"CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood more than doubled its strength in parliament in the early stages of legislative elections, showing its weight with two thirds of places still to be contested, the group said on Wednesday.
Two thirds of the vote has not been cast or counted and the Society of the Muslim Brothers (MB) has doubled its representation.
The US opposes the MB, correctly recognizing it as the "ancestor" of much of the terrorist activity in the Sunni World, including Egypt, which is overwhelmingly Sunni. Nevertheless, it is true that US pressure on the Egyptian government is progressively tearing down the internal barriers there to ever increasing political participation of such groups.
The Bush Administration believes in the transformative power of elections. It believes that there must be open and fair elections for democracy to work its magic of creating modern and "just" societies.
In Egypt the masses have a different idea of what would be a "just" society. We are beginning to see it now in these election results.
Pat Lang
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051116/wl_nm/egypt_elections_dc
Pat, you wrote: “In Egypt the masses have a different idea of what would be a “just” society. We are beginning to see it now in these election results.”
Blowback is a shape-shifter. It’s not limited to just home-grown weaponry used against us.
It seems our exporting of “freedom and democracy” carries cultural assumptions that don’t quite fit other locales and populations.
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
True, but what would you suggest Col. Lang? If 9/11 demonstrated anything, it was that the status quo in the Middle East was no longer tenable.
Al Qaeda is a revolutionary power bent on overthrowing the corrupt, delegitimized dictatorships in the region. To defeat it, and make it irrelevant in the future, we have to change the status quo we previsouly defended, hence we also become a revolutionary power. In this way the region changes but al Qaeda does not have the final say as to what the region ultimately changes to.
COL,
Yes, Egypt is most definately changing…despite the famous dictum of Moses to leave it all as it was until he came back to town!
Nonetheless, the rise (again) of the MB is not just due to the inteference of US into internal Egyptian politics (we are witness Pres Bush SOTU comments and Sec Rice’s tit-for-tats with FM AboulGheit). I think the rise has much more to do with (1) the growing disatisfaction ordinary Egyptians have with the current regime, (2) the “street smarts” they are exhibiting in getting Uncle Sam behind them (even if Uncle does not really want to be there), and (3) the rising age of the senior NDP/national leadership.
The succession issue is a serious one and both the incumbents and challengers seem to view this nascent electoral process as putting thier foot in the door of the next regime. Mubarek is trapped by his own admission that there will not be a “Pharonic” succession “like Syria,” yet the senior leadership of NDP and his son are moving together (as strange bedfellows perhaps) to quash any other political challengers. MB has popular support (evidenced in the elections ongoing), but are having a hard time escaping thier violent history and connection to Islamist extremism in the recent past (kind of like what will happen to Moral Majority when they are directly linked to abortion clinic bombers).
It all makes for exciting politics. I hope the US will resist the urge to become more directly involved (or use its considerable assistance leverage). Like Algeria, we have to have some faith in letting the process play out, and I’d prefer to see the Egyptians work through this challenge themselves. Egypt’s geo-strategic position (its biggest resource) makes it very hard for our policymakers to keep their hands off.
The Egyptian people have great respect and friendship for the American people (not our current government); if our government becomes more than neutral in Egyptian politics (as some would have it), the blowback will be very serious and long lasting.
SP
I find the MB to be pragmatic despite their ideology. I’ve been to couple of their demos and they seem very mainstream relative to the general population here.
Hee Hee, Mr. Pat is all worked up, getting poetic and all. :p
yeah. The dems are pathetic, they need to grow some spine. But at least they start to respond to public out cry however lethargic. Let’s hope they still remember that they are elected by the people instead of by the corporation and the status quo. GOP on the otherhand is a lost cause.
I concur with Praktike on the pragmatism of the Brotherhood. One of the main things that we will have to accept and understand is that change will come to the whole region. Yes, the governments that come to power may be far more religious than what we would like, but as long as they are accountable to the people, they will adapt and evolve.
One of the main problems in the ME is that they have had governments which either implement a state religion and persecute anyone who does not follow it, or they implement secularism and ban all religious activity. The movement in the region will have to be to letting Muslims work out the formula between how much religion and politics should mix. There are those like bin Laden, Kameini, and Sadr who believe that religion cannot be separated from the state, and there are those like Sistani who believe that it can. The war will be fought and won from within Muslim civilization (I here include both Sunnis and Shias), we are involved but only in so far as we keep the extremists at bay and establish enough security that people are allowed to disagree with one another without fearing death. Can the process lead to civil war? Yes. But the status quo will not hold for long, and it is up to us to decide whether we want to affect the direction in which change will proceed.
