Who's to Blame? Posted by Michael Cohen

Shadi Hamid has a post yesterday that looks once again at the question of America's inherent goodness. As I think I've written more than I've ever wanted on this point, I instead want to focus on something else Shadi said - the notion that Abu Ghraib reflects "what hundreds of millions of other people think America is really about, and, presumably, this matters."

I certainly agree that it matters, but then Shadi takes this argument a step further by noting, "there is no good reason for the average Arab or Muslim to think that we are 'inherently good' or, for that matter, even just 'good' . . . Much of the misery they encounter on a daily basis is at least partly attributable to our policies."

It pains me to call out one of my fellow DA bloggers, but I'm sorry, this is not only inaccurate, its quite dangerous.

The notion that the United States is even partly responsible for "much of the misery" in the Middle East is indicative of a much larger phenomenon in the Arab world - a disturbing lack of accountability by some in the region to accept responsibility for the challenges in their midst. This type of buck-passing contributes significantly to the anti-Americanism that festers so dramatically in the Arab World and does nothing to solve the region's underlying problems.

I am not going to quibble with the notion that we support countries in the Middle East that are hardly paragons of democratic virtue. There is no question about this. Unfortunately, foreign policy is never as simple as supporting only good guys - there are plenty of shades of gray and unfortunately there are time when the US has supported regimes that undermine our values, but bolster our interests. I would like to believe that more often than not we have been on the right, or at least better side, but of course that has not always been the case, particularly in the Middle East.

Nonetheless, if we want to focus on the negative examples, we must also highlight the many places where American foreign policy has had a good impact. Are we willing to give any credit to the US for moderating the behavior of Middle East regimes and for attempting to influence them in a positive manner? Shadi cites nations such as Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria all of which continue to have dubious human rights records, but have certainly shown improvements in respect for human rights and political liberalization. Certainly, these nations have a ways to got, but they are far better than the ones we are not supportive of, such as Syria and Iran.

Moreover, are we willing to give the US any credit for actively supporting the growth of democracy in Afghanistan, working to broker peace between Israel and its neighbors and supporting democratic movements in the Gulf and Lebanon etc? It seems to me that in the years pre-dating the war in Iraq, we did as much as any great power to try to bring peace to the region.

Finally, this type of attack on US policy begs the obvious rejoinder: what is the alternative US foreign policy for the Middle East?

OPERATION BITE: More Than We Can Chew? Posted by Jeremy Broussard

A recent article on the Israeli-based DebkaFile reports that a third carrier group, the USS Nimitz, is steaming out of San Diego for the Persian Gulf next week to join the John C. Stennis and Eisenhower carrier groups already in the Gulf.  The possibility of a third carrier deployment was first reported in Newsweek over a month ago.  If the Eisenhower does not rotate back to the States--and many have speculated that it won't--this will represent the largest U.S. naval air presence in the Gulf since the 1991 Gulf War I. 

Many have speculated that the current captive/hostage standoff between Iran and the U.K. might be the spark that ignites a conflict between the U.S./U.K. and Iran.  While a limited air campaign might ostensibly be over freeing hostages (how this accomplishes that is anyone's guess), more than likely it would be used to 1) degrade Iran's uranium enrichment production; 2) destroy its ballistic missile sites; and 3) and destroy or disrupt Iran's command and control over its Qods Force and other paramilitaries operating in Iraq.  According to several media sources quoting a Russian military intelligence source, this air campaign is code-named Operation Bite and is scheduled to begin sometime around April 6 (Good Friday . . . **sigh**, what a way to bring in Easter Season).

This might not be the first U.S.-Iranian head-to-head confrontation, as this week's Time reports on a still-classified skirmish between U.S. and Iranian forces on the border with Iraq six months ago.

But, as we used to say in the Army, the enemy gets a vote too.  So how would Iran respond?  We've already seen crude oil prices spike in the past few days over the hostage standoff.  What if Iran intentionally limited the supply of crude, either through reducing production or taking military action in the Strait of Hormuz?  What if it responded by ballistic missile attack against Israel or Baghdad?  What if it just amped up the paramilitary support in Iraq, or launched terrorism and sabotage missions in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere? 

In other words, what is our desired goal in this proposed airstrike and does it outweigh the potential costs?

Our VP's Limited Vocabulary Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Last weekend, VP Cheney gave a speech at the annual conference of AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. Routine, but no less appalling, he gave a speech that all but accused the Democratic party of plotting to commit treason and kill American soldiers. Jeffrey Feldman over at Frameshop analyzed the speech and found that it contained the following words:

war - 31
terror - 26
enemy - 12
attack - 7
battle - 7
kill - 6
destroy - 4
bomb - 3
weapons - 2
death - 2
murder - 2
violence - 2

No wonder it has been called the Murder-Death-Kill talk. Will someone explain to me how this is good for Israel?

Why so secretive? Posted by Rosa Brooks

The LAT reports that

U.S. defense and intelligence officials today rolled out what they said was solid evidence that Iran was providing bombs to target U.S. and Iraqi troops and accused Iran's supreme leader of orchestrating the smuggling of such devices over the Iran-Iraq border. At a briefing held under unusually secretive conditions here, the U.S. officials, who refused to be identified by name and did not allow cameras or recording devices inside a conference room, offered up tables laden with hardware and a slide show of documentation that they said bolstered the U.S. contentions of Iranian involvement in Iraqi unrest.

Why the secrecy?

Your Morning Quiz Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Slate has a quiz up, "Are You an Anti-Semite:  Take This Test and Find Out," which manages to be both knowing and funny about the various sore points Rosa raised last week, administering tweaks across the spectrum.  I was delighted to see that someone had found a way to shine light without adding heat... until I got to the end and saw that the author had felt it necessary to use a pseudonym.

Could Congress stop a war with Iran? Posted by Rosa Brooks

Writing in today's LA Times, Larry Diamond and Leonard Weiss argue that recent "administration moves could presage an air attack on Iran's nuclear facilities." That's not good, because such an attack "could leave us even more politically isolated and militarily overstretched.... inflame the region, intensify Shiite militia attacks on our soldiers in Iraq and stimulate terrorist attacks on Americans and U.S. interests worldwide."

So... can Congress-- which so far can't even manage to pass a non-binding resolution opposing further troop build-ups in Iraq-- stop such an attack? Weiss and Diamond argue that Congress should at least try:

Congress should not wait. It should hold hearings on Iran before the president orders a bombing attack on its nuclear facilities, or orders or supports a provocative act by the U.S. or an ally designed to get Iran to retaliate, and thus further raise war fever.
****
The law should be attached to an appropriations bill, making it difficult for the president to veto.

Of course, this President has a tendency to use what we might call secret pocket vetoes: that is, the use of executive signing statements to announce his intention of ignoring the law. But Weiss and Diamond thought of that already, and have a proposed response (which, unfortunately, would be post hoc in nature):

If [the President] simply claims that he is not bound by the restriction even if he signs it into law, and then orders an attack on Iran without congressional authorization for it, Congress should file a lawsuit and begin impeachment proceedings.

