Saddam the Leviathan in Hindsight?

In a superb editorial for the Washington Monthly, Robert D. Kaplan explores the possibility that order is more important than freedom for Iraq. In light of the increasing turmoil (if not civil war?) unfolding in Iraq over the past days, he uses Hobbes' argument that a sovereign is necessary to emerge from the state of nature and to maintain order.

"The decision to remove him [Saddam Hussein] was defensible, while not providential. The portrait of Iraq that has emerged since his fall reveals him as the Hobbesian nemesis who may have kept in check an even greater anarchy than the kind that obtained under his rule."

With the benefit of hindsight, even interventionist hawks should be able to agree with that statement. Kaplan previously argues that "the Baathist state constituted a form of anarchy masquerading as tyranny". This is historically simplistic and perhaps the hyperbole of "anarchy" should be reserved for special circumstances, like the one Iraqis are mired in today. For Kaplan, the fact that citizens would dissappear at random and that "punishments" were meted out indiscriminately under the Baathist dictatorship amounts to anarchy. But under Saddam's rule, and particularly prior to the Second Gulf War in 1991, the type of anarchical living conditions that pertain since 2003 were absent. Access to fresh water and electricity was constant, the streets were relatively crime-free, public education and health care was at a reasonably high standard, universal, and access routes were not hazardous.

Anarchy
While Kaplan's general argument holds, he holds a bizarre view of anarchy. For Hobbes, anarchy was defined as the state of nature, a war of man against man, without any higher authority to enforce order. Contrary to Locke's state of nature, in which justice was rectification (and retribution) of wrongs enforced by the individual when possible, in Hobbes Leviathan the concept is inapplicable prior to the establishment of order.

Hobbes' state of nature bears little resemblance to the Baathist regime. The system of patronage and clientalism ensured that individuals had few powers at their own disposal without central consent and cooperation. In short, a certain principle of order, was in place. There were publicly known processes by which citizens could, for the most part, attain what they needed. It was an order in the Augustinian sense: "a good disposition of discrepant parts, each in its fittest place" for a certain purpose. The primary purpose, of course, was the maintenance of power for Saddam. It was not the order of Hedley Bull's The Anarchical Society, according to which

"whatever other goals they pursue, all societies recognise these goals and embody arrangement that promote them... First, all societies seek to ensure that life will be in some measure secure against violence resulting in death or bodily harm. Second, all socities seek to ensure that promises, once made, will be kept, or that agreements, once undertaken, will be carried out..."

Life was largely secure as long as Iraqis collaborated with the regime, but then not always as collective punishment was rampant. And the second principle of pacta sunt servanda was indubitably not one of the elementary goals of Iraq society under Baathist rule. It was a minimalist, Augustinian, order. It was not the ideal situation of life under a benign Leviathan, whose sole function is to provide the best possible life for his subjects. Then again, very few citizens (let alone subjects) can extol their government's universally benign purposes.

The dictionary definition of anarchy underpins this point. Accordingly, anarchy is

1. Absence of any form of political authority.
2. Political disorder and confusion.
3. Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose.

All three definitions hold true for today's status quo in Iraq, since the meaningfulness of authority hinges on its empricial ability to enforce laws and exact obediance. Saddam, by contrast, provided excessive political authority, prevented political disorder and left little room for confusion. The cohesive principle was the development and maintenance of a powerful Baathist state identified with its leader. This, however, does not amount to claiming that Iraqis more uncanningly resemble the inhabitant's of Hobbes' hypothetical state, since the process of social formation is far too advanced and complex - and no broader social, religious, or ideological ties exist in the ideal-type state of nature.

The American Idea of Freedom
Having established that anarchy was not the issue in Saddam's Iraq, the question arises why the Bush administration opted for the primacy, both chornologically and substantively, of freedom over order (without resorting to the quest for oil, the theoconservative crusade ideology, or the conspiracy of the Zionist lobby). The beginning of the answer has already been sketched: the origins of the American idea of freedom are more akin to John Locke than to Thomas Hobbes. The Lockean state of nature is more optimistic, endowed with a concept of justice and freedom and property rights, and allows for individuals to leave the state of nature of their own accord, by use of human reason, through the creation of a social contract. Order and freedom thus progress simultaneously. They evidently don't in Iraq.

This leads Kaplan conclude that "the lesson to take away is that where it involves other despotic regimes in the region... the last thing we should do is actively precipitate their demise." He clearly takes a Hobbesian stance here. Furthermore, "globalization and other dynamic forces will continue to rid the world of dictatorships. Political change is nothing we need to force upon people; it's something that will happen anyway." Of course political change will happen anyway; a static geopolitical situation is the social equivalent of the heat death of the universe. To consider globalisation, as underspecified a concept as any, as the engine of history is a rather dubious path for the future. While we are using Hegelian dialectics, we might as well include the backlash to globalisation as another world historical force. Doesn't look as rosy now, does it?

The Kirkpatrick Doctrine - a via media?
Kaplan redeems himself by reasoning that "stabilizing newly democratic regimes, and easing the development path of undemocratic ones, should be the goal for our military and diplomatic establishments." While this is more agreeable, it is hardly (or rather, unfortunately) worthy of making the news. The history of international failures in recent U.S. history can be neatly dichotimised: those resulting from (i) the attempt to topple "unfriendly" regimes and (ii) the attempt to bolster undemocratic, unpopular "friendly" regimes. By contrast, the geopolitical blunders of Europe have resulted from a grand strategy of holding tyrannical regimes, friendly or otherwise, in awkward abeyance. Europe seemed by and large content with order of any kind. The U.S. seemed generally discontent with "unfriendly" regimes of any kind.

