Tag: Egypt
Election purgatory, on the way to hell
Elections: for Americans the ultimate source of legitimacy and state authority, but just for that reason problematic in authoritarian societies and fragile states. We are watching elections create problems in three markedly different societies these days:
- Results of Haiti’s first-round presidential poll have generated violent protests by those who believe they were falsified to favor incumbent President Rene’ Preval’s preferred candidate, leading to a review (maybe recount?) by the electoral commission that ran the effort in the first place.
Elections are one of the few things the international community can organize (relatively) quickly and effectively, even under trying circumstances. Authoritarian and (sometimes) weak states can also manage the task. What they find much harder is accepting the results. Elections distribute power; from power flow money, resources and sometimes life and death. No one should expect elections to be peaceful unless everyone in the game (and out of it) is prepared to play by fair rules and to accept the results.
How should Iraq deal with its neighbors?
With ample evidence that its neighbors are playing a strong role in Iraq, it is puzzling why the Obama Administration has been reluctant to deal with them in a more concerted way. Following on a Bush Administration that had only reluctantly and belatedly engaged with Iraq’s neighbors, I’d have expected Obama to move aggressively in this direction, as it did in others recommended by the Iraq Study Group (caveat emptor: I was its executive director).
Why hasn’t this happened? First, because the Administration has dropped Iraq way down on its list of diplomatic priorities, especially with Tehran (where the nuclear issue is given absolute priority). Second, because some of the neighbors have begun doing the right things, largely on their own (but likely with some push from Washington): Turkey has dramatically improved its rapport with both Baghdad and Erbil (the de facto capital of Iraqi Kurdistan), Saudi Arabia gave ample backing to Iyad Allawi in the Iraqi elections, and Kuwait has begun to patch up relations with Baghdad, as has Egypt.
The Americans claim that they are giving priority to Iraq in their bilateral relations with each of the neighbors, but what they have not done is to exploit the kind of regional forum that proved useful under the Bush Administration (and has often proved useful in other stabilization situations). What is missing is a concerted regional effort to ensure Iraq’s stability and to block efforts by neighbors, especially Syria, to pursue their own interests in ways that may destabilize Iraq.
It is not too late for this kind of neighbors’ diplomacy, but Baghdad, not Washington, would now have to initiate it. Once the new government is fully formed and approved in the Council of Representatives (parliament), the Prime Minister would do well to invite his neighbors, the U.S. and NATO to a regional conference to discuss the way forward.
A helpful reminder of the Ottoman Empire
Why is this helpful? Because it illustrates how many of today’s enduring conflicts–not only those termed “Middle Eastern”–are rooted in the Ottoman Empire and its immediate neighborhood: Bosnia, Kosovo, Greece/Turkey, Armenia/Azerbaijan, Israel/Arabs (Palestine, Syria, Lebanon), Iraq, Iraq/Iran, Shia (Iran)/Sunni (Saudi Arabia, Egypt), North/South Sudan, Yemen.
Ottoman success in managing the many ethnic and sectarian groups inhabiting the Empire, without imposing conformity to a single identity (and without providing equal rights) has left the 21st century with problems it finds hard to understand, never mind resolve.
In much of the former Ottoman Empire, many people refuse to be labeled a “minority” just because their numbers are fewer than other groups, states are regarded as formed by ethnic groups rather than by individuals, individual rights are often less important than group rights and being “outvoted” is undemocratic.
A Croat leader in Bosnia told me 15 years ago that one thing that would never work there was “one man, one vote.” It just wasn’t their way of doing things. For a decision to be valid, a majority of each ethnic group was needed , not a majority of the population as a whole.
In a society of this sort, a boycott by one ethnic group is regarded as invalidating a decision made by the majority: the Serbs thought their boycott of the Bosnia independence referendum should have invalidated it, but the European Union had imposed a 50 per cent plus one standard. There lie the origins of war.
The question of whether Israel is a Jewish state is rooted in the same thinking that defined Yugoslavia as the kingdom of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, and it bears a family resemblance to the thinking behind “Greater Serbia” and “Greater Albania.” If it is the ethnic group that forms the state, why should there be more than one state in which that ethnic group lives?
Ours is a state (yes, that is the proper term for what we insist on calling the Federal Government) built on a concept of individual rights, equal for all. The concept challenges American imaginations from time to time: certainly it did when Truman overcame strong resistance to integrate the US Army, and it is reaching the limits of John McCain’s imagination in the debate over “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But the march of American history is clearly in the direction of equal individual rights.
That is a direction many former Ottoman territories find it difficult to take, because some groups have more substantial rights than others; even when the groups’ rights are equal, they can veto each other. A lot of the state-building challenge in those areas arises from this fundamental difference.
The week the world slowed down
Or was it just me? After a week of over-indulging, and 10 hours of driving yesterday, I needed an update. So here is the exercise, intended to get us back into form for the race to December 25:
- Sudan: registration for the January 9 referendum on South Sudan independence extended to December 8; still no agreement(s) on Abyei.
- Iraq: on November 25 (while we were stuffing down turkey) President Talabani formally asked Nouri al Maliki to form a government–he’s got 30 days.
- Afghanistan: warrants issued to arrest election officials who disqualified candidates President Karzai wanted to see elected in the September 18 poll.
- Palestine/Israel: still hung up on the settlement freeze, so far as I can tell. Someone correct me if I am wrong!
- Koreas: the U.S. and South Korea went ahead with naval exercises, China is calling for six-party talks and North Korea continues to sound belligerent.
- Iran: sounding more defensive than belligerent, but offering the Lebanese Army (and Hizbollah) assistance and still thinking about executing a woman for adultery.
- Lebanon: bracing for the Special Tribunal verdict (still), with PM Hariri reaching out to Tehran to cushion the impact.
- Egypt: voting today, after crackdowns and a severe tilt of the playing field towards President Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.
- Balkans: Kosovo getting ready to vote for parliament December 12.
I won’t say it was the week the earth stood still, but I don’t feel I missed a whole lot. One more thing to be thankful for. Enlighten me if you disagree!
P.S. In case you were wondering about Burma: Aung San Suu Kyi is still moving cautiously.
