Useful idiots

Tony Judt on Bush’s useful idiots:

It is particularly ironic that the ‘Clinton generation’ of American liberal intellectuals take special pride in their ‘tough-mindedness’, in their success in casting aside the illusions and myths of the old left, for these same ‘tough’ new liberals reproduce some of that old left’s worst characteristics. They may see themselves as having migrated to the opposite shore; but they display precisely the same mixture of dogmatic faith and cultural provincialism, not to mention the exuberant enthusiasm for violent political transformation at other people’s expense, that marked their fellow-travelling predecessors across the Cold War ideological divide. The use value of such persons to ambitious, radical regimes is an old story. Indeed, intellectual camp followers of this kind were first identified by Lenin himself, who coined the term that still describes them best. Today, America’s liberal armchair warriors are the ‘useful idiots’ of the War on Terror.

A must-read.

Frank Rich: Why Bush went to war

I am seeing a lot of plugs for New York Times columnist Frank Rich’s new book, The Great Story Ever Sold, which makes the argument that Bush went to war against Iraq because Karl Rove needed a “war president” for the midterm elections in 2002. This simple explanation is perhaps the most convincing I have heard, especially as plenty of other people — big business, the neo-cons — were ready to jump on the bandwagon. From Gary Kamiya’s review in Salon:

Far more compelling — and originally argued — is his insight into the real reason Bush went to war in Iraq. His answer to this endlessly debated question, and his related excursus on the personality of Bush himself, may be the single most lucid and convincing one I’ve ever read. Although it is almost painfully obvious, and wins the Occam’s Razor test of being the simplest, it is put forward considerably less often than more ideological theories — whether about controlling oil, supporting Israel, establishing American hegemony, or one-upping his father.

Perhaps this is because Americans, in their innocence, cannot accept that any president would deliberately launch a major war simply to win the midterm elections. Yet Rich makes a powerful argument that that is the case.

Playing the key role, not surprisingly, is Karl Rove. “To track down Rove’s role, it’s necessary to flash back to January 2002,” Rich writes. The Afghanistan war had been a success. “In a triumphalist speech to the Republican National Committee, Rove for the first time openly advanced the idea that the war on terror was the path to victory for that November’s midterm elections.” Rove decided Bush needed to be a “war president.” The problem, however, was that Afghanistan was fading from American minds, Osama bin Laden had escaped, and the secret, unglamorous — and actually effective — approach America was taking to fighting terror wasn’t a political winner. “How do you run as a vainglorious ‘war president’ if the war looks as if it’s winding down and the number one evildoer has escaped?”

The answer: Wag the dog. Attack Iraq.

Now ideology comes in, along with the peculiar alliance of neocons and Cold War hawks that had been waiting for their chance. “Enter Scooter Libby, stage right.” As Rich explains, Libby, Cheney and Wolfowitz had wanted to attack Iraq for a long time, not to stop terrorism but for the familiar neocon reasons of remaking the Middle East and the familiar Cold War hawk reasons of trumpeting America’s might. “Here, ready and waiting on the shelf in-house, were the grounds for a grand new battle that would be showy, not secret, in its success — just the political Viagra that Rove needed for an election year.”

Obviously I’ll need to read the book to see what Rich’s argument really is, but this sounds very interesting indeed.

Bakchich

If you read French, go immediately check out Bakchich, an excellent webzine/blog about sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb and the Middle East (but it’s especially good on the Maghreb and Muslim Africa.) They have a handsomely designed PDF magazine (a kind of Canard Enchainé or Private Eye for the region) as well as a blog, and some interesting articles on the security shake-up recently carried by King Muhammad VI in Morocco, Tunisia’s latest attacks on press freedom, and more. Very nice cartoons too, including this one on Tunisia:

Picture 1-2

The caption says: “19 years of happiness: corruption, lockdown on civil liberties, poverty… the happy results on Ben-Alism.”

