Abu Aardvark

Federalism is our path

No, this didn't come out of Joe Biden's office.  It's a map of a federal Iraq allegedly produced by Ammar al-Hakim's Shahid Mihrab Organization (a SCIRI/SIIC proselytizing organization in southern Iraq) and being distributed by Shia members of the Iraqi parliament (with dark murmurings among the Sunni commentators that it must have been made in Iran because of how Najaf is written).  "Federalism is our one path to freedom and security," it declares (update:  not "federalism is unity," as I originally wrote... on the low-res version of the map I was first using, I thought it said "tawhid" where it says "wahid".  Thanks to badger for the sharper pair of eyes).  It was published on an Iraqi Sunni website and then spread like wildfire through the forums and other papers - whether it's authentic or not, it seems to have become one of those viral images and to have touched some exposed nerves.   Can't help noticing that there are only two hands clasped together there, not three, and that the Sunni areas are kind of.... dark.  And small.

Speaking of exposed nerves, the Iraqi newspaper al-Zaman reported yesterday that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki mocked calls for national reconciliation and dismissed those calling for such reconciliation as conspirators.   Yes, I anticipate rapid progress on the national reconciliation front.   What could possibly go wrong?   

UPDATE:  more on the map from the Roads to Iraq blog ("about the half of Ramadi province was given to Karbala while the reality is; Karbala is the smallest Iraqi province") and Badger ("it isn't too much of a stretch to think that "security" in this case includes the point about having direct "federal" Shiite control of the whole border with Saudi, via annexation of that big part of Anbar.")  Also on the national reconciliation front, I thought I'd move up to the main page this article quoting a whole bunch of Sunni leaders, including Adnan Dulaimi, welcoming the designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.  I've been looking around for similar welcoming sounds from the Shia side of the Iraqi scene, but oddly enough haven't been able to track any down.  Anyone? 

So, what was going on in that OBL tape?

I've been absolutely fascinated watching the unfolding debate in the jihadist forums and various Arab media about what happened with al-Jazeera and bin Laden's Iraq address. 

Some things that I've been reading about the episode are just wrong.  This is not the first time that al-Jazeera has angered al-Qaeda.   The jihadist forums routinely lambast al-Jazeera, along with the other Arab media outlets, for not acting as the propaganda outlets that they'd like.  They've been frustrated for years with al-Jazeera's presentation of the tapes, cutting them up and airing only the newsworthy bits, with commentary and analysis from often unsympathetic guests.  That's one of the many reasons that they came to rely on the internet distribution method, so that they wouldn't be at al-Jazeera's mercy.  Still, it's clear that this one is something special - they are genuinely outraged, beyond the norm.   

It's pretty clear that, at least in the eyes of his followers and online interpreters, bin Laden did not mean what most people thought he meant in the address.  He was not addressing al-Qaeda in Iraq or the Islamic State of Iraq, or focusing on their errors.  He was not calling for reconciliation or admitting defeat (although skeptics would respond that of course this is what his partisans would say).   He was offering advice to the "mujahideen" in Iraq, but that is not being seen as anything new, as he has offered advice to the mujahideen around the world many times.  The main charge being leveled against al-Jazeera, in fact, is that its presentation of the tape was fundamentally misleading because it made it seem like he was talking about al-Qaeda's mistakes and misfortunes when the full tape makes quite clear that he wasn't - he was offering advice and praise to all mujahideen, which to these interpreters was the whole point.  There's also a lot of anger out there that the people who made their instant analyses based on the al-Jazeera version haven't come forward and changed their public views.   Ah, media criticism and bashing pundits- the common glue which binds together internet activists across cultures and political divides.  [UPDATE - I thought of a good American analogy for this last night. It's as if Bush gave a speech bashing Congress, and then CNN had only run clips suggesting that he had attacked Republicans, driving an entire news cycle dominated by "Bush attacks Republicans" - and then nobody changed their story after the whole tape aired elsewhere.]

So what was bin Laden up to?  That's where things get murkier.  There are a number of competing interpretations floating around the forums, some confused and some furious and some compelling.  The most interesting interpretation I've yet seen comes from Dr Akram Hijazi, who is one of the more prolific and from what I can tell most influential of the jihadi analysts on these influental forums (his essay is easily found on any of the forums;  ask me for a link over email if you want one). 