PS.
sorry I posted in the wrong thread. that post above is for “Watch it now on GOP.com”
nykrindc et al
I don’t claim to know everything but this argument for the “moderation” of the Muslim Brothers sounds a bit on the academic side.
All Islamist movements, including the MB have one basic goal and that is to create Sharia states. pl
New Yorker
“True, but what would you suggest Col. Lang?”
Your question and the general “drift” of your writing indicates to me that you believe that it is possible for us to re-design the societies of the Arab and Islamic countries.
I do not believe that to be possible. If I did I would be “with” you and those who believe this sort of engineering to be possible.
These societies are not teetering on the brink of modernity as we know it and Rice is mistaken when she thinks that Jihadism results from political oppression. pl
you believe that it is possible for us to re-design the societies of the Arab and Islamic countries.
No, not redesign, because that would imply that our system is better. Rather, I believe that Muslim societies can redesign themselves if only given the chance. Currently two things impede that process, one the one hand are the dictators, theocrats, etc. that prevent any type of legitimate opposition to their rule to emerge in their countries which leads to people expressing their dissatisfaction, or to protest in the only place that they can, the mosque. This leads into the second group that is impeding change (and ironically bringing it about), the Islamist. Most follow an absolutist ideology which prevents them from embracing an open society where everyone can have their say. Through the repression of their societies, the dictators strengthen the Islamists and the cycle of radicalism is reinforced. If you remove them both from the picture, allowing Muslims to decide their own future without the dictators or Islamists (i.e. terrorists) killing, maiming or striking fear into their heart, they are more likely to create societies which although more religious than anything we know in the West, can in time adapt to this globalized world and better cope with the changes that accepting globalization give you. In short, I’m an optimist.
As to Jihadism (Islamism) it is true that political repression is not the only cause. It is rather a symptom of disconnectedness from the world, from economic opportunity which drives to desperation. The disease is disconnectedness, Jihadism is but a symptom.
this argument for the “moderation” of the Muslim Brothers sounds a bit on the academic side.
No fair. You are using the same argument that the conservative right uses whenever we criticize the way Bush is implementing the policies or vision we believe necessary to win the current struggle against Islamic Fundamentalism. If they don’t agree we on the center or left are always called Ivory tower academics. That does little to further debate and understanding.
@NYK:
Interesting but complex, and not to be trusted to the Bush group of incompetent canines who can only concentrate on one bone at a time.
I don’t think a dog with real talent (think Lassie multitasking, Timmy in a well; father under a rolled over tractor) could bring off what you suggest in a short time. It would take a long time of gradual dipolomatic work to effect meaningful change–like 50 years, and being really about it.
And just forget the military option.
And are we assuming, sola fides, that globalization will “benefit” the Muslim world to the extent that it has benefitted the average American.
If this is the case I might choose to join the Muslim Brotherhood, on the evidence.
Eric,
You start with “La illaha illa lah…” pl
New Yorker
Any practical experience on the ground? pl
New Yorker
see previous comment. pl
Wait, MB is nasty. no doubt about it. They are violent wackos in tradition of early days of PLO.
but to say all Islamic movement with their shariah goals are inherently bad/evil, I think is misguided.
That’s like saying, Amish culture are inherently bad because they reject modernity.
for eg. is Shariah inherently violent and destructive? Hey, they’ve been around much longer than modernity. So obviously the system has inherent flexibility and able to deal with change without being self destructive.
Modernity? as far as I know it’s not all rosy, we almost blow the planet several time because of the entire enlightening/modernity idea.
So I am a bit dubious in saying that one or another is inherently less violent.
One crude sample: It’s not MB who is dropping bombs, destroying city and killing civilians in Iraq (torturing even)
So, I don’t know. when we are talking about strickly raw number of violent. I think we better worry about modernity instead.
Of course the dicotomy of ‘it’s either the old believe’ or ‘modernity’ is downright idiotic, if you ask me. It’s the type of thinking that lead us to all these mess. Rigid ideology and narrow perspective. It’s the very stuff that perpetuate conflics
\\\\Eric: and not to be trusted to the Bush group of incompetent canines who can only concentrate on one bone at a time.////
Agreed, but unfortunately in this country we are currently suffering from a deficit of leadership, on both sides of the isle.
