Qahwa Sada

around the web, oct 19

Highlights of the web today: 

Richard Haass, head of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes on "The New Middle East" in an on-line preview from the next issue of Foreign Affairs.   (My thoughts on Haass's essay here).

Policy Review offers two relevant pieces.   Peter Katzenstein and Robert Keohane, "Anti-Americanisms", offers a preview of their forthcoming edited volume;   not all about the Middle East, but they do draw on my chapter about the Arab world included in the volume.   And John Rosenthal writes about "The French Path to Jihad."

And Christopher de Bellaigue reviews two books on Iran (Ali Ansari's and Ray Takeyh's) for the New York Review of Books. 

around the web, oct 18

The highlight on the web today is the Chronicle of Higher Ed's roundup of the 2006 American Political Science Association annual meeting's panel "The Future of the Jihadi Movement:  a 5-Year forecast".  Contributions from Jarred Brachman (West Point's Combating Terrorism Center), Jessica Stern, Ambassador Barbara Bodine, and Peter Bergen.  Excerpts: 

Peter Bergen: 

"Al Qaeda has also succeeded in reconstituting itself to some degree on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Evidence can be seen in the advice, assistance, and personnel Al Qaeda is offering the Taliban in its campaign of suicide attacks in Afghanistan, as well as in the London bombings of July 7, 2005. The two lead suicide bombers in the London attacks recorded suicide "wills" with Al Qaeda's video production arm, As-Sahab, and received bomb-making training in Pakistan, according to British officials....   For terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, ethnic Pakistanis living in Britain make perfect recruits, since they speak English and can travel on British passports. Indeed, in the wake of August's high-profile arrests, it can now be argued that the biggest terrorist threat to U.S. security emanates not from Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan but rather from Britain, our closest ally."

Barbara Bodine: 

"There are two probable trend lines to consider. First, because of specific historical and perhaps ethnic/sectarian roots, jihadism will turn inward with greater violence against regimes in the region in a drive to cleanse the power structures. Its popular appeal will be fueled by systemic corruption and civil anarchy. The Algerian civil war, the Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia, the Taliban, even the Hamas electoral victory are part of this trend. Violence against Americans and the West will increasingly be collateral damage, a means to discredit the ruling elite, destabilize the economy, and force draconian security measures that delegitimize the regime further..... Second, the alienation and self-radicalization of diaspora Muslims will continue. The driving force is not to establish an Islamic state in Britain or the United States, but a need to punish and humiliate the West through a kind of honor killings. Jihadis are not glorious warriors but criminals. The scale of death they seek to inflict, the rage they reflect, and the measures they are willing to employ go well beyond those of any common criminal or organized criminal gang, but at the end of the day, what they seek is murder and should be called such. Power struggles within the region and U.S. policies may provide rallying cries for recruiters, but the roots will be in underemployment, perceived (and real) racism, and a search for identity."

Jessica Stern: 

"From what I've seen during fieldwork in Europe, it seems that the jihadi idea is spreading way beyond the terrorists who are attacking us. It is now a "cool" way to express dissatisfaction with the status quo — with globalization, with America's dominant role in the world, with the power elite — whether that power elite is real or imagined. The jihadi idea has become a kind of gangsta rap. We Americans are smug about how badly Muslims are treated in Europe and how the resentments European Muslims feel could never be stirred to such a fever pitch here. But in the United States, as elsewhere, oppressed minority urban "honor cultures" can easily blend and morph into this protean international jihadist identity and mind-set.  The Iraq war only exacerbates that. The goal of the Al Qaeda movement is to expand the "jihadi current" around the globe. According to their literature, the jihadists were aiming to provoke us into attacking a Muslim country. This would, in their view, enhance their moral authority because they could present themselves as liberators of an occupied people. And it would reduce our moral authority, since we would be occupiers."

Jarret Brachman: 

Over the past five years, the jihadi movement has evolved into an organic, self-sustaining global insurgency. The movement seeks to reach the hearts and minds of average Muslims frustrated with the dominant political, social, and cultural order and with the perceived reluctance of Arab regimes and Islamic establishment scholars to implement Islamic law.....  In short, while bin Laden's Al Qaeda may begin to alienate Muslims who are frustrated with the wanton bloodshed, the jihadi worldview that Al Qaeda has promoted since 9/11 will continue to spread worldwide. The need for scholarly participation in the next five years of struggle against the global jihadi insurgent movement cannot be overstated.

Hamid: The Revolution that Never Came

The Revolution that Never Came
Shadi Hamid

The failure of democracy in the Arab world may be vexing but it’s really not all that mysterious

The long-awaited “Arab spring” had arrived. Or so it appeared. On January 20, 2005, President George W. Bush declared in his inaugural address that “all who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.” Less than two weeks later, the world stood in collective awe, as Iraqis braved terrorist threats to cast their ballots for the first time in their lives. For those who had been waiting decades to see something as simple as a free election, the moment was moving and emotional. Not long after, in March, former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed. A nation grieved as it witnessed, yet again, a visionary figure cut down by the scourge of terror. Lebanon erupted in grief and then anger as close to one million Lebanese demanded self-determination on the streets of their war-torn capital. Then, in April, 50,000 Bahrainis – one-eighth of the total population – rallied for constitutional reform.

