The Containment
Myth: US Middle East Policy in Theory and Practice
Stephen Hubbell
Among those
who direct American foreign policy, there is near-unanimity that
the collapse of communism represents a kind of zero hour. The end
of the Cold War so transformed the geopolitical landscape as to
render the present era historically discontinuous from the epoch
that preceded it. Policy makers contend that America's mission abroad
has had to change to keep pace with these new circumstances.
For more than four decades, American intervention around the world
was justified by the need to contain international communism. Containment
proved to be a versatile and protean doctrine: it could be applied
anywhere and tailored to almost any context. In the Middle East,
Soviet expansionism was cited as the rationale behind the 1957 Eisenhower
doctrine (which authorized backing for conservative rulers such
as King Hussein of Jordan and Camille Chamoun of Lebanon, who were
besieged by domestic opponents), and for adventures as varied as
the overthrow of the Mossadegh government in Iran in 1953, support
for Israel in the 1967 and 1973 wars, and the arming of US proxies
in the Gulf. It hardly mattered that containment was singularly
ill-suited to the specificities of the region. (The Arab states
proved to be nearly impervious to Moscow's ideological appeal.)
What did matter was Americans' willingness to accept it as a sufficient
justification for their government's machinations.
The sudden disappearance of the Soviet Union compelled the Bush
and Clinton administrations to ponder new rationalizations for future
interventions abroad. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake voiced
the emerging consensus among the foreign policy elite when he wrote,
"[T]he successor to a doctrine of containment must be a strategy
of enlargement.of the world's free community of market democracies."1
Commercial and economic considerations and the promotion of democracy,
he suggested, would henceforth replace military and political factors
in guiding foreign policy.
The collapse of the Soviet empire has indeed wrought substantial
changes in the Middle East. As Simon Bromley and Georges Corm point
out in this issue, Moscow's departure from the world stage has considerably
freed the United States to impose its will across the region. States
that resist the Pax Americana face economic and political
isolation and no longer have a superpower sponsor to turn to for
support. Those who persist in challenging Washington's diktat
can, as always, expect to feel the sting of American military might.
Yet no radical break with the past has occurred in US foreign
policy toward the Middle East. What is remarkable is the degree
of continuity in Washington's objectives in the region during and
after the Cold War. Although circumstances have compelled policy
makers to replace containment with a patchwork of contradictory
and internally incoherent "doctrines," the chief purpose of the
new guidelines-like their Cold War-era counterparts-is to obscure
the actual motives of US intervention, which remain largely unchanged.
The twin pillars of American policy since the Gulf War have been
the doctrine of dual containment of Iran and Iraq, and support for
the now-moribund Arab-Israeli "peace process." In each case, the
new policy conceals a surprising continuity with the perennial project
of US interventionism: to secure the maximum possible advantage
for American capital as it seeks access to markets and resources
abroad. In the developing world, this project has necessitated creating
and preserving a political environment friendly to the operation
of international capital. To accomplish this, the US-led bloc has
had to construct and defend an authoritarian order to resist challenges
to its domination, while maintaining Israel's military edge over
the collective might of Arab armies. (The promotion of democracy-a
central tenet of Lake's vision-was never a goal of US policy in
the Middle East, nor is it now.) It is true that the imperatives
of globalization and the transnationalization of capital have altered
to some degree the form and methods of US intervention. But all
available evidence indicates that, whatever doctrine is in favor
in the post-Cold War Middle East, the fundamental goals have not
changed.
The contributors to this issue of Middle East Report address
the complex interaction between the professed and the unstated goals
of US activism in the Middle East. Steve Niva discusses the conundrum
posed by Islam. Although some policy makers cling to the notion
of an eternal "clash of civilizations," he notes that pragmatists
in the Clinton administration have realized that a policy based
on a "clash" with Islam is potentially counter-productive to the
globalizing mission of US capital. Sam Husseini traces the media's
role in manufacturing consent around foreign policy goals. Using
the Gulf mobilization in February as a case study, he finds that
under certain circumstances-when Washington's goals are incoherent
or contradictory-activists can compel the media to present a more
nuanced and honest picture of the true motives behind US intervention.
