Prometheus Bound, But Not Without Options

This is a late-night post which may be overtaken by events at any time, so if what I'm writing now is no longer relevant in the morning, at least it's on the record.

A Reuters report here, noting the limitations of US power when dealing with a situation like the hostage-taking of the ship captain by the Somali pirates, is echoed by tomorrow's New York Times here, on the limits of military power etc., etc. The world's most powerful Navy can't seem to deal with a lifeboat full of pirates. Well, naturally. We don't want any harm to befall the hostage, so our military options are limited: Prometheus Bound.

But wait: If I understand the situation correctly, the Somali pirates and the captain are in a small lifeboat, either unpowered or with no operable power source, a US destroyer sitting next to them and the better part of an international task force headed their way. What to do?

The FBI is doing the negotiations and the usual police approach to hostage situations is to get the hostage-takers negotiating and keep them talking. Their only bargaining chip is the captain, and if reports are correct, they already broke their agreement once when the crew released a captured pirate but they didn't release the captain. But when they do release the captain, even if it's in exchange for tons of money, what then? They are hundreds of miles offshore in an unpowered boat with a reasonable likelihood of a SEAL Team and a Marine Recon force in the immediate vicinity. Having broken their own word once, will they trust us to keep ours if we pledge safe passage? (These are pirates, remember. Not only are they not known for square dealing, but they also know that under international maritime law, if captured, they're toast.) It's a classic standoff.

On the other hand, if they harm the captain in any way, they have no hope of getting home safely. Not only that SEAL Team but a great deal of whatever force Fifth Fleet can bring to bear (I suspect it's pretty shock-and-awesome if it comes to that) will be directed at them.

How to extricate oneself from such a standoff is not immediately clear, but one thing is: their only hope of getting home is to take very good care of their hostage. And the longer this goes on, the more likely our special operators, Navy and/or Marine, will be working out a way to end it.

And once it's over, the US may be a bit more ready to work with other maritime nations to suppress the pirate nests along the coast.

Prometheus Bound? Limits of military power? Yes, while a hostage is at stake. But that makes the hostage takers all the more reluctant to free him, because of what may befall them when they do. We no longer have the bluster of a Teddy Roosevelt and "Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead!," nor should we (we've blustered enough in recent years), but these pirates are probably rethinking their decision to go after an American ship for the first time. I don't want to sound jingoistic or anything, but I have a great deal of respect for the power of the United States Navy, and I suspect there's going to be a lot more to this story once the immediate hostage situation is resolved.

Somalia Offers its Navy?

Okay, this story is from the Voice of America, and it seems rather strange: the Minister of Fisheries of the new Somali government is offering to solve the piracy problem if the international commuity will offer logistical support to its Navy.

Ah, the Somali Navy . . . the what?

Wikipedia is not the most reliable source on orders of battle, but this is what it says of the Somali Navy prior to 1991, when it ceased to exist. Six fast attack craft and a landing ship. Even if it were still afloat, the pirates could outgun that.

The CIA World Factbook is more succinct: "No National Level Armed Forces."

Why does the Voice of America report this straight? Does the Somali Navy even have any ships? The last order of battle seems to be 18 years ago and I rather suspect someone has already made off with the torpedoes from those boats.

Unless I'm missing something, the "logistical support" the federal government (which doesn't control much of the country) needs for its Navy appears to be . . . a Navy.

Algerian Election Day

It's Bouteflika election day — excuse me, Algerian election day. Everyone agrees, this one will not be a cliffhanger. Most of the main opposition figures are sitting out the election; the second-string candidates who are running have had some difficulties just getting their message heard.

Here's one account of the concerns over rigging. It notes that there are foreign election observers on hand: from the Arab League, the African Union, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Meaning no disrespect to those august bodies, but one might have thought observers from the EU, the US, or other bodies more familiar with competitive elections might be in order. And here's the BBC analysis.

I think that one reason so many Algerians and others have expressed dismay at the election is the fact that not too many years ago Algeria showed signs of developing a real, competitive, multi-party system. Despite the continuing domination of the Army and the security services, there was a genuine political give and take. The years of troubles and instability, of course, led to a natural yearning for stability, and as is often the case the price of stability was the stiflng of genuine political competition.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika is not the most authoritarian leader in the Arab world, and Algeria still has a livelier politics than many countries, as seen by the fact that there has been plenty of criticism of the fairness of he elections inside Algeria as well as out. And at least there are opposition candidates and they did campaign. We can hope that the results will not be enhanced to the absurd levels that are too common in the region (98% victories and such), and that the future may see a more competitive race. Bouteflika's age and uncertain health suggest that he will not remain in office forever, despite amending the Constitution to allow multiple terms.

Of course, this entire posting is going to look very silly if Bouteflika loses, but somehow I don't think I have to worry too much about that.

UPDATE: They're saying a 62% turnout, said to be a record turnout. That may be a credible turnout figure, though given all the boycotts it seems a bit high. Still, it's not one of those "97% turnout" claims. For the record I belive the most extreme claim was Saddam Hussein just before the US launched the war against him, who held a Presidential election in which he won not 97%, or 98%, or 99% like his colleagues elsewhere, but a unanimous 100% vote. It's too late to look up the references right now; that's why you have Google.

A Bizarre Criticism of Serious Intelligence Analysis

One of the more sophisticated sites following jihadi Islamist groups is Jihadica, captained by Thomas Hegghammer, one of the best analysts of al-Qa‘ida and its analogues who is, like so many of the best analysts of this extremely critical field, a product of Sciences-Po in Paris (and also of Oxford). (In fact, he's so good I've published him in The Middle East Journal. Ahem.) In a posting yesterday, he notes that he is being pilloried by an author at FrontPage Magazine, a rightwing site, for studying jihadis. His response is worth quoting at length. As Hegghammer puts it:

Last week David Solway at Frontpage Magazine published an entertaining article ridiculing people who try to “understand” jihadism and its “roots” (his quotation marks). These people are like the cartoon characters shmoos (see also here), because, like the shmoos, they “recognize no threats, treat everyone as a friend and, even as they are about to be voluntarily exterminated, are all smiles and contentment.”

Solway proceeded to highlight yours truly as a resident of the “Valley of Shmoon” in good standing, describing my review essay in the Times Literary Supplement as an excellent example of the “sacrificial” attitude to jihadism.