For a short while, it seemed that the Middle East was witnessing “a democratic moment,” one that would, in due time, render the region’s haunting past (and present) of tyranny a distant memory. However, it was not to be. The anticipated break with autocracy failed to materialize. Today, Arab dictators are as emboldened as ever. The heady democratic openings of last year have been replaced by sudden bouts of authoritarian retrenchment.

Ahead of his time, perhaps, but also behind it, USC economist Timur Kuran wrote in a provocative 1998 essay that “Arab regimes are highly vulnerable to a shock that would stimulate mass dissent. Indeed, even an ostensibly minor rise in open opposition within one Arab country might trigger a revolutionary cascade that then sets off similar cascades in others. Just such a domino process occurred in Eastern Europe less than a decade ago, when people within and outside the region marveled at the collapse of one communist regime after another. The scenario could be repeated in the Arab world”. 

The “ostensibly minor rise in open opposition” happened not only in one Arab country, but in many. After 9/11, the Arab state system, long immune to change, experienced several of the “shocks” that Kuran believed would open up new possibilities. For a time, they did. Although we might not like to admit it, the unseating of the region’s most egregious dictator did, in fact, have a profound, if varied, effect on millions of Arabs.

Kuran also noted that “as conditions became more favorable to the expression of opposition, individuals would jump on the bandwagon for change, encouraging additional people to join in” (120). But the democratic openings of 2005, while real, proved unsustainable and easily reversible. Something, in other words, went wrong.  In a recent post on the Abu Aardvark blog, Marc Lynch posed the stickiness of Arab autocracy a “puzzle.” But is it really that puzzling?

The problem with explanations of the Arab world’s “democratic deficit” – and Kuran’s thesis is no exception – is that they often fail to adequately account for external factors, namely the Unites States and its towering role in the region. Amazingly, over the course of thirteen pages, Kuran does not mention the US even once. It is almost as if the Arab world exists in a vacuum and, of course, it does not. For strategic reasons, the US has always been intimately involved in the question of Arab democracy and more than ever after September 11. Contrary to what the Bush administration would have us believe, however, it has not reconciled itself to the eventuality or even the desirability of Arab democracy. The fear of that Islamists will come to power through free elections – and they most certainly would – continues to animate America’s calculations, and, more often than not, at great consequence to democratic reform. The “Islamist dilemma” has been highlighted, in stark fashion, by recent Islamist electoral gains throughout the region. Hamas’s unlikely election victory in January 2006 marked the final, crushing defeat of America’s purported democratization drive.   

Not surprisingly, then, the Bush administration continues to lend economic, military, and moral support to the region’s most stalwart dictators, including in Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. After all, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t, or so we are told.

If domestic factors were the only ones that mattered, then Kuran’s predictions may have borne themselves out. But US democracy promotion policy is a crucial variable and one that has a profound effect on regime actors who show a ready willingness to resort to repression knowing that America will say and do nothing to stop them. Moreover, the perception – whether real or imagined – that the US has veto power over Arab political fortunes leads to a sense of powerlessness among the population at-large, providing yet another disincentive for collective action. In short, external factors drastically alter the available opportunity structures for all involved, making successful transitions to democracy more or less likely – and certainly, in the case of the Arab world, the latter.

To truly understand the stubborn insistence of Arab autocracy, we must also delve into domestic factors, for while America matters, it would be foolish to think that the success or failure of Arab democracy is entirely dependent on political calculations made in Washington, DC. Such a notion, in addition to being false, denies 300 million Arabs the moral and political agency that is theirs and theirs alone.

Which leads us to problem # 2: Internally, the political dynamics of Arab countries are “exceptional.” Compared to other regions, the Arab world is paralyzed by a unique set of ideological cleavages that have made achieving substantive democratic reform a much more challenging task than it would otherwise be. In Eastern Europe and Latin America, the primary cleavage between regime and opposition was economic. In the Middle East, the primary cleavage is religious (i.e. Islamism vs. secularism) and this tends to complicate the situation. In such a context, divisions between government and opposition are not a matter of differing public policies, but rather one of the raison d’etre of the state itself. Politics, thus, becomes an existential concern and, in extreme examples, a matter of life and death, as it was during the fated Algerian elections of 1991, where a secular military regime chose civil war over a democratically-elected Islamist parliament. Such ideological polarization makes compromise between regime and opposition forces nearly impossible. “On matters of economic policy and social expenditures you can always split the difference,” the esteemed political scientist Dankwart Rustow once pointed out.  But how do you split the difference on religion, ideology, and identity?

