Philippa Kaur

More stories

  • 63 Shares129 Views

    in World Politics

    Chadwick Boseman: Remember the King

    Speaking at the funeral of Malcolm X, on February 27, 1965, Ossie Davis, an American actor and civil rights activist, said: “Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man — but a seed — which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us.”

    Someplace between sadness, disbelief and shock is where many of us find ourselves still grieving the loss of actor Chadwick Boseman. The emotional and psychological toll of 2020, from COVID-19, inept political leadership and the seemingly endless list of victims of police violence across the United States will take years of therapy to grapple with much less overcome. At the time of this writing, Breonna Taylor’s killers remain at large.

    How Black Panther Sees the World

    READ MORE

    The death of Chadwick Boseman at age 43 only compounds the feeling of loss and emptiness. Boseman was much more than a famous actor who died too soon. He was a generational talent. Critics were already praising him as the next Denzel Washington. This is fitting, not only because of the on-screen charisma and leading-man persona they share, but also because Denzel Washington paid for acting opportunities for young Boseman.

    Although Boseman had a relatively short career, black Twitter named him the “blackest man in Hollywood” for his portrayal of the lives of significant black men. Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in Major League Baseball since 1889, in “42” (2013), James Brown, the “hardest working man in showbiz,” in “Get on Up” (2014), and Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice in “Marshall” (2017). His work in other films like “Message from the King” (2016) and the forthcoming “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” reveals a true artist that could bring depth, nuance and sophistication to any character he portrayed.

    However, perhaps no other film captures his presence and embodiment of royalty than the record-setting Marvel’s “Black Panther” (2018). The film revolutionized expectations of black representation for audiences worldwide. Although studio executives were not necessarily in full agreement, Chadwick Boseman insisted that his character maintain an African accent based on legitimate African languages. The attention to detail and the story brought Afrofuturism and Pan-African philosophy to the forefront — both firsts for a mainstream Hollywood film.

    The success of “Black Panther” affirmed many black comic book fans’ belief in what could happen if this story were ever a film and in the right creative hands. It also meant that traveling to multi-media, popular culture and comic conventions like Dragon Con would feel more welcoming with the validation of a successful black superhero film — not a sidekick or buddy. Dragon Con hosts about 85,000 people during Labor Day weekend and would have been happening live shortly after Boseman’s passing, if not for the closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    He meant so much to so many, with some fans seeing “Black Panther” multiple times and still buying copies on the Blu-ray and DVD. His appeal was both in his portrayals on-screen and in his behavior off-camera. His filmography is part of a more extensive collection of black films that disprove the myth that black movies with black-focused narratives do not travel well or appeal to a global audience.

    Aware of the cultural impact films have on popular culture and his power and platform as an actor, Boseman embraced the opportunity to be a catalyst for hope. He returned to his HBCU (historically black college and university) roots, Howard University, to challenge students to remain committed to their standards. He encouraged others to find and live their purpose. He took the time to speak with children, particularly those struggling with illnesses, as seen in an interview where Boseman talked about two black children that died of cancer before being able to see his movie. Such interviews, as well as tributes from actors, friends and family, offer evidence that his sense of giving and deep spiritual commitment to humanity was not limited to the characters he played.

    Learning that he was doing much of this while he battled colon cancer privately was, as Ernest Hemingway put it, grace under pressure — courage. Boseman could have quickly taken on roles that did not challenge assumptions or stereotypes about black life and his mortality. Still, he dared to live fearlessly and push the boundaries of what was possible in his art. In doing this, he has elevated what is possible and leaves a legacy that will not soon be forgotten.

    Chadwick Boseman has joined the ancestors now, much like his character T’Challa. This time he will not return. So, until we come forth again to meet, we wish him to rest in eternal peace and power. Wakanda Forever.

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

  • 88 Shares169 Views

    in World Politics

    The Tangled Maps of Greece and Turkey

    A person sitting at a café in the small town of Kaş, on Turkey’s southern coast, where the Taurus Mountains drop precipitously into the Mediterranean, would look out upon a blue bay and a small island. If they asked the waiter, he would tell them that the island — almost unbelievably — is in another country.