In response to this quagmire of policy, in 1979 Jeanne Kirkpatrick invented the eponymous doctrine, according to which it was not only bad strategy for the U.S. to sever ties with friendly dictatorship but also morally wrong since the U.S. could try to use its power and close ties to foster democratisation. The success stories of the Phillippines, South Korea, and Chile, which democratised under American pressure and auspices are chronicled in the current edition of the Washington Quarterly in an article by Adesnik and McFaul. In the Phillippines, in particular, forcing Marcos to liberalise politically and eventually call for elections while backing the opposition movement, threatened to be hijacked by Maoist guerilla, proved exceptionally successful in the short term.

The lessons to take away from Iraq, as Kaplan puts it, were already learned from Nicaragua and Iran by the early 1980s. And models of successful democratic change precipitated by exogenous influence were readily available for the invasion of Iraq. In the case of Saddam Hussein, continued support rather than isolation, a deepening of bilateral ties, and the force of persuasion should have been the primary strategy in line with the Kirkpatrick Doctrine. Perhaps the invasion of Kuwait could have been prevented through this strategy as well. The obvious reason why the more cautious, timely approach to democratising an authoritarian state while maintaining order was rejected is clearly related to the end of the Cold War and, with it, the absence of a serious threat. But Realists should know that a hegemon without counterbalancing threats cannot exist for long. The next big threat, Islamic terrorism, was already expanding when "the end of history" triumphalism was trumpeted in Washington. Saddam could have been an ally in the War on Terror (if his violent oppression of politial Islam didn't make him one already) and the pseudo-Hobbesian dictatorship could have gradually transformed into a more Lockean form where society is bound by a (minimal) contract from which a more free, yet orderly, state could evolve. Kaplan's lessons were genuinely learned 26 years ago and subsequently considered redundant, so perhaps there is no point in crying over yet another gallon of spilled milk. Nonetheless, it's a sad spectacle when, after a mistake of historic proportions, we realise there is no greater lesson to comfort us.

Contextualising a Dead Horse

In a great televised exchange about the Clash of Cartoons on newshour (video here), Fouad Ajami and Ali Abunimah offer opposing views.

One indicator for the opacity of argument is how often words like "thing" or "context" are used, and by this count Abunimah loses in two sets, 0-3, 0-4. Using "thing", which indicates a refusal to define a term, is, however, harmless compared to "context" which simply points to all "things" not mentioned.

Contexts in Social Science
Contexts, unless clearly specified - in which case we could use the phrase "in relation to" - are perhaps the most unhelpful analytical tools available in the current debate. Clearly, no one challenges the mind-numbing truism that social phenomena never exist in a vacuum and thus cannot be completely decontextualised, but it appears that many commentators are simply beating around the bush, flogging a dead horse, contextualising ad infinitum, ad absurdum, ad nauseum.

ALI ABUNIMAH: "Well, I think that there is genuine offense at the cartoons which are definitely distasteful to Muslims, but I think that the cartoons in themselves can't really explain the extent of the protest and the anger that we're seeing. And I think that this incident in a sense was a spark in a context where since Sept. 11, increasingly people across the Arab and Muslim world perceive themselves to be under a generalized assault by the United States and its allies. And there's a whole list of things that people would cite from the war in Iraq, U.S. support for Israel, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and many other things including increasing xenophobia against Muslim communities within Europe that provide tinder for this kind of widespread process."

The most serious discontent with "hyper-contextualisation" is that it takes the form of a general apologetic, refusing to allocate blame, take sides, or, more significantly, to single out a conflictual core. When we compare explanations for violence among Muslims with those for right-wing extremists, although the analogy is not to be elaborated, the issue crystallises. After all, when Neo-Nazi organisations are on the rise, we should analyse them through their tensions with mainstream society, not explain their anger as only "meaningful" in a context of growing immigration, increasing social mobility and displacement, the underdevelopment of poor urban areas, their suboptimal access to education, and the subsequent inkling to group-think (while Abunimah would add that "there's a whole list of things that people [who?] would cite"). These well-defined relations in which radical right-wing rhetoric flourishes should be structurally addressed but this seems to distort the fundamental clashes of world views with identifiable values.

Pacifist lefties intimately share the concerns of the violent righties, but reducing the whole to a byproduct of "modernity" or "globalisation" or some such explanatory muddle ought to be opposed. What explains the difference here? And what explains the difference between Muslims who find the cartoons distasteful but accept the spectre of being offended that is intimately tied to the freedom of expression, those who don't accept liberalism but reject a violent response to a non-violent act, and those who react violently? I postulate that "context" offers no prospects for an answer.

The underlying issue is one of the philosophy of (social) science. Most scientists agree broadly with Karl Popper in claiming that a theory is only useful if it can be falsified. Abunimah makes this increasingly hard by naming a conglomerate (of identified and unidentified) causal variables but Fouad Ajami nonetheless makes an attempt at falsification.

The falsification of Context
Ajami responds

"Well, I don't agree with this. I think, you know, to hear the self-pity that my colleague here expresses, you would almost not really --you would have to remember that there were these horrific attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which were the starting gun for all that he is talking about.Fundamentally we've seen this before. This is a replay of what exactly happened a generation ago with the Satanic Verses of Salman Rushdie. The riots began in England then, and then they spread to the Islamic world."

