How will the unrest affect the countries of the Middle East? Lebanon.

A short synopsis.

Lebanon:

If any one country is going to have more influences imposed upon it by countries that are embroiled  in strife (read Syria), then it's Lebanon. The Lebanese Government is in stasis and Hezbollah is holding the reigns of the march 8th block, and we all know that they don't move without the backing of Iran and Syria. The situation in the south will become increasingly bad as Syria tries to show the world that there can be no quiet in the area without an Assad regime. So for Lebanon the dangers are twofold, to the governmental institutions and to the security of the south and from that the wider country if a conflict breaks out, Be it against the infiltrators(Palestinians) or Hezbollah, who are  aiding and abetting them. A similar situation set the boarders alight in 1982, it is as if lessons are not being learnt. If there is one country where hot conflict is likely it is here. The Lebanese are again being used by forces that have nothing in interest with Lebanese peace and security. These forces are aided and abetted by states who are using the country and the actors (see Hezbollah) to their own ends.

Recent examples of the foreign intervention can be seen in the bombing of Italian UN troops in the south, and the Hezbollah aided riots/demonstrations from Nabka day along the Israeli border. So For the Lebanese, the change will not necessarily bring about a positives. It might change the balance of power in the country vis-a-vis Hezbollah, with its weakening with the possible fall of the Assad regime in Syria, but that in itself might push Hezbollah to act more aggressively and take a millenarian decision to attack not just Israel but its enemies within the state. So we could be looking at another civil war or a very destructive war with Israel. Both will tear apart any consensus within Lebanon, there will be a need of a new Taif accord, but there is no one to implement that on the players of Lebanon's consensual accord, as the US has all but withdrawn its support from any players in the area.

So if Assad stays in power then Lebanon can feel that the future for the short term will be quiet, as there will be no movement on the issues of government and thus the blocking status-quo will ensue, but this could lead to Hezbollah pushing for a position that they might feel entitled to at the moment but which they would not merit without Syrian support. That means a possible civil or cross border conflict. But if Syria falls to the anti-Assad protesters, then that could tear the society of Lebanon apart. Underlying problems of the consensual agitation could erupt and cause great harm to the population and infrastructure, harming the country in a greater way than the previous civil war. Either by civil or national conflict. The X-factor in all this is Hezbollah, and how they would react to the weakening and/or loss of their patron Syria.

So all in all, the future of Lebanon is at stake as one of the most delicate and perverse of all countries in the area, and it is one of the few that isn't touched by any popular civil uprisings. A country that is always the victim of the perverse use of powers by other entities rather than its own doing.

Democracy, in name only.

The new waves of unrest that have roiled around the Middle East since being ignited by the Tunisian uprisings are being viewed by many press establishments as the local population asking for democracy. This is a fallacy, as the examples of both Tunisia and especially Egypt show. Democracy is not just something a country can impose from the top down, and in Egypt, you can see there is no will by the ruling military clique to impose such open freedoms on a population that has no real understanding of the meaning of democracy.

The only real change in Egypt is a sense of greater political room for new actors to engage in, this gives the population (read middle classes) a palpable result for all the efforts they put in to get change. But when all is said and done, it’s still the same junta ruling the state, with a new headman, and maybe in time a new puppet government, who will only ever have limited freedom of governance. The only way this government will be able to enact changes when formed, is not through enacting legislation or demanding that its dictates be followed by the army, but by the rule of the mob, pawning to popularity. The legislature is increasingly weak vis-a-vis the judiciary, in fact the law courts are becoming increasingly bold and over powerful and this is now sending danger signs to foreign entities that would invest or act within the new Egypt.

This prosecutorial zeal has frightened conservative Arab regimes such as Saudi Arabia, which has warned that it won’t provide economic assistance to Egypt if Mubarak is humiliated. But the greater danger is that Egyptian and international investors will steer clear of the country if they think doing business there might expose them to legal risks....

What’s needed in Egypt and the other Arab countries that have suffered from dictatorship is a sense that the rule of law will prevail, with safeguards against vindictive prosecution. This protective legal framework is as important as democracy itself, which as Alexander Hamilton and other American founders warned more than 200 years ago can be bent to become the tyrannical will of the mob.

