Middle East

Iraq is going to cut Awakening salaries from about$300 a month to $250. That’s a 17% cut. The US can either step in and cover the difference or wait to see if there is any fallout.

The Brookings Institution’s Middle East Youth Initiative is following the developments of the global economic whatever-we-are-calling it in a series called Food, Fuel and Finance: How Will the Middle East Weather the Global Economic Crisis? Slipping Oil Prices: is the Oil-Rich Middle East Prepared?, the first installment, offers a brief history of oil revenues over the last 20 years in the Persian Gulf. It’s conveniently arranged in Q and A format, which helps if you are someone who (like me) feels a strong temptation to let their eyes glaze over when they start to see a series of words like “revenue” and “inelastic demand” one after another. Politics, however, always capture my attention, and I want to draw attention to one crucial point that the report makes in this arena:

For these countries, bringing their economies to a soft landing may prove much easier than managing the downsizing of expectations without a political backlash. Leaders in the region have offered scant warning to their citizens regarding the end of the petro-boom. Even after the global financial crisis had begun, mega projects were being announced in the GCC as if to defy the reality of what the global downturn will do the region’s economies.

The Gulf countries’ generous spending has kept citizens relatively happy - textbook rentierism - and as spending is curtailed because of falling oil prices, there will be a backlash in public sentiment.

The one bright spot in all of this is that hard times make the case for policy reform more persuasive. The oil rich countries have a list of policy options before them, including reorienting education away from mere seeking of formal degrees toward acquisition of skills, transforming the search for government jobs into a search for careers in the public or private sector, and giving the youth a greater voice in shaping their own destiny.With the oil feast all but over, the time has come to set the incentives for the region’s youth to become tomorrow’s productive middle class.

This may be true. The relative weakness of the Gulf states’ militaries make total-police-state-mode to stifl uprisings unlikely. (Although this weekend’s piece in the New York Times magazines drew some clear lines between the Emirates and Iran, and this wouldn’t be first time the United States stepped in to contain a popular uprising against a government they consider convenient). It’s naive, though, to think that threatened and weakened Gulf governments’ first responses will be to open up their political systems on their own. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak doesn’t seem to have any trouble maintaining a corrupt and undemocratic regime on a shoestring budget. Bashar al Assad is still around. Ali Abdullah Saleh might control only a small corner of his country, but he’s still president. Seeing political reform as an inevitable consequence of economic failure sounds to me like a “birth pangs of the new Middle East” argument. (To be clear, I don’t think that’s precisely what Salehi-Isfahani is arguing here). He’s right that the case is more persuasive when the governments can no longer purchase their citizens’ loyalty. And the Gulf countries may arrive at that conclusion on their own. Then again, some may not. I would approach any framing of a global economic meltdown as an “opportunity” skeptically.

On 11/5, Secretary Rice will start a four-day trip to Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Palestine. I guess she’s decided the term “lame duck” won’t apply to her. Although, I know that I expect to hear about nothing but the presidential election over those four days; we’ll see whether that’s the case for her.

Mona Makram Ebeid, former member of Parliament and now distinguished lecturer at the American University of Cairo, describes her experience at the Democratic National Convention in Al Ahram. In sum:

To conclude, the convention, as much as I enjoyed being there, was more about a sensation — euphoria — than a speech tackling the country’s actual problems that meet with inattention because they pose disagreeable choices in this intensely polarised election atmosphere.

She essentially endorses Obama anyway.

Sean McCormack, State Dept. spokesman, declines to confirm both the possibility of alternatives to a SOFA and the intelligence demonstrating Iran’s meddling. He “is right in the middle of the spectrum, which says that we are continuing to work on the SOFA.”

Iraq and the US have yet to reach consensus on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Maliki’s summary of the sticking point is as follows:

On Saturday, Maliki outlined a somewhat different position. “If Iraqi and American soldiers move in an operation that is pre-agreed by both sides, then they have immunity unless [an American] commits a deliberate crime during the operation.”

“The sticking point,” he said, “is about if the American soldier was not on a mission and commits a crime that is accountable to the Iraqi judicial system, whether small or big. The Iraqi judicial system should have jurisdiction over the American soldier. This is the point of difference.”

Via. As of January 1, 2009, US Forces will be operating in Iraq illegally, so time is of the essence. Furthermore, Maliki has essentially dismissed Britain’s presence in the country as extraneous. These developments make the domestic squabbling over whether a timeline is appropriate seem slightly misguided; ultimately, the President may be accountable to other authorities on this issue. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t blame the current stalement on Iran or, alternately, Barack Obama. (Marc Lynch’s refutation of the latter here).