My first time

One more remark on the NDP’s annual conference: I think it’s the biggest (and maybe only) surprise that Gamal has declared Egypt’s ambitions to start a civil nuclear program.

As posted a few days ago, several states in the region could be pushed to start civil nuclear program as a reaction to Iranian nuclear ambitions.

As far as I recall, this is the first time for an Egyptian government or party official to talk about it publicly. I think it is also the first time for Gamal to talk about national security issues, which so far have been the domain of Hosni Mubarak and some security officials. This further positions Gamal, by adapting Ahmadenijads tactics of playing around with the national pride.

The US envoy to Cairo said soon afterwards that the US could be willing to cooperate with Egypt on its program.

So I would speculate that the issue was already raised when Gamal recently went to renew his pilot’s license in the US, as the NDP tried to sell his trip.

Otherwise, I think the best commentary on the NDP conference has once more been chipped in by inerrant Egyptian street humour:

“They called it ‘New thought and a second leap toward the future?’ When was the first time?�

State Security threatens blogger

Blogger Mohamed Gamal, who posts under the name Mr. GEMYHOoOD, has been receiving threats from State Security recently.
During the last Kefaya sit-in, Gamal told me he received phone threats from State Security officers, who asked him to take down a posting, where he drew a caricature of Hosni Mubarak urinating on the map of Egypt.
Gamal refused to take it down, and continues to receive the daily phone threats. Yesterday, Gamal was on his way to the Kefaya conference at the Lawyers’ Syndicate, when he was stopped by a security agent who checked his ID, and few minutes later Gamal received another phone threat from security, that he broadcasted to his friends via the mobile phone speaker.

Mr.GEMYHOoO demonstrating against Mubarak

You can read Gamal’s account of the threats, in Arabic, here.
Ma3lesh ya Mr. GEMYHOoOD… You have all my solidarity…

A brave new world

White House press release about Bush’s speech to the UN, which apparently highlighted the bright and positive and fluffy and oh-so-pretty developments in the Middle East. Argues that minute changes in the Gulf’s absolute monarchies are great, that a sham election in Algeria is just super-duper, manages to place blame for “the suffering of the Lebanese people” entirely on “state within a state” Hizbullah rather than Israel, which did the actual bombing of civilian targets, mentions the sin of Iran pursuing nuclear weapons without talking about regional allies who have them (Pakistan, Israel, India). I could go on. A lot of this stuff is standard fare of US Middle East diplomacy, but coming from the guy who is driving the region into complete chaos it smells worse than usual. Perhaps the worst is that the last third is devoted to peace in the holy land, something this president has put less efforts in achieving than any of his predecessors for the last three decades at least.

[Thanks Simon]

Intellectuals and dictatorships: the case of Antoine Sfeir

In the long history of public intellectuals using their pulpits to defend the indefensible (more often than not, for direct personal gain rather than any error in judgement), Arab intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century will occupy a special place. Arab dictators — as well as their foreign supporters — have spent a considerable amount of money in buying favorable views from opinion-makers, columnists, activist-intellectuals and others over the years. Saddam Hussein was perhaps most notorious for doing this, but he is joined with more discreet dictators such as Morocco’s kings, Algeria’s generals, Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi and countless others. And then you have the Saudi media machine, a huge formation indeed that goes through the heart of what passes as quality journalism in the Arab world (and one that is influential even inside non-Gulf countries: just ask Al Ahram’s Ibrahim Nafie how well he gets on with this or that Emir.) A more interesting sideshow is the growing Saudi-Qatari media battle, with Al Jazeera walking an unpredictable line between total subservience to the Emir of Qatar, a fair amount of editorial independence by any Western corporate standard, and at least two wide intellectuals schools of thoughts among its key staff (Arab nationalism and Islamism, in various forms.)