Hijazi's reading of bin Laden's speech won't offer much support for either side of the current American political debate.  He argues that bin Laden was speaking not as a political strategist but as a "salafi jihadist" (the divide between Muslim Brotherhood style political Islam and salafi jihadism is a particular theme of Hijazi's developed over countless essays).   Hijazi argues that the salafi-jihadist organizations are religious first, not political organizations with a religious focus, and that such organizations do not change their doctrines for political ends.  He notes bitingly that non-salafi-jihadists, even those sympathetic to al-Qaeda, always misinterpret bin Laden's speeches because they read him through their own political, strategic lenses (a sin of which I suppose I'm equally guilty).    

To Hijazi, this is a major mistake.   Bin Laden and the salafi-jihadists are first and foremost concerned with religion;  if they admit mistakes, the mistakes are deviations from religious precepts rather than strategic or tactical.  His major charges against the Iraqi mujahideen are that they are accepting judgements by bad ulema, or by hypocrites (munaqafin) who pretend to be good Muslims but who are really looking to spread fitna (internal conflict).   His call for unity is a call for unity of honest organizations (jama'at sadiqa) - which for Hijazi is one of the major theoretical innovations and points of the speech.   What bin Laden demands of the Iraqi fighters is religious sincerity and honesty, not any particular political strategy, and unity must begin from this religious foundation.     Hijazi notes that nowhere in bin Laden's speech do words appear such as independence or liberation or negotiation or elections or political participation or nation (watan).  That, to Hijazi, is the real clue to what bin Laden is talking about.   The mistakes in Iraq are deviations from sharia - which could mean an overeager imposition of hadud penalties without the oversight of a sincere and qualified judge, could mean fanaticism (ta'assub) in placing one's group over the umma, or could mean bestowing illegitimate recognition on polytheistic political institutions (like democracy).   Of course, the doctrinal and strategic likely run together - groups like the Islamic Army, which are forming the Political Council, would fall on the same side of the divide as would Tareq al-Hashemi since they talk about participating in the political process once the Americans leave.

This is just one interpretation of bin Laden's speech, but it comes from an influential insider voice.  Frankly, I'm not sure what to do with it, and since it doesn't really fit any political agenda over here it will probably be ignored.  But it seems like something interesting that people might like to hear about.       

Iraq: tactics vs strategy, revisited

Yesterday I spoke on a panel about Iraq to an audience of retired diplomats (DACOR), along with Christopher Kojm and Jim Planke (both of whom served on the Iraq Study Group).  My basic point was simple, and reflected the same frustration which came out of my conversation with Tom Friedman that turned up in the Times last week.   During the Petraeus-Crocker hearings six weeks ago, American public attention to Iraq peaked.  Then the moment passed, and everyone pretty much stopped talking about Iraq once it became clear that Petraeus had given wavering Republicans the cover they needed.   Fine - nobody really expected anything else.  What bothers me more is what has happened since then.  With the immediate domestic political moment past, the post-hearing period could have become a moment of real reflection about American strategy in Iraq. But it hasn't.  Instead of reflection, we've gotten relaxation and a change of topic (along with the opening of the new front between Turkey and the Kurdish zone).

That's a shame.  Because so much of the Iraq debate has now turned into exactly what we once promised to avoid:  political arguments about body counts, while completely ignoring the political dimension which the Petraeus counter-insurgency manual recognized as so crucial. We need to stop falling into the trap of arguing about the momentary success or failure of tactics.  3 fewer US soldiers died last week than in a similar period last year - we've won!  Iraqi insurgents launched 157 attacks last week compared to 163 in a similar period last year - they've lost!    Even worse, it seems like the US is committing the cardinal sin of once again falling victim to our own propaganda, believing our own spin, and substituing domestic public opinion management for hard thought about where we're heading. The relatively uncritical approach to the good news narratives now coming out of Iraq is eerily reminiscent of so many earlier periods of "good news from Iraq".  Forget Iran - even in the coverage of Iraq it's as if we've learned nothing from the last four years.

Body counts are only one small part of a much larger puzzle.  What I want to know is not the day to day casualty trends, or good news stories from some carefully selected hamlet, or the latest assassination of an Awakening shaykh.   I want to know:   does the devolution to the local level make strategic sense, even if it reaps short-term tactical sense?  Towards what endpoint are the tactics leading?   Do we want to see a unified Iraq with a sustainable political accord - the official goal of American policy, as Undersecretary of State Nick Burns reminded the DACOR audience yesterday?  If so, are American political and military tactics encouraging or discouraging such an outcome?   Those are questions that we could be discussing in this moment of relative American political respite, but there's really not much of it (a moment of self-criticism here:  I suppose I should give credit to the Biden partition/federalism resolution effort, even though I strongly disagreed with it, for at least trying to raise such issues.) 

