Guy Bechor outlines what he says will be a fractious, chaotic transition from authoritarian rule for Middle East states:
The “Afghanistanization” of the Arab world started a decade ago, with the disintegration of Lebanon and Iraq into militias, tribes and denominations; then it spread to the Palestinian Authority, Somalia and Yemen. Today, Lebanon is a militia ”” Hezbollah ”” that has a state. But the process got tremendous impetus from what is called ”œthe Arab Spring.” The rest of the Arab countries are breaking up and disappearing, local identities rise in their place usually in the form of violent, armed militias. Not only is the Arab state disappearing but so are its institutions ”” a process passing over the entire Arab space and transforming it into the local version of Afghanistan. Nationalism is on the wane, and in its stead ”” rise of the militias.
More links below the fold.
What are you reading today? Drop your essential Sunday links in comments.
- The Indy: Tony Blair blocked Cabinet from hearing contrary legal advice on Iraq as new revelations spark omnipartisan calls for an emergency reconvening of the Chilcot Inquiry (Looking backwards, not forward? The mother country is so quaint sometimes.)
- Greece is a pretty shitty place to be an undocumented migrant of dusky hue ATM
- The inimitable Susie Bright has a trademark no-holds-barred, full-bore response to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s recent lightning rod contribution to the mommy wars: “The luxury of coddling & infantilizing is for the privileged; that’s what makes these stories so nauseating.” (and more from Rebecca Traister, Lindsay Beyerstein and E.J. Graff.)
- Defiant success of the Nordic Model belies outside rush to blame strong unions, high tax levels and strong regulation for ongoing Eurozone crisis: Daniel Sachs
- More drones fly over the Caribbean as the war on drugs cribs from the war on AQ (h/t)
- Pat Lang gives UVA holy hell over Sullivan firing: “In short the business community and the moneyed class are buying the universities just as the same people are buying political power with the help of the Citizen’s United SCOTUS decision.”
- National (AE) editorial: Hamas “using tactics from an outdated playbook” in latest unrest (h/t)
- Steve LeVine on why plummeting oil prices are bad news for Putin and other petrocrats (Previously: why the new golden age of oil is bad news for U.S. carbon reduction efforts; New America Foundation podcast featuring LeVine)
- Shorter Ahmed Rashid: Pakistan is fucked (more from Huma Yusef) (h/t)
- And finally, Inside Syria looks at the current state Turkish-Syrian relations: “As Syria shoots down a Turkish jet, we ask if the incident will escalate into more violence between the two countries.” (Don’t bet on it, says James Joyner.)
WATCH IT:
might save Syria were it possible to institute. Since the U.S. is still on the neo-conservative/neo-liberal paths of weak government strong corporate sector and now pushing that model on Syria I don’t see any hope for any kind of peaceful resolution there. Indeed the neo’s see Syria as a stepping stone to the destruction of Iran.
The thing about Lebanon is its unique history. The Hezbollah did not start out to become a militia with a state and it is my belief that they would deny their “ownership” of some state of Lebanon. The Hezbollah were forced to militiaze to oust the Zionist Israelis. Then since the other power centers of Lebanon sometimes acted in manners that were disruptive on the need to keep Israel out they were then forced to exert enough say in the state apparatus to protect that goal and the incumbent strategies to maintain it. It is my belief that Hezbollah quite clearly recognizes the very real reality that just as they were able to “defeat” the much stronger Israeli presence in Lebanon so could these other Lebanese powers (the Christian and Sunni and Druze etc communities) operate from their own centers of strength to prevent the Hezbollah from ever attaining a monopoly of power within Lebanon. Therefore they, again I believe, quite intelligently continue to share power within Lebanon.
And that is the beauty and stability of current day Lebanon. A level of true power sharing exists that other ethnically diverse quasi-nation states can only now dream of. It is a model that in many ways must evolve from the internal dynamics of these places.
I used to believe that the peaceful solution in these middle eastern countries, including Iraq and Kurdistan and even Iran and Pakistan was something along the lines of the European Community and the single currency the Euro. Let each ethnic group have their own “country” yet unified by a single economic union. Regretfully the major flaw in such a course is the lack of flexibility that multiple currencies allow. Yet perhaps there is a path of success along such lines. If these countries have enough of cultural compatibility to allow for easy labor mobility and can form a central economic process robust enough to be comfortable redistributing wealth from rich areas to poor ones then it could work.
The problem for Europe appears to be that the Germanies don’t want to support the Greeces as robustly as the New Yorkers are willing to support the Mississippians. That may be Christian puritanism or some such. Muslims appear to have a much more sharing culture. An economic union might well work fantastically for them. Throw in the fact that they do not believe in interest bearing loans, then they can avoid some of the indebtedness issues currently plaguing the west.
“Nationalism” based on what? Borders drawn around and through disparate tribal groups?
“Rise of Militias,” no; control by tribal or groups with common beliefs, who form militias to defend their ground. Cart before horse in this argument. Certainly the militia is the first effective sign of control, but that ignores the pressures that caused the people to band together or join the militia.
For example: HAMAS in Gaza is an “outside” militia imposing their will on the Gazans? As if the Gazans did not have other powers imposing their will from outside Gaza, who the Gazans almost unitedly oppose.
and may therefore not serve well as a model for the rest of the ME.
Even before the Israeli occupation, Lebanon had a power-sharing arrangement among it’s main groups and it worked. Lebanon also struggled against Syria and still has to resist that influence.
Correction:Syria has no embassy in Beirut. I have seen it specified as part of Syria on maps but thought that changed after the Cedar Revolution booted them out.
(I’ve also seen Israel drawn as part of Jordan on a map I bought at Petra in a few years ago. Ignorance or ambition?)
If central governments fail, it is because we – US/Nato/Europe – have destroyed their ability to provide security and services to the people. We have done this because we want to control those governments (and their natural resources) for our own benefit rather than for the benefit of the people of the Middle East.
We may criticize just how those governments function and indeed many citizens were equally critical, but that did not justify the devastation we wrought on Iraq and other countries via sanctions and eventually war. The people of [name your country - Middle East, Central/South America, Asia] did not ask us to overthrow their central governments. Since we have done so and since greed for power and resources and our contempt for human welfare have become obvious, people will fight back any way they can, militias being the most readily available method. They have nothing to lose, largely because we have taken everything away from them already.
Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
- Denis Diderot
as the powers-that-be hock globalization/one-world government.
While globalists may make progress as they did in Europe, it’s just a matter of time until regional interests depart from top down mandates and entropy has its way.
Without cooperation of the people, government will not work.
I did inhale.