This an enormously complicated subject, but one thing that has always enraged me is those intellectuals and journalists that defend Tunisia’s Ben Ali, a police state that takes the worst aspect of police culture (corruption, violence, mediocrity) as the motus operandi of the state. In his interesting Middle East-centered blog on the Monde Diplomatique website, Alain Gresh rips a new one in Antoine Sfeir, a France-based Lebanese author who passes as respectable in most of the region and contributes for some prestigious magazines. For me, no longer:

Le régime tunisien dispose, depuis de longues années, de nombreux thuriféraires en France. Le premier est sans aucun doute le président de la République Jacques Chirac – ainsi déclarait-il au cours de sa visite officielle en Tunisie, début décembre 2003 que « le premier des droits de l’homme c’est manger, être soigné, recevoir une éducation et avoir un habitat, ajoutant que de ce point de vue, il faut bien reconnaître que la Tunisie est très en avance sur beaucoup de pays » (Lire la réaction de la Ligue des droits de l’homme à ces propos). Jacques Chirac n’a pas le monopole de cette complaisance et des responsables politiques, de gauche comme de droite, n’hésitent pas à chanter les louanges du régime de Zine Abidin Ben Ali.

C’est le cas aussi de certains « intellectuels », comme le prouve un des derniers ouvrages d’Antoine Sfeir, intitulé Tunisie, terre des paradoxes, qui vient de paraître aux éditions de l’Archipel. Le degré de flagornerie à l’égard du chef de l’Etat tunisien y est assez exceptionnel. Ben Ali est ainsi décrit comme réunissant « en sa personne toutes ces compétences. D’une part, elles lui permettent de se montrer plus efficaces, et les résultats obtenus plaident en sa faveur ; d’autre part, la réunion de ces compétences en un seul homme évite de les voir entrer en conflit. » (p. 213)

Le régime est-il policier ? Citant un rapport du département d’Etat, l’auteur affirme que la Tunisie compterait entre 450 et 1000 prisonniers, dont très peu ont été condamnés pour des actes de violence. « On peut le déplorer, certes », précise-t-il. « Mais que penser du Patriot Act ? Faudrait-il accepter que les Etats-Unis se protègent contre l’islamisme et non la Tunisie, où le danger est pourtant bien plus réel et pressant : tentatives de coup d’Etat, assassinats, attentats – dont celui de la synagogue de Djerba – et volonté affichée de renverser le régime pour y instaurer, par la force et la terreur, un Etat dépourvu de toute liberte ? » Etrange raisonnement, puisque l’auteur lui-même affirme que les prisonniers ne sont pas inculpés pour des actes de violence… D’autre part, qui approuve le Patriot Act ? (lire p. 13)

« Autre accusation, poursuit Sfeir : le régime tunisien est un régime policier. Actuellement, il ne l’est pas plus que les Etats-Unis, la Grande-Bretagne, ou même la France » Il suffit de lire n’importe quel rapport d’Amnesty International, de Human Rights Watch, ou de savoir que, depuis l’arrivée de Ben Ali au pouvoir le nombre de policiers a quadruplé, pour mesurer le sérieux de cette affirmation.

I’ll just translate that last line so you get the flavor:

“Another accusation,” continues Sfeir, “is that the Tunisian regime is police state. In fact, it is no more a police state than the United States, Great Britain, or even France.” It is enough to read any Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch report to know that since Ben Ali’s rise to power the number of police officers has quadrupled, and measure the seriousness of [Sfeir’s] commentary.

It is incredible how many defenders of the Tunisian regime — which has bought off many Arab and European newspapers of note (the Americans just don’t care) — there still are in French policy and intellectual circles. I can hardly go to a French diplomatic function without getting into an argument about Tunisia — which like Morocco’s kings and Lebanon’s late Rafiq Hariri have a long history of bankrolling the presidential campaigns of Jacques Chirac. Antoine Sfeir now joins the ranks of the defenders of some of the world’s most odious dictatorships. I hope his payoff was worth it.