Georges Corm and Volker Perthes offer views of US foreign policy
from abroad, where a clearer understanding of the consequences of
American actions is often more readily available.
From Rollback to Dual Containment
The doctrine of dual containment was first introduced
in 1993, two years after the allied victory in the Gulf War. Conventional
balance-of-power theory had held that the region's natural leaders,
Iraq and Iran, should be pitted against one another to prevent either
from becoming dominant and jeopardizing the flow of oil to the West.
By choosing to isolate both nations, however, the Bush administration
committed itself to an ambitious program requiring an expanded US
military and political presence in the Gulf. Dual containment had
two immediate consequences, both of which contradicted the president's
putative vision for a New World Order: US military force had to
be deployed in the Gulf for an extended period to maintain constant
pressure against Iran and Iraq; and Saudi Arabia-heretofore a second-tier
proxy behind Washington's ally of the moment-had to be transformed,
along with its Gulf neighbors, into a credible military counterweight
in its own right. Thus, military force remained as necessary under
the new dispensation as it was before.
The results have been dramatic. In the three years
following the end of the Gulf War, new weapons acquisitions by the
Gulf states (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE) exceeded those
of Iran by nearly 30-to-one.2 Saudi Arabia has emerged
as the world's leading arms purchaser, acquiring weapons systems
worth $36.4 billion from the United States alone between 1994 and
1997.3 (Many of these sales are, of course, financed
by loans from American banks.) The number of American troops based
in the region has swelled to 20,000; US taxpayers spend a staggering
$50 billion annually to maintain and equip them.4 Cooperation
between the domestic intelligence services of the US and Saudi Arabia
has reached unprecedented levels, particularly following the 1996
Khobar Towers bombing. The US Fifth Fleet is now permanently based
in Bahrain. Moreover, the Pentagon announced in 1997 that it was
anticipating a 20-50 year deployment of US troops in the Gulf.5
The goal of this mobilization has been in part to protect the flow
of petroleum by intimidating nations that challenge Washington's
prerogative to set the terms of trade in the oil market.6
The maintenance of military expenditures in the region as the Soviet
threat vanished is further evidence that, although superpower rivals
may come and go, the thirst for oil is eternal.
It would be erroneous, however, to conclude that
maintaining the flow of oil at prices favorable to US interests
is the sole purpose behind US military mobilization. Of equal significance
is Washington's desire to augment the integration of the American
and Gulf states' economies. Profits from the sale of petroleum products
are increasingly recycled back to the US through arms purchases,
as well as through the bank loans such purchases enable.
Dual containment was premised on the notion that
"rogue states" posed the greatest threat to the West following the
Soviet collapse. The priority given to containing the rogue states
(whose ranks are rarely enumerated publicly, but presumed to include
Iran, Iraq, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and, on occasion, Syria and
Sudan) supposedly reflects Washington's growing concern about human
rights, terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
(WMD). The threat posed by the rogues is hardly imaginary: nearly
all of them have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs
and all have poor human rights records. It is clear, however, that
their rogue status reflects not the magnitude of their crimes, but
the extent of their dissent from US policy. By any rational standard,
nations like Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt should also be listed
among the rogues. Israel's failure to ratify the Nonproliferation
Treaty and the 1972 biological and toxic weapons convention, which
Iran, Libya and Saudi Arabia have all signed, merits no mention
in the Defense Department's annual listing of WMD violators.7
Nor does Egypt's failure to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The bleak climate for human rights in these countries is also ignored.
What sets them apart, of course, is their continuing usefulness
as regional proxies and enforcers of Washington's strategic objectives.
