Tuesday, November 22, 2011
The Brewing Mideast Storm
Tehran had an early snow last week. This past week the I.A.E.A. issued a stormy report about Iran’s nuclear intentions. Last week Israeli hawks fretted about a possible flight to chill Iran’s nuke program. At the same time, Russia was frosty about enhanced Security Council sanctions against Iran. Meanwhile, the Arab League suspended Syria because it continued to rain bullets on dissidents. The geopolitical weather in the Mideast last week was rotten. Even the future forecast is dismal.
Actually, unsettled conditions seem to be the norm in the always fractured and fractious Mideast. The continuing turbulence in Syria combined with Iran’s legendary duplicity suggests that a geopolitical storm may be brewing.
Consider that Iran and Syria have been allies for the past thirty years. In fact, the Iranian-born Lebanese Shiite cleric Musa Sadr provided religious legitimacy to the Assad regime. In a 1973 Fatwa, Sadr declared that Syria’s ruling Alawites are Shiites. Sadr also acted as liaison between Hafez al-Assad and Khomeini's aides before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Indeed, the relationship between Iran and Syria is a marriage of convenience that has repeatedly satisfied both parties’ diplomatic needs. And that is the crux of an incipient problem for the region.
Long before the current situation in Syria, Iran aided and abetted the Syrian regime. It served Iranian objectives to foster Syria’s meddling in Lebanon, to encourage Syria’s less-than-furtive flirtation with Hezbollah and to goad Syria’s insidious assignation with Hamas.
In so doing, Iran covertly exploits its overtly explicit anti-Israel and anti-West agenda. By collaborating with the Assad regime, Iran seeks to extend its strategically significant influence across the arc of the Mideast all the way to the Mediterranean .
By continually enabling the Assad regime, Iran is betting that Assad –if he somehow survives Syria’s Arab spring- will be even more eager to accommodate Iranian aspirations to be the regional hegemon. That is a craving deeply rooted in the Iranian psyche.
It also seems clear that Iranian aspirations have been newly enhanced in Iraq, which –not incidentally- borders both Syria and Iran. The recently announced U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq presents a power vacuum which Iran is eager to fill.
The current Iraqi government is dominated by Shia leaders. They have a decided affinity with the Iranian Shia. The latter are sufficiently astute to have studiously cultivated relations with Syria’s ruling Alawites who are Shia. It is also noteworthy that the three Arab League nations that did not vote to suspend Syria's membership (Iraq, Lebanon & Yemen) all have politically vocal Shiite populations.
That said, America’s apparent loss of influence in Iraq combined with an Assad win in Syria could dramatically alter the balance of power in the Mideast. The geopolitical map could then reflect a swath of Iranian sway that extends from the Persian Gulf across Iraq and Syria into Lebanon and then down into the Gaza strip.
Not coincidentally, this scenario –at least theoretically- places Iran on the borders of Israel. Of course, it can be argued that, by dint of existential circumstances, Iran is already there. Still, Iran’s position will be immeasurably enhanced assuming that the Assad regime outlasts Syria’s soggy Arab Spring.
On the other hand, Assad's downfall would deal a distinct blow to Iran's broad diplomatic machinations. As such, Iran is watching the Syrian spring with bated breath. But others –with equally bated breath- are also watching.
Turkey, which not so long ago was attempting to broker a peace between Syria and Israel, has all but severed relations with both the Assad regime and with Israel. Of course, Turkey has its own self-serving agenda. It wants to be the region’s top dog.
It is in Turkey’s bests interests to disrupt any scenario that might elevate Iran’s claim to hegemony. As such, Turkey has abruptly sided with Syria's Sunni dissidents. It is not that the Turks like Syria’s dissidents so much more than Assad, it is just that they dislike the Iranians with much greater intensity. Furthermore, ingratiating itself with the Arab Spring also serves to enhance Turkey’s aspirations to regional leadership.
Pointedly, both the Turks and the Iranians are Moslems. But the Turks are Sunnis whereas the Iranians are Shiites. The long-festering animosity between these Islamic sects is palpable. Furthermore, there is no love lost between ethnic Turks and ethnic Persians. Need it also be said that neither the Turks nor the Iranians are Arabs. Complicating matters, the Turks and the Iranians not particularly fond of the Arabs and vice versa. So the plot thickens.
The Saudis are Arabs. The Saudis are Sunni. The Saudis absolutely abhor the ruling Syrian Alawites who are Shiites. The Saudis say the Syrian Alawites are apostates, polytheists and pagans. Conversely, the Syrian Alawites disparage the Saudis for their “Bedouin thinking” and extreme fundamentalist Sunni (Wahabi) beliefs. But the Saudis also look with equally derisive contempt at the Iranians and at the repugnant possibility of a Shiite crescent across the Mideast.
That leaves us with the Israelis. They are not ethnic Persians or ethnic Turks. The Israelis are ethnic Semites. So are the Arabs. Most Arabs are Sunni Moslems. With exceptions, Israelis are not Moslems. That said, the Israelis have no love lost for Assad, an Alawite/Shiite Moslem. But neither are the Israelis sanguine about the possibility of seeing Assad replaced by a fundamentalist Sunni Moslem regime.
Both the Iranians and the Turks want to rule the Mideast roost. That prospect is exquisitely distasteful to the Saudis. The Israelis have their hands full detaching themselves from the Palestinians. But like the Saudis and the Turks, the Israelis are justifiably apprehensive about the possibility of a Shiite/Iranian crescent overspreading the Mideast.
All of which may breathe renewed relevance into that caustic Arabic adage: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend!”
.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Al-The-Alevi & Syria’s Arab Spring
Syria’s Arab Spring sprung about nine months ago. During that pregnant period, Syria’s dissidents have labored to terminate Bashir al-Assad's unsavory regime. So far, the dissidents have utterly failed. Instead, Syria’s nascent Arab Spring has seemingly miscarried.
In fact, many reports about the Syrian opposition originate outside Syria and/or from anti-Assad elements inside Syria. These reports may well be skewed and/or self-serving. They depict images and relate stories detailing violent repression and/or predicting Assad's impending demise.
It has been incredulously alleged that Al Jazeera, the most popular Arab news channel, has fabricated footage depicting suppression of anti-government demonstrations. Purportedly, Al Jazeera even built replicas of Syrian towns as backdrops for faked violence against dissidents. Indeed, much of what is said and printed about the Syrian situation is, arguably, hype and/or flimflam.
That said, the real truth on-the-ground is hard to come by, especially in a police state like Syria. But some semblance of actuality periodically leaks out in curious places. Take the tennis court for example.
Several weeks ago, I happened to play several sets of tennis with a Syrian physician who now practices in the American South. Let’s just call him “Al.” And, lest you think I jest, Al is not an abbreviation for Alabama nor is it a veiled allusion to Al-Jazeera, to al-Arab or to al-Assad.
So, who is Al and what does he say about Syria?
Well, Al is a native of Tartous, Syria. His Arab parents still live there. Al visits Tartous regularly. When I met Al on a Florida tennis court, he had just returned from Syria. He was surprised to learn that I have not only visited his hometown, but that I know a little -precious little- Arabic.
In fact, Al even paused to correct my pronunciation of the term “Alevi.” That is the name of the Syria’s ruling elite sect. Syrian President Bashir al-Assad is an Alevi. Depending on who is counting, between six and ten percent of the Syrians are Alevis. The Syrian military is heavily Alevi. Syria’s business elite is predominantly Alevi. The richest man in Syria is Alevi (He is also Bashir al-Assad’s cousin). Even Dr. Al is an Alevi. And that may be precisely on point.
Clearly, Dr. Al espouses the perspective of Syria’s ruling Alevi elites. Al has vested interests in seeing the continuing rule of the Assad regime. But, Al’s vision did not seem unduly blurred by media depictions of the Arab Spring in Syria. After all, Al had just flown into and out of Damascus. He had just visited extensively with family in Tartous. He had just met with neighbors, shared refreshments with friends and conversed with colleagues. He had just been out on the town in Tartous. Surely, Al had a feel for –and even a taste of- the bona fide realities in Syria.
So, between points for the better part of two hours, Al and I conducted a running (we were playing tennis) conversation about the state of affairs in Syria. I flatly questioned Al: “What’s really happening in Syria? Will Assad fall? Are things on the ground as bad as the press says they are?”
Al pointedly responded: “Everything’s pretty cool. Don’t get bent out of shape about what you hear. Yes, there is always some dissent. It depends where you look and what you want to see. But what you read and hear is terribly overblown.” Perhaps.
Certainly, it is critically important to recognize that Assad’s military is loyal, disciplined and highly organized. Syria’s military, its officer corps and a host of governmental appointees (a disproportionate number of whom are Alevi) have a strong vested interest in preserving their privileged position in the status quo.
Pointedly, the Alevi (aka Alawites) are a distinct and often reviled religious minority in heavily (74%) Sunni Syria. The Alawites are an extreme offshoot of Shiite Islam. Some Alawite beliefs are not only secret, but also incorporate some Christian elements. In fact, Sunnis customarily deem the Alawites to be unbelievers, polytheists and apostates. As such, Alevi lives, both professionally and personally, may well be imperiled if and when the Assad regime dissolves.
On the other hand, Assad's decidedly disloyal opposition is undisciplined, disorganized, fragmented, effectively leaderless, essentially unarmed and both tactically and strategically impoverished. Score a couple of clear aces for Assad’s side.
Now then, you might also want to serve up the fact that Syria has been a police state for the better part of four decades. Indeed, Hafez al-Assad (President Bashir al-Assad’s father) came into power shortly after Colonel Qadaffi conducted his own coup in Libya. Syria’s secret police (the feared Mukhabarat) has a long history of ruthlessly suppressing dissent under the rule of both Hafez and Bashir al-Assad. That said, Qadaffi is dead, but the Mukhabarat yet lives. Score another critical point for the Assad regime.
Need it also be said that, for almost fifty years (since 1963), Syria officially operated under emergency rule. That Emergency Law even predated the Assads’ dictatorial reign. The oppressive reality of a half-century of emergency rule clearly qualifies as sustained, pervasive and daunting governmental control.
Yet, this past April, while under intense pressure from dissidents, President Bashir al-Assad actually abolished that long-standing Emergency Law. But the simple stroke of Bashir’s pen could not and will not glibly obliterate or cavalierly expunge the haunting spectre of emergency rule from Syria’s public psyche. Score yet another decisive point for the Assad regime.
And not least of all, Syrian dissidents cannot help but be continually reminded of the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its people in the modern Mideast. That event was the massacre of 15,000 dissidents at Hama, Syria in 1982. Said action was orchestrated by the fiat of then President Hafez al-Assad. Is it conceivable that Bashir al-Assad has not learned to replicate his father’s deadly home court serve? Score one more blistering, overhead smash for the Assad regime.
Premises considered, if Al-The-Alevi was a tennis broadcaster, he could ably articulate the current contest against Assad. I can almost hear Al’s slightly-accented Arab voice: “O.K., that’s game, set and…well, not quite match. Assad remains in firm control. But no one is invincible. Even court dictators like Federer and Nadal now lose to that dissident Djokovic. Syria’s fracas could still be a long five-setter. So far, Assad leads his opposition two sets to love. Only one thing is certain, there is absolutely no love lost or left in Syria’s Arab Spring!”
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
What Happened To Egypt's Arab Spring?
Egypt’s Arab Spring sprung early last winter. That was eight months ago. That’s when the Egyptian military ousted long-time President Hosni Mubarak. The voice of the Egyptian people had been heard. Democracy was distantly visible on the Egyptian horizon. The reins of government would be held –but on an interim basis only- by the Egyptian military. That military was widely and favorably viewed as the protector of Egyptian stability. Timely elections were to be held. A new Constitution was to be promulgated. Fresh spring air was seemingly wafting through Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
But wait. Not so fast. That fresh spring air was –and is – polluted. In fact, with Mubarak gone, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and its head, Field Marshall Tantawi, assumed absolute control. Contrary to fond expectations, very little has changed.
In March, with Mubarak’s ouster still fresh, the Egyptian military arrested, tried and sentenced Maikel Nabil Sanad to three years in prison. Maikel was a young, dissident blogger. His crime was that he had posted an article criticizing the military’s role in the Egyptian revolution. Maikel had argued that the military was a nemesis to the protestors. Maikel pulled no punches. He flatly asserted: “The revolution has so far managed to get rid of the dictator, but not the dictatorship!”
Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces deemed Maikel’s comments
to be “a clear transgression of all boundaries of insult and libel.”
More pointedly, dissident bloggers had been routinely imprisoned by Mubarak’s regime. But Maikel’s imprisonment by the SCAF served as an early red flag that even free expression would not be tolerated in Egypt. It was thus that Egypt’s Arab Spring began to be rained out.
That said, Maikel’s travails are also an clear indication that Egypt’s military is not disposed to surrender power any time soon. Indeed, as another dissident Egyptian blogger recently wrote: “The military wants to annihilate anyone who questions what it does.” That blogger -with abundant premeditation - identified himself as “Kafaya Punk” (roughly translated as "The Defiant Punk!").
And so it is that we arrive back in Cairo on 9 October 2011. The scene was yet again one of chaos, confusion and virtual anarchy. But this time, the mood and targets of the mobs were different. For the first time, the military itself was also targeted by demonstrators.
As it happens, the Coptic Church, which claims about 10 percent of Egypt's 83 million people, accused the military of purposely failing control a Moslem mob. The Copts had been peacefully protesting against attacks on their churches. The Moslem mob turned that protest into a violent sectarian riot. Inexplicably, the military somehow failed to prevent the death of about two dozen Coptic Christians.
Indeed, recent months have witnessed an undercurrent of growing disaffection with the military. Anti-military rhetoric has been on the upswing. In fact, disparate groups, upset with the military, had begun denouncing the SCAF for willfully obstructing the Egypt's evolution into
a democracy.
But it was not until October 9th that protestors used weapons against the military. While the identity of those rioters remains unclear, at least one message is clear. The Egyptian military’s image as a neutral arbiter and/or protector of the people has now been called into question.
As the mob scene developed on October 9th, three distinct factions revealed themselves, i.e. the Copts, the Moslems and the military. Arguably, the military sided with neither the Copts or the Moslems. But that perception may be skewed.
It was widely rumored that Copts were attacking soldiers. True or not, that perception catalyzed a Moslem mob into action. Some threateningly chanted: "Islamiyyah, Islamiyyah" (only an Islamic state!). Simultaneously, the military-controlled media conveniently characterized Copts as the primary perpetrators of the riot.
The bottom line of all this is that Egypt remains fractured by a broad spectrum of opposition groups. Each group espouses its own platform, promotes its own self-interested objectives and awaits its own preconceived expectations for the future of Egypt.
The most important, the most self-interested and the group with the most to lose is the Egyptian military. Without question, the military was (under Mubarak) and still is (under the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) the most critical entity in Egypt. That is true with reference to virtually every aspect of life in Egypt. It is especially true (to no little extent) as to the pregnant issue of whether or not Egypt devolves from a technically secular state into an officially Islamic nation.
Need it be said that Egypt's military establishment has, in many respects, been decidedly astute. For four decades the military was the power behind Mubarak. But, when it served the military’s interests to do so, it simply ousted Mubarak from office. When Tahrir Square exploded with anti-Mubarak demonstrations, the military studiously avoided becoming embroiled in the demonstrations. The military carefully distanced itself from Mubarak’s policies and skillfully portrayed itself as the sole guarantor of Egyptian stability.
It is now crystal clear that the military has out-maneuvered Egypt’s dissidents. Some among latter had high hopes that military rule would only be a transitional bridge to a democratic Egypt. Other dissidents of an Islamist stripe envisioned an Egypt that would –sooner or later – become officially Islamic. But by now both factions must recognize that the Egyptian military may well harbor a third and completely different vision for Egypt’s future.
It is virtually axiomatic –if not also Machiavellian– that preservation of the status quo is the primary aspiration and objective of those in power. Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is in power. It was the power behind Mubarak's Presidency. Furthermore, it seems increasingly clear that the SCAF has little intention of willingly yielding power to democratic secularists, to the Muslim Brotherhood or to any other aspiring entity of whatever ilk.
What happens next is subject to all manner of speculation. Will the SCAF proceed with the Parliamentary elections scheduled for November 28th? Will the SCAF willingly transfer its power to a democratically elected civilian government? Will the elections be rigged to ensure continued military control?
Additionally, will the SCAF act to keep Egyptian dissidents divided and/or to provoke further discord? Is it in the SCAF's interest to contain or to exacerbate sectarian strife? Will it be a surprise if the SCAF decides that the continuing unrest merits a calculated delay in the path to democracy? Or will the SCAF decide that a growing level of Egyptian dissent is sufficient to simply cancel elections and justify the imposition of emergency rule?
Clearly, the SCAF's reign has already dampened -and may yet completely drench- Egypt's Arab Spring. It is thus that the felonious words of Egypt’s imprisoned dissident blogger now resonate with ever increasing intensity: “The revolution has so far managed to get rid of the dictator, but not the dictatorship!”
So much for the Arab Spring in Egypt!
But wait. Not so fast. That fresh spring air was –and is – polluted. In fact, with Mubarak gone, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and its head, Field Marshall Tantawi, assumed absolute control. Contrary to fond expectations, very little has changed.
In March, with Mubarak’s ouster still fresh, the Egyptian military arrested, tried and sentenced Maikel Nabil Sanad to three years in prison. Maikel was a young, dissident blogger. His crime was that he had posted an article criticizing the military’s role in the Egyptian revolution. Maikel had argued that the military was a nemesis to the protestors. Maikel pulled no punches. He flatly asserted: “The revolution has so far managed to get rid of the dictator, but not the dictatorship!”
Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces deemed Maikel’s comments
to be “a clear transgression of all boundaries of insult and libel.”
More pointedly, dissident bloggers had been routinely imprisoned by Mubarak’s regime. But Maikel’s imprisonment by the SCAF served as an early red flag that even free expression would not be tolerated in Egypt. It was thus that Egypt’s Arab Spring began to be rained out.