 And this is the point, mob rule. It is the rule of the mob that is enacting changes in and to the system; the judiciary has seen it can gain power from enacting the popular will of the mob. The next government that is voted in will also likely use the rule of the mob to enforce and push its agenda. This they know they can do because the military junta showed they are unwilling or too politically weak to enforce the rule of law on the mob, they want to be popular and not be seen as a new Mubarak.
But this isn't democracy in action, democracy has grass roots, there are none in Egypt, there is no real understanding of democracy in Egypt or many of the other embattled countries in the Middle East. Democracies are more than just a system of voting freely, it also ensures that no one branch of government can dominate, it protects the minorities from mob rule. This is conspicuously absent in  post-revolutionary Egypt, where attacks by the Muslim majority on the Copts (about 8% of the population) has become a daily occurrence and is sending out danger signals to all and sundry who deal with Egypt.

What we now have is a fractured and failing state, though this is easily reversible. It needs a population that is more understanding and open to each other, and to allow freedom of information to spread ideas of reconciliation to the wider population. This whole problem has come about due to long years of government control over the information and news that people received in the time under Mubarak. This was always getting more strident, racist and extremist. So nowadays you have a population brought up on a steady diet of conspiracies, anti-Semitic jargon and racist ideals. So it is little wonder that there are now daily calls for action to be taken against the Copts, Israelis and foreigners.

So what we are looking at here is the legacy that the Mubarak regime left behind after 30 years of rule, a country that is dominated by a discourse of extremity and is badly in need of reconciliation. Democracy is still a foreign ideal and will continue to be as long as the freedom of some is given greater credence than that of others. There needs to be a real discourse and an opening of eyes into what greater political engagement means to the population. Yet this is no easy task for a country on the brink of a major crisis over it being unable to feed itself and this in itself may drive the government to become more populist in order to appease their anger and desperation and this could lead to dire consequences for Egypt. The country can’t afford to fight any war against Israel or to allow the riots against the Copts to continue as this will halt very fast its major sources of income, US military aid and the tourist economy. So there are hard choices to be made in the upper echelons of the Egyptian hierarchy, someone needs to take a stand and do the unpopular things that will allow the country to continue to function as a normal society, or else they will be lead down the long slippery road to that most detested and feared of Arabic words, fitna(chaos).

The life of G.I. Gurdjieff in film.

A must watch, very rare and hard to get hold of, but now online:

Meetings with remarkable men

based on his biographical book of the same name.

If you can get hold of a copy of the book, read it, a facinationg insight into the esoteric of the late 19thC and early 20th Century.

The Failure of Hizbullah.

 There is a total failure on Hizbullah's behalf to understand the new wave of emancipation sweeping the area, they are losing support every day with their selective support of freedom and resistance, Egypt good idea, Syria, a big No No! From a group supposedly build on the predilection of resistance this is a big mistake, and bares their true colours as an Iranian lackey.

"First, as hard as Nasrallah tries, he just cannot seem to convince Arabs anymore that “resistance” must be given priority over most other aspects of their lives. In Egypt, Tunisia and Syria, people have talked about emancipation, democracy and liberty, with the targets of their opprobrium almost exclusively domestic. Protestors may dislike America and Israel, but for now their aim is to rewrite failed social contracts, impose states that reflect their needs, and be rid of leaders and their families who have suffocated and robbed them for decades."

Ernest Renan on Islam.

".... Islamism can exist only like official religion; when one reduces
it to the state of free and individual religion, it will perish.
Islamism is not only one religion of State, like was to it Catholicism
in France, under Louis XIV, as it is it still in Spain, it is the
religion excluding the State... There is the eternal war, the war
which will cease only when the last wire of Ismaël dies of misery or
is relegated by terror to the bottom of the desert. Islam is the most
complete negation of Europe; Islam is fanaticism, like Spain of the
time of Philippe II and Italy of the time of Magpie V hardly knew it;
Islam is the scorn of science, the removal of the civil company; it is
the terrible simplicity of the Semitic spirit, narrowing the human
brain, closing it with any delicate idea, any fine feeling, with any
rational research, to put it opposite an eternal tautology: God is
God... "

"Muslims are the first victims of Islam. Many times I have observed in my travels in the Orient that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain the others in the practice of religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service one can render him."



