Tag: Arab Spring

  • The Year We Lost Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia and Most of the Middle East

    The Year We Lost Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia and Most of the Middle East

    About the only people having a Happy New Year in the Muslim world aren’t the Christians who are huddling and waiting out the storm, but the Islamists who use a different calendar but are having the best time of their lives since the last Caliphate.

     photo 90

    The news that the Obama Administration has brought in genocidal Muslim Brotherhood honcho Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to discuss terms of surrender for the transfer of Afghanistan to the Taliban caps a year in which the Brotherhood and the Salafists are looking up carve up Egypt, the Islamists won Tunisia’s elections, Turkey’s Islamist AKP Party purged the last bastions of the secular opposition and Libya’s future as an Islamist state was secured by American, British and French jets and special forces.

    Time Magazine declared that 2011 was the Year of the Protester, they might have more honestly called it the Year of the Islamist. In 2010, the Taliban were still hiding in caves. In 2012 they are set to be in power from Tunisia to Afghanistan and from Egypt to Yemen. They won’t go by that name, of course. Most of them will have elaborate names with the words “Justice” or “Community” in them, but they will for the most part be minor variations on the Muslim Brotherhood theme.

    2011 will indeed be remembered, but not because of any Arab Spring or OWS nonsense. It will be a pivotal year in the rise of the next Caliphate. A rise disguised by angry protesters waving cell phones and flags. And clueless media coverage that treated Tahrir Square as the new fall of the Berlin Wall.

    This was the year that Obama helped topple several regimes that served as the obstacles to Islamist takeovers

    This was the year that Obama helped topple several regimes that served as the obstacles to Islamist takeovers. The biggest fish that Ibn Hussein speared out of the sea for Al-Qaradawi was Egypt, a prize that the Islamists had wanted for the longest time, but had never managed to catch. That is until the Caliph-in-Chief got it for them. Egyptian Democracy splits the take between the Brotherhood and the Salafists, whom the media is already quick to describe as moderates. First up against the wall are the Christians. Second up against the wall are the Jews. Third up is all that military equipment we provided to the Egyptian military which will shortly be finding its way to various “moderate militants” who want to discuss our foreign policy with us.

    But there’s no reason to sell the fall of Tunisia short or the transition in Yemen. And when mob protests didn’t work, NATO sent in the jets to pound Libya until Al-Qaeda got its way there. Turkey’s fate had been written some time ago, but 2011 was the year that the AKP completed its death grip on the country with a final crackdown on the military, which has now ceased to be a force for stability.

    Left out of the picture is Somalia. Liberals fulminated when Bush helped drive out Al-Shaab and its jolly Muslim lads with a habit of beheading people who didn’t grow beards or watched too much soccer. Any number of editorials complained that we had destabilized the country and that the Islamic Courts Union were really a bunch of moderates in disguise.

    Sadly Obama has not been able to salvage the position of Al-Shabab which is low on money and has turned to forcing 12-year-old girls into prostitution and torturing and murdering those who refuse. They’re also forcing the elderly to join its militias. But there is good news. Like every terrorist group, Al-Shabab has gotten itself a Twitter account and when O finds 5 minutes in between vacations and golf tournaments, the White House will order neighboring African countries to withdraw their armies and send in Al-Qaradawi to negotiate.

    But even if the Islamists don’t get Somalia, they’ve got a nice chunk of North Africa to chew over, not to mention a few more slices of the Middle-Eastern pie, and Afghanistan will be back in their hands as soon as they manage to outmaneuver Karzai, which given his paranoia and cunning may admittedly take a while. But the Taliban are not big on maneuvers, they have the manpower, which means it’s only a matter of time until they do what the Mujaheddin did to the puppet Soviet regime. A history that everyone in the region is quite familiar with.

    The ugliest part of this story isn’t what Obama did. It’s when he did it

    The ugliest part of this story isn’t what Obama did. It’s when he did it. If he really had no interest in winning Afghanistan, and if as he had said, the Taliban are not our enemy, then why did we stay for so long and lose so many lives fighting a war that the White House had no intention of winning? The ugly conclusion that must be drawn from the timing of the Iraq and Afghanistan withdrawals is that the wars were being played out to draw down around the time of the next election.

