Turkish Supreme Court came within one vote of ordering the AKP to disband
because it contradicted the secular nature of the state. There is an ongoing
investigation into an alleged coup attempt organized by senior officers. And in
June 2009, another document purportedly prepared by an army officer, outlining
ways the military could weaken the AKP’s hold on power, was uncovered by the
Turkish press. The United States has a real interest in preventing any
effort—judicial or military—to remove the legally elected AKP government. Such a
political crisis could lead to domestic instability in a strategically located
NATO ally. Seeing a moderate Islamist party that played by the rules of
democracy and cooperated with the United States removed from office would be a
powerful disincentive to any potential trends of moderation within Islamist
movements elsewhere in the region. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have
praised the Turkish model of moderate Islamist democratic participation. A coup
against it would place Washington before the difficult choice of condemning and
isolating an important ally or facing the charge that America is completely
hypocritical when it speaks of democracy and simply cannot accept Islam as a
political force. Therefore the Obama administration should make clear,
preferably privately but publicly if necessary, that the United States does not
support efforts to overturn Turkish democracy in the name of secularism.
AS U.S. troops leave Iraq and American influence there declines, we have an
interest in doing what we can to give the Iraqi democratic experiment the best
chance for peaceful, stable and moderate development. Even democracy-promotion
skeptics (like the author) realize that there is no reasonable alternative
American position on Iraq, given what has happened since 2003. Two issues pose
the greatest risk to that development: the Kurdish-Arab conflict over Kirkuk and
the integration of Sunni-Arab elements that had previously opposed the United
States and the Iraqi government, but have now abandoned opposition and
insurgency.
The Kirkuk issue is a ticking time bomb. The Kurdish Regional Government insists
on including the city in its territory and has been working to solidify Kurdish
control there, as well as authority over surrounding oil fields. Arab
politicians, across sectarian and ideological lines, oppose that inclusion.
Violence, or a prolonged stalemate, over Kirkuk would play into the hands of
maximalists on both sides and could be used as an excuse for a Baghdad
government to curtail or even suspend democratic freedoms. There are proposals
on the table for settling this contested point. The United Nations mission in
Iraq is fully involved. The Obama administration should make the Kirkuk issue
its top priority in Iraq. Persuading the Nuri al-Maliki government to move
faster on integrating the Sunni Awakening forces into the Iraqi security
establishment, or finding them other jobs, could help build on the solid Sunni
participation in the local elections of January 2009. This is a difficult task,
as Maliki has been dragging his feet on the issue for over a year. But it is
worth a try—and soon—as American influence in Iraq will inevitably recede as
American troops withdraw.
An Iraq at war with itself, on sectarian and ethnic lines, would be a blow to
the idea of democracy in the region. Many in the Arab world already see the
conflict and dislocation in Iraq as an indictment against democracy, or at
minimum a warning about the risks that accompany transitions from
authoritarianism to democracy. It would also directly damage American regional
interests. Iraqi civil conflict invites even further Iranian meddling in the
country, which in turn could lead to regional conflict, as Turkey and Arab
states develop their own proxies in Iraq to challenge Iranian influence.
Instability in Iraq delays the recovery and development of the Iraqi oil
industry. It also opens up the field for al-Qaeda to reestablish itself among
Iraqi Arab Sunnis. This is not an argument to reverse the policy of gradual
withdrawal from Iraq. We cannot stay there forever, and we have demonstrated
through six years of occupation that we cannot solve Iraq’s domestic political
problems just by being there. But it is a caution that we need to take full
advantage of our declining influence to try to leave a relatively stable Iraq in
the wake of our departure.
AND THEN there is Kuwait, perhaps America’s closest ally in the Middle East
today. In 2003 the government declared about half of the country a closed
military zone so the United States could use it to prepare for its invasion of
Iraq. It is home to a major American military base and numerous other
facilities. It is an essential cog in the logistical system that sustains
American forces in Iraq. It also has a feisty and freely elected parliament, the
oldest in the Gulf region and one of the most substantive in the Arab world in
terms of independence from the executive. Four women (of fifty elected members)
won seats in the May 2009 vote, encouraging liberal activists throughout the
region.
The parliament is, however, currently on a collision course with the ruling
al-Sabah family. Since the beginning of 2006, there have been six governments
and three parliamentary elections, as the ruler, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah,
has chosen to end the tenure of governments and parliaments rather than allow
senior members of the family who hold government ministries to face
parliamentary confidence votes. The members of parliament who have been most
committed in the past to challenging the ruling family through such confidence
motions were reelected in May 2009, guaranteeing further confrontations. A
no-confidence vote has already been held on the minister of the interior, a
senior member of the ruling family. While he won the vote, there is no sign that
the family’s parliamentary gadflies will stop at one such effort.
The chances of an unconstitutional dissolution of parliament—without immediate
elections to a new body—sometime in the near future are very high. If that
happens, the Obama administration can privately tell the Kuwaiti government that
it looks forward to a very quick return to constitutional parliamentary life. It
can publicly welcome what will likely be promises from the ruler of a timetable
for the restoration of parliament and make it clear that the close
Kuwaiti-American relationship requires that deadlines are met. The United States
has nothing to fear from elections in Kuwait. Because of our role in liberating
Kuwait from Saddam Hussein in 1991, even Kuwaiti Islamists are supportive of
close military and political ties with Washington. We have an interest in
preventing a polarization between the ruling family and substantial portions of
Kuwaiti public opinion that would force us to choose sides and make Kuwait’s
strategic ties to the United States an issue of debate and dispute.
THE OBAMA administration was right to avoid emotionally satisfying but
pointless, if not counterproductive, rhetorical interventions in the Iranian
events of June 2009. It should be equally poised in rejecting calls, based upon
Iran and Lebanon and other recent regional events, to make democracy promotion a
major pillar of American policy in the Middle East. Instead of pressuring
authoritarian American allies who play important roles in Arab-Israeli and
Persian Gulf issues to become democratic, it should have a
limited-but-achievable democracy agenda. That agenda should focus on sustaining
democratic experiments where they already exist and where they reinforce rather
than challenge other American stakes in the Middle East. Such an approach would
not put at risk core U.S. regional interests, would not open up the United
States to the charge of hypocrisy in talking about democracy but rejecting it
when the administration does not like the results, and would have a decent
chance of achieving some limited-but-real aims. It might not make American
pundits and other democracy mongers feel good about themselves, but such a
policy might actually help consolidate the few real democratic experiments in
the Middle East.
***F. Gregory Gause III is a professor of political science at the University of
Vermont and the 2009–2010 Kuwait Foundation Visiting Professor of International
Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In the spring
of 2009 he held a Fulbright Fellowship at the American University of Kuwait.
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