Why, Exactly, Should We Care What Bibi Netanyahu Thinks?

Bibi Netyanyahu does not like President Obama's deal with Iran. We should not be surprised, since he has opposed any negotiations with Iran all along. Fair enough.

So what?

Israel has been, in some cases, an ally of the United States in a region of the world in which the US needs as many allies as it can get. It is a democracy, it is not Islamist, and it has extensive cultural ties to the US, especially in the form of millions of Jews who play an important role in American politics. For these reasons, President Obama ought to pay attention to what Israeli leaders say.

On the other hand, Netanyahu himself has not done a lot to promote American interests in the Middle East. His heavy-handed treatment of Palestinians, both in and out of Israel, continues to provide motivation and opportunity for terrorist recruitment. He has done little, if anything, to help settle the conflicts created by the Arab Spring, in part because he does not like the idea of strong Muslim democracies -- or democracies at all, come to think of it. He has deliberately inserted himself into American politics in violation of all diplomatic protocols, especially between allies.

And, again, the United States needs as many allies in the region as possible. Iran is no friend of ISIS, and Saudi Arabia has been reluctant to help out on that front, at times. Israel is not exactly overextending itself in stopping the spread of a menace far more dangerous to it than to the US, but neither has it been appreciative of US efforts there.

In sum, Bibi can say what he wants, but I don't know why anyone should listen to him.

Democracy and the Rule of Law

Egypt burns once again, as the new regime cracks down on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations.

The violence there illustrates once again the crucial distinction -- and the vital interaction -- between democracy as such and the rule of law as such. As long ago as 1776, Thomas Paine argued, following Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others,  that there can be know true law without democracy. Monarchs and dictators, they showed, rule with no legitimacy because only the people can authorize a government. But experience since shows, no more vividly than in Cairo, that democracy is necessary but not sufficient to a society governed by the rule of law. Morsi and his group were properly elected but then promptly trampled on the principles of power-sharing necessary for any democratic government to work. And so the government collapsed, and we have returned to a dictatorship much like the one run by Hosni Mubarek.

It's a sad time for the Arab Spring, one that I hope passes and allows Egyptians and others in the magrib to find a government that works for them.

What's a Counter-revolution?

Egypt's Mohamed Morsi threatened the other day to crack down even more seriously on violent protests in Port Said. Calling the protesters "counter-revolutionaries," he insisted that he would maintain public order at the cost of civil liberties if necessary.

The word "counter-revolutionary" sounds dangerous to me. It implies that the revolution, whatever that is, comes first. Not the rule of law, not liberty, not democracy, not equality, not prosperity, not even order come before the revolution.

Check out his exact words:

The revolution was a turning point in Egypt's history. Egyptians have achieved unlimited freedoms and a constitution that reduced the president's powers.A structural reform is taking place in the state's institutions to fulfill the revolution's demands. I'm also working with the government to solve the problems of slum areas in Egypt.

Note the reification of the revolution here: it has demands, desires. Not only that, but it provided "unlimited freedoms." Such language does not bode well.

Stable democracy requires moderation. It requires compromise. I understand the pressure on President Morsi here, because no government can function, and few liberties can survive, in an atmosphere of chaos. People need to feel -- and to be -- secure in their personal safety before they ca engage is reasoned debate about touchy subjects. To this end, Morsi may need to make strongly-worded statements and to authorize coercion. The problem should be familiar to any 11th-grade US history student who as studied Abraham Lincoln. But language matters, too, and Morsi and the Muslim brotherhood need to learn to talk the talk.

The "Muhammad Riots" and Essential Values

from allvoices.com

Muslims across Northern Africa rioted last week because they saw an American-made video depicting Muhammad as a homosexual and an idiot. Coming as they do so closely on the heels of the Arab Spring and the recent elections in Egypt, the protests -- many of them violent -- raise serious questions about the clash of values between "Western" and "Islamic" societies.

I have never bought Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" thesis, in which he argues that the future of diplomacy will be focus on conflict between essential cultural groups. My problem with his argument is that he provides no useful definition of "civilization," despite his efforts to do so, and therefore can offer no universal rubric as he claims.

But there is no question that the people rioting in Cairo last week do not share American priorities, and Americans do not understand what the protesters are saying as a result. David Kirkpatrick said it best in the Times:

When the protests against an American-made online video mocking the Prophet Muhammad exploded in about 20 countries, the source of the rage was more than just religious sensitivity, political demagogy or resentment of Washington, protesters and their sympathizers here said. It was also a demand that many of them described with the word “freedom,” although in a context very different from the term’s use in the individualistic West: the right of a community, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish, to be free from grave insult to its identity and values.

Many people, when interviewed, simply would not accept the claim that the US government does not ban Holocaust deniers. They assume that every community has the right -- even the obligation -- to ban expression that it finds offensive. The failure to impose such a ban suggests to these Muslims an implicit endorsement of the expression.

