To The Arab Leaders: People Power No Empty Slogan

Arab governments need to tackle unemployment and poverty or risk frustration and anger spilling on to the streets

By Abdullah al-Shayji
This commentary was published in The Gulf News on 24/01/2011

For some time now, the Arab political landscape has been in a state of flux, where instability, the games other nations play, and regional and international designs have all taken their toll on weak and fragmented Arab regimes. This has contributed to the stagnation of the Arab political system, rendering it dysfunctional. The crucial question is: what is the Arab tipping-point?

Last week, Arabs inched very close to that tipping point. In what could be a landmark year for them, 2011 started with a bang — with three events unfolding at the same time, indicating change and transformation from North Africa to the eastern Mediterranean region.

The first was the referendum in south Sudan. The vote will almost certainly lead to the break-up of the largest Arab and African nation with unpredictable consequences for the security and stability of the Nile Basin.

Secondly, Lebanon once again found itself on the brink of the abyss, with a dysfunctional system where the cabinet, the parliament and the presidency all seem to be paralysed. The nation has become accustomed to living dangerously. Now there are fears that the present situation will lead to a bloodbath and split the country.

Lebanon has been labouring over the past three decades to keep itself together. But the country is besieged and this leaves Lebanese with few options. Lebanon is reaching a tipping point.

But the most significant tipping point in the Arab world came in Tunisia. The North African nation, where society is highly modern and secular, endured the iron-fisted and corrupt rule of Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali for almost a quarter of a century. His regime, though, was brought to an abrupt end by a determined people power movement.

Now the warning bells have tolled and Tunisia is a wake-up call for many Arab regimes — people power is no longer an empty slogan or something that can be crushed or shrugged off. The people's power has toppled one of the most autocratic regimes in the region. But the blinding speed at which Bin Ali's rule crumbled is still inexplicable.

How could a regime so entrenched and in control wither away so rapidly? How could its leader be so humiliated that he could not even find refuge in western capitals, especially Paris and Washington, which saw in him and in his regime an exemplary model in the fight against extremism and Islamists.

Looming danger

In a blunt and stark warning to Arab leaders a day before Bin Ali's ouster, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Doha that unless economic and political space opened up for the Arab world's exploding youth population, women and minorities, they will face growing unrest, extremism and even rebellion.

She urged them to quickly address the issue of depleting oil and water resources and enact real economic and political reform. "Without that, young people and others will increasingly turn to radicalism and violence that will bleed outside the region, threatening not only Middle Eastern stability and security but the rest of the world.

"In too many places, in too many ways, the region's foundations are sinking into the sand, the new and dynamic Middle East ... needs firmer ground if it is to take root and grow everywhere. Those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of their countries' problems for a little while, but not forever.

"If leaders don't offer a positive vision and give young people meaningful ways to contribute, others will fill the vacuum ... This is a critical moment and this is a test of leadership for all of us."
The message from Tunisia is loud and clear. The uprising has set in motion a chain of events which has reverberated in many Arab capitals and even beyond. Tunisia overshadowed the second Arab Economic Summit in Sharm Al Shaikh, the first Arab summit following the ouster of an Arab ruler.

The Jasmine Revolution seems to have emboldened the oppressed and broken masses. Many Arab countries, to counter the resonating effect of the Jasmine revolution, rushed to mitigate the Tunisian syndrome by doing away with unpopular policies, increasing subsidies for basic commodities, like food and gas and increasing employees' salaries. They are hoping to forestall public anger and absorb the boiling and charged atmosphere, given that the psychological barrier has been broken with the events in Tunisia.

Arab leaders, aware of the seriousness of the situation, have closed ranks. This time, they saw a menacing threat and pledged to enact a $2 billion (Dh7.34 billion) Arab fund financed by the rich GCC states, mainly Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, who will contribute half the amount to help promote jobs, eradicate poverty and meet the demands of the youth in Arab countries.

Amr Mousa, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, seems to have captured the current Arab mood in his opening statement, as was quoted by the New York Times, "The Arab soul is broken by poverty, unemployment and general recession. The Tunisian revolution is not far from us... The Arab citizen entered an unprecedented state of anger and frustration."