There is also the issue of ideological cleavages within the opposition itself. Successful democratic transitions in Latin America and Eastern Europe were facilitated by broad-based opposition coalitions which were able to unite behind inclusive pro-democracy platforms. A culture of compromise prevailed as key players were able to agree on the how, when, and why of democratization. In the Arab world, however, there is a lack of opposition consensus regarding the most foundational aspects of political life – namely the boundaries, limits and purpose of the nation-state. As a result, the opposition simply can’t get its act together. So Islamists and non-Islamists all too often fight each other instead of unifying their efforts against the regime.

It is this unfortunate confluence of internal and external factors which has made the Arab world the most undemocratic region in the world, even after a set of post 9-11 “shocks” that, in other circumstances, might have provided the impetus for the democratic revolution that Kuran envisioned.

The failure of Arab democracy, while vexing, should not strike us as particularly mysterious or surprising. Certainly, US policymakers should not pretend to be shocked at the way things turned out. While it is not entirely their fault, they have no doubt done their part to ensure the continued vitality of Arab autocracy. As Americans, it may be difficult for us to convince Islamists and secularists to stop hating each other. This is something that Arabs themselves must work to resolve (and, fortunately, there have been encouraging signs of Islamist-secularist reconciliation in recent years). It, however, is well within our purview to begin moving our country toward a democracy-centric foreign policy that actively promotes democratization in the Arab world not only in rhetoric but in practice. Such a policy is long overdue. Until then, let’s stop acting surprised. Arab democracy has failed, and it has failed for a reason, but that doesn’t mean it still can’t succeed if the appropriate course of action is taken. 

Shadi Hamid is founding member and associate at The Project on Middle East Democracy and a PhD candidate in politics at Oxford University. He is also a contributor to Democracy Arsenal, the Security and Peace Initiative’s foreign affairs blog. He recently outlined his vision for a “democracy-centric foreign policy” in a two-part essay (and part 2) for The American Prospect.

around the web, oct 17

New stuff on the web about the Middle East:

Mike Davis, of City of Quartz fame, takes on Dubai in the New Left Review:

On the rim of the war zone, a new Mecca of conspicuous consumption and economic crime, under the iron rule of Sheikh al-Maktoum. Skyscrapers half a mile high, artificial archipelagoes, fantasy theme parks—and the indentured Asian labour force that sustains them.

Abd al-Monem Said Aly has published a brief with the Crown Center at Brandeis called "The Sixth Arab-Israeli War:  An Arab Perspective."   Download the PDF here.

The latest issue of the MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies also focuses on the Israel-Lebanon war.  Find it here.

Anthony Cordesman of CSIS asks whether there is a civil war in Iraq.  Download the answer here.  (Hint:  it's "yes.") 
 

Gause: Papal Bull

Papal Bull

What the Pope got wrong about Islam, what he got dangerously wrong, what he got right and a modest proposal on inter-faith dialogue

F. Gregory Gause, III
University of Vermont

    Lest my fellow Catholics take too much offense at the cheeky title, let me lay out my literal bona fides at the outset.  I am a believing and practicing Catholic, an active member of my parish (Immaculate Heart of Mary, in Williston, Vermont).  I teach in our Confraternity of Christian Doctrine program (Sunday school, for the non-Catholics), serve on the parish council and am privileged to distribute the Holy Eucharist as a lay minister.   I am the proud product of sixteen years of Catholic education.  I thank God for the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Brothers of the Holy Cross, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales and the Jesuits, who made me both an educated person and a better person than I would have been without them.  I am no expert in theology, but the Jesuits made me take three courses in philosophy and three courses in theology before they would give me my bachelor’s degree, so I have a familiarity with Catholic doctrine and its philosophical tradition.  I am no expert in Islamic law or philosophy, but as someone who has studied the politics and history of the Middle East for my entire professional life, I have more than a nodding familiarity with those subjects as well.  As both a Catholic and Middle East scholar, I was disheartened by the remarks about Islam made by Pope Benedict XVI in his address of 12 September 2006 at the University of Regensburg in Germany. My dismay centered more on points in the speech that were not highlighted in the media coverage of the controversy.

    The controversy revolved around the Pope’s infelicitous (to put it mildly) quotation from the “dialogue” between the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and a Persian interlocutor, in which the Emperor accuses the Prophet Muhammad of bringing no new good thing into the world, but rather things that are “evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”  The historians of Islam are unanimous that the Emperor got it wrong.  Islam was NOT spread by the sword and Muhammad did not order it to be spread by the sword.  Conversion to Islam was overwhelmingly a gradual process.  In many areas in the Muslim empire, it took centuries before a majority of the population became Muslim.  The Muslim empire spread by the sword, but what empire or state did not?  The Muslim faith did not spread by the sword.  The Pope knew enough about the Quran to cite Surah 2: 256, that there is no compulsion in religion, and to reference the fact that this was probably an early surah, before the period of the Prophet’s political role in Medina.  He should have known better than to cite, even if he did not agree with it, a reference to the spread of Islam by the sword.