\\\\I don’t think a dog with real talent (think Lassie multitasking, Timmy in a well; father under a rolled over tractor) could bring off what you suggest in a short time. It would take a long time of gradual dipolomatic work to effect meaningful change–like 50 years, and being really about it.////
Yes, yes. Correct. The boys are never coming home! The effort is multigenerational, we won’t shrink the gap in a day, or a month or a year or even a decade, and it certainly won’t go away on its own. Yes, this will be a task that will take alot of work, not only from the US but also from other Core powers (EU, Japan, China, India, Brazil, etc.)
As Tom Barnett argues, “America has created many new rules since 9/11, but the only ones that matter in the end are those recognized by other nations and taken up as their own. Globalization comes with rules but not a ruler. We may propose but never impose, because the difference between the leader and the led is not merely their competing visions of power but the power of their competing visions.”
\\\are we assuming, sola fides, that globalization will “benefit” the Muslim world to the extent that it has benefitted the average American.///
No, it will benefit us all. The Middle East is at the crossroads of Eurasia, it is important strategically and economically to the World. Billions of potential consumers and innovators just waiting to be tapped. For the doubtful, see China, the Asian Tigers and Japan, India, and all the places that have totally integrated into the globalized economy. Is there work to do and problems that remain to be tackled? Yes. But as connectivity spreads, so does economic opportunity and with it the tools for a people to succeed.
>>>Col. Lang-Any practical experience on the ground?<<< Col. Lang your misdirecting from the issues we are discussing. Be that as it may I will answer your question. No, I have never been in the military. I'm a student of IR and National Security, and everything related; nothing more. But what does that have to do with the issues at hand? Does it mean that just because I haven't served in the armed forces that I have no right to opine or debate on how to safeguard the future of our country and the security of the world we live in? I hope not, because again that's the same argument I hear from right wingers everytime I criticize Bush and the conduct of the war. I admire you for your service and respect you as such. But that does not mean that I can't disagree with you from time to time.
Posted by: W. Patrick Lang | 17 November 2005 at 04:21 PM
Credo in Unum Deum.
what’s the difference?
++++Curious-to say all Islamic movement with their shariah goals are inherently bad/evil, I think is misguided.+++++
Agreed.
+++Shariah inherently violent and destructive? Hey, they’ve been around much longer than modernity. So obviously the system has inherent flexibility and able to deal with change without being self destructive.+++
It has been able to adapt to change but is now stymied by a political leadership void of any legitimacy, authority or imagination to move the people forward or to provide them with a vision of a future worth creating, where their children can live in peace and coexist with others from other sects or cultures. As I stated earlier, they are caught in the proverbial rock and a hard place. On the one side are the dictators and theocrats, on the other the absolutist terrorists and jihadists.
+++modernity+++Rigid ideology and narrow perspective. It’s the very stuff that perpetuate conflics+++++
Modernity is not the problem, absolutism is, yes. The US is not all good, or all bad, neither is the EU, or India, or even China. The task we have at hand is to recognize as JFK once said, “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” (1962) We have to internalize that process into our foreign relations and propose it as a rule set for global leadership, that is we need to find a way to spread the benefits of globalization to all in the planet, and find a way to ameliorate the bad things that come with it. Because as everyone’s lot improves, so does the pie grow, and the more a win-win outcome is possible in the long run.
Sure it is a hard, and an almost insurmountable challenge, but all the things worth doing are.
Doris Lessing wrote a book about people intoxicated with rhetoric. Wish I could remember the title.
Ah. Google provides:
‘Documents Relating to the Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire. Canopus in Argos: Archives.’ (1983)
“Language has become so grotesquely distended in Lessing’s fictional realm that citizens suffer from a condition known as Undulant Rhetoric. Their eyes glaze, their breathing becomes heavy, and out of their mouths come symptoms of political intoxication . . .”
Remember that term: Undulant Rhetoric.
correction: for “book” in the next to the above, read “novel.”
“Wait, MB is nasty. no doubt about it. They are violent wackos in tradition of early days of PLO.”
“I don’t claim to know everything but this argument for the “moderation” of the Muslim Brothers sounds a bit on the academic side.
All Islamist movements, including the MB have one basic goal and that is to create Sharia states. pl”
I hate to sound like an MB advocate, but I have a couple points to make here.
One, the MB isn’t violent, it often coordinates with the NDP and state security services. When they have demos, for instance, they coordinate with the security people and establish certain ground rules. Their candidates are vetted by state security.
Pragmatic.
The MB does support (at least rhetorically), Hamas and its literature says things like “Our position on Palestine is to oppose America and the Jews” and stuff like that. However, the MB leaders you meet here are slick, educated, professionals, i.e. people with a lot of stuff to lose. They strike me as quite within mainstream currents in Egyptian society.