As someone who studies jihadism for a living, I do not often find myself accused of not taking jihadi terrorism seriously. I am sometimes criticised for emphasising the political over the theological sources of jihadism, but usually by people who actually know what they are talking about (such as Raymond Ibrahim).

The Frontpage article is extraordinary in that it actively argues in favour of ignorance. For Solway, detailed knowledge about the jihadis, their backgrounds and their thinking seems irrelevant. Trying to understand the myriad of factors that influence militants’ readings of scripture and the different tactical conclusions they draw from those readings is humanizing the enemy, a moral transgression. Jihadists are religious fanatics and it is enough to know where they are so we can bomb them.

The irony here is that the people who work the hardest to “understand” jihadism and its “roots” are not academics or leftist intellectuals; they are the analysts in the intelligence community. The Valley of Schmoon, I’m afraid, covers most of northern Virginia.

Apparently it's offensive even to try to understand them. Excuse me? I thought 9/11 was the result of intelligence failures: so intelligence on the adversary is somehow suspect? As already noted, I've had the privilege of publishing Thomas Hegghammer, and hope to do so again, because he is one of the most careful and meticulous scholars of modern radical Islamist movements out there. That certainly doesn't make him a sympathizer. Fortunately (I hope and as he notes in his last paragraph quoted) most Western intelligence services actually prefer intelligence analysis to Know-Nothingism.

Sun Tzu (Sun Zi), who I think has stood the test of time longer than FrontPage will, begged to differ:

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

Just before the Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1941, leading to the fall of Singapore a few weeks later, the British in Singapore were actually briefed that they had no need to have blackouts because the Japanese were all myopic and couldn't fly at night. The first bombing of Singapore was, of course, a night bombing. They also were told that Japanese aircraft were unreliable and inferior, even though the Chinese had handed British intelligence an intact Mitsubishi Zero, which was the most sophisticated fighter in the world at the time. The fundamental reason for intelligence is to know one's adversary or potential adversary.

Some Thoughts and Observations on Somali Piracy

I haven't completely defined my geographic range for this blog yet, but MEI as a whole and the Journal in particular have long taken a "greater Middle East" view, going all the way back to 1946. Besides:

1. Somalia is a member of the Arab League.
2. The anti-piracy mission is part of the operational area for US Fifth Fleet and Central Command's Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT), based in Bahrain.
3. The sea lanes giving access to the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean are clearly a strategic element vital to the oil-producing states of the Middle East, and Somali piracy has already exacted considerable ransom from tankers on the Gulf run.

Before talking about anything else, I want to note three interesting things that as of this writing I haven't seen noted by the various talking heads and bloggers:

• The American ship that was attacked, the Maersk Alabama, is home-ported at Norfolk, Virginia. Knowing the area well, I immediately reflected on the fact that just across Hampton Roads, in the town of Hampton, is the spot known as Teach's Point, where the Royal Navy in 1718 once stuck the no-longer-attached head of one Edward Teach on a pike. The late Mr. Teach is generally better remembered as Blackbeard the Pirate.
  

• Combined Task Force 151, which patrols the area under the overall command of Fifth Fleet/NAVCENT, and will likely be even more involved now that a US-flagged vessel has been attacked, is currently commanded by Rear Admiral Michelle Howard, who was previously the first African-American woman to command a Navy warship.
  

• Oh Lord, this is almost too much: the destroyer heading to the scene is the USS Bainbridge, the latest of many Navy ships named for William Bainbridge, who among other things in a long career, surrendered his frigate Philadelphia to the "Barbary Pirates," leading to the campaign that brought the Marines to North Africa ("the shores of Tripoli") for the first time. It seems to have been the nearest vessel to the incident, but the synchronicity is weird.
  

The fact that, if reports are accurate, this has turned from a hijacked-ship story to a hostage story, the crew having retaken the ship but not recovered their captain, means the options for US Naval response will be rather different. I won't speculate about what, precisely, will be done. The question of dealing with piracy is a complex one, especially since parts of Somalia have become the sort of open pirate enclaves that Port Royal, Jamaica was back in Blackbeard's day. Part of the problem is the anarchy on the ground in Somalia.

At a time when the Somali central government's writ does not run even in Mogadishu, the particular pirate's nest apparently behind the Maersk Alabama attack, Eyl, is part of the autonomous region that calls itself Puntland, which declared its autonomy of the central government over a decade ago. (Unlike "Somaliland," to its West, which proclaimed its own independence, Puntland apparently still considers itself part of Somalia.) Eyl does not seem to be under the control of the Puntland government, either.

The Somali government cannot control its own capital and certainly is unlikely to develop an effective coast guard anytime soon. The local population presumably tolerates piracy because the big ransoms that the pirates are raking in adds to local prosperity in a country with no functioning economy. It's quite possible that the single largest source of foreign exchange in Somalia today is ransom. That tends to be an incentive for tolerating the pirates.

The pirate nests of the 17th and 18th century, like Port Royal and Kingston, were eventually eliminated by the Royal Navy. (Well, in the case of Port Royal, they had the help of an earthquake.) The present task force in the region is multinational, which always raises issues of unity of command and of coordination. Americans also have the singularly unpleasant memory of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, memorably depicted in the book and movie Black Hawk Down. Up till today, no American ship had been directly attacked, so the US had less incentive to take direct action.

Some of the talking heads today have noted that the ocean involved is a huge space and that it is impossible to patrol all of it. That's true, but an Aegis cruiser or two, a carrier with E-2C Hawkeyes, possibly AWACS operating out of Saudi or Omani air bases (admittedly a political issue), a couple of helicopter carriers, and it would be difficult for a pigeon to fly through that area undetected. (Slight exaggeration, I know. But if the pirates now have GPS, we now have a lot more than that.)

Of course, military action has its limitations, especially against "asymmetric" threats. Mogadishu in 1993 was a reminder of that, but so far not a single country has sought to mount any kind of special operation against the pirates, not even a commando recovery of a seized ship. I suspect that will change as the costs rise and the US finds itself more of a target. [UPDATE: my commenters keep me honest; one notes: "British radio news reported that a French commando raid had freed a small vessel taken by pirates, and the Indian Navy recently attacked and destroyed a 'Pirate Mothership' which eventually turned out not to be. Both of these took place off of Somalia in the past 12 months." I stand corrected.]

