How do we know whether our models, or, to be more modest, our characterizations of countries are correct? We try to show that the case studies and other information that we adduce support our vision. But our interpretations are seldom challenged by immediate events, and their validity is most easily assessed in the long term, by which time our views have been forgotten or are deemed irrelevant.

At a recent conference on Iran, three speakers with strong credentials made a case that the Islamic Republic government was basically rational, that it responded reasonably to variations in its political environment, and that its goals were based on realpolitik and realistic. I had two doubts about that. First, its fundamental raison d’etre was religious, and religious objectives, very aggressive ones, appear to be its long-term goals. Second, its extreme position on Israel appears to be fueled by a religious absolutism and triumphalism.

In recent days, I have become convinced about a third basis for doubt about the rationality of the Islamic Republic government. The Iranian national election for president was, by established procedure, already fixed. Four acceptable candidates were chosen out of the hundred-plus by the “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei. All four were outstanding supporters of the Islamic Republic and had held high positions.

But this was not sufficient for the “Supreme Guide” and his extremist supporters. Instead of letting the populace vote for their preferred candidate among this small coterie of loyalists, the “Supreme Guide” decided to fix the election again, in favor of the most extreme candidate, Ahmadinejad. (In Persian, the name is Ahmadi-nejad, rather than the incorrect Ama-din-ejad that one hears on the media.) So, for the benefit of choosing among the small differences in outlook of the candidates, the “Supreme Guide” decided to insure that Ahmadinejad would win, whatever electoral fraud, and preemptive announcement was required.

Was it rational for the “Supreme Guide” to jettison all pretense of electoral probity, and of a “Republic” supported by the people, for such a small gain? Was the loss of legitimacy both at home and abroad worth it? Was driving the populace, seeking small measures of personal freedom and economic stability, to a new understanding that the Islamic Republic regime was their enemy, a reasonable price for the small gain of choosing one among the selected candidates? I would suggest that it was not rational, but rather an expression of fanatical religious motivation. And that would make the Islamic Republic regime a non-rational player.

The events of the fixed election and it s popular aftermath has inadvertently provided a test for a model of the Islamic Republic proposed by Amir Taheri in The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution, published last March, before the recent election. Taheri (p. 358) says that “Iran today… is… like a heaving volcano, ready to explode.”

Taheri’s thesis is based on the multiple contradictions and fractures in Iranian society: revolutionary institutions versus conventional state institutions; the revolutionary armed forces versus the state armed forces; the radical mullahs who wish to control the government versus more traditional mullahs who do not wish religion to be tainted by governance; religious foundations and Revolutionary Guard enterprises versus the workers demanding trade unions; revolutionary religious surveillance of education versus teachers; the revolutionary generation versus the post-revolutionary youth; and Shi’a Persians supported by the revolutionary government versus ethnic and religious minorities.

Taheri cites as further reasons for popular discontent the oppression of the revolutionary institutions, from attacks and arrests over “improper” dress and comportment, to mass arrests of allegedly dissident populations, to the continuing closing of newspapers and magazines deemed insufficiently sympathetic to the regime, to the ever increasing blocking of the electronic media, to the blacklisting of authors and books, to “disappearances” of trade union leaders, journalists, student activists, ethnic activists, and opposition mullahs, to the ongoing wave of executions of minorities—especially Kurds, Arabs, and Baluch—and other perceived opponents of the regime. Taheri (p. 361) says that “faced with popular discontent, the Khomeinist clique is vulnerable and worried—extremely worried…. Iran today… is about a growing popular movement that may help bring the nation out of the dangerous impasse created by the mullahs.”

Taheri wrote this before the recent election and the extraordinary popular demonstrations against the fixed results, and then against the regime. I think that a case can be made that Taheri’s account of Iran has been validated by subsequent events. If he were correct in his assessment, the result should have been exactly what did happen. Taheri’s model has been tested by events and shown to be sound.

What is Taheri’s policy advice? He says (p. 361) that “the outside world would do well to monitor carefully and, whenever possible, support the Iranian people’s fight against the fascist regime in Tehran.” How would he do that? “With a clear compass, the litmus test for any particular policy towards Iran will likewise be clear: does this activity, program or initiative help or hinder regime change?” (p. 362). What would not help is for foreign countries to treat with the regime in any way that would validate it and give it legitimacy. President Obama and European Union, please take note.

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Hamas, which recently created a production company and released its first major film production glorifying the life of a master terrorist (view the Arabic trailer at the end of this post), has scored its first major public relations coup. In a new article on the website of Foreign Affairs, Michael Bröning (director of the East Jerusalem office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) cites the group’s recent downplaying of the relevance of its own charter as a telltale sign that Hamas is turning around or even “growing up.” To be sure, the rhetoric of Hamas leaders has visibly changed in public statements. But in focusing on these statements alone, Bröning misses the real point: Hamas’s words have changed, but their actions have not.

Hamas cannot be judged on the basis of its choice of vocabulary alone. Neither the relevance of each and every part of the Hamas charter (which Hamas leaders have expressly refused to revoke or update) nor the public statements of its leaders deserve as much weight as what the group actually does in judging whether or not it has truly evolved. The approach of solely examining what the group says, rather than what the group does—the approach upon which Bröning has relied—dangerously disregards Hamas’s actions on the ground.

True, in recent interviews, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal has offered to cooperate with U.S. efforts to promote a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, indicated a willingness to implement an immediate and reciprocal ceasefire with Israel, and stated that the militant group would accept and respect a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. But the conciliatory tone of this hardline Hamas leader, who personally has been tied to acts of terrorism and is himself a U.S.-designated terrorist, is belied by the group’s continued violent actions and radicalization on the ground, as well as the rise to prominence of violent extremist leaders within the group’s local Shura (consultative) councils. Hamas’s activities of late appear to be diametrically opposed to the thrust of Meshal’s statements.

Continued terrorist activities: Despite talk of a ceasefire and pursuit of a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, continues to engage in terrorist activities. Shooting attacks are still common along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, including the firing of rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells of the kind that rained on Israel just the other day. In late July, two Qassam Brigades operatives were killed in a “work accident” while placing explosives along the border fence near the al-Buraij refugee camp in central Gaza. A few days later, Israeli defense officials revealed that Hamas has been digging tunnels—often used by the group to smuggle weapons and conduct kidnapping operations—next to UN facilities, including one near a UN school in Bait Hanun that had recently collapsed. The placement of the tunnels near UN facilities was purportedly intended as a preventive measure against an Israeli attempt to destroy the tunnels.

Meanwhile, over the past several months, Palestinian security forces in the West Bank have seized at least $8.5 million in cash from arrested Hamas members who plotted to kill Fatah-affiliated government officials. Palestinian officials reported that some of the accused had “recently purchased homes adjacent to government and military installations, mainly in the city of Nablus” for the purpose of observing the movements of government and security officials. Security forces also seized uniforms of several Palestinian security forces from the accused Hamas members.

Radicalizing Palestinian society: For Hamas, mutating the predominantly ethno-political Palestinian national struggle into a fundamentally religious conflict is critical to the group’s ideology and its continued ability to inspire Palestinians to reject compromise or peaceful solutions to the conflict. Recently, Hamas embarked on a large public relations campaign using culture and the arts to glorify violence and demonize Israel. In a telling example, Hamas produced a feature-length film in 2009 that celebrated the life of Emad Akel, a leading Hamas terrorist who was killed by Israeli troops in 1993. Written by hardline Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, Emad Akel was first screened in July 2009 at the Islamic University in Gaza City and described by Hamas interior minister in Gaza Fathi Hamad as the first production of “Hamaswood instead of Hollywood.”

In addition, despite Meshal’s statements, Hamas’s continues its campaign of radicalization targeting Palestinian youth. This summer, more than 120,000 Palestinian children attended Hamas-run summer camps that focused not only on Islamic teachings, but also on “semi-military training with toy guns.” Hamas campers recently staged a play reenacting the Gilad Shalit abduction before an audience that included Hamas officials such as Usama Mazini and Sheikh Ahmad Bahar.

