The Middle East (general catch all)

[Tom Odom]

I am sure this will be warmly reviewed at AEI...

[Jedburgh]

CEIP, 4 Jun 08: Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: Restoring Credibility

The Bush administration’s effort to foster democratic transformation in the Middle East has not had a significant impact on Arab countries, which remain largely autocratic. After a brief period of ferment in 2004–2005, Middle Eastern politics has become stagnant again. Moreover, the Bush policy—never clearly defined, long on rhetoric, short on strategy, and fitfully implemented—has undermined U.S. credibility and will make it more difficult for the next administration to devise a successful approach to political reform in the region.

The new administration must devise a new policy. While it is imperative that the United States abandon the mixture of simplistic assumptions and missionary fervor of the last few years, ignoring the need for reform and simply supporting friendly regimes are not a viable alternative. Such policy will not maintain stability in a region that is transforming rapidly economically and socially, because stability will depend on the ability of regimes to adapt to change rather than cling to the status quo. Moreover, fewer countries now, and even fewer in the future, are willing to embrace the United States unconditionally: “Friendly to the United States” has become a relative concept at best. Thus, the United States needs a new approach toward regimes that are facing deep political challenges but do not see the United States as either a model to imitate or a reliable ally....

[Jedburgh]

CEIP, 17 Jul 08: The New Arab Diplomacy: Not With the U.S. and Not Against the U.S.

Many Arab countries traditionally aligned with the United States are showing increasing reluctance to follow Washington’s lead in addressing regional problems. This tendency toward an independent foreign policy is particularly evident among the Gulf countries. Even states that host major U.S. military facilities on their soil, such as Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain, consider U.S. policy in the region counterproductive and are forging a new diplomacy.

Gulf countries have refused to enter into an anti-Iranian alliance with the United States, and have chosen instead to pursue close diplomatic contacts with Tehran, although they fear its growing influence. They are trying to bring about reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah in Palestine, while the United States is seeking to isolate Hamas. They have helped negotiate a compromise solution in Lebanon, while the United States has encouraged the government to take a hard-line position. Yet, the new diplomacy of the Arab countries is not directed against the United States, although it contradicts U.S. policies.....

[Jedburgh]

USIP, Jun 09: Justice Interrupted: Historical Perspectives on Promoting Democracy in the Middle East

Summary

• Foreign affairs experts routinely use historical analogy to develop and justify policy. However, as professional historians have long noted, attractive analogies often lead to bad policies. Officials regularly choose analogies that neglect or distort the historical case they aim to illuminate. Nonetheless, history can be used effectively in international relations.

• To do so, practitioners must first recognize the difference between historical analogy and precedent. Historical precedent, drawn from the past of the region in question, is a safer guide to policy than historical analogy, which is based on comparisons to events in other regions. Because historical precedent is a self-limiting form of analogy restricted to a certain place, people, and time, it provides a better indication of how a certain society understands and responds to a given situation.

• The recent U.S. intervention in Iraq highlights the misuses of history: American leaders employed analogies to World War II to justify the invasion and to predict success in establishing a democratic regime after. These analogies proved to be a poor guide to nation building in the short term. In the long term, they have deeply aggravated U.S. relations with Iraqis and the rest of the Arab world.

• A more effective use of history would have been to refer to the precedent of World War I, a crucial moment when American policy could have supported indigenous Arab constitutional democracy—but, fatefully, did not.

• For the new administration, the Arabs’ experience of “justice interrupted” after World War I can still be a useful touchstone for promoting democracy in the region.1 This precedent alerts us that foreign intervention can spark a deep-seated and negative political reaction in the postcolonial Arab world and that reform in Arab politics must begin with respect for national sovereignty. It also reminds us that constitutionalism and the desire to participate in the community of international law are enduring values in Arab politics.

[pjmunson]

The Telhami poll is must reading for anyone who is considering American policy in the Middle East. It is also very depressing. Even on an interpersonal level, I found it very difficult to get to any reasonable middle ground when talking to Arabs in the region about politics. Our starting points as to what a reasonable middle ground should be are so different that it is very difficult to get to any common understanding on key issues. For instance, one might think that some shared perception of an Iranian threat could spur cooperation in the Gulf, yet even in that case, the polls show that Gulf Arabs do not share American concerns.

[tequila]

The 2009 Arab public opinion poll is out:

PPT & Key Findings.

Summary of Key Findings:

1. Attitudes Toward the President of the United States: Overall, 45% of Arabs polled have a favorable view of President Obama (50% outside Egypt), 28% are neutral, 24% have negative views. Remarkably, 79% of Saudis have a favorable view of President Obama and only 14% have negative views. Consistently, in all six countries, the negative views of the President are remarkably low.

2.Attitudes Toward the United States: The most important consequence of their favorable views of President Obama appears to be expressed hope for American foreign policy in the Middle East. After a few weeks of the Obama administration, a majority in all countries, 51% (59% outside Egypt) expressed hopefulness about US Middle East policy, 28% were neutral, while only 14% were discouraged.

3.Attitudes Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Unlike the case of the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese war, when most Arabs believed Israel lost the war and Hezbollah won, most Arabs polled believe that Israel was the biggest winner of the Gaza war in 2008-2009, and that the Palestinian people were the biggest losers.

4.Attitudes on Iraq: 65% of Arabs polled (compared with 61% in 2008) believe that if the US withdraws its forces from Iraq as planned by the end of 2011, Iraqis will find a way to bridge their differences. 72% believe Iraqis are worse off than they were before the Iraq war, but this is a decrease from 82% in 2008.

5.Attitudes Toward Iran: There are indications the criticism of Iran, particularly in Morocco and Egypt, is having some impact. 13% identify Iran as one of their two biggest threats (compared with 7% in 2008), and outside Egypt, 20% see Iran as one of the two biggest threats to them, compared with 11% in 2008.

6.Attitudes on Global Leadership: The attacks on Hezbollah’s leader Hasan Nasrallah, especially in Egypt and Morocco, appear to be having an impact. In an open question to identify the leader they admire most outside their own countries, only 6% identify Nasrallah (in contrast with 2008, when he led with 26%). However, he maintains solid popularity in Jordan (21%). The net winner is Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, who was identified as the most admired leader with 24% of those polled (compared with only 4% in 2008).

7.Media Trends: The use of the internet continued to grow with 36% stating that they use the internet at least several times a week and only 38% stating that they never use the internet (compared with 52% in 2008).

[Jedburgh]

The Berkman Center, 16 Jun 09: Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture and Dissent

This study explores the structure and content of the Arabic blogosphere using link analysis, term frequency analysis, and human coding of individual blogs. The authors identified a base network of approximately 35,000 active Arabic language blogs (about half as many as we found in a previous study of the Persian blogosphere), discovered several thousand Arabic blogs with mixed use of Arabic, English and French, created a network map of the 6,000 most connected blogs, and with a team of Arabic speakers hand coded over 4,000 blogs. The goal for the study was to produce a baseline assessment of the networked public sphere in the Arab Middle East, and its relationship to a range of emergent issues, including politics, media, religion, culture, and international affairs.