A nuclear Iran, answering Kenneth Waltz

In an opinion piece published in USA Today, under a title that can be mistaken for satire, Professor Kenneth Waltz of Colombia University suggests we shouldn’t worry about a nuclear Iran. His main argument, “Although it is impossible to be certain of Iranian intentions, it is far more likely that if Iran desires nuclear weapons, it is for the purpose of enhancing its own security, not to improve its offensive capabilities.”

Professor Kenneth Waltz of Colombia University 

As to what those security concerns might be he does not speechifies, however, unlike Israel Iran has a huge strategic depth. Its geography, its huge population, and its level of economic development, all adds up to a formidable deterrence; without any need for nuclear weapons. In short, Iran is a country that doesn’t have to worry about its own security, as long as it does not infringe on the security of others. Once it does that, it gives other countries a good reason to make a special effort in order to infringe on Iran’s security. Unfortunately for Professor Kenneth Waltz’s argument that is precisely the kind of Iran we have today. In Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Egypt, the Gaza Strip, and elsewhere. If Professor Kenneth Waltz wishes to reassure the world about a nuclear Iran he should first reassure the world about a non-nuclear Iran.

At another part of his article he argues that Israel’s nuclear capabilities are responsible for the instability in the Middle East. How does Israel’s, supposed, nuclear capabilities relate to the huge social gaps within the Arab world? How does it affect the total GDP of 22 Arab nations? Without oil this GDP is lower than that of Switzerland. How is that Israel’s fault? And what about illiteracy, high unemployment, the Sunna and Shia split, gross gender inequality, and other recognized internal causes of instability. Are they all because Israel has nuclear weapons? Under this type of reasoning, the moon landing is to blame for all the major airplane crashes that followed.
According to USA Today, Kenneth Waltz’s article is a condensed version of a paper that will be published in the July - August issue of Foreign Affairs, so maybe the answers will be there.

Geography alone debunks Waltz’s argument.

 See also Ira Stoll at Commentary Magazine.

The Egyptian revolution, the United States and Israel, testing old textbooks and writing new ones

I’m probably going against the current that dominated the pro-Israel blogsphere by saying that the American administration was right in supporting the largely peaceful ouster of president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. But I do believe that to be the case.
In explaining my opinion it is important to point out that both this current and the said American policy are due to sound reasons. This current of Israel based skepticism exists mainly because of the crisis in US Israel relationships that took place last year over planned constructions in East Jerusalem. This crisis left many Israelis and supporters of Israel distrustful of the Obama administration. This mistrust was echoed in the concern some Israelis had that the abandonment of Mubarak preludes an abandonment of Israel. But there is no comparison between the American Middle East policy of March 2010 and that of February 2011. Then the United States acted as if it had a textbook of new ideas regarding Middle East peace making. But since those ideas were new, and with no relation to past experience, the textbook was actually a guessing book. However, during the more recent Egyptian crisis of January and February 2011, they did had a textbook to read from, an old and reliable one. It is called “How to address a dysfunctional allied dictatorship,” or “How not to get bogged down in another Vietnam.” It is an important book that proved itself in 1986 during the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. Then a pro-western tyrant was removed from power in a way that kept the country as an ally of the west without slipping into an endless civil war involving thousands of American troops.




