"Don't need a weatherman..."
The line above comes from Bob Dylan in "Subterranean Homesick Blues," a brilliant a disjointed song about the strange tides in the 1960s. The world was spinning faster, things seemed out of control, no one was sure what was up or down, and the bizarre imagery of the song emotively captured that feeling. The line in full said "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Indeed: they were blowing toward a change (though which way, nobody could tell. More on that later).
Apt lines when one reads the news coming out of the Arab world. These are head-spinning days in the Middle East, when every newscheck reveals another miracle, small or large. Things are happening that just a few weeks ago seemed impossible. We've been tracking them on this blog, but let's try to put it all together. This is a time for optimism, more so now than ever before. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, though: we are in the early stages of something, and have no idea if the wind is going to shift and blow all the junk and bloody debris right back in our faces.
Start with the beauty of the Lebanese government resigning in the face of massive protests. Though Lebanon still has many problems, as the BBC article explains, this was an amazing turn of events. A few months ago, there would not have been any talk of pushing Syria out, save for some opposition leaders with little political power. It is clear now that the bulk of Lebanese wanted Syria out, but with few exceptions they had been numbed into political impotence, like people all over the Arab world.
That changed with the murder of Rafik Hariri. At the time, much speculation was about who committed the crime and what it meant for Syria, with side worries about whether or not Lebanon would plunge back into the dark days of its brutal civil war. This was not something I saw coming, and didn't read anyone who did (though someone surely did). The people of Lebanon united, in a way that history seemed to preclude. But history is the nightmare from which Lebanon has awoken.
Walid Jumblat, Druze patriarch, is a convert from history. As this Across the Bay post explains, Jumblat woke up with the elections in Iraq. "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains Jumblat. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblat says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it." Keep reading Across the Bay- being entirely about the Middle East it provides some excellent links.
It took the assassination of Hariri to provide the spark, but it was Iraq that laid down the needed kindling. And for the first time that I can recall, a peaceful protest took down an Arab government. This was the kind of people power that we saw in Eastern Europe in 1989, and more recently in Georgia and Ukraine. Read this blog for inspiring updates. The idea that a group of ordinary people, young and old, Christian and Muslim and all their various factions, could come together against a government and its powerful backer while the military and security forces largely stand by, gives a fresh meaning to the overly-used term "inspiring."
Now, factionalism in Lebanon has not mysteriously, magically, vanished. There is still a lot of activity beneath the surface, as group jockey to play their power games. No one knows who will be the new PM, and the President, Emile Lahoud, still enjoys Syria's friendship as much as Syria needs his. This cozy relationship provides the reminder that a wounded Syria sits hovering over Lebanon, mulling its options.
Syria. Kid President Bashar al-Asad seems paralyzed by fear, completely incapable of action. It recently surrendered Saddam's half-brother, the Six of Diamonds, whose stock in the poker game of resistance has gone up as all his mates have been captured or killed. This is a typical Syria move- a bold gesture to show they are on the right side that is actually an implicit admission of having him in their country all along. Syria expects to be showered with rode petals, but have ended up making themselves look worse. Bashar is in a bind, and with every mistake and day of inaction his ability to handle anything looks more and more ephemeral.
They are facing trouble on more fronts than Israel in 1967, and with far less capability.
It is far too early to speak of regime change, though. Syria is not Lebanon. Even with the outside pressure, one can have no trouble envisioning a savage backlash if the people of Syria try to emulate their neighbors. Even if Bashar is weak and stupid, those running the security services have maintained their jackboot mentality and capacity for massive violence. There is a lot of gold when running a country (and a lot of drug money in controlling the Lebanese Bekka Valley, which is where a redeploying Syria will hunker down for their final stand). No one is ready to give it up.
But no one is ready to give up power anywhere. It is happening though. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak is pushing for laws to change the election rules. Normally when this happens it is for the current President to appoint himself lifetime powers or dynastic rule or prima nocte or something. Not in Egypt. The long-ruling party, the party of Nasser, is opening up its election process. Normally, and for the last 25 years, Mubarak is "re-elected" by referendum: Do you want President Mubarak to stay in power? Yes or no (the correct answer, by the way, is "Yes," and try to smile when pushing the lever, ok?). Now he is pushing a new law that paves the way for other candidates to run against him.
