We’ve discussed this a lot in the newsroom, mainly because we have noticed a distinct difference between US and British troops interviewed. It’s not so noticeable with the officers, more with the lower ranks.
Anyway - please don’t flame me for being anti-American, this is just our perception - that a greater proportion of the American troops are perhaps from a less advantaged educational background than the British ones. This is not to say they’re any less well trained or experienced in army terms. They just don’t seem quite as “switched on” as some of the Brits. It may just be that they are younger, or have less experience of the media, or of the battlefield. Or just that they’re a different type of troops. But watching the many interviews we get fed (Reuters, APTN) every day, there is a difference.
I am curious about how the arab media portrays the anti-war protests going on in the US, and what the general arab reaction is to those protests.
Namely, a lot of people here seem to think that these protests make America look weak and are helping Saddam (not my viewpoint). Is there any validity to this type of view?
Or do the protests make arabs look more favorably on the US?
BrightNShiny: See page 2 of this thread, under, “domestic opposition.”
<<And they are right, without a strong central government, Iraq may very well blow apart.>>
Q1: I hear fears that Iraq will splinter. Why is this a bad thing?
[Proposed answers]
A1: Because we don’t know how this will play out and we don’t like uncertainty.
(Ok, but surely some regional specialist has traced out a few of the ramifications. A summary of those ramifications would be useful, even if embodied in a web link)
A2: It’s the Kurds. The Turks are afraid that Kurdish independence in Iraq will lead to separatism among their own Kurds.
(Ok, but can this be finessed?)
<<For however much the Shiites and the Sunnis may not love and even in the former case, hate Sadaam, they are attached to the idea of an Arab state, an Arab Iraqi state… You can argue it should not be and so on, but if you want to understand the drivers and what frames opinion, you had bloody better well understand the local point of view.>>
I want to understand the drivers and what frames opinions. And that POV puzzles me. By analogy, if 2/3 of all Puerto Ricans opt for independence, this American says, “So long, and have a nice day”. If 2/3 want the status quo, I say, “Glad to see you aboard: I value your skills and the way you are a bridge to Latin America. Shalom.”
Now, admittedly, I’m a blase sort of fellow. Put I find it strange that one would be willing to pay such a steep price in terms of personal freedom (i.e. live under a reign of terror) in order to maintain the extra territory.
I see that I’m wagging my finger here, and that’s not my intent. This question is really about one particular prop for tyranny* (territorialism), so perhaps those with insight into Stalin’s USSR (Eva Luna) would be able to shed insight as well. [There are some mercantile justifications for territorialism, but they don’t really survive scrutiny in most cases. So I am assuming that the underpinnings are emotional.]
Q3: The Kurds. How do fellow Iraqis perceive the Kurds? Are the Kurds perceived as something like Tibetans in China (i.e. to put it crudely, separatist mountain people that should be grateful for our rule) or perhaps like Muslims in Western China (separatists of a different belief system)? I understand that cultural analogies are hazardous, but I’m trying to get a handle on the attitude.
Q4: The Kurds. Are Arabs in other countries sympathetic to their plight, and if so how much? How does the phrase, “Self-determination for Kurds” play?
<<However much comfortable Americans sitting at home shrug off the collateral damage as something that happens, it is clearly enraging people who see it possibly happening to themselves, and who have an almost Hollywoodesque vision of how American forces can fight ‘cleanly’ with our fancy gear, etc. Because of this, the expectation globally is that the US has an obligation to spare civilians, and if somehow we do not, then obviously it is because we don’t care.>>
My Blithering Drivel:
With those expectations, we’re f*cked. Our infantry gear doesn’t seem too fancy to this armchair observer, and in urban warfare the options are bombing, commando raids and block-by-block fighting. Still, I understand the underlying point that the world should be able to get a rough sense of the sort of American life/Iraqi life tradeoff being conducted.
<<We do not want to engage in Russian behavior, and end up with Grozny and Tchetchenia.>>
We won’t. All the US needs is an Iraqi government that forgoes WMDs. Even low-level support of terrorism is acceptable, provided the terrorists target Israel, rather than the US. The most likely scenario is victory-quagmire-pull out/pull back/leave the mess behind.
Of course, the hearts and minds issue remains, vis a vis Al Qa’Ida.
I use phrases like “freedom” and “tyranny” intentionally. I have become less enamored with formal democracy as time has gone on, but retain considerable enthusiasm for civil society (which in its developed forms necessarily encompasses democracy, but can take a variety of guises in its more middling manifestations. One example might be the rather low levels of theft observed in certain Arab market places during lunch time, when the wares are often left in the open without direct surveillance by the owner. A breathtakingly civil state of affairs.)