The Arab tipping point seems to be facing us all. The Arab world is at the crossroads in a tumultuous region that needs to enact real and lasting changes so that unfulfilled dreams and broken promises would become things of the past and there would be hopes of dreams being fulfilled.

Professor Abdullah Al Shayji is the Chairman of the Political Science Department, Kuwait University.

Wave In Favor Of Palestine Gathers Momentum

By Uri Avneri
This commentary was published in The Arab News on 23/01/2011

PLO’s permanent delegation in Washington has been allowed to fly the Palestinian flag over its building

ISRAEL IS, as we well know, the land of unlimited impossibilities. In Israel, for example, the diplomats are striking. Postmen strike. Longshoremen strike. But diplomats — the most conservative, the most establishment people?

Well, in Israel it is possible. All the Foreign Office services have ceased to function. For years, these people have suffered from miserable working conditions. Their salaries are bordering on the ridiculous. So they went on strike.

Does this infuriate the prime minister? Is the foreign minister upset? Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman do not care. On the contrary, they look almost happy.

The President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, was scheduled to visit Israel. But before that, he went to Jericho, which is considered the oldest town in the world. There, in the presence of President Mahmoud Abbas, he declared that Russia had recognized the Palestinian state long ago, and that it continues to recognize the Palestinians' right to a state of their own, with its capital in East Jerusalem.

Not exactly. It was not Russia that recognized Palestine, but the Soviet Union. And the recognition was conferred on the virtual state declared by Yasser Arafat in 1988. That is very different from recognition of the Palestinian state now, when it is becoming a reality.

After his visit to Jericho, Medvedev was to come to Jerusalem, to be photographed next to Netanyahu and shake hands with Lieberman. How was Netanyahu to react to the Jericho declaration? How could he extricate himself from this matter, without humiliating himself or offending the largest country in the world? This embarrassment was avoided by the sanctions of the Israeli diplomats. They refused to prepare the visit and organize the meetings. Medvedev gave up, and the two great statesmen — Netanyahu and Lieberman — could breathe again.

Deep in his heart, Lieberman surely blessed the people of his office, whom he hates. They saved him. What could he tell Medvedev? Ever since walking into the Foreign Office like a bear entering the proverbial china shop, he has boasted of his excellent relations with Russia. The Americans loathe him?  So what? America is a declining empire. The Europeans don't want to meet with him? So what? Who are they, anyhow?

But Russia is Russia. Here we have a real friend. Lieberman admires Vladimir Putin, speaks with him in his mother tongue. He boasted of having established really intimate relations with Russia. And now they do this thing to him. What a disgrace.

But the truth is that Putin is not really his friend. Yvette Lieberman (his original name) has only one real friend in the world: Aleksandr Lukashenko, President of Belarus, "the last dictator in Europe".

Lukashenko is his soul-mate. He is his model. From him he learned how to deal with human rights organizations. It was Lukashenko who sent an official warning to the human rights activists in his country and threatened them with heavy penalties if they continue to "distort information" about Belarus.

From there Lieberman drew his inspiration, when he opened his campaign against the peace and human rights activists in Israel, whom he called this week "collaborators of terrorism".

One can laugh (for the time being) at Lieberman's claim that the peace and human rights organizations cause the de-legitimization of the State of Israel, and especially the de-legitimization of the Israeli Army. But one cannot laugh about the de-legitimization itself. More and more governments are recognizing the State of Palestine, boxing the ears of the Netanyahu government in the process. When the Palestinian National Council declared, 22 years ago, the foundation of the independent Palestinian state, about 110 countries recognized it. All of them raised the status of the Palestinian delegations to the rank of embassies. The Israeli government ignored them. In its eyes, one new settlement in the West Bank was more important than the opinion of a hundred countries. As they say in Yiddish: Oilam Goilam — the world is a Golem (the clumsy monster of Jewish legend.).

But the new wave of recognition of Palestine is a different matter altogether. When important countries like Brazil, Argentina and Chile recognize Palestine, and draw behind them the other Latin American countries, this is significant. When Russia renews its recognition, through its highest official and on Palestinian soil, this is an important event. If anybody is relying on the rock solid American support we are used to, they should pay attention to a small news item that appeared this week: The permanent delegation of the PLO in Washington DC was allowed to fly the Palestinian flag over its building — a right generally reserved for embassies alone.

