MODERN PLUTOCRATS & SOCIETY

I have conducted a very brief and surface research to find out who are the richest leaders in the world - not all, just some - and to compare them invariably under authoritarian regimes with wealthy politicians in the West - and not just "Latin lover Silvio" who cannot buy good press any more despite owning most of Italy's media, but with American congressmen. What we find is that many world leaders and politicians are extremely wealthy either before they went into politics or after.

Unless Wikileaks comes up with the information as it has on some of them, we have no way of knowing exact assets of politicians. For example, Egypt's Mubarak, Tunisia's Ben Ali, and Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh were not on any published list of richest world leaders. Social upheaval in those three Islamic countries forced the press to uncover the assets of these dictators and to the surprise of the public, these leaders' personal wealth amounted to a substantial percentage of their country's GDP.

Egypt's GDP is $216 billion, while Mubarak's personal wealth is one-third of the country's GDP, or $70 billion! The country's sovereign debt is at 80% of GDP or about $165 billion, of which external debt is $30 billion; Mubarak's personal wealth can help solve the debt problem. Per capita income in terms of real GDP is $2,160, the second lowest in the Arab world just above Yemen, that is because Mubarak and a small percentage of Egyptians own most of the wealth. The average Egyptian spends between 40 and 50 percent of income on foodstuffs, while the average American spends just under 10% despite the recent spike in prices. Are these conditions for a social uprising? Maybe not, but chronic poverty, repression, combined with external (US) dependence seemed the right combination for an uprising.

Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Khalifa is worth 12 billion pounds sterling and has been trying to modernize his country by turning into a 'commercially-pop-culturally-trendy' vacation spot for the rich and famous. Without the support of the conservative Arab states and the West, it is difficult to say what the political fate of the UAR would be; any more than what it will be after the recent Arab uprisings. In Saudi Arabia with its monocultural economy (oil-dependent), King Abdullah is worth about the same as Sheikh Khalifa built a city and modestly named it after himself "King Abdullah Economic City", as well as King Abdullah University of Science & Technology, and many other institutions after his name just in case people forget who owns the country. Meanwhile, an estimated 30% live below the poverty line and unemployment is at 10%. The question is how long will the royal family (about 7000 princes that rule the country as a fiefdom) be able to play both the West as well as placate Islamists that allegedly indirectly are supporting al-Qaeda. How long now that the genie is out of the Tunisian, Egyptian, and Yemeni bottles?

Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej's is reportedly worth 20 billion pounds sterling, (roughly 10% of GDP), while the per capita income is about 2,500 pounds sterling. Mired in popular protests that often turn violent against an unpopular government, Thailand is an example of a plutocrat ruling a country where roughly one-third of the people are poor, where human rights violations run rampant, especially against women reduced to prostitution and subjected to human trafficking. But as long as the King make the rich and famous list, all is well!

As one of the most ostentatious rulers in the world, the Sultan of Burnai is worth 13.5 billion pound sterling, but the country's GDP is at $12 billion; in other words, the Sultan has more money than his entire country! Imagine if only Silvio 'teenage chasing' Berlusconi worth an estimated 6 billion pounds sterling, had more money than Italy's GDP. But who really knows with Silvio how much he is actually worth? After all, he has been so stingy with the trade unions, and ever so generous with his 'little girls' and with politicians reaching out their hand in return for a vote in the 'right (Silvio's) direction'.

Latin America has its millionaire leaders as well, most notable among them Sebastián Piñera, President of Chile, worth well over one billion dollars, in a country with poverty rate just under 20% (comparable to the weakest EU members) and per capita income at just over $10,000. Historically a country where the wealth was concentrated among a few families and mostly in Santiago and surrounding areas, 40% of the country's wealth is owned by 10% of the people. The only countries will less equitable income distribution are Brazil and Guatemala; two very different countries in many respects.

Africa also has its share of petty dictators who have become multimillionaires by virtue of public power entrusted to them (or seized by them). Equatorial Guinea's president Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea is in the infamous club, but notorious because in 2003 he actually deposited several hundred million (up to one billion) dollars into a private family account, arguing that its purpose was to fight corruption! Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and King Mswati III of Swaziland are not much better than Nguema Mbasogo. The King of Swaziland often supplements his personal accounts with public treasury funds - how else could he afford to keep his wives and 'others' living in style in a land where two-third of the people cannot meet basic needs and only 10% account for half of the country's consumption.