One thing that I do not fully understand is the fact that so few, if any, of these merchant vessels carry any kind of self-defense weapons. Four Somalis with AK-47s feel safe attacking a container ship or oil tanker, because they assume the crews are unarmed. Some of these big vessels are so automated they have only tiny crews, but the Maersk Alabama reportedly had 20 people aboard, and in the end they were able to overpower armed men though without arms themselves. But why not arm the ships? Armed merchantmen have a long history in combating piracy, unrestricted submarine warfare, and other threats to the sealanes.

I'm not the first to note this of course, but not only do the Marines sing about the "Shores of Tripoli," but Marine officers' swords are still modeled on the Mamluk sword presented to Presley O'Bannon. What started the campaign against Tripoli, you may recall, was the capture by the "Barbary Pirates" of the frigate Philadelphia, commanded by William Bainbridge, namesake of the destroyer sent to help the Maersk Alabama.

I'm not suggesting an equation between then and now — the so-called "Barbary pirates" were actually acting under color of state authority — but freedom of navigation is one of the oldest principles of US foreign policy, since the days of the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812.

Another point: although both terrorism of the al-Qa‘ida variety and piracy are fueled and strengthened by failed states and anarchic conditions, they are distinct things. Al-Qa‘ida is fighting for a religious and ideological goal; pirates want money. Pirates are a lot less likely to die for a cause, and thus can be suppressed by coercive means. There are no suicide pirates: there's no money in it. But some aspects of counterinsurgency theory can work against piracy as well: the key is to gain the support of the local population who, at the moment, see the pirates as an economic boon. If they start to see them as bringing the wrath of the international community down on Eyl and other towns, the pirates might lose some of their support base. (There's a complicating factor here, namely clan loyalty; clans are more important in Somali society than almost any other factor, and that is hard to dislodge. Just as the Pushtun code is so strong in Afghanistan, we may find it very hard to undermine clan solidarity in Somalia.)

Anyway, those are some initial thoughts, not prescriptions. I suspect we'll be paying a lot more attention to Somali piracy now that a US ship is involved. And this isn't just a jingoistic, insult-to-the-flag sort of issue: it's a genuine threat to the sealanes that contain much of the world's oil and container traffic. It's certainly an issue for Middle Eastern states.

Passover

Let me offer best wishes to my Jewish readers for Passover, which begins at sundown.

Pro-Hizbullah Group in Egypt?

Egypt is claiming to have arrested a group of Lebanese, Palestinians, and Israeli Arabs said to have links with Hizbullah and to be "promoting Shi‘ism in Egypt." Egyptian reportage in Arabic here; in English here; an Israeli take here, and the report Israeli Arabs were involved here.

Hizbullah always says it does not operate in other Arab countries, but various versions of the account also claim links to Hamas; there are claims that the group of nearly 50 had explosives and were studying the Egypt-Gaza border and the Sinai tourist resorts. All of this could fit with Israeli intelligence reports warning Israelis against visiting the Sinai over Passover for fear of terrorist attacks.

What strikes an odd note about the story is not that some Palestinians and Lebanese may have been plotting something in Sinai, but the reported involovement of Israeli Arabs is unusual outside of Israel at least, and the allegation that the group, which otherwise sounds like a conventional terrorist group, was planning to "spread Shi‘ism in Egypt."

Though Egypt was ruled by the Isma‘ili Fatimids nine cenuries ago and there is still an old Kufic inscription over one of Cairo's medieval gates with the phrase "‘Ali is the wali of God," Shi‘ism has not been very evident in Egypt since the fall of the Fatimids. But just recently we heard Morocco complaining of an Iranian-backed plot to spread Shi‘ism in Morocco. Is there some sinister Iranian plot to undermine Sunni Islam? More likely, I suspect, this is a means of rallying the Sunni population of Egypt, who generally were critical of their own government during the Gaza operation, by portraying the threat as coming primarily from Hizbullah rather than from Hamas, whose links to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood make it an awkward subject for the government. Morocco, I think, is doing something similar to demonize Iran. That's just an initial reaction and there may be more to this than meets the eye, but I suspect that spreading Shi‘ism was not high on the agenda of those arrested.

Syrian Opposition Splits

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has left the National Salvation Front which linked it with former Vice President ‘Abd al-Halim Khaddam, now in exile. Joshua Landis' Syria Comment, the best of the English-language blogs devoted to Syria, offers a preliminary analysis.

When Khaddam left Syria he seemed potentially a greater threat to the Syrian regime than he has actually turned out to be; Bashar al-Asad has successfully consolidated his power. The Muslim Brotherhood, crushed by Hafiz al-Asad in the 1980s, remains a potentially important force in Syria, and probably is calculating that the alliance with Khaddam was of less benefit than trying to work with elements of the regime, since contacts seem to be going on.

Bayanuni, mentioned in the article, is ‘Ali Sadr al-Din Bayanuni, the head of the Syrian Muslom Brotherhood.

Some Links to Check Out

No real work on my part here, but some things you should be reading:

• Marc Lynch on Obama in Turkey and Iraq. Good assessment, I think. Marc Lynch deserves your daily readership. I'm a neophyte; Abu Aardvark has been around since the early blogosphere. Of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't read me, too.

• This story is intriguing. Aluf Benn is not a sensationalist reporter, but he is clearly stating that the Obama Administration may be willing to take on Netanyahu over the two state solution and other issues. For an Israeli newspaper on the left of center (Haaretz) to suggest a major US-Israeli confrontation is possible is intriguing indeed.

• If you read my earlier link to the Egyptian short story The Earthquake of 2012, The Arabist has it all in one place now. It's not quite as satisfying as I thought it might be based on the first part, but it's still an interesting opposition satire.
  

• Well, Egypt is the country best known for Denial/Da Nile. Somebody had to say 6 April was a success, so why not write that it succeeded before it ever began? (Except, um, that it didn't?)

• Folks in Vegas and Atlantic City: Will Avigdor Lieberman leave the Foreign Ministry because of his outrageous statements that make a farce of normal diplomatic commentary, or will they get him on corruption charges first? What if the US Secretary of State was being interrogated for five hours by the police on corruption charges? What would that do to diplomatic credibility? Bonus odds: anyone willing to bet he'll still be Foreign Minister at the end of the year? Even Michael Totten, generally a very conservative and pro-Israeli blogger on the Middle East, is ready to see him go.

• There's an uproar in Saudi Arabia over the fact that a film managed to get shown in the Kingdom despite the ban on cinemas. While, the last I heard, YouTube was blocked in the Kingdom, I suspect that there will be a lot of electronic leakage of video that makes the whole cinema ban rather moot.
  