An interesting plot is unfolding. Two thirds of the world's countries have already recognized the State of Palestine, and the wave is gathering momentum. These are no longer just small Third World states, but significant actors on the world stage. Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayad are quietly and persistently building the institutions of the Palestinian state. They are investing a lot of effort in development, building a new town north of Ramallah, restricting the powers of the security services and gaining the sympathy and attention of the world's governments.

So what? — the average Israeli asks. After all, the Goyim are only proving yet again that they are all anti-Semites. How is this important? We control the territory and no diplomatic tricks will change that. And as long as we have unlimited American support, we don't give a damn.

Really? For many years we could rely on the Americans with eyes closed. Every "anti-Israeli" resolution was met with a firm American veto. But is this still so certain? When all the important countries in the world recognize the State of Palestine — will the US alone hold out forever? 

While the Israeli diplomats are striking, a new initiative condemning the settlements is gaining momentum in the UN Security Council. The entire world is against these settlements, which are manifestly illegal under international law. Even the US has demanded a freeze. Can the US veto a resolution that expresses its own policy, without becoming a laughing stock? And if it does do so all the same this time, what about next time, or the time after?

And if the American veto still rules the Security Council — it does not rule the UN General Assembly. It was the General Assembly that resolved in 1947 to set up in Palestine, next to each other, a Jewish and an Arab state. If the Assembly decides now that the time has come to realize the second half of the resolution — the establishment of the Arab State in Palestine — it will strengthen even more the world-wide recognition of Palestine.

The Arab governments must now think again. In Tunisia the people rose up against a dictatorship — a small and corrupt elite, indifferent toward the wishes of the people and overtly or covertly in collaboration with Israel.

That is the writing on the wall. The present Israeli government is leading us toward disaster. But this week this government was shored-up even more, when Ehud Barak, the pocket Napoleon, finally abandoned all pretense of belonging to the social-democratic left and set up a clearly rightist party, something like Likud II, that will be a loyal partner of Netanyahu and Lieberman.

With such leaders, does our country really need enemies?

Uri Avnery is a former member of the Israeli Knesset

Egypt's Tombs For The Living

Egyptians' lavish burial spaces offer comfort to relatives - while 1.5 million less fortune Cairenes live among the dead

By Khaled Diab
This commentary was published in The Guardian on 23/01/2011

To highlight the chasm between the haves and the have-nots, an Egyptian newspaper recently ran an article on what it described as "five-star tombs" (see one example here).

Echoing the grandeur of the ancient Egyptian nobility, one of the luxury tombs in Cairo's upmarket Bab el-Wazir cemetery belongs to an unnamed celebrity and is said to have cost more than 3m Egyptian pounds (around $500,000) – an astronomical amount in a country where per capita GDP stands at just under $6,000.

The opulent, marble-faced tomb is surrounded by greenery and a large courtyard. Inside, it is equally well appointed, with a "living room" quite literally to die for and a sumptuous bathroom. But why, the uninformed may ask, would dead people, even stars whose names may outlive them, need these places? 

In ancient Egypt, people did believe that they could take their wealth and status with them, that the afterlife was simply an extension of this one in a different dimension. But that is no longer the case today.

Actually, these spaces are truly living rooms, ie rooms for the living. They are meant to provide family members with the comfort and space to relax and make a day of it when visiting their dead relatives at the weekend or during religious festivals.

Egyptians show little interest in the minimalist funeral rites favoured, for example, by the Saudis. No unmarked grave or simple marker would suffice the Egyptian appetite for honouring the dead. Instead, any family with enough money owns a tomb that, to foreign eyes, would appear to be a house.

These lavish burial requirements, combined with the shortage of land, especially in the capital, mean that the country's housing crisis plagues poorer Egyptians both in life and in death. The situation has become so acute that a number of affordable burial projects have been established and many cemeteries, like the cities they serve, have low-cost popular quarters.