That said, Maikel’s travails are also an clear indication that Egypt’s military is not disposed to surrender power any time soon. Indeed, as another dissident Egyptian blogger recently wrote: “The military wants to annihilate anyone who questions what it does.” That blogger -with abundant premeditation - identified himself as “Kafaya Punk” (roughly translated as "The Defiant Punk!").
And so it is that we arrive back in Cairo on 9 October 2011. The scene was yet again one of chaos, confusion and virtual anarchy. But this time, the mood and targets of the mobs were different. For the first time, the military itself was also targeted by demonstrators.
As it happens, the Coptic Church, which claims about 10 percent of Egypt's 83 million people, accused the military of purposely failing control a Moslem mob. The Copts had been peacefully protesting against attacks on their churches. The Moslem mob turned that protest into a violent sectarian riot. Inexplicably, the military somehow failed to prevent the death of about two dozen Coptic Christians.
Indeed, recent months have witnessed an undercurrent of growing disaffection with the military. Anti-military rhetoric has been on the upswing. In fact, disparate groups, upset with the military, had begun denouncing the SCAF for willfully obstructing the Egypt's evolution into
a democracy.
But it was not until October 9th that protestors used weapons against the military. While the identity of those rioters remains unclear, at least one message is clear. The Egyptian military’s image as a neutral arbiter and/or protector of the people has now been called into question.
As the mob scene developed on October 9th, three distinct factions revealed themselves, i.e. the Copts, the Moslems and the military. Arguably, the military sided with neither the Copts or the Moslems. But that perception may be skewed.
It was widely rumored that Copts were attacking soldiers. True or not, that perception catalyzed a Moslem mob into action. Some threateningly chanted: "Islamiyyah, Islamiyyah" (only an Islamic state!). Simultaneously, the military-controlled media conveniently characterized Copts as the primary perpetrators of the riot.
The bottom line of all this is that Egypt remains fractured by a broad spectrum of opposition groups. Each group espouses its own platform, promotes its own self-interested objectives and awaits its own preconceived expectations for the future of Egypt.
The most important, the most self-interested and the group with the most to lose is the Egyptian military. Without question, the military was (under Mubarak) and still is (under the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) the most critical entity in Egypt. That is true with reference to virtually every aspect of life in Egypt. It is especially true (to no little extent) as to the pregnant issue of whether or not Egypt devolves from a technically secular state into an officially Islamic nation.
Need it be said that Egypt's military establishment has, in many respects, been decidedly astute. For four decades the military was the power behind Mubarak. But, when it served the military’s interests to do so, it simply ousted Mubarak from office. When Tahrir Square exploded with anti-Mubarak demonstrations, the military studiously avoided becoming embroiled in the demonstrations. The military carefully distanced itself from Mubarak’s policies and skillfully portrayed itself as the sole guarantor of Egyptian stability.
It is now crystal clear that the military has out-maneuvered Egypt’s dissidents. Some among latter had high hopes that military rule would only be a transitional bridge to a democratic Egypt. Other dissidents of an Islamist stripe envisioned an Egypt that would –sooner or later – become officially Islamic. But by now both factions must recognize that the Egyptian military may well harbor a third and completely different vision for Egypt’s future.
It is virtually axiomatic –if not also Machiavellian– that preservation of the status quo is the primary aspiration and objective of those in power. Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is in power. It was the power behind Mubarak's Presidency. Furthermore, it seems increasingly clear that the SCAF has little intention of willingly yielding power to democratic secularists, to the Muslim Brotherhood or to any other aspiring entity of whatever ilk.
What happens next is subject to all manner of speculation. Will the SCAF proceed with the Parliamentary elections scheduled for November 28th? Will the SCAF willingly transfer its power to a democratically elected civilian government? Will the elections be rigged to ensure continued military control?
Additionally, will the SCAF act to keep Egyptian dissidents divided and/or to provoke further discord? Is it in the SCAF's interest to contain or to exacerbate sectarian strife? Will it be a surprise if the SCAF decides that the continuing unrest merits a calculated delay in the path to democracy? Or will the SCAF decide that a growing level of Egyptian dissent is sufficient to simply cancel elections and justify the imposition of emergency rule?
Clearly, the SCAF's reign has already dampened -and may yet completely drench- Egypt's Arab Spring. It is thus that the felonious words of Egypt’s imprisoned dissident blogger now resonate with ever increasing intensity: “The revolution has so far managed to get rid of the dictator, but not the dictatorship!”
So much for the Arab Spring in Egypt!
Monday, October 10, 2011
Pity The Palestinians
It is truly sad, even pitiful. The Palestinians have no state. They have never had a state. They need a state. They cannot get the Israelis to unilaterally declare the existence of a Palestinian state. They cannot convince the U.N. Security Council to proclaim the creation of a Palestinian state. They cannot even cajole the rest of the massive Arab world to carve out a little space for a Palestinian state. In short, the Palestinians get no respect. They are the Rodney Dangerfields of the Arab world.
But wait. It is not the Israelis who disrespect the Palestinians. The Israelis know better. The Israelis recognize that, by and large, the Palestinians are well-educated and well-attuned to their geopolitical realities. The Israelis know that the Palestinians are –as is evidenced by last year’s enviable 7.6% growth on the West Bank – able to manage an economy. The Israelis know that stability on the West Bank reflects the Palestinian capacity to run a state. The Israelis know that the Palestinians are neither intellectually inferior nor culturally impoverished.
So, if the Israelis do not disrespect the Palestinians as a people who does? Kindly check out the conduct of the Arab world. Indeed, it is the Palestinians’ own Arab brethren who have repeatedly demonstrated disrespect for the Palestinians.
But is that news? Anyone conversant with the stateless plight of the Palestinians knows that the Palestinians have long been the bane of the Arab world. Arabs will rush to deny that inglorious allegation, but historical facts speak to the veracity of that assertion. Thus, a candid review of the history of Palestine and the Palestinians is in order.
In the beginning God created heaven and earth. But God chose not create Palestine so the region was called Canaan. Time passed. In due course, Abraham begot a son named Ishmael. He became the forefather of the Arab Palestinians. But the term Palestinian has its origin elsewhere. So where does the term “Palestinian” come from?
In antiquity there was no such people known as the Palestinians. The closest one comes to fabricating a “Palestinian” ancestry is a people known as the Philistines. Arguably, the Philistines came from somewhere in the Aegean. They settled along the eastern Mediterranean coast where they built a pentapolis one of whose cities was named Gaza.
The Philistines evicted the local Canaanites and expropriated their lands. This occurred about the time that Joshua and the twelve Israelite tribes were invading Canaan. That’s when Jericho’s walls came tumbling down. Like the Philistines, the Israelite tribes evicted the locals and expropriated their lands.
In due course, the Israelites expanded westward while the Philistines were expanding eastward. That’s when Samson (the Israelite) got into trouble with Delilah (a Philistine). That’s when David (the Israelite) slew Goliath (a Philistine). My goodness, the Philistines were at odds with the Israelites just like the Palestinians are at odds with the Israelis.
But, long story short, the Philistines were not Arabs. The Philistines were not Semites. The Arab Palestinians are Semites. The Philistines are not the long lost forefathers of the Palestinians. In fact, by about seven hundred years before Jesus, the Philistines had disappeared from history.
Fast forward another seven hundred years. That’s when the Roman General Pompey appeared in the Mideast. Upon learning that the Mediterranean coast had once been populated by the Philistines, Pompey labeled that region Palestina. The “Ph” from Philistine morphed into the “P” of Palestina. It took another several thousand years for the region to become widely known as Palestine. Not incidentally, the P and the F (Ph) are essentially the same alphabetical letter, the P just has a stronger accent. Thus, the relationship between the Philistines and the Palestinians is purely alphabetical and linguistic, but not genetic
All of which (by way of a very telescoped history) brings us to the twentieth century. With seeming suddeness, the region’s residents –now identified by the Anglicized name of Palestine- were labeled as Palestinians. And now the plot thickens.
Jump to 1947. By fiat, the U.N. created two new entities in Palestine. One entity was to be a Jewish State. The other entity was to be an Arab State. There was no mention of a Palestinian State. That was no oversight. Back in 1947 a Palestinian State would have been a figment of a demographer’s fertile imagination.
Be that as it may, Arab nations attacked the fledgling Jewish State. The ensuing war created refugees. The refugees were locals. Perforce, the refugees were called Palestinians.
Time marched on. Jordan “occupied” Jerusalem and the West Bank. In 1967, Israel kicked Jordan out of Jerusalem and retook the West Bank. Depending on one’s perspective, the West Bank and East Jerusalem then became either “occupied” or “disputed” territory. Since that catastrophe, the Palestinians have yearned to regain “their” territory.
Meanwhile, Palestinian refugees had fled. The refugees found homes, but not havens, across the entirety of the Arab Mideast. And the Palestinian refugees multiplied.
It was and is in Arab nations that the Palestinians have suffered widespread discrimination simply because they are Palestinians. It was in Arab nations that the Palestinians were forbidden to enjoy state healthcare, were precluded from being professionals, were restricted from owning real estate, were restricted in their right to travel, were denied citizenship and were even consigned to squalid refugee camps.
These indignities were thrust upon the Palestinians by the own Arab brethern. Palestinian refugees and their progeny were welcomed across their Arab Mideast with disaffection, were often treated with disrespect and were frequently denigrated by rejection.
In fact, by 1965 the plight of the Palestinian refugees across the Arab Mideast had become so pitiful that the Arab League convened a conference designed to ameliorate the substantial adversities afflicting the Palestinians. What resulted was a proclamation known as The Casablanca Protocol.
But Morocco, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia adamantly refused to sign the Protocol. Lebanon, Libya and Kuwait only signed the Protocol with explicit reservations. That posture left about a million Palestinian refugees trapped in a pathetic state of affairs.
As such, in its 1991 campaign of explicit ethnic cleansing, Kuwait unceremoniously expelled 370,000 of the 400,000 Palestinians then living in that country. Why? Because the Palestinian leader, Yassir Arafat, had sided with Saddam Hussein whose army had invaded Kuwait.
In 1995, Libya expelled its 30,000 Palestinians as punishment for Palestinian peace talks with Israel. In his madness, Col. Qadaffi reasoned that even more Palestinian refugees would punish Israel!
As late as 7 March 2011, Lebanon’s 300,000 Palestinians were still denied the right to own real estate, were still denied access to state healthcare and were still forbidden to practice law or medicine.
As recently as mid-2011, Palestinian President Abbas felt constrained to beg Iraqi President Talabani to protect Iraq’s 15,000-30,000 Palestinians from assaults by Iraqi Shia. Additionally, Palestinians in Iraq are still required to regularly reapply for residence papers.
As of this very moment, the approximate half-million or more Palestinian refugees in Saudi Arabia are still the only Moslems in the world who can never become Saudi citizens. The Saudis argue that this policy is designed “…to avoid dissolution of their (Palestinian) identity & to protect their right to return to their homeland.” Geopolitical hogwash!
Premises considered, the Palestinians must surely merit the world's concern and compassion, if not also sympathy. Lest we forget, the Palestinians still have no state, they still have little or no standing in many Arab nations and they still have no Philistine forefathers. And, candidly, absent those redoubtable Philistine ancestors, even the Palestinian claim to Palestine still remains putrid. Pity the Palestinians!
But wait. It is not the Israelis who disrespect the Palestinians. The Israelis know better. The Israelis recognize that, by and large, the Palestinians are well-educated and well-attuned to their geopolitical realities. The Israelis know that the Palestinians are –as is evidenced by last year’s enviable 7.6% growth on the West Bank – able to manage an economy. The Israelis know that stability on the West Bank reflects the Palestinian capacity to run a state. The Israelis know that the Palestinians are neither intellectually inferior nor culturally impoverished.
So, if the Israelis do not disrespect the Palestinians as a people who does? Kindly check out the conduct of the Arab world. Indeed, it is the Palestinians’ own Arab brethren who have repeatedly demonstrated disrespect for the Palestinians.
But is that news? Anyone conversant with the stateless plight of the Palestinians knows that the Palestinians have long been the bane of the Arab world. Arabs will rush to deny that inglorious allegation, but historical facts speak to the veracity of that assertion. Thus, a candid review of the history of Palestine and the Palestinians is in order.
In the beginning God created heaven and earth. But God chose not create Palestine so the region was called Canaan. Time passed. In due course, Abraham begot a son named Ishmael. He became the forefather of the Arab Palestinians. But the term Palestinian has its origin elsewhere. So where does the term “Palestinian” come from?
In antiquity there was no such people known as the Palestinians. The closest one comes to fabricating a “Palestinian” ancestry is a people known as the Philistines. Arguably, the Philistines came from somewhere in the Aegean. They settled along the eastern Mediterranean coast where they built a pentapolis one of whose cities was named Gaza.
The Philistines evicted the local Canaanites and expropriated their lands. This occurred about the time that Joshua and the twelve Israelite tribes were invading Canaan. That’s when Jericho’s walls came tumbling down. Like the Philistines, the Israelite tribes evicted the locals and expropriated their lands.
In due course, the Israelites expanded westward while the Philistines were expanding eastward. That’s when Samson (the Israelite) got into trouble with Delilah (a Philistine). That’s when David (the Israelite) slew Goliath (a Philistine). My goodness, the Philistines were at odds with the Israelites just like the Palestinians are at odds with the Israelis.
But, long story short, the Philistines were not Arabs. The Philistines were not Semites. The Arab Palestinians are Semites. The Philistines are not the long lost forefathers of the Palestinians. In fact, by about seven hundred years before Jesus, the Philistines had disappeared from history.
Fast forward another seven hundred years. That’s when the Roman General Pompey appeared in the Mideast. Upon learning that the Mediterranean coast had once been populated by the Philistines, Pompey labeled that region Palestina. The “Ph” from Philistine morphed into the “P” of Palestina. It took another several thousand years for the region to become widely known as Palestine. Not incidentally, the P and the F (Ph) are essentially the same alphabetical letter, the P just has a stronger accent. Thus, the relationship between the Philistines and the Palestinians is purely alphabetical and linguistic, but not genetic
All of which (by way of a very telescoped history) brings us to the twentieth century. With seeming suddeness, the region’s residents –now identified by the Anglicized name of Palestine- were labeled as Palestinians. And now the plot thickens.
Jump to 1947. By fiat, the U.N. created two new entities in Palestine. One entity was to be a Jewish State. The other entity was to be an Arab State. There was no mention of a Palestinian State. That was no oversight. Back in 1947 a Palestinian State would have been a figment of a demographer’s fertile imagination.
Be that as it may, Arab nations attacked the fledgling Jewish State. The ensuing war created refugees. The refugees were locals. Perforce, the refugees were called Palestinians.
Time marched on. Jordan “occupied” Jerusalem and the West Bank. In 1967, Israel kicked Jordan out of Jerusalem and retook the West Bank. Depending on one’s perspective, the West Bank and East Jerusalem then became either “occupied” or “disputed” territory. Since that catastrophe, the Palestinians have yearned to regain “their” territory.
Meanwhile, Palestinian refugees had fled. The refugees found homes, but not havens, across the entirety of the Arab Mideast. And the Palestinian refugees multiplied.
It was and is in Arab nations that the Palestinians have suffered widespread discrimination simply because they are Palestinians. It was in Arab nations that the Palestinians were forbidden to enjoy state healthcare, were precluded from being professionals, were restricted from owning real estate, were restricted in their right to travel, were denied citizenship and were even consigned to squalid refugee camps.
These indignities were thrust upon the Palestinians by the own Arab brethern. Palestinian refugees and their progeny were welcomed across their Arab Mideast with disaffection, were often treated with disrespect and were frequently denigrated by rejection.
In fact, by 1965 the plight of the Palestinian refugees across the Arab Mideast had become so pitiful that the Arab League convened a conference designed to ameliorate the substantial adversities afflicting the Palestinians. What resulted was a proclamation known as The Casablanca Protocol.
But Morocco, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia adamantly refused to sign the Protocol. Lebanon, Libya and Kuwait only signed the Protocol with explicit reservations. That posture left about a million Palestinian refugees trapped in a pathetic state of affairs.
As such, in its 1991 campaign of explicit ethnic cleansing, Kuwait unceremoniously expelled 370,000 of the 400,000 Palestinians then living in that country. Why? Because the Palestinian leader, Yassir Arafat, had sided with Saddam Hussein whose army had invaded Kuwait.
In 1995, Libya expelled its 30,000 Palestinians as punishment for Palestinian peace talks with Israel. In his madness, Col. Qadaffi reasoned that even more Palestinian refugees would punish Israel!
As late as 7 March 2011, Lebanon’s 300,000 Palestinians were still denied the right to own real estate, were still denied access to state healthcare and were still forbidden to practice law or medicine.
As recently as mid-2011, Palestinian President Abbas felt constrained to beg Iraqi President Talabani to protect Iraq’s 15,000-30,000 Palestinians from assaults by Iraqi Shia. Additionally, Palestinians in Iraq are still required to regularly reapply for residence papers.
As of this very moment, the approximate half-million or more Palestinian refugees in Saudi Arabia are still the only Moslems in the world who can never become Saudi citizens. The Saudis argue that this policy is designed “…to avoid dissolution of their (Palestinian) identity & to protect their right to return to their homeland.” Geopolitical hogwash!
Premises considered, the Palestinians must surely merit the world's concern and compassion, if not also sympathy. Lest we forget, the Palestinians still have no state, they still have little or no standing in many Arab nations and they still have no Philistine forefathers. And, candidly, absent those redoubtable Philistine ancestors, even the Palestinian claim to Palestine still remains putrid. Pity the Palestinians!
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Soggy Syrian Spring
While paying my bill at a restaurant on the outskirts of Damascus, I noticed a picture hanging above that establishment’s portals. The picture depicted President Bashir al-Assad and deceased President Hafez al-Assad with Hezzbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah.
