The key passage:
“The Arab-Israeli issue is a very important issue in that region, just to state the obvious,” one official acknowledged at a briefing for about two dozen journalists. But he said reporters, who were not permitted inside the conference rooms during the Rabat session, missed the bigger picture.
“There is a sense of urgency that you felt in the room as you heard countries talking about the importance of reform,” he said. “What has changed is that we have created a mechanism now for countries to participate fully with their neighbors in the room to talk about issues of reform.”
Created a mechanism? What does that mean? A meeting is now a mechanism to facilitating reform?
A sense of urgency? Are we now meeting and interpretating the atmosphere as a sign of conferences’ success/failure?
This is “project 3000” – refoming the Arab world by year 3000.
Excuse me for being critical and cynical…. I did not understand the fuller picture. I need to start reading between the subtle feelings and lines of such events before lashing out.
I am glad the world is ordered again and progress/reform is coming. I’ll just sit and wait for it to come…..
It says nothing. Its a cold-war child and it is still used very often to say.”sense of urgency”
“Big picture of sense of urgency”
http://www.strategypage.com/onpoint/articles/20041215.asp
Thats what the [neo-]conservatives think they [noone else] have achieved. And thats what he “feels” in the room.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0204/p09s01-cogn.html
“refoming the Arab world by year 3000” – they still think it will happen in the next few years.
And don’t forget. This is wrong thinking. The americans can only think in pictures of “economic” or “strategic” figures. They look into their own country and see that something has really changed since 9/11 and they think if they do the same in Iraq the big arab world will change the same … But “Young Arabs admire American values but are deeply suspicious of US foreign policy.” And as long the amercan admin does not change the neo-imperial behaviour, nobody trusts them.
The second progress is the “woman-progress” that started in times of Clinton
[If, as the World Bank and most nongovernmental organizations now recognize, the surest way for relatively poor countries to generate long-term growth is to improve the lives and rights of women, Morocco’s future looks bright. Among Arab countries, only Tunisia, Lebanon, and Kuwait have lower fertility or population growth rates. Young women are marrying later and having fewer children, much as in Europe. And already 43 percent of the industrial labor force is female. Last year, Said Saadi, secretary of state for social protection, family, and children, unveiled a controversial plan to enhance women’s rights by raising the minimum age of marriage from 15 to 18, preventing unilateral repudiation of wives by husbands, and making the division of property upon divorce more equitable. From 2001.]
So, “What has changed is that we have created a mechanism now for countries to participate fully with their neighbors in the room to talk about issues of reform.”
Theory: To bring the Maroccaine [free-trade-winners] at one table with the Saudis [free-trade-loosers] must end in a discussion like: M: “We live better with more woman-rigths.” S: “So? OK, I am thinkin about it to get my free trade-zone, too.”
the only way to reform the arab world is through a true change of structures. socio-economical, political but also geo-political. the US has always been a force of the status-quo as far as the Arab world is concerned. while what we need is a revolution against mechanisms of oppression ( undemocratic governements, zionists, US occupation, retarded values, etc…)
The Arab world needs reform, and fast because if it doesn’t, the right-wing will vandalise US policy to such an extent that the true ‘clash of cultures’ will be more violent than mere wars. I’ve trying to understand the mindset of shallow minded individuals how honestly hate Muslims (reciting the usual), and their conclusions were always the same: convert or die. However, these individuals cannot disgtinguish between Muslim and Christian – to them, Arabs are genetically wrong, and should be exterminated, or ‘cleansed.’
That sort of tone is certainly extreme, but I have found to be growing. As this happens, the polarity on the other side of the coin is increasing as well, and the rift is growing. The sooner Arabs start changing their status quo, the quicker we can reverse this trend. I hope.
They have created a *mechanism”…
Evidently, they provided a safe harbor for back channel communications. That means that even if two countries are not officially on speaking terms or having official relations, they can communicate unofficially.
There is a piece by David Kimshe at the JPost about his visit. Although the name is vaguely familiar, I can’t readily recall exactly who he is.
I think Kimshee’s visit was actually to the Dubai Forum. When I just researched that Forum, I discovered that Dubai is going to establish a training center for government with the help of the Kennedy School at Harvard. There are so many of these ‘schmoozfests’ nowadays that it’s hard to distinguish one from the other.
Re: Button
No doubt the mechanism is a diplomatic back channel.
But is it a diplomatic channel for Arab governments to chat to one another (and/or civil society orgs) or for the US to continue suring up support for the War on Terror [WoT]?
Still creating a mechanism or not, the article and the unnamed State department official’s comments were attempts to justify a rotten policy’s expression in the US, not a serious attempt at disclosing any indicative progress.
When one don’t have anything to show, start talking about things that cannot be measured.
I don’t disagree that the Rabat Summit was held for the sake of it. The US was just touching base and suring up support.