They said it, not me!

Separating Ahmadinejad from Iran Posted by Suzanne Nossel

I am not anything close to an expert on Iran, but like anyone else with an interest in how to rehabilitate US foreign policy, I've been reading and thinking more about this rising Persian power in recent months.  Its pretty obvious that a resolution that reintegrates Iran into the international system and normalizes relations with the US, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will have to be at the very least sidelined.   This is so whether such a rapprochement were to occur prior to the realization of Iran's nuclear ambitions, or afterward as part of an effort to get Iran to behave responsibly as a nuclear power bound by traditional rules of deterrence. 

This and many other pieces explain why Ahmadinejad won't be part of the solution.   He is a regional power-monger whose appeal is predicated on rejecting any concession to the West.  While experts seem to agree that among the most important offerings the US could make in the context of a diplomatic resolution to the Iran standoff is a blanket security guarantee, Ahmadinejad's fiery personae could never abide the idea of Iranian security being beholden to a pledge from Washington.  Ahmadinejad's hold on power rests in his revolutionary populism and his fearless willingness to stand up to the US and the world.  The minute a diplomatic compromise is reached, his raison d'etre as a leader is destroyed.  On the other side, the fear Ahmadinejad has sown in Israel and the West means that even if he were to transform himself in a moderate direction, the rest of the world would never trust it.

While Flynt Leverett and others have made a compelling case that the best resolution to the Iran standoff is a grand diplomatic bargain, Ahmadinejad will need to be jettisoned before such a breakthrough is possible.  This doesn't mean that without Ahmadinejad a deal is guaranteed or even likely.  Far from it.  Anti-Americanism, Islamic radicalism and nuclear aspirations do not stop with Ahmadinejad.   But there are longstanding signs that other leaders in Tehran leaven these beliefs with more pragmatic calculations of the country's political and economic interest.

In Iran's convoluted power structure, Ahmadinejad's status as President means less than it would in a Western democracy.  Just how much sway and staying power he has are matters of debate.  His obsession with bucking international pressure to stem Iran's nuclear program has come at the expense of delivering on promised economic reforms.  Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini has the power to oust Ahmadinejad, and there are rumors that relations between the two are increasingly strained.  Student protesters have decried Ahmadinejad's denunciation of the Holocaust, arguing that it is discrediting Iran.  Its hard to know how much to make of these seemingly promising signs, but given the alternative of a potential armed conflict, it sure seems worth trying to build on them.

All this speaks to the difference between rogue leaders and rogue states, a distinction that strikes me as warranting more attention and analysis than we've given it.

Counterinsurgency warfare as military malpractice Posted by Rosa Brooks

Edward Luttwak of CSIS has a piece in this month's Harper's called "Counterinsurgency warfare as military malpractice." Luttwak begins with a critical analysis of the Army's new counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24 DRAFT, written by David Petraeus, among others, then moves on apply this to Iraq. He concludes that the new counterinsrgency manual's "prescriptions are in the end of little or no use and amount to a kind of malpractice. All its best methods, all its clever tactics, all the treasure and blood that the United States has been willing to expend, cannot overcome the crippling ambivalence of occupiers who refuse to govern, and their principles and inevitable refusal to out-terrorize the insurgents...."

Read it (it's not available online-- you'll have to buy the magazine! Sorry).

Is Criticism of Israel "anti-Semitic"? Posted by Rosa Brooks

The American Jewish Committee is showcasing a new report called "'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism." The report, by Alvin Rosenfeld, rightly draws attention to the dismaying resurgence of anti-Semitism in many parts of the world (including increasing media stereotypes-- especially in the Islamic world-- of Jews as "a treacherous, conniving, untrustworthy, sinister, all-powerful, and inplacably hostile people," and an upsurge in assualts and vandalism against Jews in Europe and elsewhere).  But then it goes a step further, claiming that "one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism [is] the participation of Jews alongside it, especially in its anti-Zionist expression."  Singled out for criticism are a wide range of Jewish scholars, writers, and activists, from Adrienne Rich and Tony Judt to Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen.

The report stops short of calling Jews critical of Zionism anti-Semites, but only barely; in an interview with the New York Times, Rosenfeld, the author, was coy: "Jews thinking the way they’re thinking is feeding into a very nasty cause.” 

On some level, this is the Mearsheimer-Walt debate redux; we've also seen this played out to some extent in the very public attacks on Human Rights Watch and Tony Judt. But with this new report, the American Jewish Congress is upping the ante still more.  I have written elsewhere about baseless claims that Human Rights Watch's coverage of the Israeli-Lebanon conflict was "anti-semitic," but this latest controversy threatens to send my blood pressure through the roof. Here's what I think:

1) "Anti-Semitism" is dislike of, or prejudice against, Jewish people because of their supposed "essence." It's hatred of human beings for no reason except that they are, or appear to be, "Jewish," leaving aside for now the complex question of what it means to be "Jewish."

2) There is plenty of real anti-Semitism in the world. It's nasty, scary stuff, and it needs to be condemned, promptly and vociferously, by people of all faiths and traditions. 

3) Being critical of Israeli policies is not the same as being "anti-Semitic," any more than criticism of US policy should be construed as "anti-American."

Social Network Analysis and War with Iran? Posted by Rosa Brooks

John Robb of Global Guerillas links to an interactive map designed by social networking expert Valdis Krebs. The map gives a visual display of the links and disconnections between the various states and non-state actors acive in the region (extremely useful for those of us who have trouble understanding things we can't picture!). As Robb notes, the social networking map "provides a visual representation of the open loop system" that may be "leading us to war" with Iran:

Here's a systems view of the escalating tensions between the US and Iran and why it will likely result in war. The current situation is open loop -- an open loop system is one where all participants are regularly adding inputs without any consideration of the output/outcome. Feedback loops, like direct diplomatic contact or the use of international bodies/mediators to adjudicate disputes, that could typically serve to mitigate further deterioration have been intentionally turned off by those that want this conflict to occur. As are result, inputs from allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia (both fearful of growing Iranian power), impetus from guerrillas/militias forcing sectarian conflict, fears over ongoing nuclear development, mutual military preparation for conflict, and a need to assign blame for escalating counter-insurgency failures continue to drive it forward. At some point in the not too distant future, unless the feedback loops are reinstated, the system will inevitably produce an outcome that will force a war.

Robb notes that some analysts believe the Karbala incident (in which gunmen posing as US troops captured and then executed several real US troops) bears the hallmark of Iran's al Qods force, and worries that if this turns out to be the case, such incidents will set of the kind of "escalating tit for tat" that triggered Israel's war with Lebanon.

I have previously predicted that Israel and/or the US will end up taking military action against Iran (in fact, I predicted that it would happen by last September! I'm delighted to have been wrong about that, at least, and hope I'm wrong about all of this).  I continue to fear that we are heading into a military confrontation. The Administration's anti-Iran rhetoric has only escalated, despite increasing calls-- from within as well as without the Republican party-- for direct negotiations on both nuclear development and Iraq. We recently sent a second carrier group to the Persian Gulf, jut to remind Iran "that we haven't taken any options off the table," as Cheney put it.