“Why,” I questioned the proprietor, “are the Assads pictured with Nasrallah?” Without hesitation, the proprietor answered in Arabic: “Adoo adoowe sadeechee” (the enemy of my enemy is my friend)! Then, he conspiratorially winked at me and closed his cash register.
That exchange occurred just a few years ago. Back then Syria was generally calm, its populace was seemingly serene and the Assad regime was in firm control. In fact, the overwhelming atmosphere in Damascus, the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city, was unusually welcoming. The widespread attitude throughout that nation was clearly upbeat. The sudden advent of the Arab Spring changed all that.
Well, not exactly. As it happens, Syria has always been a confounding, sectarian labyrinth of disparate ethnicities, divergent religious persuasions and differing loyalties. Indeed, Syria’s twenty-two million citizens include Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites, Orthodox Christians, Kurds, Druse, Circassians, Armenians, Turkmen, a smattering of Jews and others.
To a remarkable extent, these strikingly different groups have coexisted in relative communal quietude. Indeed, Syria could justifiably boast that its populace was unusually blessed with religious freedom, pluralism and broad cultural diversity.
Of course, all the above operated on Syria’s societal surface. Still, Syrian society seemed to function reasonably well. Regrettably, that is a relatively superficial view of those uninitiated in the subtleties of the Mideast. Beneath the surface a seething cauldron of unrest, dissent and disquiet quietly stewed. It all boiled over into the Arab Spring. Why?
One answer is the Syria has also always been that region’s most combustible geopolitical flashpoint. Syria sits precisely at a strategic crossroads of the world. It has –seemingly forever- been the battlefield of expanding empires. It has been overrun, occupied and/or ruled by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Moslems, the Crusaders, the Egyptians, the Ottomans and even the French. This circumstance blessed the region with a magnificent cultural diversity; it also cursed Syria in that it rarely ruled itself.
The bottom line resulting from repeated foreign rule was that Syria failed to develop as a true national entity. Syria became a region where loyalty remained remarkably local. It became a society in which citizens still identify much more closely with their cities, their extended families, their ethnicities and their religious sects than with their national government.
This situation ultimately fostered a minority mentality among the populace. No group was strong enough to exert its sway on the national scene. Many entities were –consciously and/or subconsciously- suspicious of other groups. No one group had sufficient influence or power to create or sustain a national consensus. And none did. Even after gaining independence in 1946, Syria was continually rocked by military coup after military coup. Then, in 1971, the Assad family seized (and I mean “seized”) control.
Hafez al-Assad ruled ruthlessly for almost three decades. It was on his watch that the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its people in the modern Mideast was perpetrated. That massacre was at the Syrian city of Hama in 1982 when 15,000 Sunni members of the Muslim Brotherhood were slaughtered. The Assad family had and has zero tolerance for political dissent.
That Hama is now again in the news and reaping reprisals for its political dissent only illustrates that Bashir al-Assad views his father as a clear role model. Is it then any wonder that Assad, the son, is now irreverently referred to as “The Butcher of Damascus?” Those who pinned hopes on his leadership could have been more perspicacious.
In 2000 Bashir al-Assad gave up life as a British ophthalmologist to become President of Syria. He was 34 years old. His brother Basil, thought to be his father's preferred heir, had died in a car accident. The Syrians were enamored with Bashir’s youthful appearance, his pleasant disposition and his seemingly open-minded demeanor. Still, they forgot the consequential import of the expression: “Like father like son.” Assad, the son, fit nicely into the dictatorial and autocratic shoes of Assad, the father.
Premises considered, is it any wonder that Syrian citizens have also been seduced by the fragrance of the Arab Spring? The problem in Syria is that those seductions appealed to a wide variety of disparate, disjoint and terribly disorganized groups. Each group seems to have its own agenda. That bifurcation of aims, goals and desiderata serves Assad and his Alawite regime well.
The Alawites comprise only six percent of the Syrian population. But the Alawites are Syria's privileged elite. Alawites hold an unusually disproportionate number of top government posts and ranking military positions. They have benefited hugely from the regime’s largesse and patronage. They are understandably and demonstrably loyal to President Assad.
On the other hand, the Syrian Sunnis are 74% of the Syrian populace. Their Shia co-religionists are 13% of the population. Both groups are effectively leaderless. There is also no love lost between the Sunni and Shia communities. Even if that were not true, their loyalties remain decidedly local.
So, there is no apparent, currently acceptable or even safe alternative to Assad. And yet, the seductive fragrance of the Arab Spring has long since wafted far away from Assad. But, like it or not, Assad, the son, learned from Assad, the father. He understands how to exploit the substantial differences and fractures that perfuse Syrian society. Bashir understands, as did his father, that when all else fails, ruthless repression customarily silences dissenting souls.
Still, in the early months of the Arab Spring, President Assad adamantly told the Wall Street Journal that “Syria is immune from unrest” because he understands his people’s needs.
It remains to be seen if the Syrian people’s needs truly comport with what their President says that he understands. In the meantime, the Arab Spring is turning increasingly soggy in Syria
“Why,” I questioned the proprietor, “are the Assads pictured with Nasrallah?” Without hesitation, the proprietor answered in Arabic: “Adoo adoowe sadeechee” (the enemy of my enemy is my friend)! Then, he conspiratorially winked at me and closed his cash register.
That exchange occurred just a few years ago. Back then Syria was generally calm, its populace was seemingly serene and the Assad regime was in firm control. In fact, the overwhelming atmosphere in Damascus, the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city, was unusually welcoming. The widespread attitude throughout that nation was clearly upbeat. The sudden advent of the Arab Spring changed all that.
Well, not exactly. As it happens, Syria has always been a confounding, sectarian labyrinth of disparate ethnicities, divergent religious persuasions and differing loyalties. Indeed, Syria’s twenty-two million citizens include Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites, Orthodox Christians, Kurds, Druse, Circassians, Armenians, Turkmen, a smattering of Jews and others.
To a remarkable extent, these strikingly different groups have coexisted in relative communal quietude. Indeed, Syria could justifiably boast that its populace was unusually blessed with religious freedom, pluralism and broad cultural diversity.
Of course, all the above operated on Syria’s societal surface. Still, Syrian society seemed to function reasonably well. Regrettably, that is a relatively superficial view of those uninitiated in the subtleties of the Mideast. Beneath the surface a seething cauldron of unrest, dissent and disquiet quietly stewed. It all boiled over into the Arab Spring. Why?
One answer is the Syria has also always been that region’s most combustible geopolitical flashpoint. Syria sits precisely at a strategic crossroads of the world. It has –seemingly forever- been the battlefield of expanding empires. It has been overrun, occupied and/or ruled by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Moslems, the Crusaders, the Egyptians, the Ottomans and even the French. This circumstance blessed the region with a magnificent cultural diversity; it also cursed Syria in that it rarely ruled itself.
The bottom line resulting from repeated foreign rule was that Syria failed to develop as a true national entity. Syria became a region where loyalty remained remarkably local. It became a society in which citizens still identify much more closely with their cities, their extended families, their ethnicities and their religious sects than with their national government.
This situation ultimately fostered a minority mentality among the populace. No group was strong enough to exert its sway on the national scene. Many entities were –consciously and/or subconsciously- suspicious of other groups. No one group had sufficient influence or power to create or sustain a national consensus. And none did. Even after gaining independence in 1946, Syria was continually rocked by military coup after military coup. Then, in 1971, the Assad family seized (and I mean “seized”) control.
Hafez al-Assad ruled ruthlessly for almost three decades. It was on his watch that the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its people in the modern Mideast was perpetrated. That massacre was at the Syrian city of Hama in 1982 when 15,000 Sunni members of the Muslim Brotherhood were slaughtered. The Assad family had and has zero tolerance for political dissent.
That Hama is now again in the news and reaping reprisals for its political dissent only illustrates that Bashir al-Assad views his father as a clear role model. Is it then any wonder that Assad, the son, is now irreverently referred to as “The Butcher of Damascus?” Those who pinned hopes on his leadership could have been more perspicacious.
In 2000 Bashir al-Assad gave up life as a British ophthalmologist to become President of Syria. He was 34 years old. His brother Basil, thought to be his father's preferred heir, had died in a car accident. The Syrians were enamored with Bashir’s youthful appearance, his pleasant disposition and his seemingly open-minded demeanor. Still, they forgot the consequential import of the expression: “Like father like son.” Assad, the son, fit nicely into the dictatorial and autocratic shoes of Assad, the father.
Premises considered, is it any wonder that Syrian citizens have also been seduced by the fragrance of the Arab Spring? The problem in Syria is that those seductions appealed to a wide variety of disparate, disjoint and terribly disorganized groups. Each group seems to have its own agenda. That bifurcation of aims, goals and desiderata serves Assad and his Alawite regime well.
The Alawites comprise only six percent of the Syrian population. But the Alawites are Syria's privileged elite. Alawites hold an unusually disproportionate number of top government posts and ranking military positions. They have benefited hugely from the regime’s largesse and patronage. They are understandably and demonstrably loyal to President Assad.
On the other hand, the Syrian Sunnis are 74% of the Syrian populace. Their Shia co-religionists are 13% of the population. Both groups are effectively leaderless. There is also no love lost between the Sunni and Shia communities. Even if that were not true, their loyalties remain decidedly local.
So, there is no apparent, currently acceptable or even safe alternative to Assad. And yet, the seductive fragrance of the Arab Spring has long since wafted far away from Assad. But, like it or not, Assad, the son, learned from Assad, the father. He understands how to exploit the substantial differences and fractures that perfuse Syrian society. Bashir understands, as did his father, that when all else fails, ruthless repression customarily silences dissenting souls.
Still, in the early months of the Arab Spring, President Assad adamantly told the Wall Street Journal that “Syria is immune from unrest” because he understands his people’s needs.
It remains to be seen if the Syrian people’s needs truly comport with what their President says that he understands. In the meantime, the Arab Spring is turning increasingly soggy in Syria
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The Arabs Spring Into Summer Or Is It Winter?
The Arab Spring remains a seductive illusion. If you beg to differ, kindly consider what's really going on in the Arab Mideast.
Seven months have dissolved into the shifting sands of that region since the Arab Spring first sprung. Substantive elections have yet to be held in either Tunisia or Egypt. Angry demonstrations still reverberate in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Egyptian Salafists openly joust with secular protestors. Ex-President Mubarak is being tried (in a building bearing his name) on charges brought by the same police he appointed. Field Marshal Tantawi, head of Egypt's ruling Supreme Military Council, has banned foreign observers from elections in November. What does all that tell you?
Please also observe that The Madman Of The Mideast still rants in Tripoli while his disloyal Libyan rebels still rave in Benghazi. That is where the top rebel general and his aides were recently assassinated, arguably by even more patriotic rebels. In fact, Benghazi rebels are not only at odds with each other, they also have significant rifts with their rebel compatriots in Libya's west. The Libyan rebels may be as odious and treacherous as are Gaddafi loyalists. That should be old news, but it is not. Why?
Meanwhile, NATO is still bombing Qadaffi-held Tripoli into everything but submission. NATO bombs, designed to protect the Libyan populace, have killed 1,100 civilians. Apparently, there are too few bona fide targets in Tripoli. So NATO deemed it prudent to destroy a Tripoli TV station in order to kill the broadcast of Qadaffi's "murderous rhetoric." Meanwhile, the rest of the Arab world (Qatar excepted) spectates from the sidelines in perplexed apprehension as to which of them is next and for what?
Quietly underreported, the sweeping swath of the Saudi sword has totally cut off the protests of the Bahreini Shia. Their Saudi enforced silence speaks volumes about the alleged fecundity of the Arab Spring.
Affairs in Iraq remain unsettled, severely sectarian and in tragi-comic political disarray. Take faint heart that the absence of more widespread turmoil in the Arab Mideast suggests that the Arab Spring has failed to give birth to either a progressive or a productive Arab Summer. Indeed, not a single Arab monarchy has been seduced by or succumbed to the enticing fragrance of the Arab Spring.
Still, feel free to bemoan the fact that the Arab Spring has miscarried its alluring message of hope. The aborted Arab Spring has even engendered a dismal forecast for further Mideast fragmentation and fracture. If there was an Arab Spring, its air quality was polluted by a variety of toxic pollens to which the Arab world is seemingly allergic.
More pointedly, in this year of the media-perfumed Arab Spring, the sword of Saudi justice has unceremoniously already severed the lives of dozens of its own less-than-exemplary citizens. But that sad circumstance was a mere prelude to incipient legal changes on sacred Saudi soil.
The Saudis -in their infinite Wahabi wisdom- have enacted a litany of new rules. These are designed not to liberalize and democratize Saudi society, but rather to further shackle its citizens in servitude to that nation's reactionary predilections and regressive predispositions. .
Saudi legislation (awaiting official imprimatur) is so draconian that it will criminalize every vestige of legitimate dissent. Said regulations cast a conspicuously wide net of culpability. The chilling effect of these laws turns thoughts of a pervasive Arab Spring into an ice-cold winter of dampened dissent.
Given Saudi Arabia's deeply repressive policies and practices, may I respectfully suggest that a much hotter than normal Arab summer is in progress.
But then you might argue that Saudi Arabia is certainly not synonymous with the Arab Mideast. And you would be quite correct. Indeed, the residue of the Arab Mideast is simply plagued by and infected with a host of problems distinctly peculiar (and I mean peculiar) to each of the disparate Arab nations.
Consider that Yemen remains a chaotic and ungovernable snakepit. Its wounded President is still recovering in Saudi Arabia. His nation is aimlessly wandering in a leaderless wilderness of uncertainty. Yemeni society has splintered into an unpalatable witch's brew of hostile tribes, secessionists, Islamists, pan-Arabists, Jihadists and al-Qaeda opportunists.
Meanwhile, Syria -home to the Mideast's most complex sectarian labyrinth- is the region's most combustible geopolitical flashpoint. The Syrian political weather forecast calls for intermittent military thunderclaps accompanied by bolts of damaging lightning from government weaponry. This poses imminent and lethal danger to protestors. Can it be that NATO is bombing the wrong regime while protecting the wrong civilians in the wrong country?
Premises considered, there regrettably was no Arab Spring this year. That mythical season is now being followed by an all too realistic and undoubtedly sweltering Arab Summer.
But wait. Do not despair. Just because the sudden spring thaw in the four-decades-long Arab Winter was less than pervasive, that does not mean that there can be no truly bone fide Arab Spring. Perhaps the Arabs must first weather The Arab Fall. That's when the leaves fall from the trees in the Arab Mideast. Oh, you are right. Palm trees don't shed their fronds; they just turn brown, hang there and dessicate. Perhaps there is also no such thing as an Arab Fall.
So, do the Arabs have a choice? Can they still opt for a real Arab Spring? Will they remain chilled in an enduring Winter of Arab discontent? Or will they languish in the heated disarray of an Arab Summer?
Personally, as a mere non-Arab who frequently visits ten Arab nations, it looks to me like the Arabs still have a very long, hot summer ahead of them. Need I note that today's actual temperature in Mecca was 111 degrees. The political heat index across the Arab Mideast is much higher and there is no relief in sight!
Seven months have dissolved into the shifting sands of that region since the Arab Spring first sprung. Substantive elections have yet to be held in either Tunisia or Egypt. Angry demonstrations still reverberate in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Egyptian Salafists openly joust with secular protestors. Ex-President Mubarak is being tried (in a building bearing his name) on charges brought by the same police he appointed. Field Marshal Tantawi, head of Egypt's ruling Supreme Military Council, has banned foreign observers from elections in November. What does all that tell you?
Please also observe that The Madman Of The Mideast still rants in Tripoli while his disloyal Libyan rebels still rave in Benghazi. That is where the top rebel general and his aides were recently assassinated, arguably by even more patriotic rebels. In fact, Benghazi rebels are not only at odds with each other, they also have significant rifts with their rebel compatriots in Libya's west. The Libyan rebels may be as odious and treacherous as are Gaddafi loyalists. That should be old news, but it is not. Why?
Meanwhile, NATO is still bombing Qadaffi-held Tripoli into everything but submission. NATO bombs, designed to protect the Libyan populace, have killed 1,100 civilians. Apparently, there are too few bona fide targets in Tripoli. So NATO deemed it prudent to destroy a Tripoli TV station in order to kill the broadcast of Qadaffi's "murderous rhetoric." Meanwhile, the rest of the Arab world (Qatar excepted) spectates from the sidelines in perplexed apprehension as to which of them is next and for what?
Quietly underreported, the sweeping swath of the Saudi sword has totally cut off the protests of the Bahreini Shia. Their Saudi enforced silence speaks volumes about the alleged fecundity of the Arab Spring.
Affairs in Iraq remain unsettled, severely sectarian and in tragi-comic political disarray. Take faint heart that the absence of more widespread turmoil in the Arab Mideast suggests that the Arab Spring has failed to give birth to either a progressive or a productive Arab Summer. Indeed, not a single Arab monarchy has been seduced by or succumbed to the enticing fragrance of the Arab Spring.
Still, feel free to bemoan the fact that the Arab Spring has miscarried its alluring message of hope. The aborted Arab Spring has even engendered a dismal forecast for further Mideast fragmentation and fracture. If there was an Arab Spring, its air quality was polluted by a variety of toxic pollens to which the Arab world is seemingly allergic.
More pointedly, in this year of the media-perfumed Arab Spring, the sword of Saudi justice has unceremoniously already severed the lives of dozens of its own less-than-exemplary citizens. But that sad circumstance was a mere prelude to incipient legal changes on sacred Saudi soil.
The Saudis -in their infinite Wahabi wisdom- have enacted a litany of new rules. These are designed not to liberalize and democratize Saudi society, but rather to further shackle its citizens in servitude to that nation's reactionary predilections and regressive predispositions. .
Saudi legislation (awaiting official imprimatur) is so draconian that it will criminalize every vestige of legitimate dissent. Said regulations cast a conspicuously wide net of culpability. The chilling effect of these laws turns thoughts of a pervasive Arab Spring into an ice-cold winter of dampened dissent.