    That island is Kastellorizo. It is Greek. It is far from being the only Greek island that sits close to the Turkish mainland, but it’s perhaps the most striking, since it is 78 miles from its nearest Greek neighbor, the island of Rhodes, and fully 354 miles from the capital, Athens. Indeed, landlocked Ankara, the Turkish capital in the center of Anatolia, is nearer.

    Who Owns the Sea?

    Nation-states are the oddity of the modern age. To people in the era of empires, today’s borders would seem extraordinarily restrictive. For centuries, Kastellorizo interacted freely with the mainland, which lies one mile away. Now it exists as a surreal outpost adrift in the Mediterranean. This tiny, quiet island is central to the latest crisis between Greece and Turkey — an argument over gas exploration rights and who owns where on the seafloor in the eastern Mediterranean. It has led to collisions between Greek and Turkish vessels, and even a confrontation in Libyan waters between Turkish and French frigates in June.

    Discovery of Natural Gas Exposes Turkey’s Political Rifts

    READ MORE

    The clash with France is part of a wider confrontation in which France has become a vocal ally of forces in the eastern Mediterranean seen as broadly anti-Islamist. This includes European Union members Greece and Cyprus, as well as Israel, Egypt and the forces of renegade General Khalifa Haftar in Libya, a figure from the Gaddafi regime. All these alliances put France at odds with Turkey, which has emerged as the most vocal and perhaps the most powerful force for political Islam in the region. The alliance with Greece has helped to reignite much older hostilities between Greece and Turkey, feeding into dangerous older narratives.

    The argument surrounding territorial waters is as artificial as the nation states that have given rise to it. The intricacies of maritime law hang around the question of whether the far-flung isles of Greece can claim exclusive economic zones (EEZs) on the seabed around them — in effect, that they have a continental shelf that Greece can claim, a mile off the Turkish coast.

    Such claims create a collision course with Turkey, given the unusual situation of the two geographic territories. The result of the 1919-23 Turkish War of Independence was the establishment of a Turkish state on the landmass of Asia Minor, but to the exclusion of almost every island in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas lying off its shore. The peculiarity of this scenario is evident to anyone who has visited the popular tourist regions of the Turkish coast and the eastern Greek isles. The two are intimate neighbors, far more alike than they are to their respective hinterlands, let alone their distant national capitals.

    Arrival of Nationalism

    Nationalism — since its arrival from Western Europe — has been calamitous for the wider region in which Greece and Turkey lie. It has brought chaos to the Arab world, to the Balkans and to Cyprus. Even today, it still informs the aspirations of the Kurdish people to add yet another state to a region of instability and ethnic tension.

    On the face of it, Greece and Turkey appear to be two comparative success stories of the era of nation states in this region. They have been relatively stable, centralized states for much of the 20th century, despite the recurrence of military intervention in politics. Yet Greece and Turkey are also examples of the failure of the nation-state model in their very nature. Both espouse a virulent ethnic nationalism. Both are rooted in an ancient tribal exceptionalism, layered with later religious identities.

    Like the wider region, this nationalism has required that what was a patchwork of ethnicities, indeed a form of multiculturalism — or, at least, co-habitation — was systematically uprooted, most brutally in the state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing of the early 20th century. State-sanctioned ethnic violence is nothing new to the region. It happened to the Sephardic Jews of Greece in the 1940s (themselves previously cleansed from Christian Spain after the retreat of the Moors), it has happened in the Balkans in the past few decades, and it happened in Greece and Turkey in 1923.

    That was the year of the Treaty of Lausanne, which stipulated the transfer of populations between the two states based upon religious affiliation: Greek Orthodox to Greece, Muslims to Turkey. In many cases, this papered over cultural and ethnic complexities that were far from the clear-cut distinctions that Greek and Turkish nationalists believed inherent in their respective nation-state projects. This history, and the very human and very personal tragedy of it, has embedded an antipathy towards the “other” in the body politic of both states to the present day.