    For me, the more dangerous assertion in the Pope’s speech was underplayed in the media.  He raised the issue of forced conversion to make the point that reason precludes forced conversion, and “not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature.”  Since His Holiness accepts the idea that forced conversion was part of Islam, this leads him to question whether Muslims believe that God is bound by reason.  Here he turns to theology.  He makes the argument, absolutely correctly, that the dominant strain in Muslim theology is that God is absolutely transcendent, omnipotent and inscrutable, not bound by any human category, including reason.  The debate in the 10th century between the Mu’tazali rationalists, who were steeped in Greek philosophy and argued that, in effect, God is bound by His reason, and their opponents, who argued for the absolute transcendence of God, was decided against the Mu’tazilis.  The Pope concedes that a similar debate occurred in Catholic theology about a century later, between rationalists like Thomas Aquinas and voluntarists like Duns Scotus and William of Occam (he of the famous razor).  That debate was decided the other way, in favor of those who argued that God is bound by His reason.

    All this is very esoteric.  It reminds me of efforts by some of my less pious classmates in my religion classes to trap our teachers with questions like, “Is God so powerful that He could make a rock so big that He couldn’t lift it?”  My teachers’ response was usually some variant of “shut up.”  But for voluntarists like the winners in the Muslim philosophical debate and the losers in the Catholic debate, the answer to the question is clear:  “Of course God can.  God can do anything He wills.”

    It is on this point about faith and reason that the Pope makes his most serious error, that Islam is not a faith that respects reason.  In the footnotes to his talk, added after the controversy arose, he writes, “In quoting the text of the Emperor Manuel II, I intended solely to draw out the essential relationship between faith and reason.  On this point I am in agreement with Manuel II, but without endorsing his polemic” (my italics).  The Pope, while professing his respect for Islam, doubts that it is a faith which respects reason, and thus implicitly questions the value of dialogue with it.

    This is just profoundly wrong.  His Holiness is an academic theologian, and thus would naturally look to theology for the essence of the role of reason in any religion.  As I said above, his reading, at least on a superficial level, of the relation of reason to God’s essence in mainstream Sunni thinking is correct (though he ignores other important strains in Islamic theology, including all of Shi’ism, in his argument).  However, it ignores the profound grounding in Greek rationalism that Muslim philosophers like al-‘Ashari, who argued against the Mu’tazilis, couched their points.  It also ignores the absolutely central role of reason in areas of Islamic intellectual and philosophical development outside of theology.  Law is central here. Muslim philosophers might not use the instruments of human reason to question the Quran itself (as the Mu’tazilis did), but in their development of shari’a, Islamic law, from its sources in the Quran and the hadiths they relied enormously on human reason.  Reasoning by analogy (qiyas) has been a central element in the development of shari’a.  The application of shari’a to specific cases is completely dependent upon the reason of the judge.  To say that Islam, as a religion, is inimical to reason is just not true.  Its entire legal edifice, developed over the centuries, refutes this charge.

    I believe that Pope Benedict’s point regarding Islam and reason was meant to call into question the utility of the inter-faith dialogue that his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, actively encouraged.  After all, there is not much point in talking with people who do not respect reason.  Despite my differences with the Pope in his reading of Islam, I agree with his implied position on inter-faith dialogue, if that dialogue is centered on theological matters.  There really is not much for Catholics and Muslims to discuss about theology.  Such a dialogue would be an erudite version of the Monty Python “Argument Clinic” routine (“Jesus of Nazareth is the son of God.”  “No, he isn’t.”  “Yes, he is.”) rather than a real exchange. 

But there is plenty to discuss about common understandings of ethics, about how we fallible human beings should deal with each other as children of God.  Here Catholic representatives have raised an important point (though the Pope did not deal with it in the Regensburg speech):  reciprocity.  Muslims see it as their right not only to practice their religion in Christian-majority countries, but also to proselytize in those countries.  In our modern understanding of individual and religious rights in the West, we do not challenge those rights.  Neither does the Catholic Church.  However, while Christians have the right to practice their faith in almost all Muslim countries (Saudi Arabia is the great exception), there are often numerous regulations (regarding matters like the construction of churches) which act to constrain the implementation of that right.  More directly, Muslim countries in general do not allow Christians to work to spread their faith, as Muslims are permitted to do in the West.