Like many underdeveloped nations, most of the former Soviet republics from Georgia to Kyrgyzstan are ruled under corrupt officials from top down, and leaders who have become wealthy and use the state as a means of enriching themselves and a small clique of people in the private and public sectors. Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev is probably the poster child for Trans-Caspian-Central Asian official corruption under authoritarian rule, but hardly the only one. The USSR was hardly a utopia as many Marxists wished it would become before and during the October Revolution, in fact the Soviet Union had become a static relic that needed major structural reforms. But how much better is what we have today in the republics under authoritarian regimes with problems with narcotics and prostitution, official corruption and vast socioeconomic inequality?

Do we have a case of 'Exceptionalism' or more of the same in the United States when it comes to politicians who have little in common with the average citizen? Clearly the US has some of the strictest laws on the planet about official corruption, and as the world's wealthiest nation where the financial elites are dominant over the political, there cannot be a situation of one or a few political leaders or public officials using the state as a private fiefdom. Historically, the honorable and noble thing to do, at least such was the image the rich projected, a man let us say an honorable politician whom I admire for his foreign policy, Herbert Hoover made money in the private sector and then went into politics. But what if a large percentage of politicians are millionaires and they go into politics to safeguard the economic system in which they believe along with augmenting their considerable personal wealth.

The Center for Responsive Politics in the US has revealed that in 2008 there were 237 millionaires serving in Congress, a decline from 2007 when there were 239 millionaires, or about 45 percent of the total serving in the Senate and House. The median reported asset value in 2008 was $1.8 million. It is worth considering that in net assets reported, members of congress do not include everything, and often their residences are excluded, making the official worth actually lower than the real gross asset value. Considering that about one percent of all Americans are millionaires, there is an immense socioeconomic gap between the average congressman and a typical constituent. Even worse, many millionaire members of congress have investments in the companies receiving billions in taxpayer money in some form especially bailouts. Those include Goldman-Sachs, Bank of America, General Electric, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup. The larger question, of course is the degree to which these office holders make policy for the benefit of and are really accountable to their constituents or they are there to benefit the corporations in which they have investments and which fund their campaigns.

It seems to me that approximately 1500 years after Merovingian King Clovis consolidated power to establish the Frankish kingdom, we still have the basic Barbarian concept of the public leader's role; namely, the public domain exists to enrich the leader (s) (and his chosen privileged nobles), and it is to be treated as such. In short, the concept of public service is really all about private gain using the public office. Piaget may have been right about stages of cognitive development, but it seems that the same theory cannot apply to stages of development in human civilization, given that world leaders and politicians today think of the public domain in Medieval terms, no matter the modern rhetoric they use to justify their actions designed to enrich themselves.  

TRANS-CAUCASUS-CENTRAL ASIAN GEOPOLITICS

The trans-Caucasus region is indeed very important and I can see a scenario of regional conflict arising, with a conflict between the Great Powers (Russia v. China for example) as a very remote possibility. In 1921 Lenin decided that the Caspian would be divided equally between his country and Iran. He favored Iran's national sovereignty and denied that the Soviet Union was interested in pursuing imperialist policies based on spheres of influence toward any neighboring nation like the Tsarist regime and the Europeans had been pursuing. England of course was the dominant foreign power in Iran during the interwar era. During the war, Nazi Germany made an attempt to gain control of the Caucasus region natural resources. Stalin reached the (in) famous (depending on one's perspective) about the division of postwar spheres of influence, agreeing that the "Norther Tier" (Greece, Turkey and Iran) would be under the aegis of the West.

The Caspian is important not only because of the natural resources of the world's largest 'lake', the Caspian 'Sea', (natural gas, oil, pipelines and caviar from sturgeon),  but after the collapse of the USSR, Iran had to share the Caspian with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, thus seeing its share drop from 50% down to 20%, a percentage the other countries want to reduce further and Iran is resisting. In November 2010, Iran's president Ahmadinejad met in Baku, Azerbaijan capital, for a Caspian Sea conference to discuss the percentages issue.

Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan view natural resources as leverage for greater economic and political power. Iran sees the 20% percent demand not as bargaining position but as a floor, but it is just as concerned about western economic and strategic influence in the region. Multinational corporations for energy and pipeline contracts, an regional competition, the larger question with regard to the Caspian and the countries that have a claim on it is strategic. The small countries bordering the Caspian claim that because they have longer coastline, that entitles them to more resources and Iran just 11%. On the other hand, Russia is going back to the Tsarist period basing its economic development and political leverage during the 21st century mainly on raw materials, especially energy. Moscow wants to impose its energy hegemony, thus relegating the former Soviet republics to 'clientist' roles for Russia.

The concern for Moscow and Tehran is that the US has been using the extraordinarily corrupt government of Kazakhstan to establish an economic and strategic foothold. Wikileaks revealed that British millionaire Robert Kissin provided a $4m secret payment (bribe) to Kazakhstan government on behalf of Texas company Baker Hughes that wanted a $219 million oil services contract. The SEC imposed a $44 million fine on Hughes in April 2007. That was the highest penalty ever imposed by DoJ.