A reality check regarding Shapiro’s talk of US Currency Collapse.
The US has been heading for a currency collapse for the past 20 years, as judged by its chronic trade deficits (or, equivalently, the gap between national savings and investment).
Current fears should be discounted accordingly.
A steady decline in the value of the dollar, OTOH, is entirely plausible, as is medium-run appreciation. (The latter would be driven by the high interest rates required to finance record budget deficits. Think early to mid 1980s, all over again.) Either way, there will be much hand-wringing: most news coverage of currency changes is invariably negative: those who benefit tend to be quieter than those who are hurt).
If I had to evaluate economic prospects within MENA (ok, you talked me into it) I would first construct a table of risk factors*, taking care to distinguish debt crises from pure currency crises.
As I understand it, the Asian crisis (late 1990s) was made up of countries with solvent governments, but over-valued exchange rates. Sudden currency and equity market collapse played havoc in the private sector; those countries that cut their budgets in such circumstances may have exacerbated their problems.
The third world debt crisis of the 1980s may be more relevant for Egypt, as I will argue below.
Regardless, one would want to fill in my hypothetical table with historical examples, for the purpose of comparing them to the present.
By way of example, let’s look at some (stale) numbers.
Net Foreign
Direct............Foreign......Debt
Investment..........Aid......Service
(%GDP)............(%GDP)....(% exports)
Country..1993-95............1995......1995
Indonesia 2.3%............0.6%......31.0%
Malaysia...7.2%............n/a...... 8.0%
Egypt... 1.3%............3.7%......15.0%
Jordan.. 0.1%............7.9%......13.0%
Note that the two Arab countries above have more governmental foreign aid than private foreign direct investment. Assuming that they also have little “hot money”, their vulnerability to a sudden withdrawal of private financing should have less impact, since there is relatively little to begin with.
Note also that Egypt has a “crawling peg” as well as an emerging gray market in currency. Speculative attack works best when a strong central bank tries to defend a fixed exchange rate in the face of declining economic fundamentals. Prospects when only the latter applies are not clear to me.
Jordanian currency, OTOH is pegged to the dollar. Whether the currency is over-valued or not is unclear to me. Their large merchandise trade deficit (29% of GDP in 2001!) is in a sense misleading due to their offsetting worker remittances (23%, 2001) and foreign aid (3%). http://biz.yahoo.com/ifc/jo/
Note that either nation would be well positioned during Iraqi reconstruction.
Formats available at your local university library.
Flowbark my man, good work, but let me throw some things into the works.
Good
Hey, now let’s not be angling for IMF blood here.
Now of course for Egypt and Jordan we have anemic private sectors, and in Egypt in particular an enormous, dysfunctional state sector.
I grant that, but see below also.
I should pull up the current figures, I know I have them somewhere around here, but FDI position is stronger for Jordan now, Egypt as I recall has fallen off a cliff, but that is memory. Again, also recent figures on debt service are alarming, IIRC, for Egypt and Lebanon.
However, note, Egypt is heavily dependent on imports, all of which are dollar denominated, and without tourism and currency transfers from overseas Egyptians, there are few hard currency earners.
That is correct.
Well, now we get into the murky world of what the Egyptians say they are doing and what they actually are doing.
As far as I can tell, there is now a lively black market in dollars --black market bec. the government is actually using criminal as well as civil law to punish, as well as to hoard dollars.
Further, for all that they have now supposedly floated the currency policy suggests this is less than reality – past experience the crawling peg barely crawled, and the CB has shown every sign of trying to defend in a desultory manner overvalued levels, but unsuccessfully.
Very true on Jordan, although
Jordan is, I doubt Egypt is. Egyptian firms have a very poor record on export and getting their acts together. That requires a whole other discussion, however, which I haven’t the time for.
It puts into play multiple states, and given the fragile nature of most states in the region, you get Yugoslav type situations the size of the Eastern USA.
Not a pleasant prospect, eh what? Add to this, the areas in play also are major oil and gas centers.
the Kurds span not just Iraq and Turkey, but also Iran and Syria.
Then you have Arab Shiites, whose reach goes down into… Kuwait, and the Gulf and whose positions there are not so very different from in Iraq, that is socially deprived and politically repressed by a ruling Sunni majority.
Then you have the various little guys who are around, the general lack of legitimacy in the borders, the degree to which radicalism is doped by violent conflict.
Need I go on?
The US has solid borders, a solid national identity and over 100 years since such were called into question and led to certain disputes between Northern and Southern states that provoked some loss of life and property, as best I recall from my history.