    The reciprocity issue needs to be on the table as Catholics and Muslims continue their inter-faith dialogue, a dialogue that must be based both on reason and on mutual respect.  The difficulties that the reciprocity issue might raise in such dialogues cannot be wished away and should not be ignored.  But these difficulties should not obscure the great commonalities in the ethical systems of Christianity and Islam.  It is the reaffirmation of those shared views on the sanctity of God’s creation, particularly of human life, that can help us overcome the arguments of extremists and fanatics in both cultures. Political trends now regrettably tend to draw the Christian West and the Muslim Middle East apart.  Honest and sincere dialogue between Christian and Muslim religious leaders is absolutely essential to preventing these tensions from becoming a true clash of civilizations. Pope Benedict should be part of the solution here, but if he acts on the false premise that Islam is not a religion of reason, he will just add to the problem.

    Pax vobiscum.  ‘Alaikum salam.

F. Gregory Gause III is professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont. 

notes from the organizer, oct 16

Today, I've posted my own essay on Jordan, "Postponing the elections?"   This won't be a common occurrence - Qahwa Sada is not "Abu Aardvark West".  But since I'm asking a lot of my colleagues to donate their time and effort to the venture, I wanted to lead by example and produce something specifically for Qahwa Sada.  Also, two promising pieces failed to materialize over the weekend for various reasons - they should be coming along soon, just not today.   The rest of the week looks good.  Thanks to everyone who linked to the site last week - we'll try to live up to all the kind words and high expectations!

Jordan: postponing the elections?

Postponing Jordan's elections?
Marc Lynch

At a roundtable with Arab journalists last Wednesday, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch was asked about reports that Jordan would postpone next year's scheduled Parliamentary elections out of concern for an Islamist victory.   Welch ducked the question in favor of generalities about democracy.  Both the question and Welch's non-answer were telling.  Over the last two weeks, a controversy has indeed erupted in Jordan over the question of whether next year's scheduled Parliamentary elections will be held. 

The controversy began when a highly respected independent columnist, Samih al-Mayateh, penned a short piece arguing against a postponement.   This relatively innocuous intervention might have been passed over had not speculation in fact been raging in private political salons.  A series of columns followed, and then a taciturn semi-denial from a government spokesman.  Some observers have dismissed this as a non-issue, a straw man cooked up by Parliamentarians who enjoy their cushy jobs or by bored columnists looking to stir up trouble.  While anything is possible in King Abdullah's Jordan, I would agree that such a postponement is actually quite unlikely.  But the controversy is fascinating for what it reveals about the current state of affairs in the Hashemite Kingdom.

Why would elections be postponed?  The general answer is not hard to find:  because if elections were held today, the Islamists would supposedly win more than half the seats.   After the Hamas victory in Palestinian elections and the Muslim Brotherhood's performance in Egypt, the specter of Islamist success hangs over all Arab elections - and has become a major trump card in the hands of pro-American dictators looking to prevent meaningful democratization.   

Is the fear realistic?  Not likely.  The Jordanian electoral system is carefully gerrymandered to privilege regime loyalists and to hurt Islamists - particularly through the "one vote/multiple member district" rule, which means that most Jordanians tend to vote for a tribal or local candidate rather than an ideological one.   There is little real prospect that the Islamic Action Front could come within a mile of a Parliamentary majority given how thoroughly the electoral system has been engineered to prevent precisely that outcome.  Only 4% of Jordanians considered the IAF the most representative party in the September 2005 "Democracy in Jordan" survey, and only 2.5% named it as qualified to form a government.   And if the regime came to believe that the IAF could nevertheless win, it would likely find a way to provoke an Islamist boycott (as in 1997, when the government refused to give in to opposition demands to revise the electoral law and was rewarded with an IAF boycott that left Parliament devoid of significant opposition).   It's likely that publicly floated fears of an Islamist takeover have more to do with preparing American opinion in the event that something drastic needs to be done... or if Abdullah just grows bored with democracy or worries that any kind of political opening  might get out of hand.

The real fear may have less to do with the Islamists than with the ways in which the foundations of Jordanian loyalties have been rapidly shifting in recent years.  King Abdullah's policies have tended to grate on the traditionally loyal Transjordanian community, and have not served their economic interests well. Transjordanian "loyalists" in Parliament deadlocked a confidence vote for the liberal Adnan Badran's nomination as Prime Minister, keeping the King's appointee in limbo for months, and have been among the strongest opponents of various political reform measures.   That those safe seats might no longer be so safe for the King's agenda may play some role in a new willingness to entertain suggestions for revisions to the long-controversial electoral law.  A new electoral law was in fact one of the key - and most contested - of the recommendations of the National Agenda... but to this point, there has been little evidence that one will be produced in time for the 2007 Parliamentary election.

The fears are also linked to the chaos in the Palestinian areas, which has - amazingly - put Jordan's 1988 severing of ties with the West Bank back on the table.   A minor firestorm broke out over reports that the Jordanian government has formed a committee to review the 1988 decision to sever ties with the West Bank.   When the Interior Minister told a press conference that the separation from the West Bank was an issue which the government could legally review and that the government was considering revising passport and residency cards for Palestinians.  A former Justice Minister declared this to be a very dangerous step, both politically and legally (since  all laws passed since 1988 took the severing of ties as their basis).   While nothing much really seems to be going on here, there were immediate cries of outrage from both Jordanian nationalists and from Palestinians, each of whose identities and interests rest on this question being settled. (Interestingly, the one major political force in the Kingdom which does not accept the permanence of the severing of ties is the embattled Muslim Brotherhood.)   