Meanwhile, the Iranians are doing their bit to escalate as well: however intended, yesterday's statements by Iran's ambassador to Iraq seem certain to cause alarm both in Washington and in other parts of the Middle East.

It's beginning to feel a lot like early 2003, in the build up to the Iraq War.

Muslim Brotherhood to Form New Political Party Posted by Shadi Hamid

The (Egyptian) Muslim Brotherhood, the region’s most influential opposition movement, announced just a few days ago that it will be forming a political party. The MB has flirted with the idea since the early 1980s. They probably would have gone ahead and formed one long ago, if there was any reason to think the government would legalize it. The Egyptian government, however, refuses to legalize parties it doesn’t like, which can lead to years (decades?) of administrative limbo. Al-Wasat, a moderate religious party that included both Muslims and Copts, has been waiting for approval from the “political parties committee” for more than a decade. Who’s to say they won’t wait another?

This is a good example of how government policies create a political environment entirely unconducive to moderation. Forming a political party would have forced the Brotherhood to modernize their political program and make their internal organization more transparent. All that aside, this announcement is quite important because it, for the first time, makes explicit – and in a sense formalizes – the distinction between the political and religious. The Brotherhood will continue to operate as a religious organization, focusing on social work, service distribution, charity work, and preaching. The political party (which will almost certainly include a significant number of non-Brotherhood members, and perhaps even a number of Christians) will be focused solely on political affairs. This may mark the relative “secularization” of the Brotherhood. This is not to say that the new party will be “liberal” or that it will no longer be explicitly “religious.” Such an outcome (which would likely please American observers) is unlikely nor would it be particularly desirable since that would leave the Brotherhood’s right flank open for electoral poaching and eventually a more radical group might fill the gap.

I also want to quickly point to a recent statement from the Brotherhood’s general guide, Mahdi Akef, who is an interesting character and prone to weird outbursts when you ask him anything having to do with Israel (as I did when I met with him in August). People often complain that the very existence of religious parties presents a threat to democracy. It is worth noting that Akef, in the statement, emphasizes a point which I’ve read and heard from many Brotherhood leaders over the last three years:

If the so called religious method means monopolizing truth and ruling according to a divine right and infallibility of rulers and monopolizing power, and discriminating among citizens according to creed, doctrine or religion, these are things which are rejected by Islam and accordingly rejected by us.

The Future is Green... and union made in the midwest Posted by Heather Hurlburt

How cool is this?  A driving tour of Midwestern sites where unionized American workers -- earning middle-class American wages and benefits -- are building state-of-the-art environmentally responsible vehicles.

And -- can I brag -- they're driving my car.  No, literally.  My UAW-employed husband lent our UAW-built hybrid Saturn VUE to the UAW-organized Ecology Center to make the drive.

Check out the trip blog to see whether they're coming near you, find out about what real-life American workers are doing right now to decrease our dependence on oil... and what you could do to encourage auto manufacturers to give them more cutting-edge work, and us more driving choices.  (And if you go out, let me know how our car is doing!)

Designer Jihad Posted by Zvika Krieger

In the Palestinian territories, civil wars are fought with guns. In Iraq, civil wars are fought with bombs. In Lebanon, civil wars are fought with...graphic design?

Soon after Hizballah began its recent altercation with the governing March 14 coalition in Lebanon, bright red billboards appeared across the country with the words "I Love Life" (in English, Arabic, and French). On streets. At the airport. In malls. At protests. On bumpers. The slick red signs were everywhere. The "I Love Life" campaign, which is sponsored by March 14 supporters, is attempting to capture the frustration of average Lebanese people that are sick of their country being racked by war -- both externally, as in the war with Israel, and internally, as in  the sectarian fighting that has lasted for decades. They just want to live normal lives -- such as not have their favorite shopping arcade in downtown Beirut shut down by endless Hizballah sit-ins. And perhaps more pointedly, the implication of the campaign is that opponents to March 14 (cough, cough, Hizballah) do not love life (which, to be fair, may be true for groups that glorify martyrdom and drag innocent civilians into unnecessary wars with Israel). 

But remember, this is war, so the opposition can't just let March 14 rub their love of life in Hizballah's face. So this week has brought the appearance of a counter ad campaign, parodying the "I Love Life" billboards by adding the words "In Multicolor," "In Dignity," or "For Everyone" scribbled on the bottom. The implication is that the ruling March 14 coalition, while having led the campaign to kick Syria out in 2005 and restore Lebanese independence, is also a sectarian movement that excludes the Shi'a. I have to say that it's a pretty creative way to counter the simplistic message of the "I Love Life" campaign with a message that really makes you think. Yes, Hizballah has created a state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon. Yes, it is the only militia in Lebanon that remains armed. Yes, it is a proxy for Iranian and Syrian interests in Lebanon. But it also has some pretty legitimate complaints. Beneath all the bombastic labels of "terrorists" and "Islamo-fascists," it's important to remember that Hizballah represents a disenfranchised Shi'a majority in Lebanon that has been historically dominated by a Christian presidency and then a Sunni premiership.  The only durable solution to the current political deadlock in Lebanon will have to address this underlying power imbalance between Lebanon's sects.

So kudos to "the opposition" for such a creative comeback and kudos to both sides for reminding us that not every civil war in the Middle East has to be fought with guns and bombs.

(Photos after the jump)

For All The Realists: Your Tax Dollars in Action... Posted by Shadi Hamid

As Zvika points out in his latest post, there's been some renewed talk about (maybe) putting pressure on the Egyptian government. Unfortunately, such talk is not coming from the "end-tyranny-now" Bush administration, which continues to show that it isn't - and never was - serious about democracy in the Middle East. For those such as Flynt Leverett, who think that "realism has become the truly progressive position on foreign policy," this may be a welcome development. No more messianism, mission, and - for millions of Arabs - not so much to hope for.

I hope someone can tell me how "progressive" this video is. Be forewarned that this is a clip of Egyptian authorities sodomizing a man with some kind of rod. It's one of the most disturbing things I've seen in awhile. Democracy Arsenal readers will, of course, know that the US gives the Egyptian government upwards of $2 billion of aid each year. But will Democrats have anything to say about our "friends" in Egypt using our American dollars to sodomize political opponents? Don't hold your breath. It would also be nice if one of the prospective Democratic nominees for 2008 calls out Bush/Condi on their hypocrisy.

Time for Pharaoh Posted by Zvika Krieger

It was the summer of 2005, and the air in the Middle East was full of hope. Lebanon had just ousted the Syrians, Iraqis were voting, and democracy was on the march across the region. In Egypt, where I had been living, the Kifaya reform movement was taking to the streets and Mubarak was allowing multi-party elections for the presidency. Even the US was hopeful, dispatching Condi to Cairo to pressure Egypt to follow through on its promises for reform. Well, we all know how this story ends. Lebanon and Iraq fall into chaos, and Egypt remains the same old authoritarian state we’ve grown to love.