If a regional conflict arises, it probably will not be because Iran uses 'gunboat diplomacy', for this is not uncommon among other countries, including Turkey for example that has staked a claim in the Aegean against both Greece and Cyprus claims.  The conflict may arise if Iran perceives a threat from Kazakhstan as a US satellite under President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev who has ruled the country unchallenged since 1991, and he and a few other oligarchs have used the country in order to amass billions in personal wealth.

In spring 2010 he requested that the US set up a military base in Kazakhstan instead of the Transit Center Manas in Bishkek, and he offered Obama use of air space for flights to Afghanistan. In January 2011, the Voice of America noted that in 2010 the US solidified relations with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, five nations that border Afghanistan, Russia, China and Iran. This is indeed ironic considering that historically Russia and Iran posed a threat to the trans-Caucasus region.

The former Soviet republics in the Caucasus-Central Asia have few options in order to counter not just Russian, but Iranian economic power and potential nuclear power (and weapons at some point). The best option is greater economic cooperation with the EU - using the natural gas resources and military cooperation with NATO. For its part, Iran is concerned about 'encirclement' by US allies that could potentially become cause for conflict. However, as long as Russia and China are counter-balancing the pro-US allies in Central Asia, and as long as China and Russia are counter-balancing each other militarily, Iran would need a very serious excuse for preemptive regional conflict. The people in the Caucasus-Central Asian countries are hardly satisfied with very corrupt and repressive regimes, thus Iran does not need to worry as much because the regimes are unpopular and use nationalism as a rallying cry. After two decades, however, the broad masses of the population demand more from their governments. 

 

What took place in Kyrgyzstan in April 2010, after mass riots and demonstrations against the regime of president Kurmanbek Bakiyev who had sent the cost of living skyrocketing, can easily take place in the rest of the former Soviet republics. Now that the Arab world has set the precedent for popular uprisings and people will not tolerate petty dictators using their countries to enrich their families and a few relatives and friends, the fear of mass protests overthrowing authoritarian regimes has spread to the Caucasus-Central Asian region.

THE WETSPHALIAN SYSTEM & MODERN SOCIETY

In his attempt to differentiate his own views from mine on the current uprisings in the Arab world, Vincent Littrell attributed a number of statements to me that do not correspond to what I have argued in my postings. First, he claims that I see everything in 'black/white terms', and others, presumably simpleminded individuals like me, do the same. Anyone familiar with what I have been writing on the current Arab uprisings can see that I pose various possibilities about the internal and external immediate and long-term causes of the uprisings, and above all that I caution it is still much too soon to come to any conclusion about what is transpiring in North Africa and Middle East; at the very least it is important to wait for new regimes to take power and judge them on the basis of their policies, and then wait a generation to have a clearer picture.

Second, presuming to know me and my experiences in life and as an academic, Vincent Littrell questions my knowledge of the Arab world, while projecting his own personal experiences as authoritative, thus conclusive. This of course assumes that expertise emanates solely from personal experience, a concept that necessarily invalidates a very large percentage of scholarship. Edward Gibbon, for example, did not live in the Roman Empire, although he wrote extensively about it and provided sound scholarship for his generation and posterity. Third, Mr. Littrell argues that worker-bee and day-to-day Arab-non-Arab interactions are complex and surface coverage by the media fails to capture the reality on the ground; again assuming that the only source of information available to people is mass media. Let us for the sake of argument accept the above contention; exactly what is the point here, how does this impressionistic observation not even placed into reductionist paradigm add to our social science knowledge of the dynamics of the Arab uprisings?

Finally, Vincent Littrell accuses me of adopting a "Westphalian state-centric geo-political analysis can even scratch the surface of the complexities associated with bridging Occident and Orient, or even determining the true impacts of Western hard/soft presence/encroachment on the Muslim World."  In 1648, major European powers signed the Treaty of Westphalia that endorsed the principle of territorial sovereignty, thus formalizing - making the de facto status quo of nation-state into de jure - and operating on that system in international political and juridical matters.

It is the right of course of anyone reading my postings to reach the conclusion that I have not kept up sufficiently with the times by not questioning the Westphalian assumptions. My theoretical assumptions aside, what coherent ideological model does Mr. Littrell offer with which to articulate the complexities of the Middle East, or is he merely basing his opinions about the Arab world on impressionistic experiences because he believes that empirical 'day-to-day' impressionistic perspective is superior to any theoretical approach? That too is an interpretation that I would have on the table for discussion assuming at least it is articulated into a coherent reductionist model, but why is it more valid or superior than the holistic paradigm?