    It is this reality that makes questions surrounding continental shelves, exclusive economic zones and rights to resources that lie under the sea so intractable. It was hard enough and bloody enough to divide the land of this region between the warring parties, often leading to strange and unnatural results like the sad fate of the little isle of Kastellorizo — severed from the mainland it gazes upon with every sunrise. To attempt the division of the waters as well is likely to lead to yet another hard and bloody outcome.

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

  • 125 Shares149 Views

    in World Politics

    Mohammed bin Salman’s Shaky Legacy in a Troubled Saudi Kingdom

    Una Galani is the associate editor of Reuters’ Breakingviews division, which the news agency describes as “the world’s leading source of agenda-setting financial insight.” Last week, Breakingviews published her review of the book “Blood and Oil” by Wall Street Journal reporters Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck.

    The book tells the story of the rise to power of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It focuses on his audacious game plan for remodeling the Saudi economy. While presenting MBS, as the crown prince is commonly known, as a reformer ready to break with tradition, the authors reveal the darker side of his character and weigh the significant risks this entails for his own future and that of Saudi Arabia. 

    What Iran Can Learn From Saudi Arabia

    READ MORE

    Galani seems to go one step beyond the authors’ critical judgment when, in the title of her article, she refers to Mohammed bin Salman as “Saudi Arabia’s sharpest prince.” The epithet appears justified at least in the comparative sense that previous Saudi leaders had a reputation for being seriously dull and plodding. By way of contrast, “sharp” may seem appropriate as a description of MBS. Or perhaps Galani was thinking of the well-sharpened cutting edge of the bone saw that MBS allegedly provided to the hit squad that was sent to Istanbul to dismember journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.

    Galani writes that “it’s tempting to see [Mohammed bin Salman’s] ruthlessness as a broom to the kingdom’s problems, even as admirable,” but she avoids the temptation and entertains no illusions about his errors and failures. She lists the obvious ones: “a war in Yemen, the role of his close confidantes in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the blockade of Qatar, and the effective kidnapping of Saad Hariri, who was Lebanon’s prime minister at the time.” Galani then highlights the fatal character flaw that explains those human disasters, explaining that “the prince’s inability to tolerate dissent and black-and-white view of the world may lie at the root of his multiple misadventures.”

    Here is today’s 3D definition:

    Misadventures:

    A serious and even dreadful crime committed by someone with money and power, just as the misadventure of a citizen with neither money nor power (especially if black) will be deemed a crime worthy of incarceration  

    Contextual Note

    Galani was undoubtedly being ironic when she characterized Mohammed bin Salman’s crimes and brazen assaults on people, nations, colleagues, family and journalists as “misadventures,” to say nothing of human rights advocates who have no place in Saudi society. At another point, she mentions his “adventures in power.” Her image of the crown prince is clearly that of a hyperreal antihero, not far from that of a cartoon character.

    Embed from Getty Images

    Galani rightly reserves her judgment of Mohammed bin Salman’s place in history, which she nevertheless predicts will be a “highly disruptive legacy.” At the same time, she points to his failure to achieve his primary non-controversial goal, when she observes that he “hasn’t secured the inward investment needed to underwrite his economic transformation plans.” The simple truth is that Saudi Arabia today finds itself in a deep crisis aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic.

    The image of MBS that emerges from Galani’s review and Hope and Schenck’s book contrasts singularly with the points made last week in an article on Fair Observer by award-winning Iranian journalist Kourosh Ziabari. Seeking to develop a contrast between Saudi successes and Iranian failures, Ziabari believes that “the future Saudi king has undoubtedly scored significant gains both domestically and internationally.”

    Ziabari doesn’t call MBS “sharp,” but he deems him “a strong social reformer.” He cites the “notable steps the crown prince has taken to socially liberalize a conservative country.” He mentions in passing but seriously minimizes the “misadventures” Galani ironically mentions. 