Militants elected to leadership positions: Hamas’s ongoing radical activities are particularly apparent in its willingness to place its most militant members in positions of power. This year, Hamas’s local Shura councils held elections to determine who would move into leadership positions. Three local councils under the aegis of the Majlis al-Shura, the group’s overarching political and decisionmaking body in Damascus, represent Gaza, the West Bank, and Hamas members in Israeli prisons. This last council completed a five-month-long election process in July 2009 that resulted in the appointment of Yahya al-Sinwar, described as the founder of a Hamas security agency who is serving a life sentence, as president of the prison Shura council. Many other Hamas operatives involved in terrorist activities were placed as council members, including:

• Abbas al-Sayyed, the mastermind of the March 2002 Park Hotel suicide bombing that killed 29 people and left 155 seriously wounded.
• Salah al-Arouri, a founder of the Qassam Brigades in the West Bank, who served as both a recruiter and commander for Hamas terrorist cells.
• Abd al-Khaliq al-Natsheh, Hamas’s spokesman in Hebron, where he reportedly was the interlocutor between Hamas members who wanted to carry out suicide attacks and the leaders of Hamas terror cells within the Qassam Brigades.

In the August 2008 elections for Gaza’s Shura council, for example, Hamas hardliners dominated as well.

As Hamas’s activities on the ground make clear, the group’s tactical flexibility cannot be mistaken for strategic change. Even in his recent interviews, Meshal was clear that Hamas has not rejected terrorism, but has put it on hold due to current circumstances. “Not targeting civilians,” Meshal explained, “is part of an evaluation of the movement to serve the people’s interests. Firing these rockets is a method and not the goal.” In the context of discussing the sharp drop in Hamas rockets fired at Israeli civilian population centers, Meshal added, “The right to resist the occupation is a legitimate right, but practicing this right is decided by the leadership within the movement.”

Even as Hamas advances a public-relations blitz for tactical gains, the group continues to advance its strategic goals through ongoing terrorist activities, robust radicalization, and the election of militant hardliners to leadership positions. Hamas’s policies are evidenced not only by its words, but also by its deeds and actions. Michael Bröning had the right idea when he advised policymakers to “study recent Hamas policies and the movement’s performance on the ground.” If only he’d taken his own advice.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

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(If you do not see the embedded trailer, click here.)

MESH Admin: There is an Arabic translation of  this post.

Summer is upon us, and MESH has asked its members to recommend books for summer reading. (For more information on a book, or to place an order with Amazon through the MESH bookstore, click on the book title or cover.) And now that you have other reading, MESH takes our first vacation since we launched back in December 2007. Action will resume on August 10.

Daniel Byman :: Kill Khalid by Australian journalist Paul McGeough (New Press, 2009) offers a riveting account of the bungled Israeli assassination attempt against Khalid Mishal in Amman in 1997. McGeough also explores the rise of Hamas and the emergence of Mishal as one of its leaders. Kill Khalid is extremely readable and draws heavily on interviews of many of the key figures. McGeough also provides an interesting account of Hamas after its victory over Fatah in elections in 2006. I would have liked more on Hamas’ rise inside the West Bank and Gaza before 2006, and the focus on Mishal means that several other key players do not receive enough attention. But these criticisms are simply a desire to have an already long book be even longer. McGeough’s occasional sympathy for Hamas will annoy some readers, but it would be a shame if this turns them off the book completely, as he offers plenty of interesting stories and provocative thoughts about a group that is not well understood in the United States.

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Mark T. Clark :: Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez propose a provocative thesis in their book, Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets’ Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War (Yale University Press, 2007). They propose that, contrary to conventional historiography, the Soviets provoked the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt in order to destroy Israel’s nascent nuclear program. The conventional wisdom holds that while the Soviets may have carelessly provoked the war (by baselessly charging the Israelis with preparing for war against Syria and Egypt), they nonetheless acted to constrain their Arab clients once war began. Ginor and Remez demonstrate conclusively that this interpretation has more to do with holding to certain assumptions than in attending to all the details that have become available through careful research, interviews, some archival work, and unintended admissions by Soviet officials and participants in the war. The authors are continuing their research beyond the book and will present their latest findings at ASMEA’s annual conference in October 2009. But you will have to read this book first.

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Michael Doran :: My favorite recent book on the Middle East is not on the Middle East at all: Peter Rodman, Presidential Command (Knopf, 2009). Although it is a study of U.S. national security policy making, it is highly relevant to students of the Middle East, not least because it presents an original interpretation of Bush 43’s Middle East policies—one that is considerably at odds with the reigning narrative. Let me revise that last sentence: “an original and critical interpretation….” Rodman was no cheerleader. The entire book is rewarding, but, if nothing else, read the Bush 43 chapter—personally, I found it riveting. Fair warning: the book does have a dispassionate, academic quality that makes it less than ideal as fun, beach entertainment. It is, however, essential reading. Rodman, who was a member of MESH, died unexpectedly last year. He was a special man. In his honor, be sure to read the eulogy by Kissinger at the beginning.

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Adam Garfinkle :: Lawrence Rosen, a Princeton anthropologist (also a lawyer and an early MacArthur “genius” awardee), has a “big idea” in his newest book, Varieties of Muslim Experience (University of Chicago Press, 2008). The idea concerns the intensely personal, relational nature of what he calls Islamo-Arab society. The metaphor that holds it all together is that of the arabesque. Rosen tries to illustrate the workings of this big idea with regard to politics, law, science, terrorism, portraiture, how we understand Ibn Khaldun, and more.

Some of these applications have appeared in Rosen’s earlier work, and some of his attempts at interpreting the big idea are more persuasive (to me, anyway) than others. Still, despite the occasional repetition and the density of the some of the writing, this is worth a look. If you take a social anthropological approach to the Middle East as the beginning of wisdom, as I have done now for several decades, you will have more patience for Rosen’s kind of writing and way of thinking than if you have limited yourself to IR/poli-sci-fi kinds of writing. So this book is not for everyone, but it is stimulating. It provides new ways to support arguments some of us make on related but different grounds (about the fit between Arab political culture and political pluralism, for example). Above all, perhaps, it really does traffic in a big idea, which, for anthropologists these days, if not for other social scientists, is depressingly rare.

Ah, but will it hold your attention at the beach or at poolside? If you’re worried it might not, maybe bring along Tom Robbins’ new one, B is for Beer, just in case.

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Michael Horowitz :: Assaf Moghadam’s book, The Globalization of Martyrdom: Al Qaeda, Salafi Jihad, and the Diffusion of Suicide Attacks (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), is an excellent read. Moghadam is a leading expert in the study of Al Qaeda and suicide attacks and his expertise shines through. He discusses the rise and spread of suicide terrorism, and specifically looks at how the Salafi Jihad movement has spearheaded the spread of suicide terror tactics. Well-researched and argued, this book deserves a close read by all scholars interested in questions of terrorism, Al Qaeda, and the way globalization is influencing the trajectory of terrorist groups.

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Josef Joffe :: “Two states” between the Jordan and the Mediterranean are back en vogue, what with Obama demanding it, and Netanyahu grudgingly conceding it. Dividing up a beach towel, which this slice of 50 miles essentially amounts to, would be hard enough for two friends. It is, unless the Lord intervenes, impossible between two foes. There is only one alternative that is worse: a “one-state solution.” Benny Morris, in his book One State, Two States (Yale University Press, 2009), tells us why, in all the gloomy and bloody details—quotes, facts, and all.

The Israelis, who made the horrible mistake of settling “Judea” and “Samaria” post-1967, have finally come around to “two states” in principle. The Arabs have not, or as Morris puts it: The “Palestinian Arab nationalist movement, from inception and ever since, has consistently regarded Palestine as innately, completely, inalienably and legitimately ‘Arab’ and Muslim and has aspired to establish in it a sovereign state under its rule covering all of the country’s territory.” So, it’s not just Tulkarm, but Tel Aviv, too. There is no place here for the Jews, and that, as Morris adds, Arabs believe “in the deepest fibers of their being.” Could this ever change? It has—but that happened in another country which was once fiercely irredentist. Germans have yielded Alsace-Lorraine and those lands that are now Polish, Russian and Czech not just in writing, but also in their hearts. But then look at all the “intervening variables:” Cold War, nuclear weapons, European integration, population transfers numbering 9 million, and, above all, a liberal-democratic polity where Hitler once ruled. This is how you change a zero-sum into a non-zero sum game. Morris makes for melancholy summer reading, but he cuts skillfully through layers of wishful thinking and sloppy analysis to lay bare the core of the Hundred Years War. Germans and French have fought over Alsace-Lorraine a lot longer—since Louis XIV.

