Thursday, March 14, 2002

Listen to the Kuwaitis March 11, 2002 8:40 a.m. What can we learn from the baffling stance of the Kuwaitis? "Those who were educated over here seemed to be the most virulently anti-American." "What can we learn from the baffling stance of the Kuwaitis? First, the past conduct of the United States counts for nothing in the present crisis. . . . Since there is not a single democracy or free media in the Arab Middle East, there is almost no chance that religious figures, politicians, academics, intellectuals, and average people can debate honestly the growing contradictions between Islam and the modern world — or Islam's need for Western expertise and the ensuing resentment that such dependency apparently incurs. Instead the success and power of the United States — and to a lesser extent of Israel — in Pavlovian outbursts become the cheap targets when venting Middle-Eastern frustration at internal economic failure, religious hypocrisy, government autocracy, and endemic cultural contradiction, whether in an impoverished Egypt or the affluent Gulf. If saving an entire people from extinction earns less than a decade's worth of appreciation, then nothing we do in the future will matter much either. In the same manner, we should assume that the billions of dollars that go to Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine to help 'moderates' bring not thanks for our largess, but rather contempt for our naiveté. It would be far more intellectually honest — and cheaper — simply now to allow them all to be the enemies that they wish to be rather than the friends they do not." "Second, a common theme of the Kuwaiti displeasure toward us is apparently the murderous Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . . . Mr. Arafat . . . quite vocally backed the Iraqi destruction of Kuwait. . . . In other words, the very peoples that the Kuwaitis now express solidarity with just a few years ago were celebrating their own demise." "But besides ingratitude and hypocrisy, there is also the larger and more metaphysical issue of Westernization that explains Middle-Eastern schizophrenia — the third rail upon which neither our own Arabists nor Middle Eastern 'moderates' dare tread. Kuwait possesses no indigenous tradition of consensual government, religious tolerance and diversity, secular rationalism, free speech and open debate, or class and gender equality — in other words, the entire cargo necessary for a humane and technically sophisticated culture." " . . . public opinion in Kuwait confirms that the root of anti-Americanism is not poverty (they are rich), not exploitation (they do not give oil away), not past grievance (we saved them), not purported solidarity with the Palestinians (whom they ejected), but a basic sense of umbrage and accompanying envy that grows with greater exposure to the West." " . . . the solution for our fickle friends in the Gulf is a long overdue accounting with the terrorist autocracy of Iraq and the implementation of consensual government in its place. . . . These are grim times when our very best Americans are dying in Afghanistan to stop Islamic fundamentalists from vaporizing thousands more of our innocent civilians. It is not the hour to mince words, back-peddle, or pretend about a Middle East that presently does not exist. Courting Kuwait in the present crisis would be like hosting Franco in Washington, D.C. during December 1941. We really are in a war about which our President has said that you are either for us or against us. What we are learning from the Kuwait people is that they prefer the latter. " ... [more] 1:20:18 PM  Google It!  comment  []

Surge of Arab unrest on horizon? March 13, 2002 1:00 a.m. Eastern "Driven by a burgeoning youth population, stagnant economies and the regionally unpopular U.S. war on terrorism, domestic challenges in many Arab states are nearing critical mass. . . . [Arab government] measures so far are half-hearted at best and will not resolve the underlying pressures nor halt a surge in popular unrest in the coming year." "Mounting social and economic pressures, combined with the U.S. hunt for al- Qaida, has made maintaining the status quo in the Arab world impossible. The added pressure of a U.S. war against Iraq could seriously destabilize several regimes in the region. . . . an explosion in popular unrest within the next year." "Washington's hunt for al-Qaida . . . the U.S. campaign is widely unpopular in the Middle East." "tension between frustrated and angry Arab citizens and their governments. . . . the tensions surrounding Iraq complicate an already explosive situation. . . . Arab governments are already feeling threatened, the most important being that the Arab world as a whole has missed out on the economic boom brought about by globalization. . . . many Arab economies remain sluggish and tied to extractive industries. Only Egypt and Jordan fall within the list of top 50 countries on the World . . . Global Competitiveness Index. . . . a population bulge combined with high unemployment is creating a pressure- cooker scenario across the board. More than 50 percent of the population in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria is under 25. . . . To counter the looming social problems and deflect the tension created both by the U.S. war against al-Qaida and the cooperation of Arab governments with Washington, many regimes now are taking wide-ranging and unusually proactive measures." "The Saudi example is only one of many. . . . Syria . . . Bahrain . . . Jordan . . . Egypt . . . Yemen . . . Lebanon . . . These reforms, measures and initiatives are meant to diffuse popular resentment. But most are little more than cosmetic. . . . Once it becomes obvious that these measures are insufficient, the frustration and dissent that prompted the changes will only resurface. . . . In the Arab world, such waves of protest are now on the horizon. Who takes advantage of them is the next question." ... [more] 11:12:58 AM  Google It!  comment  []

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