The Vietnam war

 The American lesson from Vietnam is very clear; an unpopular allied dictatorship that lost its ability to enforce itself on its population is not a strategic ally but a strategic burden. But the Middle East is not Southeast Asia. In Southeast Asia as in Latin America, the United States of America earned the animosity of millions because it supported brutal unpopular despots. But in the Middle East the unpopularity of the United States predates the relationships with the tyrannies of the region, and even the United States itself. This animosity is an ideological one, an opposition to the American and western values of democracy and civil liberties and not just the policies. They are based on the widespread of popular intolerant ideologies, such as nationalism, pan-nationalism, and religious fundamentalism. These ideologies are rooted in the history of the region. It is a history of empires and kingdoms ruled by Arab dynasties and Islam as their official religion. These intolerant and even anti democratic ideologies are the legacy of that era. They had produced hostile anti democratic regimes such as that of Gamal Abdle Nasser in Egypt, and the Wahabi regime of the Saudis in the Arabian Peninsula whose origin goes back to 1744. Their starting position was that of hostility to the west and its democratic values. But as their own internal difficulties grow and as the region’s political arena changed, creating mutual threats to them and the west, the two sides got closer. It is a simple convergence of interests that created a near lose-lose situation for the west and in particular its leadership, the United States of America. The duration of these regimes, their corruption, and repression, undermined severely their popularity. Their new proximity to already hated United States, acted as a reconfirmation of the corruption of these regimes. Simultaneously it reaffirmed the bad image of the west.

Learning the lessons from Vietnam and adapting them to a different region.
That is the American challenge in the Arab spring of ‏2011

This fundamental difference does not suggest that the Vietnam experience is irrelevant here; after all there are similarities. It does suggest that some adjustments are needed. This rises equally from the Israeli textbook. Like the American textbook it is based on sound experience, however there isn’t a lot of text in it, just a few lines. ”Avoid another Iran, beware of the Muslim Brotherhood, remember how Hamas, one of their offshoots took over Gaza, both by elections and by force.” In the leaderless revolution that took place in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is the most likely opposition group to benefit since it is the largest and most organized. Along with its anti-democratic and anti-Israeli platform, which it had obscured but not abandon, it is a genuine threat and not just a bogyman in quotations. This suggests that the best course of action based on the Israeli warning signs is to crash the Lotus revolution. But that runs into conflict with the next line in the Israeli textbook. “Beware of another Lebanon, were a civil war created Hizbullah and gave the hegemonic seeking Iran a major foothold in that country.”

What these two textbooks tell us is that they are not in conflict with one another. Rather they are in the same place, in need of new ideas. In a situation like this the events on the ground are the ones that are writing the new textbooks, events that are being shaped by the political forces currently working in Egypt. These forces are the ruling military elite, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the general public who only began to be an active political player.

The questions are what each of them want, what are their goals, concerns, and priorities:

What does the current regime see as a greater threat, Iran, Islamization, anarchy, or the spread of democracy?

What does the Muslim Brotherhood want? To hijack the revolution the way Khomeini did in 1979 Iran, or use the democratic process the way Hitler did? Or do they intend to leave things as they are so they can enjoy the new opportunities without risking loosing their gains by starting political upheavals whose final outcome cannot be predicted?

And what are the priorities of general public, democracy or jobs?

These unanswered questioned are the making of uncertainty. And there is no need to list its drawbacks, especially in the Middle East, where the stakes are high. Here chaos and bloodshed can be no more the one mistake away. Writing damn good textbooks for everyone involved.

A misleading BBC report about Israel’s concerns over Egypt, by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes

There is nothing new about MSM making erroneous pieces about Israel, and the BBC is no exception.

In this report from February the 28^th, by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes the BBC correspondent in Jerusalem, there are two glaring errors.

The closing statement that Mubarak kept Egyptians hatred of Israel from been expressed is flat out wrong. In fact, as this ADL denunciation from November 7^th 2000 shows, attacking Israel was one of the few freedoms Egyptian press did had, including blatant anti-Semitism.

He also omitted the fact that the reasons for Egypt's cooperation with Israel over the blockade of Hamas in the Gaza Strip has more to do with Egypt’s relationships with Hamas, than its relationships with Israel. As Khaled Abu Toameh specified in this article from the Jerusalem Post of January 2010: The inability to get Hamas to compromise over the Schalit deal, the failure to reconcile with Fatah, and concerns that it had threatened the Mubarak’s regime.

Egypt, in its own path: The 200 years long march to Tahrir and beyond

Egypt’s long history is that of a country founded by its people, lost to them, and now reclaimed. From them came the builders of the pyramids. From them came the priests of the great temples. From them came the inventors of the hieroglyphics. From them came the Pharaohs. They were farmers and fishermen that made Egypt the first proof of human ingenuity and resourcefulness.