Finally, the modern state emerged with the Treaty of Westphalia, and scholars of the Western World have used that political-juridical paradigm simply because that is the world in which they lived and which conditioned their way of thinking, as much in international law as international affairs. The challenge to the Westphalian IR assumptions have surfaced in the last decade or so, partly as a result of the enormity of regional economic blocs that transcend state sovereignty, as for example in the European Union. Moreover, traditional conservatives like Henry Kissinger have argued that: "The Westphalian system sought security based on the sanctity of international borders. In our time, the power, range and speed of modern weapons have made this definition too narrow."

The nature of the integrated world economy, as well as more fluid definition of national borders in part accounts for questioning Westphalian assumptions. However, the very broad "Westphalian IR assumptions" in part or as a whole have profoundly influenced individuals who come from very different ideological backgrounds. From the conservative camp, both Otto von Bismark and Henry Kissinger and todays neo-conservatives falling into the school of realism have embraced aspects of Westphalian assumptions and rejected others; Wilsonian internationalists of the Liberalism school and human rights advocates have done the same; and idealists like Mahatma Gandhi who also fits into the same model. The Westphalian 'state sovereignty principle' has been used to justify imperialist extension (externally-imposed sovereignty) as well as by anti-colonial movements to justify their desire for self-determination.

One last point about theoretical models in the social sciences. I believe that while no theoretical model adequately captures the empirical world and all theoretical models suffer from limitations, just as all philosophical schools and systems, it is important to place a body of empirical information into some coherent model, and then work out from there so that people have some basis of comprehending the empirical world systematically and holistically. This does not mean that the reductionist paradigm, which generally overlooks or minimizes the history of a system, is inferior to the holistic, but it does seem to me that the former is more appropriate for the hard sciences than the social sciences.

CIA & the ARAB UPRISINGS

The mass media and blogs have all sorts of serious and sensational stories about the CIA's role in connection with the recent uprisings in the Arab world. Stories range from CIA complicity in the uprisings against the authoritarian regimes to CIA working to undermine the uprisings, to CIA failure to provide adequate intelligence. Both Obama and a number of senators, including Diane Feinstein, have started blaming the intelligence community for the popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East.

In a predictably opportunistic manner, both the White House and Senate are washing their hands clean of any policy decisions and laying fault at the doorstep of the CIA as though the agency is at fault for: a) policy making; b) having a crystal ball to predict when people will hit the streets; and c) had failed to provide good intel, despite sharing with the White House all it knew about the situation in December 2010, as CIA official Stephanie O'Sullivan testified. Published reports indicate that the CIA warned about simmering social unrest that could spread throughout the Arab world, but policymakers simply ignored the reports, as they probably warn many such reports that outline possible scenarios in various parts of the world where stability may be at issue.

Is the CIA to blame for failing to provide adequate intelligence to the Obama administration and the Senate Intelligence Committee about the Arab uprisings in January-February 2011? From the Bay of Pigs to Vietnam, from the Iranian and Nicaraguan Revolutions to the 'phantom Iraqi nuke program' for which the CIA was doing all it could both to provide honest intelligence and at the same time go along with Bush policy, politicians in Washington have always blamed the CIA because they do not want to accept responsibility for policy decisions. The agency may as well hang a sign in its Langley headquarters that reads: "We will always credit the administration when something goes as planned, but when something goes wrong with US foreign policy, we are here to take the fall for elected officials."

This may sound very strange coming from me, a critic of the agency's operations since Truman created it. However, it is important to understand that CIA, which does everything from compiling important stats on countries to engaging in counter-insurgency operations, is only executing government orders and acts to implement aspects of policy. The CIA cannot be blamed if social unrest or revolutions erupt, any more than the army can be blamed for doing its job (with all its flaws that are expected under war conditions) in the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan. Naturally, the desire of politicians is understandable to demand that the CIA should have 'guided' or manipulated the social unrest in Egypt so that the Muslim Brotherhood does not benefit politically in the aftermath. However, that is an utterly unrealistic demand that the agency could not possibly carry out even it had the blessing of the prophet Muhammad on its side.

The other criticism is that the CIA focused mainly on the 'terrorism nexus' - Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan - while ignoring 'safe pro-US satellites Tunisia and Egypt'. But why is it the CIA's fault that both Bush and Obama asked the agency to focus on the 'terrorism nexus', rather than the 'pro-West' authoritarian regimes? And can the politicians blame the CIA for placing their trust in pro-US authoritarian regimes, when that too was policy and the Pentagon did the same?