There's more I'm working on for tomorrow. Meanwhile enjoy these links.

A Sneak Peek

The Spring issue of The Middle East Journal will be out in ten days or so, and as soon as the electronic version is up I'll post about the articles a bit here in a shameless bit of house advertising. Just to give you a sneak peek however, I've already changed the image that appears at the upper right to the Spring cover.

Obama in Baghdad

President Obama's surprise trip to Baghdad, even though it was primarily to meet with US troops, helps to preclude any criticism of his choice of Turkey as his first visit in office to a Muslim country as being a case of choosing a secure ally. A good choice I think.

Egypt, The Day After

The day after the big day in which not very much happened, the fizzled protest and nonexistent general strike set for yesterday (see yesterday's postings) is a topic of discussion in Egypt. The Arabist offers a review of how the main newspapers handled the story (ranging from glee on the part of the government papers to dismay on the part of the opposition). And here is a good analysis of what went wrong with the much-ballyhooed Facebook approach to revolution. But as The Arabist notes, the most talked-about story of the day is the Ayman Nour divorce story I posted about last night. The Al-Masry Al-Youm story breaking the news finally showed up last night (Arabic version here; English version here). My initial suspicion that this was a publicity stunt seems to have been wrong, though there are still some mysteries about it and Nour's public denials.

Egypt's Weird Day Gets Weirder, National Enquirer Style

Okay, this is my third post on Egypt today, and well past my normal close-of-business time, but things are getting weird. Ayman Nour, who has been the subject of earlier posts, played a part in the earlier protests, meager as they were. But now there are reports that Nour and his celebrity wife, Gamila Isma‘il, are divorcing after 20 years of marriage. On the day of the big protest movement? It gets stranger: Nour denies the story. His wife's cell phone is turned off and she can't be reached for comment. Al-Masry al-Youm is supposed to be breaking the story tomorrow morning, but there's nothing on their website yet. Perhaps their web folks went home on the "day of anger" and decided not to post their big story till morning?

Now some Egyptian bloggers are expressing shock and a few are expressing suspicion that there's a publicity stunt afoot here. My own suspicions tend in the latter direction. If two of the stars of the opposition: the Al-Ghad Party leader and his wife, a former TV reporter, are getting divorced after 20 years, why does it come out on the day of the big protest fizzle? Why does he deny it? Why can't she be reached?

This blog is not going to do National Enquirer or Gawker type gossip (at least unless I get desperate for readership), but the timing of this is not just odd, it's downright suspicious. Ayman Nour was on the national stage today, getting more publicity than he has gotten since just after his release from prison. Gamila Isma‘il supported him through his time in prison and was his chief advocate and an ally in trying to keep the party loyal to him. So their divorce is going to leak on the "day of anger"? Forgive me if I react to this story with the same attitude I tend to reserve for the latest financial deal offered me by the widows of retired Nigerian political figures.

It could be untrue, or true but unrelated to the 6 April demonstrations, or even a sign of disagreement over the future stategy of protest. Watch this space. This is either a publicity stunt worthy of a Hollywood starlet's publicist or a regrettable event with an odd synchronicity, a reminder of the relationship between tragedy and farce.

More on the April 6 Fizzle

Okay, I guess the age of Facebook as a fomenter of revolution isn't here yet, after all. The 6 April Movement is going to have trouble explaining the results of the day after all the preliminary hype.

Reading various accounts of today's demonstrations in Egypt, it seems clear that the earlier impression was correct: the 6 April Movement failed to even score major demonstrations, let alone a general strike. A few reports from various places: here, in which the total number arrested throughout Egypt is estimated at only 45, and it is noted that at the demonstration outside the Journalists' syndicate, the State Security Investigations and other police outnumbered the demonstrators; this article entitled "Some University Students Protest as Others Play Ping-Pong," and, given the fact that the organizers urged the demonstrators to wear black as a symbol of their protest, I have to look at this photo and ask, does riot police body armor count?

I'm not making fun of the protestors: there's plenty worth protesting, and they did take risks in organizing their movement, but their ability to rally supporters has proved to be virtually nil. They had a good virtual presence, as I noted in my earlier backgrounder, but 73,000 Facebrook friends using pseudonyms is not quite the same as protestors willing to stand up to the billy-clubs of the security police. The Muslim Brotherhood "supported" the demonstrators but had few people actually on the streets; it may be that this Al-Ahram assessment ("Too Old School to Strike") is on target. Ayman Nour showed up to rally demonstrators at one point and apparently became the center of attention for photographers, but there seem to have been only tiny clumps of people at the main targets of the demonstrations (trade union headquarters, the Journalists' Union, etc.).

UPDATE AND VOCABULARY NOTE: I've been surfing English-language Egyptian blogs, websites etc. tonight, and one word keeps cropping up in a range of blogs from the Trotskyite left through the Nasserists and Islamists and on out to the fairly pro-government folks. The most common word in the frequency cloud, at least in my unscientific opinion, is the one I've seen in almost every posting: pathetic. When left, rightl and center all agree on the same dismissive word, your revolution needs a bit of fine tuning.

Some thoughts on Obama in Turkey

There are a lot of people — including many here at MEI — better qualified than I to discuss the US Foreign Policy implications of President Barack Obama's visit to Turkey, so I think I'll take a slightly different tack and consider how the visit is likely to be perceived by observers in the region.

As I think the President realizes, or is learning rapidly, the region is not a monolith, and insofar as his initial message seems to be that the US is not at war with Islam, he is able to articulate something of the nuanced variety of the region. An early visit to a Muslim country was promised early on, and this is it.

The main debate among regional observers seems to be about the appropriateness of Turkey as the venue. Let's consider the pros and cons for a moment.

On the positive side:

• Turkey is a NATO ally. As the only — oops, Albania's membership became effective last Thursday, so make that "as the oldest" — predominantly Muslim member of NATO, Turkey has a certain claim to precedence.
• US-Turkish relations could use a boost. Since the Iraq war, US-Turkish relations have been a bit rocky. Thus a goodwill visit should help; despite some protests most Turkish commentary seems to be positive (at least in English; I don't read Turkish).
• Turkey plays some key diplomatic roles. In addition to providing good offices for the Israeli-Syrian contacts last year, it is a useful intermediary with Iran as well.
• Major embarrassments are unlikely. Turkey has good security, at least in the major cities; many other Muslim countries would have posed a greater problem.