Whereas Abunimah in a noncommital condundrum accuses the Western response to Sept. 11 of creating the structural basis for the outbreak of protests, as opposed to the "spark" of the cartoons, Ajami rightfully challenges this causal explanation. Reducing the violent outbreak to the context of the War on Terror paradigm can only be considered analytically compelling if, in the absence of the War on Terror paradigm, the reaction would have been signficantly different.

The reaction, sans the War on Terror, should, according to Abunimah's thesis, have been a peaceful rebuttal , a catalyst for further dialogue about the compatibility of Islam with European liberalism, perhaps a tiny fraction of fundamentalists being publicly opposed by an overwhelming counter-demonstration aimed at accepting the basic tenets of a liberal society in Europe and marginalising those dissenters who refuse to embrace the political foundations of the society they coinhabit, and a non-reaction by Muslims outside of Europe, in the absence of Western encroachment, viewing this as the legitimate product of a pluralist liberal society within a pluralist system of states. If this is not close to the reaction Abunimah would have otherwise expected, then highlighting the context to the neglect of all other issues amounts to intellectual dishonesty.

In a nutshell, the particular context is only insofar to be emphasised above all else as it accounts for the crucial difference in outcome.

Fouad Ajami, like me, is not convinced by this argument. Ajami attempts falsification by pronouncing that

"Fundamentally we've seen this before. This is a replay of what exactly happened a generation ago with the Satanic Verses of Salman Rushdie. The riots began in England then, and then they spread to the Islamic world."

The riots in 1988 following the publication of the Sanatic Verses occurred in a different context, without any declared War on Terror, bereft of biblical references to crusades and the perceived vilification of all Muslims as terrorists. But Abunimah's immediate context causality still holds as long as (i) the context was sufficiently similar in 1988 to 2006 and (ii) is bolstered by the absence of riots (and presence of integrationist dialogue) after other incidents of free speech insulting Islam in different contexts.

Contextualising the Satanic Verses Affair
Political actors instrumentalise Islam
Fouad Ajami comments on the recent violence,

"when you are talking about these two capitals, Beirut and Damascus, you're really talking about the cynical youth on the part of the Syrian regime of this incident. This is not about religion; it's not about the prophet. It's not about these cartoons. It's about the determination of the Syrian regime to use cynically this episode and to sew disorder in Lebanon and to make Syria itself, which is under the gun for all kinds of high crime, to make it seem like the embattled heart of the Arab and the Islamic world."

In 1988-89, regimes also had their contexts in which they acted. In Pakistan, where the election of Benazir Bhutto had set back the Islamisation programme, the Islamic Democratic Alliance rallied behind the Rushdie affair to oppose the Western-educated Bhutto. In India, Rajiv Ghandi was quick to ban the book not only to secure Muslim votes but also since Rushdie's previous book, Midnight's Children, had targeted Indira Ghandi. In Egypt, the conflict between liberals and fundamentalists was raging, the Muslim Brotherhood was oppressed, and the banning of the book was hence politically astute. And in Iran, Khomeini used the opportunity to issue a fatwa to rebuff the emerging pragmatists, led by Khamaini and Rafsanjani, and in order to garner the support of fundamentalists within his regime and abroad.

1989,2006: Different Contexts, Similar Outcome
Both contexts provided openings for political groups to magnetise public support, but this is to be viewed as a general phenomenon of politics, not as an outcome of any specific context. In fact, Abunimah answers to Ajami's comment on the cynical instrumentalisation on behalf of the Syrian regime, "his thesis that this is Syrian-inspired doesn't explain the protest in Indonesia and India and across the world." Agreed.

In 1988-89, the ambitions of some regimes and political groups also fail to explain the extent of the backlash. It fails to explain the firebombing of bookstores at UC Berkeley, of the The Riverdal Press, of newspapers who defended the novel, the violence in India that resulted in five deaths in Bombay, the dead in Egypt or elsewhere. Around the world, Muslim communitites held huge book-burning rallies as if they were ice-cream socials. Rushdie's Japanese translator was killed, his Italian translator was stabbed, his Norwegian publisher shot, and 37 people died in Turkey when their hotel was burnt down in a protest againt Rushdie's Turkish translator. The uproar was similar to today's and the death toll heavier. What, then, was the broader context that explains these anomalies for Mr. Abunimah?

The World in 1988-89
In 1988, there had been no 9/11, no War on Terror, no invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, no Guantanamo Bay, and no Abu Ghraib. When the book was banned by many Muslim countries in November '88, the ceasefire between Iran and Iraq was only three months young. The Soviet Union's influence in the Middle East had declined to the extent that many academics claim that the Cold War ended earlier in the Middle East than anywhere else. The USSR and the USA had both backed Iraq. The Arab states had been, after the decline of Pan-Arabism, for once firmly united behind Iraq, opposing the threat of an exported Shiite Revolution. Iran, as a matter of fact, was completely isolated and the Arab states enjoyed the backing of the U.S. Arabs and Muslims, in general, enjoyed better relations with the West than before and the Soviet Union was completing its withdrawal from Afghanistan. The superpowers were not fueling inter-Arab rivalries or intruding behind the curtain of bipolarity.

One similarity was that with the end of the conflict in Afghanistan, many Arab muhajedeen had no particular purpose, no precise manifestation of evil to combat and returned to their home countries, displaced, purposeless, unemployed, and enraged by the fire of fundamentalism. Thus fundamentalism was on the rise. But in 2006 the militant fundamentalists' existential crisis has alas been resolved.