On February 3, 2011, Sen. John McCain told FOX news that the 'virus of mass uprisings behind which are radical organizations is spreading throughout the Middle East. McCain reflects broad sentiments of US politicians and pundits who strongly disapprove of the popular uprisings in the Arab world, and by implication grass roots democratic uprisings, largely because such events jeopardize US, westerns and Israeli interests. In sharp contrast to McCain and politicians and pundits who lament the popular Arab uprisings, Robert Grenier, former CIA Director of Counter-Terrorism Center from 2004 to 2006, CIA’s Clandestine Service director,  argues that the US opted for political stability instead of risking backing democratic reform. 

"Suddenly the US has nothing it can credibly say as people take to the streets to try to seize control of their collective destiny. Our words betray us. US spokesmen stress the protesters' desire for jobs and for economic opportunity, as though that were the full extent of their aspirations. They entreat the wobbling, repressive governments in the region to "respect civil society", and the right of the people to protest peacefully, as though these thoroughly discredited autocrats were actually capable of reform. They urge calm and restraint. One listens in vain, however, for a ringing endorsement of freedom, or for a statement of encouragement to those willing to risk everything to assert their rights and their human dignity - values which the US nominally regards as universal. ... The failure of the US to uphold its stated commitment to democratic values therefore goes beyond a simple surface hypocrisy, beyond the exigencies of great-power interests, to suggest a fundamental lack of belief in democracy as a means of promoting enlightened, long-term US interests in peace and stability." http://www.zerohedge.com/article/former-director-cia%E2%80%99s-counter-terrorism-center-american-policy-middle-east-failing-because-u

 

Grenier is correct that Arab protesters across North Africa and the Middle East could care less of what the US thinks or says now. Arabs know only too well, as Grenier notes, that the US permitted brutal collective punishment in Gaza, it refused to seek a solution in Lebanon by hiding behind the think veil of not negotiating with Hezbollah because it is a 'terrorist organization'. That Grenier has come out so strongly in condemnation of US foreign policy and the shameless hypocrisy of the government in Washington amid the Arab uprisings means a great deal more than all of the world's academics combined making the exact same point.

I enthusiastically applaud Grenier's courageous and honest appraisal of the situation and I am delighted that he is offering this subtle analysis instead of the shallow hypocritical political rhetoric about the Arab world. The CIA needs more such voices to surface in protest of policymakers pointing the finger at the agency for the policy failures of the White House and congress; for shamelessly using the agency to carry out daily operations that politicians disavow when the truth surfaces about their questionable legality, while defaulting all blame to the agency when something goes wrong. Is there anything more cowardly than the perfidious than a politician using the loyal soldier as shield in such shameful manner?

The CIA has much for which to answer throughout its history, and there is no shortage of critics from all sorts of perspectives and all sorts of issues from operational - allowing agency infiltration by double-agents to taking part in torture and assassinations in the name of democracy - to management and inter-agency coordination that may or may not best serve the government in the manner carried out. But why is it the agency's fault that the US and the IMF-World Bank member countries approved IMF austerity policy recommendations that contributed to the uprisings across the Arab world? Is it not true that the IMF has a long history of introducing austerity measures that invariably result in social unrest?

With its board-members' approval, the IMF recommended to the countries currently in revolt to abolish state food subsidies thereby exacerbating simmering social unrest. Pundits and politicians - yes, of course always after the fact because before the same pundits and politicians were on the other side - are now asking why didn't the IMF provide emergency lending to the Arab nations now under turmoil, while the IMF is defending its policies and rejects the suggestion that austerity contributed to social unrest!

It should surprise no one that the level of political hypocrisy prevents Washington from seeing that the same growing socioeconomic inequality and anti-democratic regimes that finally drove thousands of Arabs into the streets to demand change exist in the US. Accord to the CIA, the GINI coefficient that measures distribution of inequality is actually worse for the US than it is for Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia. Perhaps the US political parties ought to drop the hollow rhetoric about spreading freedom and democracy in other countries and try to get their own house in order by strengthening the working class and the middle class. America as a whole is far better off than any country in the Middle East, but income inequality has been worse than it has been in more than a century and it is expected to become more pronounced. If social unrest hits the streets of New York or Detroit, and it may if the socioeconomic gap continues to widen and if the prospects for upward mobility (realization of the American Dream) appear unrealistic, what agency will policymakers blame for failing to do its job?