Maybe that's because there is no possible winning strategy anymore, just better or worse tactics leading nowhere in particular.   I understand the logic of the bottom-up reconciliation strategy quite well, thanks.  I just see no evidence whatsoever that it is working: whether public opinion surveys, continuing refugee flows, or sectarian and confrontational political discourse.   Yes, Ammar al-Hakim went to Ramadi, which is encouraging - but his mission failed... and if you look at what he was actually trying to sell to the Sunnis, you'd be less encouraged than some people have been by the atmospherics.  Yes, Tareq al-Hashemi went to Sistani with his National Compact, but the Compact has gone nowhere.  And so on.  The national political level remains completely deadlocked, and the politicians seem to have lost whatever sense of urgency they felt back in August and September.   And all of those politicians behave according to the logic of moral hazard that the US has created - since the Bush administration can't credibly threaten to escalate and won't threaten to withdraw, it has no leverage over any of them while protecting them from the consequences of their decisions.  And even if those politicians did somehow magically come to agreement, their ability to deliver on any such agreement declines by the day.

I was surprised at the consensus on our panel yesterday (among three people who have never discussed the issue before, and from much of a very knowledgeable and experienced audience based on post-session conversations) about where Iraq was heading:  towards a warlord state, along a Basra model, with power devolved to local militias, gangs, tribes, and power-brokers, with a purely nominal central state. 

As I've argued repeatedly, this is the most likely effect, intended or otherwise, of the Petraeus-Crocker tactics.   The US is empowering local actors at the expense of the national level, while both communities are fragmenting at a remarkable rate.  The Sunni side is divided among the various insurgency factions (their efforts at forming a Political Council notwithstanding), the various Awakenings (which are themselves internally divided, bickering over power and personalities), tribes and local leaders looking out for their own, and an al-Qaeda movement which peaked last fall when it launched its abortive and self-defeating bid for hegemony with its ill-fated Islamic State of Iraq project.   On the Shia side, the UIA has fragmented, the Mahdi Army has fragmented (though reportedly Sadr has used the ceasefire period to try to sort things out), Badrists and Sadrists are fighting in the streeets, Sistani has lost influence and his aides are being murdered at an alarming rate, and as Jon Alterman has pointed out there are some 144 competing militias in Basra alone. 

This kind of fragmentation might help the US in its tactical maneuvers at the local level, and buy local stability in the short term.  But it is absolute anathema to any kind of national deal.  As Jim Fearon, one of the leading political scientists working on civil wars, recently put it, "a power-sharing deal tends to hold only when every side is relatively cohesive. How can one party expect that another will live up to its obligations if it has no effective control over its own members?"   It also deeply complicates any neat ideas about partition, of course, since there are no unified blocs to which one could easily devolve power.

Tactics working against strategy - that's been the concern I've been expressing for many months now. I haven't been reassured.  Instead of getting sucked into debates over body counts, or clutching at whatever good or bad news crosses the headlines each morning, the national debate should be looking at the big picture.  It isn't about how we are doing day to day - what are we trying to achieve? 

Is a warlord state an acceptable or desirable destination for American policymakers?  Whether such an outcome, if combined with a local Sunni power structure hostile to al-Qaeda, would pose a threat to American national interests is a debate worth having.   It would certainly mean a major climbdown from initial American goals, but, then, a lot has happened over the last four years and it's quite clear that the US doesn't have the power to achieve its original goals.  And it would hardly be optimal for Iraqis, since they would be condemned to live in a Hobbesian environment, and the refugee crisis would likely never be resolved.  Should the US simply acknowledge the reality of the institutional and political environment it has created in Iraq, or maintain its current radical disconnect between its stated objectives and what it is actually doing? 

Even if this is  a conversation which nobody really seems eager to have right now, it beats having to have the same conversation two years from now, or five years from now, or twenty.

UPDATE:  one of the commenters below brings up the point that the sheer magnitude of oil resources in Iraq makes control of Baghdad so valuable that an Afghan or Somali style warlordism is unlikely.  That's a good point, which actually did come up in the DACOR panel discussion, made by Jim Planke I believe.  The upshot is that the model for Iraq's future may most plausibly by Nigeria.  So, as before it's worth thinking about whether a Nigeria outcome (as opposed to Somali or Lebanese or any other outcome) is compatible with US interests (and Iraqi aspirations) and worth the expenditure of US resources to achieve.