Some parts still quite apposite today.

Exit Strategy?

So does NATO have an exit strategy from the Libyan Conflict? How does it expect to win? Will it have to kill Qaddafi and sons to feel able to pull out? Will it have to place troops on the ground? Will Libyans be the first Middle Eastern state to take its own future into its own hands, once the intervention is finished? Or will it like numerous other states hold the US and Europe to ransom to rebuild its infrastructure, thus losing its real independence  with it? How can NATO turn around and go if Qaddafi is still in power, it never learnt its lesson from the 1970/80s and the terror that was rained on the world by Qaddafi then. What will he be capable of now, knowing that he has nothing to lose? Is their a possible face saving deal, and if so who will take Qaddafi? Saudi Arabia?

The Questions can go on and on, there are no answers, which is why getting into this mess in the first place was wrong, it was the right thing to do but the way it has been done is weak. If you bomb Libya why not Syria.... double standards, or just understanding that they were wrong in the first place, you can't change a regime from the air or afar, you have to get stuck in and get dirty. There is no easy way and that is the lesson to be learnt.

An Islamist approach to change.

Whereas in the West laws and language were a human invention, in Islam the law of the land should conform to the laws revealed by God, in a language given to mankind by God. This dominates their discourse and interpretation into general singular life and even onto a national scale, thus they believe that:

"....to carry out God's prescripts (is) an obligation for the Muslims. hence, the establishment of an islamic state is obligatory.. becausse something without which what is obligatory cannot be carried out itself becomes obligatory If such a state cannot be established without war, then this war is an obligation as well.... The laws by which the Muslims are ruuled today are (not the laws of Islam but) the laws of unbelief.... An apostate has to be killed even if he is unable to carry arms and go to war. "

Something we can all agree to as a pot-puri of logic, religion, politics and violence all rolled into one, something we have to square to be able to understand the basic precepts of Islamic Fundamentalism. This is just a start and not the be all and end all of Radical Islam. It gives us a logical approach to understanding the illogical.

The Future of the Middle East, according to Spengler:

As always a facinating read with great insights:

Israel as Middle Eastern hegemon

"Israel's success is a horrible reminder of European failure; its bumptious nationalism grates against Europe's determination to forget its own ugly embrace of nationalism; and its implicitly religious raison d'etre provokes post-Christian rage. Above all, it offends Europe that Israel brims with life. Some of Europe's great nations may not survive the present century. At constant fertility, Israel will have more citizens than any of the Eastern European countries where large numbers of Jews resided prior to the Holocaust."

"The Muslim world, meanwhile, is turning grey at an unprecedented rate. Turkey's and Iran's median age will surpass the 40-year mark by mid-century, assuming constant fertility, while Israel's will stabilize in the mid-30s. Europe will become an impoverished geriatric ward. "


"Development economists have known for years that a disaster was in the works. A 2009 World Bank report on Arab food security warned, "Arab countries are very vulnerable to fluctuations in international commodity markets because they are heavily dependent on imported food. Arab countries are the largest importers of cereal in the world. Most import at least 50 percent of the food calories they consume." The trouble is that the Arab regimes made things worse rather than better.

Egypt's rulers of the past 60 years intentionally transformed what once was the breadbasket of the Mediterranean into a starvation trap. They did so through tragedy, not oversight. Keeping a large part of one's people illiterate on subsistence farms is the surest method of social control."

The forthcomming battle, what will be in the Middle East after the present battle

Those Muslims who want to apply the traditional rules from the books of Islamic law are out for power. They want to rule in the place of existing regimes. However, Middle Eastern governments have not only used force in the battle against the fundamentalists previously ( as they are now against everyone else); they have also used diplomatic means, and by all sorts of concessions have been able to win over many who might otherwise have succumbed to the seductive clarity's of Islamic Fundamentalism. This resulted in parts of society and states being Islamised, which can be seen in many Middle Eastern totalitarian states, where Islam has a far larger role today than it did even ten or twenty years ago.  This development can allow us to argue that what is at stake in these failing states , is the  Islamisation of the modern nation State. This Islamisation, whatever it may mean in practice, will be inevitable as the conflict de-escalates into a societal upheaval. Once the space opens for Islamic groups to participate in governmental areas and society at large then it will be seen that the transition to an Islamic form of governance will be inevitable.