On the negative side:

• All of the above. The very reasons that made Turkey an attractive choice will be used by other countries to dismiss the significance of the visit, to portray it as something of a cop-out: "he's not visiting the Islamic world, he's visiting a NATO Ally." He seems to be preaching to the choir, not to the skeptics. Visiting an Arab country such as Egypt, or a non-Arab ally such as Pakistan, would have likely seen more protests but also would have been seen in the region as a bit more daring, though the Secret Service would no doubt have objected. (Another possible choice, Indonesia, where Obama was partly raised, is the world's most populous Muslim country but Middle Easterners generally do not identify with it at all.)
  
• Turkey's secularist and European-leaning self-identity. Although currently ruled by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamist roots, Turkey's elite culture is resolutely secularist, or laicist as the Turks themselves tend to say. Its Kemalist history and resolute state-backed secularism (the ban on headscarves in public buildings, the use of Sunday rather than Friday as the day off, etc.) mean that many Muslim countries see it as hardly Islamic at all (though of course the vast bulk of the population still is). Its determined efforts to join Europe (though so far unsuccessful) mean that until the rise of the AKP Turkey was often perceived as turning its back on the Middle East.
• The visit seems like an afterthought. After the high profile G-20 summit, the NATO visit and visiting a variety of old and new allies in Europe, the much heralded visit to a Muslim country seems to have been relegated to a "while I'm in the neighborhood" type of afterthought. I don't think it is, but I think some may perceive it that way.

In any event, it is better to have a President visiting a Muslim country and urging greater understanding and coexistence, than the alternatives.

The 6 April Egyptian Strike: a Fizzle?

The early reports seem to be suggesting that the big strike protest in Egypt scheduled for today is fizzling out as some other such attempts have: an overwhelming police presence, combined with a relatively small turnout of protesters and prompt arrests, rather like the protests on Mubarak's 80th birthday last May. There's a Twitter feed called #6 April, and the 6 April Facebook page, but the reports seem rather uninspiring: some arrests, some protests, a lot of online statements of solidarity, but no masses in the streets.

There's clearly no general strike. The trade unions did not buy into a general strike, merely some symbolic protests, so this is more of a youth-and-student protest day rather than a real attempt to bring the country to a halt. Being a product of the 1960s myself, I know how those in the streets may imagine themselves as real revolutionaries storming the Bastille, or junior Che Guevaras, but at the end of the day this particular Bastille is still standing and Che died horribly in Bolivia.

I know some Egyptians, especially on the fashionable left, are frustrated by the traditional Egyptian stoicism: it takes a lot to get the masses into the streets and really angry. In the salons of Maadi or Heliopolis, or the new gated communities in the desert, among doctors and lawyers and professors, there are plenty of revolutionary idealists, it's just the workers and peasants who never seem to get the message.

The country's history books talk about two "revolutions": those of 1919 and 1952. That of 1919 did have elements of a real popular uprising, but the "revolution" of 1952 was a classic military coup. ("Black Saturday" and the burning of Cairo earlier that year had more of a popular uprising to it, but it remained under fairly tight control as an anti-British protest.) The bread riots of 1977 certainly scared the government, which quickly rescinded the price increase which had provoked them — and the rioting stopped.

Perhaps it is the long history of the country that leads to a certain amount of fatalism: Egypt has a history that goes back to the First Dynasty, and arguably the periods of good government have been few and far between. Revolutionary violence often just brings in another set of faces and soon the new boss is just like the old boss: so why rock the boat?

Perhaps I'm misreading this: even in the age of social media and Twitter, I'm sitting in Washington DC and not in Cairo. But it's early evening there now, and nothing I've seen yet suggests that the impact of the strike efforts is much greater than a lot of student protests and probably expenditure of a lot of police overtime. Even the Mahalla textile plants, which were the center of the first April 6 protests a year ago, are apparently not on strike. There are scattered reports of arrests, but not in huge numbers.

UPDATE: The Arabist, who is there (unlike me), says essentially the same thing, and notes that others are reporting similarly. Only 40 arrests? That suggests a real fizzle indeed.

Video of Qadhafi at Doha

Here's the BBC Arabic Service's video of Mu‘ammar al-Qadhafi's performance at Doha the other day. (I believe the mustache is new, isn't it?) As Qadhafi criticizes ‘Abdullah, the Chair keeps trying to interrupt with Ya Akh Mu‘ammar... (Brother Mu‘ammar) and then Qadhafi launches into his King of Kings and Imam of the Muslims bit. Even if you don't understand Arabic I think you'll be able to follow the body language and tone.

Also, while I realize it's rather déclassé to comment on someone's dress — though much of the world press has spent the day talking about Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni Sarkozy's fashions — Qadhafi also continues to do the thing with the shades indoors, and if that red outfit isn't the exact color worn by Catholic cardinals, my eyes deceive me. At least, unlike some of his earlier jeu d'esprit fashions, it doesn't have big epaulets.

I don't mean to sound patronizing or worse, orientalizing. Obviously the Qataris, Saudis and many others attending in full royal regalia would stand out on the streets of a Western city. But Qadhafi doesn't dress like anyone else in Libya, unless I'm sorely mistaken, so this isn't a native dress thing, so much as a what-will-he-show-up-in-now thing. He is already the Elvis of the Arab League. Can rhinestone jumpsuits be far in the future?

Also, Brother Leader is five years older than I am. When I showed my wife this video (I am 61 and have pure white hair and beard and even gray is a memory), she raised what might be called the Grecian Formula question. I merely note the fact. His hair is still jet black at age 67. (So is Mubarak's at 80 plus, but there, there is a division between the Grecian Formula interpretation and the toupée interpretation. But that's a whole different controversy.)

Anyway, Qadhafi remains the Arab leader hardest to categorize. And it lets journalists keep "mercurial" in their vocabulary. And I have to give Sheikh Hamad of Qatar (I think that's he in the chair) credit for a great deal of sangfroid in dealing with Brother Leader. In a very different Arab Summit in "Black September" of 1970 (the one which saw Nasser's fatal heart attack at the end), Qadhafi — then in power for just a year but now the "dean of Arab rulers" — is alleged to have actually drawn his sidearm and offered to shoot King Hussein on the spot. If that really happened (I at least hope it's apocryphal), this latest episode was a relatively minor breach of protocol in comparison.