Given Saudi Arabia's deeply repressive policies and practices, may I respectfully suggest that a much hotter than normal Arab summer is in progress.
But then you might argue that Saudi Arabia is certainly not synonymous with the Arab Mideast. And you would be quite correct. Indeed, the residue of the Arab Mideast is simply plagued by and infected with a host of problems distinctly peculiar (and I mean peculiar) to each of the disparate Arab nations.
Consider that Yemen remains a chaotic and ungovernable snakepit. Its wounded President is still recovering in Saudi Arabia. His nation is aimlessly wandering in a leaderless wilderness of uncertainty. Yemeni society has splintered into an unpalatable witch's brew of hostile tribes, secessionists, Islamists, pan-Arabists, Jihadists and al-Qaeda opportunists.
Meanwhile, Syria -home to the Mideast's most complex sectarian labyrinth- is the region's most combustible geopolitical flashpoint. The Syrian political weather forecast calls for intermittent military thunderclaps accompanied by bolts of damaging lightning from government weaponry. This poses imminent and lethal danger to protestors. Can it be that NATO is bombing the wrong regime while protecting the wrong civilians in the wrong country?
Premises considered, there regrettably was no Arab Spring this year. That mythical season is now being followed by an all too realistic and undoubtedly sweltering Arab Summer.
But wait. Do not despair. Just because the sudden spring thaw in the four-decades-long Arab Winter was less than pervasive, that does not mean that there can be no truly bone fide Arab Spring. Perhaps the Arabs must first weather The Arab Fall. That's when the leaves fall from the trees in the Arab Mideast. Oh, you are right. Palm trees don't shed their fronds; they just turn brown, hang there and dessicate. Perhaps there is also no such thing as an Arab Fall.
So, do the Arabs have a choice? Can they still opt for a real Arab Spring? Will they remain chilled in an enduring Winter of Arab discontent? Or will they languish in the heated disarray of an Arab Summer?
Personally, as a mere non-Arab who frequently visits ten Arab nations, it looks to me like the Arabs still have a very long, hot summer ahead of them. Need I note that today's actual temperature in Mecca was 111 degrees. The political heat index across the Arab Mideast is much higher and there is no relief in sight!
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The Arab Spring?
The Arab Spring is a mirage. It appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It is now evaporating into the always shifting political sands of the Arab Mideast.
That said, aspects of The Arab Spring are crystal clear. The Arab Spring is not simply a myth; it is an illusion. The Arab Spring has no singular direction. The Arab Spring has no defining vision. The Arab Spring has no cohesion. The Arab Spring has virtually no pan-Arab collegiality. The Arab
Spring has a dirth of pervasive purpose. In fact, the entire Arab Mideast reflects an decided absence of uniformity. But if that is news, it should not be. The Arab Spring is a figment of the West's fervid imagination.
But even crystal clarity about the myth of the Arab Spring cannot dispel that term's captivating imagery. Regrettably, the notion of The Arab Spring was foisted upon the world by pundits whose familiarity with the Mideast is suspect.
Alternatively stated, Mideast cognoscenti have long been fully aware that the Arab Mideast is -and has long been- fractured, fragmented and fissured. Nothing in the alleged Arab Spring has altered that condition. Indeed,
the so-called Arab Spring has only exposed the ruptures, hacked away at the perpetual splinters and confirmed the critical cracks that traditionally roil the Arab Mideast.
It has been argued -sometimes vociferously- that the Arab Spring was/is an outburst of yearning by disaffected masses of Arabs for dignity, freedom and democracy. Perhaps. It has been suggested that the protests and demonstrations were/are the beginnings of a political tsunami which would bring a wave of new life, enhanced liberty and a broader capacity to pursue happiness by and for the Arab masses. Wrong, at least so far.
Yes, there have been multiple demonstrations and prodigious protests. But demonstrations and protests are not synonymous with substantive revolts. Yes, there have been revolts, but revolts are not necessarily revolutions. Yes, there have been what appear to be revolutions, but these have not yet produced widespread regime change. And where there has been regime change, there has not been demonstrable change in the actual control and management of governmental affairs. Furthermore, even where there has been regime change (Tunisia and Egypt), there has been not been a headlong rush to democratic reform by the powers that be.
On the other hand, it is abundantly clear that there are substantive threads that weave their way through the Mideast turmoil. These threads include a broad disaffection with brazen corruption, a pervasive disenchantment with economic exclusion by privileged elites and a widespread alienation of the woefully unemployed Arab youth. These matters are hugely important; they should not be lightly dismissed.
But, contrary to wishful thinking in the West, a pervasive hunger for democracy is barely distinguishable in the above threads. That is understandable. The Arab Spring -such as it is- is not really about democracy. To a great extent, the Mideast tumult is about the ardent desire by widely divergent and disparate Arab populaces to get a fair shake and to get their fair share in life. Pointedly, for the exploding numbers of Arab youth (whose unemployment level is incredibly high), a slice of the bread of prosperity takes clear precedence over a ringside seat at the circus of democracy.
Perhaps it is best to cite chapter and verse. Egypt, the Arab Mideast's most populous nation, is the prime case in point. Cairo's Tahrir Square experienced large and protracted demonstrations. Masses of Egyptians clamored for regime change. So the Egyptian military forced President Mubarak out of office.
The Egyptian military also got rid Gamal Mubarak and his fiscally predatory cronies, thirty-nine of whom became billionaires. But now that the dust surrounding the Egyptian Spring is settling, it seems clear that what the Egyptians got was not regime change. Instead, the Egyptians acquired a barely disguised preservation of the status quo by the same military men who once served and then rejected Mubarak.
Yes, Hosni Mubarak and Gamal Mubarak are gone; but the High Council of Egypt's Armed Forces is still in firm control. The Egyptian state bureaucracy is still managing the store. The Egyptian National Police are still operating what has been characterized as a "nationwide protection racket." Egypt's college graduates are still ten times less likely to have a job than the Egyptian masses who hold rudimentary educations. Egypt's per capita income is still about two and a half times less than in neighboring Libya. And don't think that the Egyptians don't recognize that Saudi citizens right across the Red Sea still earn about four times more than does the average Egyptian.
So, yes, the Egyptians got rid of an autocratic tyrant, but that does not mean that much more has changed, at least not yet. All of which leads us back to the rest of the Arab Mideast and the mythical Arab Spring.
Amidst all the Arab unrest, not one Arab monarchy has fallen. Only one Arab royal house has been seriously challenged. That sole unique exception is Bahrein's tiny Emirate whose population is one hundred times smaller than that of Egypt. Premises considered, Bahrein's neighboring Saudi monarchy rushed headlong to Bahrein's rescue.
Bahrein's Shia were ruthlessly subdued. Some forty Shiite mosques were unceremoniously leveled to the ground. The protests for a voice in government by Bahrein's Shiite majority were crushed into silence. With the illuminating exceptions of Iraqi Shia and Hezbollah Shia, the rest of the Arab Mideast watched passively in virtually mute acquiescence.
Amidst all the Mideast chaos, it is only the dictatorial autocracies that are experiencing continuing and significant turmoil. Amidst all the upheaval, it is only the autocratic tyrants in Libya, Syria and Yemen whose regimes are now truly threatened by the Arab Spring.
Pointedly, the societal, demographic, governmental and political circumstances in each of these autocracies differ dramatically. One of the few commonalities of Libya, Syria and Yemen is that their citizens are dying while in pursuit of whatever it is that they are pursuing. And precisely what these diverse groups are seeking is not terribly clear.
Need it be said that dissent in the Arab monarchies has just been more ably suppressed and/or seduced into temporary quietude by flagrant bribes disguised as beneficent governmental largesse. So much for the Arab Spring.
What all this says about pan-Arab yearning for freedom and democracy remains hazy and uncertain. But, if the illusion of the Arab Spring teaches anything, it is that diversity, fragmentation, authoritarianism, anarchy and volatility remain staples of life in the Arab Mideast. That inescapable reality is no mirage.
That said, aspects of The Arab Spring are crystal clear. The Arab Spring is not simply a myth; it is an illusion. The Arab Spring has no singular direction. The Arab Spring has no defining vision. The Arab Spring has no cohesion. The Arab Spring has virtually no pan-Arab collegiality. The Arab
Spring has a dirth of pervasive purpose. In fact, the entire Arab Mideast reflects an decided absence of uniformity. But if that is news, it should not be. The Arab Spring is a figment of the West's fervid imagination.
But even crystal clarity about the myth of the Arab Spring cannot dispel that term's captivating imagery. Regrettably, the notion of The Arab Spring was foisted upon the world by pundits whose familiarity with the Mideast is suspect.
Alternatively stated, Mideast cognoscenti have long been fully aware that the Arab Mideast is -and has long been- fractured, fragmented and fissured. Nothing in the alleged Arab Spring has altered that condition. Indeed,
the so-called Arab Spring has only exposed the ruptures, hacked away at the perpetual splinters and confirmed the critical cracks that traditionally roil the Arab Mideast.
It has been argued -sometimes vociferously- that the Arab Spring was/is an outburst of yearning by disaffected masses of Arabs for dignity, freedom and democracy. Perhaps. It has been suggested that the protests and demonstrations were/are the beginnings of a political tsunami which would bring a wave of new life, enhanced liberty and a broader capacity to pursue happiness by and for the Arab masses. Wrong, at least so far.
Yes, there have been multiple demonstrations and prodigious protests. But demonstrations and protests are not synonymous with substantive revolts. Yes, there have been revolts, but revolts are not necessarily revolutions. Yes, there have been what appear to be revolutions, but these have not yet produced widespread regime change. And where there has been regime change, there has not been demonstrable change in the actual control and management of governmental affairs. Furthermore, even where there has been regime change (Tunisia and Egypt), there has been not been a headlong rush to democratic reform by the powers that be.
On the other hand, it is abundantly clear that there are substantive threads that weave their way through the Mideast turmoil. These threads include a broad disaffection with brazen corruption, a pervasive disenchantment with economic exclusion by privileged elites and a widespread alienation of the woefully unemployed Arab youth. These matters are hugely important; they should not be lightly dismissed.
But, contrary to wishful thinking in the West, a pervasive hunger for democracy is barely distinguishable in the above threads. That is understandable. The Arab Spring -such as it is- is not really about democracy. To a great extent, the Mideast tumult is about the ardent desire by widely divergent and disparate Arab populaces to get a fair shake and to get their fair share in life. Pointedly, for the exploding numbers of Arab youth (whose unemployment level is incredibly high), a slice of the bread of prosperity takes clear precedence over a ringside seat at the circus of democracy.
Perhaps it is best to cite chapter and verse. Egypt, the Arab Mideast's most populous nation, is the prime case in point. Cairo's Tahrir Square experienced large and protracted demonstrations. Masses of Egyptians clamored for regime change. So the Egyptian military forced President Mubarak out of office.
The Egyptian military also got rid Gamal Mubarak and his fiscally predatory cronies, thirty-nine of whom became billionaires. But now that the dust surrounding the Egyptian Spring is settling, it seems clear that what the Egyptians got was not regime change. Instead, the Egyptians acquired a barely disguised preservation of the status quo by the same military men who once served and then rejected Mubarak.
Yes, Hosni Mubarak and Gamal Mubarak are gone; but the High Council of Egypt's Armed Forces is still in firm control. The Egyptian state bureaucracy is still managing the store. The Egyptian National Police are still operating what has been characterized as a "nationwide protection racket." Egypt's college graduates are still ten times less likely to have a job than the Egyptian masses who hold rudimentary educations. Egypt's per capita income is still about two and a half times less than in neighboring Libya. And don't think that the Egyptians don't recognize that Saudi citizens right across the Red Sea still earn about four times more than does the average Egyptian.
So, yes, the Egyptians got rid of an autocratic tyrant, but that does not mean that much more has changed, at least not yet. All of which leads us back to the rest of the Arab Mideast and the mythical Arab Spring.
Amidst all the Arab unrest, not one Arab monarchy has fallen. Only one Arab royal house has been seriously challenged. That sole unique exception is Bahrein's tiny Emirate whose population is one hundred times smaller than that of Egypt. Premises considered, Bahrein's neighboring Saudi monarchy rushed headlong to Bahrein's rescue.
Bahrein's Shia were ruthlessly subdued. Some forty Shiite mosques were unceremoniously leveled to the ground. The protests for a voice in government by Bahrein's Shiite majority were crushed into silence. With the illuminating exceptions of Iraqi Shia and Hezbollah Shia, the rest of the Arab Mideast watched passively in virtually mute acquiescence.
Amidst all the Mideast chaos, it is only the dictatorial autocracies that are experiencing continuing and significant turmoil. Amidst all the upheaval, it is only the autocratic tyrants in Libya, Syria and Yemen whose regimes are now truly threatened by the Arab Spring.
Pointedly, the societal, demographic, governmental and political circumstances in each of these autocracies differ dramatically. One of the few commonalities of Libya, Syria and Yemen is that their citizens are dying while in pursuit of whatever it is that they are pursuing. And precisely what these diverse groups are seeking is not terribly clear.
Need it be said that dissent in the Arab monarchies has just been more ably suppressed and/or seduced into temporary quietude by flagrant bribes disguised as beneficent governmental largesse. So much for the Arab Spring.
What all this says about pan-Arab yearning for freedom and democracy remains hazy and uncertain. But, if the illusion of the Arab Spring teaches anything, it is that diversity, fragmentation, authoritarianism, anarchy and volatility remain staples of life in the Arab Mideast. That inescapable reality is no mirage.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Pakistani Paranoia And The Roots Of Duplicity
Sixty-four years ago Pakistan came into being. It
was carved –some say it was sliced- out of India.
Three years later, Hans Morgenthau (then Director
of the Centre For the Study Of American Foreign
Policy at the University of Chicago) adamantly
asserted that: “Pakistan is not a nation
and hardly a state. It has no justification,
ethnic origin, language, civilization or the
consciousness of those who make up its
population. They have no interest in common
except one: fear of Hindu domination.”
In 1950 Morgenthau was right. In 2011
Morgenthau’s assessment of Pakistan is still
correct. Precious little has changed in Pakistan.
Indeed, there are only two dramatic differences
between what Pakistan was in 1947 and what it is
now in 2011.
First and most worrisome, Pakistan is now a nuclear
nation. It claims the world’s fifth largest and
fastest growing nuclear arsenal. But Pakistan’s
nukes are a subject for another day. Still, those
nukes are uncomfortably related to the other
monumental change in Pakistan.
The second dramatic change in Pakistan is
its exploding population. There are now four
times as many Pakistanis as there were in 1947.
Pakistan has the world’s second fastest growing
population. Only Bangladesh, once part of Pakistan,
is growing faster.
But more importantly, the overarching common
interest of Pakistan's multiplying masses is still
the fear of Hindu domination. That fear is best
understood as pathological paranoia. It It is that
pervasive paranoia which is a prime reason for
Pakistani duplicity in foreign affairs.
But let’s start at Pakistan’s beginning. In 1947
Pakistan included Bangladesh. When the
latter –then known as East Pakistan – seceded in
1971, Pakistan felt betrayed by the distinct absence
of American support. But by that date, the seeds of
insecurity and duplicity had long since been planted.
A decade earlier, on May 1, 1960, Pakistan and
the U.S. had colluded by sending an American U-2
aircraft to spy on the U.S.S.R. Amidst much
fanfare, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
announced that the Soviets shot down that
aircraft and captured its pilot. The U.S.
denied that it had sent a spy plane. The U.S.
denied that the pilot, Gary Powers, was a
CIA agent. The U.S. affirmatively asserted that
a “weather plane” had "strayed" into Soviet
airspace and had crashed “due to oxygen problems.”
To its great embarrassment, the U.S. version of
that U-2 incident was soon exposed to the world
as a series of naked fabrications. Pakistan
learned about diplomatic disinformation and
duplicity from that incident. But what is little
known is that America’s U-2 spy plane actually
took off from a Pakistani air base near Peshawar.
In fact, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower had
previously received express permission from the
Pakistani Prime Minister authorizing such spy
flights from Pakistan.
So, five years later, when Pakistan went to war
withIndia, Pakistan could have reasonably
anticipated American support. Wrong. The United
States stayed neutral. Thus, the seeds of
insecurity and duplicity were implanted into
the Pakistani mentality.
Then, in the 1980s, Pakistan and the U.S.
cooperated to arm and train mujahideen to
fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. But when
America learned that Pakistan had developed
a successful nuclear capacity, the United
States responded with sanctions and cut off
economic assistance. The seeds of Pakistan’s
insecurity and duplicity were ripening.
Not incidentally, India had already successfully
tested a nuclear "device” in 1974. In direct
response to that disturbing disclosure,
Pakistan’s then Prime Minister,Ali Bhutto,
asserted that Pakistan must develop its own
"Islamic bomb." As such, Pakistani paranoia
with India was further exacerbated when
Pakistan's perceived security was imperiled
by a "Hindu bomb."
Time passed. When America entered Afghanistan
to root out al-Qaeda after 9/11, Pakistan
appeared willing to aid U.S. efforts. America
needed Pakistani supply routes. It got them.
America needed to attack terrorist sanctuaries
in Pakistan's tribal areas. Pakistan tacitly
consented. But Pakistan was not pleased with
the infringement on its territorial
sovereignty. This circumstance has further
fertilized the seeds of Pakistani insecurity
and diplomatic duplicity.
At the very same time that Pakistan was
seemingly supporting American objectives
in Afghanistan, Pakistan was also providing
aid and support to the Taliban. That was hardly
news to the Americans. Indeed, the Taliban –to
the extent that such a monolithic entity
exists- is predominantly comprised of ethnic
Pashtuns. There are eleven million Pashtuns
in Afghanistan. But there are also
thirty-two million Pashtuns living right
across the border in Pakistan.