It seems like the time has passed for the US to pressure Egypt on reform—both the presidential and parliamentary elections in Egypt have come and gone, and politics seem pretty much dead until Mubarak decides to pass on the throne to his son, err, retire. Not so, argues Michelle Dunne is a new paper from the Carnegie Endowment. Dunne, whom I met in Cairo last year while we were both attending the annual convention of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, has a reputation for being quite the insider on the Egyptian political scene. According to her report, the Egyptian government is in the process of introducing a slew of new legislation that would give more power to the parliament, allow political parties more breathing room, and finally abolish the dictatorial Emergency Law. While I wouldn’t get too excited just yet—the Mubarak regime has a long track record of dashing expectations—Dunne makes a convincing case that now may be precisely the right time for the US to return its attention to Egypt.

The larger issue at hand is America’s relationship with the “Axis of Good”—the benevolent dictatorships in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia that have gotten a free pass on reforms because of their generally pro-American behavior. Isn’t the central tenet of the Bush democracy doctrine that repression breeds terror, regardless of how Bush-kissing these dictators are? I don’t want to underestimate the value of having these leaders “on our side,” but there is a middle ground between militarized regime change and absolute negligence. Remember that most of these regimes are on our team because it benefits them—whether it’s countering the rise of Iran or preventing the spread of militant Islam to their own countries. Even just a little bit of nudging on reform could go a long way with these countries—and might be a way for us to do something good for democracy in the region.

UPDATE: Looks like Condi did not take my advice: Rice Speaks Softly in Egypt, Avoiding Democracy Push (NYTimes)

A new Cold War? Posted by Zvika Krieger

Yale professor Ian Shapiro has published an interesting op-ed that argues for the revival of containment as a post-Iraq strategy for the Middle East. Drawing on parallels from the Cold War, he predicts that the dysfunctional states of the Middle East will implode of their accord, and our interventions are only making things worse (while saddling ourselves with a massive military burden).

While I am hesitant to swallow his full equivalence of communism and radical Islamism, the point in the article that most resonates for me is his analysis of why containment worked: "So long as the USSR did not stage a military attack, containment...would guarantee security." In other words, containment necessitates patience. Americans had patience for it during the Cold War because they realized that there was not an immediate threat to their security. So that forces us to ask the question today: Are we, as Americans, really in that much danger of attack? Or, more precisely, how much safer have we become as a result of our interventions in the Middle East?

I would argue, as are an increasing amount of security analysts, that our interventions have made us less safe. In the most immediate sense, they have put our troops in the line of fire. But in a larger sense, they have provided a common enemy for secularists and fundamentalists -- America -- and are thus preventing the internal clashes (or what some might call "soul searching") that are necessary for actual democracy to emerge in the Middle East.  We have to remind ourselves that the war against radical Islamism -- like the war against communism -- is much more of an internal battle for the countries of the Middle East than it is our battle. While we may have felt some its affects on 9/11, we can't let that distract us from the fact that the war can only be won by the people of the Middle East themselves. 

So there are two lessons from the Cold War: We only hurt ourselves by intervening, and that we will only have the confidence not to intervene when we acknowledge that there is little direct threat to American security. We can't use the abstract threat of "terrorism" to justify hasty and aggressive action in the Middle East anymore. We have to recapture that Cold War confidence that authoritarian states will collapse as a result of their own dysfunction, and that "the best way to spread democracy is to demonstrate its superiority" rather than "ramming [it] down people’s throats."

The Lebanese Speak Posted by Zvika Krieger

Returning to Lebanon after spending three weeks in Sri Lanka, I was surprised to see that the anti-government March 8 coalition was still camped out in downtown Beirut. Their 38-day protest has brought the city to a standstill, and even the “escalated” actions they announced yesterday will probably do little to break the stalemate between them and the governing March 14 coalition. One of the primary reasons for the current conflict is that both sides claim to represent a larger segment of the Lebanese people since this summer’s war with Israel. It’s tough to tell who is right.

Zogby International has released one of the first exhaustive studies of Lebanese public opinion since the war, which sheds some light on the current conflict. According to the poll, opinion on the major issues facing the Lebanon seems to universally divide along sectarian lines—with the Shi’ites on one side and the Sunnis, Christians, and Druze on the other. This helps to dispel Hizballah’s claim of broad-based support for their pro-Syrian, anti-government coalition.

In case you were fooled by Christian leader Michel Aoun’s alliance with Hizballah, the poll proves that Lebanese Christians remain among the most pro-Western and pro-American segment of the country’s population. The Druze continue to be the most consistent source of US support in Lebanon -- they are the only group in Lebanon that still supports US efforts to spread democracy in the region and, interestingly enough, they would rather be ruled by Condoleeza Rice than Ahmadinajad, Saddam Hussein, or King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Condi ’08, anyone?

Thomas Turns on the Arabs Posted by Shadi Hamid

The surest way to lose your street cred with the Arab/Muslim community is to say anything remotely positive about Thomas Friedman. This has always been a mystery to me, since I’ve generally found TF to be pretty fair, balanced, and insightful. More importantly, it seemed like he had a genuine empathy for the Arab people, their hopes, tragedies, and dissapointments (a lot of those).

In any case, some of my friends began to suspect I was a “sell-out” when I started quoting Friedman a couple years ago. They would look at me with worried, wary eyes: “Shadi, what’s going on buddy? You okay?” Partly because I believed it and partly because I was being contrarian, I would passionately hail From Beirut to Jerusalem as the single, best book on the Middle East ever written (well, it isn’t, but it’s damn good). I met Friedman for the first time in September at a reception hosted by the British ambassador. We talked a bit about whether or not Hamas could or would moderate. I was quite impressed by what he had to say.

In any case, I’m starting to get worried about Tom. Maybe my friends had a point after all. His latest column on the "rules" of Arab politics is one of the most cringe-worthy things I’ve read in recent memory. For starters, I share Matt Yglesias’s confusion about what this metaphor could possibly mean:

Any reporter or U.S. Army officer wanting to serve in Iraq should have to take a test, consisting of one question: “Do you think the shortest distance between two points is a straight line?” If you answer yes, you can’t go to Iraq. You can serve in Japan, Korea or Germany— not Iraq.

I think he’s saying either that Arabs are irrational or that nothing is as it seems in the Middle East. Let’s hope it’s the latter. But it gets more offensive, with gems like this:

Rule 3: If you can’t explain something to Middle Easterners with a conspiracy theory, then don’t try to explain it at all - they won’t believe it…

Gone is the empathy, that’s for sure. Of course, Friedman knows better then to peddle inane generalizations such as these, but he’s angry, frustrated, and, like many of us, feels betrayed by the own sense of hope he had, not long ago, that maybe – just maybe – things were beginning to change in troubled Arab lands. I read somewhere yesterday that “hope is always driven by fear.” I’m not sure this is correct. I hope it isn’t. Sometimes I wish I was a pessimist so I wouldn’t always get disappointed by reality. Maybe this is why we liberals get depressed easier, because we really do believe that people can change, that life can change for the better, that great things are in fact possible. But reality bites and things never quite go as planned. Republicans (and realists) realize this, which is why they seem to have an easier time of reconciling themselves with the disappointments of life, love, and politics.