    What that means is Obama sacrificed the thousands of Americans killed and wounded in the conflict as an election strategy. The idea that American soldiers were fighting and dying for no reason until the time when maximum political advantage could be gained from pulling them out is horrifying, it’s a crime beyond redemption, an act worse than treason—and yet there is no other rational conclusion to be drawn from the timetable.

    If the Taliban were not our enemy, then the war should have ended shortly after the election. Instead Obama threw more soldiers into the mix while tying their hands with Rules of Engagement that prevented them from defending themselves or aggressively going after the Taliban. Casualties among US soldiers and Afghan civilians increased. Now the Taliban are no longer our enemy and we are negotiating a withdrawal.

    There are only two possible explanations. Either we lost the war or Obama never intended to win it and was allowing the Taliban to murder American soldiers until the next election. If so we’re not just looking at a bad man at the teleprompter, we are looking into the face of an evil so amoral that it defies description.

    But whatever motives we may attribute to the Obama Administration the outcome of its policies in backing the Arab Spring with influence, training and even weapons is indisputable. What Carter did to Persia, Obama has done to Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan and that’s not the whole of the list.

    Iraq will likely fall to Iran in a bloody civil war

    Iraq will likely fall to Iran in a bloody civil war, whether it will be parts of the country or the whole country depend on how much support we provide to the Kurds. Under the Obama Administration the level of support is likely to be none.

    Once the Islamists firmly take power across North Africa they will begin squeezing the last states that have still not fallen. Last month the leader of the murderous Enhada Islamists who have taken power in Tunisia stopped by Algeria. Morocco has not yet come down, but at this rate it’s only a matter of time.

    Syria remains an open question. The Muslim Brotherhood is in a successor position there and would welcome our intervention against the Assad regime. The Assads are no prize and they’re Iranian puppets, but shoving them out would give the Brotherhood yet another country and its sizable collection of weaponry.

    All that is bound to make 2012 an ugly year in its own right, especially if the Obama Administration continues allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to control its foreign policy. For all that Time and other mainstream media outlets continue splashing the same protest pornography photos on every page, the region has become an indisputably worse place this year with the majority of moderate governments overthrown and replaced, or in the process of being replaced by Islamist thugs.

    Carter can breathe a sigh of relief. In one year the Obama Administration has done far more damage than the bucktoothed buffoon did in his entire term

    Carter can breathe a sigh of relief. In one year the Obama Administration has done far more damage than the bucktoothed buffoon did in his entire term. After 2011 we can look back with nostalgia on the days when all that an incompetent leftist in the White House did was lose one country, one canal and a bunch of hostages. Things have gotten so bad that we can safely say that Obama on a good day is worse than Jimmy Carter on a bad day.

    Forget the usual end of the year roundups which focus on pop stars, dead celebrities and who wore what and when. None of that really matters. It didn’t matter four years ago. It certainly doesn’t matter now.

    2011 was not the year that Steve Jobs died, it was the year that any hope that we were not headed for a violent collision of civilizations died as Western governments helped topple the few moderates and let the worst have their harvest of power.

    Will that be considered a bad thing in the long run? It’s hard to say. What Obama did was speed up the date of an inescapable conflict. A day when it will no longer be state-supported terrorists setting off bombs, but when much of the Muslim world will look like Iran and will openly declare that they are at war with us. That was almost certainly bound to happen anyway, but bringing the day forward by ten or twenty years means that we will be less weaker than we might have been when it happens.

    Evil has a way of destroying itself, and in his own backward way, Barry Hussein may have helped save civilization

    Evil has a way of destroying itself, and in his own backward way, Barry Hussein may have helped save civilization. It will be a long time before we know for sure, but giving the Brotherhood what it wanted before they were ready for it, and before we are so completely crippled by the left’s political correctness that we are left helpless, may be our best hope.

    2011 was the year we lost Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia and many others, but it should not be the year that we lose hope. For all that the bad guys have been gaining and domestic prospects don’t look good, the bad guys have a way of destroying themselves. Give evil its head and it will kill millions, but it will also self-destruct in a spectacular way. Even when it seems as if we have run out of productive things to do, it is instructive to remember that there is a Higher Power in the destinies of men and that the aspirations of evil men to play at being gods eventually leads them to complete and utter ruin through their own arrogance.