Though space is becoming increasingly tight for the dead, the living are profiting from Egypt's burial traditions. According to government statistics quoted by al-Dustour newspaper, around 1.5 million people who cannot find housing elsewhere live among the dead in Cairo's cemeteries, renting or squatting in the tombs.

The idea of living in a cemetery might seem a macabre choice. However, there is very little of the Edgar Allan Poe about Egyptian cemeteries. Cairo's oldest functioning cemetery, colourfully known in English as the City of the Dead, could easily be mistaken for just another overcrowded district in the city's poorer quarters – the main sign of its intended function being the memorial plaques everywhere.

House-like tombs and tombs as homes are likely to reinforce the prevalent idea that Egyptians, throughout their long history, have had a unique, even morbid fascination with death. But is this truly so?

The archaeological evidence might suggest it is. After all, the vast majority of ancient Egyptian monuments and artefacts are somehow related to death, or presumed to be so: the pyramids, the valleys of the kings and the queens, the mummies, etc – as are many of the grandest monuments of the Greco-Roman, Christian and Islamic periods.

But the apparent plethora of physical evidence can be misleading. "This has more to do with geography (ancient remains were preserved well in the Egyptian desert) and the availability of materials," explains Ilona Regulski, a Belgian Egyptologist who is currently lecturing at Yale University.

Indeed, although Egyptians buried their dead in the dry desert, they lived on the wet banks of the Nile where millions of tonnes of Ethiopian silt were deposited each year. Nevertheless, what evidence there is suggests that they lived lives remarkably similar to our own today and even had a highly developed sense of humour and irony.

Similar attitudes to death were also quite common in the ancient world. "There were a lot of similarities with other ancient cultures with regard to the whole afterlife thing and how to get there and what it looks like," Regulski notes.

Even in more modern times and settings, preoccupation with death is all around: for example, church art is replete with gory images of the crucified Christ, as is Renaissance art.

Though Egyptians have lost the inclination to honour their dead leaders with monoliths, the tradition lives on elsewhere. Washington, the capital city of today's most powerful empire, is like some kind of modern Valley of the Kings, with its grand Washington monument, the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, and the Arlington cemetery for the heroes and "nobility".

Did Tweeting Topple Tunisia?

Now that the dust has settled, it's clearer that Tunisia's upheaval, like all revolutions, arose from local circumstances.

By Doyle McManus
This op-ed was published in Los Angeles Times on 23/01/2011

When Tunisia's dictator, Zine al Abidine ben Ali, abruptly bowed to demonstrations against his corrupt regime and fled to Saudi Arabia after 23 years in power, a predictable wave of euphoria broke out — not only in Tunis, where citizens are still wrangling over the shape of their new government, but also in the West. Europeans and Americans were quick to label it a "Twitter revolution," a democratic explosion fueled by Internet links that could spread like digital wildfire across the repressive wasteland of the Arab world. Except it wasn't.

Now that the dust has settled, it's clearer that Tunisia's upheaval, like all revolutions, arose from local circumstances that don't foretell what will happen anywhere else. Ben Ali's government was a family-run kleptocracy; the economy was stagnant; and most important, he had failed at a dictator's first job: securing the loyalty of the armed forces. Next door, Algeria has corruption, unemployment and demonstrations too, but its armed forces are the core of its government and unlikely to switch sides. An old-fashioned lesson for revolutionaries: It's nice to have Twitter, but it's even nicer to have the army on your side.

If the Tunisian uprising does have ripple effects in other Arab countries, they won't be either immediate or predictable. One result, for example, may be more repression in other countries, including crackdowns on access to Twitter and other Internet tools.

"Opposition groups in places like Algeria, Egypt and Jordan are seeking to learn lessons from the Tunisian uprising," said Steven A. Cook, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, but "the regimes in the region are also drawing lessons."

So what about all those new communications tools? Does the access ordinary citizens now have to global information and social media empower grass-roots movements in a way that's never been seen?

Yes, but that alone can't make a revolution.

"There's no such thing as a Twitter revolution," says Jared Cohen of Google Ideas, Google's new think tank — and that's coming from someone who once served as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's principal advisor on what the State Department calls its "Internet Freedom Agenda." In 2009, Cohen telephoned the managers of Twitter and persuaded them to delay a maintenance break so Iranian protesters — who filled the streets of Tehran at the time — wouldn't lose their access.