The War on Ramadan? Posted by Shadi Hamid

Writing from Egypt, Zvika Krieger has an interesting piece in TNR about the commercialization of Ramadan (Islam’s holiest month), and the “Islamist” attempt to safeguard its “purity.” As long as you're not too conservative, Ramadan in Egypt is good fun: a lot of parties, eating/gorging, hanging out with friends and family, and, more generally, doing as little real work as possible (Egyptian bureaucrats have notoriously short working days that become even shorter during Ramadan. I remember reading an article which claimed that the typical Egyptian bureaucrat averages 7 minutes of actual productivity per day).

Anyway, this is a fun passage:

A 50-inch flat-screen television overhead plays music videos of the Killers and Nine Inch Nails, while waiters weave aimlessly around the booths. As the sun dips below the Nile, a Red Hot Chili Peppers video is unceremoniously interrupted--the guitar solo replaced by a solemn, baritone voice. "In the name of Allah, the most merciful," it begins in Arabic. Selected verses from the Koran are recited over stark images of pilgrims in Mecca. Within minutes, the Red Hot Chili Peppers return.

While it’s nice to think that the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Koran are, in fact, compatible (and I suspect they are), it's also evident that there's a bit of cultural schizophrenia going on here. Contradictions abound. The West is both hated and loved.

This past summer, when I was in Egypt, I went to the beach with my cousins and some of their friends. It was a posh, exclusive resort, reserved for Egypt’s secular elite, a way for them to escape the dirt, dust, and depression of Cairo. It was a parallel universe designed to feel like, well, a parallel universe. My accented Arabic, while steady, belied the fact that I was the lone American in the group. One day, a couple of them were letting off some steam about the Israel-Hezbollah war and praising Nasrallah as some kind of Arab Christ figure. After I cast doubt on the purported wisdom of Nasrallah and his self-serving provocations along the Israeli border, the conversation soon shifted, inevitably, toward a discussion of America, "the Jews,” 9/11, and a variety of nutty conspiracy theories. Few things amaze me, because I’ve heard most of it before, but I always get angry when thoroughly Westernized Egyptians whose whole way of life is shaped by their love of American culture, start saying that they’re happy that 9/11 happened or that “we deserved it.” Then there was one interesting character who cited Syriana and Lord of War as evidence that 9/11 was an inside job, with a straight face no less.

Dispatches from an Angry Taxi Driver Posted by Shadi Hamid

Since I came back from Cairo nearly two months ago (where I was on a research trip), I’ve tried to take a break from the vicissitudes of Egyptian politics. Well, the Vanity Fair piece I referenced two weeks ago reminded me of a similarly disturbing exchange I had with a taxi driver in late July. This was one of those encounters that captured for me all that I dreaded about the Arab world. Afterwards, I sat down and typed up some of my impressions of the conversation. I wasn’t planning on posting this, but I decided that I should, in order to shed some more light on the crucial question of how political distortion leads to moral distortion:

(From July 2006). Sometimes, I learn more about Egypt from taxi drivers than I do from professors and politicians. Before I meet with some of the more prominent figures in Egyptian or Jordanian politics, I can usually predict with relative accuracy how they’ll answer each one of my questions. Occasionally, they will surprise me, and it’s those moments that I wait for as an interviewer (recently a Muslim Brotherhood MP, speaking mostly Arabic while interspersing bizarre references to B-list American movies, used the F-word to make a point I didn’t quite understand). Taxi drivers, though, almost always surprise me. Today, I had one such moment. The driver was pretty much spewing out nuggets, so I had to take out my trusty jot pad and take notes. He looked at me with measured incredulity. No one here cares about taxi drivers. I suppose he was taken aback by the fact that some random American researcher was hanging on his words. It would be tough for me to reconstruct the conversation I had. His facial expressions, that calm look of utter disgust on his face mixed with equal parts frustration and anger captivated and disturbed me all at once. 

We got to talking politics. He painted a bleak portrait of the economic, political, moral, social, cultural situation in his country (it’s hard to separate these things in the Arab world - everything’s part of the problem).

- Well, what’s the solution to the mess? I asked knowing quite well that there was no answer.

- He paused: …An earthquake (zilzal) that would wipe [most of] Cairo out. And then we could maybe start from scratch.

- But a lot of people would die, including friends and family? I countered.

- We’re already dead. Do you call this life? I would prefer death.

Silence followed. When he said that, I looked at him. It wasn’t only that he was angry. For this was a different kind of anger, a kind unique to a troubled region. I couldn’t tell where his anger ended and his resignation began. It’s always frightening to watch when you catch a glimpse, however fleeting. His spirit had been broken and his dignity wrested away. His complaint wasn’t that the government was corrupt or brutal or that it was mismanaging the economy. No, it was something more fundamental, basic, and, thus, much harder to solve – “all we ask is that they treat us like human beings,” he told me. It was a simple request but one that could not be granted.

Waiting for Futouh Posted by Shadi Hamid

Issandr el-Amrani reports that prominent Muslim Brotherhood moderate Abdel Menem Abul Fotouh was scheduled to speak on a panel at NYU a few days ago. Surprise, surprise, Fotouh was not able to attend. He, apparently, was denied entry into the US. As a result, the audience had to endure the predictably aimless interjections of several non-experts. I think Peter Bergen is great, but he is expert on Al-Qaeda, not an expert on the Brotherhood.

I can’t believe I actually have to make points which are (or should be) so self-evident to even the most unintelligent of observers - but if we want to understand political Islam, then we have to actually listen to what Islamists themselves say. This doesn’t mean that we have to agree with them, support them, or like them. But, considering that the Muslim Brotherhood will, notwithstanding acts of God, come to power in Egypt sooner or later, we should do our best to understand them before we get caught by surprise 10 or 20 years down the road. This is yet another example of how alarmist fears of political Islam coupled with a senseless visa policy damage our strategic perception of Islamism and render us unable to anticipate or pre-empt policy dilemmas.

I interviewed Futouh at length in late July, while the Israel-Hezbollah war was going on, and he had much to say that, I think, would be of interest to US policymakers, if only they’d listen. He is part of the Brotherhood’s moderate “faction,” a faction which grows smaller and more embattled – the not-so-surprising result of the Bush administration’s needlessly polarizing approach to everything Middle-East related. The moderates within the Brotherhood are trying to modernize their organization and prepare it for the give-and-take of democratic politics, but they are having a hard time of it. The deteriorating situation in Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon, and exponentially high levels of anti-Americanism contribute to an environment that makes being a “moderate” increasingly precarious. But, then again, because we don’t let people like Futouh into our country, we would have no way of knowing that.