    To justify Mohammed bin Salman as a model to be emulated, Ziabari cites a statistic from May 2018, months before the assassination of Khashoggi. As he recounts it, “more than 90% of young people in Saudi Arabia between the ages of 18 and 24 endorse the crown prince’s leadership.” In terms of journalistic accuracy, Ziabari should have written “endorsed” in the past tense. He may be unaware that the level of “trust” in MBS has since seriously deteriorated throughout the region as a recent Pew poll shows (even if the poll did not sample Saudi Arabia, for the obvious reason that it would not have been allowed to conduct its survey in the kingdom). Recent events have undoubtedly shaken the confidence of a lot of young Saudis.

    Had Ziabari been interested in more recently observed trends, he might have noticed one expert’s assessment in May: “The erosion of the social contract between the rulers and the ruled will lead to serious problems, especially in a tribal society.” The expert in question, Colin Clarke of the Soufan Center think tank, described MBS in these terms: “He’s not the sophisticated operator that he portrays himself to be. He’s less like a businessman or politician and more like a gangster.”

    Historical Note

    Most people acknowledge that 2020 has become a watershed moment in history. The year 2019 now appears to represent an unrecoverable past and 2021 an utterly unpredictable future. This is true everywhere in the world, even in a despotic kingdom ruled with an iron hand by an authoritarian prince with the capacity to imprison or execute at will members of his own family. And yet, Kourosh Ziabari relies on testimony from what now appears to be the distant past to highlight the success of Mohammed bin Salman.

    He approvingly reports that “The New York Times has described the measures [MBS] introduced as ‘Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring.’” He fails to point out two important facts: that the article was posted in November 2017 — nearly a year before the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi — and, more tellingly, that the author of that article was the comically unreliable, ever mistaken Thomas Friedman, a celebrity writer who still seems to believe the world is flat because US technology and the economic culture associated with it has become the universal parasite of state economies.

    To justify Mohammed bin Salman’s image as a reformist, Ziabari offers several quotes, all of which predate not just the current health and economic crisis, but also the Khashoggi affair. On the basis of those by now ancient remarks, he concludes that MBS has “introduced reforms that are meaningful and important in a troubled region riddled with conflict and the absence of democracy.”

    Skipping forward, he cites as proof of progress the recent decision of the supreme court to abolish flogging, as reported by the BBC. But he neglects to cite the damning conclusion in the same article: “But waves of arrests of every type of dissident under the king and the crown prince – including of women’s rights campaigners – undercut this claim, our reporter says.” 

    Ziabari’s real focus is on Iran, not Mohammed bin Salman. His wish for radical change in Iran makes perfect sense. But suggesting that the model MBS provides might be, as he claims, a “benchmark” would seem to be wishful thinking if not dangerous folly. As a point of comparison, it is historically accurate to call Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler modernizing reformers with ambitious programs, who were adored by a majority of their people. But no one today would treat them as role models.

    Concerning Iran, Ziabari is right to hope for a development that might “put an end to decades of hostility with the US and the West.” But, isn’t that exactly what had begun to take place when Barack Obama pushed through the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, which MBS opposed and US President Donald Trump canceled at the first opportunity?

    More realistically, Una Galani offers this assessment: “One positive for [MBS] is that it’s unclear how much of a difference the Khashoggi affair has really made. Investors were quick to mingle again with the prince, albeit somewhat more in private, but still with the hope of extracting funds.”

    Galani recognizes that it’s all about the decisions people with money make, not about the wise policies of political leaders. Ziabari seems to agree when he remarks that Mohammed bin Salman “has a favorable public image in the eyes of Western political and business elites.” Still, success with people who control piles of money should not turn him into a role model.

    *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

  • 125 Shares109 Views

    in World Politics

    What Can the Gulf States Learn from the Belarus Crisis?

    It might come as a surprise that the Gulf states have more than a passing interest in events in Belarus. Beyond growing economic ties, the political drama provides valuable lessons for the region’s monarchies and their efforts to maintain standards of living for their citizens without compromising power and influence. The Belarus crisis also offers useful pointers for Gulf states in their dealings with Russia.