In the past, the strong public consensus in favor of the severing of ties (reflected in official discourse - as in King Abdullah's 'Jordan First' campaign) would have been enough to keep it in place.  But Abdullah cares far less what Jordanians think than did his father. While King Abdullah has never demonstrated any great interest in democracy - he canceled Parliamentary elections in 2001, leaving the country without a legislative body for two years -  things had taken a turn for the worse  even before before the November 2005 Amman terror attacks.  Those attacks gave Abdullah the green light to implement a far-reaching set of illiberal reforms, including a draconian anti-terrorism law, heightened state control over mosques, and a general offensive against Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood.  A recent series of focus groups found a general consensus that public freedoms had sharply declined, and considerable antipathy towards the political and economic status quo. Jordanians grumble about a return to a 'martial law mentality', if not yet practice.  In the most recent "Democracy in Jordan" survey by the Center for Strategic Studies, 77% of Jordanians said that they could not publicly criticize the government without fearing punishment.  July's "We are all Jordan" forum, which brought together some 700 politicians and civil society activists to talk about reform issues, at least aimed to revive some sense of participation for the Jordanian political elite, which has been fuming over its relative marginalization from the National Agenda process and Jordan's ever more unpopular foreign policy.  But with no policy-setting agenda, the Forum was little more than an expensive talking shop aimed at stroking these bruised egos. 

These setbacks in domestic political freedoms have been accompanied by an ever more active Jordanian role in advocating the American regional agenda - which is the primary reason that American officials have rarely complained about the illiberal Jordanian trend.  The cost of this will be an ever more unpopular and fragile monarchy.   While fears of an Iranian-style revolution are overblown, Jordan faces clear danger signs:  economic and political reform stalled, extremely unpopular foreign policy, public debate moving underground, sharpened confrontation with a popular Islamist movement.   Politically, Jordan today looks more like it did in 1986 than it did in 1996 (though it does have a lot more luxury hotels, Western fast food joints, and Iraqi refugees now).  The repression of the 1980s led to the fierce riots in 1989, which inspired King Hussein's limited democratic opening in the first place -- as a regime survival strategy.   At that point, the Muslim Brotherhood remained a trusted partner of the Hashemite monarchy, and carefully modulated the extent of its political opposition in order to support the system.    If history repeats itself, and an ever more repressive Jordanian regime faces renewed protests and public fury, who will stand by its side?

Note:  cross-posted from Abu Aardvark.

MENA around the Web

Here are some interesting newly released work on the Middle East out there on the web (which will be a regular feature on Qahwa Sada):

Marina Ottoway and Meredith Riley, Morocco: From Top-Down Reform to Democratization?   Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 2006:

In the case of “reform from the top,” the authors argue that the Morocco example shows the limitations of monarchial reform. Despite significant improvements in free speech, women’s rights, and economic reform, true democratization cannot exist without formal restrictions on the king’s power. Political reform, independent branches of government, and elected institutions are vital components of a democratic society.
Morocco’s main Islamist party, the PJD, may hold the key to democracy in the country. Expected to obtain the largest number of votes in the 2007 parliamentary elections, the party will become a major player in the new government.  The threat to a democratic transition is not that the party is too radical, but that it may allow itself to be co-opted by the monarch as all other parties have done. In a region where Islamists often threaten political reform, Morocco’s main Islamist party could be, paradoxically, its best chance for legitimate democracy.

Carnegie has also just released the October issue of the Arab Reform Bulletin.  Highlights include
Palestine: How Weak is Hamas? by Jarrett Blanc; Egypt: A Leap toward Reform—or Succession? by Joshua Stacher;  U.S. Policy and Yemen: Balancing Realism and Reform on the Arab Periphery Jeremy M. Sharp;  Saudi Arabia: Local Councils Struggling to Produce Results Jafar Muhammad Al Shayib; Iraqi Kurdistan: Time to Get Serious about Governance by Bilal Wahab.

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has released a report by David Cook entitled Paradigmatic Jihadi Movements (link to PDF at the home page).   It looks in detail at four movements cited by Abu al-Musab al-Suri as exemplary cases to see what lessons he might have taken from their experience:  Harakat Shabiba (Morocco, 1960s);  Harakat al-Dawla al-Islamiya (Algeria, 1980s); the Afghan Arabs in Lebanon (1990s); Islamic Army of Aden Abyan in Yemen (1990s). 