It will be the average Muslim who will pay the price, as the small bands of Fundamentalists, who have degenerated into a primitive rebellion against society, will enact their beliefs, they will bring greater verve to the battle, the average citizen who has fought against the regime will be tired and unable to respond a second time. It will be a classic counter revolution, see Iran for example in 1979.  The desire for murder and violence received its theological framework from Sayyid Qutb. He died with a smile on his lips. the time will come soon, when the Muslims of the Middle
East who are not willing to die smiling will have to decide whether it is worthwhile to die fighting in order to forgo the privilege of being killed by men who are ready to die smiling.

religion/secular identities, What divides the Arabs/Muslims from Europeans/Westerners?

In many instances Conservative Muslims and the Christian right are on the same page as each other: calling for an end to compulsory coeducation for instance; fighting the teaching of Darwinism, and an outright rejection of anything linked to the idea of homosexual marriage. In France the Catholic Church and the chief rabbinate opposed the law banning the Islamic headscarf, as they both believe that religion should be present in the public sphere.

A poll taken by freedom house measuring the values of Westerners and Arabs, showed the opposition is not about values such as democracy (an important value for 86% or Westerners and 87% or Arabs), but is about divorce (60% of Westerners and only 35%of Arabs approve), abortion (48% and 25%), and homosexuality (53% and 12%). This shows tat the conflict isn't as always seems to be portrayed, between Western and Muslim values ( it is easier to get a divorce under Islam jurisprudence, for males), but between religious conservatives/radicals and non-religious peoples.

The fight isn't about what we stand for here in the West, but how Western ideals lead to a seemingly lax and free society, one based on individual needs and wants, as opposed to communal and religious demands (umma). The Arab and Muslim population in the West has fought against integration on these terms, preferring to use the power of their community to force abeyance on their youth to Muslim values. This leads to a radicalisation of the youth as they seek to find their own niche, wanting to reject their parents ideals, but due to years of communal isolation also unaccepted into wider society. This is what leads them to radicalise, allowing their own readings of the Quran , and own ideals to be read into it (tafsir), to give them a feeling and a belief of empowerment. Coming from a hija from both communities (self imposed exile, as Muhammad did in leaving mecca for Medina), and fighting back in their perceived beliefs against both. Though the more familiar community will always suffer first and most harshly.

Moral imperative on writing about the Middle East.

From Bernard Lewis:

There was a time when scholars and other writers in communist eastern Europe relied on writers and publishers in the free West to speak the truth about their history, their culture and their predicament. Today it is those who told the truth, not those who concealed or denited it, who are respected and welcome in these countries....

Historians in free countries have a moral and professional obligation not to shirk the difficult issues and subjects that some people would place under some sort of taboo; not to submit to voluntary censorship, but to deal with these matters fairly, honestly, without apologetics, without polemic, and, of course, competently. Those who enjoy freedom have a moral obligation to use that freedom for those who do not possess it.

How true is this still today. There needs to be more people opining on what is, and not writing in a balanced and fair way, that is a form of censorship, the truth should be all, its not about keeping friends or making foes, its about the moral imperative to report the truth, whether it hurts and enrages some. History will show those persons who follow this path to be right and true.

Bush is back in the White House.

seems like the Bushisims in US foreign policy are roaring back into fashion. Quite an about turn from Obama's previous line.

So Obama’s George Bush speech: The intention was to find some way to make the main priority of U.S. policy the support of democracy in the Arab world. This is precisely the theme that Obama’s supporters ridiculed when Bush did it. So Obama had to find some way to approach the issue without anyone realizing he had copied Bush. He succeeded! No one seems to have caught on yet.

One of the tricks is that he began by saying that he was opening “a new chapter in American diplomacy.” But in his main theme he wasn’t doing that at all. He said, “The United States supports a set of universal rights.” Isn’t this in a real sense the exact opposite of multiculturalism? Doesn’t it contradict everything Obama and his supporters have stood for up to now?

what does Obama propose as his great policy for implementing his ideas?

Answer: He’s going to send money. But in foreign policy as on domestic issues this is not a solution. Consider all the aid the United States gave to Egypt or the Palestinians. What political advances did that bring?