The full bin Laden tape on Iraq

Just a very few comments about the full version of the bin Laden tape on Iraq, since that's all I have time for before running off to teach.  With the whole context in place, the tape is much less negative about Iraq than has been presented.  It is also, to my surprise, far less forthcoming to the "nationalist" factions than suggested by the al-Jazeera version. I had anticipated that bin Laden would be trying to find a path to reconciliation, in order to make sure that al-Qaeda would be represented in the emerging political face of the Iraqi resistance.  The recent comments by Hareth al-Dhari had seemed to offer such a path back in.  But bin Laden didn't really pursue that path.  Instead, his speech concentrated on placing Iraq in the context of global jihad, and presented a fairly uncompromising vision in which the burden was on the nationalist factions to repent their deviations.  In the full tape, bin Laden did seem to be pushing for reconciliation among the factions and denouncing factional conflict - but his concept of reconciliation was very much on his own terms. 

I would point out just four very quick things:

• the Islamic State of Iraq isn't mentioned at all, not directly or indirectly.  All references are to the mujahideen in general, and there is a lot of talk about the importance of avoiding factionalism or placing loyalty to a leader or group over loyalty to the umma.    While this could be an implicit critique of the ISI, that's only an inference since he does not tip his hand one way or the other.  One much-trafficked discussion on the forums right now focuses on exactly this question - and nobody is really sure why he didn't mention the ISI.   If they don't know, I don't think we should be all that confident that we do. 
  
• judging by the discussion in the forums, one of the key themes here is being understood as the escalating conflict between al-Qaeda style jihadism and the Muslim Brotherhood - both within Iraq and in the wider Islamic world.  Bin Laden specifically criticizes those who have chosen to participate in elections or the Iraqi government (such as Tareq al-Hashemi's MB-linked Iraqi Islamic Party) and describes participation in a "polytheistic" government or cooperation with American-backed security forces as "obvious apostacy."   That should be something for MB-skeptics to think about. 
• While there is certainly some self-criticism going on, as in the earlier al-Jazeera version, the context suggests that the tape is more of an invitation for "true mujahideen" to come back to the jihad, with no questions asked, than an admission of defeat.  He goes on at length about how all men make mistakes, and only God can judge them.   While this is likely in part an appeal for the transgressions of the Islamic State of Iraq to be forgiven, or at least submitted to the arbitration of "honest" judges, it is also an appeal for the ISI to forgive those fighters who have collaborated with the US and Iraqi security forces. 
• finally, purely at the aesthetic level, this is bin Laden's strongest performance in a long time.  While the first half of the tape is somewhat formulaic, during the second half of the tape he finds his rhythm, his voice deepens, and his rhetoric becomes both sharper and more poetic.  In comparison to the last video, which didn't seem to have a clear intended audience or a clear message, this tape (especially in the second half) felt like vintage bin Laden.   I don't know how significant this really is politically, but it's worth noting that his performance was strong and confident, not hesitant or defeated. 

Hopefully I'll have time to put these points together into something more coherent, but now I have to go teach a few classes.  The missing links blog has more discussion of this here, and here on Abd al-Bari Atwan's interpretation (see:  Hareth al-Dhari above).

UPDATE:  Abd al-Rahman al-Jabouri, the spokesman for the Political Council for the Iraqi Resistance, "welcomed bin Laden's call to unite the ranks of the resistance and to not give cover to the plans of the American occupation to frustrate the jihad in Iraq."  Bin Laden's tape, he said, offered a perfect opportunity for all parties, without exception, to set aside the mistakes of the past and begin working together towards the future.  Jabouri repeated the phrase "without exception" several times and specifically invited al-Qaeda in Iraq back into the fold - on the condition that they first resolve several outstanding issues between them and the other factions.  One resistance faction after another is releasing statements to the forums welcoming bin Laden's message, while urging al-Qaeda in Iraq to not miss this chance.  When Hareth al-Dhari said on al-Jazeera in early October that al-Qaeda in Iraq was not beyond the pale, it led some - including Juan Cole - to declare him increasingly irrelevant in Iraqi politics and "no longer a national figure".  But it seems distinctly possible to me (and to Abd al-Bari Atwan) that bin Laden's tape comes in response to Dhari's intervention, and that the Political Council of the Iraqi Resistance is interested in moving beyond the conflict with al-Qaeda to refocus on the occupation (and, largely unsaid, the Shia).  Whether that will lead to anything (positive or negative) remains very much to be seen.