The Poverty of Context
Nonetheless, the world was strikingly different 17 years ago. Ali Abunimah's post-Sept. 11 context only makes sense if he could persuasively argue that it is a replay of the late-1980s context. This appears to be an impossible task.

Neither does Abunimah fulfil the second requirement by citing cases in which Muslims reacted differently due to the difference in context.

The context explanation thus falters on two accounts. Firstly, it is unable to resolve a similar outcome in a different context. It also fails to provide counter-examples of a different outcome to a similar situation in a different context. Secondly, it does little to come to terms with the difference in reaction among Muslims. It is for these reasons that hyper-contextualisation ought to be resisted. For those who still employ this strategy, it colours them in a shade of an unreflected, obstructing apologetic for an unworthy cause. They are merely contextualising a dead horse to obscure the visibly obvious.

"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle" - George Orwell.

Misunderestimating Huntington

In various internet fora, the cartoon chronicle has fomented curious concoctions of the "Clash of Civilizations?" argument first published by Samuel P. Huntington in Foreign Affairs in 1993. Among various lax interpretations of Huntington's thesis in the forum of Die Zeit, a liberal German weekly aimed at academics and Bildungsbuerger, the intellectual-cum-journalist Thomas Assheuer makes an attempt at clarification in an article entitled "A Very Dangerous Trap". But, above all, he misunderestimates Huntington. (If anything is good about Bush, it's his knack for neologisms.)

Assheuer mentions that Huntington cautioned the US before going to war against Iraq since this would undermine the coalition against terror and also warned against the dire consequences of permitting Osama bin Laden to fashion the war on terror into a clash of civilisations.

"He seems to have understood that religion is often only the mask used to disguise brutal conflicts of recognition and distribution. Perhaps Huntington has even realised that fundamentalism is an altogether modern phenomenon that only emerged with colonisation. That's why the islamist killers were not borne out of the middle ages or a completely foreign and incomprehensible culture; they are borne out of the midst of a modern global society - and that scares us the most." (translated from German)

Factual Flaw
Viewing Islamic fundamentalism as a modern phenomenon per se is a superficial factual error simply emberassing for a journalist of his stature. It is common knowledge that fundamentalism is at least as old as the incursion of the berbers from North Africa into pluralist Muslim Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries. Any cursory knowledge of the great contemporaneous Muslim and Jewish philosophers Ibn Rushd and Maimonides would underpin this: while Ibn Rushd was (barely) able to negotiate his continued stay with the Almohad amir Abu Ya‘qub Yusuf, Maimonides had to flee to Egypt. During the same period, Moses ibn Ezra and Judah Halevi also fled from increasing persecution under the fundamentalist Almoravids and, later, Almohads - backwards berbers from a backwater in the North African desert threatened and appalled by the progressive pluralist Muslim culture in Spain. Their strict, antiquated reading of the Koran led to the repression of interpretation, debate, learning, and pluralism. Quickly the Arabised Jews and Christians moved to Toledo, transforming this Christian city into the paramount center of Arabic culture and learning, creating the "School of Translators" that granted the also backward Christian West access to 500 years of Arabic philosophy and science, and the rest, as they say, is history. Even before the reconquista, the Muslim fundamentalists had shat in their own sandbox, repelling the wise and sensible.

Misunderstanding Huntington
More important than this factual correction is that Assheuer has evidently read the early Huntington simplistically. His assumption is that in "The Clash of Civilisations?", civilisations are necessarily deeply rooted in history, if not timeless, entities. He also presumes that Huntington treats religion as if it was the essential cause of difference, not something to be instrumentalised by other actors. Huntington's historical tracing of civilisations supports this interpretation, but this is patently not the case, even if Huntington stresses the importance of religion for civilisational identity. But what, then, is this civilisation?

Assheuer reads Huntington in a similar vein to Fred Halliday. In discussing the term "civilisation", in a book partially responding to Huntington called Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, Halliday writes that "subsequent usage, denoting blocs of culture and/or religion, assumes that such entities exist as coherent, historical givens, and that international forces can be mobilized around them." (p.3)

Turning to the text, it is clear that the term "civilisation" is foremost an analytical concept. It does not necessarily entail the territorial blocs laid out in Huntington's later book The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order (where the dropping of the "?" is a synecdoche for its unnecessary determinism and overspecification), nor is it imbued with normative notions contrasting it to barbarism.

It is true that Huntington says that "a civilization is a cultural entity." Yet it is an entity not defined by some monolithic culture or encompassing people without agency but one constructed by people who have multiple, dynamic, levels of identity:

"People have levels of identity: a resident of Rome may define himself with varying degrees of intensity as a Roman, an Italian, a Catholic, a Christian, a European, a Westerner. The civilization to which he belongs is the broadest level of identification with which he intensely identifies. People can and do redefine their identities and as a result, the composition and boundaries of civilizations change." (emphasis added)

If civilisation is only an analytical tool defining that which most broadly (and intensely) differentiates a person, short of being a homo sapiens, then Assheuer's and Halliday's assumptions about the necessity for the historical continuity of a static, monolithic, entity are completely amiss. Has fundamentalism become so laden with negative connotations that nobody bothers to read the text literally anymore?

Underestimating Huntington
Sticking to the literal reading of "civilisation", Huntington's Foreign Affairs article may actually be generally insightful in coming to terms with the current situation of growing outrage among Muslims and Europeans. Muslim and European identity are, of course, not mutually exclusive but the "freedom of speech" vs "right not to be offended" issue is widening the gulf of their differences. I use European rather than Western, since Huntington uses North American and European as civilisational subdivisions. Britain, it appears, has drifted westwards since 1993. When we apply the concept of "civilisation" appropriately, it becomes apparent that many Muslims living in Europe (or even European citizens) more intensely identify, in Huntingon's phrase, with an Islamic than with a Western or European civilisation.