Now, in a fairly homogenous nation, with 100 years since its last experience with serious civil strife, of course this may seem all quite academic.
It is not here.
Because you are secure and need not fear, entirely legitimately that unravelling the ball of string might lead to conditions where you and yours end up dangling from a lamppost. Or something nearly as unpleasant.
Such is the Sunni minority. For the Shiites, perhaps it is less clear, but there is a shared sense of Arabism, and a shared sense that the old colonial oppressors have broken old Islamic unity and sown dissension. Partly true, partly false.
[quote]
I see that I’m wagging my finger here, and that’s not my intent. This question is really about one particular prop for tyranny* (territorialism), so perhaps those with insight into Stalin’s USSR (Eva Luna) would be able to shed insight as well. [There are some mercantile justifications for territorialism, but they don’t really survive scrutiny in most cases. So I am assuming that the underpinnings are emotional.]
[quote]
The economists mistake in the case of the mercantilism is to presume that the dispassionate analysis is what is the driver. The Economic historian finds it more or less clear imperialism was not such a good deal, economically, for the nation/state actor.
But that is not the relevant decision maker and entirely mistakes the decision making process.
The decision makes are likely, in my real world experience, to (a) have the perception it has national benefit, regardless of what the numbers say (b) be able to extract personal gain even with net loss to the national actor. Bit of the agency problem writ large.
Finally, security, as noted above. Always the search for security, although quite clearly, as in the case of this war, the search for excessive security easily generates more insecurity, think of it as something of like a production function which can go into not only diminishing returns, but negative, even steeply negative returns once one gets beyond an ‘equilibruim.’ I am not sure, by the way this is the best way to actually look at it as it implies continuity, but I believe my point is made.
Like the Berbers in North Africa, especially Algeria. This has changed, by the way, in my opinion, in the past 2 decades. Kurdish separatism I think has hardened, as has Arab attitudes to the same.
It gets no press, or rarely negative press. Largely the entire issue is seen as a way for the West to break Arabo-Muslim unity and further humiliate the Arabs.
As usual, the Arabs are rather blind to the manner in which they themselves may have contributed Kurdish alienation through a sort of “Great Arab” Nationalism (I deliberately include reference to “Great Russian” nationalism for there is some similarity here, vaguely speaking.)
Well,… hope then there is a coup d’etat.
Radicalisation is already very evident.
Indeed. See, agency issues in the Arab economies are particularly severe in impersonal institutions. On a daily basis, honesty runs fairly high, although ideas about decieving the customer are regretably somewhat… challenging, but if you go in knowing the game, it actually fairly well self regulates on the souq level.
However, the impersonality of the modern economy is not, as of yet at least, well digested.
This is not an academic observation – I bloody live it. However, I do not wish to appear overly negative. I think things can work through, but getting the conditions right is non-trivially challenging.
I’d posit that Rumsfeld was a major factor also in polarizing the discussion with many countries in Europe. But then, so was Bush himself. A lot of the rethorical style they use to endear themselves to their core constituents (or used by their constituents in public events) is one that rouses dark memories in Germany, and in parallel in other European countries, and the fact that they were caught using forged evidence in making their case for war merely reinforced those, thus creating a strong public opposition to ‘getting duped into another war’.
What troubles me is that the number of middle east experts raising these warnings is legion, yet the administration routinely dismisses them.
Not the least, ideas of freedom differ even within the western world, respective to attitudes towards a proactive government, registration issues etc.
I have been moderately concerned about this since day one as the American troops I have met have not very much training nor experience with ‘winning hearts and minds.’ Add to that that Americans seem not be able to distingusih ‘rag heads’ from each other…
Given the prickly nature of the situation, the deep seated resentments in the Arab world and predispositions to see the Americans as occupiers, I fear that this lack of training in this area will quickly generate violent opposition.
Confirming Arab TV reports, BBC featured a segment on bus traffic from Amman Jordan to Baghdad. BBC conducted interviews of Iraqis travelling back to Iraq, none are coming out at least through Jordan where refugee camps are empty. Returnees, largely young men of fighting age, largely Shiite as the refugee pop in Jordan is, expressed various variations on the nationalistic theme.
There is your answer. Now, I know our little neo-con crowd is still fooling themselves into thinking the Cheney Fantasy was correct and all those Iraqis are fighting because Sadaam’s people are forcing them, but the emperical evidence says otherwise. I am certain that Stalinist style political officers are doing their part to ‘stiffen resolve’ but equally clear is a nationalist reaction by the Iraqis themselves.
