Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 1998, Pages 65-71

Waging Peace

U.S. and Foreign Media Discover Iraqi-Americans

In the two-week or so respite from Monicagate during which Americans and the world debated the possible bombing of Iraq, members of Washington, DC’s Iraqi-American community had the rare experience of having their opinions solicited by the national and international media.

On Feb. 19 at Luna Books, a Washington, DC cafe/ bookstore, for example, the owner was answering a reporter’s questions on the telephone while fellow Iraqi Americans arrived from as far away as Baltimore to be interviewed by a Swiss television crew and a reporter for the London Independent. Interviews also were in the works with the BBC, Reuters, CBS and “Dateline NBC.”

The group agreed that they felt much more confident in speaking to the press than they had in 1991 at the time of the Gulf war. Then, said Haider Thamir, a financial broker from Baltimore, he would not allow his last name to be used or his face to be shown on television. In another signifcant development, some of those interviewed noted that, for the first time, Iraqi Americans demonstrating in front of the White House two weeks ago had shouted, “Down with Saddam!”

Suhair Alkhatib, also from Baltimore, had spoken with his parents in Baghdad that morning, and described how their lives had “changed forever” since the Gulf war and the imposition of sanctions. Today, he said, they are living in fear, afraid to go to bed, not knowing what night “the party,” as it is called, might begin—for it is at night that the bombs fall, in order to limit the danger to American pilots.

Even without this latest crisis, each month Alkhatib sends his parents medicine they otherwise could not obtain because of the sanctions. Andy Shallal, a local businessman, described how his 18-year-old cousin had died of food poisoning, after being sent home from the hospital because the bed was needed for another patient.

While opinions differed as to the best way to resolve the crisis, all agreed that a U.S. attack on Iraq would only strengthen Saddam Hussain. Ghida Al Askari, a college professor, called the strategy an “uncivilized answer to an uncivilized man,” while Andy Shallal pointed out that Iraqis’ anger would be “directed at the U.S., not at Saddam.” Yasir observed that “every time the Mideast peace process stalls, Saddam uses it as an opportunity. When the credibility of the U.S. falls, Saddam makes his move.”

The European reporters seemed sympathetic to the Americans’ frustration and “sense of helplessness and dread.” Bernard Rappaz, the U.S. correspondent for Swiss television, said that, as a European, he found it difficult to explain to his viewers that the real debate in America over bombing Iraq had begun only five or six days ago. Raya Barazanji, who had visited Iraq in 1993 as a member of a UNICEF delegation, suggested that, once U.S. soldiers were sent to the Gulf, the possibility of war was “no longer an abstract issue” to Americans.

The reporter for the London Independent, John Carlin, in probing the feelings of his interlocuters, asked if they felt a sense of disappointment and betrayal. Without a moment’s hesitation, the Iraqi Americans answered in unison, “Yes!”

—Janet McMahon

Olivier Roy Speaks at Middle East Institute

French scholar Olivier Roy discussed “The Crisis of Religious Legitimacy in Islamic Iran” Feb. 11 at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. Roy is a senior researcher at the Center for Scientific Research in France, consultant to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and author of The Failure of Political Islam. He presented a fascinating, in-depth analysis of the contemporary religious and political environments in Iran, based in part on a recent trip to the Islamic Republic.

Roy began by discussing the crisis of religious legitimacy for Iran’s supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, whose power has been undermined in two ways. First, the majority of Iran’s scholars who believe in the concept of velayet-i-faqih—the position of supreme religious and political authority in Iran first articulated and held by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—do not believe that Khamenei is qualified, Roy said. Khamenei was appointed by his predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, to the position of supreme authority, Roy explained, and did not rise through the ranks with the other ayatollahs, many of whom believe he is not the most learned of the Shi’i clergy.

The second crisis for Khamenei was last year’s popular presidential election of the relatively moderate Mohammed Khatami, who was not the candidate endorsed by Ayatollah Khamenei. “It’s difficult to say that [Ayatollah] Khamenei has dual authority because many of his colleagues do not recognize his religious supremacy, and the vote for [Mohammed] Khatami took away some of his political supremacy,” Roy said.

The Iranian religious establishment in general also faces serious challenges, according to Roy, particularly its inability to prepare successor generations for power. “The last ayatollahs left are either very old, or are under house arrest,” he said, and the Iranian people “are fed up with the Iranian revolution.”