Muslims in Europe
Huntington uses the following juxtaposition when it comes to religion:

"even more than ethnicity, religion discriminates sharply and exclusively among people. A person can be half-French and half-Arab and simultaneously even a citizen of two countries. It is more difficult to be half-Catholic and half-Muslim."

What is happening now is that French Muslims have to decide whether they are more half-Muslim or half-French, where the difficulty is created by the fact that French identity rests on a strict commitment to secularism in the public sphere and a legacy of Christian values that shaped France prior to Muslim immigration. For French Muslims, these two separate attributes of identity are disentangling.

Huntington muses that

"different civilizations have different views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy."

There are important differences between the majority of Muslim Europeans and most non-Muslim Europeans. The difference in their relations between God and man is that for the former God is more holy than man; the citizen is not as free vis-a-vis the state; rights are more significant than freedoms; responsibility is viewed less within the discretion of the individual; and so on. For the many Muslims in Europe who strongly disagree with the above description, the Mohammed saga places them in the unfortunate position of having to select the European civilisation as an identifier above an Islamic civilisation, wherever they may overlap.

While the theoretical possibility of conciliating the unqualified embrace of European liberalism with a certain interpretation of Islamic values may be plausible, its practical application appears elusive. The conflicting areas need to be decided in favour of a Muslim or a European outlook; and based on that decision, is it possible to differentiate between the Muslims who have not shed the yoke of their Islamic civilisation and those who belong to the European civilisation. Although civilisational membership is principally a question of personal identification, answers to, inter alia, questions of freedom of expression, serve as a powerful leading indicator. It indicates that those Muslims who oppose the publication and reproduction of the cartoons are not a part of European Huntingtonian civilisation.

Huntington rather presciently noted 13 years ago that

"The interactions between peoples of different civilizations are increasing; these increasing interactions intensify civilization consciousness and awareness of differences between civilizations and commonalities within civilizations."

Muslim States
Although Huntington's corpus of work on civilisations has many flaws, which have been elaborated upon elsewhere by writers who oftentimes treat him as the laughingstock of academe, it also provides a useful lense for analysing the violent reaction in majority Muslim countries.

"The clash of civilizations thus occurs at two levels. At the micro-level, adjacent groups along the fault lines between civilizations struggle, often violently, over the control of territory and each other. At the macro-level, states from different civilizations... competitively promote their particular political and religious values."

Huntington perhaps overstated the significance of the micro level, but the tensions across the territorial fault lines are nonetheless visible post-1993 in the Yugoslavian civil war, in the near-genocide in Sudan in the last years, and the state of war recently declared by Chad due to Sudan's dispatch of Arab militias in support of Chadian rebels. And Turkey increasingly seems stuck in the middle, both in terms of territorial fault lines and values and ideas as it attempts accession to the EU.

More importantly, on the macro-level we are witnessing the competitive promotion of particular political and religious values. Huntington, in the above quote, is caught in state-centrism. But it's not altogether incorrect: Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran have stood out as central nodes for the promotion of their values vis-a-vis "the West". It is evident that Huntington, pace Halliday, does not view the promotion of those values as something intrinsic to the civilisation. Rather, states are also likely to cynically instrumentalise them for their own ends.

Syria, facing increasing isolation and on the brink to becoming an emeritus member of the Axis of Evil, took the opportunity to profile itself as the bastion of Arab-Islamic values. It permitted the protests in Damascus, as was blatantly obvious by the sight of police officers smoking cigarettes on the sidelines as the demonstrations spiralled into violent disarray. One explanation is to claim that the Syrian security forces were too sympathetic to the message of the protest to intervene against their brethren on behalf of the state, as was the case in Iran in 1979. But, more likely, the government gave orders to let the anger take its course, unlike when it makes political arrests and protests are suspiciously absent.

The demonstrations in Beirut, where pro-Syrian extremists were shipped in busloads from the north, invading the Christian quarter, once again substantiates the micro level, as Syria vies for control over territory and people after its withdrawal from Lebanon last year.

Saudi Arabia, similarly, took an early leadership role in boycotting Danish goods to reestablish itself as the Guardian of Islam, to emerge as the nexus of resistance to the encroachment of Western arrogance. This was an inexpensive demonstration of power (we can't imagine Saudi Arabia boycotting Germany or France) as well as a justification for the strict adherence to Wahhabism.

Monocausality?
In the Middle East, as elsewhere, all political outcomes cannot be reduced to a single cause. This monocausality has been mistakenly attributed to Huntington. Various other conceptual models should, of course, be employed and contrasted along with the civilisational one, ranging from state-society relations to sectarian divisions, Islam in politics, the nature of regimes, economic conflict, the domestic construction of "national interest" and the foreign influences on domestic policy. None of these other explanatory models ought to have some essential grounding in "civilisation". Rather, the Huntingtonian concept of civlisation should not be excluded a priori from our analytical toolbox.

Mohammed, Freedom, and Pluralism

The cartoons depicting Mohammed, first published in Denmark, are available here. Three months after their initial publication, they have caused the eruption of violent protests, including the torching of embassies, throughout the Middle East and the Muslim world. Seventeen Arab Ministers condemned Denmark, requesting an apology and an assurance that a similiar incident will not recur. Furthermore, the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic confereences (OIC) are attempting to pass a "binding" resolution in the General Assembly banning "contempt of religious beliefs".