OBL on Iraq: hold that thought...

Even though I'm extremely busy today and tomorrow, I had thought to write up something about bin Laden's latest audiotape on Iraq. There's already been quite a bit said about it, usually along the lines of bin Laden's admitting al-Qaeda's current dismal condition in Iraq.  I suspected that there was more going on, given the huge amount of discussion and commentary in the forums lately about the future of the Islamic State of Iraq, Hareth al-Dhari's recent controversial statement that al-Qaeda was not beyond the pale, and the interesting reaction to the tape by the new Political Council of the Iraqi Resistance.  But all I had was the al-Jazeera excerpts, like most everyone else.  So I went to download the full tape, at the suggestion of a friend, and found this included in the al-Sahab release:

ملاحظة / ‫ننشر هذه الكلمة كاملة بعد ما اعتراها من تزييف للحقائق و تحوير للمقاصد و تلبيس للأهداف من قناة الجزيرة الفضائية التي ضربت بعرض الحائط جميع أسس الشرف المهني الاعلامي .

Note: We are publishing the whole speech of Shiekh Osama Bin Laden After the tremendous amount of Counterfeiting of the facts and altering the purposes and objectives of the Speech by AL-Jazeerah Satellite channel which ignored all the pillars of honor professional media

(English and exciting colors in the original).  Maybe I'll listen to the whole thing before offering any commentary.

IIP welcomes Resistance Council?

The al-Haq News Agency reported over the weekend that Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi's Iraqi Islamic Party had issued a statement welcoming the formation of the Political Council for the Iraqi Resistance.

The Iraqi Islamic Party statement as published online

If this is an authentic statement (and I haven't seen it denied) it would be significant because it would mean that Hashemi - the highest ranking Sunni in Maliki's government, and recently the driving force behind a "National Compact" which received a blessing of sorts from Ali Sistani  - is attempting to bring the "nationalist-jihadist" factions of the Sunni insurgency directly in to the political arena.  The document calls on Arab and Islamic countries and international agencies to "deal with the Political Council and to recognize it as an important representative of a section of Iraqi society."  This comes at roughly the same time that Salah al-Mutlaq of the National Dialogue Front announced his support for the PCIR initiative on al-Jazeera and called for direct negotiations with these representatives of the Iraqi resistance.

The Political Council of the Iraqi Resistance seems to represent the most ambitious effort to date by the major factions of the Sunni insurgency to present a public political face and outline a political agenda.   It includes, among others, the Jihad and Reform Front (a coalition led by the large nationalist-jihadist Islamic Army of Iraq) and Hamas Iraq (a Muslim Brotherhood-linked faction which split from the 1920 Revolution Brigade last fall).  There's a fascinating debate going on right now on many of the forums about their program and their ideas about which I hope to write something soon - one of the most interesting elements of these debates being the way in which the conflict between al-Qaeda in Iraq and the PRIC PCIR factions is increasingly being framed as part of a wider, Islamic world-wide conflict between jihadists and the Muslim Brotherhood.  Other Sunni factions remain wary, al-Qaeda in Iraq has been scathingly critical, and I haven't come across any comment yet from the various Awakening Councils.

If the PRIC PCIR were recognized and dealt with by the United States or others as a legitimate interlocutor, it might well offer a way to bring these important factions to the table.  At the same time, it wouldn't automatically solve anything.   Their own position on talks with the US does not appear to have changed:  its foundational documents reject the legitimacy of the current government and all laws passed under American occupation, and leaders of its constituent factions have said repeatedly that they would only talk to the United States after it said a clear and binding timetable for withdrawal.    Dealing with the PRIC PCIR would challenge the privileged position of the various Awakenings and Salvation Councils through which the US currently prefers to work.   It would likely be far less forthcoming towards the US, but might be more able to deliver on its agreements given the weight of the insurgency groups within the Sunni community.   Maliki's government and the other Shia factions would be even less happy with this than they are with the American deals with the Awakenings.   

Still, the fact that the IIP seems interested in backing the PRIC PCIR is an intriguing development worth following.

Abd el-Monem Said at Brandeis

Back from Boston.   Baseball fans might have noticed that my temporary presence on the Red Sox roster seems to have made a difference.  I didn't make it to the mound, but I'd like to think that my steadying veteran presence made a contribution - Curt Schilling, in particular, seemed to appreciate having a fellow blogger around. 