As for Sharia, why can’t we just call it “social conservatism?” I understand that certain of its provisions are anathema to the liberal tradition, but at some point we have to admit that there is, in fact, very little such liberal tradition in places like Egypt.
Praktike –
Hear Hear!
I love the “social conservatism” label. Indeed, I feel like there are many folks at home in the good ol’USA who would fit right in with a Shariah state. Except they call it living a “Christian life”. Problem is, I don’t much appreciate the Radical Christian Clerics and American Taliban proscribing for me the life I will live.
MB is indeed very pragmatic. Something not well conveyed in my first post. And with 40-60 seats, they are clearly the opposition now. And with popular support. It takes a lot of guts for the Egyptian voter (non-NDP or non-civil worker) to show up, much less cast a vote against the party in power. It is almost “un-Egyptian.” My hope is that the US government can respect the interal politics here and plan for the change that is coming. (Expecting the government to plan – that is too much hope!)
SP
What does it take to get social change? I think it takes people who don’t look after their short-term benefit. When it’s all people looking for their short-run advantage they’ll settle into a pattern that the haves support because it benefits them short-term and the have-nots can’t change this year for the same reasons they couldn’t change it last year, for whatever local reasons they can’t queer the deal — if they could they’d get a share to persuade them not to.
The easy way to change is when some catastrophe means the old way stops working. Then in the chaos the old regime can’t stop people from trying something new, and people fight against whatever they think is unacceptable until eventually they settle down with a new group that can keep a degree of control.
The hard way is when things are good enough that some people feel secure, and they look beyond their short-term interest. They agree on things that they think would work better, and they push for them hard enough to get some change.
It’s much much harder to get a lot of people who’re willing to look beyond the short-term, and get them to agree. Much easier to get people who’re willing to die to prevent something awful.
How could egypt possibly get good changes? How could the USA, given our current starting point?
<<>>
People, so cynical about our political institutions and deficit of leadership, tend to discount vision as rhetoric. Understandable, but redirects the argument and ignores the larger point. Argue about the ideas, ideals, and find solutions, otherwise you become part of the problem and not the solution.
<<<>>>
My comments refer to this one. Sorry.
Hey your filter keeps blanking the comments I place within brackets. What gives.
Here they are again without brackets.
Doris Lessing wrote a book about people intoxicated with rhetoric. Wish I could remember the title.
Curious
Not sure who it was who posted the comment about “Credo..”, etc., but the next lines in the Nicene Creed have to do with the Trinity. If you think that Muslims accept the notion that we “polytheists” as they often call us are not different from those who accept the Quranic assertion that “like unto him there is no other,” then you are mistaken. pl
New Yorker
My remark did not refer to military service. My observation would be that ideas acquired in universities need to be confirmed by direct experience. pl
That is the problem with people who remember their history. Hell, we haven’t burned a single anti-Trinitarian since 1554 — have we?
RJJ
Lady Jane Grey executed on 12 February?
Never knew she was much for theology. pl
curses! October 27 1553. Him and his books together.
RJJ
Ah! Well, served him right for consorting with Calvinists. pl
Not sure who it was who posted the comment about “Credo..”, etc., but the next lines in the Nicene Creed have to do with the Trinity. If you think that Muslims accept the notion that we “polytheists” as they often call us are not different from those who accept the Quranic assertion that “like unto him there is no other,” then you are mistaken. pl
Posted by: W. Patrick Lang | 18 November 2005 at 06:27 AM ~~~
It’s all ontological detail Mister Lang. just detail.
for eg. one can do this experiment. record one own idea/definition of God is, 10 minutes. Then repeat the exercise 1 months from now.
Then investigate the differences, what reading are possible out of the two records. what details can be distorted and magnified to a degree that the two recordings are describing two different beings.
Now, I am not so naive to say this God or that God are all just the same. But it is possible to see things differently than merely static interpretation that lead to adversity. It is the discourse and underlying willingness to see and carry the dialectic as a global project, rather than ‘your God sucks, therefore I have to blow you up’
Okay people. Time to work. Contribute your thought. If you have special knowledge an an expert in some area, time to speak up and make something for peace.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/18.html#a5938
Public Epistemology Project: The Iraq Intelligence Inquiry Initiative
It’s time to shelve the talking points and the soundbites in favor of a serious epistemological discussion of the role of the Bush administration’s use of intelligence in making the public case for the invasion Iraq. Today, Philosoraptor launches the The Iraq Intelligence Inquiry Initiative(IIII).