Cohen does think technology has a major impact on incipient revolutionary movements: "It's an accelerant," he said. Social media make it easier for grass-roots dissidents to find each other, identify potential leaders, share information and connect with the outside world. But in the end, he noted, "a successful revolution still requires people to go into the streets and risk their lives."

Some are even more skeptical. Evgeny Morozov, a Belarus-born scholar at the New America Foundation, has just published a book, "The Net Delusion," that argues that the idea of promoting democracy through Internet technology may be a pipedream.

For one thing, he argues, authoritarian regimes use the Internet too. They monitor e-mail and other communications to identify their enemies and send "infiltrators" into online communities to act as informers and provocateurs.

"Technology — not just the Internet but also mobile phones — makes it easier to trace protesters and dissidents," Morozov wrote on his blog last week.

If an opposition movement falls short and "the dictator doesn't fall in the end, the benefits of social mobilization afforded by the Internet are probably outweighed by its costs, i.e., the ease of tracking down dissidents."

In Russia, the Kremlin has hired a former Internet pornography czar to run its own online programs. In China, the Communist Party has deployed thousands of hired bloggers to flood the Internet with pro-regime sentiments. In Egypt, officials appear to be emulating the Chinese model, which allows massive Internet use, only under constant government surveillance.

As for U.S. efforts to promote Internet freedom, Morozov says, that too can cause harm. In one case, he notes, the State Department sponsored a software fix called "Haystack" that was intended to allow Iranians secure access to the Internet. But the department had to stop the program after discovering security weaknesses that could allow the Iranian government to identify users after all.

On balance, he argues, the whole U.S. program may have backfired by inciting more repression.

"Clinton went wrong from the outset by violating the first rule of Internet freedom: Don't talk about promoting Internet freedom," he wrote.

Still, the Obama administration is already under fire for putting too little muscle behind human rights. Internet freedom is a nice arm's-length form of liberty that the United States can sponsor without colliding directly with regimes it doesn't want to offend, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Omitting it from the U.S. agenda would be illogical.

In the end, though, the most important steps in promoting democracy and securing human rights will continue to be low tech. In Tunisia, it was the sacrifice of a street merchant who set himself on fire, the courage of thousands of demonstrators and the decisions of unknown army officers that made a revolution happen, not Facebook or Twitter.

The most important thing the United States can do for Arab democrats isn't helping them get on the Internet; it's helping Tunisia turn successfully from dictatorship to democracy. And that will take the skillful use of some old-fashioned tools: diplomacy and foreign aid.

30 Years After The Iran Hostage Crisis, U.S. Still Fighting Reagan's War

By Ted Koppel
This commentary was published in The Washington Post on 21/01/2011

On Jan. 20, 1981, 52 American diplomats, intelligence officers and Marines were finally released after being held hostage for nearly 15 months at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Americans saw it as the end of a long national nightmare. Iranians saw it as a successful phase in what the Pentagon would come to call the Long War.

On the face of it, the Iranians achieved what they wanted. President Jimmy Carter had labored with key advisers through the last night of his presidency, desperately trying to bring about the hostages' release before Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th president. The Iranians, though, were determined to humiliate our 39th president and were not about to free the captives on Carter's watch. 

As the television networks began their Inauguration Day coverage, the expected moment of release became the theme. TV screens were split to accommodate parallel images from Washington and Tehran. Just outside the Iranian capital, camera crews were taken to Mehrabad International Airport, where the soon-to-be-former hostages would board their flight to freedom.

At ABC News, where I worked at the time, one of our camera crews had been granted access to the Oval Office the previous night. We had video of Carter, looking grim and exhausted in a cardigan, consulting with his aides until, quite literally, it was time to dress for the inauguration of his successor. Those images and live shots of desperate diplomacy, followed by the stately run-up to the transfer of power in Washington, played on one side of the screen. The preparations for departure from Mehrabad played on the other. 