—Shawn L. Twing

Prospects for Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Lessons from Lebanon

George Irani, senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and professor of political science at Balamand University in Kaoura, Lebanon, and Laurie King-Irani, director of development at Balamand University, discussed conflict resolution processes at work in post-war Lebanon at the Middle East Institute on Feb. 20, in Washington, DC. They hope to take the sulha (reconciliation) ritual used in Islamic, Christian and Jewish traditions to heal wronged individuals a step further to help heal a nation. King-Irani said that Lebanon spends most of its efforts healing the physical scars of the civil war and it often neglects the social and psychological scars.

The steps of the sulha ritual which could help the Lebanese forgive are:

Public acknowledgment of a wrong
Fact finding about what led up to the wrong
Assignment of blame
Compensation by perpetrator
Public apology and pardon
Public formal reconciliation between parties.

In a land where 18,000 victims of kidnapping are still missing, children have lost parents and entire populations have lost villages, there is no shortage of wronged people who need this process of forgiveness. However, many of the wrong-doers are now respectable citizens who hold office and have already voted themselves general amnesty for their war crimes. The Iranis both wonder who should take the blame—individuals, sects or the foreign governments who became embroiled in this conflict?

The Arab League-brokered Taif agreement may have solved the immediate problems, Irani says, but it didn’t take care of reconciliation. Israel still occupies south Lebanon, and there have been 90,000 displaced families with only 20 percent able to return. “Taif was supposed to be the starting point in an unfolding process, but it is treated as the final word,” George Irani complains.

“There is still time on the clock,” Laurie King-Irani warns. “If the referees leave the scene and both sides haven’t reconciled the class issues and the wealth gap, the ‘game’ could go on and on.”

—Delinda C. Hanley

MEI Hosts Panel Discussion on Israel-Gulf relations

The Middle East Institute hosted a panel discussion Jan. 30 entitled “Israel and the Gulf,” with speakers Amatzia Baram and Joseph Kostiner. Baram, an Israeli Arab professor at Haifa University and fellow at the U.S. Institute for Peace, discussed the Israeli establishment’s views and concerns about Iran and Iraq, while Kostiner focused primarily on the Gulf Cooperation Council countries—Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

“To sum it up about Iran: there is hope,” said Baram. Despite the Iranian media’s criticism of Israel and what Baram called the “exterminationist” views about Israel held by Iranian spiritual guide Ayatollah Khamenei and former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, “Israeli analysts pin some hope on [newly elected President Mohammed] Khatami,” he said.

Opinions about Iraq are not as clear in Israel. One new school of thought discussed by Baram, who disassociated himself from it, is that Israel is better off with Saddam Hussain in power because he focuses the world’s attention on Iraq’s unconventional weapons programs, rather than a new Iraqi leader who develops them in secret. There is widespread belief in Israel, according to Baram, that the United States and Britain will “take care of Iraq.” Israel quietly relies on this belief rather than encouraging military action against Iraq because “no Israeli politician wants the Americans to think their sons died to save Israel,” he said.

Kostiner, a professor at Tel Aviv University and author of The Politics of Saudi Arabia, discussed Israel-GCC relations and the role played by the GCC in the Arab-Israeli peace process. “It’s important to remember that the GCC countries have not interacted with Israel in direct and immediate confrontations, which means that there is no direct and immediate peace process,” he said.

The GCC countries see themselves as a “fifth wheel” in the peace process, according to Kostiner, they will ratify it after all of the injured parties have made agreements acceptable to themselves. This has led to a more subdued role for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in the peace process, he said, despite separate but serious bilateral negotiations between Israel and GCC members Bahrain, Oman and Qatar. These relations “were not that important” to Israel, Kostiner said, and only exposed these three countries to criticism from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait.

—Shawn L. Twing

Marvin Weinbaum Discusses Pakistan at MEI

University of Illinois Prof. Marvin Weinbaum discussed the future of democracy and markets in Pakistan Feb. 10 at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. Professor Weinbaum, a leading American analyst of the political economy of Pakistan, shared his insights from a recent trip to the Indian subcontinent.

Two factors are important when analyzing Pakistan, according to Weinbaum: marketization and democratization. They “don’t have to occur in tandem, but they must be harmonized,” he said. Pakistan ranks in the middle for economic freedom and political civil rights, “but there has been an absence of debate and dialogue on reform,” he said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s election last year offered a “promising start,” and was accompanied by “extraordinary goodwill,” Weinbaum said. One year later, however, Sharif’s government has not demonstrated that it can tackle Pakistan’s myriad economic problems.

“The economy is no better than it was when [Prime Minister Sharif] inherited it—maybe it’s worse,” Weinbaum said. Part of the reason for its continued poor performance is the lack of an economic team. “When Sharif asks, ‘how do we improve the economy,’ he’s not thinking of programs, but of personalities.” There also have been disastrous wastes of resources, including a road from Islamabad to Lahore that “makes less than no sense,” according to Weinbaum.