In this scenario, concerns both within the domestic and international contexts arise. Domestically, the boundaries of freedom of speech and the reach of pluralism are at stake. When projected onto the states system, the norms of sovereignty as self-determination and pluralism as the respect for diversity among nations are disputed. The following discussion of international issues aims to shed some light on the remaining domestic areas of disputation.

Sovereignty and Pluralism
Setting aside the Arab League's and OIC's slip that General Assembly resolutions are, by definition, never binding, the question of passing international laws that curtail freedom of press the world over shifts often underattended aspects of our world into purview. It shakes the very foundations upon which our international system is constructed by setting standards that go beyond the protection of states or individuals and their rights but protect particularistic cultural artifacts universally.

If we were to paint a broad-brushed picture of the states system, we could either picture it as an ideal-type of (i) a pluralist society of states or (ii) a cosmopolitan community. In practice, both have been used to justify sovereignty. Hedley Bull famously called the sovereign state "the local agent of the common good". Kant, Bentham and other utilitarians, medieval natural lawyers, and modern cosmopolitans like Charles Beitz, are, in principle, supporters of a world republic. The reason why they still defend separate republics is that, for Kantians, the rule of law becomes less effective over distance, and, for utilitarians, that nation-states are more efficient administrative units for supplying the goods. Which goods? They all rely on the natural law tradition, which, at its core, presumes that all humans desire the same kinds of primary goods. Hence the state is reduced to the delivery driver of a world depot of individual liberties and prosperity or "capabilities" (Sen, Nussbaum).

While this approach enables the theoretical possibility of having global laws and restrictions, like the one proposed by the AL and OIC, it also creates inconsistencies. For, prior to universally protecting particular cultural/religious symbols, the state needs to be seen as the local agent of the common good as providing all the possible benefits, including pluralistic domestic societies and institutions under the rule of law, that are (supposedly) universally diserable and desired. And when countries like Saudi Arabia or Indonesia contest the universality, and hence the particularisation, of a universal attribute (human rights), what philosophical defence is there for the universalisation of a particular (protection from satire of religious symbols)? Even if individual human rights are derided as a particularistic Western notion, their content is based on the sanctity of every individual human life, unlike the protection of religious symbols which, at least, is inapplicable to atheists.

Hegel and Neo-Hegelians like Mervyn Frost have pointed towards the indivisibility of human individuality and the state. The state is necessary as the nexus of all the social institutions that provide a kind of impartiality and equality absent from other social constructs, i.e. civil society or the family. The ethical state is the precondition for being the local agent of the common good, not merely an implementation, and the state will endogenously develop into an ethical state. Hence sovereignty is bestowed with a value in its own right. With regard to the Middle East, we must ask, what happens to the unethical state? Right-Hegelians advise to wait and sip tea. Left-Hegelians declare it illegitimate.

While the Right-Hegelian view may exonerate Arab states from implementing the common good and justify their continued sovereignty, it does not enable the imposed universalisation of anything: if respect for religion were to be included in the Hegelian ethical state, then we would just have to play with Lego and wait for Denmark to transform into a more ethical direction.

Terry Nardin, grounding his ideas in the work of Michael Oakeshott, offers a pluralist conception of the society of states. Oakeshott uses the terms "enterprise" and "civil" associations to distinguish between voluntary associations for various (supposedly non-political) purposes and non-voluntary political association of citizens in a society. The civil association provides the greatest possible liberty for every citizen to pursue his individual conception of happiness while enterprises are simply groups of people associating for a common goal. The rights of religious communities as enterprise associations are, in this perspective, not necessary for the continued functioning of society protected by the rule of law - a rule of law that merely covers the necessary preconditions for the civil association. Oakeshott thus defends the basic values of a pluralistic, liberal (if not libertarian?) society.

Nardin redefines these concepts in the international sphere as "practical" and "purposive" associations. The norms of sovereignty, non-intervention, and respect for international conventions (e.g. the immunity of diplomats) define the extent of the practical association of states. Purposive associations, on the other hand, are merely voluntary and for a specific purpose, like the OSCE, or, more relevantly, the Arab League and the OIC.

As the fabric of international society is noticeably thin, states are permitted a corresponding amount of self-determination in their domestic affairs. It becomes poignantly obvious that while Denmark would have every right to allow unfettered freedom of press within its state, the Arab League or OIC should not be granted the right to impose their particular purposes onto the pluralist international system. State complicity in not exhausting its resources to prevent the burning of embassies, an attack on foreign territory, on the other hand, undermines the minimalist norms on which such a society of states is founded.

The last and most popular way of defending pluralism is not based on the necessity for the continuation of order in international society but on the rights of political communities. Michael Walzer, a frequently cited proponent of this approach, claims that political communities should have the right to develop their own form of government and society because this enables the greatest amount of freedom and agency for the individual. The sovereignty of the state as the autonomy of a political community, however, depends on the actuality of a common communal life existing within the territorial state:

"The moral standing of any particular state depends on the reality of the common life it protects and the extent to which the sacrifices required by that protection are willingly accepted and thought worthwhile. If no common life exists, or if the state doesn't defend the common life that does exist, its own defence may have no moral justification." (Just and Unjust Wars, p. 54)

While this view is intuitively appealing, a gulf divides the theoretical political community from the actual territorial state: most states outside the West do not correspond to an underlying political community. But this can be momentarily set aside.

