Skip to main content

Home/ International Politics of the Middle East/ Group items tagged juancole

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Ed Webb

Is Oman ready to mourn Qaboos? - 0 views

  • Despite maintaining a low profile, Oman remains an extremely important regional actor, particularly as it is on good terms with both Iran and the Saudi-West alliance. In particular, Oman was the only gulf state to recognise the 1979 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel and more recently it has played a significant role in supporting the P5+1 talks over Iran's nuclear programme, including hosting the latest round of talks.
  • the Sultan rules through decree and occupies several positions at the top of government
  • Oman has managed to cultivate a reputation as the "world's most charming police state".
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • if we follow the categorisation of the region's regimes discussed by Henry and Springborg in Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East, we can see that Qaboos' Oman represents an almost completely different approach to government from most other regimes in the region. Indeed, it reflects neither the kind of practices of a bunker state – associated with rule "through military/security/party structures that are in turn controlled by alliances of these leaders' families and tribes", such as was the case in Salah's Yemen, Assad's Syria or Gaddafi's Libya – nor the kind of "bully praetorianism" which characterised the kleptocratic regimes of Ben Ali's Tunisia, Mubarak's Egypt or the PLO/PA under Arafat. Moreover, it also differs from the strife riddled monarchies in Riyadh and Manama particularly in as much as the ruling family has not gone out of its way to ostracise, exclude and oppress particular sections of the population. Instead, according to Henry and Springborg, "being the sole GCC ruler without a solid family and tribal base ... [Qaboos' Oman has] been the most assiduous in seeking to build an identity that simultaneously glorifies the Sultan himself".
  • the Oman 2020 plan, launched in 1995. With the goal of diversifing the economy away from hydrocarbons and increasing the ratio of nationals in public and private employment to 95 per cent, from 68 per cent in 1996. However, these two goals have proven somewhat contradictory. The high rate of foreign labour in both the public and private sectors has increased since 2009 when a Free Trade Agreement with the US came into force– more than doubling the 2005 figure. High rates of unemployment, low wages and the concentration of wealth among elites aligned to the government were contributing factors to the popular unrest of 2011-12.
  • Under a 1996 constitutional provision a council comprising members of the ruling family and senior officials is granted three days from the Sultan's death to choose a successor. If this process fails to provide a clear transition, then a contingency plan would be activated. This, as Qaboos himself told Foreign Affairs in a 1997 interview, would mean that: "As for a successor, the process, always known to us, has now been publicised in the Basic Law. When I die, my family will meet. If they cannot agree on a candidate, the Defence Council will decide, based on a name or names submitted by the previous sultan. I have already written down two names, in descending order, and put them in sealed envelopes in two different regions."
  • Oman faces a number of pressing, and distinctly Omani-challenges in the immediate and mid-term
  • 49 per cent of residents under the age of 20
  • some dissatisfaction arose during the height of the uprisings across the region in 2011-12. Though initially it appeared that Qaboos had handled popular protests deftly – through increased public sector spending, and some political reorganisation and an anti-corruption campaign – frustration at the slow pace of reform contributed to strikes by workers at Petroleum Development Oman and protests elsewhere. Authorities countered with arrests and a draconian crackdown on freedom of speech including hacking the social media accounts of intellectuals involved in the protest
Ed Webb

Iran - Salon.com - 0 views

  • he difficulty for Khamenei is that the Green Movement opposing his actions also wraps itself in the mantle of Khomeini's Islamic Revolution and will be marching to celebrate that revolution. They just insist that the Islamic Republic's constitution guarantees the right of public protest (correct) and that it exalts the rule of law over the personal whim of a monarch (also correct).
  • (Iran is notoriously hard to organize, being a set of mostly medium-sized cities separated by vast distances and arid, often craggy terrain; Khomeini used the radio, sending signals through BBC interviews, and audio cassette tapes, which followers played in private or in taxis beyond the hearing of the secret police of Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, the shah.)
Ed Webb

