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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: frankw1900 who wrote (57824)	11/19/2002 4:41:41 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

Barry Rubin comments on the missing pragmatism of Arab politics: Analysis/ A bold response to a desperate situation By BARRY RUBIN Twenty-five years after Egyptian president Anwar Sadat came to Israel to make peace, the courageousness and ingenuity of his decision stands out all the more sharply. Actually, Sadat was acting out of simple pragmatism, the kind of thinking that almost always determines policy-making in other parts of the world. Yet in the Middle East, this rather normal type of behavior was unprecedented and extraordinary. Sadat was responding to a desperate situation. Egypt's defeat in the 1967 Six Day War had led to the closure of the Suez Canal and the Sinai oil fields two of the main sources of national income and was a national humiliation. The War of Attrition brought additional costs. In the 1970s, Egypt's economy continued to lag. The socialist policies of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who died in 1970, were popular at home, but contributed little to development and discouraged foreign investment. Aid from the newly rich Arab oil states was limited. In short, Egypt was at a dead end. Sadat decided that the USSR was too overbearing and might even have imperial aspirations toward Egypt. But in breaking with Moscow, he also lost the country's superpower protector. So Sadat developed a bold new strategy: Make peace with Israel, get the canal and oil fields open again, build good relations with the US, and implement more market-oriented economic reforms. The 1973 Yom Kippur War was an integral part of that strategy. By regaining Arab honor, Sadat sought to set the stage for making peace. And even though Israel won the battle, the conflict could be portrayed at home as an Arab victory. Sadat made his approach to Israel and the rest is history. When he dramatically addressed the Knesset, Sadat left no doubt that he intended a full and lasting peace. To date, only King Hussein of Jordan has duplicated that approach. Sadat had simply concluded that the conflict was not in Egypt's interest and to continue it was folly. Again, none of this thinking should be taken for granted. After all, other Arab dictators have faced equal or worse conditions and yet chosen to continue or even escalate the problems that led to them. They traded the continuation of an objective mess for subjective exaltation. Yes, they said in effect, the economy is in tatters society is stagnant, the political structure is repressive, and we cannot even defeat Israel, yet at least we are still fighting, and we will go on doing so forever. Ironically, Sadat's policy was less popular but far more beneficial for his people. At Camp David, Sadat worked out a peace agreement with US president Jimmy Carter and prime minister Menachem Begin. Unlike others in later years, he did not fear moving forward or abandoning old assumptions. It has often been said that his deal left out the Palestinians, but this is not at all true. Sadat wanted Yasser Arafat to come along and use the autonomy provisions to build a state. Indeed, basic concepts of Camp David were later used in new ways to furnish the basis of the Oslo Accords. Peace and a Palestinian state might have been achieved in the early 1980s, and thousands of people now dead would still be alive. How did the story of Sadat s initiative end? It is easy to view his assassination in 1981 as the tale's culmination. In that case, the moral would be that any Arab leader who faces reality will pay the highest personal price for that decision. That conclusion, in isolation, would be most misleading. Sadat did change the course of Egyptian history and even 35 years later, his policy has been maintained. Whatever vicious things appear in Egypt's media, used by the state for demagogic purposes, President Hosni Mubarak follows the path marked out by Sadat. Egypt's problems remain enormous, but it has benefited from that legacy, which includes the strong relationship with the US. Perhaps that fact alone makes Sadat the greatest Arab statesman of the 20th century, at least in terms of constructive achievements. Would that there was more competition for the title. The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center of the Interdisciplinary Center. His latest books are The Tragedy of the Middle East and Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East. jpost.com

To: frankw1900 who wrote (57824)	12/7/2002 6:43:28 AM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 281500

But for good or bad the big symbolic act is to deliver democracy. But how does one deliver democracy? FedEx? UPS? Ok, that’s silly, but my whole point is that democracy cannot be delivered, or installed. Fortunately, we don’t have to deliver or install it. What we have to do is create and exploit dissatisfaction with tyranny. This will not result in democracy. It is the first step toward democracy, though the road is likely to be a long and tortuous road. We don’t have to get them to be like us, which is a good thing, since we can’t do that in any event. We just have to break their faith in their radical leaders. It points at Iraq, you know. The problem is that it really doesn’t point at Iraq. It points, to the extent that it points anywhere, at Saudi Arabia and at Pakistan. Both of these are much more complex and dangerous problems than Iraq, Pakistan because of the bombs and Saudi Arabia because of the oil. In both cases we are supporting bad governments because the alternatives are worse. In both cases we have governments that for the most part would like to cooperate with us, but have completely lost control of much of their populations and large parts of the apparatus of government. In both cases government has for decades turned the educational and cultural apparatus over to Islamic radicals, using religion as the opiate of the masses, and in both cases governments have found themselves held hostage by large populations of those violently addicted to the opiate. In neither case is regime change going to be an effective option, because in these countries we do not have radical governments leading reluctant populations on a destructive course, but rather radical populations leading reluctant governments on a destructive course. In both cases, invading Iraq is going to increase the vulnerability of the only allies, nominal and ineffectual allies though they may be, that we have in those countries.