The Pashtuns are tribal brothers. The
arbitrary border aka The Durand Line)
between Pakistan and Afghanistan is a
diplomatic fiasco to the Pashtuns. More
pointedly, Afghanistan has never
recognized the validity of the border with
Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan and Afghanistan
almost went to war in the 1950s over the
Pashtun desire for the creation of an
independent Pashtunistan. That proposed
entity would have comprised half of
Afghanistan plus much of western Pakistan.
Pakistan's territorial integrity was
again imperiled.
Considering that scenario combined with
the omnipresence of the Pashtun/Taliban in
that region, Pakistani cooperation with
the Taliban was almost a given. As such,
Pakistan currently provides succor to
the Haqqani network, a Pakistani-based
and al-Qaeda affilliated fighting force
of Pashtun/Taliban that targets the U.S.
military in Afghanistan.
Not unexpectedly, the Haqqani network has
been quite immune from attack by the
Pakistani military. It is, therefore, not
only conceivable, but also quite probable
that the whereabouts of Mullah Omar are
hidden in a web of Pakistani connivance.
So, the seeds of Pakistani duplicity
continue to ripen.
All this returns us to Pakistan’s fear
of Hindu domination and paranoia about India.
As a by-product of Pakistan's pathology,
both India and Pakistan have abundant reason
to cultivate relations with Afghanistan. The
Pakistani tie with the Afghani Pashtuns is
a familial bond of Pashtun brotherhood.
That bond is combined with Pakistan's need
for strategic depth in Afghanistan
as a defense to a future confrontation with India.
But India is all too cognizant of Pakistan's
paranoia about Hindu domination. As a result,
India has consciously crafted a policy
calculated to encircle Pakistan via a plethora
of Indian enterprises throughout Afghanistan.
These enterprises are designed to ingratiate
India with Afghanistan. India’s sole purpose
is to deprive Pakistan of the strategic depth
which it deems absolutely criticalto its survival.
To Pakistan’s chagrin, India’s endeavors in
Afghanistan have been conspicuously fruitful.
This success prompted Pakistan to dispatch a
fifty-six page document to the U.S. urging the
Americans to get India out of Afghanistan.
India's successes in Afghanistan also prompted
General Stanley McCrystal, then the U.S.
commander in Afghanistan, to author a sixty-six
page report to the U.S. administration. In that
2010 report, McCrystal asserted that:
"Unbridled Indian interference is pushing the
chaos in Afghanistan to the point of being
intractable." Premises considered,
Pakistan has ample reason to fear encirclement
by its arch enemy. In the process, Pakistani
paranoia has been further fueled.
Additionally, Pakistan knows that India has
actually reached a formal understanding with Iran
about Pakistan. Iran agreed that if and when
Pakistan ever attacks India, then India -by treaty-
can use Iranian territory to flank Pakistan, enter
Afghanistan via Iran and thence proceed on to
Islamabad. The result is enhanced Pakistani
insecurity and heightened paranoia.
To rub salt in the wounds of Pakistani
insecurity, the United States surreptitiously
(but with abundant justification) flaunted
Pakistani territorial sovereignty to get Bin
Laden. At the same time, the Pakistanis
correctly perceive that the United States has
been and is cozying up to India. The impact
of these circumstances is foreseeable. Pakistan
will become more paranoid about India and
even more duplicitous in its relations
with America.
So, a critical question looms. Will Pakistan,
the Islamic nation afflicted by the world’s worst
case of paranoia and owner of the world’s worst
record on nuclear proliferation, deteriorate into
a rogue, nuclear-armed, jihadist state?
was carved –some say it was sliced- out of India.
Three years later, Hans Morgenthau (then Director
of the Centre For the Study Of American Foreign
Policy at the University of Chicago) adamantly
asserted that: “Pakistan is not a nation
and hardly a state. It has no justification,
ethnic origin, language, civilization or the
consciousness of those who make up its
population. They have no interest in common
except one: fear of Hindu domination.”
In 1950 Morgenthau was right. In 2011
Morgenthau’s assessment of Pakistan is still
correct. Precious little has changed in Pakistan.
Indeed, there are only two dramatic differences
between what Pakistan was in 1947 and what it is
now in 2011.
First and most worrisome, Pakistan is now a nuclear
nation. It claims the world’s fifth largest and
fastest growing nuclear arsenal. But Pakistan’s
nukes are a subject for another day. Still, those
nukes are uncomfortably related to the other
monumental change in Pakistan.
The second dramatic change in Pakistan is
its exploding population. There are now four
times as many Pakistanis as there were in 1947.
Pakistan has the world’s second fastest growing
population. Only Bangladesh, once part of Pakistan,
is growing faster.
But more importantly, the overarching common
interest of Pakistan's multiplying masses is still
the fear of Hindu domination. That fear is best
understood as pathological paranoia. It It is that
pervasive paranoia which is a prime reason for
Pakistani duplicity in foreign affairs.
But let’s start at Pakistan’s beginning. In 1947
Pakistan included Bangladesh. When the
latter –then known as East Pakistan – seceded in
1971, Pakistan felt betrayed by the distinct absence
of American support. But by that date, the seeds of
insecurity and duplicity had long since been planted.
A decade earlier, on May 1, 1960, Pakistan and
the U.S. had colluded by sending an American U-2
aircraft to spy on the U.S.S.R. Amidst much
fanfare, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
announced that the Soviets shot down that
aircraft and captured its pilot. The U.S.
denied that it had sent a spy plane. The U.S.
denied that the pilot, Gary Powers, was a
CIA agent. The U.S. affirmatively asserted that
a “weather plane” had "strayed" into Soviet
airspace and had crashed “due to oxygen problems.”
To its great embarrassment, the U.S. version of
that U-2 incident was soon exposed to the world
as a series of naked fabrications. Pakistan
learned about diplomatic disinformation and
duplicity from that incident. But what is little
known is that America’s U-2 spy plane actually
took off from a Pakistani air base near Peshawar.
In fact, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower had
previously received express permission from the
Pakistani Prime Minister authorizing such spy
flights from Pakistan.
So, five years later, when Pakistan went to war
withIndia, Pakistan could have reasonably
anticipated American support. Wrong. The United
States stayed neutral. Thus, the seeds of
insecurity and duplicity were implanted into
the Pakistani mentality.
Then, in the 1980s, Pakistan and the U.S.
cooperated to arm and train mujahideen to
fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. But when
America learned that Pakistan had developed
a successful nuclear capacity, the United
States responded with sanctions and cut off
economic assistance. The seeds of Pakistan’s
insecurity and duplicity were ripening.
Not incidentally, India had already successfully
tested a nuclear "device” in 1974. In direct
response to that disturbing disclosure,
Pakistan’s then Prime Minister,Ali Bhutto,
asserted that Pakistan must develop its own
"Islamic bomb." As such, Pakistani paranoia
with India was further exacerbated when
Pakistan's perceived security was imperiled
by a "Hindu bomb."
Time passed. When America entered Afghanistan
to root out al-Qaeda after 9/11, Pakistan
appeared willing to aid U.S. efforts. America
needed Pakistani supply routes. It got them.
America needed to attack terrorist sanctuaries
in Pakistan's tribal areas. Pakistan tacitly
consented. But Pakistan was not pleased with
the infringement on its territorial
sovereignty. This circumstance has further
fertilized the seeds of Pakistani insecurity
and diplomatic duplicity.
At the very same time that Pakistan was
seemingly supporting American objectives
in Afghanistan, Pakistan was also providing
aid and support to the Taliban. That was hardly
news to the Americans. Indeed, the Taliban –to
the extent that such a monolithic entity
exists- is predominantly comprised of ethnic
Pashtuns. There are eleven million Pashtuns
in Afghanistan. But there are also
thirty-two million Pashtuns living right
across the border in Pakistan.
The Pashtuns are tribal brothers. The
arbitrary border aka The Durand Line)
between Pakistan and Afghanistan is a
diplomatic fiasco to the Pashtuns. More
pointedly, Afghanistan has never
recognized the validity of the border with
Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan and Afghanistan
almost went to war in the 1950s over the
Pashtun desire for the creation of an
independent Pashtunistan. That proposed
entity would have comprised half of
Afghanistan plus much of western Pakistan.
Pakistan's territorial integrity was
again imperiled.
Considering that scenario combined with
the omnipresence of the Pashtun/Taliban in
that region, Pakistani cooperation with
the Taliban was almost a given. As such,
Pakistan currently provides succor to
the Haqqani network, a Pakistani-based
and al-Qaeda affilliated fighting force
of Pashtun/Taliban that targets the U.S.
military in Afghanistan.
Not unexpectedly, the Haqqani network has
been quite immune from attack by the
Pakistani military. It is, therefore, not
only conceivable, but also quite probable
that the whereabouts of Mullah Omar are
hidden in a web of Pakistani connivance.
So, the seeds of Pakistani duplicity
continue to ripen.
All this returns us to Pakistan’s fear
of Hindu domination and paranoia about India.
As a by-product of Pakistan's pathology,
both India and Pakistan have abundant reason
to cultivate relations with Afghanistan. The
Pakistani tie with the Afghani Pashtuns is
a familial bond of Pashtun brotherhood.
That bond is combined with Pakistan's need
for strategic depth in Afghanistan
as a defense to a future confrontation with India.
But India is all too cognizant of Pakistan's
paranoia about Hindu domination. As a result,
India has consciously crafted a policy
calculated to encircle Pakistan via a plethora
of Indian enterprises throughout Afghanistan.
These enterprises are designed to ingratiate
India with Afghanistan. India’s sole purpose
is to deprive Pakistan of the strategic depth
which it deems absolutely criticalto its survival.
To Pakistan’s chagrin, India’s endeavors in
Afghanistan have been conspicuously fruitful.
This success prompted Pakistan to dispatch a
fifty-six page document to the U.S. urging the
Americans to get India out of Afghanistan.
India's successes in Afghanistan also prompted
General Stanley McCrystal, then the U.S.
commander in Afghanistan, to author a sixty-six
page report to the U.S. administration. In that
2010 report, McCrystal asserted that:
"Unbridled Indian interference is pushing the
chaos in Afghanistan to the point of being
intractable." Premises considered,
Pakistan has ample reason to fear encirclement
by its arch enemy. In the process, Pakistani
paranoia has been further fueled.
Additionally, Pakistan knows that India has
actually reached a formal understanding with Iran
about Pakistan. Iran agreed that if and when
Pakistan ever attacks India, then India -by treaty-
can use Iranian territory to flank Pakistan, enter
Afghanistan via Iran and thence proceed on to
Islamabad. The result is enhanced Pakistani
insecurity and heightened paranoia.
To rub salt in the wounds of Pakistani
insecurity, the United States surreptitiously
(but with abundant justification) flaunted
Pakistani territorial sovereignty to get Bin
Laden. At the same time, the Pakistanis
correctly perceive that the United States has
been and is cozying up to India. The impact
of these circumstances is foreseeable. Pakistan
will become more paranoid about India and
even more duplicitous in its relations
with America.
So, a critical question looms. Will Pakistan,
the Islamic nation afflicted by the world’s worst
case of paranoia and owner of the world’s worst
record on nuclear proliferation, deteriorate into
a rogue, nuclear-armed, jihadist state?
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Was Pakistan Complicit Or Incompetent?
In the aftermath Bin Laden's dramatic death
in Pakistan, several critical questions beg for
answers. First, was Pakistan contumaciously
complicit in harboring Bin Laden? Second,
is the Pakistani government really that incompetent?
A unqualified answer to the above is elusive.
Definitive answers presuppose incontrovertible
evidence. Pointedly, accurate assessments in
geopolitical matters -most decidedly in
Pakistan- are shrouded in complexities, befogged
by irreconcilable contradictions and distorted
by disinformation.
But it is essential to recognize that covert
agencies deliberately obfuscate how they get
intelligence. Of necessity, they beshroud
operational specifics. They distort and camouflage
facts. This misdirects and misleads attentive
enemies. This approach confuses arm-chair
strategists and beclouds their understanding.
This accounts for the proliferation of conflicting
information surrounding the Bin Laden escapade in Pakistan.
That said, even absent smoking-gun evidence,
circumstantial considerations can provide abundant
illumination. It is not rocket science to extrapolate
from known facts to reach compelling conclusions.
Assuredly, there is a great deal that is abundantly
clear about a wide range of illuminating
circumstances in Pakistan.
Let's begin at the beginning. Pakistan was
created in 1947. It was carved out of India
with the express intent of creating a Moslem
nation. In fact, Pakistan is the only such
nation ever created with that express international
intent. At the same time, Pakistan was to become a
democratic republic.
Some sixty-four years later, Pakistan is a
decidedly Moslem nation which seems to be
drifting to an assertive Islamic nationalism.
As for Pakistani democracy, never in its six
decades of existence has a civilian Pakistani
government successfully served out its full
term in office. These two facts form and
inform the crux of existential life in
Pakistan. Indeed, a proper understanding
of Pakistan must discern what daily life in
Pakistan truly is all about.
Pakistan, a nation twice the size of California,
is divided by region, segregated by ethnicity,
fractured by languages, beset by religious
dissension and muddied by political dysfunction.
It is a nation whose 180 million citizens number
four times those who were there when Pakistan
was created. More importantly, Pakistan’s
population is exploding. By 2050 it will host
335 million people. As such, the realities
besetting Pakistan’s population are a
prime source for insight into that nation.
Pakistan’s realities illuminate the basis for
widespread incompetence, but also suggest
considerations that argue for complicity.
Initially, 42% of Pakistanis are under age
fourteen. That makes for a massive populace that
is impressionable, malleable and volatile. Add to
this the fact that one of every two Pakistanis is
illiterate. But why is this so since the Pakistani
Constitution promises free elementary education to all?
The short answer is that free education in Pakistan
is constitutionally subject to available resources.
Indeed, less than one percent of Pakistani GDP is
allocated to education. As a result, 78% of
Pakistani schools have no electricity, 60% have
no toilets, 40% have no running water, one of
four teachers simply do not show up for work
each day, only one of five citizens ever attended
secondary school and half of the people in
Pakistan over age ten have never attended any
school. Such deplorable educational circumstances
predispose Pakistan to ineptitude.
That state of affairs is compounded by a
linguistically fractured society that speaks sixty
different languages. And yet, Urdu, Pakistan’s
national language, is the mother tongue of only
8% of Pakistanis. Urdu is the second language
of the literate few, but Urdu is quite unspoken by
most Pakistanis. How does one competently run
such a country?
How Pakistan is run presents yet another insight
into whether Pakistan was complicit or simply
incompetent. Pakistan has seventeen political
parties. But Pakistan has only 34 million voters
(less than one fifth of the population).
Moreover, Pakistan’s civilian government is
widely regarded as unusually incapable, widely
incompetent, generally dysfunctional and
pervasively corrupt. Understanding these
operational liabilities, after Pakistan’s
disastrous flooding last year, the government
felt compelled to issue humiliating assurances
that donations for flood relief would not
be stolen. Utter incompetence abounds.
Add to the foregoing the fact that Pakistan
was one of only three governments that formally
recognized the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan.
The other two were Myanmar and Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan’s Sunni soul-mate. Given that
redoubtable association, complicity was
almost predictable.
That said, two final matters directly relate
to considerations of complicity in the Bin Laden
affair. These are the role of Islam in Pakistan
and the status of the Pakistani military.
Islam is the state religion in Pakistan.
Ninety-five percent of Pakistanis are Moslem.
Pakistan should be a homogenous and harmonious
society, but it is not. Why? Theoretically,
every Pakistani is free to practice, profess
and propagate his/her own religion. But that
theory is trumped by a Constitutional provision
that allows reasonable restrictions on free
speech for “the glory of Islam.” In practice,
the masthead of Pakistan’s Ministry Of
Religious Affairs instructively asserts:
“Islam is the only religion acceptable to God.”
But Islam is not monolithic. Seventy-five
percent of Pakistanis are Sunni. Many Sunnis
consider their Shiite co-religionists to be
apostates and/or idolators. The festering
Sunni dislike of Pakistan’s Shia populace
periodically erupts into murderous violence.
But both the Sunni and the Shia spurn
Pakistan’s Ahmadi Moslems.
In fact, virulent legislative antipathy to
Pakistan’s Ahmadis precludes them from even
calling themselves Moslems, from quoting the
Quran or from using the traditional Moslem
call to prayer. On the other hand, Pakistan’s
government is predisposed to favor almost
anything that is Sunni. However simplistic,
it must be remembered that Bin Laden’s
ideology arose from his passionate Sunni
beliefs. Here again, Pakistan’s propensity
to complicity raises its ugly head.
Which leads us to the Pakistani military.
Pakistan’s army is the world’s sixth largest
fighting force. It has directly ruled Pakistan
for half of that nation’s history. Pakistan’s
military receives one-third of Pakistan’s
budget. Indeed, it is said that whereas nation
states have armies, the Pakistani army has a
state. But the Pakistani army also has nukes.
In fact,it has a quite substantial nuclear
arsenal. That argues for competence.
Furthermore, it is widely accepted that the
most powerful man in Pakistan is not President
Zadari, but rather the head of Pakistan’s
military, General Asfaq Kayani. He is known
to be contemptuous of India, contentious and
quitecompetent. If something is going on in
Pakistan, he and/or the ISI (Pakistani
intelligence) presumably know about it.
From this perspective, Pakistani complicity
seems totrump its widespread incompetence.
One final thought. For years it was assumed
that Bin Laden was holed up in Pakistan’s
untamed tribal areas which are adjacent to
Afghanistan. No government has ever exerted
substantial control there. But Bin Laden was
not reduced to a cave-like existence in
North or South Waziristan. He was hiding
in plain sight virtually next door to a
Pakistani military installation. How could
that be? Was Pakistan complicit or simply
that incompetent?