Does Iran really want the bomb? | Salon - 0 views

  • Perhaps what Iran wants is the ability to produce a nuclear weapon fast, rather than have a standing arsenal
  • I think a single hypothesis can account for all the known facts. These are: Iran is making a drive to close the fuel cycle and to be capable of independently enriching uranium to at least the 5 percent or so needed for energy reactors and also to the 20 percent needed for its medical reactor. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave a fatwa in 2005 that no Islamic state may possess or use atomic weapons because they willy nilly kill masses of innocent civilians when used, which is contrary to the Islamic law of war (which forbids killing innocent non-combatants). Iranian officials have repeatedly denied that they are working on a nuclear bomb or that they aspire to have one. US intelligence agencies are convinced that Iran has done no weapons-related experiments since 2003, and that it currently has no nuclear weapons program. Israel forcefully maintains that Iran's nuclear program is for weapons and has repeatedly threatened to bomb the Natanz enrichment facilities. Iran recently announced a new nuclear enrichment facility near Qom.
  • Those who agree with the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, as well as with the International Atomic Energy Agency, that there is no evidence for Iran having a nuclear weapons program have to explain Iran's insistence on closing the fuel cycle and being able to enrich uranium itself.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • nuclear latency
  • The regime has every reason to maintain latency and no reasons to go further and construct a nuclear device. The latter step would attract severe international sanctions.
  • As for the general Islamic law of war, it forbids killing innocent non-combatants such as women, children and unarmed men; ipso facto it forbids deploying nuclear weapons. It was suggested that Iran has chemical weapons and that these would as much violate the stricture above as nuclear warheads. I do not agree that Iran has a chemical weapons program, but in any case chemical weapons have for the most part been battlefield weapons used against massed troops or in trenches. Having such a program does not imply intent to kill innocent civilians. Whereas making a bomb does imply such intent and is therefore considered by most Muslim jurisprudents incompatible with Islamic law
  • Nuclear latency has all the advantages of actual possession of a bomb without any of the unpleasant consequences, of the sort North Korea is suffering
  • Scott Sagan noted in one of his essays that one impetus to seek an actual bomb is regime and national pride in the country's modernity. But this motivation does not exist in the case of Iran, since the Islamic Republic is a critic of the alleged horrors of modernity and because it defines nuclear bombs as shameful, rather than something to boast about.
  • nuclear latency is not illegal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treat
Ed Webb

Informed Comment: Nearly One in Four Persons on Globe is Muslim - 0 views

  • If current demographic trends continue, moreover, the world could level off at about 9 billion persons in 2050, and nearly 1/3 of those could well be Muslim. The really big Muslim populations are not in the Middle East, which is largely arid and wouldn't support such populations. It is in relatively well-watered places such as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia in Asia where the bulk of Muslims live.
  • One of the implications is that the US is a little unlikely to thrive as a superpower in the 21st century if its more venal and bloodthirsty politicians go on barking about "Islamo-fascism" (they never said Christo-Fascism even though Gen. Franco in Spain was a good candidate for the label) and denigrating Islam and Muslims and seeking to militarily occupy their countries and siphon off their resources. That kind of behavior may have worked in the 19th century before Muslims were mobilized, but it does not work now.
Ed Webb

Wagging the Dog with Iran's Maxwell Smart | Informed Comment - 1 views

  • I am frankly shocked that Eric Holder should have brought us this steaming crock, which is now being used to make policy at the highest levels. That a Mexican former drug runner being paid by the US taxpayers might have thought he could advance his career by playing mind games with a somewhat crazy Iranian expatriate is no surprise. That you could put fantastic schemes in Arbabsiar’s mind if you worked at it seems obvious. That anyone in the DOJ or the US foreign policy establishment would take all this seriously is not plausible. I conclude that they are being dishonest, and that this is Obama’s turn to wag the dog as he faces defeat at Romney’s well-manicured hands next year this time.
1 - 10 of 10
Showing 20 items per page