Archive for April, 2006
According to the Washington Post:
Some analysts [in Nepal] say they believe that the tumult of recent weeks could open the way for an end to the insurgency, by creating a new political framework in which the Maoists can work peacefully.
Meanwhile, the Maoist leader interviewed in the article reinforces this forecast of insurgent extremism. The leader
denounced the mainstream parties as “status quo-ist and feudal” and said some Nepalis could be forced to undergo “reculturization” in labor camps following the inevitable triumph of the revolution.
An article about Dubai in the Washington Post by the perceptive Anthony Shadid begins with this quote by a Dubaian government executive:
The only limitations are your own limitations. No one tells you that it cannot be done, that it should not be done. The only pushback has always been let’s do it bigger, let’s do it better, and let’s do it smarter.
Those are ideas strikingly at odds with the passivity and fatalism common to the Middle East, and hint at why the United Arab Emirates is seen as a potential transformative engine for the region.
However, Shadid notes the dark undersides of the place as well, and its resultant dual character:
One is a dystopic, even soulless vision of the future, where notions of civil society, individual rights and identity are subsumed in the logic of capital. The other is a rare triumph of the private sector in an Arab city that provides a model for prosperity and a force for integration, reversing decades of disappointment and defeat.
Specialized free-trade zones sound like libertarian fantasylands, with “no taxes, no customs, no restrictions on transferring funds, little red tape — in short, a capitalist free-for-all.”
Dubai is having an effect on the Middle East already:
Already, signs of Dubai’s impetus are visible around the Gulf. Qatar, in self-conscious competition with Dubai, has launched a spectacular building campaign. Saudi Arabia is planning a free-trade zone on the Red Sea. Bahrain and Kuwait are trying to recapture prestige they lost to Dubai in the 1990s. In recent months, private and quasi-government companies in Dubai have announced investments in Arab countries stretching from Morocco on the Atlantic coast to Jordan in the Middle East.
It is in some ways a fragile model: 85% of the workforce is foreign, and so instability could hollow the place out easily. And Shadid notes that some activists do not care for the rapid pace of change, and argue that it would be slower if the citizenry had more say in the matter.
That lack of freedom may be a brake on success. Limitations on what people can say and know are at odds with the goal of becoming a global economic hub, as such hubs must be open to free flows of knowledge.
Ironically, Dubai’s social freedom’s might also limit its role as a regional model. The spectable of prostitution and alcohol-fueled nightlife could turn pious Arabs against Dubai’s free-wheeling ways.
Still, it is for now one of the most interesting experiments going on in the Middle East.
The Economist Intelligence Unit released its 2006 e-readiness rankings yesterday. The index is a measure of a country’s readiness for e-business, judged by Internet access, broadband penetration, innovation, information security, and other factors. More telling than the ranking is the country’s distance from a score of 10.
The ratings are a good indicator of general abilities in IT, and thus an important component of present and future competitiveness.
The top countries
Rank. Country — score out of 10 (2005 rank)
1. Denmark — 9.00 (1)
2. US — 8.88 (2)
3. Switzerland — 8.81 (4)
4. Sweden — 8.74 (3)
5. UK — 8.64 (5)
6. Netherlands — 8.60 (8)
7. Finland — 8.55 (6)
8. Australia — 8.50 (10)
9. Canada — 8.37 (12)
10. Hong Kong — 8.36 (6)
11. Norway — 8.35 (9)
12. Germany — 8.34 (12)
13. Singapore — 8.24 (11)
14. New Zealand — 8.19 (16)
14. Austria — 8.19 (14)
16. Ireland — 8.09 (15)
17. Belgium — 7.99 (17)
18. South Korea — 7.90 (18)
19. France — 7.86 (19)
Other countries of interest
Rank. Country — score out of 10 (2005 rank)
21. Japan — 7.77 (21)
22. Israel — 7.59 (20)
23. Taiwan — 7.51 (22)
25. Italy — 7.14 (24)
30. United Arab Emirates — 6.32 (X)
31. Chile — 6.19 (31)
35. South Africa — 5.74 (32)
37. Malaysia — 5.60 (35)
39. Mexico — 5.30 (36)
41. Brazil — 5.29 (38)
42. Argentina — 5.27 (39)
45. Turkey — 4.77 (43)
46. Saudi Arabia — 4.67 (46)
48. Venezuela — 4.47 (45)
49. Romania — 4.44 (47)
51. Colombia — 4.41 (48)
52. Russia — 4.30 (52)
53. India — 4.25 (49)
55. Egypt — 4.14 (53)
56. Philippines — 4.04 (51)
57. China — 4.02 (54)
60. Nigeria — 3.69 (58)
61. Ukraine — 3.62 (57)
62. Indonesia — 3.39 (60)
64. Kazakhstan — 3.22 (62)
65. Iran — 3.15 (59)
67. Pakistan — 3.03 (64)
Regional standouts in the developing world are Chile, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates. The low scores of some countries, notably India, China, and Russia, disguise significant specialized capabilities in infotech.
Max Boot gave his advice on Iran on “All Things Considered” on NPR this evening.
He said that it was basically inevitable that Iran would end up with nuclear weapons, so the US should bomb, in hopes of delaying the process.