I would suspect this is coming from two things (a) independent Arab media like al-Jazeera showing an Arab spin on events (b) a very successful use of agitprop by the Iraqi government to appeal to Arab sensibilities, combined with a complete lack of the same by the Americans. Our lecturing style a la Rumsfeld grates. The Syrian and Iranian threats by Rummy did not go over well, and while necessary, should not have been public or if public, done in another manner. They will likely have unintended consequences.
I also noted in watching al-Jazeera that the Iraqi government has begun to make use of Shiite eschatology, emphasizing that both of their new heros, the farmer who “shot down” an Apache, the suicide bomber were named 'ali “after the revered Iman” etc.
Americans need to develop a propaganda campaign that speaks the language and the idiom, as it will be hard to undo the opening of the door to martyrdom.
**flowbark, ** I’m not entirely sure what your question is regarding Soviet concerns involving territorial integrity. If I understand you correctly, you are having a hard time comprehending why the Soviets (under Stalin in particular) were so concerned with the issue on their southern borders, as you feel that mercantilist concerns are insufficient in themselves to merit the measures taken. If I have misunderstood, please clarify.
Knowing next to nothing about Iraqi history, as I do, it’s difficult for me to draw comparisons here, so I’ll just throw some ideas out there. Keep in mind that the Caucasus, the most ethnically complex region in the Soviet Union, was historically the buffer between the Russian and Persian Empires, with many pieces of Caucasian territory changing hands more than once over the past several hundred years. Central Asia, in turn, was not only a trade route to India and China (remember the Silk Road?), but a buffer between the Russian Empire and various empires covering the territory that is now India and China.
Even the parts of the Caucasus which now fall within RF borders (as opposed to Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan) are in some senses not very well-integrated into the center, as the recent Chechen situation certainly demonstrates. (Oh, and Baku has been a major oil drilling/refining center for 100+ years, which certainly made the USSR even more reluctant to let Azerbaijan slip away. Even now, one of the major oil pipelines from Baku to the Black Sea runs near Grozny. But post-Soviet petroleum geopolitics could easily be a book in itself.)
So while trade routes between Russia and the Middle East/Asia were a major initial reason why Russia took over the Caucasus and Central Asia, by the time Stalin was in power, he wasn’t about to let the empire fall apart. The Caucasian and Central Asian Republics, as much as many Great Russians always complained that they were nothing but a drain on the Soviet treasury, provided valuable raw materials and labor, as well as making up a huge proportion of the Soviet landmass and about half the population. Mercantilism may have been one motivator for Stalinist territorialism, but geopolitical and security concerns were also major factors (and still are for the RF). In addition to the Kurds, a number of other ethnic groups of the USSR straddled national borders. The Azeris make up about 25% of the population of Iran. Ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks spill over into Afghanistan, and Armenians are dispersed all over the Middle East. There’s also a decent-sized North Caucasian population in places like Jordan; if you want to read up, I’m constantly pimping the Caucasian bibliography Web site of Amjad Jaimoukha, a member of the Circassian diaspora living in Jordan; you can find Amjad and his 4000+ items at http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/Enterprises/2493/circbibliog.html.
So you can see how suppressing ethnic identity, or transforming it into a larger national identity (the “New Soviet Man"” might be an important concern for someone in Stalin’s posiiton. If you want to read more, I’m in the middle of Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game: The Struggle For Empire In Central Asia, and am finding it fascinating reading. It covers the battle for the Caucasus and Central Asia, starting from the early Russian Imperial era, and as an extra bonus, it should shed some light on Afghanistan for you.
I am unqualified to give thorough comment upon most of the economic analysis in this thread. In regards to teh US situation, though, I think an important note needs to be made about currency devaluation. In foreign countries that have suffered greviously from currency falls, one of the major issues is that the governments owed debt in a foreign currency (specifically $US, for teh most part). If the United States suffers a marked currency decline, this is less of a hardship for ourselves and more of a hardship for the foreign debt holders (domestic holders of debt have their expected returns devalued at the same rate as local expenses, and thus are insulated.)
Regarding the confusion about why Joe Iraqi has such deep distrust of the Bush Administration’s motives, I wonder if this might have something to do with it. Yes, that’s Rummy himself, in 1983. The ordinary Arab citizen remembers clearly what we in the West have either forgotten or never even knew. Looking at that, there’s no wonder the administration’s rhetoric rings hollow for the Arab in the street.
Many thanks Collounsbury, Tamberlane, et al for this great thread!
I am situated in Sweden and curious on how current attitudes of the american public would combine with the measures suggested by Collounsbury to resolve some of the problems posed by the current situation. So this is really for anyone who has a good knowledge of the US domestic debate.