Despite Pakistan’s problems, however, the future is not entirely bleak. “The question in Pakistan today is now that Nawaz Sharif has solidified his position, what will he do next?” Weinbaum said. “What Pakistan cannot expect if things go badly is a bailout like the Asian ‘Tigers’ or Mexico. The international community will provide enough [money for Pakistan] to stay afloat, but not enough for it to recover,” he explained.

—Shawn L. Twing

CPAP Hosts Shibley Telhami

“The truth of the matter is the United States isn’t going to be able to do much [with the peace process] until the next Israeli election,” Prof. Shibley Telhami told an overcapacity crowd March 13 at the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine in Washington, DC. Discussing the options for breaking the current stalemate in Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations, Professor Telhami focused primarily on what the Palestinian Authority can do to improve its chances for an acceptable peace agreement with Israel.

Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Chair for Population, Development, and Peace at the University of Maryland at College Park and a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, began his presentation by discussing three “non-options” for the Palestinian leadership. The first, a rekindling of the intifada, would be a “strategic mistake,” according to Telhami, because it would have disastrous consequences for the Palestinians with American and Israeli public opinion.

The second mistake would be a unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinian Authority. Unless the Palestinians want a mini-state in Gaza, declaring statehood now would be “absolutely counterproductive,” he said.

Waiting for third-party intervention to solve Palestinian-Israeli problems would be the third mistake for the Palestinian Authority, Telhami said, because “it’s just not going to happen.”

Turning to the actions that the Palestinian Authority can take that would have a positive impact on their negotiating position, Professor Telhami outlined steps for a major Palestinian peace initiative. “Like it or not, Israeli and American public opinion is the game,” he said. In order to placate public opinion in Israel and in the United States, Telhami suggested that “Mr. Arafat...has to take the peace process to its fullest extent.” An integral step in this strategy would be for the Palestinian Authority to make concessions to Israel in advance and “reap the political benefits,” rather than wait for the “asymmetry of power forces” to make them do it anyway,” Telhami said.

—Shawn L. Twing

Israeli National Security Analyst Speaks at MEI

Israeli national security analyst Dan Schueftan discussed “The Middle East of the Last 30 Years in Perspective” Feb. 25 at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. Currently a lecturer at Haifa University and one of Israel’s leading scholars on Jordan, Schueftan spoke at length about the current state of affairs in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Schueftan began his discussion with the following self-described rule in human conflict: “History shows that in the final analysis, conflicts are settled by one question: whom does time favor? If it favors your side, it makes the suffering bearable. But if it doesn’t, why suffer for nothing?” For years the Arabs believed that time favored their side in the Arab-Israeli dispute, a belief that has been shattered, according to Schueftan.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, Arab leaders predicated their views toward Israel on the notion that time was on their side. “If you can get the whole loaf [by waiting], why settle for half a loaf today?” Schueftan asked rhetorically.

Two events changed the minds of Arab leaders, according to Schueftan. They were Lyndon Johnson and the June 1967 war. Prior to Johnson, “American policy rewarded Arab radicalism,” he said, citing U.S. relations with Egypt’s Gamal Abdul Nasser as an example. President Johnson and all of his successors, however, changed the whole dynamic by using U.S. pressure against Israel’s opponents while simultaneously allowing Israel to attack and/or dissuade “Arab radicals.”

Despite being called a “setback” by Egyptian President Nasser, the June war also was a turning point because it made it clear that Israel was able to defend itself successfully. Israel’s initial offer to return the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for recognition of Israel’s gains in 1948 was rejected by the Arabs, Schueftan said, until a generation later when Anwar Sadat accepted a similar plan for Egypt. “Sadat’s greatness was that he understood a decade before the rest of the Arab world that time doesn’t work for the Arabs,” Schueftan said.

During the question-and-answer period that followed, Schueftan said ominously: “Israel can reach a settlement with the Arab world only when the Arabs have lost all hope of defeating Israel.”

But, he added, “the options are [agreements] being made on shaky ground, or not being made at all.”

—Shawn L. Twing

MEI Hosts Panel Discussion on Iraq

On the morning of President Clinton’s Feb. 17 Pentagon address to the American people outlining U.S. policy on Iraq, the Middle East Institute held a half-day panel discussion in Washington, DC entitled “U.S. Policy Toward Iraq: Implications of a Military Strike.” Speakers were Richard Haass, Robert Pelletreau, Paul Wolfowitz and James Zogby.