    But 2011 is also a reminder that the world cannot afford another year of Obama. That it cannot afford the appeasement, the destructive policies or the post-American politics that have made his regime the worst administration in this country’s history. 2011 may be the year that we lost the Middle East, but let’s work to make 2012 the year that this country loses one Barack Hussein Obama.

    Daniel Greenfield
    Most recent columns

    Daniel Greenfield is a New York City based writer and freelance commentator. “Daniel comments on political affairs with a special focus on the War on Terror and the rising threat to Western Civilization. He maintains a blog at Sultanknish.blogspot.com.

    Daniel can be reached at: sultanknish@yahoo.com

  • The economic imperatives of Arab Spring

    The economic imperatives of Arab Spring

    By Kemal Derviş/Washington/Istanbul

    Tunisian families displaying photos of victims watch on TV screens the trial of former Tunisian Director General of National Security Adel Tiouiri, the former commander of the National Guard, Mohamed Lamine Abed and the former director general of the intervention brigade, Jalel Boudriga last week in Tunis. Former Interior Minister Rafik Haj Kacem and his staff are on trial on charges of either ordering or having shot and killed demonstrators during the December 2010 and January 2011 uprising
    Tunisian families displaying photos of victims watch on TV screens the trial of former Tunisian Director General of National Security Adel Tiouiri, the former commander of the National Guard, Mohamed Lamine Abed and the former director general of the intervention brigade, Jalel Boudriga last week in Tunis. Former Interior Minister Rafik Haj Kacem and his staff are on trial on charges of either ordering or having shot and killed demonstrators during the December 2010 and January 2011 uprising

    A year has passed since revolution in Tunisia and protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square toppled ossified authoritarian regimes and ignited a much wider – and still raging – storm in the Arab world. No one can safely predict where these events will eventually take the Arab people and nations. But one thing is certain: there is no turning back. New social and political movements and structures are emerging, power is shifting, and there is hope that democratic processes will strengthen and spread across the Arab world in 2012.

    Events in the Arab world in 2011 recall other far-reaching regional transitions, such as in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. There are differences, of course, but the upheavals’ sweeping and contagious nature is strongly similar to that of the revolutions that brought communism to an end in Europe. So, too, is the debate about the relative contributions of political and economic factors to the eventual eruption of popular protest.

    While the yearning for dignity, freedom of expression, and real democratic participation was the driving force underlying the Arab revolutions, economic discontent played a vital role, and economic factors will help to determine how the transition in the Arab world unfolds. Here, three fundamental and longer-term challenges are worth bearing in mind.

    First, growth will have to be much more inclusive, especially in terms of job creation. The youth employment-to-population ratio was about 27% in the Arab countries in 2008, compared to 53% in East Asia. Moreover, income inequality has widened, with the global phenomenon of increasing concentration of wealth at the top very pronounced in many Arab countries. Top incomes in these countries have resulted largely from political patronage, rather than from innovation and hard work. While Tunisia was an extreme case of a regime furthering the economic interests of a small clique of insiders, the pattern was widespread.

    That is why a knee-jerk, simplistic “Washington Consensus” prescription of more liberalisation and privatisation is inappropriate for the Arab world in 2012. There is a clear political need for a growth strategy in which inclusion is the centrepiece, not an afterthought.

    Neither the old statist left, nor the rent-seeking, crony-capitalist right had policies to respond to the yearning for inclusion. New political forces in the Arab world, Islam-inspired or social-democratic, will have to propose policies that do not just perpetuate rent-seeking capitalism or reliance on a discredited state bureaucracy. It will be necessary to harness grass-roots dynamism and entrepreneurial potential to achieve social solidarity and equity.

    While a truly competitive private sector has to be unleashed, the state must not be weakened but transformed, to become one that is at the service of citizens. Generous but targeted and performance-oriented social transfers, conditional on participation in health and basic education programmes, will have to replace the old, largely untargeted subsidies. Public development finance will have to focus on large-scale access to housing and a people-oriented infrastructure. All of this has to be achieved within a sustainable budget framework, requiring both funds and comprehensive administrative reforms.