Risking more US casualties: How would this play with the US publics support for the war? I understand a common interpretation of why the US finally pulled out of Vietnam to be lack of public support due to the number of american casualties.
Israel / Palestine: From watching american tv programs such as CBS 60 minutes I’d believe that “the average american’s” take on this is pretty close to the Israeli take on this. How “politically possible” is it to pressure Israelis to give up the settlements; and to do business with Arafat, given american mass medias fondness of restating Israeli allegations that Arafat and the PLO are taking part in / supporting terrorism?
“By the way, I know I have neglected and lost track of some items, pls feel free to remind me.”
I was wondering about your thoughts on the warnings to Syria and Iran. Is it just tough talk? What happens if they ignore the warnings? Do you have any information about what Syria and Iran are up to anyway?
Also how is it playing in the region? In particular I thought that a speech to AIPAC was maybe not the best occasion for Powell to warn an Arab country.
I am increasingly of the opinion that the US is increasingly losing the control and influence it has had over Sharon, and he will now do what the flying fuck he wants to do with his country, and the Palestinians. I think it has now reached a stage where if the US says: pull out, he’ll just flip the bird. I hope I’m wrong.
The parallels I am seeing is the US having over-empowered a state that it wanted some strategic control of - or at least strong alliances with. You may buy the “fellow democracy” argument. I don’t. I buy the location location location argument where America’s support of Israel is concerned. Maybe I’m getting over-jaded working in an Arab newsroom. But the US was all friendly with Saddam in earlier days, and look where it led. IMO there is a chance of the same, or similar, happening with Sharon.
I am solidly in the “location location location” camp, although i believe there are other factors also!
As long as Colin and the rest of GWBs crew does no more than lip service like the above quote, surely Sharon will do as he pleases, and acknowledge that the US allows him to do so?
But if the US threaten to withdraw their humongous military aid surely he’d have to listen! So, would it be politically viable for a rightish republican and his hawk buddies to put their money where their mouths are on this issue?
I’m really enjoying this thread, and have a few comments on varied posts. (Is it okay to bring up unrealated posts in one grab-bag?)
To add a bit to follow-up comments of Boo Boo Foo and others
In earlier posts, you have used and accepted arguments that not only indicate that Arabs are incapable of democracy, but also that sounded a lot like the arguments sometimes given for why certain African-Americans are incapable of becoming physicists. That may not be what you meant to convey, but it came across that way to at least a half-dozen people. This seems to have been tempered somewhat, by you and others, since the third person agreed with Lib.
This is the biggest laugh the war has given me. Thanks! God, I hate McKinsey.
Originally posted by Eva Luna
There is a story on Russians who want to donate blood for shipment to Iraq…many Iraqis wouldn’t accept the blood of non-Muslims anyway (is this even true?).
[quote]
In America, members of certain religions won’t accept blood at all, so it could easily be true.
This kind of dashes the hopes of those would like to see another “poor” President. In my lifetime, we haven’t had a president who wasn’t given a car to drive as soon as he got his license.
Collounsbury, if you have time for a minor question, what do you look like? I ask because, among certain groups, I can move about unnoticed and overhear all kinds of interesting things. If you have blond hair and blue eyes, obviously, you’ll have a harder time eavesdropping.
This isn’t to say that your interaction and observations aren’t priceless, I’m just curious. (And of course, if you look distinctly not-from-around-here but speak the language, you’ve probably had the thrill of listening to a heated conversation about those terrible people, spoken by people sure you don’t understand the language, and being able to offer comments in the language.
Well, there are all kinds of ways to spend time overseas that don’t involve growing up rich. How about even a military brat? As a child of a missionary? Plus plenty of people who come from working- or middle-class backgrounds and manage to do reasonably well for themselves academically or professionally (Bill Clinton springs to mind) can swing some time overseas at some point.
Heck, so I wasn’t the first in my family to go to college or anything, but my family isn’t exactly old money either; I grew up solidly middle-class, and managed to apply all the regular financial aid for college to a semester overseas. It actually came out cheaper, as the overseas tuition was cheaper and my university grants/loans were kept at the same level. And I never owned a car until I was 26. My college roommate came from even humbler beginnings (blue-collar parents who were immigrants themselves and never got beyond 8th grade, alcoholic father with spotty employment history, 4 kids in the family, always scraping to make tuition payments), but she managed it, too. In fact, she never even learned to drive, and is living overseas right now.
It’s all a matter of priorities. Bush certainly could have spent more time overseas than he has, but it apparently wasn’t important enough to him to see what the rest of the world was like, or even to read about it.