The main virtue of the rogue state doctrine from
the administration's perspective is that it provides a new pretext
to "contain" the same countries whose sovereign rights the US routinely
violated during the Cold War. The fact that three of the five rogue
states are Middle East oil producers, and that two in particular-Iran
and Iraq-are clearly the main targets of the doctrine, points to
the continuing centrality of oil in American strategic calculations.
Iraq's transgression-invading Kuwait in order to boost oil profits
to pay off debts from its war with Iran-flagrantly violated the
rules set by the US and Saudi Arabia to maintain price stability.
Iraq's crime will not soon be forgotten. Moreover, the embargo on
Iraqi oil has provided a windfall for regional producers. Saudi
Arabia alone is estimated to have earned more than $100 billion
as a result. As one oil expert told the Associated Press, "Saudi
Arabia would like the embargo on Iraqi oil maintained as long as
possible."8 (US banks, which hold tens of billions of
dollars in outstanding Saudi loans, are also deeply concerned about
maintaining Saudi profit levels.) The economic collapse in Asia,
on which the oil-producing states had placed much hope for future
sales, has further increased the necessity of keeping Iraqi oil
off-line and thereby forestalling a glut in the market.
The brutal sanctions imposed by the US on Iraq
are tantamount to a permanent blockade. Because the US has shown
little inclination to lift the sanctions, the purpose behind them
must be to marginalize Iraq permanently, rather than induce a change
in behavior. As Martin Indyk said in his 1993 speech outlining the
dual containment policy, "[T]he current regime in Iraq is a criminal
regime, beyond the pale of international society and, in our judgment,
irredeemable." 9 Iraq's confrontation with Washington
in February of this year was motivated at least in part by Saddam
Hussein's desire to force the international community to specify
how Iraq could bring itself into compliance with UN Security Council
resolutions. Iraqis frequently express fear that the sanctions will
not be lifted regardless of what their leadership does.
The isolation of Iran, by contrast, is far weaker.
Although the administration imposed sanctions in 1996 on foreign
companies investing more than $40 million in Iran and forced the
cancellation of a lucrative contract between Conoco and the oil
ministry, there is considerable business pressure to lift the embargo.10
Iran's test on July 22 of medium-range missiles acquired from North
Korea provoked a sharp rebuke from the Clinton administration, but
the evidence suggests that the US-Teheran relationship may not be
adversely affected. Secretary of State Albright has gone out of
her way to support the new president, Mohammad Khatami, in his rivalry
with Iran's religious leader, Ali Khamenei. As Michael Klare points
out in this issue, the rapprochement with Iran exposes the inadequacies
of the rogue state doctrine, and policymakers may eventually have
to discard it.
Israel, Palestine and the
"Peace Process"
The Palestinian-Israeli "peace process" is over.
The seductive promise of Oslo has been revealed to be a cruel hoax,
a "dying succubus," in Edward Said's phrase. As one observer wrote:
"The Oslo process...is less a negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians
than an internal Israeli debate about how much territory, authority
and sovereignty to offer the Palestinians."11 It has
become clear since last September that, without increased pressure
from Washington, the Netanyahu government will continue to stake
out a maximalist claim to territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
(Gaza is rarely mentioned these days, leaving the impression that
Israel regards further withdrawals or "redeployments" of its troops
as unnecessary.) Settlement activity continues unabated, as do land
seizures, house demolitions, curfews, acts of random violence and
the steady, grinding impoverishment of the Palestinian majority.
Remarkably, Binyamin Netanyahu's government has flagrantly violated
the terms of the accord while managing to preserve the illusion
that "peace" is still possible. What accounts, then, for the Clinton
administration's tenacious insistence that the interests of the
United States, and of the people of the region, are best served
by this transparent charade?