A lot of arguments about the decision to go to war proceed from vague or equivocal understandings of key concepts like “knowlege,” “justification,” “evidence,” and “credibility.”
The IIII hopes to raise the level of discussion by bringing these core assumptions into the open.
We have to ask not only what the President knew and when he knew it, but also what we mean by “know.” In order to assign responsibility, we have to ask not whether decision-makers were right, but whether they were justified in reaching the conclusions they did based on the evidence available to them.
So, let the discussion begin. Please join us.
–Lindsay Beyerstein from Majikthise
Curious
This is a heathen’s discussion of God and I am not a heathen, so, I think your argument is meaningless. PL
This is a heathen’s discussion of God and I am not a heathen, so, I think your argument is meaningless. PL
Posted by: W. Patrick Lang | 18 November 2005 at 09:09 AM~~~
haa haa. no it’s not. :p
It’s neutral and applicable to all religion. Of course then one argue which religion permit historization ..bla bla. but you also mentioned ‘modernity’
plus do you think the discussion should to to that ever predictable route? Mode and category of Shariah reading? evolution of church dogma? blah… the internet is littered with those material.
anyway I hope I can say my point again: It’s time to move beyond ‘my God is bigger than yours and it can blow yours up’ mode of thinking. It’s destructive and perpetuate violence. Something somewhere has to change, it’s not instant and won’t ever eradicate religous wackos and destructive forces. But everything has to start somewhere right?
WRT “an ontological detail” —
A favorite quote from Henry Hallam:
“[T]he Greeks abused their ingenuity in theological controversies, those especially which related to the nature and incarnation of our Savior; wherein the disputants, as is usual, became more positive and rancorous as their creed receded from the possibility of human apprehension. Nor were these confined to the clergy, who had not, in the East, obtained the prerogative of guiding the national faith. The sovereigns sided alternately with opposing factions … and the dissenters from an imperial decision were involved in the double proscription of treason and heresy.”
I suspect more blood has been spilled over the ain’t of ont, than over boundaries and chattels.
This discussion is way over my head, but I’d like to offer a few comments on the posts. Hopefully I’ll learn something.
— I would think that one of the main features of the Moslem Brotherhood – and the Wahhabis? – was that they were not willing to tolerate other religious viewpoints. Ecumenicism is heretical in this worldview, and they’re not alone. My hardshell Baptist grandma sincerely feels bad for all those Buddhist, Moslem, Catholic etc. ad infinitum, babies who are going straight to hell for not having a chance to accept Jesus as their personal savior and to be baptized by total immersion.
Ideas like this are not subject to questioning – it’s a core tenet of the “one true faith,” whichever one they’ve chosen. To me they sound backward, ignorant and repressive; my viewpoint is not relevant to their belief systems. You can’t argue with emotional spirituality, and it may be only ego that makes one want to try.
Walker Percy made an interesting observation in “The Thanatos Syndrome.” I’ll have to paraphrase, as I don’t have a copy here. His protagonist is in a motel room watching reruns of M*A*S*H* and thinking about how much he dislikes the show: Hawkeye and Trapper are always running around being talking about how tolerant they are, but the fact is that they’re only tolerant of people who think like themselves. They’re just as rigid and self-righteous as the bigots and conservatives they make trouble for. Percy of course puts this much more elegantly and concisely.
So in the current Mideast situation (leaving out greed, a hard thing to do) how much of the problem on both sides is security and how much is religious intolerance? Fear of Westernization vs. fear of terrorism? Or simply fear of “the other?”
— The MB politicians in Egypt may appear quite suave and polished. Ralph Reed and other operatives of the American religious right clean up pretty good too …
— Meddling in other cultures is arrogant. It’s equally hubristic to believe that “The neocons and New American Century guys are screwing up. Our ideas, on the other hand, will work once we’re put in charge.” Especially if you have no experience in the culture. When social theory meets human nature, things tend to go awry fast.
I remember a conversation I once had with a friend from Nepal. I chuckled a little bit as he was talking about his king, and he flew off the handle. “Why do you f**king Americans think that your system is the only right one? We couldn’t have a democracy in our country – there are too many groups to agree on anything. The king is the only thing that holds us all together!” It was a watershed moment for my thinking, I’m embarassed to say.
Why would our own agenda even be of concern to citizens of Egypt, or other Middle Eastern countries? Put the shoe on the other foot and try to imagine the Badr Corps caucus arguing about pork farming subsidies on the floor of the House of Representatives. No context. Absurd, but they wouldn’t see it that way.
Ok, only my scattered thoughts. Thanks for listening.