The Iranians stage-managed the drama down to the last second. Precisely at noon, just as Reagan began to recite the oath of office, the planeload of Americans was permitted to take off. The Iranians' message was blunt and unambiguous: Carter and his administration had been punished for America's sins against Iran, and Reagan was being offered a conciliatory gesture in anticipation of improved behavior by Washington. 

That was hardly the interpretation that the Reagan administration put on the event. The new president portrayed the hostage release as a long-overdue act by which the Iranians acknowledged the obvious: There was a new sheriff in town. The feckless days of the Carter administration were over, and the Iranian mullahs had bowed to the inevitable. Indeed, the administration seemed to be saying that Iran's greatest concern was now the possibility of U.S. retaliation for the humiliation of the preceding 444 days. 

That last point probably was a part of Iran's strategic calculus. Iran was not then, and is not ow, any military match for the United States. Without the American hostages in Tehran, Iran was plainly vulnerable to U.S. power. 

Further complicating its position, since September 1980, Iran had been fighting a massive invasion by the Iraqi forces of Saddam Hussein, the beginnings of a bloody war that would last most of the decade. The United States officially proclaimed neutrality - Henry Kissinger famously observed that it was a shame both nations couldn't lose - but Washington considered Iran the greater threat and covertly assisted Hussein. 

Once the hostages were released, however, no reprisal came, and the Iranian leadership offered no evidence of wanting to reconcile. 

In their approach to the United States in the decade that followed, the mullahs provided chilling evidence of how closely they had studied the influence of the media and public opinion on U.S. foreign policy. During the hostage crisis, they learned how obsessively engaged our news media becomes when U.S. prisoners are taken. What Americans consider one of our greatest national virtues - concern for the individual - the Iranians recognized as a vulnerability. 

We in the American news media have a tendency to obsess over one crisis at a time, often to the exclusion of other important issues. Indeed, I can hardly overlook my own role in this. The title that ABC News gave to its nightly coverage seemed hyperbolic at first, but it proved frighteningly prescient: "America Held Hostage." The story held America's interest so tightly and for so long that our specials on ABC eventually morphed into a regular program - "Nightline." 

Iran watched and learned. They realized that the fixations of the American media could lead to shifts in U.S. policy. They observed how the hostage crisis cost Carter a second term, and they would soon learn that what influenced one administration could be applied to another.

On Oct. 23, 1983, a truck loaded with explosives was driven into a barracks building in Beirut housing U.S. Marines, who were there as part of an international peacekeeping force. The driver died in the suicide attack, as did 241 American military personnel. Eventually, the bomber was identified as a member of an organization called Hezbollah, which was believed to have been funded and trained by members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. 

By the time even that much was established, Reagan had ordered all U.S. military personnel in Lebanon evacuated to ships of the 6th Fleet, off the coast. A brief time later, those ships received fresh orders and sailed off. There had been no great public support for engagement in Lebanon in the first place, so there was little reaction to the abrupt departure. (The U.S. invasion of Grenada, occurring at the same time, consumed much of the public's attention.) 

Iran saw how a devastating attack could force America out of Lebanon, with little outcry back home and no retaliation for the bombing. And just as hostages had proved useful to Iran during the Carter administration, they would be used again to manipulate the Reagan White House. Dozens of Americans and Europeans were kidnapped in Lebanon and held hostage during the early and mid-1980s. Again, Hezbollah was believed responsible, and Iranian patronage was more firmly established. 

In relatively short order, these tactics would draw the Reagan administration into one of the more bizarre covert negotiations in recent history. Among those kidnapped in Beirut was the CIA's station chief, William Francis Buckley. He was held and tortured for 15 months, and at one point he was reportedly taken to Iran. He died in captivity. Reagan's distress over Buckley's ordeal in particular, and over the fate of other American captives, was a factor behind the Iran-contra affair.

Far from punishing the Iranians, Washington arranged for Israel to sell weapons to Iran. The Israeli stockpiles would be secretly replenished by the United States, which was legally prohibited from selling directly to Iran. In return, Iran would free some hostages. Finally, Iran's payment for the weapons would be used to buy arms for anti-communist forces in Nicaragua, thereby circumventing a congressional ban on sales to the contras there. That was the icing on the cake.