In response, an aphorism from Pakistan’s
wild Waziristan may be illuminating. It
recounts what would happen if a Mesud
tribesman were to enter a room where
he saw a Wazir tribesman and a venomous
snake. The aphorism asserts that the Mesud
would first kill the Waziri and only then
would he slay the snake. Bin Laden was
neither a Mesud nor a Waziri. He was a Saudi
and a Sunni. Until two weeks ago, he was
an unmolested viper ensconced in a
substantially more-than-modest Pakistani
country house. Absent Pakistani action, U.S.
Seals entered the house and killed the snake.
So, was Pakistan complicit, incompetent or both?
You now have the facts. You be the judge.
in Pakistan, several critical questions beg for
answers. First, was Pakistan contumaciously
complicit in harboring Bin Laden? Second,
is the Pakistani government really that incompetent?
A unqualified answer to the above is elusive.
Definitive answers presuppose incontrovertible
evidence. Pointedly, accurate assessments in
geopolitical matters -most decidedly in
Pakistan- are shrouded in complexities, befogged
by irreconcilable contradictions and distorted
by disinformation.
But it is essential to recognize that covert
agencies deliberately obfuscate how they get
intelligence. Of necessity, they beshroud
operational specifics. They distort and camouflage
facts. This misdirects and misleads attentive
enemies. This approach confuses arm-chair
strategists and beclouds their understanding.
This accounts for the proliferation of conflicting
information surrounding the Bin Laden escapade in Pakistan.
That said, even absent smoking-gun evidence,
circumstantial considerations can provide abundant
illumination. It is not rocket science to extrapolate
from known facts to reach compelling conclusions.
Assuredly, there is a great deal that is abundantly
clear about a wide range of illuminating
circumstances in Pakistan.
Let's begin at the beginning. Pakistan was
created in 1947. It was carved out of India
with the express intent of creating a Moslem
nation. In fact, Pakistan is the only such
nation ever created with that express international
intent. At the same time, Pakistan was to become a
democratic republic.
Some sixty-four years later, Pakistan is a
decidedly Moslem nation which seems to be
drifting to an assertive Islamic nationalism.
As for Pakistani democracy, never in its six
decades of existence has a civilian Pakistani
government successfully served out its full
term in office. These two facts form and
inform the crux of existential life in
Pakistan. Indeed, a proper understanding
of Pakistan must discern what daily life in
Pakistan truly is all about.
Pakistan, a nation twice the size of California,
is divided by region, segregated by ethnicity,
fractured by languages, beset by religious
dissension and muddied by political dysfunction.
It is a nation whose 180 million citizens number
four times those who were there when Pakistan
was created. More importantly, Pakistan’s
population is exploding. By 2050 it will host
335 million people. As such, the realities
besetting Pakistan’s population are a
prime source for insight into that nation.
Pakistan’s realities illuminate the basis for
widespread incompetence, but also suggest
considerations that argue for complicity.
Initially, 42% of Pakistanis are under age
fourteen. That makes for a massive populace that
is impressionable, malleable and volatile. Add to
this the fact that one of every two Pakistanis is
illiterate. But why is this so since the Pakistani
Constitution promises free elementary education to all?
The short answer is that free education in Pakistan
is constitutionally subject to available resources.
Indeed, less than one percent of Pakistani GDP is
allocated to education. As a result, 78% of
Pakistani schools have no electricity, 60% have
no toilets, 40% have no running water, one of
four teachers simply do not show up for work
each day, only one of five citizens ever attended
secondary school and half of the people in
Pakistan over age ten have never attended any
school. Such deplorable educational circumstances
predispose Pakistan to ineptitude.
That state of affairs is compounded by a
linguistically fractured society that speaks sixty
different languages. And yet, Urdu, Pakistan’s
national language, is the mother tongue of only
8% of Pakistanis. Urdu is the second language
of the literate few, but Urdu is quite unspoken by
most Pakistanis. How does one competently run
such a country?
How Pakistan is run presents yet another insight
into whether Pakistan was complicit or simply
incompetent. Pakistan has seventeen political
parties. But Pakistan has only 34 million voters
(less than one fifth of the population).
Moreover, Pakistan’s civilian government is
widely regarded as unusually incapable, widely
incompetent, generally dysfunctional and
pervasively corrupt. Understanding these
operational liabilities, after Pakistan’s
disastrous flooding last year, the government
felt compelled to issue humiliating assurances
that donations for flood relief would not
be stolen. Utter incompetence abounds.
Add to the foregoing the fact that Pakistan
was one of only three governments that formally
recognized the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan.
The other two were Myanmar and Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan’s Sunni soul-mate. Given that
redoubtable association, complicity was
almost predictable.
That said, two final matters directly relate
to considerations of complicity in the Bin Laden
affair. These are the role of Islam in Pakistan
and the status of the Pakistani military.
Islam is the state religion in Pakistan.
Ninety-five percent of Pakistanis are Moslem.
Pakistan should be a homogenous and harmonious
society, but it is not. Why? Theoretically,
every Pakistani is free to practice, profess
and propagate his/her own religion. But that
theory is trumped by a Constitutional provision
that allows reasonable restrictions on free
speech for “the glory of Islam.” In practice,
the masthead of Pakistan’s Ministry Of
Religious Affairs instructively asserts:
“Islam is the only religion acceptable to God.”
But Islam is not monolithic. Seventy-five
percent of Pakistanis are Sunni. Many Sunnis
consider their Shiite co-religionists to be
apostates and/or idolators. The festering
Sunni dislike of Pakistan’s Shia populace
periodically erupts into murderous violence.
But both the Sunni and the Shia spurn
Pakistan’s Ahmadi Moslems.
In fact, virulent legislative antipathy to
Pakistan’s Ahmadis precludes them from even
calling themselves Moslems, from quoting the
Quran or from using the traditional Moslem
call to prayer. On the other hand, Pakistan’s
government is predisposed to favor almost
anything that is Sunni. However simplistic,
it must be remembered that Bin Laden’s
ideology arose from his passionate Sunni
beliefs. Here again, Pakistan’s propensity
to complicity raises its ugly head.
Which leads us to the Pakistani military.
Pakistan’s army is the world’s sixth largest
fighting force. It has directly ruled Pakistan
for half of that nation’s history. Pakistan’s
military receives one-third of Pakistan’s
budget. Indeed, it is said that whereas nation
states have armies, the Pakistani army has a
state. But the Pakistani army also has nukes.
In fact,it has a quite substantial nuclear
arsenal. That argues for competence.
Furthermore, it is widely accepted that the
most powerful man in Pakistan is not President
Zadari, but rather the head of Pakistan’s
military, General Asfaq Kayani. He is known
to be contemptuous of India, contentious and
quitecompetent. If something is going on in
Pakistan, he and/or the ISI (Pakistani
intelligence) presumably know about it.
From this perspective, Pakistani complicity
seems totrump its widespread incompetence.
One final thought. For years it was assumed
that Bin Laden was holed up in Pakistan’s
untamed tribal areas which are adjacent to
Afghanistan. No government has ever exerted
substantial control there. But Bin Laden was
not reduced to a cave-like existence in
North or South Waziristan. He was hiding
in plain sight virtually next door to a
Pakistani military installation. How could
that be? Was Pakistan complicit or simply
that incompetent?
In response, an aphorism from Pakistan’s
wild Waziristan may be illuminating. It
recounts what would happen if a Mesud
tribesman were to enter a room where
he saw a Wazir tribesman and a venomous
snake. The aphorism asserts that the Mesud
would first kill the Waziri and only then
would he slay the snake. Bin Laden was
neither a Mesud nor a Waziri. He was a Saudi
and a Sunni. Until two weeks ago, he was
an unmolested viper ensconced in a
substantially more-than-modest Pakistani
country house. Absent Pakistani action, U.S.
Seals entered the house and killed the snake.
So, was Pakistan complicit, incompetent or both?
You now have the facts. You be the judge.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
The No Fly Enterprise
O.k, so President Obama has now laid out why
he deemed it imperative for the United States
to intervene in Libya. It is now appropriate
to seek clarity on other aspects of the Libyan
enterprise. First, what are the internal
dynamics in Libya? Second, who, beside the
rebels, benefits from the Libyan turmoil?
Libyan affairs are muddled, fractured and
wretchedly fragmented. Libya is anything
but monolithic. Thus, one wonders precisely
who are the Libyan rebels and anti-Qadaffi
voices? Indeed, U.S. Secretary Of State
Clinton rushed to admit: "We don't know
as much as we would like to know" about
the opposition.
There is ample evidence of al-Qaeda wanna-bees
and Hezbollah sympathizers among the Libyan
rebels. How numerous are they? How much
influence do they have? What other factions
and intolerable agendas infest Libya’s rebel
opposition? Would it simply replace the
Libyan tyrant with another dictator, another
Arab autocrat or a radical Islamist? It’s all
still quite unclear.
In fact, the entire focus on Libya is blurred.
The situation there remains decidedly opaque.
Assuredly, Col. Qaddafi is a grand master
at creating governmental opacity. Consider,
for example, that Qadaffi long ago planned
and created a purposely misleading system
of official titles and military ranks. The
system was expressly calculated to obfuscate,
confuse and conceal levels of responsibility,
ladders of authority and, especially, the
military chain of command.
Indeed, imagine the wonderment when one
learns that a Lt. Col. must report to a Captain
who then reports to an unranked public official.
In fact, one U.S.A.F. report caustically
observed that: “No one outside Libya -perhaps
even inside- knows for sure who controls what."
Such premeditated machinations are not the
meanderings of a madman. They are the
manifestations of masterful manipulation ala
Machiavelli. Of equal importance, said scenario
provides abundant insight into how Libya has
operated and how its people have been
controlled for four decades.
Qadaffi’s long tenure was abetted by the
existence of 140 different Libyan tribes.
Of these, thirty major tribes compete for
prestige and governmental preference in
placement and privilege. The current
disloyal, divided and dedicated opposition
to Qadaffi is a proximate result of carefully
cultivated tribal rivalries compounded by
demographic diversity and astute, but
tyrannical, leadership.
Official disclaimers notwithstanding, the
United States is still spearheading the
conspicuous support of a less-than-transparent
group of Libyan rebels. The White House is
even considering providing weapons to the
rebels. That continues to be a dubious scenario.
But, geopolitically speaking, other insidious
scenarios also surround Libya. Admittedly,
the United States did not intervene to avert
more massive humanitarian catastrophes in
Rawanda or Darfur.
Therefore, is the American intervention in
Libya solely attributable to this Oval Office’s
humanitarian concerns? Or is the Libyan
intervention more readily explicable in light
of the fact that Rawanda and Darfur are
devoid of the oil and gas upon which Europe
is so desperately reliant? Or is it that oil and
humanitarian concerns are both vital to a
functional and civilized society?
There is yet another concern which has been
rarely addressed. Precisely why did both
Russia and China strangely abstain and
willfully choose not to vote "No" on U.N.
Resolution 1973. That resolution encapsulated
the expansive wording which authorized the
No Fly Zone over Libya.
Both Russia and China normally abhor
outside interventions in any nation’s internal
affairs. Both Russia and China are customarily
aghast when any entity even contemplates
intervening to address unrest in their respective
geopolitical neighborhoods and/or spheres of influence.
Therefore, apparently both Russia and China
have unspoken agendas lurking behind the
scenes of U.N. Resolution 1973. Indeed, while
it is improbable, it is not geopolitically inconceivable
that they may have even colluded in their abstentions.
Consider one aspect of Russian motives
behind its No Fly abstention. Europe is
heavily dependent upon Russian oil and
gas. But Libya was also a major energy
supplier to Europe. As a result of the
Libyan turmoil, its energy is off the market.
That means enhanced Russian sales to and
dependency by Europe. Russia wins!
Is it too conspiratorial to suggest that
both Russia and China were delighted
to stand aside and watch America extend
itself into yet another potentially
indeterminate conflict? America’s foray
into Libya has further diluted U.S. military
strength across the globe. And the No Fly
adventure has also already cost Americans
over 600 million dollars. China loves owning
American debt and drools at an over-stretched
American military. China wins!
The foregoing well serves Chinese and
Russian interests. It deflects American
attention from aggressive Russian
nationalism in its near abroad. It diverts
focus away from Chinese adventurism in
the So. China Sea and its String of Pearls
strategy in the Indian Ocean. In addition,
none of the above is adverse to Chinese or
Russian interests. Their No Fly absentions
created a win/win scenario for both
China and Russia.
On the other hand, the Libyan escapade
harbors an unknown end game for the
United States. That end-game is beset by
significant known risks as well as by serious
unforeseen consequences for the U.S.A.
As such, Russia and China win again.
So, who stands to lose in the Libyan
No Fly enterprise?
he deemed it imperative for the United States
to intervene in Libya. It is now appropriate
to seek clarity on other aspects of the Libyan
enterprise. First, what are the internal
dynamics in Libya? Second, who, beside the
rebels, benefits from the Libyan turmoil?
Libyan affairs are muddled, fractured and
wretchedly fragmented. Libya is anything
but monolithic. Thus, one wonders precisely
who are the Libyan rebels and anti-Qadaffi
voices? Indeed, U.S. Secretary Of State
Clinton rushed to admit: "We don't know
as much as we would like to know" about
the opposition.
There is ample evidence of al-Qaeda wanna-bees
and Hezbollah sympathizers among the Libyan
rebels. How numerous are they? How much
influence do they have? What other factions
and intolerable agendas infest Libya’s rebel
opposition? Would it simply replace the
Libyan tyrant with another dictator, another
Arab autocrat or a radical Islamist? It’s all
still quite unclear.
In fact, the entire focus on Libya is blurred.
The situation there remains decidedly opaque.
Assuredly, Col. Qaddafi is a grand master
at creating governmental opacity. Consider,
for example, that Qadaffi long ago planned
and created a purposely misleading system
of official titles and military ranks. The
system was expressly calculated to obfuscate,
confuse and conceal levels of responsibility,
ladders of authority and, especially, the
military chain of command.
Indeed, imagine the wonderment when one
learns that a Lt. Col. must report to a Captain
who then reports to an unranked public official.
In fact, one U.S.A.F. report caustically
observed that: “No one outside Libya -perhaps
even inside- knows for sure who controls what."
Such premeditated machinations are not the
meanderings of a madman. They are the
manifestations of masterful manipulation ala
Machiavelli. Of equal importance, said scenario
provides abundant insight into how Libya has
operated and how its people have been
controlled for four decades.
Qadaffi’s long tenure was abetted by the
existence of 140 different Libyan tribes.
Of these, thirty major tribes compete for
prestige and governmental preference in
placement and privilege. The current
disloyal, divided and dedicated opposition
to Qadaffi is a proximate result of carefully
cultivated tribal rivalries compounded by
demographic diversity and astute, but
tyrannical, leadership.
Official disclaimers notwithstanding, the
United States is still spearheading the
conspicuous support of a less-than-transparent
group of Libyan rebels. The White House is
even considering providing weapons to the
rebels. That continues to be a dubious scenario.
But, geopolitically speaking, other insidious
scenarios also surround Libya. Admittedly,
the United States did not intervene to avert
more massive humanitarian catastrophes in
Rawanda or Darfur.
Therefore, is the American intervention in
Libya solely attributable to this Oval Office’s
humanitarian concerns? Or is the Libyan
intervention more readily explicable in light
of the fact that Rawanda and Darfur are
devoid of the oil and gas upon which Europe
is so desperately reliant? Or is it that oil and
humanitarian concerns are both vital to a
functional and civilized society?
There is yet another concern which has been
rarely addressed. Precisely why did both
Russia and China strangely abstain and
willfully choose not to vote "No" on U.N.
Resolution 1973. That resolution encapsulated
the expansive wording which authorized the
No Fly Zone over Libya.
Both Russia and China normally abhor
outside interventions in any nation’s internal
affairs. Both Russia and China are customarily
aghast when any entity even contemplates
intervening to address unrest in their respective
geopolitical neighborhoods and/or spheres of influence.
Therefore, apparently both Russia and China
have unspoken agendas lurking behind the
scenes of U.N. Resolution 1973. Indeed, while
it is improbable, it is not geopolitically inconceivable
that they may have even colluded in their abstentions.
Consider one aspect of Russian motives
behind its No Fly abstention. Europe is
heavily dependent upon Russian oil and
gas. But Libya was also a major energy
supplier to Europe. As a result of the
Libyan turmoil, its energy is off the market.
That means enhanced Russian sales to and
dependency by Europe. Russia wins!
Is it too conspiratorial to suggest that
both Russia and China were delighted
to stand aside and watch America extend
itself into yet another potentially
indeterminate conflict? America’s foray
into Libya has further diluted U.S. military
strength across the globe. And the No Fly
adventure has also already cost Americans
over 600 million dollars. China loves owning
American debt and drools at an over-stretched
American military. China wins!
The foregoing well serves Chinese and
Russian interests. It deflects American
attention from aggressive Russian
nationalism in its near abroad. It diverts
focus away from Chinese adventurism in
the So. China Sea and its String of Pearls
strategy in the Indian Ocean. In addition,
none of the above is adverse to Chinese or
Russian interests. Their No Fly absentions
created a win/win scenario for both
China and Russia.
On the other hand, the Libyan escapade
harbors an unknown end game for the
United States. That end-game is beset by
significant known risks as well as by serious
unforeseen consequences for the U.S.A.
As such, Russia and China win again.
So, who stands to lose in the Libyan
No Fly enterprise?
Thursday, March 31, 2011
The Mideast Malady
The Arab Mideast is sick. Tunisia sneezed and
blew its long-time President out of office into
exile in Saudi Arabia. Egypt caught a terrible
cough and expectorated its President out of
Cairo into exile in Sharm-a-Sheikh. Not so
curiously, Libya - alternately known as “The
Hidden Jewel Of Africa” or, by its detractors,
as “The Armpit Of Africa” - is geographically
sandwiched between the Tunisian sneeze and the
Egyptian cough. So, Libya and its mercurial
madman are also now suffering from a disabling
and perhaps fatal socio-political infection.