DOES THE US HAVE ANY MORAL AUTHORITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

Does the US and its western allies have any moral authority in the Middle East, or have they nothing to offer now amid the social uprisings after decades of supporting authoritarian regimes without any resolution to the central problem which is the Palestinian question? If a public opinion poll were to be conducted among Arabs throughout the Middle East and North Africa, how would they answer the question posed above after a decade of 'war on terrorism' and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Writing during the downfall of the Communist bloc and the evolving US Cold War with Muslim countries that were not part of its 'client-dependency network' in the Middle East and Central Asia, high-profile media-promoted scholar Francis Fukuyama had become the darling of the neo-conservatives because he celebrated the triumph of the West, essentially the US, over the Communist bloc. Over the years, I have made critical references to Fukuyama's ideas, especially those in The End of History that made him famous and which in my view is shallow populist writing designed to appeal to the mainstream, yet trendy, even radical in its approach of the subject and in its style, while conformist, even reactionary and xenophobic (anti-Muslim) in its goal.

Christopher Hitchens was right on the money when he wrote that Fukumaya uses "an arsenal of clichés and stock expressions located somewhere inside his word processor, so that he has only to touch the keyboard for one of them to spring abruptly onto the page." Arguing that Islam and modernity are not compatible, Fukuyama, like many Western liberals and conservatives, equates modernity (and scientific knowledge) with liberal-bourgeois political and market-based mass-consumer geared economic institutions as they operate mainly in Anglo-Saxon societies. A former employee of the US State Department, Fukuyama has been an advocate of that long-standing American foreign policy practice, coercive regime change that former vice president Dick Cheney and his neo-conservative backers embraced.

The American-centric assumptions behind the shallow xenophobic thesis that Fukuyama promoted became popular with neo-conservatives in the late 1990s and the first five years of the Bush presidency until Fukuyama broke with neo-cons on foreign policy issues. The hidden danger with this individual is that he selectively uses Marxian rhetoric with the intention of promoting bourgeois capitalist goals, thereby allowing free hand of liberals and conservatives to criticize him selectively. 

 

One could argue that we live in the age of shallowness when dummy-down everything from the mass news media so that it entertains more than it informs, to dummied-down politically and culturally trendy scholarship that appears scholarly and original, that conforms with the institutional mainstream, and appeals to a broader spectrum of people than the narrow academe. The same shallowness exists with regard to US moral authority that amid the widespread social uprisings in the Middle East it is trying to project.

It is true that the West does have noble moral principles that can appeal to the entire world, not just to the Middle East and Muslims from Indonesia to Pakistan. Indeed many Western 'moral principles' of which I would include civil rights and human rights, fundamental universal freedoms such as speech, press, and worship, multiculturalism and normative relativism, all these principles are very admirable. I have no public opinion poll to determine what percentage of people around the world, many Muslims included, deem such western moral principles as honorable. I am guessing that many would approve enthusiastically and they would even wish to adopt them for their societies.

The problem with the moral quandary of the US (and the West) with regard to Arab authoritarian regimes is its blatant hypocrisy given the immense gap between 'liberal democratic', pluralistic, human rights rhetoric on the one hand, and exploitative policies designed to serve US and Western economic and strategic interests in the region. Can the US and Europe really conceal their practices in the Middle East in the last 60 years behind lofty rhetoric about moral principles now that the uprisings are taking place; can they run away from their record?  Naturally, as long as Egypt's Mubarak, Tunisia's Ben Ali, Yemen's Saleh, or Saudi King Abdullah dutifully serve US and Western economic, political, and military interests, they have a relatively free hand to ignore those lofty Western moral principles that the US makes public to the world to reassure the public that in theory it supports them.

There is no evidence that the US was pressuring Egypt, or any country currently in social upheaval to undertake democratic reforms in accordance with the moral principles I have delineated above. On the contrary, the US was only interested in the 'war on terrorism' which was a pretext for Egypt and other Arab regimes to violate human rights of their citizens; the US demanded reforms that would open markets to allow corporations greater and easier access to markets that the Arab authoritarian regimes were using to enrich narrow circles of companies and individuals that of course conducted business on the timed-honored baksheesh system. What moral obligation does the US government have now that the uprisings have erupted, other than to ensure the new regimes are as loyal as the old ones?

The world judges the US and the West not by vacuous rhetoric about moral principles that it embraces in theory, but by its historical relationship with Arab dictatorships. It is true that pro-US (pro-West) dictators have a history of getting out of hand, as they figure that the patron state (US) owes them for years of loyal service. It is also true that the US has a history of protecting its interests by cutting its losses when there is no alternative to a crumbling regime. What is the US doing now that the Egyptian and Yemen regimes are trying to convert the popular social uprisings into civil wars? 

 

Is the US working behind the scenes to make sure that national self-determination and true sovereignty are installed under democratic rule, or is it trying to make sure that another authoritarian pro-West regime succeeds the one that the people are overthrowing? Will the US and EU make any public calls and privately work toward implementation of lofty western moral principles of freedom, democracy and human rights, or will they simply demand accommodations to foreign capital and US military interests combined with the continuation of the war on terrorism? People judge moral principles not by empty words, not by populist neo-con propagandists like Fukuyama, but by actions!