The logic behind this is obscure, as it would ensure that we would face an angrier, nuclear-armed Iran. As Steve Clemons writes in The Washington Note:
There are many options between war and appeasement. One of these involves a calculation of whether Iran will eventually acquire nukes if it really, really wants them. If one believes that despite the course of action Sy Hersh has written about that Iran will one day end up with nukes — then a pissed-off, hostile-to-America, democratically legitimate, nuclear weapons nation is the worst outcome.
Clemons’ point about democratic legitimacy is worth noting. Asked to identify “the biggest surprise for the United States” of a democratic Iran, Daniel Byman wrote in the June 2005 Atlantic Monthly that “A peaceful and democratic Iran would still want a nuke (though the right carrots might dissuade it from pursuing one).”
That is more hopeful than Boot’s outlook — and many suggest that pursuing such a bombing campaign would undermine the already weak opposition and block any opening for change.
Military threats and potential sanctions will both make average Iranians more defiant and supportive of their nuclear program, a CSM article suggests.
According to an Iranian analyst:
“All the indicators are that many people, including those who oppose the Islamic regime, tend to support the program. In a sense it has become an emotive nationalistic issue for Iranians like supporting their football team. Western opposition has actually benefited the hard-liners here.”
It may be that plausible sanctions would not be enough to turn popular opinion decisively against the nuclear program. In that case, they would have to be sharp enough to deprive the government of the necessary resources — and that does not seem particularly likely.
The issue of self-determination for Pakistan’s Baluchistan is heating up again, Radio Free Europe reports.
Baluchis accuse the government of militaritizing the conflict, and some have turned to talking about independence rather than just autonomy. According to journalist Ahmed Rashid, “the rebellion has the potential of becoming even bigger than it currently is.”
The Pakistani government accuses India, Afghanistan, and Iran of backing Baluchi separatism — another potential point of conflict between Islamabad and those states. (A separate Baluchistan would be a beacon for the million or more Iranian Baluchis. If Iran is backing separatism, it would seem it is not very worried about unrest on its side of the border.)
The NYT reports on the growing relationship between China and Saudi Arabia.
This relationship is one aspect of a transformative trend: the growing role of China in the world as an alternative to established economic and political powers.
Some salient points from the article:
- “‘Saudi leaders are moving from benign neglect of China to considering it as a long-term partner,’ said Samuel Blatteis, a Fulbright fellow who has studied the growing ties between China and the Persian Gulf.”
- China takes a no-strings-attached attitude, as it is unconcerned with matters such as democracy or reform.
- Trade between the two countries has been growing at 41% a year since 1999.
- “The recent outcry from Congress and the American public over the possibility of having ports controlled by a company in Dubai sent a loud message to the Arab world, convincing many businessmen that their fortunes now lie in the East,” analysts say.
The latter point illuminates the deep foolishness of the anti-Dubai reaction from the standpoint of long-term American interests.
(It is worth keeping in mind that China’s wealth is still quite moderate: its economy is still smaller than Germany’s at exchange rates, the measure that matters in assessing global economic power. But that caveat will grow less important with each passing year, as China’s economy grows.)
The reports that American forces are already in Iran working with minorities sound like exaggerations or outright propaganda, but The Telegraph here reports that there is some restiveness, at least among the Kurds.
The grievances of Iran’s ethnic minorities are said to have deepened since the ultra-conservative Mr Ahmadinejad won power from Iran’s more Western-leaning, reformist government in last June’s elections. While his predecessors were more open to granting minority rights, he has re-imposed stronger central controls in line with strict Islamic laws.
Potential areas of trouble are numerous:
As well as the Kurds, Iran’s minorities include Azeris, whose homeland of Azerbaijan lies to the north-west, ethnic Baluchis, who straddle the east of Iran and Pakistan’s Baluchistan region, and Ah-wazi Arabs, who inhabit the south-west corner, near Iraq.
Azeris are also said to be growing more nationalistic, though this may be more about culture than separatism, as Azeris are “well-integrated into Iranian society.”
The underlying math is problematic for a centralized Iranian state: the CIA estimates that the country is only 51% Persian.
The Washington Post has an illuminating article on Iranians and their economic situation.
It shows how central work and the economy are to Iranians, as a million young people a year enter the moribund job market.
Ironically, it suggests that hard-line president Ahmadinejad was elected because of the economic worries (and resentment of the privileged elite), but will only make the economy worse.
On the nuclear issue, the reporter sees broad support, because people associate nuclear power with modernization and economic improvement.
This raises the question of how far they would support nuclear efforts if sanctions made them economically costly, or if they came to be seen an military rather energy-related.
The prospect of sanctions is uncertain, but an American official yesterday reiterated the possibility, even without UN action:
“It’s not beyond the realm of the possible that at some point in the future, a group of countries could get together, if the Security Council is not able to act, to take collective economic action or collective action on sanctions.”
On the issue of force, Iranians in the economics article do not favor foreign attack. Says one young man, “If Americans attack the city of Shaft, I will defend it.”
On the country’s Maoist rebels:
“In their heart of hearts, this is a movement that is committed to communist ideology, and if presented on a plate tomorrow with the idea of running their own totalitarian state, it would be quite pleased to do so. But they do seem to have realized, that in the current global and regional context, this is just not going to be possible.”
– Rhoderick Chalmers, Deputy South Asia Project Director, International Crisis Group, National Public Radio, April 13, 2006
(From The ICG weekly mailing)