The International Crisis Group has just released a report on the Sudan:  Getting the UN Into Darfur.  From the executive summary:

The NCP continues to strongly reject the proposed UN deployment. Its primary motive appears to be a fear that improved security would loosen its grip on the region. Officials responsible for orchestrating the conflict since 2003 also appear to fear that a major body of UN troops in Darfur itself might eventually enforce International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments, although it is not obvious why that risk should be decisively greater for them with an extended UNMIS deployment than it is with the present one.
In responding to this rejection, full-scale non-consensual military intervention by the international community is not at this stage a defensible or realistic option. But it may be possible to persuade the NCP to alter its policies and consent to the UN mission in Darfur by moving now to targeted sanctions against regime leaders and their business interests – and immediately planning for the establishment and enforcement of a no-fly zone over Darfur that builds on the ineffective ban on offensive military flights the Security Council imposed in 2005. International support for the role of the ICC should be again clearly expressed, with the Court in turn declaring its intention to focus immediately on any war crimes or crimes against humanity committed during the current government offensive.

MERIP has just released "Illusions of Unilateralism Dispelled in Israel," by Yoav Peled:

Israel’s failures in the Lebanon war signified the divorce of two political objectives -- economic liberalization and war -- that Sharon had managed to wed though they had been believed, historically, to be at odds. Sharon’s ability to defeat the second intifada while pursuing a policy of aggressive economic liberalization made him Israel’s most popular prime minister since the introduction of public opinion polls in the late 1960s (well after Ben-Gurion’s time). But the mechanism for this seemingly historic achievement, the promised unilateral solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was actually sleight of hand. And the Lebanon war, coupled with the summer’s events in Gaza, exposed the trick.

Finally, while it isn't brand new it is very much worth reading:  ""Xenophobia and In-Group Solidarity in Iraq: A Natural Experiment on the Impact of Insecurity", by Mansoor Moaddel,  Mark Tessler and Ronald Inglehart.  In the current issue of Perspectives on Politics,  available for download in PDF format here.

notes from the organizer

Many thanks to everyone who linked to Qahwa Sada yesterday and helped get the ball rolling:  Winds of Change (Armed Liberal);  Juan Cole;  Lawyers, Guns and Money; Chanad Bahraini; the Lounsbury of Aqoul; What is the War?; upyernoz;  praktike at American Footprints; Matt Yglesies; Aziz at City of Brass;  Martin Kramer; ZenPundit; Baheyya;  Fustat; Elijah Zarwan; Issandr el-Amrani at the Arabist;  and apologies to anyone I missed (let me know - I'll update!).  We had a great launch, a lot of hits, and much positive feedback.  The key to success, I think, will be producing a steady stream of quality posts, and that will depend on the enthusiasm of my colleagues and willingness to donate their time to the enterprise.  I expect that there will be some dry patches but I can tell you that we've already got some high quality stuff in the pipeline for next week. 

In response to comments posted to the manifesto yesterday, let me make three quick notes - aspirational only, at this point. 

First, Qahwa Sada aims to be a forum open to high quality work from all perspectives - no methodological or ideological litmus tests.  I want high quality, original, and insightful contributions, full stop.  I fully expect to post many contributions with which I don't agree - so I suppose it's worth adding a disclaimer of some kind that each author's posts represent her or his own views and not my own, and that each author takes full responsibility for her or his arguments and evidence.  Which is as it should be, right?   

Second, commenting rules.  For the most part, I've been blessed at Abu Aardvark with respectful, high value-added commenters.   For now I'll just hope that this continues.  If it doesn't, I'll draft some version of the Obsidian Wings commenting rules as suggested in the comments - which should be obvious ones:  no personal or ad hominem attacks, stay on topic, play nice, contribute.   

Third, my main job as organizer is to identify and recruit contributors and topics.  So if you have ideas about either, or would like to contribute, do feel free to post them in a comment thread or email me. 

Thanks, everyone!

Bahrain: Must be election season

Bahrain:  Must be election season
Toby Jones, Swarthmore College

Sectarianism, political fraud, and police brutality are on the rise in Bahrain. It must be election season.

In September 2006 US President George Bush cited Bahrain as an example of the “real” changes taking place in the Middle East and that the country was evidence that “as liberty flourishes, nations grow in tolerance and hope and peace.” The reality could not be more different. On the eve of new elections Bahrain’s political crisis appears as bad as ever.

Four years ago, Bahrain’s liberal experiment got off to a rocky start. Amidst allegations that the Sunni-controlled Bahraini government had gerrymandered voting districts to discriminate against the country’s Shi‘a majority, most Shi‘is – in alliance with a sizeable Sunni bloc -- boycotted the 2002 parliamentary elections.   Critics also charged that by promulgating a new constitution without consulting leading activists, it had set up a weak legislative branch that was subordinate to the King and his Cabinet. The result was political gridlock, simmering tensions between the government and the opposition, and an ineffective legislative branch that passed few laws in its first four years, confirming the opposition's claim that the institution possessed little real authority.   

