Dispatches from an Angry Taxi Driver Posted by Shadi Hamid

Since I came back from Cairo nearly two months ago (where I was on a research trip), I’ve tried to take a break from the vicissitudes of Egyptian politics. Well, the Vanity Fair piece I referenced two weeks ago reminded me of a similarly disturbing exchange I had with a taxi driver in late July. This was one of those encounters that captured for me all that I dreaded about the Arab world. Afterwards, I sat down and typed up some of my impressions of the conversation. I wasn’t planning on posting this, but I decided that I should, in order to shed some more light on the crucial question of how political distortion leads to moral distortion:

(From July 2006). Sometimes, I learn more about Egypt from taxi drivers than I do from professors and politicians. Before I meet with some of the more prominent figures in Egyptian or Jordanian politics, I can usually predict with relative accuracy how they’ll answer each one of my questions. Occasionally, they will surprise me, and it’s those moments that I wait for as an interviewer (recently a Muslim Brotherhood MP, speaking mostly Arabic while interspersing bizarre references to B-list American movies, used the F-word to make a point I didn’t quite understand). Taxi drivers, though, almost always surprise me. Today, I had one such moment. The driver was pretty much spewing out nuggets, so I had to take out my trusty jot pad and take notes. He looked at me with measured incredulity. No one here cares about taxi drivers. I suppose he was taken aback by the fact that some random American researcher was hanging on his words. It would be tough for me to reconstruct the conversation I had. His facial expressions, that calm look of utter disgust on his face mixed with equal parts frustration and anger captivated and disturbed me all at once. 

We got to talking politics. He painted a bleak portrait of the economic, political, moral, social, cultural situation in his country (it’s hard to separate these things in the Arab world - everything’s part of the problem).

- Well, what’s the solution to the mess? I asked knowing quite well that there was no answer.

- He paused: …An earthquake (zilzal) that would wipe [most of] Cairo out. And then we could maybe start from scratch.

- But a lot of people would die, including friends and family? I countered.

- We’re already dead. Do you call this life? I would prefer death.

Silence followed. When he said that, I looked at him. It wasn’t only that he was angry. For this was a different kind of anger, a kind unique to a troubled region. I couldn’t tell where his anger ended and his resignation began. It’s always frightening to watch when you catch a glimpse, however fleeting. His spirit had been broken and his dignity wrested away. His complaint wasn’t that the government was corrupt or brutal or that it was mismanaging the economy. No, it was something more fundamental, basic, and, thus, much harder to solve – “all we ask is that they treat us like human beings,” he told me. It was a simple request but one that could not be granted.

Waiting for Futouh Posted by Shadi Hamid

Issandr el-Amrani reports that prominent Muslim Brotherhood moderate Abdel Menem Abul Fotouh was scheduled to speak on a panel at NYU a few days ago. Surprise, surprise, Fotouh was not able to attend. He, apparently, was denied entry into the US. As a result, the audience had to endure the predictably aimless interjections of several non-experts. I think Peter Bergen is great, but he is expert on Al-Qaeda, not an expert on the Brotherhood.

I can’t believe I actually have to make points which are (or should be) so self-evident to even the most unintelligent of observers - but if we want to understand political Islam, then we have to actually listen to what Islamists themselves say. This doesn’t mean that we have to agree with them, support them, or like them. But, considering that the Muslim Brotherhood will, notwithstanding acts of God, come to power in Egypt sooner or later, we should do our best to understand them before we get caught by surprise 10 or 20 years down the road. This is yet another example of how alarmist fears of political Islam coupled with a senseless visa policy damage our strategic perception of Islamism and render us unable to anticipate or pre-empt policy dilemmas.

I interviewed Futouh at length in late July, while the Israel-Hezbollah war was going on, and he had much to say that, I think, would be of interest to US policymakers, if only they’d listen. He is part of the Brotherhood’s moderate “faction,” a faction which grows smaller and more embattled – the not-so-surprising result of the Bush administration’s needlessly polarizing approach to everything Middle-East related. The moderates within the Brotherhood are trying to modernize their organization and prepare it for the give-and-take of democratic politics, but they are having a hard time of it. The deteriorating situation in Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon, and exponentially high levels of anti-Americanism contribute to an environment that makes being a “moderate” increasingly precarious. But, then again, because we don’t let people like Futouh into our country, we would have no way of knowing that.