Of course, they won't win. They may be hand-picked candidates who will support Mubarak, much like what happens in Yemen (where President Saleh is legitimately popular). But I think there will be a surprise. Remember Iran- the hardliners picked Khatami to run as a sop to the whining clamor of the reformers, and he surprised them by getting over 75% of the votes. A similar thing, though not to that extent, could happen in Egypt. People are fed up with the regime, which had best tread carefully.
Even when Mubarak cruises to victory, this is a gigantic step. He sees that Jumblat is right, that the wave of democracy is rolling. They are trying to stave it off by minor measures, but every minor measure is another step. Even Saudi Arabia is playing the game, albeit in their own primitive, cynical and retarded (in its true sense) manner. Mubarak could roll all of this back, following the Khatami example to perfection, but it won't be as easy. Iran is far more contained. Although the filthy idea of the Arab Street has been shown to be fraudulent, the connection Arabs have with each other is still real. That is why this has been a rolling tide- the Arab countries are saying "If X can have a say, why can't I?"
And that head X is Iraq. That sounds like a vampire thing, I understand, and maybe it isn't that far off. Iraq is the leader, and their super-human courage in the face of terror and war pulled a "Lost Boys" and have begun to pick off the other countries, one by one. Bin Laden, Zarqawi and the Ba'athists realize this, which explains yesterday's awful and sobering carnage. They are trying to kill the head vampire, Iraq (we'll stop this analogy now. The head vampire in Lost Boys was Kiefer Sutherland, who is now America's number one terrorist fighter in "24." It is connections like these that make me shy away from pop culture). The Bushies realized this early on: as Iraq goes, so goes the rest. It makes one weep to think about what could have been if they didn't mess it up so badly- if we could have had elections without the chaos and looting and power outages and murder that came with the botched occupation. The result is looking good, but...
...but maybe we wouldn't have to fear the savage backlash. Iraq can still be tainted with the Administration's lack of planning and the different kind of misery it brought to the Iraqi people. I hope that the last month has demonstrated once and for all the need for the war, but one still wishes it could have been better handled. Had it been, it would be impossible for the degenerate and corrupt Arab leaders to link the legitimate aspirations of their people with American/Zionist conspiracy gibberish (by the way, we haven't even tackled Palestine, but needless to say it falls in here and deserves its own article very soon).
The potential for backlash is there, and if it comes it will be brutal and cruel, full of either violence or the more subtle and in many ways worse torture of slowly demolished hopes. But one thing is clear. The status quo is over. There could be a backslide or things could move forward, but we are in the middle of an Arab sea change- of that there is no doubt.
To end where we began: the hopes and dreams of the 60s ended with violence and chaos and bad drugs and strange cults and a return of Nixon. In "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" Hunter Thompson describes being able to look, east from Frisco, through the mountains and seeing where the high water mark came crashing down, and we were left with waste. The same thing could happen here. But it doesn't have to. It is an odd thing, being inside a historical moment. One wishes to rush to conclusions; one longs to see history as essentially a benevolent force, guiding us forward with the Hand of Progress. But it isn't. History has many hands, and it isn't written until the end. In the meanwhile, the ghosts of history pull at the actors, and nowhere is this more true than the Middle East. It is up to those actors to shake them free, as the people of Lebanon have tentatively done, and it is up to the outside world to keep pressuring them to be free.
Apt lines when one reads the news coming out of the Arab world. These are head-spinning days in the Middle East, when every newscheck reveals another miracle, small or large. Things are happening that just a few weeks ago seemed impossible. We've been tracking them on this blog, but let's try to put it all together. This is a time for optimism, more so now than ever before. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, though: we are in the early stages of something, and have no idea if the wind is going to shift and blow all the junk and bloody debris right back in our faces.
Start with the beauty of the Lebanese government resigning in the face of massive protests. Though Lebanon still has many problems, as the BBC article explains, this was an amazing turn of events. A few months ago, there would not have been any talk of pushing Syria out, save for some opposition leaders with little political power. It is clear now that the bulk of Lebanese wanted Syria out, but with few exceptions they had been numbed into political impotence, like people all over the Arab world.
That changed with the murder of Rafik Hariri. At the time, much speculation was about who committed the crime and what it meant for Syria, with side worries about whether or not Lebanon would plunge back into the dark days of its brutal civil war. This was not something I saw coming, and didn't read anyone who did (though someone surely did). The people of Lebanon united, in a way that history seemed to preclude. But history is the nightmare from which Lebanon has awoken.
