Saudi Arabia
This week provided a clear example of dyschronicity, from Saudi Arabia.
The Washington Post reports that the kingdom’s “most revered cleric” has issued a fatwa demanding apostasy trials for two writers who questioned an aspect of hardline Saudi Islam in articles.
The cleric decreed that the writers should be tried and executed if they do not repent.
Hence the 400-plus year gap between Sweden and Saudi Arabia on the dyschronicity map: Western Europe gave up this conception of the role of religion around the 17th century.
(Image usable with credit and link to FutureAtlas.com)
The Washington Post reported last week reported on wargames of Iraq’s future conducted for the American military.
The games suggested three outcomes:
Majority Shiites would drive Sunnis out of ethnically mixed areas west to Anbar province. Southern Iraq would erupt in civil war between Shiite groups. And the Kurdish north would solidify its borders and invite a U.S. troop presence there. In short, Iraq would effectively become three separate nations.
Other forecasts from the article:
- The games suggested that “partition would result” from a US pullout by a set date. “The games also predicted that Iran would intervene on one side of a Shiite civil war and would become bogged down in southern Iraq.”
- A retired Marine colonel “said that an extended Iranian presence in Iraq could lead to increased intervention by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states on the other side.” Iran might conclude that its best counterstrategy “‘would be to stimulate insurgency among the Shiites in Saudi Arabia.’”
- Most Middle East experts agree “that either an al-Qaeda or Iranian takeover [of Iraq] would be unlikely” in the aftermath of a US withdrawal; according to Anthony Cordesman of the CSIS in a recent report, al-Qaeda ‘does not dominate the Sunni insurgency.’
Two variables are central to future scenarios for Iraq: how unified or divided it is, and how the state or states are governed. These forecasts are another sign that the most likely future may be division along ethnic and sectarian lines.
In the July Atlantic, 39 American foreign policy experts were polled about Saudi Arabia’s roll.
Q — “What will Saudi Arabia’s growing role as a regional leader mean for the Middle East?”
- 55% “Very little, the Sunni Arab states will prove ineffective as counterweights to Iran”
- 23% “The containment of Iranian influence throughout the Middle East”
- 16% “Increased sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shia, particularly in Iraq”
- 5% “A heightened possibility of conventional war between Iran and the Sunni Arab states”
- 2% “The containment of Iranian influence in Iraq”
One of the 23% foreseeing containment had this to say:
Saudi Arabia, even if it succeeds in increasing its regional influence, will have little impact on developments in Iraq. It should, however, be somewhat more effective in countering Shiite radicalism in Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East.
Q — “How friendly to U.S. interests will Saudi Arabia be over the next five years?”
- 69% “Friendly enough”
- 31% “Not very friendly”
A respondent among the 31% said that “Saudi Arabia will be increasingly pressured by the Wahhabi clerics and jihadists to provide more financial and political support [to opponents of] Israel and the U.S.”
Source: “Saudi Arabia’s Rise?”, The Atlantic, July 2007, 34.
Ralph Peters recently offered a map of how the Middle East might look if borders were redrawn to better reflect sectarian and ethnic divides. (Click on “Next” under the map, then click on the map to enlarge.)
Among the changes that would unfold in this scenario:
- Kurdistan becomes a large, independent state, at the expense of Turkey, Iraq, and other countries. Says Peters, “A free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.”
- The remainder of Iraq divides into Sunni and Shia states, and the Shia portion unites with Shia areas of Saudi Arabia.
- Saudi Arabia also loses Mecca and Medina to an “Islamic sacred state.”
- Iran loses territory to the Kurds and Arab Shia, and to Baluchistan to the southeast.
- Pakistan is much-diminished, transferring lands to Baluchistan and Afghanistan.
- Afghanistan gains from Pakistan but loses to Baluchistan and Iran.
- “For Israel to have any hope of living in reasonable peace with its neighbors, it will have to return to its pre-1967 borders.”
Peters concludes:
Correcting borders to reflect the will of the people may be impossible. For now. But given time — and the inevitable attendant bloodshed — new and natural borders will emerge.
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.
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 Washington Post reports on popular Islamic activism in Saudi Arabia.
Spurred in part by the Danish cartoon controversy, people are joining grass-roots groups, signing petitions, promoting boycotts, and raising money for pro-Islamic ads to be shown in Europe.
An activist argues that this could reduce support for violence and terrorist groups such as al Qaeda, instead giving “people opportunities to take matters into their own hands and do something positive for their religion.”
It is not clear from the article that this is more than a short-term response to the cartoon flare up.
It is even less clear that this represents a new and constructive direction for Saudi Arabia. It appears more to be an intensification of fervor, and is partially manifested as hostility to the outside world (the boycotts) and a desire to control: activist lawyers “are studying ways to make insulting Islam and its prophet illegal.”
A writer attributes the new activism to “anger” — and anger can contribute to support for violence, whether by terrorists or the state.