Black Coffee Posted by Shadi Hamid

An article of mine on the US policy and the failure of Arab democracy is out today on Qahwa Sada. Qahwa Sada ("Black Coffee") is a new "blog-journal by Middle East experts" edited by Marc Lynch, aka Abu Aardvark. Check out the blog manifesto here. It's a great idea and hopefully it will catch on in the blogosphere. Here's an excerpt from my piece:

Ahead of his time, perhaps, but also behind it, USC economist Timur Kuran wrote in a provocative 1998 essay that “Arab regimes are highly vulnerable to a shock that would stimulate mass dissent. Indeed, even an ostensibly minor rise in open opposition within one Arab country might trigger a revolutionary cascade that then sets off similar cascades in others. Just such a domino process occurred in Eastern Europe less than a decade ago, when people within and outside the region marveled at the collapse of one communist regime after another. The scenario could be repeated in the Arab world”.

The “ostensibly minor rise in open opposition” happened not only in one Arab country, but in many. After 9/11, the Arab state system, long immune to change, experienced several of the “shocks” that Kuran believed would open up new possibilities. For a time, they did. Although we might not like to admit it, the unseating of the region’s most egregious dictator did, in fact, have a profound, if varied, effect on millions of Arabs.

Kuran also noted that “as conditions became more favorable to the expression of opposition, individuals would jump on the bandwagon for change, encouraging additional people to join in” (120). But the democratic openings of 2005, while real, proved unsustainable and easily reversible. Something, in other words, went wrong.  In a recent post on the Abu Aardvark blog, Marc Lynch posed the stickiness of Arab autocracy a “puzzle.” But is it really that puzzling?

Read the whole thing here.

Abu Aardvark's Puzzle: The Stickiness of Autocracy Posted by Shadi Hamid

Marc Lynch (aka Abu Aardvark) poses the question of why Arab autocracies have proven so durable, seemingly immune from the winds of reform? After all, weren’t we talking about the blossoming, blooming, burgeoning “Arab Spring” just last year? As Lynch notes:

Many of the things which [USC economist Timur Kuran] expected to spark this bandwagon have in fact now happened:  the Iraq war toppled Saddam, the post-Hariri Lebanese protests drove out the Syrians, some brave activists began demanding change (Kefaya), Arab satellite TV broadcast it all widely.  But Arab regimes look as entrenched as ever. That has to be something of a puzzle. 

Of course, Lynch is goading us a bit here. It’s really not as mysterious as it sounds and I’m sure Abu Aardvark is well aware of how Spring turns to Summer.

Here are three considerations which may help clarify the matter, the first of which should be obvious to even the most unseasoned observer:

1. US policymakers cannot pretend to be puzzled at the Arab world’s “democratic deficit,” because they are a big part of the problem. Despite all the fanfare to the contrary (i.e. the sweeping Wilsonianism of early 2005), the Bush administration continues to actively lend economic, military, and moral support to some of the region’s most stalwart dictators, including those in Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. Yes, it’s a long list. Well, then, why do we support these dictators? Because, apparently, or so we’re told, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. We’re afraid that Islamists will come to power through democratic elections. So we opt for sham, façade, imaginary      democracy. With that said, the “Islamist dilemma” is not an easy one to resolve and there are legitimate concerns about how to handle it. I’ve tried to address this here, here, and here.

2. The existence and strength of political Islam is also an important factor from the standpoint of Arab domestic politics. In Eastern Europe and Latin America, the primary cleavage between regime and opposition was economic. However, in the Middle East, religion is the primary cleavage (i.e. Islamism vs. secularism) and this fact complicates matters quite a bit. In such a context, divisions between government and opposition are not a matter of differing public policies, but rather one of the raison d’etre of the state itself. Politics, thus, becomes an existential concern and, in extreme cases, a matter of life and death, as it was during the fated Algerian elections of 1991. The zero-sum nature of Arab politics makes democratic compromise that much more difficult.
   