It was a fiasco. Reagan, whose staunch opposition to communism around the world would lead to the collapse of the Soviet empire, found his administration embroiled in negotiations with the sponsors of Hezbollah. The scheme clearly circumvented U.S. law, and had others in the administration not taken the fall, it could have led to Reagan's impeachment. 

What Iran learned in those years - and we're still absorbing the consequences of those lessons today - is that kidnapping and terrorism are useful weapons against the United States. Ultimately, Reagan's broad-shouldered bravado was no more effective in dealing with Tehran than Carter's mild-mannered diplomacy. 

We've still not found our way. Instead of taking military action against Iran, the United States has twice invaded Iran's bitterest enemy, Iraq. And what Iran couldn't do for itself, George W. Bush did for it: Saddam Hussein is gone, and Tehran's influence in the Persian Gulf is greatly enhanced.

There was every reason to celebrate the release of those 52 Americans on Jan. 20, 1981. But what Iran learned then and has applied in the decades since has been costly for the United States. Here we are, 30 years after what we thought was the conclusion of a crisis, still wondering if the end will ever be in sight.

We were wrong; they were right.


Ted Koppel, who was managing editor of ABC's "Nightline" from 1980 to 2005, is a contributing analyst for "BBC World News America."

Maghrebis And The Tunisian Intifada

By Mohammad el-Ashab

This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 23/01/2011

The negotiations over the Sahara conflict have been preceded, in their majority, by events that have no connection to this issue. This time, the Maghrebis have been concerned with the Tunisian Intifada, and this did not influence negotiations by granting them a wider scope of attention. However, giving them less attention does not mean that they are moving in the right direction. Perhaps only the United Nations envoy, Christopher Ross, is aware of which course future developments might take, as we wait for realistic conditions for negotiations to mature, which would lead to some hope that progress might be made.

Leaving behind the details of the negotiations, which are treading water, the fifth round of unofficial negotiations could help bring about the practice of getting used to negotiations, which in itself is an encouraging element, at the least in excluding a resort to other options, which might ignite the region and subject it to the dangers of escalation. However, getting used to the talks is one thing, and achieving the huge goals assigned to them is quite another.

Perhaps the time is not ripe to see a bigger Maghrebi role in solving the problems. This is especially in light of the former wager, which was formulated in the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions, when it asked for neighboring states to cooperate with each other and the UN in encouraging the negotiations track. However, satisfying Maghrebi vanity, which was one of the reasons for the lack of movement, might now require rallying around the Saharan issue, by looking at it from a new perspective.

Beyond the recent events in Tunisia, and their relations with the domestic situation in the country of the Intifada, The Maghreb region has not been liberated from the obstacles caused by deterioration and political disputes. The more it avoided grabbing at the lifeline symbolized by the suspended Maghreb Union project, the bigger was the burden it carried, in the absence of a regional outlet that could achieve economic integration and political partnership. The crisis witnessed by the Maghreb Union serves as another proof that officials have failed to take advantage of the opportunities that guarantee more balance, which would benefit the five North African states in overcoming domestic dilemmas, which would stop making the Sahara issue another expression of continuous lost opportunities.

The issue has to do with divergent opinions that has deepened over time, over the way to settle the dispute. When North African leaders agreed, more than two decades ago, to create the Maghreb Union out of these five countries, the Sahara problem existed, casting a shadow on the tense relations between Morocco and Algeria. It is likely that this agreement was purported to exclude the Sahara issue from having any negative impact on the details and requirements of a Maghreb Union. Although the Sahara conflict was not officially placed on the agenda of the Maghreb summits, which gave people hope, it was left behind with the hope to be solved as part of the large-scale project intended for this regional structure.

Yet, nothing of the sort has taken place. There is a sad fact that confirms the wagers of the Maghrebis have reached a dead-end, in terms of bilateral relations and the resolution of disputes, or in the midst of grand strategic objectives. Even the benefits that were available have dropped off considerably, in view of the ongoing closure of land borders between Algeria and Morocco, and the lack of any progress of steps leading to a détente. The conclusion reached is that no one opposes creating a Maghrebi structure, while no sides wants to, or is able to, translate its commitments into tangible acts.

