Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are illustrating that the unrest spreading across the Middle East will not happen the same way in any two places, nor are all authoritarian countries equally susceptible.
Writing in the Washington Post, Scott Wilson offers a hint at why Saudi Arabia has remained largely quiet:
The aging monarchy of Saudi Arabia, home to roughly a fifth of the world’s proven oil reserves, governs a population where many are influenced by the most extreme interpretation of Islam, one hostile to Western culture. The cosmopolitan Saudi elite fear the majority and have accepted the Sauds as an alternative to a more severe Islamist government. How the octogenarian leadership would weather a popular uprising is unclear.
In other words, the kind of cosmopolitan, educated elite who were crucial to the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt may know that instability, and perhaps even democracy, would not bode well for them or their values. Wilson implies that they see the Saudi government as a force tamping down the retrograde inclinations of the country’s populace, and that a (post-)Saudi democracy might be even more repressive, because that is what the populace might want.
The Saudi rulers also have enough money that they can prevent the level of poverty that have helped bring people to the streets in many countries.
As for Bahrain, Vali Nasr tweeted today, “Bahrain protest is existential threat to Sunni monarchy and minority rule. Regime will react much more harshly than Mubarak.”
Nasr is identifying a key variable: whether a country is ruled by a minority — Syria with its Alawis is an example — that would have much to lose in a democracy.
Bahrain is dominated by a Sunni minority. Unlike in Egypt, where the ruling partly might plausibly win an election in a few years, democracy in Bahrain likely means defeat: the Sunnis could plausibly foresee being shut out of power for years, even decades. They might even be subjected to economic reprisal as the Shia majority use government to divert resources and opportunities to themselves.
*****************************
Image courtesy NASA
Some patterns are emerging from the Middle East unrest that began in Tunisia.
This chart combines three factors that seem relevant:
Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, and Yemen are highly similar when plotted against these variables.
- They all have a “5″ level of civil liberties, as assigned by Freedom House; this might be characterized as medium-bad.
- While their income levels vary, they have similar poor levels of economic freedom, characteristic of the state-heavy Arab approach. This chart reflects a multiplier effect for higher levels of economic freedom.
Is it predictive? Where countries end up on the plot may reflect these factors:
- Countries too far to the right on civil liberties — at 6/7 levels — may be too repressive for people power to succeed. Thus, Iran already had its Egypt moment (for now), but it was suppressed. This will be tested as people attempt to demonstrate in Syria.
- Countries too high on the chart may be purchasing stability with wealth (and economic openness). Poverty is absent as a driver, and more of the population is effectively middle class. (Though note Bahrain, which cannot be called truly stable.)
- Countries to the left on civil liberties may be offering enough room to prevent a buildup. Morocco — which is hardly free — may be the test of that.
This is a roundup of some of the fast-accumulating forecasts for Egypt and the Middle East, particularly those taking a longer view (including some of my own).
General
- Threats to US interests — “Were demonstrations to spread in a big way to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, a catastrophe could be looming. A more enlightened, pro-American regime than the one now in Jordan is hard to imagine. As for the Saudi royal family, it is probably the worst possible form of government for that country except for any other that might credibly replace it. (Robert D. Kaplan, Foreign Policy, 1/28/11)
- Relations with the US — “Any freely elected govt will want to distance itself from U.S policies.” (Shadi Hamid, The Atlantic, 1/25/11)
- The Gulf — The Gulf states are relatively safe from unrest. (Michael Binyon, Al Jazeera English, 1/28/11)
- Diversity of outcomes — Even if protesters were going into these protests intending the same outcomes (and they aren’t), the outcomes will be different. A relatively secular, middle-class nation like Tunisia will emerge drastically different from a crisis than a place like Yemen. Look to Eastern Europe in 1989, which yielded everything from rapid democratization in Czechoslovakia to a murky power transfer in Romania. (Future Atlas)
- “Normalized” politics — “Whatever the outcome of these uprisings, it seems clear that Arabs and their new leaders will be focused for years to come on the imperfections within their own societies — perhaps to a greater degree than on injustices committed by Israel and the West abroad. …. Politics may thus become normalized in the Arab world, rather than radicalized.” (Robert D. Kaplan, Foreign Policy, 1/28/11)
Economics
- Jobs and poverty — The demands of so many protesters around the region — jobs and food — may be internally at odds. Statism in the Middle East suppresses growth and entrepreneurship, but also provides the region a lower level of abject poverty. Freeing up the economies of the region could provide opportunity but could cause poverty and inequality to spike. (Future Atlas)
- The Chinese model — For the portion of the protesters who are motivated by economic opportunity and prosperity above all, the “Chinese model” — authoritarianism with freewheeling capitalism — could look good. (Future Atlas)
Israeli-Arab issues
- Israel — Democratic Arab states will tend to be less friendly to Israel than many current regimes, as long as the peace process is frozen. While the occupation continues, peacemaking will tend to be viewed as collaboration. (Future Atlas)
- The peace process — “Prolonged crisis in Egypt will hurt Palestinian-Israel peace process, not clear what following Mubarak may mean for peace process either.” (Vali Nasr, 1/29/11)
Egypt
- Limited unity — “Once Mubarak goes, the open source movement will evaporate — after that, divergent motivations repeatedly fork the movement.” (John Robb, 1/30/11)
- Uncertain outcomes — “The ideology and composition of protesters can wind up having very little to do with the political forces that end up in power.” (Stratfor, 1/29/11)
- Islamists — “The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt functions to a significant extent as a community self-help organization and may not necessarily try to hijack the uprising to the extent as happened in Iran.” (Robert D. Kaplan, Foreign Policy, 1/28/11)
- Getting the army to stand down — “Militaries don’t leave politics easily. Even after Mubarak goes there could still be a battle to get military to leave politics.” (Vali Nasr, 1/30/11) “If the military’s senior leaders decide that Mubarak’s ouster and a subsequent democratic transition would unacceptably risk reducing the military’s political and cultural power, they will be more likely to defend the regime.” (Michael Wahid Hanna, The Atlantic, 1/29/11)
- Military vested interests — The Egyptian military may not look favorably on a more open and equitable economic system, as it has its own business interests, established to help invest it in the status quo. (Future Atlas)
- End of Mubarak — “Until Mubarak finally does leave, the unrest in the streets is unlikely to subside, raising the question of just how much more delay from Mubarak the armed forces will tolerate.” (Stratfor, 1/29/11) Mubarak will fall and the army will take over. (Mike Murphy, “Meet the Press,” 1/30/11)
***************************
Image copyright FutureAtlas.com — usable with attribution and link. Fire background courtesy Dave Hogg (Flickr).
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.