They have built their civilization without outside models to learn from. It was just themselves, the life-giving river, the vast desert around, and the mysterious skies above.

For many centuries their creation towered above its surroundings as the most developed society around, with only Mesopotamia to keep it company, and rivalry. Gradually other societies caught up. But Egypt’s heritage and achievements still placed her above the rest, boosted by the fact that all these new civilizations were influenced by her culture, and willingly consumed it.

With the welcomed columns of Alexander the Great Egypt became a part of other greater worlds: The Hellenic world, the Roman world, the Christian world, and now the Arab and Islamic world. There its uniqueness had faded but never gone.

In that process however Egypt lost its independence and became the property of foreigners of all sorts, rulers, invaders, and conquerors. At the pick of that process were the Mamluks, a military sect of foreign decent that ruled Egypt as feudal overlords, with absolute power over the country and its people. In 1517 they lost their empire and the land to the Ottoman Turks, but remained the de facto masters of Egypt. No change could have come without their approval, and no change came.

Therefore when Muhammad Ali Pasha became the governor of Egypt in 1805 he knew they had to be uprooted. And on March 1^st 1811 he invited them to a royal bash, a celebration of an upcoming war, and massacred them in a ruthless and thorough ambush. For a military force he used instead recruits from the native Egyptian population. In doing so he begun the long process of returning Egypt to its people.



Muhammad Ali Pasha



The second major step in that direction took place 141 years later, on July 23^rd 1952, in what was known as the “Free Officers Revolution.” This was the name a large group of military officers headed by colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser that overturn and deported the royal dynasty founded by Muhammad Ali Pasha. And sent away Egypt's last foreign rulers, the British. In this revolution a force of native origin became the highest and most powerful political authority. Unlike the monarchy it offered social mobility to the poor peasantry, by giving them the ability to rise through the ranks as soldiers and officers.

The third step took place this February, when the masses gathering in Cairo’s Tahrir Square were able to oust Egypt’s 30 years long ruler Hosni Mubarak. In doing so they showed the world, and themselves, what people’s power is all about. The final step will be Egypt becoming a fully functioning democracy. Hopefully it will be the next step and an immediate one. Because, as the history of Egypt and other countries has showed us, revolutions are often followed by setbacks and backwards steps.

In Egypt’s case Muhammad Ali’s dynasty became corrupt and hedonistic, especially under its last ruler; king Farouk I. Gamal Abdel Nasser gave Egypt full independence, a developed infrastructure, vitally needed land reforms, and international prestige. But with them came tyranny and an economy that could not sustain his military ambitions. And in Tahrir square, on February the 18^th 2011, merely a week after this leaderless revolution seceded in ousting president Mubarak, the radical cleric Shiekh Yousef Al Qaradhawi encouraged a crowed of around a million men, to declare war on Israel.

Egypt’s history points clearly to its direction, a government by the people, for the people. Its troubled history suggests this won’t be a smooth ride. But every major step towards that goal has to be commended and blessed. Even if skepticism will be vindicated in the nearby future, this revolution should be congratulated. Because in it the value of life was largely kept, the protesters were non-violent and the army held back its fire. And those who did resort to violence, Mubarak’s supporters, lost. Its not that skepticism should be sidelined, no, this would be unwise from a survival point of view. But we can congratulate this achievement without been euphoric. Whenever democracy wins it is a good thing and should be treated as such. Whatever bad things may come, no matter how close they might be, they are not here yet. When they do come, they will be treated accordingly. But until then Egypt should be congratulated for this achievement and for her new found liberty. And may they prove all their doubters wrong. Because to many revolutions didn’t, and not just in the Muslim world.

Unrest in Libya; a change is coming?

Seeing these images from a recently uploaded video to YouTube, makes me wonder if I should allow myself to hope again.




If Ghaddafi is rejected this way, maybe, just maybe, his false slogans will be rejected as well.