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Mark N. Katz :: Former CIA analyst Emile Nakhleh lays out a strong case for how the United States not only should, but could improve relations with the Muslim world in A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World (Princeton University Press, 2008). In 162 pages, he points out that radical Islamism is a minority phenomenon within the Muslim world, and argues that the U.S. must recognize this in order to isolate it. The most interesting—and controversial—part of the book are his ten recommendations for guiding future American foreign policy toward the Muslim world. I assigned this book as a text for my “War on Terror” seminar earlier this summer, and it proved highly successful in engaging the interest of my students as well as provoking discussion and debate over his policy recommendations in particular. As my students showed, not everyone will agree with these. But Nakhleh’s book is an excellent starting point for how to reorient American foreign policy away from a narrow focus of how to defeat radical Islam to a more effective approach that seeks to discredit it.

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Walter Laqueur :: Christopher Caldwell is a columnist of the Financial Times. There have been several dozen books in various languages about the political, cultural, and social changes taking place in Europe (and about to occur in the years to come), but Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West (Doubleday, 2009) is still useful, based on wide reading and shrewd observation. This levelheaded book has its weaknesses, it is far better informed about European reactions to Muslim immigration than on European Islam and the differences within Muslim communities and between various countries. But it still deserves to be read in view of the great resistance in Europe to accept the fact that important changes have taken place, and confusion over what to do about it.

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Michael Mandelbaum :: The subtitle of Michael B. Oren’s Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present (Norton, 2007)—a compelling, smoothly written history based on prodigious research—announces one of its themes: the connection between the world’s strongest country and the world’s most turbulent region is an old one. It dates back, in fact, to the earliest years of the republic: the war with the Barbary pirates in the latter part of the 18th century and the outset of the 19th counts as the first war waged by the independent United States. (The war was won, but only after years of setbacks—perhaps a portent for our own time.) For their chronic naivete about the Middle East, therefore, Americans have no good excuse.

The book’s title expresses another of its principal themes. The American encounter with the region has had three distinct although overlapping sources. Power, of course, is the principal moving force of international affairs, and as the United States has grown stronger over the decades its entanglement in the Middle East, as in other parts of the world, has deepened. Because Americans have always been religiously inclined people, the Holy Land has held a special attraction for them. The commitment of American Protestants to the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland goes back, for example, to the 18th century. And Americans have consistently held beliefs about the region based on their own wishes and hopes rather than on the realities of the societies there. If one of the bases of recent American policy in the Middle East—the belief in Arab democracy—turns out to be a fantasy, it will have a long pedigree.

One other theme from this rich account deserves mention. For religious, self-interested, and altruistic reasons Americans have tried, for more than two hundred years, to do good in the land of the Bible, the pyramids, and the mosque. More often than is commonly realized, as Oren documents, they have succeeded. The low public standing of the United States among most Middle Easterners (Israelis conspicuously excepted) for the last six decades therefore provides powerful supporting evidence for the proposition that no good deed goes unpunished.

For those interested in these three themes, and in putting the occupation of Iraq, the confrontation with Iran, and the sputtering but apparently immortal Arab-Israeli peace process in their proper historical context, Power, Faith, and Fantasy is the book to read.

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Joshua Muravchik :: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Free Press, 2007) is simply a great work of literature. How she does it, I cannot imagine since, as we learn in the book, English is apparently her sixth language, and they are disparate ones. Move over, Joseph Conrad. The prose is beautiful. The recounting of her childhood and coming of age in Somalia and other Third World venues is gripping. No less so, her flight to the West and her encounter with, and gradual assimilation of, its culture. Hirsi Ali is a significant political figure, but never mind the politics. This is a magnificent tale of human growth and triumph.

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Michael Reynolds :: Summer reading and Tolstoy are mutually exclusive, but I urge readers to make an exception for Tolstoy’s Hadji Murat (Dodo Press edition, 2009), and not because Tolstoy was an Orientalist (he studied Oriental languages at Kazan University). Hadji Murat is a short and fast-paced novel set in the Great Caucasus War which Russia waged against the Avars, Chechens, Lezgis, Circassians and other mountain peoples of the North Caucasus in the 19th century. Drawing on his own experiences fighting in the Caucasus, Tolstoy illustrates an empire at war with tribal peoples.

The novel’s namesake and central character is an Avar notable trapped between an Imperial Russian Army seeking to subdue the mountaineers and an Islamic resistance movement led by Imam Shamil, who grimly seeks to upend traditional mountaineer society in the name of religion. As a classic work of literature, Hadji Murat explores universal themes, including the dynamics that drive men to fight and sacrifice their lives. It reveals, among other things, the complexity of modern insurgencies, where bureaucracies clash with clan structures, trust is impossible, and religious, ethnic, and family ties all compete for the loyalties of individuals, with often fatal consequences.

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Philip Carl Salzman :: Amir Taheri, executive editor-in-chief of Iran’s Kayhan newspaper prior to the “Islamic revolution,” and now living in the West, is an unalloyed opponent of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution (Encounter Books, 2009), written for a popular audience in clear prose, doesn’t mince words in its rejection of the current regime. The Islamic Republic’s claims to Islamic purity are debunked; its insistence on world conquest exposed; and its brutality to its own people denounced. Taheri cites widespread internal clerical opposition to the regime, including quotes from ayatollahs that the Islamic Republic is “a conspiracy against God and believers,” and “the rule of the corrupt, by the corrupt, for the corrupt.” The entire sordid history of the Islamic Republic is recounted in detail and assessed. Taheri makes a strong case that the Iranian people deserve better. In sum, a lively read by a knowledgeable partisan.

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Raymond Tanter :: Alireza Jafarzadeh’s The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) charts a unique path among commentary on Iran by directly linking the Iranian regime’s ideology with its quest for nuclear weapons. Jafarzadeh’s knowledge of Iran’s nuclear program is expansive: In August 2002, as spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, he revealed the existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, where the Iranian regime had clandestinely built cavernous centrifuge enrichment halls. In The Iran Threat, Jafarzadeh examines the rise of President Ahmadinejad and the corresponding Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) control of Iran’s nuclear program. As the IRGC and its clerical ally Ayatollah Khamenei consolidate power following the fraudulent re-election of Ahmadinejad in June, it is worth revisiting Jafarzadeh’s incisive work on the Iranian president’s background and the ideology that underpins his domestic and international policies.

From Joshua Muravchik

When I would tell people that I was writing a book about Middle Eastern democrats, the reaction was invariably the same: “That will be a short book.” This jibe expressed the common knowledge that the region remains stubbornly autocratic.

The fact that there is precious little democracy in the Middle East does not mean, however, that there are no democrats. Surveys show that the vast majority say they want democracy, although it is uncertain what they mean. Perhaps more important, there are also individuals whose lives revolve around making their countries more free and democratic, and who have proven they understand these ideas well. We know little about them because their work is peaceful and incremental and overshadowed by the shocking deeds and pronouncements of tyrants, terrorists, and religious fanatics.

I have profiled seven of them, six Arabs and an Iranian. In addition to illuminating their goals and activities, I have attempted to sketch a full biography in the hope of understanding how they came to be who they are.

Each of them was raised under an authoritarian regime in a society hidebound in its customs. Each belonged to a religious tradition that prized memorization over debate; each attended schools that stressed obedience and rote recitation. They learned that personal desires may have little effect on one’s choices in life; that family connections may determine how much justice can be expected; that that dissent can consist of as little as a complaint and be punishable by as much as death; and that power is seized or retained through brutality. In such societies, acquiescence is the key to longevity.

How did they free their minds and become different from most around them? For some the answer lay in exposure to the West. For others the personal became political. Both women in the group saw their mother’s life blighted by polygamy. Some experienced religious or class persecution or watched their parents persecuted. Some witnessed raw brutality and were revolted. One might have been content to be a poet if the authorities had tolerated that.

Each of these seven has paid a heavy price. Four have been imprisoned, and four have received death threats. Three have had loved ones menaced or penalized. Two have been forced into exile. One has seen his children murdered. All have sacrificed material well-being. In addition to physical bravery, each has displayed moral courage to march to their own drummer in societies that prize loyalty, not individualism. Their stories are inspiring and absorbing.