Some Algerian Election Reading

Since there's really no doubt about the outcome of the Algerian election campaign I haven't been following it closely, but I'd like to point interested readers to several reacent postings on other blogs: The Moor Next Door has offered a useful update on Berriane, where Sunnis and Ibadis clashed earlier this year; in another post he looks at how the Tamazight (Berber) issue is being handled by Bouteflika and leftist Louisa Hanoune in their campaigns in Kabylie.

And Maghreb Politics Review picks up an interesting piece from Algeria's El Khabar which actually discusses and even shows a drawing of the rarely discussed and almost never seen "Toufiq," one of the most powerful of the old generals. (The original Arabic of the article is available through the El Khabar link above.)

Down the Memory Hole

Here's an interesting story: two haredi newspapers in Israel ran the official Cabinet photo but removed two women ministers from the picture: one by photoshopping in men, and the other by blacking them out.

Rather Orwellian; why not just not run the photo?

Unrelated but also on Israel: here's an interesting piece on past and potential conflicts of jurisdiction on defense and security matters in the new Cabinet.

Those Sudan Strikes: Something Still Missing

The reports a week ago of the supposed Israeli air strike(s) on Sudan were overshadowed by other events — the Doha Summit, the Netanyahu Cabinet — but there is still a trickle of information coming out: a report that Egypt's Foreign Minister says Egypt knew about them at the time, for example. But there is still something strange about the whole affair. Admittedly, sometimes covert operations aimed at interdicting other covert operations remain hidden in the murky realm where they take place, but there are still some dubious aspects to the story as reported. Some versions claim that a ship carrying Iranian arms was also sunk in the Red Sea. Beyond that being a clearcut act of war, the sinking of a ship on the high seas usually does not occur without some notice, especially in as busy a sealane as the Red Sea.

The Arabist has bookmarked a report by DebkaFile, the wild, and often wildly wrong, Israeli website claiming to offer inside intelligence; even they find something wrong with the story as it's being reported. Several commenters on my earlier posts have also expressed doubts, especially about the Iranian connection.

I have no direct knowledge of what happened, and the stories told by Sudan have been inconsistent and sometimes wildly exaggerated. Here are some random observations:

• There certainly are smugglers' routes from Sudan through Egypt; but they have usually been routes used for refugees, drugs, or other contraband. Small arms no doubt pass that way too, but it would not seem to be the most efficient way to deliver a major arms cache. There are shorter routes from Iran to Gaza than through the Horn of Africa.
• At least one suspected ship carrying Iranian arms has already been intercepted and the last I heard was held in Cyprus; there is an international embargo that can be used to prevent passage of contraband arms, and since a ship in the Red Sea would still have to transit the Suez Canal, there would be opportunity short of sinking it to intercept. Sinking a ship on the high seas seems unusually provocative and hard to hide.
• By some accounts this happened in January during the Gaza operation. Why did it take so long to leak? No one is outright taking credit for it — it was US reports that pinned it on Israel when first reports blamed the US — although Ehud Olmert did hint that Israel had done something.

Offhand, and without knowing for certain, I suspect that there was some kind of raid (probably by Israel) against some sort of convoy in Sudan. I have my doubts that a ship was sunk in the Red Sea, until more details come out. I suspect some of the wilder stories (that missiles or other major arms were involved, for example, or that there have been a number of different raids) may be confused or outright disinformation on somebody's part. I don't deceive myself that the Iranians would not smuggle arms, but I question why such a roundabout route would be used. A run down the Mediterranean coast from some point in Syria such as Tartus or Latakia could reach Gaza or a deserted stretch of Sinai more readily than going via the Horn of Africa.

I'm not sure we'll know for certain what happened precisely. There are still a number of covert operations in the recent history of the Middle East that have not leaked out, at least in accurate detail. It's at least possible that whatever really happened in Sudan is being deliberately obscured by the classic disinformation strategy of leaking an exaggerated, somewhat wild account that cannot be proven.

Calendar: Lots of Upcoming Events

To steal a line from one of the upcoming holidays: why is this month different from all other months?

We're moving into a period when a lot of stuff is going to be happening: major holidays of two of the major religions of the Middle East, a possible general strike in Egypt, and the Algerian Presidential election.

Here's the countdown:

• Egypt's 6 April Movement is trying to hold a general strike and "day of anger" on Monday, April 6; see my recent post.
• Passover begins at sundown on Wednesday, April 8, and continues for the following week.
• The Algerian Presidential elections take place Thursday, April 9. (Put your money on Bouteflika to win, place, and show.)
• Western Easter is Sunday, April 12, celebrated by Middle Eastern Roman Catholic, most Eastern Catholic, and Protestant Christians.
  
• Eastern Easter is Sunday, April 19, celebrated by Middle Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox (Copts, Armenians, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Syriac Orthodox) and the Assyrian Church of the East.
• (Late addition some days later): Sham al-Nissim, a traditional Egyptian spring festival and day off, always occurs on the Monday after Coptic Easter, this year April 20, but it is also celebrated by Muslims as a spring break. The name means "smelling the breeze."
  

And of course, we Americans are supposed to pay our taxes on April 15. My daughter's ninth birthday is also within this time frame but I won't embarrass her by giving details of it here. And here in DC it's the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Anani [and Lynch] on the Muslim Brotherhood Succession

Khalil al-Anani, at the Al-Ahram Foundation and formerly at Brookings, has a blog called Al-Islamiyyun al-Yawm following political Islamist movements; he has a useful backgrounder (in Arabic) on the issue of succession to the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, which I've already alluded to in these two posts here and here. Anani also has an English version of his blog, but as of this writing it doesn't have an English version of the post on the Brotherhood. If it appears in English, I'll link to it.

In the meantime, he notes that discussion of holding elections for the new Supreme Guide instead of relying on the traditional Islamic method of bay‘a or declaring allegiance, would be something quite new for the Brotherhood. In the past, Supreme Guides have always either died in office or stepped aside due to illness, whereas Mahdi ‘Akef is voluntarily giving up the post though eligible for another term. He goes on to analyze the potential candidates and the various trends within the Brotherhood. It's worth a read.

UPDATE: No English of Anani up yet as of Friday afternoon, but Marc Lynch has a detailed analysis at The National, and also points us to an article there on the subject. These cover some of the same ground and if anything in even more detail.

Post Mortems on Doha: Do These Men Look Comfortable with Each Other?

