The Iraqi Red Crescent relief organization and the UN have found that Iraqis continue to become internal refugees on a large scale–possibly 100,000 a month–and displacement may have accelerated since the US troop buildup began in February 2007, the International Herald Tribute reports.
For the moment, this vast movement of people is draining ethnically mixed areas in the center of the country, with Shiite refugees flowing toward the overwhelmingly Shiite areas to the south and Sunnis heading toward majority Sunni regions to the west and north. The demographic shifts could favor those who would like to see Iraq partitioned into three semi-autonomous regions: a Shiite south and a Kurdish north sandwiching a Sunni land in between.
This is another sign that scenarios of division are now more likely than those that include a unified Iraq.
In a new report on the Central Asian country, the International Crisis Group offers these forecasts for Uzbekistan:
- “While 69-year-old President Islom Karimov shows no signs of relinquishing power, despite the end of his legal term of office more than half a year ago, his eventual departure may lead to a violent power struggle.”
- “Little can be done presently to influence Tashkent but it is important to … assist the country’s neighbours build their capacity to cope with the instability that is likely to develop when Karimov goes.”
- “There are reasons to be concerned that Karimov’s departure may lead to serious instability, with potentially grave consequences for the region as a whole.”
- “There is no clear evidence the [radical Islamist group] IMU poses a direct threat to it. However, if the regime continues its repressive policies, support for radicalism may well grow.”
- Regarding claims of an Islamic radical threat, “if the regime continues to crush internal dissent, eviscerate civil society, silence the independent media and smother religious institutions, the danger that they could become a self-fulfilling prophecy will grow.”
I was quoted in World Politics Review on the issue of the cultural gap between Turkey and the European Union:
- In terms of value systems, “Turkey and Western Europe exist in different eras.”
- “When it comes to values and general outlook on the world, Turkey and Western Europe are decades apart. This phenomenon, which might be called dyschronicity, is even more acute if you compare certain parts of Europe to Turkey’s Anatolian heartland: the time-gap between Sweden and some rural areas of Turkey is something like three or four centuries.”
As an example, author Handan Satiroglu points out that at least 12 people have gone on trial in 2007 for the crime of “insulting Turkishness.”
And Turkey’s arrival in the EU “would multiply the number of Muslims living in Europe more than five-fold, to an estimated 90 million,” a challenge for the most secular of continents.
Turkey may now be prepared to join the Europe of 1950, but Europe has moved on, and it will take enormous change for it to even begin to catch up.
In a Brookings article, Moeed Yusuf argues that “the possibility of a violent takeover reminiscent of the Taliban in Afghanistan is out of the question.”
The reason, according to Yusuf, is that “for Pakistan to go down this route, Pakistani society at large will have to bite into the radical ideology” and “that trend so far is not evident.”
He writes that forecasts of a radical takeover misperceive a key driver:
Predictions of doom usually conflate religious conservatism with militant extremism. While in the case of the tribal belt we find the two strands linked up, they are distinct and different in the rest of Pakistani society. … Religious conservatism—as perceived by mainstream Pakistani society—has a lot to do with cultural attitudes and pietism, but little to do with militant extremism which has stark political overtones.
Yusuf identifies several indicators that Pakistan will not turn radical:
- Militants target the security forces, indicating that they do not view them as allies.
- Islamic political parties are electorally weak, and could not win a fair election.
- The “young urban elite” tend to receive secular educations that leave them more Western than traditional in their outlooks.
Instead, Yusuf suggest that “socio-economic polarization within the Pakistani society presents the only real threat to the state’s future,” as there are 30 million children in families surviving on less than $2 a day. Abandoned by the elite, the dysfunctional school system exposes these youth to virulently anti-Western attitudes.
He finds danger in this situation:
If this situation persists, Pakistan could in due course have a large population of underprivileged youth who could, potentially, begin to support a narrow radical vision of the state as an alternative to the failed experiment with secular regimes. If this segment of the population turns to extremism, then there will be a structural shift in Pakistan polity, for at the end of the day the military and civil service cadres are reflective of the society at large. This is a much larger threat than that posed by the extreme minority of madrassah cadres that can perpetrate violence, but have no potential to permeate the society.
Yusuf offers prescriptions for American policy:
The US current policy goal to focus on and reform madrassah education in Pakistan is myopic. It needs to emphasize mainstream public-education much more proactively to prevent radicalization among students in public-sector schools. This means more, not less engagement with Islamabad. Washington should continue to support Pakistan financially to ensure sustained economic growth and bring relief to these vulnerable young men and women.
Despite Yusuf’s blanket dismissal of a radical takeover, he seems in the end to provide a scenario by which it might come about. It might be “out of the question” now, but not, it appears, in a decade.
The Washington Post reveals an example of dyschronicity in Europe: thousands of people in Albania are engaged in long-term blood feuds between families.
In most of the rest of Europe, this kind of vendetta was put aside as social practice decades or centuries ago — revealing something of the challenge Albania will have convincing the European Union that the poor Balkan state is ready for membership.
Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress polled 108 foreign affairs experts across the political spectrum about terrorism and related issues.
Asked what country is likely to be the next al Qaeda stronghold, the experts said:
- Pakistan — 35%
- Iraq — 22%
- Somalia — 11%
- Sudan — 8%
- Afghanistan — 7%
The experts also put Pakistan at the head of the list most likely to transfer nuclear technology to terrorists by 2012:
- Pakistan — 74%
- North Korea — 42%
- Russia — 38%
- Iran — 31%
- United States — 5%
The experts were divided about how to change US policy toward Pakistan: about a third favored sanctions against the country, and a similar number advocated increasing US aid.
Pakistan likely tops both lists both because of ideological forces at work within the country, and because it is regularly cited as one of the states most likely to fall apart.