IS CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS INEVITABLE OVER THE MIDDLE EAST?

Amid Egypt's revolt and other social upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa in January-February 2010, governments around the world are trying to assess their own internal sociopolitical situation and the degree to which their regimes are safe from a possible overthrow by widespread popular unrest. Some authoritarian regimes are becoming more austere in order to prevent uprisings, while the G-7 liberal-bourgeois democracies, which are the economically hegemonic powers in the Arab world, are planning how to have the inside track with the next regime so that nothing changes in the 'patron-client' relationship of the great powers and their Arab dependencies.

All of this turmoil in Cairo and beyond must come as a shock to liberals and conservatives worldwide. Most actually believed that the end of the Communist bloc meant the end of popular uprisings; the safe and continued uninterrupted progress of the market economy operating under a variety of political umbrellas from the social-democratic in Norway to liberal-bourgeois in the G-7, to some form of authoritarianism for many like those of North Africa and the Middle East.
How shocking it must be for 'democratic' Western politicians to suddenly discover that authoritarian rulers were pillaging their own nations that were 'dependencies' of Western interests, now falling under popular pressure and threatening the regional and international balance of power? What does the US, Israel, and EU do now that there is a real possibility of a 'clash of civilizations' by a popular uprising; a self-fulfilling prophecy on the part of the US and its allies that operated under such a confrontational ideology and policies in the last two decades in the name of fighting terrorism. This clash of civilizations was hardly inevitable. Indeed, it was a manufactured fate by governments, no different than clashes of civilizations in centuries past.

I have stated in previous postings that Iran, the chosen nemesis of the West, is the winner of the clash of civilizations. Iran once again will emerge the clear winner out of the uprisings of 2011, just as Iran emerged the clear beneficiary out of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This too was the result not of inevitable fate, not from Christian Divine Providence or the will of Allah, but the stuff of short-sighted US policies since the Iranian Revolution.

It will take months, indeed many years, for scholars to determine the various complex causes and the degree to which the new status quo that emerges really represents any structural change as a result of the current uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. We are so close to the unfolding events that perhaps the next generation (s) will be better able to judge with greater accuracy the dynamics of these historic events; the degree to which they have common causes domestic and external. From our limited perspective we can only try to figure out what it means for the immediate future and for specific political groups, social classes, ideological and religious movements, as well as countries.

Do people really engage in uprisings solely because of dire socioeconomic conditions under repressive regimes? If indeed so, shouldn't the poorest nations on earth be engaged in perpetual revolution?  And if it is true that people trade repression for safety, security, and material comforts of the present, how do we explain the Iranian revolution in 1979 carried out primarily by a middle class that the Shah had created; a middle class that saw good prospects for upward mobility for its children, yet, it decided that was not enough; a middle class that wanted regime change along with economic modernization, but while maintaining Islamic-Persian cultural and religious identity threatened by the Shah's 'Americanization' of the country. The Iranian uprising was about opportunities and freedom, about national integrity and freedom from foreign dependence that the Shah denied to his people.

During the Iranian Revolution in which political elements from the left to the religious right participated in solidarity to bring regime change, the urban middle class leading the movement saw their socioeconomic and political prospects under a new regime that would assert a strong national and cultural identity instead of reducing the country further into (neo-colonial) dependency. The Tudeh Paerty played an important role and hoped to influence the country's political landscape as did centrists hoping the same. Naturally, neither the leftists nor centrist reformers benefited from the revolution that fell into the hands of Islamists. In the first week of February 1979, more than three million people poured into the streets of Tehran to welcome the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini. As in the case of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Iranian military declared their solidarity with the people; a situation very similar to that of Egypt in 2011, a situation in which the military will probably play a catalytic role on what type of regime is forged.

But the Iranian revolution took place before the end of the Cold War, before the US war on (Muslim) terrorism, and before Sam Huntington's Clash of Civilization (1998) intended to explain the post-Cold War world order amid new types of international conflict. However, now that the uprisings of Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt are taking place, it seems that either the 'clash of civilization' thesis needs a new broader chronology and a much broader thesis, or it needs narrower definition to describe US transition from Cold War ideological and foreign policy orientation to an anti-Islam path. After all, who decided that divisions among humankind and the source of global conflict was cultural, if not the country seeing itself in a protagonist antagonistic role to cultures, religions, regimes, civilizations it opposed in the Middle East and Central Asia? And would the US decide that cultural, ideological, political, diplomatic, economic, and ultimately military conflict is as inevitable as the Cold War, and thus must be won by any means necessary? If the US saw nothing but 'clash of civilization', as Hiuntington argued and so many agreed, does the rest of the world see the same thing?