Post colonialism, both in Latin America (19th century) and in Asia/Africa (20th) saw many, many attempts at democracy. Many, many failures…
A realistic consern for these people would note the failures and their consequences.
China, India and even Japan and Europe may not be integrating into aglobal unity as we have defined it. I believe contrary to modern end of history Germany was technically a democracy entering WWI. They do have different interests and do fight each other.
Certainly the US has been one to start wars: Mexico, France and all around the globe.
I hapen to believe that a number of western institutions and values (eg. womens rights) are superior. But that doesn’t mean that if everybody accepted them we’d all get along. And given freedom of choice not everyone would accept them.
I would not completely rule out the pacifying effects of our civilization, but it unproven, Friedman’s vision is faith based and if correct it’s long term not medium term which means that if you implement expect some messy situations in the intervening decades.
And I think we should be careful about triggering these situations in the hope of something better or out of boredom or the desire to do something.
I’m conservative in that respect.
Change France to spain in my earlier comment.
Curious
I was in a hurry earlier and did not answer you adequately.
I have no problem with your desire to think of religion in this way.
Nevertheless, the problem with your analysis is that that neither the MB nor any of the other Islamic zealot groups think of religion in the way you do. For them, this IS a clash of civilization and God is not dead. For them, theology is the answer.
pl
I’ve been reading the comments for a while now, and thought them all very enlightening. I just have a few comments in response. I agree with those of you who say that we can’t impose our system of government on anyone else. In fact, that is exactly what I think is wrong with the Bush administration’s push for democracy in the Middle East. Democracy can only be born from within a society, civilization, it cannot be imposed. However, we are fighting a war in the region and the status quo will not hold for long. Change is coming, either the regimes will reform themselves (i.e. be far more responsive to the needs of their people, or they will be overthrown by Islamists in the region). The region, is strategically pivotal to the world economy (here I do not mean US solely, but rather the economies which are the bulwarks of the world economy) who are so dependent on the region’s resources that if those resources are unavailable, would drive the world into recession, protectionism and eventually, war. Because of this, it is essential that we ensure that if change is to come to the region we can direct it toward the least damaging result. The tyrants have to go, and the violent extremist (terrorist) Islamists, not those who are conservatives (mind you), do not gain control. This entails a strategy of spreading enough secuirty (i.e. a securty umbrella) like the one that allowed Japan to focus on its economic development rather than on military build-up, and yes, fighting against the hard-core islamists who seek to impose their extremist faith on everyone else in teh region and then to use it as a launchin pad for the global jihad to come. At the end of the day, howeever, the most important part of the war will be won not by the US or the West or Globalization’s Core, but rather by the peopl in the region who freed from the despots or theocrats they no longer want running things (Mubarak, al Saud family, the clerics in Iran, Assad in Syria) have to come up with their own arrangement for sharing power or at least arriving at a modicum of stability. It is important in this respect for the world powers to provide only enough input or incentives for the process to head in the right direction and not impose a Western system on the people of the region, that is why the post-colonial era failed. It destroyed the status quo which had mantained amiable relations among different people and established a system which brought them into conflict because it changed the existing power dynamics. Granted at the time, there were bigger fish to fry (i.e. International Communism) but that enemy is now long gone and we have an opportunity, indeed the responsibility to right some of the wrongs of the past, made in the name of expediency.
How do we do it? (Col. Lang, you talked about implementing academic theories on the ground) This article from Foreign Policy shows exactly how things could have been different in Iraq had we pursued a different policy (a policy more closely related to the themes discussed above). The mayor of Ar Rutbah took full control of the security of the town and allowed the internal power dynamics to work out a post-Saddam era ruling structure more responsive to the population. As the article points however, the troops who followed began to take orders from the Occupation Authority, disregarding local power structures and turned the people of Ar Rutbah against them. It’s a good read.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3265
Nevertheless, the problem with your analysis is that that neither the MB nor any of the other Islamic zealot groups think of religion in the way you do. For them, this IS a clash of civilization and God is not dead. For them, theology is the answer.
Posted by: W. Patrick Lang | 18 November 2005 at 02:17 PM ~~~
Or it could be that all those analysis amounted to nothing more than clever navel gazing. We’ve been dealing with MB for what? 4 decades? they don’t seem to go anywhere.
What people are doing is drawing a circle and define outside the circle as ‘evil’ and go home thinking problem is solved. It’s just bunch of bureaucrats writing report for each other.
With that much money went to all those report writing projects, what do we got? more of the same thing?