    Accompanying inclusive growth, the second challenge is skill development, for which a performance-oriented education system must become a top priority. Many Arab countries have spent huge sums on education; the problem is that the return on these investments has been dismal. Arab students, for example, score well below average on international mathematics and science tests. Deep reforms – focused on quality and performance, rather than on enrollment and diplomas – are needed to transform the learning process and unleash the productivity growth that a young labour force requires.

    The third challenge, instrumental to meeting the first two, will be to strengthen regional Arab solidarity. Many outsiders underestimate or purposefully minimise the “Arabness” of the Arab world. But the revolutions of 2011 demonstrated that a strong sense of identity, a common language, and much shared history bind Arabs together, despite huge differences in natural-resource endowments, political circumstances, and average per capita incomes. How else can one explain that an act of revolt in Tunisia led to popular revolts from North Africa to the Arabian Peninsula?

    One implication of this is that the oil-rich states and leaders cannot expect to remain isolated and protected from the unfolding events. The future of the region is also their future; the transition that started in 2011 unleashed forces that cannot be stopped. But the transition can be more orderly, more peaceful, and less disruptive if states that command immense resources and wealth generously support the poorer countries – and back the reforms that all Arab countries need. Existing institutions with proven track records, such as the Arab Fund, can help, but this requires scaling up their funds dramatically.

    Prosperity and peace in the region will depend on thinking big and acting fast. The revolutions of 2011 are a historic opportunity for all Arabs. Making the most of it will require realism, courage, willingness to change, and a readiness to support change, particularly among those who have the greatest means to do so. – Project Syndicate

    ** Kemal Derviş is Vice-President of the Brookings Institution in Washington and Adviser to the Istanbul Policy Center at Sabanci University. He was Turkey’s Minister of Economic Affairs and is a former Executive Head of the United Nations Development Programme.

    via Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper – Opinion.

  • No Need for Secularism in Tunisia

    No Need for Secularism in Tunisia

    The leader of the Tunisian Islamist Ennahda party Ghannouchi says the closest example of their experience is Turkey, but they do not need secularism in Tunisia.

    The closest example to the Tunisian experience is Turkey but Tunisia does not need secularism, the leader of the Tunisian Islamist Ennahda party Rached Ghannouchi said in a recent interview with Hürriyet Daily News.

    “We need democracy and development in Tunisia and we strongly believe in the compatibility between Islam and democracy, between Islam and modernity. So we do not need secularism in Tunisia,” Ghannouchi said in an interview Dec. 23.

    After forming the new Cabinet in Tunisia two months after the country’s first free elections, Ghannouchi visited Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Prime Minister’s Office in Istanbul Dec. 23.

    After a meeting with Erdoğan lasting an hour and a half, Ghannouchi said, “We expect many things from Turkey. We expect our relations will strengthen and cooperation will increase for the common interests of both countries, because we believe the closest experience to Tunisia is Turkish experience. We share many common elements and we expect our cooperation will develop in all fields.”

    They also talked about the “main problems of the Muslim world,” Ghannouchi said. “Like what happened in Syria, in Libya, in Egypt, etcetera. and in the other countries where there are problems. We share many ideas on those issues.”

    Regarding secularism, “There are some different contexts between Tunisia and Turkey in this field. We respect the choices of our friends in Turkey and they respect ours,” Ghannouchi said. Erdoğan’s message during his speech in Tunisia did not involve secularism, she added. “Erdoğan has not talked about secularism in Tunisia; he talked about secularism in Egypt.”

    Ghannouchi also referred to the concerns over a radical Islamist sect called the “Salafis” in Tunisia. “Salafis in Tunisia is a new phenomenon. They do not express themselves in politics and they are minorities. They are part of our nation, they are citizens and they have the full right to express themselves as long as they do not use violence,” Ghannouchi said.

    ‘I guarantee women’s rights’

    Ghannouchi refused claims there are concerns amongst some Tunisian women about losing their previously gained rights. “Most of Tunisian women are convinced Nahda does not constitute any threat to their rights. Out of 49 women in the Tunisian assembly, 42 of them are Nahda members. So Tunisian women believe Nahda does not form any threat to their rights; I guarantee their rights,” Ghannouchi said.