We can never resolve this "disconnect." Muslims will not change their views on freedom of expression, and I certainly hope Americans will not change theirs. Both sides have merit, but the American position is, frankly, better.

It is the job of leaders, however, no navigate these differences wisely. Some clashes must result in serious conflict, and some must not. Distinguishing between the two is the essence of statesmanship. So far, President Obama has done well by exerting pressure on Egyptian and other leaders to maintain control while not ratcheting up the rhetoric in a way that will only exacerbate the problem.

"Rule of Law" v. "Rule of the Powerful"

Aristotle wrote that "it is more proper that law should govern than any one of the citizens: upon the same principle, if it is advantageous to place the supreme power in some particular persons, they should be appointed to be only guardians, and the servants of the laws." Hence the phrase "rule of law."


The problem arises when we seek to define the law. Dictators will use the phrase to claim legitimacy. They say "I make the laws, and therefore to abide by the rule of law everyone must do as I say." But such a claim undermines the very purpose of the concept. Aristotle's point -- reiterated and explained by John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau among myriad others -- is that LAW exists above and beyond any particular legislators. Majority rule may or may not automatically establish legitimacy, but Congress could no more claim to be the be-all of the LAW than the president could. Generally, the LAW limits power because it requires adherence to a set of principles that dictates what laws are legitimate.


In Egypt these days we have a dispute over this idea. The military junta currently in control complains that newly-elected President Mohamed Morsi has defied the rule of law by calling for the restoration of Parliament. The junta says that they dissolved the Parliament, and they are the law and therefore they rule. The Supreme Constitutional Court agrees with the junta.


Morsi, though he now says he will abide by the ruling of the Court, is correct and the Court and the junta are wrong. In fact, Morsi's actions today only reinforce the idea that he grasps the concept better than the military because he is accepting limits to his own power when he might have recourse to do otherwise.


On this will hinge the future of a democratic Middle East.

Egyptian Courts Assert Rule of Law

By denying the power of the army to renew martial law, and Egyptian administrative court today defended a key element of any legitimate government: an independent judiciary. This is very different from the "rule of law" many conservatives  -- both here and in Egypt -- talk about, which emphasizes the value of the law in controlling individuals. Here, the courts are attempting to control the government's intrusion into the lives of individuals.

An Islamic Democracy

Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian parliament six years ago now, and at the time it seemed like the first opportunity to test all the claims -- going all the way back to Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations?" -- about whether Islam is or is not compatible with democratic government. That experiment was spoiled, however, by the severe restrictions on Palestinian autonomy imposed by Israel and the United States, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes not.

Elections in Egypt may now give us a new opportunity to see how Islamists rule in a democratic government. But once again, the Islamists and the democrats must overcome un-democratic interventions, this time by the controlling military council of Egypt itself. As Hamas itself has observed, the protests of Tahrir Square have not yet secured victory. We can only hope for more progress in the near future.

Occupy Wall Street -- Who's the Target?

As Stephen Zunes of the University of San Francisco noted recently, the protests now known around the world as "Occupy Wall Street" are not a movement just because they are protesting. He argues that

The revolutionary pretensions of a youthful counter-culture aside, Occupy Wall Street must become genuinely representative of the vast majority of Americans now struggling as a result of inordinate corporate power and political influence, reflecting also the legitimate aspirations of small business owners, small farmers, and working families of the poor and middle-class majority whose voices in the established political process are too often drowned out by powerful corporate interests.

In other words, it's not enough to be angry or frustrated, or even to act on that anger in an organized way. If the people occupying downtowns across the country have accomplished anything, it's the articulation of a particular kind of anger at unequal distribution of wealth and the ways in which government promotes it. The protests serve as an outlet for people, especially yong people, to draw attention to the sense of helplessness they feel in the face of huge multinational corporations.

But the protests so far have only highlighted the helplessness, rather than alleviating it or addressing it. Some have compared the protests here to those in Tahrir Square in Cairo, where the mere presence of protesters toppled a regime. Both groups appear to be following the script of an elderly American named Gene Sharp, who has received a fair amount of attention recently. His central tenet, according to one account (I have not read his book myself)

is that the power of dictatorships comes from the willing obedience of the people they govern – and that if the people can decide together to withhold that obedience, a regime will crumble. “Dictators are never as strong as they tell you they are,” says Sharp, “and people are never as weak as they think they are.”

What's happening in Zucotti Square, however, can't really apply this idea. From whom are they withholding obedience? The police? The mayors? When protesters break curfew, are they highlighting the injustice of such rules? Are they trying to demonstrate that the government is incapable of enforcing such rules? If so, the efforts have been a dismal failure, because the latter is false and the former would not be widely accepted even among sympathetic Americans.

If the "movement" is achieve anything, then, it has to do something fundamentally different from what happened in Egypt or Tunisia, something even more radical and much more difficult.