Phyllis Bennis and Khaled Mansour examine the 50-year
history of relations between the two countries and find that the
strategic interests of the United States have corresponded neatly
with Israel's territorial ambitions for many decades. Ever since
Israel proved its prowess in the 1967 Six-Day War, it has been immensely
valuable to the US as a "proxy that can fight."12 Israel
provided the front-line troops for the battle against Arab nationalist
movements and regimes, whose nationalization programs and advocacy
of autarky and import-substitution were anathema to the American
business elite. Thus it was thanks largely to rational self-interest
that support for Israel became a central tenet of US policy in the
region.
Yet the end of the Cold War has brought about a
re-examination of the strategic partnership. Arab nationalism is
no longer a threat to US interests, and the International Monetary
Fund's ability to impose austerity on the economies of the region
is virtually unlimited. One would expect, then, that Israel's diminishing
value as a partner might prompt Washington to take a harder line
with Netanyahu in his dealings with the Palestinians in the interests
of securing regional stability. The reason this is not so, Bennis
and Mansour argue, can be explained by the growing influence of
non-rational actors-specifically a millenarian movement of Christian
conservatives-in the formation of US policy. The Israeli government's
success in nullifying existing agreements without any commensurate
cost in security terms or serious reproach from the international
community has emboldened the Christian right and its allies in Congress.
They argue that a continued alliance with Israel brings greater
benefits-both political and spiritual-than would a just settlement
of the Palestinian problem. Congressional conservatives, who in
decades past were often vulnerable to accusations of anti-Semitism,
have realized that demagoguery in defense of Israel will always
be rewarded, whereas criticism, no matter how cautiously couched
in praise, will always be punished.
The Clinton administration, for its part, has adopted
a cautious attitude. For the moment at least, it lacks the political
capital to oppose forcefully the burgeoning coalition between evangelical
Christians, Congress and the Israeli right-wing. The administration
is also no doubt aware that the demoralization and disorganization
of the Palestinian people will, for the foreseeable future, severely
restrict their ability to respond to Israeli aggressions. Thus,
there is little pressure on Washington to reconsider its unwavering
support of Israel. Moreover, many policy makers view a regional
economic order dominated by a conservative, capital-friendly Israeli
government as the best long-term prospect for US interests.
As we have seen, during the Cold War era, the formation
of US foreign policy was cloaked in mystifying, geopolitical rhetoric.
The end of that epoch allows a more candid examination of the nature
of US hegemony in the region. Washington now possesses more resources
than ever before to enforce its will and to punish those states
or movements that seek to "go it alone." Through its predominant
influence in international lending institutions such as the IMF,
the US can virtually micromanage the economies of developing nations
and inflict draconian penalties for nonconformity. Through its influence
in multilateral forums such as the United Nations, it can impose
crushing economic sanctions. If such methods fail, Washington can
announce unilateral trade embargoes and penalize countries that
violate them. Lastly, of course, US military might can be summoned
to restore "order." The lofty promise of a "multipolar" world to
replace the bipolar world of the Cold War era was just a mirage.
Whatever the future holds for the countries of the region, as well
as for the world's only superpower, it is all too clear that the
"era of empire" is still with us.
Stephen Hubbell, an editor of this magazine,
is the former Cairo correspondent for The Nation.
Endnotes
1 Anthony Lake, "Confronting Backlash States,"
Foreign Affairs 73/2 (March/April 1994).
2 Richard F. Grimmet, Conventional Arms
Transfers to the Third World, 1988-1995 (Washington, DC: Congressional
Research Service, US Library of Congress, 1996) p. 53.
3 Scott Peterson, "For Oil and Allies, US
Offers a $50 Billion Solution," Christian Science Monitor,
August 6, 1997, and Tim Weiner, "Russia and France Gain on US Lead
in Arms Sales, Study Says," The New York Times, August 4, 1998.
4 Scott Peterson, op. cit., and F. Gregory
Gause, "Arms Supplies and Military Spending in the Gulf," Middle
East Report 204 (July-September 1997).