The country is scheduled to hold its next round of parliamentary elections in late November. The good news is that al-Wefaq, a Shi‘a political society and the leading member of the opposition, has ended the boycott and is fielding as many as 22 candidates for the elections. The other main opposition societies, including the mixed Shi‘a-Sunni Democratic Action Society, as well as several prominent independent activists have also decided to compete for seats in parliament.  In ending the boycott, the opposition has made clear that while they still oppose the current constitution and the (im)balance of power in Bahrain, they have decided to pursue changing from the inside. The bad news is that in spite of clamoring for four years for the country’s opposition societies and especially the Shi‘is to participate in the system, powerful members of the al-Khalifa government view such a prospect as a threat to their power.

The depth of the government’s paranoia and the steps royal family members have taken to shore up their authority was revealed in mid-September when the details of “Bandargate,” a political scandal that has shocked the island nation and cast serious doubts over the upcoming elections, began to unfold. Salah al-Bandar, a British citizen who had been working as a consultant to the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, circulated a lengthy report [Arabic PDF] published by a London-based NGO called the Gulf Centre for Democratic Development alleging a secret plot on the part of Bahraini officials to foment sectarianism and rig the elections. He was subsequently deported and then formally charged with “illegally acquiring government documents.”

Bandar’s report contained documents that suggest the existence of a “secret organization” within the Central Informatics Office [Arabic] headed by royal family member Shaikh Ahmed bin Attiyatallah that sought to manipulate the outcome of the elections, deepen distrust between Sunnis and Shi‘is, and even promote the conversion of Shi‘is to Sunnism. According to the report Shaikh Ahmad paid over BD 1 million to government employees, journalists, members of both the appointed and elected houses of parliament (Faisal Foulad, Jamal Daoud, Jassim al-Saidi, and Salah Ali), Jordanian intelligence officials, and an Egyptian media outfit.

Even before the release of Bandar’s report Bahrainis had expressed anxiety about the elections and the potential for fraud. A chief concern was the possibility that the government would follow through on its plan to implement electronic voting. The Central Informatics Office, at the eye of the Bandargate storm, had also been responsible for managing what was to be Bahrain’s first experiment in e-voting. Most citizens were opposed to e-voting, citing its susceptibility to various levels of fraud, especially efforts by the government itself to alter the outcome.  Bandar’s report served to confirm widespread suspicion that the government was up to no good. Mounting pressure as well as the appearance of guilt led the CIO to shelve plans to use e-voting until 2010.

Confronted with well-documented evidence that the CIO was complicit in efforts to exploit sectarian anxieties and cheat the electorate, the government has utterly failed to respond. Denials and recriminations from those implicated abound. But, for its part the government has done little to restore voter confidence or to dampen the fallout, particularly Shi‘a anger. In fact, the government is making matters worse and drawing attention to its guilt by attempting to silencing discussion of the issue altogether. On October 4, the Bahrain News Agency issued a release stating that “the senior criminal court issued a decision today preventing the publishing of any news, comments or information regarding the case of Salah Al Bander…The decision came after some newspapers had written about the case in a way that could harm national interests, sow sedition and sensitivity among members of the community and influence the court. The newspapers were writing about incidents that were neither supported by documents, nor presented to the public prosecution nor verified by any means.” So far, in spite of their protests, the local media has behaved, dutifully self-censoring. But the scandal has hardly run its course. In addition to the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, vibrant and politically charged Arabic and English language Bahraini blogs have picked up the slack and keeping the story alive. While the government remains mostly immune to political pressure from the blogosphere, it is discomforted by it.

While Bandargate rages on, Bahrain’s government has sought other means to manipulate sectarianism. As they did in 2002, the government continues to unapologetically extend citizenship and voting rights  to Sunnis from around the region (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, Pakistan) in order to tip the demographic balance of the country in their favor.

Where such manipulation falls short, Bahraini authorities also turn to outright thuggery and police brutality to intimidate its critics. Clashes between the Special Security Forces and Bahraini demonstrators have become a regular occurrence since the summer of 2005. On September 22, 2006 -- with a police helicopter orbiting overhead -- the SSF attacked a public seminar organized by the predominantly Shi‘a opposition society Haqq (Justice) in the village of Bilad al-Qadim with tear gas and rubber bullets. On September 29 a group opposed to the government’s policies of naturalizing thousands of foreigners cancelled a demonstration near the Seef Mall in order to avoid a similarly violent response.

There is little reason to believe that sectarian and political tensions will ameliorate any time soon. There is also little reason to believe that investigations into Bandargate will yield an honest accounting or lead to any systematic changes. What is certain is that frustration will continue to simmer, distrust will remain, and the Bahraini government will continue to exploit the country’s deep sectarian divides – hardly an island of tolerance, hope, and peace.

Toby Jones, formerly the Gulf Analyst with the International Crisis Group, is a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Swarthmore College. He received a Ph.D. in Middle East history from Stanford University in 2006.