Here’s another way of looking at it: guaranteeing regime actors that (after they are voted out of office) their private property and Swiss bank accounts will be protected is one thing. Ensuring that their very way of life will not be “affected” is altogether another. Rich people can still live rich under a leftist regime. The “bourgeois” lifestyle, on the individual level, will not be affected in any significant way. An Islamist-led regime, however, will initiate at least some changes which would have direct bearing on the private sphere (i.e. family law, private status law, women’s issues, artistic expression, alcohol consumption). Generally, people are more able to reconcile themselves to changes in public policy. The private sphere, on the other hand, is often seen as “untouchable.” Understandable fears of future Islamist intervention in “cultural production” may, then, provoke relevant regime actors to act in ways that are not necessarily in accordance with their rational self-interest. A good barometer of this is the, I suspect, uniquely Arab phenomenon of secularists and liberals warning that they will “leave” if Islamists come to power.

Despair and its Aftermath Posted by Shadi Hamid

I just read a fascinating, if despairing account of the tragedy known as modern Egypt in Vanity Fair, a magazine which, despite its glossiness, has some of the best political coverage out there today. If you want to understand why Egypt (and, by extension, the Arab world) is a powder keg, I suggest you give it a read. It is a tragic but familiar story of the humiliation of life under autocracy and how such humiliation can push people over the edge, to say and do dangerous things. The article is a bit long, so here are the most affecting parts:

Where Farouk still nursed a flickering hope for something better, Ashraf, his elder, had given up. If angrier than any other Egyptian I'd met, Ashraf also seemed to personify a facet of the Egyptian personality I'd long sensed lay just beneath the surface: the rage of a people living in a state of near-constant humiliation.

Some of these humiliations come with life under a dictatorship—the corruption, the petty harassments—but others are specific to Egypt. In the land of one of the world's most fabled ancient civilizations, the average Egyptian now struggles to get by on less than $1,000 a year. About the only opportunity for most Egyptians to economically advance is to labor as indentured servants for their far richer Gulf Arab cousins, or to obsequiously cater to the foreigners in their midst...

"Look at me," Ashraf said. "I feel like I'm 70. I feel like I don't have any future. Not even 1 percent of my dreams have come true. If I had a chance to do something, I'd take up a gun. It's the same life for me whether I live or die."

And then this:

[Farouk’s] ultimate dream, though, was to win the American-visa lottery. Every year, the U.S. awards some 50,000 work visas around the world, and this was the fourth year in a row that Farouk was applying...

For some minutes, Farouk rhapsodized about what his life would become if he won the lottery, how it would answer all his dreams. "Because I know in America I would be a great success. Everything would be wonderful for me then." After a short time, though, Farouk seemed to reflect on just how improbably small the odds were of this happening, and grew more solemn.

"You remember my friend Ashraf?" he asked. "He didn't tell you this, but last year he got an Iraqi visa. He wanted to join the jihad—as a fighter or as a shaheed [martyr], he didn't care—but so many Egyptian men have gone there that they have closed the land routes. To go to Iraq now, you first have to fly to Syria, and he didn't have the money for that."

It sounded like some bad joke, a guy so down on his luck he couldn't even get himself killed, but then Farouk continued in a soft voice.

"Sometimes I think maybe I should do that. They talk about it a lot in the mosques, about all the young men going there. I think I'm too soft to be a fighter, that it's not in my spirit, but I don't know … If I could go and kill some Americans before I die, then maybe my life would have had some meaning."

Iraq in the Arms of Iran Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Plenty of progressives have gone quiet on Iraq, tired of wasting words and ink on advice that's consistently ignored, and genuinely confounded by how to untangle the disastrousw results of Administration policy.

The plot thickens even further with today's reports of tightening security ties between Baghdad and Tehran.  The US remains mired in a dangerous and uncertain mission in Iraq in an effort to buttress that country against the influence of terrorists and extremists.  But even as we do so, Iraq is embracing the government of the regions most dangerous proliferator and most open antagonist of the United States. 

So one of the primary outcomes our Iraq mission seeks to avoid is happening under our nose.  The US is protesting that these growing ties are having a destablizing effect on Iraq by empowering Shiite militias, but the Iraqi government does not care.  We're in no position to argue that Iraq need not turn to Iran for security, since the manifest reality is neither we nor the Iraqi armed forces can provide it.