5 Peterson, "For Oil and Allies."
6 See Michael Tanzer, "Oil and the Gulf
Crisis," in Beyond the Storm: A Gulf War Reader, Phyllis
Bennis and Michael Moushabeck, eds. (Northhampton, MA: Interlink,
1998).
7 Dana Priest, "US Goes Easy on Allies in
Arms Control," The Washington Post, April 14, 1998.
8 Charles Hanley, "US-Saudi Web Thickens,"
Associated Press, April 13, 1997.
9 F. Gregory Gause, "The Illogic of Dual
Containment," Foreign Affairs 73/2 (March/April 1994).
10 Lawrence G. Potter, "The Persian Gulf
in Transition," Headline Series, Foreign Policy Association.
11 Geoffrey Aronson, "Report on Israeli
Settlement in the Occupied Territories," Foundation for Middle East
Peace, 8/1, January/February 1998.
12 See A.F.K. Organski, The $36 Billion
Bargain: Strategy and Politics in US Assistance to Israel (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1990).
The
war in Iraq is over. Or so the government
and most media outlets will claim on
Sept. 1, by which time thousands of
U.S. troops will have departed the
land of two rivers for other assignments.
With this phase of the drawdown, says
President Barack Obama, “America’s
combat mission will end.” The Pentagon
is marking the occasion by changing the
name of the Iraq deployment from Operation
Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn. Full
Story>>
Which
American has done the most harm to
Iraq in the twenty-first century? The
competition is stiff, with George W.
Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and
L. Paul Bremer, among others, to choose
from. But, given his game efforts to
grab the spotlight, it seems churlish
not to state the case for Vice President
Joe Biden. Full
Story>>
Why
would the Israeli navy commandeer boats
carrying collapsible wheelchairs and
bags of cement to the Gaza Strip? Israel
says that the aid convoys are trying
to "break the blockade" of
the densely populated Palestinian enclave.
But why is there a blockade in the first
place? Full Story>>
Sects
and the City New York Times Magazine May 17, 2010
Moustafa Bayoumi
I
had almost forgotten I’d sent
in an application when the e-mail message
appeared, like Mr. Big, out of nowhere. “Hi,
Moustafa,” it began, as if we
were old friends. “Thank you
for e-mailing us regarding your interest
in working on ‘Sex and the City
2.’ ”
No
way. Last August, I half-jokingly answered
an e-mail message posted on a list-serv
requesting “lots of Middle Eastern
men and women” as extras for
the second “Sex and the City” movie
(opening this week). Although I must
have been one of the very few in the
tri-state area to possess all the talents
requested in the e-mail (legal to work,
Middle Eastern and between 18 and 70
years old), I still never thought I
would be selected. Two months later,
I got the call. Full
Story>>
At
first glance, there’s a clear
need for expanding the Web beyond the
Latin alphabet, including in the Arabic-speaking
world. According to the Madar Research
Group, about 56 million Arabs, or 17
percent of the Arab world, use the
Internet, and those numbers are expected
to grow 50 percent over the next three
years. Many think that an Arabic-alphabet
Web will bring millions online, helping
to bridge the socio-economic divides
that pervade the region. But such hopes
are overblown. Full
Story>>
Iyad
Allawi, the not terribly popular
interim premier of post-Saddam Iraq,
is in a position to form a government
again because he won over the Sunni
Arabs residing north and west of
Baghdad in the March 7 elections.
The vote, while it did not “shove
political sectarianism in Iraq toward
the grave,” as Allawi would have
it, rekindled the hopes of many that “nationalist” sentiment
has asserted itself over communal
loyalty. Full Story>>
Americans got a crash course on Yemen for Christmas.