What is certain is that the shock caused by the failure of several projects to achieve stability, development and democracy, is among the reasons for the Intifada in Tunisia. However, the solution for each North African state, separately, can be found in getting involved in building an Arab Maghreb that is in solidarity, is prosperous, and lacks the reasons for tension, clashes and uprisings. This is because the only recipe that has not been tried enough is that of inter-Maghreb cooperation, which might turn out to be bitter if seen according to narrow, local calculations, although much sweeter and easier to digest compared to other solutions.

Between one notion and another, the days and years pass. What is certain is that the region’s true problems are related to the demands of new generations, who want to find their place in the sun. However, the Maghreb region, amid the continuing Sahara conflict and its repercussions, might not be the same when a final settlement begins. And if no new horizons show up, in case of reaching a bold, viable and legitimate political settlement, then we will see a confrontation of real dilemmas, through solidarity and integration. The only thing that will not yield positive results is the continued existence of a problem that is exhausting for not only those directly or indirectly concerned by it, but also the entire region.

Leadership Is Sacrifice

By Tariq Alhomayed
This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 23/01/2011

I have often heard men say that the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, had a lot of respect and appreciation for the late Kamal Jumblatt. The King believes that Jumblatt held a stance which ultimately cost him his life, but he never compromised his position.
 
I recalled this after a recent press conference, in which Walid Jumblatt, the son of the late Lebanese leader, declared that he had changed his allegiances [regarding the nomination of the next Prime Minster], and joined forces with Syria and Hezbollah. This move was considered a complete reversal of his previous position, and thus there is a clear difference between the son and his father! Walid says that he wants to maintain civil peace in Lebanon, and this desire is both sincere and noble. It is a desire which I have repeatedly heard from Jumblatt himself, whether over the telephone or in person during my last interview with him in Beirut. However, this is also one of the most important reasons to hold everyone to the International Tribunal, in order to put an end to assassinations and political crimes, and furthermore to put an end to the manipulation of Lebanon, and the constant threats to its unity, sects, and above all, its existence.
 
Regarding Jumblatt’s recent statements, some believe that he has not completely closed the door on the March 14th Alliance, which he insinuated by saying he had joined Syria and Hezbollah. It could be that his deputies hold a different stance regarding nominations for the next Prime Minister. The irony is that Hezbollah and its allies, and those behind them of course, want to nominate Omar Karami as Prime Minster…the man who held that very post when Rafik Hariri was assassinated, yet today he is being put forth as a candidate to lead a government intending to abolish the Hariri Tribunal! I was thoroughly convinced by what Eli Maroni, a member of al-Kata’ib bloc, said the day before yesterday in our newspaper, stating “MP Jumblatt’s move to stand with Syria and Hezbollah was imposed upon him by threats and intimidation. This happened as a result of the strong presence of armed Hezbollah militants between my town Qmatiye and Aley (all predominantly Druze areas). This has left the Lebanese in a state of constant anxiety, stemming from the fear of weapons”. I sensed this much from sporadic conversations with Walid Jumblatt, and I have also heard such comments from those close to Jumblatt himself, and others who are in communication with him.
 
Thus someone might say Walid Jumblatt is changing his stance based on a rational motive; to protect his followers, the Druze. This is true, for it is the duty of a leader, any leader, to take into account the interests of those who follow him. However, only taking the interests of supporters into account is an act of self-preservation, whereas it is also the duty of the leader to achieve a larger objective, namely the preservation of the Lebanese state. He must protect all components of Lebanon, including the Druze, but not at the expense of others. If Lebanon does indeed end up with a government led by Iran and Syria, as hinted by Samir Geagea, this will mean an end to the Lebanese state, and even an end to the Druze community. They will either be transformed into followers of the Wali al-Faqih, or handed over to the intelligence services.
 
To give Lebanon to Iran, with the blessing of the Lebanese leaders, is both cowardly and weak. [Lebanese leaders] ought to be reminded of the piece of history that I am recalling today, that Kamal Jumblatt was a brave man and uncompromising in his positions. Therefore we say to Mr. Walid Jumblatt: leadership is sacrifice.