Haass, who is currently director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, was a special assistant to President Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council from 1989 to 1993. He discussed three military options that could be used by the United States and its allies against Iraq, including a bombing campaign designed to coerce Saddam Hussain into complying with U.N. resolutions that does not end until he cries “uncle,” punitive air strikes and missile attacks that continue for days but let up after a short period, and the “use of force to oust [Hussain].” Haass advocated the first approach, the sustained bombing of important Iraqi targets until Saddam Hussain eventually gives up and lets the U.N. Special Commission resume its work. Despite the benefits of this approach, however, “the [Clinton] administration has moved from a coercive strategy to a punitive one,” Haass said.

“This is not a crisis, it is another chapter in an ongoing crisis,” began Ambassador Robert Pelletreau, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian affairs from 1994 to 1997. Despite near total agreement among diplomats and world leaders that it is important “to keep the box of containment firmly around Baghdad,” Ambassador Pelletreau said that it is becoming increasingly difficult to do that. Among the factors making it difficult, according to Pelletreau, are attrition from seven years of sanctions, Iraqi opposition that is “rent with divisions,” and the perception that U.S. leadership is lacking on the Arab-Israeli peace process. “We should recognize that public opinion in the Arab world is boiling right now,” he said.

Paul Wolfowitz, dean of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), began by saying that the United States has “shown an astonishing level of incompetence on Iraq.” Among the examples he cited was the apparent U.S. decision to abandon the Iraqi opposition. “I don’t see how it can be said that [the U.S.] has aided the [Iraqi] opposition when we haven’t even given them one rifle,” he said. Wolfowitz, who prior to his appointment at SAIS has been undersecretary of defense for policy, assistant secretary of defense for Near East and South Asian affairs, and U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, called the Clinton administration’s 1996 decision not to support a group of Iraqi opposition parties planning a coup against Saddam “Clinton’s Bay of Pigs,” a reference to President John F. Kennedy’s last-minute decision not to provide air support to a Cuban guerrilla group that tried to overthrow President Fidel Castro.

Arab American Institute founder and president James Zogby concluded the panel discussion, saying “the U.S. can’t separate Iraq from the broader complexities of U.S. Middle East policy.” One of those complexities, according to Zogby, is the selective enforcement of U.N. resolutions. Arabs overwhelmingly agree that Iraq should comply with U.N. resolutions, Zogby maintained, but the Arab street also believes that other countries in the region, most notably Israel, also should abide by them. “Arab public opinion shouldn’t be taken for granted,” Zogby said, “but all too often it is.”

—Shawn L. Twing

Tehran University Professor describes current era of “Islamic Yuppies”

Professor Farhang Rajaee of Tehran University, who presently is a visiting professor at Carleton University in Canada, spoke Feb. 6 at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC on “The Islamic Yuppies in the Future of Iranian Politics.” Rajaee, who served in Iran’s delegation to the United Nations in 1984 and 1985, advised the audience to stop looking for another Iranian revolution. Referring to the overthrow of Iran’s monarchy in 1979, he explained, “No society can have two revolutions in less than a century.” Furthermore, he said, it is an illusion to think that Iran will slowly turn into a “secular state,” like neighboring Turkey.

Instead, Rajaee called the attention of listeners to the emergence in Iran of a “new politic” he referred to as “the modern right” or “Islamic Yuppies.” Much of Iran’s renewed and refurbished international image can be attributed to this new group of Iranian politicians, he said. These new leaders include President Mohammed Khatami, whose call for reconciliation between the American and Iranian people has attracted so much attention in the West, and his predecessor, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Both are “very much for democracy,” and support “liberalization” of the economy and tolerance among different peoples, Rajaee said. These “yuppies,” he continued, have found their niche of support from among Iran’s renewed bourgeoisie and intelligentsia.

After the 1979 overthrow of the shah brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power, Rajaee said, in order to remain in good standing with the ayatollah’s government Iranians had to “be in the line of the imam.” This entailed a strict devotion to the Islamic revolution as well as to its leading cleric. After Khomeini’s death, however, “new criteria” were set forth. Now Iranians must have a “practical commitment” to a more collective leadership, Rajaee said. This has enabled the “Islamic yuppies” to flourish.

Although great changes now are taking place within Iranian society, Rajaee said they do not threaten the Islamic republic’s existence. For example, he said, Rafsanjani’s daughter is known to lecture to university classes in a T-shirt, jeans and Nikes. But when she goes out on the street she is modestly attired in accordance with Islamic tradition. She is representative of many contemporary Iranian women who are “empowered and intelligent,” Rajaee said, but by no means primed, as many Western observers would like to think, to overthrow the Islamic regime.