Meanwhile our own senior military personnel are arguing in public over whether troop levels in Iraq are adequate.  After the NY Times and Wash Post reported a senior military intelligence officer saying that more manpower was needed to contain the violence in Anbar province, the best his superior could come up with was that current troop levels were adequate for the goal of training Iraq's security forces, and that trying to combat the insurgency was outside the scope of their mission.  If that's the best we're able to do, no wonder Iraq is turning to Iran.

After rounds of consultations with Middle Eastern leaders who agreed that the Iraq invasion was a disaster but were divided on whether or not we should leave (Iran, not surprisingly, offered to help show us the door), Kofi Annan pronounced that the US is now in a position where "it cannot stay and it cannot leave."   This is pretty much how the Bush Administration seems to look at it:  they won't beef up the mission to a point where it has a fighting chance of containing the insurgency, and nor will they pull out.   

What Kofi Annan left out is that the only thing worth than either deciding to stay and positioning the US with adequate troops for possible to success or deciding to leave, is declining to make any decision at all.

The Danger and Promise of Democracy Promotion Posted by Shadi Hamid

I’ve been getting some interesting responses to my American Prospect essays (1,2) on the future of progressive foreign policy. In a spirited rejoinder to my piece (amusingly titled "Against Democracy"), Spencer Ackerman of The New Republic criticizes my "fetishization of democracy.” Even though I don’t think he intended this as a compliment, it does, I must say, have a nice ring to it. (My fetishes aside, Ackerman's article is useful contribution to the debate, and I hope to respond to his points after I sufficiently digest them).

Heather, also yesterday, touched on what I think are some critical questions regarding my suggested move toward a “democracy-centric” foreign policy.  Heather asks: “why has the democratization project been mostly unsuccessful in the Middle East…?”

This assumes that there was, in fact, ever, a real democratization project, not just in words but in deeds. The Bush administration’s dramatic shift in pro-democracy rhetoric was never accompanied by sustained policy changes on the ground. For a brief three or four month period in early 2005, Bush did, to his credit, put significant pressure on President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and a couple other repeat offenders. But, soon enough, the realist temptation became too tempting even for the self-anointed anti-Scrowcroft of our time. Well, then, why the reversal?

This brings us back to what I consider to be the fundamental dilemma for American policymakers – they want democracy but fear its outcomes. For too long, we’ve tried to avoid the question, get around it, or, worse, pretend it doesn’t exist. Instead of supposing that there is some mythical, silent Arab liberal majority that is just waiting to unleash its electoral potential, let’s try to ground our idealism in a fact-based assessment of Arab politics. As I point out in my article, Arab liberals have virtually no grassroots support in the Middle East. And as for “pro-American Arab liberals,” those don’t even exist. Mainstream Islamists, on the other hand, are as powerful as ever (at least partly because the Bush administration’s horrendous foreign policy has made gratuitous anti-Americanism such an easy sell). So, yes, Islamist groups will come to power if there are free elections. It’s going to happen whether we like or not. And it already has in Iraq, Turkey, and the Palestinian territories (and is likely to happen in Morocco next parliamentary election).

What we need, then, is a coherent policy toward political Islam.

Going it Alone In Iran Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Michael Signer asks the question:  if one of the primary objectives of US foreign policy is to exemplify conduct that causes other nations to want to emulate America's example and follow its lead, what is Washington to do in cases where most of the world declines to back us? 

The answer, of course, depends on why the world isn't with us:  is it because our motives are questionable, our intelligence faulty, our objectives unrealistic, our methods inappropriate, our plans half-baked?  Or is that other countries - because of their own economic or political interests, cowardice, indifference, inertia or a combination thereof - won't subscribe to a policy that has genuine merit?  The distinction makes all the difference.

All this seems may soon be tested over Iran.  The LA Times' Maggie Farley framed the question well in a piece yesterday:  if the US ends up forced to sidestep the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran, will Washington's doing so be a sign of weakness or of strength?

A bit of background:  Over the last few days, Tehran has opened a heavy water plant, and launched a sub-to-surface missile test, all days in advance of an August 31 UN deadline for a cessation of their uranium enrichment activities.  All signs indicate that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has no intention of heeding the UN's demands.