Black Coffee Posted by Shadi Hamid

An article of mine on the US policy and the failure of Arab democracy is out today on Qahwa Sada. Qahwa Sada ("Black Coffee") is a new "blog-journal by Middle East experts" edited by Marc Lynch, aka Abu Aardvark. Check out the blog manifesto here. It's a great idea and hopefully it will catch on in the blogosphere. Here's an excerpt from my piece:

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?

Read the whole thing here.

Abu Aardvark's Puzzle: The Stickiness of Autocracy Posted by Shadi Hamid

Marc Lynch (aka Abu Aardvark) poses the question of why Arab autocracies have proven so durable, seemingly immune from the winds of reform? After all, weren’t we talking about the blossoming, blooming, burgeoning “Arab Spring” just last year? As Lynch notes:

Many of the things which [USC economist Timur Kuran] expected to spark this bandwagon have in fact now happened:  the Iraq war toppled Saddam, the post-Hariri Lebanese protests drove out the Syrians, some brave activists began demanding change (Kefaya), Arab satellite TV broadcast it all widely.  But Arab regimes look as entrenched as ever. That has to be something of a puzzle. 

Of course, Lynch is goading us a bit here. It’s really not as mysterious as it sounds and I’m sure Abu Aardvark is well aware of how Spring turns to Summer.

Here are three considerations which may help clarify the matter, the first of which should be obvious to even the most unseasoned observer:

1. US policymakers cannot pretend to be puzzled at the Arab world’s “democratic deficit,” because they are a big part of the problem. Despite all the fanfare to the contrary (i.e. the sweeping Wilsonianism of early 2005), the Bush administration continues to actively lend economic, military, and moral support to some of the region’s most stalwart dictators, including those in Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. Yes, it’s a long list. Well, then, why do we support these dictators? Because, apparently, or so we’re told, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. We’re afraid that Islamists will come to power through democratic elections. So we opt for sham, façade, imaginary      democracy. With that said, the “Islamist dilemma” is not an easy one to resolve and there are legitimate concerns about how to handle it. I’ve tried to address this here, here, and here.

2. The existence and strength of political Islam is also an important factor from the standpoint of Arab domestic politics. In Eastern Europe and Latin America, the primary cleavage between regime and opposition was economic. However, in the Middle East, religion is the primary cleavage (i.e. Islamism vs. secularism) and this fact complicates matters quite a bit. 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 cases, a matter of life and death, as it was during the fated Algerian elections of 1991. The zero-sum nature of Arab politics makes democratic compromise that much more difficult.
   

Here’s another way of looking at it: guaranteeing regime actors that (after they are voted out of office) their private property and Swiss bank accounts will be protected is one thing. Ensuring that their very way of life will not be “affected” is altogether another. Rich people can still live rich under a leftist regime. The “bourgeois” lifestyle, on the individual level, will not be affected in any significant way. An Islamist-led regime, however, will initiate at least some changes which would have direct bearing on the private sphere (i.e. family law, private status law, women’s issues, artistic expression, alcohol consumption). Generally, people are more able to reconcile themselves to changes in public policy. The private sphere, on the other hand, is often seen as “untouchable.” Understandable fears of future Islamist intervention in “cultural production” may, then, provoke relevant regime actors to act in ways that are not necessarily in accordance with their rational self-interest. A good barometer of this is the, I suspect, uniquely Arab phenomenon of secularists and liberals warning that they will “leave” if Islamists come to power.

Despair and its Aftermath Posted by Shadi Hamid

I just read a fascinating, if despairing account of the tragedy known as modern Egypt in Vanity Fair, a magazine which, despite its glossiness, has some of the best political coverage out there today. If you want to understand why Egypt (and, by extension, the Arab world) is a powder keg, I suggest you give it a read. It is a tragic but familiar story of the humiliation of life under autocracy and how such humiliation can push people over the edge, to say and do dangerous things. The article is a bit long, so here are the most affecting parts:

Where Farouk still nursed a flickering hope for something better, Ashraf, his elder, had given up. If angrier than any other Egyptian I'd met, Ashraf also seemed to personify a facet of the Egyptian personality I'd long sensed lay just beneath the surface: the rage of a people living in a state of near-constant humiliation.

Some of these humiliations come with life under a dictatorship—the corruption, the petty harassments—but others are specific to Egypt. In the land of one of the world's most fabled ancient civilizations, the average Egyptian now struggles to get by on less than $1,000 a year. About the only opportunity for most Egyptians to economically advance is to labor as indentured servants for their far richer Gulf Arab cousins, or to obsequiously cater to the foreigners in their midst...

"Look at me," Ashraf said. "I feel like I'm 70. I feel like I don't have any future. Not even 1 percent of my dreams have come true. If I had a chance to do something, I'd take up a gun. It's the same life for me whether I live or die."

And then this:

[Farouk’s] ultimate dream, though, was to win the American-visa lottery. Every year, the U.S. awards some 50,000 work visas around the world, and this was the fourth year in a row that Farouk was applying...

For some minutes, Farouk rhapsodized about what his life would become if he won the lottery, how it would answer all his dreams. "Because I know in America I would be a great success. Everything would be wonderful for me then." After a short time, though, Farouk seemed to reflect on just how improbably small the odds were of this happening, and grew more solemn.

"You remember my friend Ashraf?" he asked. "He didn't tell you this, but last year he got an Iraqi visa. He wanted to join the jihad—as a fighter or as a shaheed [martyr], he didn't care—but so many Egyptian men have gone there that they have closed the land routes. To go to Iraq now, you first have to fly to Syria, and he didn't have the money for that."

It sounded like some bad joke, a guy so down on his luck he couldn't even get himself killed, but then Farouk continued in a soft voice.

"Sometimes I think maybe I should do that. They talk about it a lot in the mosques, about all the young men going there. I think I'm too soft to be a fighter, that it's not in my spirit, but I don't know … If I could go and kill some Americans before I die, then maybe my life would have had some meaning."

Iraq in the Arms of Iran Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Plenty of progressives have gone quiet on Iraq, tired of wasting words and ink on advice that's consistently ignored, and genuinely confounded by how to untangle the disastrousw results of Administration policy.

The plot thickens even further with today's reports of tightening security ties between Baghdad and Tehran.  The US remains mired in a dangerous and uncertain mission in Iraq in an effort to buttress that country against the influence of terrorists and extremists.  But even as we do so, Iraq is embracing the government of the regions most dangerous proliferator and most open antagonist of the United States. 

So one of the primary outcomes our Iraq mission seeks to avoid is happening under our nose.  The US is protesting that these growing ties are having a destablizing effect on Iraq by empowering Shiite militias, but the Iraqi government does not care.  We're in no position to argue that Iraq need not turn to Iran for security, since the manifest reality is neither we nor the Iraqi armed forces can provide it.