On the academic side, I thorougly enjoyed the Crown Center's conference on the Middle East.  It was fascinating to see Iran experts Naghmeh Sohrabi and Farideh Farhi mix it up with a former Israeli defense official about Iranian intentions, to see Josh Landis and Itamar Rabinovich debate Syria's attitudes towards peace with Israel, to finally meet the distinguished Israeli historian of Jordan Asher Susser, and more (I won't even mention the challenges posed by the stage setup to the, shall we say, differently gendered when said gender happened to be wearing a skirt).  One of the most interesting themes running through the conference - notably by Roger Owen and Jon Alterman - about the increasingly Asian orientation of Gulf economies and societies.   That's something to which I haven't given enough thought, and it does raise some provocative questions... for another day.

For me personally, the highlight was the chance to debate the Muslim Brotherhood in public and private with the well-known Egyptian political scientist Abd el-Monem Said (director of the Ahram Center for Strategic Studies, member of the NDP's Policy Bureau, and prolific columnist for al-Sharq al-Awsat, al-Ahram, and other newspapers).  Said was one of the first and most prominent critics of the MB's draft political party platform, and has been a long-time skeptic of the Brotherhood's democratic credentials.  I won't say anything here about our lengthy private discussions, but our public exchanges brought out some very interesting and constructive points of disagreement.

We basically agreed in characterizing the MB as a divided organization which has been struggling to define its goals and its strategies in the face of both internal disagreements and a rapidly changing political environment.  But where I am impressed by the potential and performance of the MB's pragmatists over the last few years, Said sees the hard-line, conservative face presented in the draft party document as  the majority trend within the MB.   Despite the MB's willingness to participate in elections, Said sees the MB as inherently undemocratic in its goals and methods:  he described their agenda of social transformation and the creation of new Islamic individuals as totalitarian by nature, and their attempt to evaluate legislation in terms of religious dictates of right and wrong as contrary to the spirit of pragmatic problem solving and bargaining.   The devil is in the details, he argued, and even the seemingly liberal documents produced by the Brotherhood over the last few years fail to impress him as genuinely democratic.  Finally, he disputed the claim that the Brotherhood is experience significant repression - for an organization of perhaps 100,000 members the arrest of a few dozen or even few hundred leaders isn't that big a deal.

I disagreed about how to read the earlier MB political documents - the 2004 reform document, the 2005 Parliamentary election platform, the 2007 Shura Council election platform, and others.   I think that he seriously underestimates the importance of the evolution of the MB's political discourse in the direction of an embrace of democracy and public freedoms.  I also think he profoundly understates the repressive turn in Egypt over the last few years, and the corrosive effect on the rule of law of such things as using military courts against Brotherhood leaders and going after opposition journalists on flimsy pretenses.  I also didn't think that he had a good answer to my arguments about how the MB had demonstrated its democratic commitments through both words and deeds over the last few years - in electoral participation in 2005 and 2007, in refraining from demonstrations and protests, in its policy documents, and simply in remaining committed to the electoral realm despite all efforts to force it to retreat.  Of course the Brotherhood has not become liberal, but it has done pretty much everything it can do to prove its commitment to the democratic process short of running in an election, winning, governing, losing an election, and surrendering power peacefully - none of which is likely to be a realistic possibility any time soon.   

At any rate, I'll make this case much more systematically - with footnotes and everything! - in a paper coming out quite soon.  These arguments won't be resolved any time soon, and it's great to have them in such a constructive way.  I've already benefited from his comments on a previous draft, and since he does read Abu Aardvark, I hope that he'll send me a note if I've mischaracterized his public statements in any way - or if he wants to continue the discussion here!

Abd el-Monem Said also made one other very interesting remark during the open session worth highlighting here.  I asked him about what he thought, as a political scientist and as a member of the NDP's Policy Committee, about what would happen when Hosni Mubarak left the scene.  His response:  absolutely, categorically, 100% definitively, Gamal Mubarak will not become President.   He said that the succession issue had been driven by the political opposition and by the foreign media, but had little to do with reality. If Mubarak lasted until the next election, then there would be an open competition for the NDP nomination, in which Gamal would have a chance but would not be likely to muster a majority from among the various barons and cadres of the NDP.  If Mubarak passed on before the next scheduled election, the likely next President would be neither Gamal nor someone from the military.     It would be the Secretary-General of the NDP - Safwat al-Sharif.  I thought that was kind of an interesting analysis;   Egypt-watchers, have at it.