Washington now faces a dilemma.  The crisis in Lebanon only underscores the breadth of Iran's regional ambitions and the efficacy of their proxy network.  The one thing foreign policy experts of all persuasions agree on is that the foremost threat to U.S. security is nuclear weapons in the hands of a rogue or terrorist state.   Thus far, Ahmadinejad seems unwilling to slow down his nuclear march, meaning that waiting out the threat - essentially the Clinton Administration's approach to Iraq and one that, in retrospect, looks better and better - may not be an option here. 

But, if the US must act, will we get the international support we need, and - if not - why not, and then what?

The War Within Islam and How We Can Help Fight It Posted by Shadi Hamid

I attended a rather interesting sermon (or khutba) this past Friday at George Washington. It was a refreshing change of pace from the oratory, at once dicactic and incoherent, of Friday sermons in Egypt and other Arab countries (I just got back from Cairo last week).

At the end of the khutba, the imam will ask God for a variety of things and the congregation is expected to respond “amen” to each supplication or dua. In Egypt, I would have to listen closely so as to avoid saying “amen” to the anti-American, anti-semitic dua that are pretty much par for the course even in those countries that are supposedly at “peace” with Israel and have close relations with the US.

In any case, the prayer leader at GW on Friday was making a distinction between “human nature” and “Islamic nature.” Human nature, he said, is when you are nice to those who are nice to you. His argument was that “Islamic nature” – whatever that might be – is a cut above and takes things even further, that Muslims are supposed to respond with kindness, understanding, and tolerance even to those who mistreat them. He used examples of the Prophet Muhammad’s dealings with the Meccans (who tried to kill him and his companions) to illustrate the point.

I told a friend about this and she said it sounded a bit “Christian.” Maybe. Whatever it sounded like, it sounded good. This is the kind of message that European governments need to promote within ghettoized Muslim communities that find themselves increasingly isolated and alienated, particularly in Britain, France, and the Netherlands. As I argued last year in the Christian Science Monitor after the July 7^th London attacks, we must tell young European Muslims that whatever grievances you might have, the answer is not radicalism, but rather peaceful participation in the democratic process and engagement – instead of withdrawal – from mainstream European society. Not only is this the sensible approach, but it is the Islamic approach, one that the Prophet Muhammad himself would have advocated if he was alive today.

Within the Islamic tradition (like any other tradition), one can find that which supports violence and intolerance and that which repudiates it. In today’s war of ideas, we must take the peaceful precedents in Islamic history and amplify and communicate them to a larger audience. This is something Muslims themselves in Europe and the Middle East can and must do more of. The political context, however, is not conducive to such moderation and this is where US policy can either help or hinder the situation. Unfortunately, today, with the ensuing mess in Lebanon and Hezbollah’s disturbing rise in popularity, Muslim liberals and progressives will find it more difficult to promote a moderate message.

Policy Tips from the Armageddon Lobby Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Now, as I child I attended a Christian church that left me with quite a nice impression of Jesus and Christianity as a religion. Maybe its because my church worried just as much about the here as the hereafter. With that in mind,  I'd sure like to be at this week's Heritage Foundation event: Conflict with the West: Religious Drivers and Strategies of Jihad  in the hopes of getting some insight on our own homegrown armageddon policy planners. 

The blurb promises that the speakers will look at how:

the use of apocalyptic rhetoric for motivation of followers is not easily distinguished from the real expectations and practical plans of radical leaders

Its no secret that the Bush/Rove team relies on the religious right to elect Republicans. Today's LA Times reports on Evangelicals seeking to sign up a new flock of GOP supporters in states with crucial November races.

I hope the IRS reads the LA Times. But where this election strategy meets policy is where I get really nervous. Two items: the latest Seymour Hersh article on the administration's support of Israel's air campaign against Hezbollah as a demonstration experiment for Iran, plus the news that the Bush White House has met repeatedly to discuss Middle East policy with religious-right leaders.  Specifically, they've met with Christians United for Israel CUFI, whose founder, Richard Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West.

Sarah Posner at alternet has a splendid piece up about this trend.  Where are the guffaws from the majority of liberal American Jews about this clearly one-sided "partnership"? Of course, there will be little room in the rapture-train for them unless they renounce their religion and become fundamentalist Christians on command.  Little room for people like me, too, I imagine, with our warm-fuzzy visions of Jesus and all that peacemaking blah blah.