Even forty-one years of Jamahiriya (State of
the Masses) injections could not prevent
Qadaffi and not-so-loyal subjects from being
afflicted by the virus that is rapidly perfusing
the Mideast atmosphere. Apparently,Qadaffi’s
vaunted Jamahiriya juice (as that political
innoculation is derisively described by one
geopolitical pundit) has finally lost its
potency. But is this any surprise since
that now ineffectual vaccine was personally
manufactured by a leader who long ago lost
his legitimacy?
Not surprisingly, the Mideast malady that
has now percolated across much of North
Africa has mutated. Variant, but equally
virulent, forms of this virus (which some
have eagerly –if prematurely- dubbed
“The Arab Awakening”) have now severely
infected Bahrein, Yemen and Syria. Many
Arab states are scurrying about attempting
to provide their restive populations
with face masks (economic incentives aka
bribes) to limit the further spread of
the virus in their countries.
Depending upon what media reports and upon
whose human intelligence one relies, the
manifestations of the fast-spreading
Mideast malady may be characterized in
several ways. Some say the malady is a
profusion of widespread Arab interest in
the enhancement of human dignity. Perhaps.
Others suggest that the popular pursuit of
elementary human rights by young Arabs is
breeding the virus. Maybe. There are even
those who contend that the virus is fed
by an incipient Arab struggle for a more
democratic (or is it merely a less autocratic?)
society.
Would that some of this conjecture
was so. Perhaps some are, but slogans
are slippery, mottos are messy and
shoot-from-the-hip analyses are dicey. And
so are mass protests and public demonstrations
of discontent. They are not always what
they purport to be.
Indeed, the accuracy of the above diagnoses
of the Mideast malady is quite unconfirmed.
The true nature of the alleged Arab awakening
is subject to prolonged verification in
multiple Mideast laboratories. To be politically
correct, these laboratories are more accurately
identified as Arab nations. Not unexpectedly,
most –if not all- of these nations and their
potentates are committed –above all else- to
preserving the status quo. And that is the
redoubtable rub.
Pointedly, while Arab autocrats and Mideast
monarchs are distinctly different in multiple
regards, they do manifest one significant
common characteristic. They fight with a
defiant, dogged and seemingly fatalistic
determination to stay in power. Colonel
Qadaffi is not the exception, he is an
exemplar of this pattern.
Still, the two long-term Arab autocrats
in Tunisia and Egypt have already succumbed
to the Mideast malady. If that virus is
equally lethal to other Arab rulers, then
the potentates across the residue of the
Arab Mideast are hardly insulated from the
ravages of that implacable virus. Syria’s
President Bashir al-Assad recently protested
that Syria was immune from the turmoil. He
was wrong. Smug Saudi officials have made
similar protestations about the Saudi
populace. The Saudis may have unduly discounted
the relentless virulence of the Mideast malady.
It seems uncontrovertible that the fragmented
and fractured Arab populaces are uniformly
seeking new realities. But their aspirations
and the realities they seek are arguably as
different as are the nations they people and
the dictatorial rulers who dominate them.
In fact, the precise composition and character
of the many disparate groups that carry and/or
propagate the Mideast malady are still muddled.
Additionally, the nature of the new realities
they seek remains befogged by uncertainty,
beclouded by indecision and beset by a dirth
of demonstrable leadership. This is true in
Egypt, in Libya, in Yemen, in Syria and
elsewhere in the region. And all that, indeed,
may offer some insight into the pathology of
the relentless malady that is enveloping
and -perhaps- indefinitely paralyzing the Arab Mideast.
The often inscrutable insight of an old
Arabic aphorism may be be pertinent.
The adage suggests that “the best jihad
is telling the truth to the face of a dictator!”
blew its long-time President out of office into
exile in Saudi Arabia. Egypt caught a terrible
cough and expectorated its President out of
Cairo into exile in Sharm-a-Sheikh. Not so
curiously, Libya - alternately known as “The
Hidden Jewel Of Africa” or, by its detractors,
as “The Armpit Of Africa” - is geographically
sandwiched between the Tunisian sneeze and the
Egyptian cough. So, Libya and its mercurial
madman are also now suffering from a disabling
and perhaps fatal socio-political infection.
Even forty-one years of Jamahiriya (State of
the Masses) injections could not prevent
Qadaffi and not-so-loyal subjects from being
afflicted by the virus that is rapidly perfusing
the Mideast atmosphere. Apparently,Qadaffi’s
vaunted Jamahiriya juice (as that political
innoculation is derisively described by one
geopolitical pundit) has finally lost its
potency. But is this any surprise since
that now ineffectual vaccine was personally
manufactured by a leader who long ago lost
his legitimacy?
Not surprisingly, the Mideast malady that
has now percolated across much of North
Africa has mutated. Variant, but equally
virulent, forms of this virus (which some
have eagerly –if prematurely- dubbed
“The Arab Awakening”) have now severely
infected Bahrein, Yemen and Syria. Many
Arab states are scurrying about attempting
to provide their restive populations
with face masks (economic incentives aka
bribes) to limit the further spread of
the virus in their countries.
Depending upon what media reports and upon
whose human intelligence one relies, the
manifestations of the fast-spreading
Mideast malady may be characterized in
several ways. Some say the malady is a
profusion of widespread Arab interest in
the enhancement of human dignity. Perhaps.
Others suggest that the popular pursuit of
elementary human rights by young Arabs is
breeding the virus. Maybe. There are even
those who contend that the virus is fed
by an incipient Arab struggle for a more
democratic (or is it merely a less autocratic?)
society.
Would that some of this conjecture
was so. Perhaps some are, but slogans
are slippery, mottos are messy and
shoot-from-the-hip analyses are dicey. And
so are mass protests and public demonstrations
of discontent. They are not always what
they purport to be.
Indeed, the accuracy of the above diagnoses
of the Mideast malady is quite unconfirmed.
The true nature of the alleged Arab awakening
is subject to prolonged verification in
multiple Mideast laboratories. To be politically
correct, these laboratories are more accurately
identified as Arab nations. Not unexpectedly,
most –if not all- of these nations and their
potentates are committed –above all else- to
preserving the status quo. And that is the
redoubtable rub.
Pointedly, while Arab autocrats and Mideast
monarchs are distinctly different in multiple
regards, they do manifest one significant
common characteristic. They fight with a
defiant, dogged and seemingly fatalistic
determination to stay in power. Colonel
Qadaffi is not the exception, he is an
exemplar of this pattern.
Still, the two long-term Arab autocrats
in Tunisia and Egypt have already succumbed
to the Mideast malady. If that virus is
equally lethal to other Arab rulers, then
the potentates across the residue of the
Arab Mideast are hardly insulated from the
ravages of that implacable virus. Syria’s
President Bashir al-Assad recently protested
that Syria was immune from the turmoil. He
was wrong. Smug Saudi officials have made
similar protestations about the Saudi
populace. The Saudis may have unduly discounted
the relentless virulence of the Mideast malady.
It seems uncontrovertible that the fragmented
and fractured Arab populaces are uniformly
seeking new realities. But their aspirations
and the realities they seek are arguably as
different as are the nations they people and
the dictatorial rulers who dominate them.
In fact, the precise composition and character
of the many disparate groups that carry and/or
propagate the Mideast malady are still muddled.
Additionally, the nature of the new realities
they seek remains befogged by uncertainty,
beclouded by indecision and beset by a dirth
of demonstrable leadership. This is true in
Egypt, in Libya, in Yemen, in Syria and
elsewhere in the region. And all that, indeed,
may offer some insight into the pathology of
the relentless malady that is enveloping
and -perhaps- indefinitely paralyzing the Arab Mideast.
The often inscrutable insight of an old
Arabic aphorism may be be pertinent.
The adage suggests that “the best jihad
is telling the truth to the face of a dictator!”
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Unveiling The Arab Mideast
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" (adoo
adoowee sadeechee). So goes a well-known
Arabic aphorism. In fact, said aphorism is
so well-known outside Arab circles precisely
because it aptly reflects the omnipresent
Arab reality to which it refers.
Depending upon where one is located (both
geographically and existentially) in the
Arab Mideast, one’s enemy may well be the
Sunni tribes around Benghazi, or the al-Houthi
tribe/Zaidi Shiite sect in north Yemen, or
the Ismaili sect and Shiite tribes in
southeast Saudi Arabia, or the substantial
Shia majority on the island of Bahrein, or
the minority Shiite community in Syria, or
the Sunni Palestinians(Hamas and Islamic
Jihad)in Gaza, or the Shiite Hezbollah in
Lebanon and many others who should - by
all reasonable and logical considerations-
actually be friends, but who often are
horribly hateful enemies.
Indeed, affairs in the Mideast are seldom
reasonable or logical. Clearly, Colonel
Qadaffi -long ago labeled "The Mad Dog of
the Mideast"- has no monopoly on irrationality,
instability or seeming madness.
More pointedly, all the potential friends
(aka enemies)in the Mideast are ethnic Arabs
most of whom seem pay at least verbal
obeisance to Allah. Yet, they ubiquitously
somehow manage to dislike each other with
an intensity that flies in the face of and
belies their uniquely pervasive commonality
of ethnicity, language, religion and mentality.
Simply stated, the Mideast has long been
peopled by a fractured and fragmented populace
that is both superficially united, but
desperately divided by their common Semitic
ethnicity, their Arabic language, their Islamic
religion and their ubiquitous Levantine mentality.
What is a Levantine mentality? That is unusually
difficult to define. But it is arguably comparable
to a legally scurrilous definition of pornography,
i.e. you know it when you see it or hear it or
witness it. That said, a Levantine mentality is a
predisposition to think and/or function in a
pattern that may be exemplified by the customary
path to power in the Mideast.
Consider that since 1995 nine long-time Mideast
monarchs/autocrats have died. Each of them ruled
for lenghty periods. Some ruled for decades. Six
of the deceased rulers were succeeded by their
sons. The seventh ruler was replaced by his
brother and the eigth ruler was followed by his
half-brother. Only one long-time ruling autocrat
who died since 1995 (Yassir Arafat) was not
replaced by a member of his immediate family.
Not incidentally, no deceased Mideast ruler
was replaced by a woman. As fate would have it,
the ninth ruler was Arafat and he only had
a daughter.
In this current year of 2011, four rulers have
either been ousted or are facing increasing
threats to their power. Three of these (Mubarak,
Saleh and Qaddafi) were grooming a son to follow
in their respective footsteps. In Tunisia, the
ousted President's presumptive heir-in-waiting
was the President's son-in-law.
That this pattern is currently under pervasive
attack across the length and breadth of the Mideast
is simply a testament to the prevailing atmosphere
in the Levant and its existing dynamics.
The seeming similarities of public protest,
popular unrest and common cries for reform
are as different and disparate as are the
dissenters and the regimes they seek to
change.
But then this is precisely the nature of the
Mideast. Despite its pervasive commonalties,
the Mideast has always been complex, confusing,
contradictory andcapricious. The Mideast was
and is impulsive, erratic and volatile. And that
pattern is expressly why the aforesaid Arabic
aphorism encapsulates the very essence of the
Arab Mideast.
Considering the current unrest and outright
rebellion in the Mideast, it is well to remember
that the difference between enemies and friends
is no thicker and no thinner than the blood of
those who share the identical ethnic DNA, speak
the same language, profess the identical
religion and operate within the parameters of
a pervasive mentality.
And that is assuredly why “the enemy of
my enemy….” flows so mellifluously, so
glibly and so ominously from the lips of so
many in the Arab Mideast.
adoowee sadeechee). So goes a well-known
Arabic aphorism. In fact, said aphorism is
so well-known outside Arab circles precisely
because it aptly reflects the omnipresent
Arab reality to which it refers.
Depending upon where one is located (both
geographically and existentially) in the
Arab Mideast, one’s enemy may well be the
Sunni tribes around Benghazi, or the al-Houthi
tribe/Zaidi Shiite sect in north Yemen, or
the Ismaili sect and Shiite tribes in
southeast Saudi Arabia, or the substantial
Shia majority on the island of Bahrein, or
the minority Shiite community in Syria, or
the Sunni Palestinians(Hamas and Islamic
Jihad)in Gaza, or the Shiite Hezbollah in
Lebanon and many others who should - by
all reasonable and logical considerations-
actually be friends, but who often are
horribly hateful enemies.
Indeed, affairs in the Mideast are seldom
reasonable or logical. Clearly, Colonel
Qadaffi -long ago labeled "The Mad Dog of
the Mideast"- has no monopoly on irrationality,
instability or seeming madness.
More pointedly, all the potential friends
(aka enemies)in the Mideast are ethnic Arabs
most of whom seem pay at least verbal
obeisance to Allah. Yet, they ubiquitously
somehow manage to dislike each other with
an intensity that flies in the face of and
belies their uniquely pervasive commonality
of ethnicity, language, religion and mentality.
Simply stated, the Mideast has long been
peopled by a fractured and fragmented populace
that is both superficially united, but
desperately divided by their common Semitic
ethnicity, their Arabic language, their Islamic
religion and their ubiquitous Levantine mentality.
What is a Levantine mentality? That is unusually
difficult to define. But it is arguably comparable
to a legally scurrilous definition of pornography,
i.e. you know it when you see it or hear it or
witness it. That said, a Levantine mentality is a
predisposition to think and/or function in a
pattern that may be exemplified by the customary
path to power in the Mideast.
Consider that since 1995 nine long-time Mideast
monarchs/autocrats have died. Each of them ruled
for lenghty periods. Some ruled for decades. Six
of the deceased rulers were succeeded by their
sons. The seventh ruler was replaced by his
brother and the eigth ruler was followed by his
half-brother. Only one long-time ruling autocrat
who died since 1995 (Yassir Arafat) was not
replaced by a member of his immediate family.
Not incidentally, no deceased Mideast ruler
was replaced by a woman. As fate would have it,
the ninth ruler was Arafat and he only had
a daughter.
In this current year of 2011, four rulers have
either been ousted or are facing increasing
threats to their power. Three of these (Mubarak,
Saleh and Qaddafi) were grooming a son to follow
in their respective footsteps. In Tunisia, the
ousted President's presumptive heir-in-waiting
was the President's son-in-law.
That this pattern is currently under pervasive
attack across the length and breadth of the Mideast
is simply a testament to the prevailing atmosphere
in the Levant and its existing dynamics.
The seeming similarities of public protest,
popular unrest and common cries for reform
are as different and disparate as are the
dissenters and the regimes they seek to
change.
But then this is precisely the nature of the
Mideast. Despite its pervasive commonalties,
the Mideast has always been complex, confusing,
contradictory andcapricious. The Mideast was
and is impulsive, erratic and volatile. And that
pattern is expressly why the aforesaid Arabic
aphorism encapsulates the very essence of the
Arab Mideast.
Considering the current unrest and outright
rebellion in the Mideast, it is well to remember
that the difference between enemies and friends
is no thicker and no thinner than the blood of
those who share the identical ethnic DNA, speak
the same language, profess the identical
religion and operate within the parameters of
a pervasive mentality.
And that is assuredly why “the enemy of
my enemy….” flows so mellifluously, so
glibly and so ominously from the lips of so
many in the Arab Mideast.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tumult In Tripoli
Some forty five years ago I was secreted into
Libya. No, I was not a CIA operative. And no,
I did not have a license, ala James Bond, to
do anything other than to hold a clandestine
meeting in Tripoli withan unusually prominent
Libyan citizen. By prearrangement, the Libyan
arrived alone an hour before me at a designated
location. Then I arrived, also alone. We
conducted a private meeting in a spartan room.
Then, also by prearrangement, the Libyan left.
After a reasonable time had elapsed, I also left
that location. At my very earliest opportunity,
I hightailed it out of Libya.
But this commentary is not about me. It is
about Libya. Indeed, in the years referred to
above, Libya was the locus of Wheelus Air Force
base. It was situated on a Mediterranean beach
on the outskirts of Tripoli. Wheelus was then
perhaps the largest U.S. Air Force base in the
world. Aircraft from that base used Libya’s
considerable desert as a convenient and
uninhabited bombing range.
In those years, King Idris I ruled Libya.
He was not terribly beloved by his subjects,
but neither was he horribly hated, except
by rabid nationalists and pan-Arabists who
disliked his cozy relationship with England
and the United States. Indeed, it can be argued
that King Idris was quite blindsided when,
in 1969, a twenty-seven year old Libyan army
captain named Muammar Qaddafi ousted him in
a bloodless coup.
From that date until this February, Libya and
Qadaffi, with a few notable exceptions,
seemed -at least on the surface- to have been
almost of one voice. Indeed, virtually from
the outset of his rule, Qaddafi has
repeatedly and viscerally protested that
Libya is an Islamic, socialist government
of the masses (jamahiriya). Theoretically,
Libya has been a direct democracy run by
communal councils which speak with the
voice of the people to the people and
for the people. Clearly, however, theory
and practice are not and have not been
birds of a feather in the Libyan Jamahiriya.
That said, upon assuming power, Col. Qaddafi
pointedly refused to promote himself from
Captain to General. He wittingly also
refrained from naming himself as President,
Ruler or Emir. In fact, it was forty years ago,
in keeping with his espoused egalitarian
ideology, that Qadaffi cast off his early
titles of prime minister and as secretary-general
of The General People’s Congress. As a matter
of and for public consumption by the Libyan
people, Qaddafi was to be no more and no
less than one of the masses.
Qaddafi’s egalitarian protestations notwithstanding,
deep down most Libyans have apparently always
fully understood who unilaterally called all
the shots and made all critical state decisions.
That awareness came into bold relief on 31 August
2006. It was then that Qaddafi - absent a scintilla
of discernible compunction, mental reservation or
emotional disquiet- blatantly urged his supporters
to kill enemies of his revolution and anyone who
sought political change in Libya.
But Qaddafi's violent and brutal propensities
have not been confined to Libya. Arguably,
Qadaffi financed the Black September
Movement which perpetrated the unspeakable
1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes.