UPDATE:  Abd el-Monem Said offers his thoughts in his al-Sharq al-Awsat column today, here.  He says that it is a rare bit of good news that the MB has announced that it will review the draft party proposal, but that he does not expect it to be a real change because the problems with Brotherhood ideology run too deep.

UPDATE 2:  And a full response here, elevated from comments:

I think you have misrepresented my comments. There was no defense of the government repression of the Brothers. I did denounce it in public in newspapers articles the military courts and other forms of extra legal treatment of the Brothers. Yet, I did not see that as repressive as Nasser did, nor as Assad did in Hama. There is was never a massive assualt on the Brothers to arrest the supreme guide or to arrest their members of Parliament. That does not make the repression nice or commendable. It is just to put the analysis in perspective; and more important to make it a justfication for the totalitarian views of the Brothers. I have pointed in clear terms their record in Parliament regarding the Bahais, the converted Muslims to christianity, the Higab issue, and their programs from 2004 onward which speaks for the creation of the " faithful man" through a process of indoctronation customary of totalitarian parties. Their socio-economic very interventionist program and their national security perspective is typical of parties which are ready to whip their population for a frenzy of hatred of the others. Abdel Monem Said Aly

Heydemann: Upgrading Arab Authoritarianism

Steve Heydemann, an outstanding political scientist and Middle East specialist who is currently Associate Vice President of the Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program and Special Advisor to the Muslim World Initiative at the US Institute for Peace, recently published an extremely interesting Brookings working paper on the evolution of Arab authoritarianism.  I asked him to adapt its main points for an Abu Aardvark audience, and he graciously agreed.   You can read the whole thing here.   

UPGRADING AUTHORITARIANISM IN THE ARAB WORLD

STEVEN HEYDEMANN

In recent years, a new model of authoritarian governance has emerged in a number of key Arab states. A product more of trial and error more than intentional design, Arab regimes have adapted to pressures for political change by developing strategies to contain and manage demands to democratize. They have expanded political spaces—electoral arenas in particular—where controlled forms of political contestation can occur. They have also tempered their opposition to Islamist political participation. In some instances, notably Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, Islamist representatives have secured meaningful representation in parliament.

Regimes have also adapted selectively to demands for economic liberalization and the integration of Arab economies into global markets, and expanded opportunities for social and economic élites. They have developed techniques for managing and easing public access to the internet and new communications technologies that until recently were resisted as potential carriers of democratic ideas. They have also recognized that authoritarian governance is not inconsistent with, and that its persistence may actually depend upon, the strengthening of state capacity and public services through programs such as civil service reform, education reform, and labor market reform.

In addition, upgrading has involved shifts in the foreign policies of Arab regimes. They increasingly seek out trade, investment, and political ties with states that either share or are broadly sympathetic to the political concerns of Arab autocrats in the Levant and North Africa, such as the Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf. They have built relations with states such as China that are largely indifferent to issues of human rights and democracy. This not a “zero sum game” for these Arab regimes. They continue to enhance their commercial relationships with European Union countries and the United States. Yet the diversification of their economic and political relationships generates new sources of leverage for Arab regimes in an international system dominated by the United States, even while diminishing the West’s economic and diplomatic influence.

Authoritarian upgrading consists in other words not in shutting down and closing off Arab societies from globalization and other forces of political, economic, and social change. Nor is it based simply on the willingness of Arab governments to repress their opponents. Instead, authoritarian upgrading involves reconfiguring authoritarian governance to accommodate and manage changing political, economic, and social conditions. It originated in no small part as a defensive response to challenges confronting Arab autocrats during the past two decades. In recent years, however, authoritarian upgrading has accelerated. It has benefited from U.S. failures in Iraq, and the association of democracy promotion with regime change, social violence and political chaos. Yet the core features of authoritarian upgrading have been shaped more by concerns about how to sustain authoritarian governance in an era of global democratization than in response to U.S. experiences in Iraq.

Authoritarian upgrading takes a variety of forms, each influenced by the particular tensions facing individual regimes. Consequently, it would be a mistake to exaggerate its coherence. There is no single model or template of authoritarian upgrading that Arab regimes have followed. Nor should we overstate the capacity of Arab regimes to absorb and implement policy innovations.