Thinking in terms of political communities may enable a defence of the proposed GA resolution. The Muslim world, divided into states that represent the fancies of colonial administrators, could be considered a political community. Certainly, not all Muslims are governed by the same positivist laws nor do they live in similar social relations. But for many Muslims, not only those living in theocracies, Islam is inseparable from politics. Islam defines the common life of their own choice and, following Walzer, we could reasonably accept a politico-religious community as a political community. If we then stipulate that Mohammed is that community's symbol of identity and unity in differentiating it from other faiths and ways of life, then he lends that political commmunity its "moral justification". Hence satirising Mohammed is tantamount to calling the political community's right to autonomous existence into question. States, as (imperfect) representatives of political communities, could legitimately set the international norm that a part of accepting the right to self-determination of other states is not negating the foundation of their genesis.

One problem that arises in the current situation is that the European political communities did not satirise the prophet (through representatives) but they merely permitted the satirising voice to be heard within their community. In order to outlaw this, a reconceptualisation of the private/public or domestic/international domains is necessary. We could imagine a society of states based on the Roman law model, in which the head of the household (generally as the only "citizen") was responsible in the public sphere for the members of his household and where domestic concerns were under his autonomous rule.

Nonetheless, a more pressing paradox persists. What if the "moral justification" of a political community depends on a free public sphere defining its common life? If a political community echoes Habermas in claiming that the most desirable society is one in which the best idea wins and every argument and voice is to be heard and challenged, then how will this be measured against the moral protection of other communities? The protection of all other foundations of political communities, by definition, leads to the negation of one type of political community. Not only would such a norm question the moral justification of a free, liberal community but it would actually prevent its existence. I see no reason why superordinate norms should be created that, in the absence of domestic atrocities that render a "common life" justification meaningless, prevent one manifestation of the political will of a community from flourishing.

Satirising prominent members of the public sphere and traditional figures of authority is a major element in European common life. It is derived from the Enlightenment tradition that nothing is too sacred to be questioned, from the Nietzschean insight that "God is dead", and from the communal consensus that freedom of expression is an enabling, liberating facet to the human condition.

Of course, freedoms also have attendant responsibilities, but the rendition of that relationship is within the devices of a political community. I, for one, feel like a Dane today. And no, we keep Schleswig-Holstein.

Walls, Fences, Barriers, Borders

The continuing construction of a security fence in the Palestinian West Bank has occupied more public media space and demanded concern than any other issue in the Middle East outside of Iraq. The International Court of Justice even ruled the construction of that "wall", "security barrier", or "fence" - depending on the observer's disposition - illegal. Clearly, it is a land-grab of sorts in that it does not follow the 1949 armistice lines, annexes portions of land inhabited by Israeli settlers, often on plots to which Palestinians have private property rights, and disregards the demographic realities and necessities of the Palestinian people. The fence, along its proposed line, is not morally justified.

But as the U.S. Senate has approved the construction of a fence to prevent border-crossings from Mexico by people suffering hunger, unable to sustain their livelihood, often attempting to join their families or communities inside America, I am reminded that borders are just another unbeloved artifact of a world divided into sovereign states. The two most common analogies drawn to enliven the image of the Israeli barrier are the Berlin Wall or the "Apartheid Wall", a misnomer referring to the bantustans of South Africa. But less sensational analogies abound.

When the ICJ in Hague denounced the construction, the opponents did not need to look so distant to find other fences aimed at keeping out unwanted populations. A rather intimidating barbed-wire fence runs along the Hoek van Holland harbor to prevent poor dock-workers and other illegal immigrants from entering the Liberal Paradise. And when Solana, speaking as the EU foreign policy chief, criticised the separation fence, he could certainly understand the need for safe borders. After all, Spain built a fence in Ceuta and in Melilla, on North African soil but nominally Spanish territory, to secure a more solid border with Morocco. The EU also coerced Poland to construct a fence along its Ukrainian boundary, which has severely disrupted the economic activities of Ukrainians living in the border region. Ironically, it has also made this locale an emerging hotspot for the trade of women and smuggling.

Perhaps the singularity of the Israeli separation barrier is that it is, in part, directed against its own citizens, Arab Israelis. This is contestable on two points. Firstly, in Britain the Enclosure Laws of the late 18th century fenced off the entire Western countryside to allocate that land for sheep farming (since wool was an important resource for early industrial revolution industry) and, by evicting newly landless peasants, to fuel urbanisation. This has never been rectified, which explains why almost the entire British population lives on 10% of the land. The British ruling class fenced in the subordinate masses, the repurcussions of which are still felt in a sense of overcrowding, though the vast plots of land have been converted into Golf courses and hunting estates to update the changing upper class palate. Secondly, Arab Israelis, especially outside Jerusalem, welcome the construction of the fence. The mayor of the Israeli-Arab village of Umm al-Fahm, in an interview with Ha'aretz, expressed the town's appreciation in standing and security:

"No fence can cut me off from my people," says the sheikh, "but I also want security, I also want peace. Since the government put up the fence, you haven't head one case of an attacker that came through Umm al-Fahm."

In the Middle East, fences elsewhere are not an uncommon phenomenon either. Saudi Arabia is in the process of unilaterally constructing a fence along its border with North Yemen, despite what appears to be a legimitate historical claim to the land by the Wayilah tribe, which inhabits the area until today. The Saudi response: it's not a fence, it's a concrete pipeline preventing terrorists to cross into Saudi Arabia. Sounds familar? After Saudi Arabia and the smaller oil-producing Gulf states excluded Yemen alone from accession to the Gulf Cooperation Council, it is not only grabbing land (at least 5 miles across the border) but also disrupting the livelihood of the local Yemenites. It has given 500 Yemenites Saudi citizenship to mitigate the backlash but is effectively splitting the people. Unilateral border-drawing remains a regrettable fact of the international system, in the Middle East as elsewhere.