    Ghannouchi said from now on their main aim would be realizing the goals of the revolution in Tunisia.

    Tunisia’s Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali unveiled his new Cabinet Dec. 22, two months after the country’s first free elections, and vowed to make job creation and reparations to victims of the ousted regime among his key priorities.

    The creation of a new government is a major milestone in Tunisia, following the popular revolt against Ben Ali that began in December 2010, and triggered what became known as the Arab spring; a series of uprisings across the Arab world that led to the overthrow of several veteran dictators.

    Saturday, 24 December 2011

    HDN

  • What Turkey Can Teach Egypt

    What Turkey Can Teach Egypt

    Can Egypt’s powerful, secular military take a page from Ankara and learn to get along with the country’s new Islamic parties?

    BY TOM HUNDLEY | DECEMBER 14, 2011

    turkeymilitary123053543pk

    In this year of upheaval in the Middle East, a barely mentioned story may mark one of the most important developments in the region.

    In July, the Turkish army’s top four generals resigned in what critics say was a misbegotten attempt to trigger a national crisis. The generals, led by Chief of Staff Isik Kosaner, seemed to be hoping that their dramatic departure would topple the country’s moderate Islamist government and restore the military’s primacy in Turkish politics.

    The story is what didn’t happen next. The generals’ resignation briefly roiled the waters of Turkish politics, but failed to overturn the civilian government. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan quickly reasserted control over the military brass, replacing Kosaner with a general of his own choosing. He then convened a meeting of the Senior Military Council, a high-level assembly usually co-chaired by the prime minister and the chief of staff. This time, however, Erdogan sat alone at the head of the table — sending a clear signal that the civilians were now in charge.

    The generals took a reckless gamble with the country’s stability, but fortunately for the Middle East’s largest and most successful democracy, they lost their bet. Instead of the expected crisis, the Turkish nation quietly bid farewell to 88 years of Kemalism — the founding ideal that put Turkey on the path of modernization and secularism — and the notion that the generals always know best.

    While vivid scenes of the Arab Spring were becoming YouTube staples across the world, Turkey’s ability to overcome this crisis in civil-military relations carries important implications for the entire region. The parallels are striking and the lessons instructive for Egypt, in particular, especially after the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory in the first round of Egypt’s parliamentary elections.

    Both Egypt and Turkey have long histories of domination by their military establishments, which in both cases have been the benefactors of generous U.S. support. Since the founding of the modern Turkish republic in 1923, the army has staged four coups, and up until 1989 all but one of Turkey’s presidents had come from a military background. In Egypt, the military has been in continuous control since 1952, when Gamal Abdel Nasser led a coup against the monarchy.

    When the crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square demanded the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, himself a former Air Force commander, it was the senior Egyptian military command that told him it was time to go — and then quietly seized power for itself. The so-called Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, headed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, promised to step aside once a new civilian leadership had established itself, but now seems intent on retaining the privileges it enjoyed during the Mubarak era.

    For Turkey, loosening the generals’ grip has been a long and fraught process. The civilians only began to gain an upper hand with the rise of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) — an offshoot of a banned, avowedly Islamist party that was nevertheless committed to bringing Turkey into the 21st century. The AKP quickly proved successful at maintaining its pious roots while also being democratic, open to the West, and — as it would turn out — surprisingly good at running the economy.

    via What Turkey Can Teach Egypt – By Tom Hundley | Foreign Policy.

  • U.S., Turkey, Even Israel, Have Role in Arab Spring

    U.S., Turkey, Even Israel, Have Role in Arab Spring

    Written by David Rosenberg
    Published Sunday, December 11, 2011

    ArabSpring

    So say observers, even as they warn the influence will be limited

    Countries outside the Arab Spring and looking in have a lot to contribute to the region’s progress to democracy, but they should be aware of the limits of their ability to predict how it will all end much less to steer events.

    That was the message of four speakers addressing the issue “The New Middle East: A Dream or a Nightmare?” at the Globes Business conference in Tel Aviv on Sunday.

    The turmoil that has swept through the region is driven principally by domestic forces and issues, but outside powers ranging from the West, to Israel and Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have a role to play in fostering democracy and economic development.