Meanwhile our own senior military personnel are arguing in public over whether troop levels in Iraq are adequate.  After the NY Times and Wash Post reported a senior military intelligence officer saying that more manpower was needed to contain the violence in Anbar province, the best his superior could come up with was that current troop levels were adequate for the goal of training Iraq's security forces, and that trying to combat the insurgency was outside the scope of their mission.  If that's the best we're able to do, no wonder Iraq is turning to Iran.

After rounds of consultations with Middle Eastern leaders who agreed that the Iraq invasion was a disaster but were divided on whether or not we should leave (Iran, not surprisingly, offered to help show us the door), Kofi Annan pronounced that the US is now in a position where "it cannot stay and it cannot leave."   This is pretty much how the Bush Administration seems to look at it:  they won't beef up the mission to a point where it has a fighting chance of containing the insurgency, and nor will they pull out.   

What Kofi Annan left out is that the only thing worth than either deciding to stay and positioning the US with adequate troops for possible to success or deciding to leave, is declining to make any decision at all.

The Danger and Promise of Democracy Promotion Posted by Shadi Hamid

I’ve been getting some interesting responses to my American Prospect essays (1,2) on the future of progressive foreign policy. In a spirited rejoinder to my piece (amusingly titled "Against Democracy"), Spencer Ackerman of The New Republic criticizes my "fetishization of democracy.” Even though I don’t think he intended this as a compliment, it does, I must say, have a nice ring to it. (My fetishes aside, Ackerman's article is useful contribution to the debate, and I hope to respond to his points after I sufficiently digest them).

Heather, also yesterday, touched on what I think are some critical questions regarding my suggested move toward a “democracy-centric” foreign policy.  Heather asks: “why has the democratization project been mostly unsuccessful in the Middle East…?”

This assumes that there was, in fact, ever, a real democratization project, not just in words but in deeds. The Bush administration’s dramatic shift in pro-democracy rhetoric was never accompanied by sustained policy changes on the ground. For a brief three or four month period in early 2005, Bush did, to his credit, put significant pressure on President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and a couple other repeat offenders. But, soon enough, the realist temptation became too tempting even for the self-anointed anti-Scrowcroft of our time. Well, then, why the reversal?

This brings us back to what I consider to be the fundamental dilemma for American policymakers – they want democracy but fear its outcomes. For too long, we’ve tried to avoid the question, get around it, or, worse, pretend it doesn’t exist. Instead of supposing that there is some mythical, silent Arab liberal majority that is just waiting to unleash its electoral potential, let’s try to ground our idealism in a fact-based assessment of Arab politics. As I point out in my article, Arab liberals have virtually no grassroots support in the Middle East. And as for “pro-American Arab liberals,” those don’t even exist. Mainstream Islamists, on the other hand, are as powerful as ever (at least partly because the Bush administration’s horrendous foreign policy has made gratuitous anti-Americanism such an easy sell). So, yes, Islamist groups will come to power if there are free elections. It’s going to happen whether we like or not. And it already has in Iraq, Turkey, and the Palestinian territories (and is likely to happen in Morocco next parliamentary election).

What we need, then, is a coherent policy toward political Islam.

Going it Alone In Iran Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Michael Signer asks the question:  if one of the primary objectives of US foreign policy is to exemplify conduct that causes other nations to want to emulate America's example and follow its lead, what is Washington to do in cases where most of the world declines to back us? 

The answer, of course, depends on why the world isn't with us:  is it because our motives are questionable, our intelligence faulty, our objectives unrealistic, our methods inappropriate, our plans half-baked?  Or is that other countries - because of their own economic or political interests, cowardice, indifference, inertia or a combination thereof - won't subscribe to a policy that has genuine merit?  The distinction makes all the difference.

All this seems may soon be tested over Iran.  The LA Times' Maggie Farley framed the question well in a piece yesterday:  if the US ends up forced to sidestep the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran, will Washington's doing so be a sign of weakness or of strength?

A bit of background:  Over the last few days, Tehran has opened a heavy water plant, and launched a sub-to-surface missile test, all days in advance of an August 31 UN deadline for a cessation of their uranium enrichment activities.  All signs indicate that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has no intention of heeding the UN's demands.

Washington now faces a dilemma.  The crisis in Lebanon only underscores the breadth of Iran's regional ambitions and the efficacy of their proxy network.  The one thing foreign policy experts of all persuasions agree on is that the foremost threat to U.S. security is nuclear weapons in the hands of a rogue or terrorist state.   Thus far, Ahmadinejad seems unwilling to slow down his nuclear march, meaning that waiting out the threat - essentially the Clinton Administration's approach to Iraq and one that, in retrospect, looks better and better - may not be an option here. 

But, if the US must act, will we get the international support we need, and - if not - why not, and then what?

The War Within Islam and How We Can Help Fight It Posted by Shadi Hamid

I attended a rather interesting sermon (or khutba) this past Friday at George Washington. It was a refreshing change of pace from the oratory, at once dicactic and incoherent, of Friday sermons in Egypt and other Arab countries (I just got back from Cairo last week).

At the end of the khutba, the imam will ask God for a variety of things and the congregation is expected to respond “amen” to each supplication or dua. In Egypt, I would have to listen closely so as to avoid saying “amen” to the anti-American, anti-semitic dua that are pretty much par for the course even in those countries that are supposedly at “peace” with Israel and have close relations with the US.

In any case, the prayer leader at GW on Friday was making a distinction between “human nature” and “Islamic nature.” Human nature, he said, is when you are nice to those who are nice to you. His argument was that “Islamic nature” – whatever that might be – is a cut above and takes things even further, that Muslims are supposed to respond with kindness, understanding, and tolerance even to those who mistreat them. He used examples of the Prophet Muhammad’s dealings with the Meccans (who tried to kill him and his companions) to illustrate the point.

I told a friend about this and she said it sounded a bit “Christian.” Maybe. Whatever it sounded like, it sounded good. This is the kind of message that European governments need to promote within ghettoized Muslim communities that find themselves increasingly isolated and alienated, particularly in Britain, France, and the Netherlands. As I argued last year in the Christian Science Monitor after the July 7^th London attacks, we must tell young European Muslims that whatever grievances you might have, the answer is not radicalism, but rather peaceful participation in the democratic process and engagement – instead of withdrawal – from mainstream European society. Not only is this the sensible approach, but it is the Islamic approach, one that the Prophet Muhammad himself would have advocated if he was alive today.

Within the Islamic tradition (like any other tradition), one can find that which supports violence and intolerance and that which repudiates it. In today’s war of ideas, we must take the peaceful precedents in Islamic history and amplify and communicate them to a larger audience. This is something Muslims themselves in Europe and the Middle East can and must do more of. The political context, however, is not conducive to such moderation and this is where US policy can either help or hinder the situation. Unfortunately, today, with the ensuing mess in Lebanon and Hezbollah’s disturbing rise in popularity, Muslim liberals and progressives will find it more difficult to promote a moderate message.