Update: New intelligence lends credence to the possibility of Iran acting to stifle SOFA negotiations.

… according to Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte. Is this going to be like the provincial elections, where they agree to not agree yet about the hard things, and then sign off on the decisions that were reached months ago? Since the contested presence and status of military contractors is such a sensitive issue, for obvious reasons, that seems unlikely; that also makes it more likely that “close” isn’t all that close. More synthesis from the LA Times.

For a thorough discussion of the issues that regulating contractors presents from a US standpoint, and the urgent need for some regulation, you can listen to the podcasts of this event, Privatizing Defense: Blackwater, Contractors, and American Security, by searching for “Center on Law and Security” and scrolling throught the podcasts to find the Blackwater ones. I was at this event, since I worked at the Center at the time, and I assure you the panels are well worth a listen.

Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus received the Distinguished Service Award from the State Department today for their work in Iraq on counterinsurgency/diplomacy/reconstruction/everything. The Distinguished Service Award is the highest honor that State can give a person. The remarks speak to the partnership that Crocker and Petraeus managed to forge between State and Defense in the Green Zone and of course made much of the recent drop in violence.

The LA Times reminds us that the work ahead may in fact be even harder, as the backbone of Iraq’s society, the middle class, is almost gone and those still in the country are first in line to leave.  Reconstruction will not be an easy task if the Iraqis skilled in utilities provision, urban planning, education and other crucial services are no longer living in Iraq.

The Los Angeles Times has a piece today on the conflict between the younger, more liberal generation and the older, more conservative generation in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. They interview bloggers Mustafa Naggar and Abd el-Monem Mahmoud, author of the blog “Ana Ikhwan“, both disaffected Brotherhood members disappointed by the religious rigidity of Egypt’s main opposition organization. This article points out a trend that other observers of the Egyptian political scene have seen for a while; Marc Lynch’s article “Young Brothers in Cyberspace” details the characteristics of different generations within the Brotherhood and the ways that the cyber-savvy and progressive fourth generation marks a departure from the more conservative third generation.

Lynch summarizes his analysis of this fourth generation as follows:

What do all the inter- and intra-generational fissures portend for the future of the Muslim Brothers? An older Muslim Brother blogger, Ahmad ‘Abd al-‘Ati, came out in favor of the fourth generation’s openness: “The blogs represent a sign of success despite the fears of others that they have crossed the line…. Exchanging ideas is not a divide between generations and differences of opinion are not divisions.” This is an opinion from which young bloggers … take heart. Yet Deputy Guide Muhammad Habib seems bent on squelching talk of “generations” or “trends” out of concern that it could be used to weaken the Brothers.

Mahmoud’s quote in the LA Times piece underlines this latter concern:

“When the brotherhood feels threatened by the state, it rallies around the conservatives and that takes it further from the reformists,” said Mahmoud. “It is the state oppression that is actually empowering the conservatives. But our generation is different. We are calling for more reasoning, for more reinterpretation.”

The larger, and to me, more interesting question here is in what ways the Brotherhood movement is restricted by the overwhelming force and presence of the Egyptian state.  One of the reasons that the Brotherhood makes such good copy and is so interesting to follow is because it’s narrative is an underdog narrative - The MB David takes on Mubarak’s Goliath, over an extended period of time (the Brotherhood was initiated by Hassan al Banna in 1928). But in what ways is an opposition movement stunted in its development by constantly being, well, the opposition? It’s interesting to think about what a Muslim Brotherhood government would look like, not just because it’s fun to play with hypotheticals but because when policymakers project to post-authoritarian Egypt, the Brotherhood typically plays a large role, and the expectations we have of that outcome will influence the way policy is made. Do these bloggers represent the elements within the Brotherhood that would be at the forefront if the MB were to come into power in Egypt? What consequences does stifling these bloggers have for the future of the movement?

Ehud Olmert, current lame-duck Prime Minister of Israel, conceded yesterday in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth that Israel will have to give up land in order to achieve peace with Palestine, specifically land in the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, and the West Bank. Summary quote:
“In the end of the day, we will have to withdraw from the most decisive areas of the territories. In exchange for the same territories left in our hands, we will have to give compensation in the form of territories within the State of Israel.”

His admission was not well received within Israel, and viewed as unconstructive. Palestinian officials were skeptical that this admission would bring any kind of result, as Olmert has no political capital to leverage in order to make any withdrawal or land swap a reality.

What more can be said, when a Prime Minister’s swan song is to tell the truth about the negotiations, and is subsequently lambasted by both parties?