That’s
because we’ve wanted to know more about the little-known, dirt-poor
country in southwestern Arabia where the “underwear bomber” who
tried to blow up a plane—bound for Detroit from Nigeria on
Christmas Day—says he was trained. President Barack Obama says,
correctly, that “large chunks” of Yemen “are not
fully under government control.” So it seems to make sense
to strengthen the Yemeni government, to get at “al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula,” as the local gang of Islamist extremists
is known. Full Story>>
Bethlehem,
Palestine is a special place to celebrate Christmas. It’s
home to the Church of the Nativity and the field where shepherds, tending
their flocks by night, spotted the star heralding Jesus’ birth.
But apart from the historical mystique, here in Bethlehem we celebrate
Christmas much like Christians throughout the world. We hang lights
from the rooftops. We erect a tree in Manger Square. We host a Christmas
market. Our children carol and perform Christmas pageants. Christmas
in Bethlehem, as elsewhere, is a time for family, peace, love and joy. Full
Story>>
For
the past two months, President Barack Obama has been weighing Gen.
Stanley McChrystal’s request to send an additional 40,000 troops
to Afghanistan to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al-Qaeda.
That same effort, according to Obama, entails ensuring that the Taliban
can’t regain control of the country. But a military strategy
alone won’t beat al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Achieving lasting
stability in Afghanistan will require national political reconciliation,
the establishment of a functioning, accountable political system,
and a credible government. In this respect, the outcome of Afghanistan’s
presidential election, marred by cheating, was a step in the wrong
direction. Full
story>>
So
much is still unknown about the shooting at Fort Hood Army base and
the motives of the alleged shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, but still
I have that same queasy feeling in my stomach that I've had before:
this will not be good for Muslims. Full
Story>>
Morocco
serves as the backdrop for such Hollywood blockbusters as Gladiator,
Black Hawk Down and Body of Lies. The country’s breathtaking
landscapes and gritty urban neighbourhoods are the perfect setting
for Hollywood’s imagination.
Unbeknown
to most filmgoers, however, is that Morocco is embroiled in one of
Africa’s oldest conflicts - the dispute over Western
Sahara. This month the UN Security Council is expected to take up the
dispute once more, providing US President Barack Obama with an opportunity
to assert genuine leadership in resolving this conflict. But there’s
no sign that the new administration is paying adequate attention. Full
Story>>
Shortly
before assuming office, President Barack Obama was handed a missive
signed by such Washington luminaries as ex-national security advisers
Zbigniew Brezezinski and Brent Scowcroft, urging him to “explore
the possibility” of direct contact with Hamas. One month after
he entered the White House, Obama received an epistle from Ahmad Yousef,
a Gaza-based spokesman for the Islamist movement, making the same recommendation. “There
can be no peace without Hamas,” Yousef told the New York Times
when asked about the letter's contents. “We congratulated Mr.
Obama on his presidency and reminded him that he should live up to
his promise to bring real change to the region.”
There
is no word, as yet, on how the foreign policy doyens' message was
received, but Yousef's occasioned a huffy US rebuke of the UN Relief
Works Agency, whose top official in Gaza, Karen Abu Zayd, passed the
letter to Sen. John Kerry while he was visiting the devastated territory
in mid-February. Even a single sealed envelope, it seems, creates the
appearance that the Obama administration is breaking with the US vow,
enunciated first under President George W. Bush, not to speak with
Hamas until it agrees to renounce violence, abide by previous Palestinian
agreements with Israel and recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Full
Story>>
It
has been quite a week. For the first time, the international community
indicted a sitting president of a sovereign state. Omar al-Bashir
of Sudan stands accused by the International Criminal Court in The
Hague of "crimes against humanity and war crimes" committed
in the course of the Khartoum regime's brutal suppression of the
revolt in the country's far western province of Darfur. Having indicted
two other figures associated with the regime in 2007, ICC prosecutor
Luis Moreno Ocampo began building a case against the man at the top,
and on Wednesday, the court issued a warrant for Bashir's arrest.
