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March 18, 2005
Economist art
Something Stirs
I don’t often call articles from The Economist stupid, but this shall be an exception: the issue of 5 March article entitled “Something Stirs” rather irritated me for its easy and superficial characterizations of the current changes we’re seeing in the MENA region.
Let me take the opening paragraph as an instance: Opening by noting that since March 2003 the “Neo Con” camp has been ferociously mocked for its rather stupid pretensions re NBCs and the entirely whack idea Iraqis would be truly welcoming of an American presence in their country. (Rightly so, of course. Khayali bullshit needs to be checked.) The article follows this by contrasting this with “A lot of people in the anti-war camp predicted that the war would cause upheavals across the Middle East, fanning hatred for the West [actually the US] and tipping [US] friendly regimes into the hands of Islamist extremists.”
They then say “It hasn’t worked out that way.”
Excepting the collapse of friendly regimes into Islamist hands, a bizarre statement: objectively the image of the US is far worse 2 years on than it was in 2002 or even 2003 and actual hatred (as opposed to dislike) is also objectively up in the region.
So, fanning hatred of the US: check.
The next question is tipping regimes: well here it’s not at all clear where things are. Anti regime protests in Egypt do not mean Pro Western protests – nor are “liberals” (in the classic sense) dominant in opposition in Egypt. Lebanon, as you all know is an unclear case, but mass street protests there are not genuinely about “democracy” but sectarian power plays; the logic of maximalism and muscle flexing is clearly at play and could tip into violence at the slightest miscalculation. Iraq, a government can’t even form and ugly sounds are coming out of rising Shia and Kurd tensions. Analysis: utterly unclear, certainly nothing clearly positive in terms of US friendly regimes – see also Jordan and the rising confrontation there against a US centric regime (I note I am favorably disposed to Jordan but the reality is that it is a police state and that if popular will was expressed its policies would change drastically).
The article notes “right now much of the change seems to be pushing in a welcome direction, towards a new peace chance in Palestine and the spread of democratic ideas around the Arab world.”
This is quite simply a truly stupid sentence. False contrast and just plain stupid. The changes in the Israeli-Palestinian dynamic of course have nothing to do with the Iraq issue excluding a possible change in the US comportment for US-centric reasons tied to Iraq. Second, “spread of democratic ideas” is simple Neo Con whanking; maturation is potentially a correct way to put it, but “spread” is far too simplistic. Even maturation is more than slightly overdone insofar as so far we don’t have much evidence of democratic maturity (nor can one reasonably
There is a case to be made for the peoples of the Middle East taking the idea that maybe, just maybe the sclerotic old rentier regimes may come down, in the case of Egypt that perhaps the US backing for the Old Man is over, and for that the US deserves credit.
Further to that, the US policy since its own elections in re Iraq has begun to become rather more grounded in reality – let us leave aside the silly rhetoric about spread of democracy, that is premature and too simple – the apparent (so far) maturity in going along with the realities of Iraqi politics (that is the Shia religious domination, the probable domination of fairly non-liberal, fairly non-secular as one normally means the word political actors) is helpful. The game Allaouie is playing does raise suspicions, I have to say, that some people are trying to rig the game. But less important than that, I am returning to my earlier doubtfulness that with, the Kurd-Shia dynamic in the context of Sunni rejectionism and clear provocations from the extreme Salafine, Iraq can avoid a civil war a la Lebanon. It’s hard to see how.
Posted by The Lounsbury at March 18, 2005 12:10 AM
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Jan-July 2005
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