Walid Jumblat, Druze patriarch, is a convert from history. As this Across the Bay post explains, Jumblat woke up with the elections in Iraq. "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains Jumblat. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblat says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it." Keep reading Across the Bay- being entirely about the Middle East it provides some excellent links.
It took the assassination of Hariri to provide the spark, but it was Iraq that laid down the needed kindling. And for the first time that I can recall, a peaceful protest took down an Arab government. This was the kind of people power that we saw in Eastern Europe in 1989, and more recently in Georgia and Ukraine. Read this blog for inspiring updates. The idea that a group of ordinary people, young and old, Christian and Muslim and all their various factions, could come together against a government and its powerful backer while the military and security forces largely stand by, gives a fresh meaning to the overly-used term "inspiring."
Now, factionalism in Lebanon has not mysteriously, magically, vanished. There is still a lot of activity beneath the surface, as group jockey to play their power games. No one knows who will be the new PM, and the President, Emile Lahoud, still enjoys Syria's friendship as much as Syria needs his. This cozy relationship provides the reminder that a wounded Syria sits hovering over Lebanon, mulling its options.
Syria. Kid President Bashar al-Asad seems paralyzed by fear, completely incapable of action. It recently surrendered Saddam's half-brother, the Six of Diamonds, whose stock in the poker game of resistance has gone up as all his mates have been captured or killed. This is a typical Syria move- a bold gesture to show they are on the right side that is actually an implicit admission of having him in their country all along. Syria expects to be showered with rode petals, but have ended up making themselves look worse. Bashar is in a bind, and with every mistake and day of inaction his ability to handle anything looks more and more ephemeral.
They are facing trouble on more fronts than Israel in 1967, and with far less capability.
It is far too early to speak of regime change, though. Syria is not Lebanon. Even with the outside pressure, one can have no trouble envisioning a savage backlash if the people of Syria try to emulate their neighbors. Even if Bashar is weak and stupid, those running the security services have maintained their jackboot mentality and capacity for massive violence. There is a lot of gold when running a country (and a lot of drug money in controlling the Lebanese Bekka Valley, which is where a redeploying Syria will hunker down for their final stand). No one is ready to give it up.
But no one is ready to give up power anywhere. It is happening though. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak is pushing for laws to change the election rules. Normally when this happens it is for the current President to appoint himself lifetime powers or dynastic rule or prima nocte or something. Not in Egypt. The long-ruling party, the party of Nasser, is opening up its election process. Normally, and for the last 25 years, Mubarak is "re-elected" by referendum: Do you want President Mubarak to stay in power? Yes or no (the correct answer, by the way, is "Yes," and try to smile when pushing the lever, ok?). Now he is pushing a new law that paves the way for other candidates to run against him.
Of course, they won't win. They may be hand-picked candidates who will support Mubarak, much like what happens in Yemen (where President Saleh is legitimately popular). But I think there will be a surprise. Remember Iran- the hardliners picked Khatami to run as a sop to the whining clamor of the reformers, and he surprised them by getting over 75% of the votes. A similar thing, though not to that extent, could happen in Egypt. People are fed up with the regime, which had best tread carefully.
Even when Mubarak cruises to victory, this is a gigantic step. He sees that Jumblat is right, that the wave of democracy is rolling. They are trying to stave it off by minor measures, but every minor measure is another step. Even Saudi Arabia is playing the game, albeit in their own primitive, cynical and retarded (in its true sense) manner. Mubarak could roll all of this back, following the Khatami example to perfection, but it won't be as easy. Iran is far more contained. Although the filthy idea of the Arab Street has been shown to be fraudulent, the connection Arabs have with each other is still real. That is why this has been a rolling tide- the Arab countries are saying "If X can have a say, why can't I?"
And that head X is Iraq. That sounds like a vampire thing, I understand, and maybe it isn't that far off. Iraq is the leader, and their super-human courage in the face of terror and war pulled a "Lost Boys" and have begun to pick off the other countries, one by one. Bin Laden, Zarqawi and the Ba'athists realize this, which explains yesterday's awful and sobering carnage. They are trying to kill the head vampire, Iraq (we'll stop this analogy now. The head vampire in Lost Boys was Kiefer Sutherland, who is now America's number one terrorist fighter in "24." It is connections like these that make me shy away from pop culture). The Bushies realized this early on: as Iraq goes, so goes the rest. It makes one weep to think about what could have been if they didn't mess it up so badly- if we could have had elections without the chaos and looting and power outages and murder that came with the botched occupation. The result is looking good, but...