These are the seven:

• Wajeha al-Huwaider, briefly a columnist for the leading Saudi newspaper al-Watan, was banned for her searing polemics against male supremacy. She is the leader of the movement for the right of women to drive in Saudi Arabia and a group that puts Saudi women (faces concealed) on YouTube recounting their mistreatment.
• Mithal al-Alusi, once a leader of the youth movement of the Iraqi Baath Party, split with the party over its brutality and lived two decades in exile. In 2004, after returning to liberated Iraq, he became the first prominent Iraqi to visit Israel, provoking several attempts on his life. In one, his two sons perished. In 2008, Alusi’s fourth trip to Israel led to the lifting of his parliamentary immunity and an indictment for a capital crime, but in a landmark ruling the Iraqi court overturned these actions.
• Mohsen Sazegara was a press attaché to Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris and accompanied Khomeini back to Tehran in 1978 for the revolution’s final triumph. While serving in several high positions in the clerical regime, Sazegara grew increasingly disillusioned by it, becoming one of its most effective opponents, enduring four arrests before being forced into exile in 2004.
• Hisham Kassem pushed back the limits of press freedom in Egypt by publishing the Cairo Times, a small but widely-noted English weekly in the 1990s. Then he became the founding publisher of al-Masry al-Youm, the first fully independent Arabic daily in Egypt since Nasser took power, which has transformed the press scene in Egypt. He is also chairman of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights.
• Bassem Eid was the principal investigator for B’Tselem, an Israeli organization combating mistreatment of Palestinians. When Yasser Arafat returned to the occupied territories in1994 and established the Palestinian Authority, Eid grew alarmed at mounting abuses of Palestinian citizens by Arafat’s regime, so he left B’Tselem and founded the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group.
• Rola Dashti was the leader of the campaign that in 2005 won women the right of women to vote and hold office in Kuwait. In 2009 she and three other women won election to parliament.
• Ammar Abdulhamid is a human rights activist and blogger who was Syria’s most outspoken dissident until a face-to-face death threat from Bashar Asad’s security chief impelled him to flee the country.

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I am one of more than 140 scholars and experts to sign a letter to President Obama, released today (March 10), asking him to take seriously his inaugural statement that leaders who “cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent” are “on the wrong side of history.” The question is, on which side of history will the Obama administration place itself in its policy toward the Middle East?

Early indications are for a return to traditional diplomacy and jettisoning of any serious efforts to promote democracy, freedom, and human rights. While the signatories of this letter might differ on some issues, we are joined by the belief that this early course by Obama and Secretary of State Clinton needs immediate correction. We understand that promoting Middle East peace enjoys a high priority in this administration, and we believe that it is entirely possible to cooperate with Arab governments in that endeavor while also pursuing improved human, civil, and political rights for Arab citizens. In fact, not to do so would be shortsighted and ultimately counter productive.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

There seems to be a general sense that the Gaza war is over. The shooting has stopped, at least for the most part, at least for now. The pundits, not excluding this one, are lining up to declaim. But in some respects all this is a bit premature; the outcome is not yet totally clear. This is not over yet.

Consider the perspective of the simple central question: has Israel achieved the aims for which its campaign was presumably waged? There is the obvious problem that these aims were stated in various and even conflicting ways, but leave that aside for the moment. What would an interim assessment say about what Israel has gained or not gained?

• Stopping the rockets. For the moment the hail of rockets on Israel’s bordering areas—now extending to Beer-Sheva and Ashkelon—has ceased, and it can reasonably be claimed that a measure of deterrence has been established. (It might be pointed out that the much-criticized 2006 war on Hezbollah also achieved this.) Hamas will probably be much more hesitant to provoke another such response in the near future.
• Shutting down weapons smuggling. This is where the dust has not settled, and it will be critical to history’s judgment about whether the campaign was a success for Israel, or a victory for Hamas. The campaign ended only after Israel had obtained important agreements and assurances on precisely this issue from the United States, Europe, and above all from Egypt. But it remains to be seen whether the border with Egypt will be sealed to illicit traffic in arms; on the basis of past experience and the latest reports, one is permitted to be skeptical. The task is doable; nations that have shut down thousands of miles of international frontiers could surely cope with an eight-mile corridor. But some doubt the seriousness of Egypt in addressing the flow of weapons that come through Egyptian ports and territory. We will see.
• Weakening Hamas. This, too, remains to be seen. Obviously Hamas is significantly weakened militarily in Gaza, at least for now. We do not yet know if it is significantly weakened politically there, despite loud claims on both sides of the issue. Time will tell. We do know that Hamas appears to have been strengthened politically elsewhere and most critically in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority has been significantly undercut. By all accounts, it would be extremely foolish to encourage the holding of new West Bank elections anytime soon.
• Overthrowing Hamas. There is already the predictable refrain from some on the Israeli right: we didn’t go far enough. Critics claim that having invested so much in blood, treasure, and international standing, Israel again failed to complete the job by totally humiliating Hamas or by ejecting it from power. Total humiliation of a movement that defines simple survival as a victory is highly problematic, but “regime change” in Gaza, by military means, was and is a phantasm. It could be achieved only by total Israel reoccupation of Gaza, which few advocated, even among the most pedigreed hawks. No regime installed in Gaza by Israel would be tenable.

So the jury is still out. Much depends on whether the weapons trade can in fact be stifled, and the Egyptian-Gaza border re-established. To achieve this end, Israel may have to concede more than it would like on the issue of an open flow of legitimate goods across the border crossings—given the centrality of a partial blockade to the long-term aim of weakening Hamas economically and thus politically. But limiting the rearming of Hamas should, and probably will, have priority.

The long-term strategy for fostering the re-emergence of a credible Palestinian peace partner will have to revolve around the strengthening of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. This idea is featured in the Likud platform (not that other parties oppose it)—and this fact will probably be of increased relevance after the Israeli election on February 10.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

The events in Gaza over this weekend present a number of internal and external challenges for the Egyptian government, again raising questions about Cairo’s capacity to deal effectively with regional crises. Needless to say, the Israeli Air Force’s offensive against Hamas coming soon after Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni rebuffed Egyptian President Husni Mubarak’s pleas for restraint in Gaza, reminds Egyptians of their manifest weakness. It also plays right into the hands of the Egyptian opposition, whether it is the Muslim Brotherhood, neo-Nasserists, or the nationalist left, who all believe that Cairo’s alliance with Washington has brought Egypt to its knees, unable to oppose effectively Israeli policies in the region no matter how predatory. Israel’s attacks in Gaza will inevitably radicalize Egypt’s political discourse in much the same way they did after the July 2006 war in Lebanon, which placed Mubarak on the defensive.

In an effort to insulate itself from the domestic criticism sure to come and the inevitable calls to take some sort of punitive action against Israel, the Egyptians almost immediately summoned Shalom Cohen, Jerusalem’s ambassador in Cairo, for a dressing down with Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. In addition, in order to avoid the public relations disaster they experienced when Hamas breached Egypt’s border with Gaza last January, the Egyptians swung open the Rafah crossing to facilitate evacuation of the wounded. Still, these actions are unlikely to mollify Mubarak’s many domestic critics, especially since Aboul Gheit—at the same time he was seething about Israeli murder in Gaza—was implicitly laying a good deal of the blame for the outbreak of hostilities on Hamas, who resisted Egyptian entreaties to resume a dialogue with Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah.

Beyond the domestic difficulties that are likely to result from Israel’s airstrikes, a weakened Hamas is likely going to be more difficult for Egypt’s General Intelligence chief, General Omar Suleiman, to corral. The June 18 ceasefire was predicated in part on Hamas’ ability to prevent other militant factions like Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Martyrs brigade from launching rockets on Israel. When the dust settles in Gaza, however, Suleiman and his emissaries are likely to find a significantly altered political environment in which Hamas is unable to impose its will on others or is even amenable to any efforts to reestablish the ceasefire. In other words, the Egyptians are going to be confronted with turmoil, lawlessness, and the increased possibility of factional violence Gaza.

Although the Egyptians generally distrust and dislike Hamas, Israel’s airstrikes present absolutely zero upside for Cairo. Even if Mubarak had the creative capacity to turn crises into opportunities, it is hard to imagine what the opportunity might look like. Cairo worries that chaos in Gaza threatens the stability of Sinai where Palestinian and Egyptian militants could link up and, in turn, could threaten the cold, yet peaceful relations with Israel. What would happen should an attack on Israel occur from Sinai? How would the Israelis respond? Of more immediate concern, however, is Israel’s less than implicit desire to dump Gaza onto Egypt. The last thing that the Egyptians want is responsibility for the 1.5 million Palestinians and the myriad problems of the Strip. Yet, if the Israelis choose to wash their hands of Gaza, the Egyptians actually have few resources to resist. They could, of course, threaten to abrogate the peace treaty, but returning to a state of war with Israel is hardly in Egypt’s interest.