The NDP conference

It’s hard to drum up the enthusiasm to blog about the National Democratic Party’s annual conference, which started today. It’s not exactly like anything earth-shattering is likely to happen, and the interest in Egypt’s ruling party’s attempts to reform itself (which started a few years ago) has dwindled amidst the clear reversal of the dynamic of reform that was launched last year and the depressing failure of reformist movement to achieve much concretely — not to mention the secular opposition’s electoral failure, the recent judges’ crisis (which they lost some time this summer, by the way), and the general crackdown on Muslim Brothers, bloggers and activists. Some would add to that the abandonment of Egypt’s democrats by the Bush White House, which had previously egged them on, in favor of a “US-Egypt Strategic Dialogue” and the generally deteriorating regional situation (these are worth arguing about another time._

It’s interesting that last year the NDP did not make a big fuss about its conference (despite it being an electoral year), leaving the limelight to the presidency to make its bid for re-election. Even the slogan of the 2005 conference, “Crossing to the future,” was taken from the presidential campaign. What a difference that was to 2003 (“Citizenship rights”) or 2004 (“Priorities of reform”) — party conferences that were much-touted as a sign that Egypt was changing and proposed interesting ideas about civic rights (in 2003, largely unimplemented) and major economic policy shifts (in 2004, complete overhaul of tax law, major changes in customs and duties, introduction of various economic laws). Of course these conferences were also largely about the rise of a “Gamal Gang” inside the NDP and the decline of old party bosses such as Kamal al-Shazli in favor technocrats, businessmen, and a new generation of supposedly much more sophisticated party bosses.

So what can this week’s conference (“Second wind for change” — who comes up with these slogans?) really be about? Gamal’s role in the party and in Egypt’s future seems assured now, his internal enemies seem to have lost, the party no longer needs to prove its democratic credentials to the world now that the democratization fad has passed. Well, I will argue that this conference is the most “domestic” one the NDP has held so far, even if it has again invited a selection of the top Egypt experts in the US and Europe to attend and observe the chrysalis of Jeffersonian democracy on the shores of the Nile. The agenda has to a large extent been set by the Egyptian media, the sole survivor (for how long?) of 2005’s remarkable political opening. The main issues the NDP will be addressing are answers to the critiques put forward by the media, most notably:

  1. What is the party doing to implement President Mubarak’s electoral promises on political reform?
  2. What is the party doing to implement President Mubarak’s electoral promises on job creation and the improvement of average Egyptians’ lives?
  3. What is the party going to do about the string of transportation disasters that have hit the country?
  4. What vision does the party have for Egypt’s role in the region and the world?

What’s been announced so far is that 2800 party members will attend and that there are 28 policy papers that will be discussed. Safwat al-Sherif, the SecGen of the party and the last major “old guard” figure still in a leadership position, has stated that there will not be personnel changes at the top like in past conferences. (But then again, he is the leading candidate to lose his job.) Masri al-Youm has announced that 58 NDP MPs have sent a memo of protest to President Mubarak to voice their concern that the party is being hijacked by businessmen and stating that the party is being run by three people around Gamal who are using the same strong-arm tactics as the old guard (my guess: steel magnate and MP Ahmed Ezz, Secretary for Information Ali Eddin Hilal, and Secretary for Youth Moufid Chehab, but I’m not really in the loop.)

Question one, on political reform, will probably be the big showcase of the conference. Amendments to articles 76 and 77 of the constitution are being discussed and could be presented to parliament by the end of the year. Everyone is already expecting the wording of the amendments to be disappointing, as were last year’s amendments to article 76, but I have not seen any details yet. Whatever the changes, the important thing is that they will be tailored to suit Gamal Mubarak’s eventual accession to the presidency and that they will not include the greatest constitutional reform that could happen to Egypt, the introduction of term limits. It seems there will be some other minor measures, such as moving to end the position of the “Socialist Prosecutor,” a Nasser-era holdover, and some changes in the Supreme Judicial Council. There are a few other measures, but these can be discussed in due time if they are mentioned.

