Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
Has anyone shown a correlation between OIF and recent uprisings against non-democratic governments in the Arab World?
Brother Bill,

It would seem to stand to reason that after dropping a trillion dollar rock into an oxbow lake waves from that event would travel to every point in the lake; I would argue that it’s still too early to say conclusively that that event has fully reconnected things (when using the Assyrian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, etc. as reference points) to the mighty multi-generational river that is globalization. IMHO Iraq, Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia are just a few of the interesting places to look to for hints.

Let’s consider three ‘substantive’ viewpoints from Iraq

Iraq’s last patriot, by Anthony Shadid, NYT, 4 February 2011

“We came in naïve about what the problems were in Iraq,” Gen.Raymond Odierno, the American military commander in Iraq, told me last August, a few days before he was to end his third tour. He had spent four years in Iraq. “I don’t think we understood what I call the societal devastation that occurred, we didn’t realize how damaged Iraq had been from 1980, in the Iran-Iraq war.” The list went on: Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the 1991 gulf war, international sanctions that crippled Iraq’s middle class. “And then,” Odierno added, “we attacked to overthrow the government.” The same naïveté affected American efforts to mold Iraqi politics, with its ethnic and sectarian divisions. “We just didn’t understand it,” Odierno said.
Maliki’s victory ended eight months of utter political dysfunction, and what have become Iraq’s key players were all represented in some fashion. “A big step for Iraq” is how an American briefing paper described the result. “A government that is made in Iraq.” Former American diplomats were less encouraged. Before it had all finished, Crocker offered a typically insightful prediction. “There will be a little for everybody, probably,” he said. “It’s going to be fairly inclusive among the elite. But the promises that are made, the deals that are dealt, are really not going to involve any promises or commitments to make life better for people in Iraq. That’s just not what the transaction is in Iraqi politics.”
In my first interview with Allawi, back in May, he offered a suggestion, with a laugh. “This is my advice to you — go and ask President Bush how Iraq is going to get out of this mess. Bush, Bush, your Bush, Bush Jr., you ask him. He’ll probably have the right answer. I think so. He introduced the de-Baathification, he introduced the dismantling of the army, he introduced the sectarian quotas in the Governing Council. He should know what he did — the process, how this process is going to move forward.”
I asked which was better — the Iraq of Saddam Hussein or the Iraq of today. He shook his head with the disdain of an expatriate. “The only difference is that we have this democracy.” He uttered the word with contempt.
I would argue that the OIF experience, good and bad, has raised the expectations of the hoi polloi, and as a result many of the changes resulting in some level of transparency & accountability (Al Jazeera style) at the Nahiya, Qada, Province, and National levels in Iraq are unstoppable, and will indeed continue.

Al-Maliki gives Iraqi officials 100 days to improve — or else, By Rebecca Santana, in the Washington Times on 9:53 a.m., Sunday, February 27, 2011

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq‘s prime minister, following a string of deadly anti-government protests, gave his ministers on Sunday 100 days to improve their performance or risk being fired.

The warning from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki came two days after thousands of protesters took to the streets across the country to demand better public services. It demonstrates the worries Iraqi officials have that protests here inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt could spiral out of control.
If we accept that Egypt is indeed the cultural vanguard of the Arab World, it’s interesting to think about the demographics of the country and who might be representative of the different viewpoints associated with a market segmentation analysis. Yusuf al Qaradawi (25 to 30 percent of the Egyptian populace is said to favor a Muslim Brotherhood derived vision), General Ismail Etmaan(Egyptian Army, Higher Military Council), Al Jazeera (New Media), and ‘Arab Youth’ (60 percent of the Arab region is said to be under 25 years of age) are part of the topology.

After Long Exile, Sunni Cleric Takes Role in Egypt By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, Published: February 18, 2011 in the New York Times

Sheik Qaradawi, a popular television cleric whose program reaches an audience of tens of millions worldwide, addressed a rapt audience of more than a million Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to celebrate the uprising and honor those who died.

“Don’t fight history,” he urged his listeners in Egypt and across the Arab world, where his remarks were televised. “You can’t delay the day when it starts. The Arab world has changed.”
Person in the News: the Arab youth, By Rould Khalaf, Published: February 25 2011 22:33, Financial Times

He is the young Egyptian who occupied Tahrir Square, and awakened a sleepy population. She is the young Libyan defying the madness and brutality of Muammer Gaddafi. He is the empowered Bahraini and Yemeni youth raising his voice in a resolute call on governments to listen to their people instead of oppressing them. Each revolt has drawn in swaths of its own society, but it is the young Arab who is the driving force; the unassuming leader. Whether in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen or Libya, the more established forces in society, including political parties, tribes and the military, have been followers, forced to jump on the bandwagon lest they too are left behind.
Middle East: Uncertain horizons, By Tobias Buck in Jerusalem, Published: February 23 2011 21:51, Financial Times

The real problem for the IDF, however, lies not so much in the human fallibility of senior officers but in their inability to formulate a coherent response to a changing security environment. That, at least, is the thesis advanced by Ron Tira, an Israeli military analyst and a former air force pilot. “We are now facing a new warfare paradigm by the enemy. The old approaches are not very useful, we need to come up with something new – and we are not there yet,” he says.

The threat today is not invasion or battlefield defeat. Instead, argues Mr Tira, Israel’s enemies in Iran, Syria, southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip have launched a war of attrition aimed at the “long-term erosion of the Israeli will and the long-term erosion of Israeli legitimacy”. The approach cleverly combines political and military elements, conventional and non-conventional warfare, and draws on the international community’s increasing frustration with Israel.
Citizens not serfs can save Saudi Arabia, By David Gardner, Published: February 27 2011 19:06, Financial Times

On his return from months of hospitalisation and recuperation in the US and Morocco, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was characteristically unstinting in his generosity. He lavished $36bn on his subjects, in pay rises and debt forgiveness, and to help them buy houses and start businesses. As munificence goes, this was princely. Whether it was politic is another question.

It might buy off whatever unrest is brewing underneath the kingdom’s thick layers of political, military and religious control. Or it may be perceived as the panicky response of an absolute monarchy to the wave of revolution unfolding across the Arab world; the rulers of neighbouring Bahrain offered their people a similar bribe but they took to the streets anyway. Yet King Abdullah’s decision to hose Saudis with money to pre-empt any revolt is certainly old politics in a new era – and unless it is followed by political reforms the king himself has timidly championed, the future of the kingdom must be in question.