The broader regional implications for Egypt are clear. Israel’s airstrikes have produced widespread outrage in the Arab world and provide opportunity for actors like Iran to play Arab politics. It is only a matter of time before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad will use Israel’s attacks on Gaza to advance his own popularity (second only to Hezbollah’s Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah) and Tehran’s influence in the region. To the extent that Ahmedinejad can weave a narrative that those at peace with Israel and/or allied with the United States are harming the interests of the Palestinians and thus the Islamic world, Egypt’s regional influence is likely to continue to recede.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

The American era in the Middle East… has ended…. It is one of history’s ironies that the first war in Iraq, a war of necessity, marked the beginning of the American era in the Middle East and the second Iraq war, a war of choice, has precipitated its end…. The United States will continue to enjoy more influence in the region than any other outside power, but its influence will be reduced from what it once was.

The theme continues to reverberate in a new article by Haass on “nonpolarity,” and in Fareed Zakaria’s book The Post-American World, which announces “the end of the Pax Americana.” (”On every dimension other than military power—industrial, financial, social, cultural—the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from U.S. dominance.”)

Has the American era ended in the Middle East? Is the obituary premature? Is it all hyperbole? Or maybe there never was an American era to begin with? MESH has asked a number of distinguished authorities for their views.

Update, July 17: At the invitation of MESH, Richard Haass replies here.

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J. Scott Carpenter :: “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” So telegrammed Mark Twain in response to “news” of his passing. America could respond similarly to Fareed Zakaria and Richard Haass, the latest in an inglorious parade of hand-wringers who see the waning of American influence in the Middle East and the world.

Contrary to Fareed’s assertions, there is no sphere in which the United States is not now dominant in the region and there’s no reason to believe its influence will be eclipsed by any other power or concert of powers. In a distinction without a difference, Richard asserts the end of the American moment and the beginning of a non-polar world—in which the United States has the predominant capacity to lead. In fact, there is no substitute for American leadership in the Middle East. Does anyone really believe China or Russia or Iran present serious long-term challenges to the United States? Or worthy models of emulation? Or solutions?

Iran? Sure, a dangerous nut case with nuclear dreams threatens the region, but America is leading the coalition to contain or confront it. Not even China or Russia seriously questions its leadership or the need for it. Politically, Iran is a model for no one. Its economy deteriorates by the day as its peoples’ restiveness grows. Fed up with revolution, they would happily embrace real democracy (and the United States) if permitted. At the same time, Sunni chauvinism in the rest of the region limits Shiite influence.

Russia? Its dual Czars, Medvedev and Putin, have restored Russians’ pride in their state, but the Kremlin’s pretensions of expanding its influence in the Middle East remain anemic at best. Just look at the weakness of Russia’s earnest but ineffective participation in the Quartet.

China? China has a thirst for energy that makes it a demandeur having little interest in actively shaping events in the region. Plus, China’s vastly undervalued currency and overheating growth promise future challenges that will keep its government focused internally. Earthquakes and floods are portents in Chinese political culture that its leaders are well aware of.

Europe? Europe craves American leadership and increasingly works in cooperation if not outright collaboration on key policies. It is true the EU has influence in the Maghreb thanks to its large economic transfers. but it has little weight in the Gulf and no ability to project power. With France under Elvis-loving Sarkozy, transatlantic cooperation under U.S. leadership is poised to take off. A U.S. diplomat in Paris recently told me the relationship has never been better or the areas of cooperation more diverse.

So why the angst? The United States faces real challenges but they are hardly the heralds of the end of U.S. influence in the Middle East—or the world. We have overcome worse and will do so again. As a leading media figure in Dubai told me two weeks ago, “Many people would like to believe America is down but it’s always a mistake to underestimate its resilience and power. And dangerous.” I, for one, agree.

J. Scott Carpenter is Keston Family Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a member of MESH.

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Lawrence Freedman :: Few attempts to predict the future of U.S. power and influence in terms of the most recent trends, or as a transformational moment, have survived the events they have sought to anticipate.

Looking back, the U.S. position in the Middle East was, at different times, due to be eclipsed by the rise of a pro-Soviet pan-Arabism and then OPEC. Now it is the turn of Islamism and Iran. At the start of the 1980s the U.S. position looked poor as a result of the loss of the Shah and the debacle over Beirut. A decade later it looked good because of the successful management of the 1991 Gulf War and the effort which led to the Madrid Conference. As Saddam’s regime was toppled in 2003 for a moment U.S. power was presented as almost irresistible. As the rationale for the war was undermined by the failure to find WMD and the mismanagement of the occupation America’s reputation began to plummet. The Bush Administration appeared to have lost the plot in the war on terror, found little useful to do on the Israel-Palestine issue and kept on being wrong-footed by Iran.

For the moment the United States barely has a functioning government. Even Israel is currently conducting its regional diplomacy with barely a nod in Washington’s direction.

Does this all represent a trend or a blip? Early next year a new administration will be in place. Simply by being different to Bush, it will enjoy something of a honeymoon, though historically the first months of new administrations have been times of maximum error, so a lot will depend on how the new president responds to the first major crisis that comes his way.

Furthermore, as one of the big questions about the United States is always sticking power, continuing with the broad thrust of the current Iraqi strategy will be important, even while looking for a way to see the progressive reduction in the American role. Apart from the currently unanticipated events (Egypt? Yemen? Algeria?) that might change the political agenda dramatically, the most important known test will be Iran, as 2009 will be a critical year.

Obviously the context in which U.S. foreign policy operates changes all the time. There may be no other power in a position to displace America, but a lot will depend on the policy choices being made elsewhere in the region, including in countries with which current relations are poor. The safest bet for a historian is to observe that the future is likely to be as complex as the past.

Lawrence Freedman is Professor of War Studies, King’s College London.

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Josef Joffe :: The United States is finished, its president, a pious idealist, the laughing stock of the world. This was the take on Jimmy Carter’s America after that Keystone Kops attempt (”Desert One”) in 1980 to free the U.S. hostages in Tehran. A few months into Reagan, who had quietly threatened obliteration of Tehran, the laughter had died.

Now it’s decline time again (it tends to come in twenty-year cycles). But you wonder what the “end of the American era in the Middle East” means? Is it like the end of the French and British era when they were forced out for good by the United States, in the wake of the Suez War of 1956? Hmm, let’s see.

Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the lesser Gulf states are all security clients of the United States. Israel, the regional superpower, is America’s “continental sword.” Turkey is an American ally, and Iraq an American possession, with 130,000 U.S. troops, where the war has turned in favour of the United States since last summer. Which leaves Syria, isolated, impoverished, and mulling a return into the Western fold. And Iran, the current would-be hegemon of the region.

Influence-wise, this is not a bad line-up, especially when considering that in the 1960s and 1970s, three key Arab players, Syria, Iraq and Egypt, were firmly ensconced in the Soviet camp.

Now let’s look at more tangible sources of influence: bases. Haifa is practically homeport of the Sixth Fleet, Bahrain is where the Fifth Fleet’s forward HQ is located. Qatar hosts an American air base that is said to be the largest outside the country, supporting up to 10,000 U.S. personnel. The UAE (Dubai and Abu Dhabi plus some smaller sheikdoms) also hosts a significant U.S. presence. The ports of Jebel Ali and Fujaira supply the U.S. Navy and Air Force. Al Dhafra Airbase serves as a major intelligence hub and as a staging grounds for tankers and UAVs. Oman has been an American base since 1979.

For a has-been power, the United States simply must have forgotten all those accoutrements of American influence strewn across the region. But this is no accident, comrades, as the Soviets used to say. The Middle East is to the 21st century what Europe was in the 20th: a key strategic stake and a main battle ground for hegemonial conflict. As a result, America’s shadow there will lengthen, Obama or McCain.

Another way to approach the issue of influence is to ask: Who else? The end of Britain and France in the region was marked by the permanent intrusion of the Unites States. Who would push out the United States? Or make it more practical: Who is going to assure regime survival in Egypt, Jordan et al? Not France, Britain or Germany. Who has the convening power to bring Israel and Palestinians to the bargaining table? Not China. Who can organize sanctions against Iran? Not Russia. Come to think of it: Who disposes of the world’s largest economy, the world’s largest military spending? None of the above.