Policy Tips from the Armageddon Lobby Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Now, as I child I attended a Christian church that left me with quite a nice impression of Jesus and Christianity as a religion. Maybe its because my church worried just as much about the here as the hereafter. With that in mind,  I'd sure like to be at this week's Heritage Foundation event: Conflict with the West: Religious Drivers and Strategies of Jihad  in the hopes of getting some insight on our own homegrown armageddon policy planners. 

The blurb promises that the speakers will look at how:

the use of apocalyptic rhetoric for motivation of followers is not easily distinguished from the real expectations and practical plans of radical leaders

Its no secret that the Bush/Rove team relies on the religious right to elect Republicans. Today's LA Times reports on Evangelicals seeking to sign up a new flock of GOP supporters in states with crucial November races.

I hope the IRS reads the LA Times. But where this election strategy meets policy is where I get really nervous. Two items: the latest Seymour Hersh article on the administration's support of Israel's air campaign against Hezbollah as a demonstration experiment for Iran, plus the news that the Bush White House has met repeatedly to discuss Middle East policy with religious-right leaders.  Specifically, they've met with Christians United for Israel CUFI, whose founder, Richard Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West.

Sarah Posner at alternet has a splendid piece up about this trend.  Where are the guffaws from the majority of liberal American Jews about this clearly one-sided "partnership"? Of course, there will be little room in the rapture-train for them unless they renounce their religion and become fundamentalist Christians on command.  Little room for people like me, too, I imagine, with our warm-fuzzy visions of Jesus and all that peacemaking blah blah.

A Few Modest Proposals Posted by Heather Hurlburt

While everyone's catching their breath post-cease-fire, here are a few initiatives I'd like to see:

1.  A bi-partisan initiative to rebuild Lebanon.  Lebanese-American GOP Senator John Sununu and Democratic Rep. John Dingell (whose district includes one of the biggest Lebanese communities in the US) should jointly take the lead in directing the State Department to open the floodgates of not just humanitarian assistance but real aid in rebuilding all the infrastructure Lebanon just lost, to help put its economy and tourism industry back on track.

1a.  Public diplomacy around a bi-partisan initiative to rebuild Lebanon.  That's a greta example of a substantive policy that might go some tiny way toward repairing the pr disaster this conflict is for us in the Arab world.  Democracy Arsenal's favorite Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes should be up on the Hill full-time trying to make it happen.

2.  Charles Krauthammer explains it all to you.  I want the conservative columnist and his neo-con friends, especially Dick Cheney, to tell me why it's good for right-wing Israelis and their American supporters to criticize their government's conduct of the Lebanon war but unpatriotic for US Democrats to criticize our government's handling of the Iraq war.

3.  Come to think of it.  Perhaps some of our readers and bloggers who live in the region will  correct me, but it sure looks from here like the Israelis are doing an excellent job of having a fierce, existential debate about the use of military power and the threat they face while not actually weakening their ground position in any way.

4.  And one for the home front:  could Tom Mazzie at MoveOn.org please check the authorship of his talkingpoints before suggesting that progressives write letters to the editor telling their fellow Americans how much less safe we are than before 9-11?  Last I recall, that's Karl Rove's playbook.  That stimulus of fear is well associated with conservatives, and as Rove has said over and over this year, it'll work... for conservatives. 

Well, enough dreaming on a sunny day.  Back to work, all of you.   

After the Ceasefire: Winners and Losers Posted by Shadi Hamid

So we have a ceasefire. As the ashes settle, we do, indeed, have a “new Middle East.” Some quick, initial observations:

1. I had thought that Hezbollah would come out of this conflict the biggest loser. If the US and Israel had approached things in a different way, then that might have happened. But it didn’t. Hezbollah comes out as a winner, not because it won, but because it wasn’t defeated. The Arab bar for military victory is, as Michael Totten notes, so “pathetically low” that almost anything is a victory. Perception is more important than reality and the perception among 300 million Arabs was that Hezbollah heroically resisted Israel’s advances.
2. Despite Hezbollah’s PR victory, its military capabilities and strategic reach are undoubtedly diminished. It will take years for it to rebuild its arsenal, if it ever does.
3. Southern Lebanon has been reduced to rubble. Someone is going to have to fill the vacuum and, most likely, it will be Hezbollah. 
4. One of things fueling Hezbollah’s growing popularity both inside and outside of Lebanon was a feeling of Arab solidarity in the face of the Israeli offensive. Without pictures of innocent civilians dying flashing on their TV screens and as emotions hopefully cool down, Arab support for Hezbollah will diminish (but likely remain quite high). 
5. Ehud Olmert finds himself in the unenviable position of selling and explaining a war that almost no one in Israel - either on right or left - considers a rousing success. Olmert's conduct over the course of the conflict provides innumerable lessons on "how not to prosecute a war against a non-state actor."
6. The US, as is almost always the case with the current administration, comes out of this conflict a loser, but, then again, this should not be a surprise to anyone.

You Say You Got a Resolution: What's Next in Lebanon Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Tomorrow morning the UN negotiated ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will enter into force.  This represents a long-awaited milestone, and yet leaves open as many questions as it answers.  We've talked before about how these much-heralded international agreements sometimes wind up doing little more than paper over differences that just burst back open as deeply as ever.  Will that happen here?  Here are some signs to watch for in the coming days and weeks:

1.  What will Israel do with its forces currently in Lebanon - The idea behind the ceasefire resolution is that Israeli troops will end offensive operations, and gradually withdraw as international peacekeepers and the Lebanese army take their place.  But with intense political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after an operation that's seen at best as a partial victory, will the post ceasefire period be sufficiently free of provocation that Israel's guns stay quiet, and will the international force be mobilized quickly enough so that the motions of withdrawal can start?

2.  Will Hezbollah comply with the resolution's requirement that it disarm south of the Litani River - Sheikh Nasrallah has said he will comply with this only once Israel leaves Southern Lebanon (including Shebaa Farms) and is replaced by the Lebanese army and an expanded UNIFIL.  A dispute over this point led to impasse at a Lebanese cabinet meeting this morning, because Israel will not leave with an armed and ready Hezbollah still unchecked in what is to become the buffer zone.  If not solved, this gap could yield a stand-off that quickly turns violent.

3.  Will the Lebanese government be able to coopt Hezbollah into rejecting violence - As long as Hezbollah remains a guerrilla state-within-a-state in Lebanon, even if there's a semblance of partial disarmament in the south, the organization will be poised to regroup and restart its attacks.  The only way to stop that is for Hezbollah to disband, or to transform into a legitimate political party.  Some suggest that a package of incentives - control over ministries and resources, perhaps - might lure Hezbollah into such a conversion.

4.  How quickly does an international force get mobilized - There is no agreement on when the 15,000-strong international force will be deployed, nor who will lead it.  France, Italy, Turkey and others have said they'll contribute troops.  The UN, largely for reasons outside the organization's direct control, is notoriously slow in getting peacekeepers out into the field.  Having witnessed the US's experience in Lebanon in 1982 and in Iraq, other governments will naturally