    Over the past three decades, Belarusian domestic politics has been defined by its predictability. Despite the emergence of opposition candidates around election time, President Alexander Lukashenko’s grip on power was such that there was only one outcome. Yet, as with so much of 2020, life as Belarusians know it has been turned on its head.

    Big Blow for a Stable Dictatorship: Major Protests Hit Belarus

    READ MORE

    While the veracity of past elections has been called into question, a mixture of political complacency and COVID-19-related turmoil has breathed new life into Belarus’ opposition movement. Beyond disputing Lukashenko’s winning margin in July’s poll, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Belarusians have taken to the streets calling for change. Mostly born after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this generation does not regard the stability offered by Lukashenko as an asset. As they see it, state control of Belarus’ economy and society is incompatible with their aspirations.

    Lukashenko’s response to what has effectively become a matter of life and death for his regime has fluctuated between incoherency and heavy-handedness. The president’s disappearance from the public gaze at the start of the unrest, coupled with the disproportionate use of force against demonstrators, suggests that he did not seriously consider the possibility of mass protests. Continued police brutality and opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s flight into exile make it difficult to use “external forces” as justification for the crackdown.

    “Family” Comes First

    Much like Belarus, the Gulf states have relatively young populations, particularly Saudi Arabia, where over two-thirds of citizens are under the age of 35. Many have benefited from access to higher education systems that have grown exponentially since the early 2000s, both in terms of state and private universities. With this in mind, the region’s political elites can use the lack of meaningful opportunities for so many Belarusians to underscore the importance of their development plans and national visions.

    Embed from Getty Images

    Designed to meet the specific needs of Gulf countries, these strategies nevertheless have several objectives in common. In an effort to counter faltering prices and technological obsolescence, the region is attempting to diversify its dependence on oil and gas revenues by facilitating high-knowledge-content jobs in different industrial sectors. Doing so also requires the greater incorporation of indigenous populations into national workforces at the expense of expatriate workers. In this respect, Kuwait’s plans to drastically reduce its migrant population offers a glimpse into the future shape of the Gulf’s workplaces. While never explicitly mentioned in strategic documents, the Gulf states anticipate that encouraging their own populations’ development will offset opportunities for the type of political dissent that’s currently gripping Belarus and which rocked Bahrain almost a decade ago.

    The Gulf’s rulers have no appetite for an Arab Spring 2.0, a scenario that some warn is a distinct possibility thanks to COVID-19. Accordingly, local development opportunities will continue to be encouraged during these chastened times. When it comes to wider political participation, Kuwait will remain something of an outlier for the foreseeable future.

    The Gulf states’ responses to COVID-19 also merit consideration. Once dismissed by Lukashenko as an ailment that can be treated with saunas and vodka, Belarus was among the last in Europe to enact lockdown measures. While it remains to be seen what impact ongoing protests will have on infection rates, a spike in cases could be used by Gulf states to justify their no-nonsense approaches to tackling the virus. Qatar, for example, was one of the first to completely lock down all but the most essential public services. The country’s return to normal rests on the public’s strict compliance with a four-phase reopening plan.

    Don’t Annoy Next Door

    International reaction to the political crisis in Belarus has so far been muted, with presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and China’s Xi Jinping leading the congratulations for Lukashenko’s re-election. For its part, the European Union’s response has been cautiously led by the likes of Lithuania and Poland. Their approach reflects two important points. First, the protests are highly internalized and not about pivoting Belarus further East or West. Second, direct support for the opposition risks a Ukraine-type scenario whereby Moscow directly intervenes to safeguard its interests.

    Point two is of particular relevance to the Gulf states, whose economic ties with one of Russia’s closest allies continue to grow. Cooperation between Belarus and the United Arab Emirates is a case in point. According to government statistics, the volume of trade between both countries amounted to $121 million in 2019, up from $89.6 million the previous year. Minsk has also made overtures to Oman regarding joint manufacturing opportunities and the re-export of products to neighboring markets.