What is clear, however, is that authoritarian upgrading is shaped by what might be called “authoritarian learning.” Lessons and strategies that originate within, and outside the Middle East, are diffused across the region, traveling from regime to regime and being modified in the process. Regimes learn from one another, often through explicit sharing of experiences. However, they also learn by observing experiences elsewhere. Most recently, China has emerged as a model of particular interest for Arab governments exploring ways to improve economic performance without conceding political control. Yet learning goes well beyond fascination with the Chinese model.

While attention was focused in the 1990s on prospects for global democratization, what transpired in much of the developing world was instead the globalization of new hybrid forms of authoritarian governance, including electoral-authoritarian, competitive authoritarian, and other hybrid regime types that exploit elements of openness and contestation to reinforce systems of authoritarian rule. The Arab world is often treated as exceptional in its resistance to democratization—a global outlier that avoided the so-called Third Wave of democratization. Yet its experience of authoritarian upgrading and the rise of new hybrid styles of authoritarian governance across the region place the Arab world squarely within leading global trends over the past decade or more. As a result, authoritarian upgrading in different countries exhibits shared features and reflects common perceptions among Arab autocrats and their counterparts outside the Middle East about how best to position their regimes to survive.

These emerging strategies of governance have undermined gains achieved by democracy promotion programs, and will continue to blunt their impact in the future. Has democracy promotion in its current form run its course? Has it outlived its usefulness? The possibility should be on the table. If democracy promotion has, even if unintentionally, provided Arab regimes with new tools for securing authoritarian forms of governance, should it be continued? If so, in what form?

At a minimum, authoritarian upgrading underscores the need to rethink how the U.S. pursues democracy promotion and to recognize, in particular, that Arab regimes are converging around policies that are explicitly designed to stabilize and preserve authoritarian rule in the context of ongoing demands for political change. At the same time, authoritarian upgrading holds out clues to the kinds of democratic changes it is reasonable to expect in the Arab world, and how these are likely to differ from the Latin American and Eastern European experiences that have been a principal inspiration for U.S. democracy promotion policies worldwide. To be effective in this context, democracy promotion efforts must also adapt.

After twenty years, Arab regimes have become proficient at containing and disarming democracy promotion—if not exploiting it for their own purposes. Strategies that take advantage of the openings offered by authoritarian upgrading are more likely to advance democratic change in the Middle East than the continuation of policies that do not take into account how governance in the Arab world is being transformed. Two openings hold out particular promise:

•    First, adapting U.S. democracy promotion policies to exploit more effectively the openings that upgrading itself produces;

•    Second, taking steps to weaken the coalitions on which upgrading depends.

Both will require substantial adjustments in U.S. democracy promotion policies.

(Editorial note:  to find out what such adjustments might be, read the paper.)   

Weekend in Boston

I'll be in Boston over the weekend.  Yes, the secret is out - it turns out that the Red Sox decided they needed someone other than Eric Gagne in short relief and called me up.   I told them that I'm "late thirty-something" years old, I've always been a starter, and I hate the Red Sox, but did they listen?  No... "statistical formulas" don't lie, or some foolishness like that.  So seeing as how I still pack heat like the oven door, I'll be blowing the dust off the old chainsaw and thus out of touch (and also missing the DC party of the year, from what I hear, though I hope everyone has fun without me).   

On the off-chance that the Red Sox don't need me, though, I'll try to drop in on at the annual conference of Brandeis University's Crown Center for Middle East Studies, "The Middle East Today: New Perspectives on a Changing Landscape."  While I'm there, I might as well give a talk about "what the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood wants", and listen to presentations by Abdel Monem Said Aly, Asher Susser, Stacey Yadav, Nagmeh Sohrabi, Farideh Farhi, Nader Habibi, Jon Alterman, Khalil Shikaki, Yehuda Ben Meir, Joshua Landis, Itamar Rabinovich and Shai Feldman.  As far as I know, it's open to the public (though they seem to be asking for pre-registration on their website).   Blogging over the weekend will be subject to the whims of the gods of wireless.

Next week my schedule calms down and blogging about things other than my travel schedule will hopefully resume. 

Maryland talk

This afternoon I gave a talk at the University of Maryland comparing the Muslim Brotherhood's political and persuasive strategies with those of other Islamist groups. Many thanks to Shibley Telhami for hosting me, to Shana Marshall for organizing it, and to the good-sized audience for their excellent questions.   It was very interesring - oh, you should have been there.  I would write it up, but it took me over an hour and a half of driving aimlessly through College Park before I could finally find the frickin beltway again, and now I'm in a foul mood and would rather go get my kids.  Sorry.