Full Story>>
Speaking
to his people on January 18, hours after Hamas responded to Israel’s
unilateral suspension of hostilities with a conditional ceasefire
of its own, the deposed Palestinian Authority prime minister Ismail
Haniyeh devoted several passages of his prepared text to the subject
of Palestinian national reconciliation. For perhaps the first time
since Hamas’s June 2007 seizure of power in the Gaza Strip,
an Islamist leader broached the topic of healing the Palestinian divide
without mentioning Mahmoud Abbas by name.
At
a press conference the following day convened by Abu Ubaida, the
spokesperson of the Martyr Izz al Din al Qassam Brigades, the Hamas
military wing, the movement went one step further. “The Resistance”,
Abu Ubaida intoned, “is the legitimate representative of the
Palestinian people”. Full Story>>
Three
weeks after the war on Gaza, Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire
but refused to terminate its so-called defensive operations. In response,
Hamas declared a ceasefire for one week, until the withdrawal of
Israeli troops has been completed. For many in the West, the ceasefire
might seem like an occasion to celebrate, for the cessation of military
hostilities on both sides will perhaps renew the peace process. But
there are reasons to be critical of this ceasefire, since it continues
the situation in which Israel acts unilaterally. What we are actually
witnessing is a new phase of the catastrophe in Gaza. While the characteristics
of this phase are not yet known, Israel's violence has become ever
more evident. And perhaps this is why Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
did not mention the word "peace" once in the speech he gave
to announce the ceasefire. The "peace process" might soon
be revealed as the other side of the coin to war -- its continuation
by other means -- that simultaneously feeds it. Full Story>>
Bob
Woodward’s four books chronicling the wars of President
George W. Bush are sensitive barometers of conventional wisdom in Washington.
Whereas the first volume, published in 2002 at the height of the self-righteous
nationalism gripping the capital after the September 11, 2001 attacks,
hailed Bush’s self-confidence in acting to protect the homeland,
the 2008 installment depicts the same man as cocksure and incurious.
This much is not news. More educational are Woodward’s hints
about the worldviews that will outlast this unpopular administration,
embedded in the organs of the national security state. Full
Story>>
The
Egyptian regime has once again succeeded in stifling freedom of speech,
this time not in Egypt, but in the US. Earlier this month, an Egyptian
court convicted a prominent Egyptian-American activist for his outspoken
criticism of the regime’s poor human
rights record in American public fora. The court accused Saad Eddin
Ibrahim, of "tarnishing Egypt's image" abroad. The conviction
referred primarily to writings he published in the foreign press; most
notably among them an August 2007 op-ed in the Washington Post in which
he criticized Egypt's human rights record and questioned the reasons
behind US aid to Egypt. Full
Story>>
Militant
Islam is under global scrutiny for clues to conditions that foster
its rise, and to strategies for reversing that growth. But the key
is not in Islamic doctrine, US foreign policy or formal ties to various
nations, as many analysts have asserted. It lies at the community
level, with clan and local leaders. Full
Story>>
Kurdish
parties have become kingmakers in Baghdad , and they know it. As
no federal government can work without them, they are pulling every
available political lever to expand the territory and resources they
control, trying to build the foundation of an independent Kurdish state.
But even more than territory, they need security. If everyone acts
quickly and wisely, that understanding could help resolve one of the
Iraq war’s thorniest issues. Full
Story>>
The
debate over the war in Iraq follows a yellowing script: The minute
someone suggests that the US move to withdraw its troops, war supporters
cry “Havoc!”
True to form, when no less a figure than Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki stated he wants a timeline for a US pullout, John McCain
summoned the specter of dire consequences. “I’ve always
said we’ll come home with honor and with victory and not through
a set timetable,” McCain said. In his major foreign policy speech
on July 15, Barack Obama affirmed his support for a withdrawal timetable,
adding that the US must “get out as carefully as we were careless
getting in.” Obama’s position is the correct one, but he,
like many other war critics, has done too little to counter the refrain
that withdrawal is simply
“cutting and running,” a recipe for disaster. Full
Story>>