Do these men really look comfortable with each other? Talk about awkward body language in an official photograph. Note the amount of space between them and their facial expressions, not to mention Qadhafi's slouch. And what is it with Qadhafi's right leg? Is that his Superman cape, or what? And this was their big reconciliation meeting after Qadhafi denounced ‘Abdullah. Really convincing reconciliation if this is the best photo they could manage.

The Doha fizzle is drawing a lot of comment in the Arab world, and Marc Lynch has done a good round-up here so I'll just refer you to him and not bother to do the same thing here. And if you don't follow his blog at Foreign Policy regularly, if you didn't see his last day of Doha posting I'd refer it to you both for content, and especially for his leading me to this great picture of King ‘Abdullah "making up" with Qadhafi. Talk about awkward body language. I'm reproducing a copy of it here but not from the Foreign Policy website as I have no idea what copyright claims they might have to their version and, as an Editor and publisher, I revere copyright. So I stole this one overseas. I think it's a Saudi Press Agency shot originally.

A Few Quick Takes

A few quick links in case you've missed them:

• Well, this certainly looks good. Avigdor Lieberman's party just took over the Ministry investigating him for improprieties. Good luck with that.
• The Arabist starts running a satirical imagining of a new Cairo earthquake in 2012, 20 years after the quake of '92. Part One is interesting, and it may be worth following for those of you with an Egyptian interest.
• A couple of new movies have Egypt's Copts complaining.
• Only in Lebanon can Hizbullah and its political allies be trying to decide on who their candidate for the Catholic Parliamentary seat in Jezzin might be

That Languages Poll

If you've been following this blog for a while you may recall that back on February 12, I put up a poll on whether or not I should link to websites in languages other than English. I offered several options and 25 people responded. Of the 25, only one wanted English only; the rest opted for any useful language or expressed a preference for sites in French, Arabic, or in a few cases Persian and Hebrew (two languages for which I have only rudimentary capabilities). So for some time I've been linking to anything that seemed relevant, especially Arabic and French sites. I said I'd run the poll until March 31, so the poll is now closed. I've removed it from the lower right sidebar, where it has been sitting for several weeks, and hope to get some serious newslinks and a blogroll up in that area soon.

Backgrounder: Egypt's 6 April Movement

Now that we've reached the beginning of April, the threat of a major general strike in Egypt on April 6 looms nearer. This gives me an opportunity to mention one of the most vigorous online opposition groups to emerge in the age of Web 2.0, the Facebook group known as the 6 April Movement. Begun last year as a youth movement formed to support the striking workers at the big textile complex in Al-Mahallat al-Kubra, the movement has been harassed and its leaders arrested more than once, but it has blossomed into an opposition group primarily communicating through social networking, particularly its eponymous Facebook group, which currently has some 73,000 members (and is currently reporting a wave of arrests). I've commented previously on Web 2.0 and Authoritarianiam, after Egyptian police were attacked by Armed Forces cadets and video was up quickly even though there was a ban on all reporting of the incident. I've also noted that some young, web-savvy Egyptians have even found ways to make fun of the security police on Twitter.

Despite the fact that Reporters Without Borders recently listed Egypt as one of the top twelve "Internet Enemies" in the world — (my report here, the full Reporters Without Borders report here, with the section on Egypt on pages 11 and 12) — the 6 April movement has continued to grow. From the Reporters Without Borders report (punctuation in original):

"Unlike its Saudi and Syrian neighbours, Egypt is a country in which freedom of speech does still exist. An independent press has developed and criticism is permitted.

"More than a space for expression, the Web has become a space for action, particularly through social networks, which little by little have started taking on the role of trade unions, which were banned under the state of emergency law. In force since 1981, the emergency legislation banned trade unions from political activities. But the most active Internet users call virtual rallies that can give rise to genuine political demands. One group, created on the social networking site Facebook, and boasting more than 65,000 members, [Today it's showing 73,000 — MCD] was used to channel protests in April 2008. Calling on Egyptians to “stay home”, it contributed to a general strike and one of the largest expressions of unrest in several years. Since no law regulated this space, the interior ministry in 2002 set up a department responsible for investigating online offences. As a result, security forces arrested around 100 bloggers in 2008 for “damaging national security”.

"One of the members of the 6 April Facebook group, Esraa Abdel Fattah Ahmed spent two weeks in prison for being a member of this group. Its creator, Ahmed Maher, a 27-year-old engineer, was detained and beaten for 12 hours by police in Mahalla, north of Cairo, who wanted to identify the rest of the group. Shortly afterwards, another blogger, Kareem El-Beheiri, spent 73 days in custody in connection with articles posted on his blog (http://egyworkers.blogspot.com/), dealing with workers’ rights and official corruption."

And it gained a fair amount of attention worldwide. Among background reports on the movement, see this New York Times Magazine article; a writeup on Wikipedia; a feature story from Wired; and a page on the movement's website explaining themselves in English. Another mostly English website is here, but hasn't been updated since January. Those who read Arabic can consult the Facebook page, this Arabic website and its "About" page, and links from there. The genius of the blogging medium is that I can point my readers to lots of background information without having to repeat the information here: click away.

The efforts to pull off a general strike last year were met with heavy-handed security presence, a sealing off of the textile plants at Mahalla from Cairo to prevent protestors from the capital reaching them, and a heavy presence throughout Cairo as well; but Twitter and YouTube and other such services soon had plenty of firsthand accounts of events. The security forces prevented an explosion, but the social networking sites made sure the opposition knew what was going on.

The 6 April Movement has been calling for a new general strike and "Day of Anger" this April 6. You can even download your anti-Mubarak posters from Flickr. So expect a reasonably tense day of protests next Monday.

The future of social networking sites as hotbeds of protest or even revolution remains to be proven, and certainly the North Koreas and Burmas of the world can shut out the sites by keeping computers and Internet access limited, but countries that are part of the global information system will find it harder and harder to suppress the use of social networking.

The interesting thing is that until quite recently, Facebook did not have an Arabic-language "front end"; there were plenty of Arabic pages and Arabic groups, but one still had to have some knowledge of a Western language to navigate the buttons, etc. Last month it became available in a fully Arabic format. Perhaps to show evenhandedness, a Hebrew front end was launched at the same time. (To switch to either, in Facebook one goes to "Settings," then "My Account," then you have to scroll down as the languages are listed in their own alphabets after the Roman-Alphabet languages. Except for East Asian languages which are in the proper alphabetical place. Consistency is hard in cross-language matters.)