I don't know whether they can pull it off, but in the next post I'll tell you what I think the aim is (or ought to be).

Egypt at (Another) Crossroads

NATO efforts to help rebels oust Qaddafi in Libya have pushed events in Egypt off the front page of American papers for the moment, but Egyptians are only now beginning to do the heavy lifting of their revolution. It took enormous courage and organizational skill for the protesters of Tahrir Square to succeed in their efforts to remove Hosni Mubarak. All that and more will be necessary for them to stabilize that accomplishment so it reaps long-term rewards.

As the Egyptian news weekly al-Ahram reports, one central problem is how to resolve the fraught relationship between the current ruling organization -- calling it a government seems a little premature -- and the protest movement which swept it into power. The military officers in power have promised to end the thirty-year-old "emergency" regime which allowed so many abuses under Mubarak, but only in some vague future "before the September elections." To take the problem further, the officers recently outlawed all protests, making the organization of such a thing punishable by a year in prison.

Of course, the protests of last month were illegal, too. For those in Tahrir Square, then, the question arises: does such a law have any legitimacy? Does a loyal Egyptian citizen have any obligation to the current regime when it imposes such restrictions?

Al-Ahram says only that the laws "raised some eyebrows." I wonder whether other body parts might be raised soon.

Egypt and the Rule of Law

NPR ran a story on February 16 arguing -- there really is no other word for it, since they did no serious reporting -- that the peaceful ouster of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt represented a serious setback for al Qaeda. This conclusion came from the fact that al Qaeda has issued no statement about the events of last week and from the reasoning that the peaceful overthrow of the Egyptian government shows al Qaeda's tactics to be both unnecessary and ineffective, since al Qaeda has been working to get rid of Mubarak for twenty years.

It certainly is true that these events put al Qaeda in a rhetorical bind: they can't praise the peaceful protestors for being successful since it does not appear that any of al Qaeda's goals beyond overthrow were accomplished, but they can't condemn anything about the actions either. President Obama succeeded in keeping the United States at a distance, so no one could be tainted by the smell of American interference or preference. Any statement one way or the other, especially in the context of other unrest in Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon and Jordan, might demoralize al Qaeda members who are looking for the nexus of evil that has always been the rallying point for al Qaeda. If leadership comes out against successful revolts they look silly and self-centered, but if they support them they risk hemorrhaging recruits to another method or group.

But logic does not always prevail in history. Any disorder in Egypt could provide a crack through which al Qaeda could enter. A better-organized al Qaeda in Egypt, where anger and education come together to a greater degree than any other place in the Middle East would be an extraordinarily dangerous thing. Remember that the intellectual foundation of the September 11 attackers' motivation came from Egyptian scholars and preachers. Hasan al Bana and Sayyid Qutb came from Egypt.

That's not to say that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist leadership of Egypt are al Qaeda. They are not. If the moderate Islamist movement has any geographic base, it is in Cairo, where the press (see especially al Ahram) and the resistance have for a long time been as reasoned as any in similar circumstances. It is to say that the work of those seeking the rule of law in Egypt have a lot of work to do. President Obama must be on the list of such people. Elections must occur, and order must be maintained while they are established. No one but Egyptians can succeed in these things, but other nations can help to keep outside actors from messing things up.

Egypt, the United States and the Rule of Law

The Egyptian government declared yesterday that it would extend the "emergency law" that has been in place there since 1981, when Anwar Sadat was assassinated, despite Mubarek's repeated promises to rescind it, and the increasingly vocal protests over it.

The Obama State Department expressed "disappointment" over the announcement. It said that

any move to significantly narrow the application of the Emergency Law would be a step forward if it means greater protection of civil liberties for Egyptian citizens in practice. We are confident that Egypt can draft and adopt effective counterterrorism legislation that conforms to international standards for civil liberties and due process. And the United States urges Egypt to complete this legislation on an urgent basis and to rescind the State of Emergency within the coming months.

This is a dicey diplomatic moment, of course, because the US needs Egyptian support in the region, not only because Mubarek has not opposed the US presence in Iraq, but because he has proven to be a fairly consistent partner in the Israel-Palestine mess.

But Mubarek's obvious dismissal of the need to rule democratically reveals Obama's problems as a world leader -- many of them created by Bush the Boy. Egypt receives more foreign aid from the US than any other nation save that other paragon of virtue, Israel. Together, then, these two allies daily trample the basic human and civil rights of their inhabitants and give the lie to the idea that the US hopes to democratize the region. It's hard to call for reform in Iraq (much less Afghanistan) when reform is nearly as badly needed in the places most supported by the US.

Things might be easier, of course, had Bush the Boy not invaded Iraq, thereby trampling international law in practice and theory. Iraq might, in that case, still be ruled by Saddam Hussein, but the US government would have the clout, the money and the good will to make more significant changes where it matters most.