...but maybe we wouldn't have to fear the savage backlash. Iraq can still be tainted with the Administration's lack of planning and the different kind of misery it brought to the Iraqi people. I hope that the last month has demonstrated once and for all the need for the war, but one still wishes it could have been better handled. Had it been, it would be impossible for the degenerate and corrupt Arab leaders to link the legitimate aspirations of their people with American/Zionist conspiracy gibberish (by the way, we haven't even tackled Palestine, but needless to say it falls in here and deserves its own article very soon).
The potential for backlash is there, and if it comes it will be brutal and cruel, full of either violence or the more subtle and in many ways worse torture of slowly demolished hopes. But one thing is clear. The status quo is over. There could be a backslide or things could move forward, but we are in the middle of an Arab sea change- of that there is no doubt.
To end where we began: the hopes and dreams of the 60s ended with violence and chaos and bad drugs and strange cults and a return of Nixon. In "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" Hunter Thompson describes being able to look, east from Frisco, through the mountains and seeing where the high water mark came crashing down, and we were left with waste. The same thing could happen here. But it doesn't have to. It is an odd thing, being inside a historical moment. One wishes to rush to conclusions; one longs to see history as essentially a benevolent force, guiding us forward with the Hand of Progress. But it isn't. History has many hands, and it isn't written until the end. In the meanwhile, the ghosts of history pull at the actors, and nowhere is this more true than the Middle East. It is up to those actors to shake them free, as the people of Lebanon have tentatively done, and it is up to the outside world to keep pressuring them to be free.
posted by cairobrian | 3:23 PM
10 Comments:
forty seconds later dylan sang:
"don't follow leaders
watch the parkin' meters"
i nominate "s.h.b." as the temporary lebanese anthem...
you are right, we are in a tumultuous and important historical moment and the outcome is not clear. it is encouraging and exciting, but as my interest often seems to rotate back toward domestic politics, what do you think about the political effects of these "successes" in relation to foreign policy? already we hear the triumphalism of the republican party, taking credit for events that should be credited to the lebanese and iraqis despite us, not because of us. your comments on this are right-on. my fear is that bush and his team see these developments -- in lebanon, egypt, etc. -- as direct results of their policies and evidence that they have been right all along. when a man like bush believes this kind of thing despite all of his mistakes, he is capable of overreaching beyond our wildest nightmares. (i am talking seymour hersh and iran here.) it is the classic post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. i'll cede the floor to ed kilgore on this matter:
"This is the kind of thinking, of course, that has convinced God knows how many people that Ronald Reagan personally won the Cold War... This is a president and an administration that chronically refuse to accept responsibility for the bad things that have happened on their watch--even things like the insurgency in Iraq that are directly attributable to its policies. Barring any specific evidence (provided, say, by Lebanese pro-democracy leaders)that Bush had anything in particular to do with Syria's setbacks in Lebanon, I see no particular reason to high-five him for being in office when they happened."
here here. let's be hopeful for the middle east during these crazy days, but let's not forget who's running this country. dylan may have been more right than he even knew when he wrote his final lyric in that rambling ode to the underground and 60's tumult:
"the pump don't work
'cause the vandals took the handles"
Yes...if I want to make as "pop culture" reference to the Uqfa or some other historical esoterica...I'll be sure to consult Gregory.
I think there are odder forces at play here than what bmk is hinting at. He says that what is happening is happening "despite" the Bush administration, and I agree with that. But Gregory points out I think it was Iraq that fueled this fire, and he is right to say that. So which is it? Or I am so desperate for friends I'll agree with anyone who posts a comment?
While there might be some veracity to the last comment, the answer is this: what is happening has been what the Bushies intended all along, what they had been promising, what they knew in the heart of their dark, arrogant hearts, would happen- and, weirdly, it still happened despite them.
The enormous failures of the occupation should have destroyed any chance at even the tentative steps toward democracy taken by Iraq. The ham-handedness and arrogant over-reach that are the hallmarks of this adminstration should have precluded the "domino effect."