The point is this: Under Bush, the United States has suffered a vast loss in legitimacy and reputation. But it has not lost its vast physical power, nor the sources of its global influence. The United States remains the default power—the power to which everybody will turn once the United States returns to the golden rule of all leadership: pursue your own interests by taking care of those of others.

Josef Joffe is the Marc and Anita Abramowitz Fellow in International Relations at the Hoover Institution, and a member of MESH.

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Mark T. Kimmitt :: The era of Pax Americana in the Middle East is over? One has a hard time suggesting that such an era ever existed.

The post-World War Two era in Europe was, truly, Pax Americana: 60-plus years in West Germany, with over 500,000 American troops (and their families). Our security guarantees ensured that the Soviet Union was held in check, our presence ensured that American culture was predominant throughout the continent, our cross-Atlantic trade and social exchanges resulted in a continent that assimilated the American experience wholesale.

Our presence in the Middle East during this same period was a fraction of our presence in Europe. Our troop numbers never exceeded the low thousands, except for the wars of 1990-91 and 2003 to today. Our security presence was mostly “over the horizon” and provided by maritime troops and aircraft afloat. A security shield to be sure, but nothing close to Pax Americana.

Today, the globalization of commerce and the insatiable worldwide demand for hydrocarbons will ensure that the Middle East remains an open playing field for commerce and industry, and no particular actor will have a hegemonic advantage in finance, culture or diplomacy. The only area in which the United States will enjoy a competitive advantage remains in security. The regional presence of U.S. forces, even in a post-Iraq environment, will sustain regional stability. However, the model envisioned remains a rotational model. Forces will rotate in and out on a scheduled basis, their families will remain in the United States, and exercises will be held in remote areas far from population centers.

That is hardly comparable to the Pax Americana of postwar Europe, but it is a model that has worked for decades in the past, and can work for decades to come. Less an end of an era, and more a continuation of the past.

Mark T. Kimmitt is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, and has just been confirmed as Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs.

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Martin Kramer :: America’s era in the Middle East has only just begun. Until 2003, the United States was positioned off-shore, attempting to manage the region through diplomacy, aid, arms sales, and the occasional cruise missile. Since the Iraq invasion, the United States has immersed itself in the nitty-gritty of engineering the reconstruction of a major Arab state. In the process, it has made just about every possible mistake, but it has also learned almost every possible lesson, and we see the results in gains made in Iraq. The knowledge acquired in Iraq, by trial and error, has put the United States on par with Britain and France at the height of their sway over the Middle East.

The Middle East is full of what America wants and needs: dictatorships to be broken, oil to be explored and exported, a religion in need of reformation. For Americans, the Middle East will never be analogous to southeast Asia, no matter how sticky it gets. But it probably won’t ever get that sticky: the region is sufficiently fragmented that the United States will never manage to enrage everyone at once. The United States is likely to remain on-shore in the Middle East, overtly or behind a veil, for a long time to come.

Only Americans can put an end to the American era, by talking themselves out of it. Elie Kedourie, in his famous essay “The Chatham House Version,” showed how the spread of declinism in Britain’s political elite forced the country’s total and abject abandonment of every British position in the Middle East. The drums of retreat are now being pounded by the American equivalents of Arnold Toynbee. But when Britain pulled up stakes, it knew the vacuum would be filled by America. If we leave, it will be Iran. (Haass has called Iran “a classic imperial power.”) Here is my prediction: America won’t let it happen.

Martin Kramer is Olin Institute Senior Fellow at Harvard University and a member of MESH.

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Walter Laqueur :: End of an era? This is not entirely wrong but a typical journalistic exaggeration (small earthquakes do not sell copies). Facing major economic problems and various setbacks in the foreign policy field, many Americans, including many belonging to the political class, favor retrenchment. “Measured disinvolvement” and “partial disengagement” were the terms used by the neo-isolationists in the 1970s.

But in truth there never was an “American era” and it is not over yet. (There certainly was no Pax Americana.) Had there been one, things would have happened—in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine—which did not take place. On the other hand, a certain weakening of the American position could lead to opportunities that did not exist before. Everyone is ganging up against a single superpower, whereas in future, with the appearance of new threats and the coming internal conflicts in the Middle East, America will be more needed and more in demand than before—unless it opts for isolationism and total withdrawal, which seems unlikely.

Whether these opportunities will be used depends partly on the balance of power (or its absence) in the Middle East in the years to come, on which one can only speculate. It depends above all on the political intelligence and farsightedness, will and steadfastness of the next president and his advisers and the support they will have. Sapienti sat, as the medieval monks used to conclude.

Walter Laqueur is Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and a member of MESH.

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Robert J. Lieber :: The proposition that “The American era in the Middle East has ended” is part of a larger declinist argument. The United States does face serious problems at home and abroad, but there is an unmistakable echo of the past in current arguments.

While there are challenges to the U.S. Middle East role, no other country has anything like its influence and impact there. As an unmistakable symbol, no other country could have convened the Annapolis Conference last November and on short notice attracted leaders from some 60 countries including China, Russia, the EU and virtually the entire Arab League. Iran does pose a severe regional danger, but Richard Haass’ claim that its “effort to become a nuclear power is a result of nonpolarity” fails to take into account that Tehran’s covert program began more than two decades ago when there was plenty of polarity. Indeed, Haass himself concedes that the U.S. “will continue to enjoy more influence in the region than any other outside power.”

Previous crises have involved challenges more daunting than those of today. For example, the 1973-80 period included the Yom Kippur War and Arab oil embargo, two oil shocks, Watergate and the Nixon resignation, a humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam, the Iranian revolution, the seizure of the U.S. embassy hostages in Tehran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a severe economic downturn at home (with figures for recession, unemployment and inflation far beyond anything likely to occur in the current period), and Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech.

Fareed Zakaria refers to the U.S. as an “enfeebled superpower.” But the idea that shifts in the distribution of power would deprive America of its world role isn’t novel, and was common in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1972 President Nixon depicted an emerging balance among five major powers: the U.S., Russia, China, Europe and Japan. But despite the rise of the “BRICs” (Brazil, Russia, India, China), the growing importance of an expanded EU and a flourishing East Asia, other powers are not balancing against the United States. No other country comes close to combining all the power attributes of the United States and none has emerged as a true peer competitor. And important regional powers (Japan, India, Indonesia, Germany, France) have even improved their relations with Washington.

In an article in the summer issue of World Affairs, I make the case that declinist arguments exhibit a-historicism, over-reaction to singular events, and a lack of appreciation for the adaptability, robustness and staying power of the United States. Declinist forecasts in previous eras have been wrong, and it is a good bet that the current crop will prove to be similarly mistaken.

Robert J. Lieber is Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University.

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Michael Mandelbaum :: The American role in the Middle East has been the product, since the 1950s, of three conditions. The first has been political instability there with the associated threat of regional domination by a power hostile to Western interests—variously the Soviet Union, Nasser’s Egypt, Saddam’s Iraq, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Such a threat would have been of strictly local concern but for the second condition: the location, in the Middle East, of the largest readily accessible supplies of the world’s most valuable mineral. A hostile power dominating the region would be in a position to deny oil to, and thus gravely damage, the rest of the world. It was, therefore, necessary to prevent such a circumstance, and in the absence of any other force able to perform this task, it fell to the United States—the third defining condition.

Through deterrence, proxy wars, and direct military intervention, American power has preserved a certain order in the Middle East and assured the global economy reliable access to petroleum. In this way the United States has supplied one of the several governmental services it provides to the rest of the world, which for the most part neither acknowledges nor appreciates them and contributes almost nothing to paying for them. (The full version of this argument is set out in my 2006 book The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World’s Government in the Twenty-first Century.)

The two most consequential events of recent years—the American struggles in Iraq and the skyrocketing price of oil—have not abolished the three conditions. If anything, they have aggravated the first two: Iran looms as a larger threat to the region, and the global supply of oil is more precarious because there is so little spare capacity. As for the third condition, the “realist” approach to the understanding of international relations would predict that, in the face of the Iranian threat, the Arab oil producers would band together to form an effective military bloc and make common cause with the two regional powers that are also wary of the Islamic Republic, Turkey and Israel. Readers of this blog will not need to be persuaded of the implausibility of such a scenario.