Could it be that the 'clash of civilizations' ideology and policies that the US and its allies pursued, along with the political economy of hyper-concentrated finance capitalism that has caused a global crisis contributed to the current uprising in North Africa and the Middle East? After all, clash of civilizations is not a new concept - ancient Persia wished to acquire the trade routes of ancient Greece and Athens wanted to eliminate Persia as a threat to its commercial expansion; the Roman Republic wished to eliminate Carthage as a rival; Christians went after Middle Eastern trade routes and clashed with Muslims in the name of God during the crusades. In modern times God was busy at work on behalf of white Europeans and Americans clashing with non-white native populations whose resources and cheap labor the imperialists wanted. Clashes of civilizations have always existed not because of intrinsic differences between cultures, but because the power-hungry political and social elites of a country deliberately seek out clash in order to derive benefits - political, military, economic.

A survey by BBC, the University of Maryland's Program of International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), and Globescan conducted in 27 nations in 2007 found that 56% of the respondents did not agree that 'clash of civilizations' between Muslims and the West was inevitable. On the other hand, right wing groups in the US and EU seeking political advantage believe in the inevitability of such a clash. Ten years ago, Huntington wrote: "the leaders of countries with at least two thirds of the world's people - Chinese, Russians, Indians, Arabs, Muslims, Africans - see the United States as the single greatest threat to their societies. They do not see America as a military threat; they see it as a threat to their integrity, autonomy, prosperity, and freedom of action to pursue their interests as they see it. They see the United States as intrusive, interventionist, exploitative, unilateralist, hegemonic, hypocritical, applying double standards, engaging in what they label 'financial imperialism' and 'intellectual colonialism." S. Huntington, Culture, Power & Democracy, (7-8).

The current uprisings in the Middle East-North Africa regions represent a great opportunity for the US to put an end to 'clash of civilization' ideology and policies that replaced the Cold War. The uprisings in the Middle East are an opportunity to launch a new era by respecting the UN principles of national self-determination and human rights; to replace costly and bankrupt military solutions with diplomacy as the means of resolving conflict; to stop 'mothering' Israel and start pressuring it to permit the sovereign state of Palestine to exist with all the territorial rights (water rights and port access included). The current turmoil in the Arab world represents an opportunity for fundamental rethinking about ending the Cold War with the Muslims under the label 'war on terrorism', and finding common ground of cooperation on an interdependent rather than a neo-colonial patron-client model. Does the US have the visionary leadership to end the clash of civilizations? Absolutely it does, but there are too many political and business lobbies adamantly against it, so it will not happen.  

ARAB UPRISINGS & THE POLICE

While it is indeed true that the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, each country with its unique history and institutions, have some differences, I am not at all certain that the differences are nearly as pronounced or as significant as the similarities. Minimizing the role of Tunisia's foreign dependence - mainly on France and US - and arguing that the police played a greater role in Tunisia than in Egypt appears to be so on the surface only. After all, it is the Egyptian police in civilian clothes that engaged protesters in bloody conflict, while the military has been much more aloof if not friendly toward demonstrators.

Institutionally the police in Tunisia have played a more significant role than the military, while in Egypt institutionally it was the army and has been since 1952. But was Tunisia a 'police state' in the classic sense of the term or simply another authoritarian regime that heavily used the police whose leadership is now purged by the new regime. For that matter, Yemen's Interior Ministry and police has a comparable role as Tunisia, but is Yemen, where the uprising is continuing but largely ignored by mass media because of Egypt, a police state? Is there an Arab police state, where the power base of political power for the regime rests on the police?

As far as the Israelis sending military assistance via Cyprus, and the claim that the US is playing the usual dual foreign policy role - one  for the cameras, namely 'we are for the people' hollow rhetoric, but behind the scenes backing Mubarak, that is only a reflection of Washington and Tel Aviv policies and tangible interests behind a regime in which US and Israel have invested a great deal in the last three decades. But what does US and Israeli behind the scenes activity really mean in terms of the outcome of this uprising?

The Mubarak regime is finished, and it will be finished much faster than people think especially if it is true and the word gets out that Israel and US are trying to save Mubarak who is the symbol not just of Egypt as a US satellite, but of broader western and Arab economic and geopolitical interests. For example, 10 banks in London and Switzerland, collectively managing $4 trillion in assets, have reported concern on the part of very wealthy clients worried about Egypt. As Egypt's largest aid donor, the US has to cover all bases, ranging from protecting financial interests to preparing to deal with the next regime more or less the way it dealt with Mubarak and before him Sadat.