But there was one thing in which they were very right, and this may have been more instinctual, like in a dumb animal, than intellectual. I know it was with Bush; this is something he felt: that people want to shake off the dust of their sluggish and cruel leaders, and given the right moment they will.
It is a remarkable confluence of events, helped along by the boggling stupidity of Syria, that really got the ball rolling. But it is Iraq that started it all. It isn't just that they happened while Bush just happened to be in office. They wouldn't be happening were Bush not there. I don't think Reagan won the cold war, obviously, as the Soviet Union was a doomed beast, but I am skeptical that it would have happened in 1989-1991 were he not so hellbent on bankrupting them. It is a strategy that was madness and led to the intense nuclear problem we have now, but it did end in that year because of Reagan. In a better way, there is a chance that eventually the old Arab orders would be shook up, but it is not a happy coincidence for Bush that it is now. I is a result of the strategies behind his policies, which worked despite him. I know that sounds like splitting hairs, but I do think it is an important distinction.
That said, yes, it terrifies me to think how much swagger and Midas-sense they have right now. They are indeed capable of anything, and might be so eager to push these changes through they destroy them. It is odd: I don't believe this historical moment would be here if it weren't for Bush, but I am terrified it is Bush at the helm. Still, dumb luck is better than no luck, and if we get a continuation of that, I wish them my breath-holding best.
My feeling here is- and quickly now, as it is late- that the old Arab orders will try to adapt, and some may do so better than others. But I think they are structurally unable to ride this out. This is different than Kerr's Arab Cold War (and yes, for you sports fans, Malcom Kerr is the late father of NBA 3-point marksan Steve Kerr). I see a potential for them to try to adapt, in a Gorbachev type way, and history rushing past them. I try to sta away from the prediciton business, because, really: who knows? Things tend to work in unknowable ways. But I don't think the old Arab orders have the...guile, the subtlty, the intelligence, to handle this kind of situation. This is the nightmare: people demanding a change without falling back on the bogeyman of radical Islam.
Could Gamal Mubarak take over? Yes. But his government would be fundamentally different than his old man's, becuase it would have to be (this is assuming there isn't a massive backlash, which is always a possibility). Things may not change overnight. But I don't see the people in charge now, or the next generation (slightly more worldly Bashar's) being able to rule in the same way. The world is different now.
Red, in "The Shawshank Redemption"- "hope is a good thing- maybe the best of things- and a good thing never dies." Right now, and for the first time in forever, there is hope in the Middle East. It could be a dream deferred, but to think that one way or the other the status quo will be preserved is to be a willing hostage to history. And that is what the Mubaraks and Asads are trying to be- and I say they won't have success.
Inshallah, anyway.
Right?
i think you guys all get attached to the idea of 'rulers' and not of ruling classes and ruling architecture. i don't want to be blithe here, but if mubarak croaks or something or resigns and there are elections, i don't really think that changes too much. there's still going to be a military government in egypt. there's hardly a middle class to support anything close to a western style democracy. you've got to talk about economic development in these places in the same breath as you talk about politcal changes. egypt for example is having huge jumps in industrial production every time i look at the last page in the economist where they get that data. but per capita, we all know that egypt is sinking away from the threshold that is probably necessary for any apparent political changes to matter. look at pakistan. the country attempted the tranistion from military rule to civilian rule. overwhelming, massive corruption finnally prompted a coup (that is one acceptable version of that story i believe). the other involves benazir bhutto and me...oh wait, that's something else entirely. but i digress. my main point: cynicism is warranted. the crowds are in the streets in beirut, yes. but crowds have short attention spans.
gregory- the change was pushed through by a guy who didn't speak much good arabic until recently and is out of touch with his power base---the traditional non-palestinian part of the jordanian population, who i believe, by and large, probably support honor killings. why is he doing this? probably because he thinks killing your sister for sleeping around is good because he was educated at oxford and not in somewhere even more remote than madaba, right?
sorry i meant not good.
"Abu al-khiyar," a psuedonym which I hardly even care to dignify, is right to point out that there is far more involved than the rulers, and that they are just to focal point of a determined ruling class. No doubt. Cynicism is warranted. And he is also correct in mentioning that there is only so much any one person can do. This is true, but as Gregory said, if he connects with the people on the streets, he has a bit more leeway.