To be sure, the United States is not certain to continue as the regional gendarme, but if it fails to do so this will not be because conditions in the Middle East and the global economy no longer require one, or because some other country or group of countries has assumed the role. Rather, it will be because, frustrated by Iraq, angry at the hemorrhaging of wealth to the oil producers, and preoccupied with domestic concerns, the American public declines to continue its fifty-year pattern of engagement in the Middle East. In that case, a new era will indeed have dawned, an era all too likely to make Americans, Middle Easterners, and others nostalgic for the old one.

Michael Mandelbaum is Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and a member of MESH.

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Aaron David Miller :: The notion of an American era in the Middle East has always been an illusion, certainly if that implies American dominance over a region that, since the end of World War Two, has become too complex, too dysfunctional and too ornery ever to be controlled or shaped by a single outside power. A better way to describe American influence would be a series of “American moments” when the United States succeeded in Arab-Israeli peacemaking (1973, 1979, 1991) or war making (1991) which temporarily boosted American credibility and influence in discrete areas. Clearly since 1991, we’ve had very few of even those moments. For eight years under Bill Clinton we failed at Arab-Israeli peacemaking; and for eight years under George W. Bush we failed at making war in a region critical to our national security interests. As a result, we are neither feared nor respected to the extent we need to be.

At the same time, we need to understand that we are in an investment trap in this region; we can’t fix it and we can’t escape it. We must however do a better job of protecting our interests. If we presume to be a great power, we should start acting like one: defining policies driven by American interests, not Arab or Israeli interests; and not allowing our domestic politics or grandiose schemes of a new Middle East to substitute for smart and tough-minded policies. This region is not a land of wonderful diplomatic and foreign policy opportunities; it’s a trap, but one in which we have no choice but to compete and survive. My concluding advice: read history; see the world as it is not the way we want it to be; and above all avoid big ideas (this region hates them) and failure. In life, the world’s most compelling ideology isn’t nationalism, democracy or even capitalism. It’s success, because success generates power and constituents. Failure generates the opposite.

Aaron David Miller is a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

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Joshua Muravchik :: Seeing things that are not apparent on the surface is the essence of the analyst/pundit business. That’s why they pay us the small bucks.

It is, however, an inherently dicey business. The farther an observation is from the surface, the more impressive or exciting it is, but also often the more difficult to prove or disprove and often, also, to make any use of. Usually, the grander the generalization, the vaguer the terms.

The all-time master of this art was Karl Marx who discovered the laws of history, and although the terms were never defined clearly nor their relationship to each other, and although the specific embedded predictions have not come true, his immense influence endures even, dare I say, in the august center of learning that MESH calls home.

There is a huge audience eager to know the future which is why many times more people read the astrologers’ columns than ours.

America’s dominance of the world scene has been underway for 60-plus years, and this period has been punctuated by numerous sightings of the country’s decline. No doubt they will prove true, whether in a decade or a century or a millennium.

I didn’t know that the American era in the Middle East commenced in 1991. I ask myself what I would have done differently or advocated differently or written differently these last 17 years had I known it. I also wonder whether Saddam or Khamenei or Bashar or Nasrallah or Yassin or even Arafat, despite spending many nights at the White House, knew that that was the American era. If so, what would they have done differently had it not been? And if not, what difference does it make that it was?

As for the American era having just ended or being in the process of ending, what does that tell me? Does it mean that if we drop bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities, they will not explode? And if they do explode and we block Iran’s hopes for a bomb; and if, as now seems possible, we come away from Iraq with a win, will our era be over nonetheless? And if it is, despite our gaining our policy objectives, what difference would that make?

Joshua Muravchik is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a member of MESH.

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Robert Satloff :: Cheer up, America, the doomsayers are wrong: America’s moment in the Middle East is not about to go the way of Britain’s, at least not anytime soon.

Despite all the hand-wringing of recent years, certain truths about Middle East politics and America’s role in it are enduring. These include the following:

• Militarily, from thousands of miles away, America remains the most potent force in the Middle East. While the sagacity of how it employs this force is at times open to question, the fact of America’s military superiority is beyond dispute.

• Diplomatically, America remains the party to whom both Arabs and Israelis turn as the indispensable actor in “the peace process,” the “honest broker” that can reduce risks, condition the environment, bridge gaps, subsidize agreements and oversee their implementation.

• Ideologically, America remains the lodestar for the region’s beleaguered democrats as well as the preeminent satanic foe of the region’s radical Islamists. Despite the misadventures of the “freedom agenda,” civil society groups across the Middle East continue to dismiss fashionable parlour-talk about Washington’s “kiss of death” and instead seek our support and blessing for their causes; despite our alleged weaknesses, our enemies still rank “Death to America”—and not “death to nonpolarity,” for example—as their most cherished motto.

• Culturally, America too remains the most admired, as well as the most feared, country in the Middle East. On the one hand, tens of thousands of Middle Easterners are shelling out billions of dollars for one of our principal exports—American-style education—which (depending on the actual quality) will ensure American cultural dominance for at least the next two generations. And, on the other hand, there is compelling evidence that it is Hollywood—and neither the Sixth Fleet, nor Israel’s F-15s nor the eventual fall of oil prices—that drives fear into the heart of Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Did America overreach in the Bush Administration? Well, we certainly made huge mistakes, from the execution of the post-war in Iraq to the topsy-turvy, elections-first effort on democracy promotion. But with a measure of wisdom, some of these errors are repairable while others can be overcome. In the larger sense, there is little reason to believe that they herald the impending demise of our unique role in both the minds and imaginations of Middle Easterners. On this Fourth of July, that’s something to celebrate.

Robert Satloff is executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a member of MESH.

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Harvey Sicherman :: By my count, the American era, a/k/a the American empire, has risen and fallen several times since the end of the Cold War. This is a nice little industry for some authors (similar to the “transatlantic crisis”) and, unlike other industries, it never knows a recession. So, a pox on the pax.

The real issue is whether the United States, alone or in combination, can secure its interests in the Middle East. Three have endured since the late 1940s: access to oil; security of Israel; and a region not dominated by hostile powers. Other interests have come and gone, including “modernization.” Democratic transformation, too, may soon join its predecessors on the heap of foreign-induced reform in the Middle East, always a chronicle of dashed hopes and unintended consequences. But these have not displaced the critical threesome.

Do we have access to oil? Yes. Is Israel secure? More or less. Does a hostile power dominate the region? Not now. The prolongation of this situation depends, however, on our capacity to secure Baghdad, find some solution to the Palestinian problem, and take the Iranians down a peg, possibly through (1) a reduction of their influence in Iraq, (2) financial penalties that accelerate Ahmadinejad’s wrecking of the economy, or (3) a bloody nose that brings home to them the danger of their nuclear and terrorism enterprises. Can enough of this be done to secure our interests? Of course. Will we do it? I surely hope so.

Harvey Sicherman is president and director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and a member of MESH.

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Richard N. Haass :: Is it over for America in the Middle East? Of course not. And no one to my knowledge is arguing that it is. I certainly am not; as I wrote in the November/December 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs, “The United States will continue to exert more influence in the region than any other outside power….”

But this is not the end of the discussion. U.S. influence will decline from what it has been. We are at the end of one historical era (unipolarity) and the outset of another (nonpolarity). This is true generally and for the Middle East.

So what is the problem? Few of those commenting here seem to understand the distinction between an end to an era and an end to influence. What makes an era is that the character of what is being discussed (in this case, a part of the world) is both clear and enduring. There can be exceptions, but they are just that: exceptions to a prevailing pattern.

The previous era in the Middle East was dominated to an uncharacteristic degree by the United States. It was the result of the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union. But it was also the consequence of concerted American effort, be it to reverse Saddam Hussein’s conquest of Kuwait or to promote peace between Israel and its neighbors.

The era came to an end both for structural reasons—globalization, the shifting balance between energy supply and demand, the weakening of some national entities and the strengthening of other national and non-state actors alike—and for reasons related more to U.S. policy, in particular the Iraq war and the lack of priority accorded the “peace process.”

The new era will be one in which U.S. power and influence will be considerable but on balance less dominant. Other actors, including Iran, a divided but assertive Iraqi government, Hezbollah, Hamas, national oil companies and the governments behind them, sovereign wealth funds, terrorist organizations, China, Russia, the EU, political factions within Israel, religious authorities, and the Muslim Brotherhood, will count for more.