And I just followed some links and discovered this Arabic-language website explaining Web 2.0 step by step and service by service: a sort of introduction for the masses; it seems to have been around since January.

Lieberman's First Day

Avigdor Lieberman has wasted no time in making his views known in his first day as Israel's Foreign Minister, making remarks that while Israel is bound by the Road Map, it is not bound by the Annapolis agreements of 2007, and later clarifying that his remarks were in fact "an expression of change in Israel's policy regarding the peace process."

The US has just reiterated its support for a two-state solution.

Lieberman may simply be giving voice to Netanyahu's reluctance to commit to an independent Palestinian state, despite acceptance of the Road Map, but the fact that he is such a polarizing figure in Israeli politics and so closely watched by Arab states committed to the peace process may mean that his policy pronoucements will be given far more attention than an ordinary Foreign Minister would command. But that also means that any negative nuances will be blown out of normal proportion because of Lieberman's reputation and confrontational personality. Certainly much of the world is paying close attention to his first-day pronouncements: here's Al-Jazeera English service's coverage of the statement, to give one example of Arab world coverage.

Netanyahu's Cabinet Needs an Extra Table

The new Israeli Cabinet has 30 ministers and seven or eight deputy ministers and will need an extra Cabinet table as the old one only seats 27. Ha'aretz, no friend of Likud, in the article just linked to, notes that a Likud deputy in the last Knesset called any Cabinet of more than 18 ministers "a waste of public money."

Ha'aretz also reports with some glee that the Cabinet may not be sworn in until after midnight Israel time, so it could be an April Fool's Cabinet.

The problem was mentioned here earlier. By the time Binyamin Netanyahu had handed out all the portfolios demanded by Avigdor Lieberman, Ehud Barak, and Shas, there wasn't a lot left to go around for his own Likud. Ministries have been subdivided to create new portfolios, and there are several ministers without portfolio. Israel is facing the same economic constraints as the rest of the world, but this is not an austerity Cabinet.

Tzipi Livni's first effort on the floor of the Knesset as Leader of the Opposition is on the case:

"No system of government has ever forced a leader, if he is indeed a leader and not a politician, to buy his rule with such an outrageous price and use taxpayers' money to pay so much for such little support; and all this whilst Israel is facing such a profound financial and social crisis."

On the pro-Netanyahu side of the newspaper fence, The Jerusalem Post is noting that three members of the new Cabinet, Netanyahu himself, Ehud Barak (Defense Minister), and Moshe Ya'alon (former IDF Chief of Staff, now Minister of Strategic Affairs), all are products of the IDF's elite recon force Sayeret Matkal. Barak and Ya'alon both commanded it, as did Netanyahu's late brother Yonathan, killed at Entebbe in 1976.

The prospect of Avigdor Lieberman as Foreign Minister remains hard to contemplate. It will be interesting to see how he handles the job. Diplomacy has never been his strong suit.

Kadima as leader of the opposition will be something new, though; the party was created by Ariel Sharon from parties already in power, and Tzipi Livni won good marks for her role as Foreign Minister and, in the campaign, for coming from behind to eke out one seat more than Likud in the Knesset, though she didn't have the allies to form a government. And unlike Barak, she had the fortitude to insist Kadima would do better in opposition than in a rotational unity government. As leader of the opposition she will have an opportunity to remain on a world and national stage while not being linked to the policies of the new government. She seems to have come out swinging (quote above).

Baghdad Fighting Prompts Arab Summit to Avoid Iraq

Iraq had been hoping that Baghdad would be the site of the next Arab Summit, but the outbreak of fighting between the primarily Shi‘ite government forces and the Sunni Awakening (Sahwa) councils has apparently persuaded the Arab League to choose Libya as the venue instead. The fighting is complicated and somewhat dangerous, since other Awakening Council leaders are threatening to break with the government unless ‘Adil al-Mashhadani, who was arrested last week, precipitating the fighting, is released. Since the success of the "surge" in pacifying Baghdad and several Sunni provinces was largely accomplisahed through the Awakening Councils, the continued stability of the country could be in jeopardy if the present clashes spread.

Other reports say that Nuri al-Maliki has asked that Baghdad host the 2011 summit, since the 2010 summit is going to Libya instead.

In this context, Juan Cole today notes the fact that many Sunni Arab states are uncomfortable with the Shi‘ite-dominated government in Baghdad. That is certainly a consideration; Maliki is also rather too close to the Iranians for Saudi tastes. And, of course, there is the awkward fact that meeting in Baghdad while American troops are still in the country would leave the League open to charges that it was tacitly cooperating with occupation. Nevertheless, the unfortunate coincidence of the clashes with Awakening and the Doha Summit gave added excuse for denying the next Summit to Baghdad. The Al-Zaman story linked above also notes that the Saudi King declined to meet with Maliki in Doha.

Given Qadhafi's outburst against King ‘Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the choice of Libya may seem a bit surprising as well, but Maliki's hopes for hosting the 2010 Summit were certainly undermined by the renewed violence.

Assessing Doha

As near as I can tell from the early reports, about the only thing the Arab Summit agreed on was that they don't approve of the International Criminal Court warrant against ‘Umar al-Bashir. The President of the largest Arab country pointedly stayed away, the scene-stealing Brother Leader Qadhafi did his trademark scene-stealing, and some lip service was paid to the Arab peace initiative but without any strong new reaffirmation of it. At a time when a hard-line government is about to take power in Israel, this might have been a real opportunity to promote the initiative, but instead the usual inter-Arab quarrels (and the Arab League's rule requiring unanimity for any resolution), tended to produce a fizzle. The unanimity rule, which makes only the most anodyne resolutions possible — except, ironically, the agreement to back Bashir, whom the rest of the world wants to put on trial — is not particularly popular since it makes the Arab League almost useless, but to change it would require (of course) unanimity. In retrospect it is almost more surprising that the Arab League peace initiative was crafted in the first place, but it would have been refreshing to see it enthusiastically endorsed by the Doha Summit. The failure of Doha to bring the so-called moderates together with the so-called hardliners (or even to persuade Mubarak to show up) probably bodes ill for the soon-to-revive Palestinian unity talks. A rightist Israeli government, feuding Palestinian factions and a divided Arab world do not make for optimism, at least in the short term. I will be delighted to be proven wrong.