Other examples of disputed borders include the unilaterally Turkish-built fence encompassing the historically disputed Syrian territory of Alexandretta and the electric Iraq-Kuwait fence (which US marines had no problem cutting). The alleged necessity for these artifical divisions of the human race are lamentable yet they must be acknowledged as a by-product of the larger international system, not as singular expressions of xenophobia, ruthless pursuit of self-interest, or malevolence. They may be remnants of the Westphalia system, the legacy of colonialism, result of war or tribal demographics. But they remain a standing fact of the status quo in a world premised upon the untouchable state of the "self-determined" nation.

Sharon the Realist?

As Sharon's political career draws to an almost inevitable end, and the world's eyes shift to a possible successor, his style of politics is placed flatly on the agenda. What style of politics did he pursue? Henryk Broder, in an article published in the Spiegel, claims that he was a Realist. He begins a subheading entitled "Sharon the Realist" by explaining that

"This is why Sharon decided to do what he felt was the right thing to do: to follow the Gaza pullout with a withdrawal from large portions of the West Bank and then present the Palestinians with a fait accompli."

While Realist conclusions can be reached based on the type of geopolitical sensibilities acquired through long participation in the arena of politics, merely acting on the impulse of what feels to be right ought to be described differently: decision-making based on intuitionist ethics. Of course, even Henry Kissinger, often upheld as the personification of Realism, could be charged with that type of conduct with regard to his alleged involvement in "Operation Condor" and his advice to indiscriminately bomb Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Perhaps it felt right for a man carved out of his timber to combat the communist threat without accounting for future ramifications. But if the costs outweighed the benefits, then his calculations were flawed, not misguided by an innate sense of justice. The same could, arguably, be said about Sharon's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which he hoped would fulfil the dual goals of expelling the PLO from the purview of international politics and establishing a friendly Maronite regime in Lebanon. With the benefit of hindsight, that was Realism gone awry. Permitting the massacre at Sabra and Shatilla could be reduced to bad impulses.

For Broder, the disengagement from Gaza (while moving more settlers into the West Bank) represented a fundamental turn in ideology. Sharon abandoned the Idealist vision of Greater Israel in favor of a strategy that would be the most beneficial and realistically attainable for Israel. It would be one of the rare moments in history when ethics and national self-interest labored hand in hand, without one delimiting the other. Ethically, of course, it was too little too late. Realistically as well. More importantly, the actual plan of separating the Palestinians of East Jerusalem with yet another artificial border that would curtail their freedom of movement, split families, obstruct their livelihood, and render some as "enemies" in Israel and others as Jerusalemites forced into "Palestine", cannot be the basis for a permanent solution. It exposes Sharon's willingness to settle for short-term solutions that appease his centrist coalition partners. That is not Realism, perhaps pragmatism.

This leads to Janine Zaccharia's appraisal (requires FP subscription) in Foreign Policy magazine, who claims that Sharon

"was courageous enough to abandon the Gaza Strip—and with it, his dream of a Greater Israel—in favor of pragmatism. It looks like he will not live to see Israel’s borders formally drawn and more settlements removed. But he may have already charted a course that his successor—whoever that may be—has no choice but to follow."

J. Zaccharia does not offer the signficance of her "pragmatism" but it appears as if she already sees a secure and successfully sealed state of Israel in the future, with its settlements removed (how many?) and Sharon's successor's embracing the creation of a Palestinian state outside the security barrier. If everything goes to Sharon's plan - which is the best case scenario, with Likud likely to strengthen until March - then the de facto borders will not secure long-term peace. Furthermore, Israeli politics has seen the persistence of human agency in politics. After Rabin, the once hawkish general who vowed to "break the Palestinians' bones", saw the light of peace, Netanyahu still won the elections. Perhaps he will be the lucky rebounder after a tragic misshot once again.

Even critical International Herald Tribune columnist William Pfaff gives Sharon the doubtful benefit of Realism in TODAYonline:

"As prime minister, Mr Sharon combined realism with geopolitical fantasy. He acknowledged that Israel could not forever continue military and political domination of the occupied Palestinian territories, whose population would soon become more numerous than the population of Israel itself."

It only requires a very watered-down form of Realism to accept the most striking political contingencies. Neoliberals do the same. And the vast majority of Israelis no longer lives under the illusion of acquiring the entire Palestinian territories. What may have really been a more accurate description of Sharon's style of politics may be, after all, a form of Zaccharia's pragmatism called opportunism. Sharon, despite initial appearances, gained great popularity from the pull-out. He acquired the air of another born-again politician, for which the Israeli public was yearning since Rabin's assassination. Sharon was then able to break the two-party system with ease, fashion Kadima in the way de Gaulle had moulded the Gaullist party. He was admired as the epitomy of the sabra: once the hard shell came apart, a soft rewarding core was exposed. After he had proven his manhood Israeli-style, he could relinquish it piecemeal.

Sharon was a realist and a pragmatist in the way he handled public opinion - and the way he bonded with Bush on ranches in the Negev and Texas. He kept his finger on the pulse of the Israeli mainstream and developed a sensibility to press in the right spots. But to me, the word opportunism springs to mind. No greater geopolitical corpus of principles or pattern of decision-making remains beyond this. In this vein, Olmert may well be able to carry on his legacy.