    “The West has a moral and strategic role to play, but so does Israel,” said Ghanem Nuseiba, the founder and director of Cornerstone Global Associates, a London-based strategy and management consulting firm. He said the key for ensuring that the Arab Spring created democratic societies is by ensuring economic development.

    Calls for freedom and democracy have captured the world’s attention, but the grievances that spurred rebellion in Egypt and elsewhere were rooted in poverty and unemployment. While the Arab world has a way to go to evolving high technology economies, it can learn from Israel’s experience. “The Arab world sees how Israel has used technology to develop its economy,” Nuseiba said.

    The U.S. sees its mission in facing the challenges of the Arab Spring in both fostering economic growth and democracy, said Dan Shapiro, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, at the conference. He admitted that there was no certainty that the forces of democracy would prevail, but insisted that helping to bring down autocrats – even those who had been reliable allies of the West – is in America’s best interest.

    The region’s dictators had justified their rule as a choice between the stability they imposed and progress. “Today the real choice is between reform and unrest,” Shapiro said.

    “The bottom line is that change in the Middle East and North Africa contain within it both risks and opportunities,” he said. “If these changes lead to true democracy… they can very much be in America’s national interest. But political transitions can be unstable and volatile – and they can be hijacked.”

    Nevertheless, the U.S. is undertaking direct economic assistance to Egypt and Tunisia, the two countries where regime transition is furthest along. The White House is working with Congress to create enterprise funds for new businesses and offer political risk insurance through the government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation. It is encouraging international agencies like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to help, too, he said.

    Shapiro said turned Nuseiba’s formula around, contending that democratic rule would not only create governments more favorable to the West and to Israel but foster economic development. “Democracies make for strong and stable partners, they trade more and they innovate more,” he said. “They channel people’s energy away from extremism and toward political and civic engagement.”

    Shapiro reiterated Washington’s view that Islamic parties cannot be kept out of the democratic process, but they have to respect certain values – rejecting violence, respecting the rule of law, freedom of speech and the rights of women and minorities. “We will judge the political actors in these countries not by what they say but what they do,” he said.

    “We must try to seize the opportunities, but we must undertake this with humility … the Arab future will be decided by the Arabs,” he said.

    Turkey was redirecting its trade and diplomacy toward the Middle East even before the Arab Spring erupted, but Yasar Yakis, a former Turkish foreign minister, warned that Ankara’s ability to influence events is constrained by its history. It stood aloof from the Middle East for some 80 years, so it does not have the expertise and experience that the West has in the region, even if Turks themselves better understand the Arab “mentality.”

    Moreover, the Arab world remembers Turkish rule from the Ottoman period “negatively” and is wary of any sign that Ankara is trying to wield too much influence. “Arab countries do not like interference from others in Arab affairs and Turkish interference is [regarded as] more sensitive than from other non-Arab countries,” Yakis said.

    He acknowledged that the West faces difficult dilemma of choosing between supporting old regimes that violate human rights and letting potentially hostile Islamist governments come to power through elections. But, Yakis said the West should come down on the side of change, agreeing with Shapiro that in the long run democracies are more likely to be stable, interfere less with their neighbors and, as open societies, become freer and more tolerant.

    “If elections in the Arab Spring comply with the minimum standards of modern democracy, it would not be fair to ignore the results,” he said. “Ignoring them would harm the leverage of the international community over these countries.”

    Israel Elad-Altman, a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Israel’s Herzilya Interdisciplinary Center, discounted the influence Turkey has as a role model of a country that has remained democratic and become increasingly prosperous economically under the rule of the Islamist Justice and Development Party.

    “Many people say the Arab countries should follow the Turkish example,” he said. “But their leading party isn’t really Islamist …Turkey has been secularizing for the last 80 years. Islam remains strong in the countryside, but secularism is strong, too. That hasn’t been the case in the Arab countries.”

    Elad-Altman gave a more pessimistic outlook on the Arab Spring, saying that Islamist parties are unlikely to moderate their anti-Western and anti-Israel stances if they come to power. He said he foresees an ideological debate that pits those saying that the goals of decades of struggle should never be jettisoned against those who say the imperatives of consolidating rule and the economy demand compromises, such as encouraging Western tourism.