Qaddafi was presumably behind the dastardly
1986 Berlin discotheque bombing which killed
three people and wounded hundreds, including
dozens of U.S. servicemen. It is Qadaffi
who purportedly personally authorized the
appalling 1988 downing of Pan Am Flight 103
over Lockerbie.
Premises considered, there should be little
cause for surprise that many Libyans are
now following the regime changing model so
recently set by their immediate neighbors
to the west in Tunisia and to the east
in Egypt.
What is surprising is that the West
in general and the United States in
particular seem to be painfully afflicted
with the errant notion that their adamant
verbal demands for safety, sensibility and
sanity in Libya will somehow be heeded by
that Libyan personality derisively known to
President Reagan as “The Mad Dog Of The Mideast.”
Libya. No, I was not a CIA operative. And no,
I did not have a license, ala James Bond, to
do anything other than to hold a clandestine
meeting in Tripoli withan unusually prominent
Libyan citizen. By prearrangement, the Libyan
arrived alone an hour before me at a designated
location. Then I arrived, also alone. We
conducted a private meeting in a spartan room.
Then, also by prearrangement, the Libyan left.
After a reasonable time had elapsed, I also left
that location. At my very earliest opportunity,
I hightailed it out of Libya.
But this commentary is not about me. It is
about Libya. Indeed, in the years referred to
above, Libya was the locus of Wheelus Air Force
base. It was situated on a Mediterranean beach
on the outskirts of Tripoli. Wheelus was then
perhaps the largest U.S. Air Force base in the
world. Aircraft from that base used Libya’s
considerable desert as a convenient and
uninhabited bombing range.
In those years, King Idris I ruled Libya.
He was not terribly beloved by his subjects,
but neither was he horribly hated, except
by rabid nationalists and pan-Arabists who
disliked his cozy relationship with England
and the United States. Indeed, it can be argued
that King Idris was quite blindsided when,
in 1969, a twenty-seven year old Libyan army
captain named Muammar Qaddafi ousted him in
a bloodless coup.
From that date until this February, Libya and
Qadaffi, with a few notable exceptions,
seemed -at least on the surface- to have been
almost of one voice. Indeed, virtually from
the outset of his rule, Qaddafi has
repeatedly and viscerally protested that
Libya is an Islamic, socialist government
of the masses (jamahiriya). Theoretically,
Libya has been a direct democracy run by
communal councils which speak with the
voice of the people to the people and
for the people. Clearly, however, theory
and practice are not and have not been
birds of a feather in the Libyan Jamahiriya.
That said, upon assuming power, Col. Qaddafi
pointedly refused to promote himself from
Captain to General. He wittingly also
refrained from naming himself as President,
Ruler or Emir. In fact, it was forty years ago,
in keeping with his espoused egalitarian
ideology, that Qadaffi cast off his early
titles of prime minister and as secretary-general
of The General People’s Congress. As a matter
of and for public consumption by the Libyan
people, Qaddafi was to be no more and no
less than one of the masses.
Qaddafi’s egalitarian protestations notwithstanding,
deep down most Libyans have apparently always
fully understood who unilaterally called all
the shots and made all critical state decisions.
That awareness came into bold relief on 31 August
2006. It was then that Qaddafi - absent a scintilla
of discernible compunction, mental reservation or
emotional disquiet- blatantly urged his supporters
to kill enemies of his revolution and anyone who
sought political change in Libya.
But Qaddafi's violent and brutal propensities
have not been confined to Libya. Arguably,
Qadaffi financed the Black September
Movement which perpetrated the unspeakable
1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes.
Qaddafi was presumably behind the dastardly
1986 Berlin discotheque bombing which killed
three people and wounded hundreds, including
dozens of U.S. servicemen. It is Qadaffi
who purportedly personally authorized the
appalling 1988 downing of Pan Am Flight 103
over Lockerbie.
Premises considered, there should be little
cause for surprise that many Libyans are
now following the regime changing model so
recently set by their immediate neighbors
to the west in Tunisia and to the east
in Egypt.
What is surprising is that the West
in general and the United States in
particular seem to be painfully afflicted
with the errant notion that their adamant
verbal demands for safety, sensibility and
sanity in Libya will somehow be heeded by
that Libyan personality derisively known to
President Reagan as “The Mad Dog Of The Mideast.”
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Alabama Governor Double Faults
News of the new Alabama Governor’s provocative and unsettling inaugural address
reached me in Melbourne, Australia where I had been blissfully enjoying The Australian Open. The tennis courts were afire with competitive vehemence, psychological one-upsmanship and emotional disarray. But all that was eminently predictable, foreseeable and anything but problematic.
Off the courts all around Melbourne’s colorful and character-filled tennis
venue, spectators from disparate corners of the world were united in a brotherhood
of tennis afficianadoes. Long time foes (actually enemies) like Serbs and Croats
(Novak Djokovic v. Ivo Karlovic) were at ease with each other. Americans, like
yours truly, were not even booed by the heavily Aussie crowd when we cheered
wildly for our countryman(Michael Russell) who was crushing an aspiring young
Aussie player (Matt Ebden). No one squirmed uncomfortably when Russian Dinara
Safina (once ranked #1) was literally demolished by a delightful Belgian (Kim Clijsters).A veteran Japanese player (Date-Krumm) was soundly defeated, but her dignity was unsullied by verbal indelicacies. A Thai player (Tanasugarn) was bludgeoned, but her Americanized-Russian opponent (Sharapova) was gracious to her.
Amidst this highly-charged competition enveloped in international conviviality, I learned that Alabama’s new Governor had –with a fusillade of inaugural verbiage – disavowed me (and countless others) as his Alabama brother. It was then that Governor Bentley’s appalling words - tantamount to a proclamation of socio-religious apartheid- virtually singed my ears.
No, I am not and never was the new Governor’s biological or even emotional brother. In fact, we are, both politically and spiritually, far from being even kissing cousins. But when the Governor disowned me (and so many others) as a brother Alabamian, I was not merely offended, I was also ashamed of him, embarrassed for Alabama and aggrieved as an American.
Sure, tennis is only sport, but it invites ferocious competition. It expects court-controversy which it resolves with instant shot-spot replay. And yes, tennis even contends with on-court verbal explosions like McEnroe’s infamous “You cannot be serious!” and Serena’s tempestuous (but unpublishable) tirade against a line judge. But why, pray tell, would any Alabamian of good-will, good sense and genteel southern upbringing not be inflamed and incensed by Governor Bentley’s intemperate and insulting pronouncement that if one does not hold his Christian belief in Jesus Christ then brotherhood is dead in the Alabama Governor’s mansion?
If tennis players and their fans from across the world can come together in an amicable brotherhood of sport at a Grand Slam tournament, can Alabama countenance a Governor who seeks to discount, demean and emotionally disenfranchise so many good, gracious and loyal Alabamians?
Melbourne, Australia is a lovely tennis venue, but it is not my home. Birmingham,
Alabama has been my home for the last forty years. Sadly, Governor Bentley’s remarks
have now stained my Birmingham residence, tainted my Alabama citizenship and
humiliated me as an American visiting Australia. When next I hear “Sweet Home Alabama” I will have ample reason to loudly shout: “Governor Bentley, you cannot be serious!”
In tennis parlance, the Alabama Governor has double-faulted. His verbal service was a clear fault and his verbal backhand to the people of Alabama was way out of bounds. Perhaps Dr. Bentley should take a verbal-injury time out to reconsider how he double-faulted his way to a love game. He now desperately needs some Divine coaching to restructure his gameplan and save his political match.
After a tsunami of protests, the Alabama Governor tendered a “sincere apology.” Does that mean that he did not mean what he said or that he is simply sorry that he said what he means? No matter, Dr. Bentley would do well to remember that it is not he, but that totally impartial Chair Umpire In-The-Sky who calls all the shots whether they are on an Australian tennis court or in Alabama’s political playground.
reached me in Melbourne, Australia where I had been blissfully enjoying The Australian Open. The tennis courts were afire with competitive vehemence, psychological one-upsmanship and emotional disarray. But all that was eminently predictable, foreseeable and anything but problematic.
Off the courts all around Melbourne’s colorful and character-filled tennis
venue, spectators from disparate corners of the world were united in a brotherhood
of tennis afficianadoes. Long time foes (actually enemies) like Serbs and Croats
(Novak Djokovic v. Ivo Karlovic) were at ease with each other. Americans, like
yours truly, were not even booed by the heavily Aussie crowd when we cheered
wildly for our countryman(Michael Russell) who was crushing an aspiring young
Aussie player (Matt Ebden). No one squirmed uncomfortably when Russian Dinara
Safina (once ranked #1) was literally demolished by a delightful Belgian (Kim Clijsters).A veteran Japanese player (Date-Krumm) was soundly defeated, but her dignity was unsullied by verbal indelicacies. A Thai player (Tanasugarn) was bludgeoned, but her Americanized-Russian opponent (Sharapova) was gracious to her.
Amidst this highly-charged competition enveloped in international conviviality, I learned that Alabama’s new Governor had –with a fusillade of inaugural verbiage – disavowed me (and countless others) as his Alabama brother. It was then that Governor Bentley’s appalling words - tantamount to a proclamation of socio-religious apartheid- virtually singed my ears.
No, I am not and never was the new Governor’s biological or even emotional brother. In fact, we are, both politically and spiritually, far from being even kissing cousins. But when the Governor disowned me (and so many others) as a brother Alabamian, I was not merely offended, I was also ashamed of him, embarrassed for Alabama and aggrieved as an American.
Sure, tennis is only sport, but it invites ferocious competition. It expects court-controversy which it resolves with instant shot-spot replay. And yes, tennis even contends with on-court verbal explosions like McEnroe’s infamous “You cannot be serious!” and Serena’s tempestuous (but unpublishable) tirade against a line judge. But why, pray tell, would any Alabamian of good-will, good sense and genteel southern upbringing not be inflamed and incensed by Governor Bentley’s intemperate and insulting pronouncement that if one does not hold his Christian belief in Jesus Christ then brotherhood is dead in the Alabama Governor’s mansion?
If tennis players and their fans from across the world can come together in an amicable brotherhood of sport at a Grand Slam tournament, can Alabama countenance a Governor who seeks to discount, demean and emotionally disenfranchise so many good, gracious and loyal Alabamians?
Melbourne, Australia is a lovely tennis venue, but it is not my home. Birmingham,
Alabama has been my home for the last forty years. Sadly, Governor Bentley’s remarks
have now stained my Birmingham residence, tainted my Alabama citizenship and
humiliated me as an American visiting Australia. When next I hear “Sweet Home Alabama” I will have ample reason to loudly shout: “Governor Bentley, you cannot be serious!”
In tennis parlance, the Alabama Governor has double-faulted. His verbal service was a clear fault and his verbal backhand to the people of Alabama was way out of bounds. Perhaps Dr. Bentley should take a verbal-injury time out to reconsider how he double-faulted his way to a love game. He now desperately needs some Divine coaching to restructure his gameplan and save his political match.
After a tsunami of protests, the Alabama Governor tendered a “sincere apology.” Does that mean that he did not mean what he said or that he is simply sorry that he said what he means? No matter, Dr. Bentley would do well to remember that it is not he, but that totally impartial Chair Umpire In-The-Sky who calls all the shots whether they are on an Australian tennis court or in Alabama’s political playground.
Friday, January 14, 2011
In The Crosshairs Of A Blood Libel
The calculated manipulation and expoiltation of language is the hallmark of saints, sinners, demagogues and despots. That said, Gov. Sarah Palin's unseemly use of the emotionally-tainted term "blood libel" with reference to the heinous murders in Tucson begs for clarification and explication.
At its very core, the infamous blood libel myth originated in twelfth century Europe. It was then that Jews were -with dastardly and willful premeditation- falsely and brazenly accused of kidnapping Christian children to re-enact the martyrdom of Jesus Christ. That egregious calumny was, thereafter, periodically resurrected by those who sought and seek to justify violence against Jews. In fact, the "blood libel" lie has served to undergird Europe's multiple pogroms and massacres as well as the unspeakable events of the Hitlerian Holocaust. (Not incidentally, I recently overheard a young German mother visiting Jerusalem's Yad V'Shem Memorial delicately describe the Holocaust to her son as "unglaublich"---unbelievable!)
Now, for reasons apparently beclouded and befogged by political expediency and/or by a ponderous psycho-social insensitivity, Saint Sarah Palin has seemingly opted to compare herself to one of those wrongfully libeled and woefully-labeled Jewish martyrs.
But let it be abundantly clear, nothing herein suggests or may be used to imply that the good ex-Alaska Governor is anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish or anti-Israel. Quite the contrary seems to be true. In actual fact, Sarah Palin has publicly been a staunch supporter of Israel. Indeed, even Gov. Palin's harshest critics would -in all probability- shrink from suggesting that anti-Semitism lurks behind the Governor's fertile faux pas evident in her plagued choice of a fatally poisoned phrase.
In truth, Gov. Palin may be legitimately aggrieved by those critics who -with unseemly, but predictable righteous indignation- rushed to associate the Tucson tragedy with the Govenor's pugilistic politics. But by willfully using a term that assuredly does not - in any reasonable, coherent or cogent fashion - apply to the circumstances in Tucson, Sarah Palin has now invited scalpel-like scrutiny of why she said what she said. Regrettably, "blood libel" was not simply a poor choice of words, it was an impoverished piece of political punditry unworthy of and wholly unacceptable from a national luminary with presidential aspirations.
At the very best, in the words of Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker, "Sarah Palin, a woman of unquestionable charm and personal appeal, is unfortunately deeply ignorant -- certainly not stupid, but shallow and unreflective." At worst, the Governor's choice of the bloodl libel phraseology suggests not only an abysmal absence of historical perspective, but it also confirms her egregious inability to distance herself from controversy without exacerbating the self-same circumstance from which she seeks to extricate herself. And these are sobering realities that sadly afflict Governor Palin and infect her political persona.
It was sufficiently unfortunate and -giving the Governor the benefit of every conceivable doubt- unwitting that the brain-injured Arizona Congresswoman was previously conspicuously and contumaciously painted in the "crosshairs" of Governor Palin's political hit list. But since Gov. Palin woefully -and with conscious premeditation- willfully appended "blood libel" to her wanton and knowing utilization of "crosshairs," one must be substantially disabused by the grievous ineptitude pregnant in Sarah Palin's psycho-social skills and by the unseemly and flagrant incompetence (or is it a calculated counterintuitive arrogance?) demonstrated by her distressing verbal indelicacies.
Now then, all the foregoing presupposes the absence of some other unspoken and/or
darker agenda hidden beneath, secreted between and/or camoflauged beside Governor Palin's less-than-felicitous choice of words. Perhaps she meant and always means precisely what she chose and chooses to say. And that, my friends, opens pandora's box to quite another set of inauspicious considerations. Caveat loquitor!
At its very core, the infamous blood libel myth originated in twelfth century Europe. It was then that Jews were -with dastardly and willful premeditation- falsely and brazenly accused of kidnapping Christian children to re-enact the martyrdom of Jesus Christ. That egregious calumny was, thereafter, periodically resurrected by those who sought and seek to justify violence against Jews. In fact, the "blood libel" lie has served to undergird Europe's multiple pogroms and massacres as well as the unspeakable events of the Hitlerian Holocaust. (Not incidentally, I recently overheard a young German mother visiting Jerusalem's Yad V'Shem Memorial delicately describe the Holocaust to her son as "unglaublich"---unbelievable!)
Now, for reasons apparently beclouded and befogged by political expediency and/or by a ponderous psycho-social insensitivity, Saint Sarah Palin has seemingly opted to compare herself to one of those wrongfully libeled and woefully-labeled Jewish martyrs.
But let it be abundantly clear, nothing herein suggests or may be used to imply that the good ex-Alaska Governor is anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish or anti-Israel. Quite the contrary seems to be true. In actual fact, Sarah Palin has publicly been a staunch supporter of Israel. Indeed, even Gov. Palin's harshest critics would -in all probability- shrink from suggesting that anti-Semitism lurks behind the Governor's fertile faux pas evident in her plagued choice of a fatally poisoned phrase.
In truth, Gov. Palin may be legitimately aggrieved by those critics who -with unseemly, but predictable righteous indignation- rushed to associate the Tucson tragedy with the Govenor's pugilistic politics. But by willfully using a term that assuredly does not - in any reasonable, coherent or cogent fashion - apply to the circumstances in Tucson, Sarah Palin has now invited scalpel-like scrutiny of why she said what she said. Regrettably, "blood libel" was not simply a poor choice of words, it was an impoverished piece of political punditry unworthy of and wholly unacceptable from a national luminary with presidential aspirations.
At the very best, in the words of Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker, "Sarah Palin, a woman of unquestionable charm and personal appeal, is unfortunately deeply ignorant -- certainly not stupid, but shallow and unreflective." At worst, the Governor's choice of the bloodl libel phraseology suggests not only an abysmal absence of historical perspective, but it also confirms her egregious inability to distance herself from controversy without exacerbating the self-same circumstance from which she seeks to extricate herself. And these are sobering realities that sadly afflict Governor Palin and infect her political persona.
It was sufficiently unfortunate and -giving the Governor the benefit of every conceivable doubt- unwitting that the brain-injured Arizona Congresswoman was previously conspicuously and contumaciously painted in the "crosshairs" of Governor Palin's political hit list. But since Gov. Palin woefully -and with conscious premeditation- willfully appended "blood libel" to her wanton and knowing utilization of "crosshairs," one must be substantially disabused by the grievous ineptitude pregnant in Sarah Palin's psycho-social skills and by the unseemly and flagrant incompetence (or is it a calculated counterintuitive arrogance?) demonstrated by her distressing verbal indelicacies.
Now then, all the foregoing presupposes the absence of some other unspoken and/or
darker agenda hidden beneath, secreted between and/or camoflauged beside Governor Palin's less-than-felicitous choice of words. Perhaps she meant and always means precisely what she chose and chooses to say. And that, my friends, opens pandora's box to quite another set of inauspicious considerations. Caveat loquitor!
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