Now (let's stick with this country for a bit), Lebanon is insanely complicated, run by a corrupt and venal ruling class propped up by a strong and enveloping neighbor with an overwhelming economic interest in staying the dominant power broker. Sounds like...oh, let's pick an example entirely at random...Georgia.
Georgia is a country that was in just as bad, if not worse straits, than Lebanon. Look at the speratist entities in Abjura, Abkhazia, South Ossetia- and Shevernadze's government made Lahoud look like Franklin Roosevelt. And Russia was the guarantor of all these territories, and was deeply involved in Georgian politics (though not to the physical extent of Syria in Lebanon, admittedly). If in the summer or fall of 2003 you had mentioned to a regional expert that some virtual unknown would overthrow Shevernadze without firing a shot and start to bring the country together, he would have sneered you out of the room. And yet: it happened. The Georgian problem is far from solved, of course, but it is much closer than anyone could have imagined. And please don't tell me that the Caucuses are less complicated than the Middle East- I would argue they are the most complex, unstable, difficult place on earth; I would urge you to look at a linguistic map of the region. It has the internal cohesion of a bad Jackson Pollack imitator.
The point is, sometimes things happen above the heads of regional experts (like the fall of the Soviet Union). It can happen, and has, throughout history. Hell, look at Nasser. I hate to sound like a Fox News commentator sneering at the thought of effete liberal academics (or whatever) but it is easy to get so caught up in the intricate pieces that you lose sight of the big picture. It is true that the little things are vitally important- biology teaches us as much. Component parts cannot be ignored. But history works in wierd ways. Will it happen here? I don't know, and I am not bursting with optimism. But kings and their courts have fallen before, AK. No one knows what will replace them, but it is worth noting that for the first time in a long time there is some forward momentum.
Yes, King Abdullah presumably think honor killings are bad- and, frankly, as culturally imperialistic as this is, I tend to agree. But be careful of sneering at someone because they were educated abroad (though Abdullah's lack of Arabic was ridiculous- the people who made incredible changes in Yemen, who overthrew the Imam, were by and large educated somewhere "more remote" than, say, Ibb. And our good friends Yuschenko and Saaklishavi of Ukraine and Georgia spent formative years in the States.
I am not saying there is a universal drive, nor trying to repeat the "freedom is on the march" pap of W. But be wary of Middle East exceptionalism. Were you a Ukranian expert I believe you would have cautioned that there is no way the power structure around Kuchma would let his edifice fall.
In Slate today Fred Kaplan has an interesting take whether or not W. deserves some credit. It's a good read, even though he links to Juan Cole's blog (Cole is an idiot). Here are the last two paragraphs, which pose an interesting question.
It's worth noting that the Bush administration's original plan for Iraq's postwar reconstruction was to hold elections after an interim assembly drafted a constitution. It was the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who insisted that elections be held first, who declared that a constitution would not be valid otherwise. Seeing no alternative, Bush gave in.
So who is—who will be seen as—the real facilitator and emblem of Middle Eastern-style democracy: the president of the United States or the grand ayatollah? That's the scary question that sums up the challenges ahead and, even more, the ambiguity underlying the concept of "freedom."
just to clarify: who is jackson pollack?
sistani wanted the election first so the constitution could have the influences of the shiite clergy in it. bush & co. don't really appear to know what they are doing at all.
i think you're right, cairobrian. the cacoosussess are certainly more complex than the m.e. i've always been big on interpreting ethnicity through language first and foremost. one cannot underestimate this.
on the topic of underlying possibilties for stabilty and progress in fako-made up colonial states, i like the nicely articulated arguement that octavio paz makes in his book about india, whose title i've forgotten. (the mexican poet was ambassador there in the late 60s or early 70s i think, until he resigned because of a high-profile massacre of student protesters by the mexican army/police/goon squads). basically, he says that the de facto integration of geographies and peoples that might not be lumped together if you were trying to create political stability, over time starts to produce a group of entrepreneurs whose ethnicities may vary but who begin to support a weak state system by constructing a nation underneath by entangling capital investments and influences on municipalities. i believe lebanon has real potential in this respect. hariri may sort of be a good living example about what paz was talking about. i believe his investments (personal and political and economic) were surprisingly diverse in terms of lebanon itself.
i'm all for not trying to make too much of comparisons between countries in terms of things like this.
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