    “It’s an open question which of these approaches will prevail, but I doubt we’ll see major ideological concessions,” he said.

    On the positive side, he said, the Arab Spring has strengthened the GCC, which has shifted from a passive political role into taking an assertive stance that is counterbalancing the influence of Iran.

    Another positive outcome is the weakening of Iran’s influence. The Shiite state had hoped to exploit the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq later this month to assert to its influence on its neighbor, creating a zone influence stretching across the region to President Bashar Al-Assad’s Syria and Hizbullah-dominated Lebanon and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

    But the unrest in Syria, now in its ninth month and showing no signs of letting up, has forced Iran to moderate its ambitions as it tries to shore up its ally in Damascus. “The Arab Spring has deal a major blow to the axis of resistance,” Elad-Altman said.

  • In Turkey’s footsteps

    In Turkey’s footsteps

    In Turkey’s footsteps

    The AK Party model of governance is a model for countries like Egypt where religious norms are in conflict with civil liberties

    • By George S. Hishmeh, Special to Gulf News

    4237077542Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    The rise of Islamists in some Arab countries, particularly Tunisia and Egypt, that have undergone significant political change in the course of landmark elections, has appeared to have somewhat alarmed leading western governments, who did not anticipate these results.

    Whether these results are final is too early to tell. Needless to say, the West is partly responsible for this surprise turnaround.

    In 1977, US president Jimmy Carter revealed to an audience at the University of Notre Dame as he was spelling out his new “human rights” policy, that “an inordinate fear of Communism … once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear”.

    Speaking at the American University in Cairo six years ago, Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state during president George W. Bush’s tenure, seemingly apologised that “for 60 years my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East — and we achieved neither”.

    Disappointingly, the US did not adopt a new or different line thereafter, still feeling comfortable with autocrats in the Arab world.

    But last week, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, until recently the director of the CIA, went on to urge Israel to “reach out and mend fences” with its neighbours, particularly Turkey and Egypt, underlining his concern about Israel’s growing isolation in the volatile Middle East.

    “I believe security is dependent on a strong military, but it is also dependent on strong diplomacy,” Panetta said in remarks at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “And unfortunately, over the past year, we have seen Israel’s isolation from its traditional security partners in the region grow, and the pursuit of a comprehensive Middle East peace has effectively been put on hold.”

    A day later, US Vice-President, Joseph R. Biden Jr, seemed to echo the new Obama administration line during a stopover in Istanbul on his way home from Iraq.

    During a lengthy meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Biden was reported to have urged the prime minister to repair Turkey’s “badly frayed” relations with Israel following Turkey’s attempt, aborted by the Israeli navy, to offer humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

    There were no public disclosures about any specific suggestions, now that Turkey has become a key American ally since its long-desired membership in the European Union has been shelved. Turkey is slowly emerging as a respected pace-setter for many neighbouring Arab states.

    Turkey’s involvement, seen as a step to assert its leadership in the Arab world, will open the way for Arab governments to follow the footsteps of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party), a centre-right political group which holds a majority of the seats in the non-sectarian Turkish parliament.

    Since it shares a long border with neighbouring Syria, Turkey has joined the ranks of the 22-member Arab League in combating the Bashar Al Assad regime.

    European, American and Turkish officials were reported to be confident that “Syria’s economic troubles could prove the undoing” of the Syrian regime, “which to date has managed to maintain the allegiance of the business elite”. Syria is known to be “heavily reliant on Turkey for trade, which more than tripled between the two countries to $2.5 billion in 2009, from $795 million in 2006,” reported the New York Times. “Before the recent souring of relations, it was forecast to reach $5 billion by 2013.”

    It is very likely the Turkish model would be an attractive one to follow in the Arab world, as seems likely in Egypt. Ahmad Tharwat, a professor at the University of St Thomas in Minneapolis and host in a local Arab-American community television programme BelAhdan told Suzanne Manneh on New America Media that religious differences have always been an issue in Egypt, “but always in a civil liberties context”.

    Furthermore, he said, the religious conflict perceived in Egypt today is less a product of the current revolution than it is “a remnant of the Mubarak regime”.

    George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com

    via gulfnews : In Turkey’s footsteps.