I but if we take the same budget, convert it in small bill and just toss it out in Cairo along with invitation to a gigantic beach party every weekend for the next 20 years. We’ll get far more peacefull world. And MB won’t be a problem in 5 years.
We only think we know how people thinks as said in all those clever navel gazing report. But obviously the situation on the ground hasn’t changed in 4 decades. It’s same shit over and over again. Just plotting, killing, toppling government, corruption….you name it.
… what analysis?
Incidentally, I stole that analysis from IMF critics. Who point out the same gigantic amount purported to ‘help’ people over the year amounted nothing to paying bunch of buraucrats and fat cats to create EXACT same corrupt status quo to do what they’ve always done.
just take the same budget and sprinkle it in city street and have fun. Might as well. quit pretending all those analysis and projects amounted to something more than old rehash.
Posted by: nykrindc | 19 November 2005 at 10:49 AM
we can’t control the planet, those countries aren’t ours. Even with ‘bla bla vital national security bla bla’
Notice the amount of money we are spending stealing few barrel of oil in Iraq. What? $200Billion so far?
with that much money, we could have put fuel cell car running on alcohol in a quarter of nation population. And be done with combustion engine.
But if you ask me. we gonna get more of the same thing. Things will spiral out of control soon, and we gonna start talking nuclear war with Iran.
All for what? few drop of oil?
(spare me the national security BS. Iraq has nothing to dow ith 9/11. MB has nothing to do with 9/11. the wahabis has nothing to do with 9/11… etc etc… )
Al Qaeda who…?
How can Al qaeda problem amounting to several thousand terrorists turns into volatile situation with Syria and Iran?
Any genius care to guess?
+++++we can’t control the planet, those countries aren’t ours.++++
Never said we should control them. Rather, that we should establish security in the region to allow the people to come up with the rule-sets that will govern relations between each other. Also, we can’t leave the status quo because it reinforces two bad tendencies. 1. keeps dictators who have no incentive to open their countries up to the world in power or to allow dissent
2. As a result people become disconnected from the world, because they are not allowed dissent, they express their frustrations at the mosque where many become radicalized. And so the cycle continues.
++++Notice the amount of money we are spending stealing few barrel of oil in Iraq. What? $200Billion so far?++++
First off, no one is stealing Iraq’s oil. Too many people watching, the UN, the EU, China, Russia, NGOs all of whom would love to call the US on corruption foloowing the oil-for-food scandal that made teh UN, France and others look lie cheap w***** to Hussein. Is tehre more work to do on transparency? Definetly. We need to ensure that all Iraqis benefit from the oil revenue in their country and not only the elite, or one ethnic group as against the others.
++++with that much money, we could have put fuel cell car running on alcohol in a quarter of nation population. And be done with combustion engine.++++
We definitely need to move, and fast, to alternative fuels. The reality however, is that it will take time and the world economy is so dependent on fossil fuels that any long term interruption will lead to economic breakdown and suffering. Not just in globalization’s core mind you, we’re interconnected and far more versatile, but rather in globalization’s Gap where people are so disconnected that they have no other means of replacing what they will loose if the world economy plunges down the drain.
++++we gonna get more of the same thing. Things will spiral out of control soon, and we gonna start talking nuclear war with Iran.
All for what? few drop of oil?+++++
If this administration continues on the same path, maybe, if we as Americans get them to shift course (Congress is startig to awaken from its slumber) we have an opportunity to spread the benefits of globalization, even while ameliorating the bad side effects to those who are less fortunate within our lifetime.
On Iran, we need a new policy, containment has not worked, rather it will do exactly what it has done in Cuba (bring us another long lived dictatorship, nothing more). Iran is a crucial part of our strategy in the Middle East because they are the natural hegemon in the region, and as Tom Barnett says, everyone else there operates in Tehran’s shadow. We have to get Iran to open up and engage with the world, we do that and the theocracy comes tumbling down. Why? Connectivity will kill it. Just see what connectivity is doing to China, people are demanding more control over their destiny, more of a say in how and why things are done. Is there a long way to go? Yes, but everything takes time, and China is moving in the right direction, more importantly, it is doing it on its own.
++++Al Qaeda who…?
How can Al qaeda problem amounting to several thousand terrorists turns into volatile situation with Syria and Iran?++++
al Qaeda as a group or an ideology has the capacity to impact significant change in the whole region. Just as after the Afghan war the region experienced blowback from the Afghan Jihad, so too will the region as a whole suffer blowback from the Iraq war and all the myriad of conflicts that are going on involving mujaheeden (Chechnya, Kashmir, Aceh, Xinjiang, Afghanistan, Mindanao, etc.)