The real bombshell is that, according to the press and NDP statements, the ruling party will move to end judicial supervisions of elections. Leave it to the NDP to take as the main lesson of its dismal performance (for official candidates) in last November’s elections, of the prevalence of open vote buying and random violence, and of the interference of police and security in favor of its candidates that it should reduce the only positive thing about the election — that the judges did an excellent job and reported fraud where it occurred. On the laughable pretext that electoral supervision takes judges away from their caseload and slows down the judicial system (which is extremely slow anyway), they are ready to remove the only semi-independent supervision of the election that carries moral and legal authority (electoral observers and party monitors don’t really). That will be worth analyzing in full should it happen, but there can be no clearer sign of Egypt’s growing authoritarianism at this point in time — or that the judges really lost in a more fundamental way than most people are willing to admit.

I’ll skip the economic and job-creation initiatives because it’s the kind of thing that most people would like to see the NDP succeed in doing. Job creation is extremely important and I’m curious how they;ll ever reach the massive figures of new jobs that Mubarak promised in his campaign, even if the economic is generally doing better. It might be interesting to see whether Ahmed Nazif will push his pet program to replace or end subsidies, an important and controversial program. Otherwise here I think we can mainly expect to see Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin huff and puff away about how many companies he sold this year — but probably not answer serious allegations that these were sold below price and that someone along the lines pocketed a commission.

Question three, regarding the recent transportation scandals, should be a major issue unless the party leadership tries to shut it out. Since the Minister of Transport recently got a hefty chunk of change from the sale of the third mobile license to Etisalat specifically for this purpose, one might expect/hope that a concrete program to modernize the sector and improve safety standards will be adopted. It would certainly be good PR for the party.

That leaves us with question four, in my opinion the most interesting. It is the first time in the history of the NDP that national security issues are brought up. These are usually the sovereign province of the presidency, and most MPs and party apparatchiks are utterly disinterested in foreign policy issues, on which they can never have any influence (although I see today that the parliamentary committee on religious issues, composed of NDP and Muslim Brotherhood MPs, has called for cutting diplomatic relations with the Vatican over PopeGate. Did they ever do that with Israel, I wonder.) In a recent pre-conference speech, Gamal Mubarak made for the first
time a reference to “Egypt’s national security” and the need to discuss Egypt’s (dwindling) role in the region. Newspaper reports outlined seven main points:

  1. Egypt’s role in the Middle East peace process
  2. The restructuring of tools for a common Arab foreign policy, such as the Arab League
  3. Egypt’s relationship with the United States, notably with a view to influence US policy in the region
  4. Promoting Iraq national unity and the country’s Arab character
  5. Working towards a WMD-free zone in the Middle East
  6. Confronting the rise of Iran as a regional power by reviewing Cairo’s policy towards Tehran and encouraging it to act as a force for stability in the region
  7. Promoting Sudan’s national unity and territorial integrity

I think this whole dimension is entirely a reaction to the fiasco that was the Lebanon war for the Mubarak regime, and the growing frustration at Egypt’s collusion in US and Israeli plans for the region. The above plan basically outlines more of the same, with the difference that Egypt, once a regional power, is satisfied with defending its “near-abroad” in Sudan from regime change. And if there was ever a regime deserving of regime change, it’s Sudan’s (and no risk of creating a civil war there, there already is one!) and minor regional aims (hedging its bets on Iran, institution-building at the regional level, preventing the disintegration of Iraq). The rest of it is cods-wallop and essentially amounts to having a foreign policy that is subservient to the US. There’s an argument to be made that this is the best Egypt can hope for, and there is certainly a need for its proponents to make a compelling case for it. But they are going to have a tough time fighting the nationalist-populist line Kifaya, Karama and most other political currents are taking. And perhaps that is the whole point: keep’em talking about regional injustice, say that unfortunately there’s nothing you can do about it, and at least they won’t be talking about domestic issues.

One more thing: maybe, just maybe, the NDP will decide to pay its electricity bill.