What does this mean? It means the United States will not be able to insist on what it wants or shape events as much as it would like. It is an open question whether the United States can stop Iran’s nuclear progress, cobble together a viable and independent Iraq, broker peace between Israel and Palestinians, or promote reform and guarantee stability in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. U.S. ability to do such things in the past was never total, but whatever it was then, it is less now. This is not an argument for standing aloof—to the contrary, neglect is almost always counter-productive, and how policy is designed and implemented will make a difference. But it is my judgment that American foreign policy and those making it will have to contend with a less benign environment, including more constraints and greater opposition, factors that are likely to raise costs and lower results.

Richard N. Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

“The participation of armed groups in elections is problematic. But the lesson is not that there should not be elections. Rather, there should be standards, like the ones to which the international community has held Hamas after the fact: you can be a terrorist group or you can be a political party, but you cannot be both. As difficult as this problem is, it cannot be the case that people are denied the right to vote just because the outcome might be unpleasant to us. Although we cannot know whether politics will ultimately deradicalize violent groups, we do know that excluding them from the political process grants them power without responsibility. This is yet another challenge that the leaders and the peoples of the broader Middle East must resolve as the region turns to democratic processes and institutions to resolve differences peacefully and without repression.”

Condoleezza Rice, “Rethinking the National Interest: American Realism for a New World,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008.

From Robert Satloff

Secretary Rice is a powerful intellect with an impressive grasp of a broad range of issues, but on the question of providing access to the democratic process for armed groups that refuse to renounce their violent goals and their violence means, she has a blind spot. In this passage, for example, she mischaracterizes the situation with respect to the Palestinian election of January 2006 and the U.S. decision to press for Hamas’ inclusion.

The facts of the situation were as follows:

• The West Bank and Gaza have been, since 1967, under Israel’s military occupation. While one can debate certain aspects of that occupation, including settlement policy, one cannot debate the fact that Israel is under no requirement to permit political activity of terrorist groups committed to its destruction.

• The Palestinian Authority and all its relevant institutions, including the Palestinian Legislative Council, were established by virtue of agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Their existence and their legitimacy derive solely from those agreements.

• Annex II, article III, paragraph 2 of the Israeli-Palestinian Agreement of 1995 states the following: “The nomination of any candidates, parties or coalitions will be refused, and such nomination or registration once made will be canceled, if such candidates, parties or coalitions: commit or advocate racism; or pursue the implementation of their aims by unlawful or non-democratic means.”

• Whatever ancillary social welfare activities Hamas may undertake, its raison d’etre is the destruction of Israel and the principal means it has chosen to achieve that objective is terrorism.

Given the above, it is a mischaracterization of the situation to suggest that excluding Hamas from the election would have meant that, as Secretary Rice argues, “people are denied the right to vote just because the outcome might be unpleasant to us.” That was never the issue. The issue was that the Bush Administration pressed Israel and the Palestinian Authority to disregard their agreed legal framework for holding elections and to permit Hamas’ participation. Indeed, there were rules—and we flouted them.

Scholars, experts and policymakers are engaged in a legitimate debate over whether Islamist parties—i.e., parties whose main objective is the imposition of Shariah law—can evolve into democratic parties. By that I mean not just parties “willing to play by democratic rules” but parties that embrace democracy, which by its very nature means that men and women, not divinity, determine the law of the land. This is the debate surrounding the PJD in Morocco, the AK Party in Turkey and other Islamist parties. A subset of that debate is whether the same evolutionary process applies to Islamist terrorist groups, such as Hamas.

However, that debate, I repeat, was never the issue in the Bush Administration’s decision to compel Hamas’ inclusion in the Palestinian elections of January 2006. At issue was whether the Administration recognized the supremacy of (to recall Al Gore’s famous words) the “controlling legal authority”—the Oslo Accords—or to urge its local partners to disregard the law. It chose the latter. To suggest otherwise is revisionist history.

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“In the Middle East the economic and social soil is still not deep enough to enable political democracy to strike root and flourish. What is needed is not merely constitutional or administrative reforms, not just a change in government machinery and personnel. It is not even the adjustment of an obsolete political structure to bring it in line with a new balance of forces reflecting changing relations between various social classes, as was achieved by the Reform Bills in 19th-century England. What is required is a great economic and social transformation which will strengthen society and make it capable of bearing the weight of the modern State. Such a development is a necessary, if not a sufficient, condition for the establishment of genuine democracy in the region. For, in politics as in religion, a Reformation must be preceded by a Renaissance.

“What should be done in the meantime? Clearly, while it is futile to lament the absence of democracy in a region still unprepared for it, it is absolutely necessary to set in motion the forces which will transform Middle Eastern society in the desired manner. Great efforts must be made to improve means of communication, multiply schools, and, so far as possible, bring about a cultural and spiritual unity which will bridge the chasms separating the linguistic groups and religious sects. Great efforts must also be made to develop the economy of the different countries in order to raise the general level and to create opportunities which will allow the individual to emancipate himself from the grip of the family, tribe, and village.”

Charles Issawi, “Economic and Social Foundations of Democracy in the Middle East,” International Affairs, 1956.

From Adam Garfinkle

Charles Issawi’s is a remarkable quote, prescient to a stunning degree. Issawi managed to say a great deal in a short space; were that I was as talented.

It seems to me that Issawi makes four basic points, which I will list deliberately out of order for a reason to be made clear, hopefully, below.

First, the Arab Middle East lacks the prerequisites for democracy.

Second, those prerequisites entail not only political-legal adjustments but deep social and cultural ones, not least of them being the strengthening of the state (a very prescient observation for its time).

Fourth, in the meantime great effort should be placed in readying the prerequisites for democracy, including economic growth, wider social communication and better education.

Third is his enigmatic comment that “in politics as in religion, a Reformation must be preceded by a Renaissance.”

As to what has changed, the first point stands: The region is still not ready, and the reason many Westerners don’t see this is that they don’t understand the origins of their own political culture. So I argued in print (“The Impossible Imperative? Conjuring Arab Democracy,” The National Interest, Fall 2002) before President Bush’s February 2003 American Enterprise Institute speech, before the invasion of Iraq, before his November 2003 National Endowment for Democracy speech and before his second inaugural address, because I could feel in my bones what was coming and I wanted to do whatever I could to stop it.

When it comes to the second point, nothing has changed either—but more on this critical matter below.

When it comes to the fourth point, a lot has changed since 1956. As Fatima Mernissi was among the first to insist, there is a new openness in the region, a new kind of conversation (jadaliyya, she called it). There is more communication, there is better if still very inadequate education, and the economies are more modern in many respects if still foundering in others. Much of this change came over several decades in a push-pull sort of way. The weakness of the post-independence Middle Eastern state amid the attentions brought by the Cold War made them prey to outside blandishments and enticements at the same time that weak local elites sought leverage to get or keep themselves in power. The nearly complete penetration of the region by global business, especially over the past 15 years, has helped accelerate the communications revolution and the “creative destruction” that has gone with it.

This very unsettling process has riven most Middle Eastern societies into three parts: salafis who use religion to fight the threat to corporate identity they see; assimilationists who accept the Western secularist route to one degree or another; and those who seek a flexible, living Islamic tradition in order to find a culturally integral route to modernization. I think the third force will win out, even if it takes three or four generations; at least I hope so.

Third, we come head-on to the politics/religion, Renaissance/Reformation nexus. It can be argued that the humanism of the Renaissance stimulated significant reform impulses in the Catholic Church in the fifteenth century, and that initial Protestant rebellion in the early sixteenth century, from the far less advanced regions of Germany rather than northern Italy, was in essence a reactionary rejection of that more liberal, humanist direction. The vast changes attending the last gasps of European feudalism soon overtook the reactionary character of early Protestantism and drove it along as it did everything else in its path, but the sketch is interesting. Applied analogically to the modern Middle East, the salafis are the early Protestants shaking up a febrile religious establishment, stimulating them, one may hope, into re-creating a vibrant living tradition in tune with modern times, as Max Weber famously suggested happened to Protestant Europe and, in time, even to Catholic Europe.

And now we come back to the problem of the state. A Reformed religion, to work as Weber saw, has to be contained by the state. But the state system of the modern Middle East is under siege thanks to the onslaught of globalization. Unless a revived centrist traditionalism contributes to the strengthening of the state, all of the communications, education and hoped-for economic reform will be unavailing. How will this go? Well, different experts have taken different views on this question. I don’t know which ones are right. I wish Issawi, and Elie Kedourie and Ernest Gellner, were still alive. They would know.

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