Furthermore, the Iranian population is both young and well-educated. Thousands of Iranian youth are being educated overseas. They are learning about the “outside world,” and how Iran can play a large role in the international community. The young, urban youth who are being educated in American and European universities are becoming the “Islamic yuppies” of tomorrow, Rajaee said, ready to lead Iran into the 21st century when it can assume a broader regional role.

Rajaee currently is writing a book about his “Islamic Yuppies.”

—Kenton Call

Sara Roy Speaks at Georgetown

Dr. Sara Roy spoke Jan. 28 at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies on “Societal Decline in a Post-Ideological Age: Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza after Oslo.” The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Dr. Roy has been working in both Gaza and the West Bank since 1985 and has been a resident of Gaza for the past five years. In addition, she is the author of an exhaustive study of the social, political, and economic conditions of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, entitled The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development.

Dr. Roy’s remarks focused on the devastating effects of the Israeli occupation in both Gaza and the West Bank since the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993. While much of the world pinned its hopes for Palestinian economic development, political liberalization, and independence on these accords, the Palestinian economy has actually become weaker, the Palestinian Authority has shown itself to be corrupt and mismanaged, and Israel still controls key resources and factors of production, such as water and the movement of labor and goods, she said.

The major reason for Palestinian economic decline since Oslo has been the protracted closure of the territories, according to Roy, who also pointed out that the media have been very misleading on this issue. In fact, closure has never been completely lifted since being imposed in March of 1993, although the degree of closure has varied during different periods of time according to the level of security that Israel felt it needed after various bombings occurred. This closure has virtually cut off Gaza from the West Bank, and has also served to perpetuate the one-way trading situation between Israel and Palestine that existed before Oslo. Palestinian businesses are denied access to Israeli markets while Israeli businesses enjoy unlimited access to Palestinian markets.

What is interesting is that many analysts, including some in Israel’s security establishment, admit that closure has a limited impact in curbing Palestinian attacks and securing a more “peaceful” coexistence between the two sides. Roy pointed out, however, that closure does serve an important psychological role for the Israelis in the conflict, and it is also useful as a political weapon in that it forces the Palestinians to negotiate for short-term, temporary economic gains instead of securing long-term, sustainable economic development. The result has been a 37 percent decline in real per capita GNP, from $2,700 in 1992 to $1,700 in 1996, according to Roy.

Dr. Roy outlined several disturbing trends in the economies of the West Bank and Gaza which illustrate the increasingly desperate situation of the Palestinians as they attempt to weather this crisis. First, child labor has become more and more visible in recent years, especially in Gaza. Roy also stated that, increasingly, Palestinians under the age of 16 are working inside Israel. Another trend is that monthly expenditures on food, housing, medical care, and education have been decreasing. Household spending on these basic needs dropped 8.3 percent during the first quarter of 1997. Finally, Palestinians have been depleting their savings and increasingly turning to credit in order to maintain their standard of living amidst the economic decline. Roy warned that this situation is not sustainable, and mentioned that she personally has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of beggars—especially women—on the streets of Gaza.

Roy stated that the economic policies of the Palestinian Authority are not designed to empower people, but rather to keep themselves in power. There are 15 thousand new entrants to the Palestinian labor force each year, most of them young men, and many of whom are funneled by the Palestinian Authority into the security service. Palestinian friends of Roy have told her that the fear they feel when a Palestinian security officer is at their door is eerily similar to what they felt when it was an Israeli security officer during the occupation. Although the security service is certainly acting as a safety valve on the high unemployment in the Palestinian territories, Roy questioned the wisdom of issuing a uniform and a gun to so many alienated youth and channeling them into non-productive and violent activities.

What is truly needed, according to Roy, is the training, expansion, and development of the health and education workforce. Much of the fault for this unmet need actually lies with bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, who prefer more tangible and rapid results such as schools and clinics, while much-needed training for the people who work in these buildings is neglected.

Dr. Roy concluded on a pessimistic note, offering little hope for the socio-economic future of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza if current trends continue. When asked if she foresaw another intifada on the horizon, Roy replied that “the possibility of violence certainly exists, but that of an intifada like what we saw in 1987 is impossible” because the Palestinians are consumed by their struggle simplyto survive. Therefore, any unrest would probably be less organized, more difficult to control, and much more bloody and violent. Roy added that people are completely disillusioned— not only by the peace process, but also by their own Palestinian Authority—and warned that if conditions continue to erode, there is the potential for violence “that makes the intifada look like play school.”

—Steven Keller