Curious, I would also suggest you read this, it by far gives one of the best summations as to why al Qaeda as an organization is so dangerous.
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369820
Also, remember what I said earlier in reference again to Tom Barnett “The disease we are fighting is disconnectedness, Jihadism is but a symptom.”
That is perhaps the one thing Bush got right “America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones.”
We cannot wall off America or the world from these threats, 9/11 proved that.
Bob Baer’s book discusses MB extensively. He doesn’t have anything good to say about them.
He discusses how MB is essentially a conspiratorial party, with Islamist goals. It seems to me that the best place to see what a MB government would be like is Sudan.
“Never said we should control them. Rather, that we should establish security in the region to allow the people to come up with the rule-sets that will govern relations between each other.”
This is one of those fundamental disconnects. You have some idea for “establish security in the region” that doesn’t involve pointing guns at people to make them do what you want?
How do you plan to establish security without controlling people?
“We need to ensure that all Iraqis benefit from the oil revenue in their country and not only the elite, or one ethnic group as against the others.”
But we gave them sovereignty, right? How do we dictate how they spend their money after that?
Nykrindc, I keep running into a peculiar mindset from people who quote Barnett. On the one hand they talk with this very very idealistic language about the goals and how it’s going to be good for everybody. And on the other hand they wind up promoting oldfashioned colonialism dressed up in new language, and use arguments that boil down to “If we don’t gain full control of these countries now then we’ll inevitably have to nuke them later”. It’s peculiar.
It’s like the Core/Gap people have a new language and a new religion, and they’re confident they can take over the world with it. And I can’t tell how much cynicism there is, but when they get down to specifics it sounds supremely cynical from the start. Do you have any comments about that?
I suppose I ought to read Barnett, I started once but it put me off at the beginning.
+++You have some idea for “establish security in the region” that doesn’t involve pointing guns at people to make them do what you want?+++
Yes. You will have to p oint guns but at those like the al Qaeda’s, or intransingent regimes that refuse to give their people enough political space to decide their own future (not democracy, mind you).
+++How do you plan to establish security without controlling people?+++
I provided Col. Lang a real world example of how we could do it. The article in foreign policy essentially plays out the Sysadmin function. Initially, and this is only with those regimes like Saddam’s, Kim’s and Mugabe’s. Most others can be killed with connectivity because to accept globalization is to accept that it will change you more than you are likely to affect it.
+++But we gave them sovereignty, right? How do we dictate how they spend their money after that?+++
No need to anymore. The constitution enshrines a sharing system which gives all iraqis, based on population, revenues from existing oil fields, and full control of new oil fields to the regions in which it is located. There has also been some talk of building a pipeline through the Sunni triangle to bring Iraqi oil to the Jordanian port of Aqaba thereby giving Sunnis a stake in future oil revenues as well.
+++And on the other hand they wind up promoting oldfashioned colonialism dressed up in new language,++++
How is removing tyrannical governments like Kim Jong Il’s , Robert Mugabe’s or Saddam Hussein’s from power to allow their people to choose their own destiny colonialism? Rather, it is our attempt to fix the mistakes of the past, by giving the people in the region the chance to choose their own future instead of having it imposed on them (hence my disagreement with Bush on the promotion of democracy, as an inherently Western system). The piece I sighted above on the mayor of Ar Rutbah shows how this can be done.
++++”If we don’t gain full control of these countries now then we’ll inevitably have to nuke them later”++++
No, the argument is that if we don’t remove those agents which are preventing these societies from reconnecting or from connecting to the globalized world, then in all probability we will have to come in not only as a military force to remove them from power but also as a peacekeeping force to prevent mass hunger, genocide or death. Mugabe is a clear example, through his actions and the instability he brings he drives away investment, and security from the region and as such, we have the countries surrounding Zimbabwe suffering similar instability and lack of investment to rebuild or repair their infrastructure.
+++they’re confident they can take over the world with it.+++
It is not a theory to take over the world, but rather of a future worth creating. The US will not be the top dog for too long, China is rising and will continue to rise. We have to manage that rise to make it as dependent as we are on the system so that it respects previously established rule-sets and creates others which benefit us all. The end point is the transition from a world where the US is the hegemon, to one where the ever expanding Core shrinks the gap and ends the suffering of those who continue to live in a world were life is indeed “nasty brutish and short.” The way to do it will not always be military, except perhaps in the three examples cited above, most often it will be economic connectivity that drives changes in the Gap and we need an effective system to aid those countries that so choose to transition from the Core to the Gap successfully; upward mobility, if you will.