And all the money won’t be enough. Food prices are rising. Egypt will continue to be anarchic. A democratic state will suffer a bigger crisis than a dictatorship under such conditions.

So that’s it. Obama’s policy is to cheer the revolutionaries, boo the dictators, and send money.

That is not a strategy, it’s a formula for catastrophe and the destruction of U.S. allies and interests in the region. Moreover, when anti-American radicals--the Brotherhood, other revolutionary Islamists, radical nationalists, and far-left parties--dominate Egypt's parliamentary elections in September this Obama policy will collapse overnight.

Radical Islamism... the new social barometer.

It can be stated and seen that today the new social fringe groups that pertain to violence as a form of social protest are not very much different in their calls to unreality as those from the 1970. What was the raison d'étre of the red Brigade and Bader Meinhoff is now seen in the form of radical Islam.

The social fringe of the left in politics has been quick to see this and have pushed their boat into the corner that has been subsumed by the far more active islamists. Years of inactivity and malaise has left the fringe leftist groups now bidding to the beck and call of the more facist orientated islamists.

So what we see today is nothing more than a reconstituted left in islamic garb, the complaints against western governments are no different, as is their end game, its just in the islamic guise.

US International politics...

Where it all went wrong, the approach:

The question that must be foremost is whether a given action is in U.S. interests NOT whether it polishes the U.S. image. A willingness to be unpopular at times is a necessity for any country that wants to survive and prosper.

Obamarama...

Semantics.... with a little rephrasing there would not be quite such a kerfuffle over his latest speech. Maybe he needs a new speech writer, or to get someone that has a bit of experience in the geopolitical world. There is little place for dreamers in foreign politics, especially when your every word is held to beck and call by thousands around the world.

Right ideas said in the wrong way. Or saying things that are best kept for the discussion table.

We will see if he will learn. NO, probably not, its three years now and still his policy naivete is astonishing. Here's to Hope, not Obama's, but our hope.

update, seems like a few people agree:

Josh Block, the former AIPAC spokesman and a pro-Israel stalwart now at the Progressive Policy Institute, this morning emailed over quotes from several pro-Israel Democratic legislators unhappy with the White House move to formally embrace the 1967 lines around Israel as the basis for future negotiation.

He also suggested language with which Obama could "make clear" something that, unless you're very close to the page, already seemed fairly clear: That he's not proposing withdrawal to the '67 lines.

The language Block suggests:

Everyone understands the lines as they were in 1949/1967 are not defensible, and no one can expect Israel to accept them as final borders, but they can form the basis for negotiation, as they have in the past. As I have said, changes must be mutually agreed, and swaps should compensate for territory exchanged.

22/05/2011:
So to update, at AIPAC conference he admits he was wrong, and changes the lines of the border issue:

“By definition, it means that the parties themselves – Israelis and Palestinians – will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It is a well known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides.”

How the East was won.

The upheavals and travails that are ongoing in the Middle East today have all come about due to the "West", read developed European and American nations. The breakthrough was not via, as one would expect, governments and their various sanctions and/or inducements. Nor was it from the preaching of intellectuals to the hierarchy and intelligentsia of the old Middle East.

The long awaited breakthrough was due to technologies and globalisation. These new technologies,such as smart phones, the Internet and so on, have managed to disseminate new ideas and freedom of information to peoples previously hidden behind impenetrable sand barriers put up by their governments. These governments can no longer rely on a naive and ignorant population, information is freely at the peoples fingertips. It is the ordinary peoples of the "West" that have done the job, broken the camels back so to say, doing what "Western" governments have been trying for years to do, the ordinary people of the Middle East are listening to the ordinary people of the "West", as they have an innate mistrust of governments and their various pronouncements.

Slowly and surely the people of this area are learning of their potential to change things. This will be an ongoing process and not a short one, it is up to them though, in what direction they wish to take the proceedings. Time will tell if they can manage it or whether a new grouping will come along and hijack the revolution that they put in place. Lack of any organisation and civil society has and will continue to hurt the aspirations of the majority, to run their country as they wish it to be run, by building the blocks to a civil society these people will be given a voice, and no longer will various historical groupings and entities be voicing their opinions for them. But for me i see that further down the line, not something that is readily available, the want for it is in society but is the political space available.... as i said before, only time shall tell.