    Saudi Arabia undoubtedly has the most to lose from antagonizing Russia in its own backyard. Last April, the kingdom sold 80,000 tons of crude oil to Belarus. This purchase, first of its kind, not only reflects Minsk’s determination to lessen its reliance on Russian supplies, but also happened against the backdrop of faltering demand and an oil price war between Moscow and Riyadh. Since then, both sides have brokered a fragile peace designed in part to ensure that OPEC+ members respect industry-saving production cuts.

    Accordingly, the “softly, softly” approach currently being employed by the EU’s eastern flank provides a blueprint for how the Gulf states should continue to manage their responses to the Belarus crisis. Not only does it offer the best chance of maintaining economic relations irrespective of the final outcome, but it also keeps regional oil supplies in still uncharted waters at a time of great uncertainty in global markets. Antagonizing Russia with even the most tacit support for Belarus is, put simply, too risky a proposition.

    Belarus’ unfolding crisis is ultimately about replacing an unmovable political leader and system that have dominated the country for decades. In a region defined by its own version of long-term political stability, a similar scenario among Gulf states is unpalatable. Fortunately, the region still has resources at its disposal to prevent this from happening and protect much-needed economic victories in new markets. While always important, the Gulf’s indigenous populations are increasingly being reconfigured as the most essential features of the region’s future prosperity and stability.

    *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

  • 113 Shares169 Views

    in World Politics

    The UAE and Israel: Not So Big a Deal

    The Abraham Accord is a grand title well in keeping with the Trump presidency’s taste for overstatement and misdirection. But the expectation that other Arab states would fall into line with the United Arab Emirates and quickly normalize relations with Israel has fallen well short of the mark. Jared Kushner’s shortcomings as a self-appointed diplomat extraordinaire solving one of the world’s most intractable conflicts were on full display in an interview he gave to The National after arriving in Abu Dhabi aboard El Al flight 971, the first-ever commercial flight to a Gulf state from Israel.

    The president’s son-in-law called the deal an “historic breakthrough” that augured well for peace. Already sensing, perhaps, that the expected avalanche of Arab states moving to normalize relations was not happening as anticipated he nonetheless enthused: “So, not just in the Middle East, are now countries who weren’t thinking of normalising relations with Israel, thinking of forming a relationship and doing things they wouldn’t have thought to do a couple of weeks ago.”

    Israel and the UAE: The Myth of Normalizing Abnormalities

    READ MORE

    Kushner also claimed: “There’s a lot of envy in the region that the United Arab Emirates took this step and we now have access to Israeli agriculture technology, security business. The opportunity in tourism. And so a lot of people would like to follow that now.”

    Friends of Convenience

    Parsing those two statements, does Kushner really think that it was only “a couple of weeks ago” that MENA countries were thinking of their relations with Israel? And does he think that describing those who have not immediately jumped aboard as displaying “a lot of envy” is the way to get them to do so? Kushner displays arrogance, ignorance and the patronizing attitude with which the Trump White House views Arabs: easily exploitable as malleable friends of convenience and eager purchasers of weapons.

    US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had already come away empty-handed from Bahrain and Oman, two Gulf Cooperation Council states that were expected, given the precarious shape of their finances, to follow immediately in the footsteps of the UAE. He also struck out in Sudan. The Saudis had allowed the El Al flight to cross their territory — another first — but despite Kushner meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his way back from Abu Dhabi, they were not rushing to join the historic breakthrough either.

    Indeed, abandoning the Palestinians so utterly on a thin promise from Benjamin Netanyahu to suspend (note: not end) West Bank annexation is proving too distasteful for many Arab leaders to stomach, even though  some of them have been prepared privately to go along with Kushner’s concoction of a so-called deal of the century designed to give the Israelis virtually everything they want while denying the Palestinians a viable, territorially contiguous and independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

    Part of the deal with the Emiratis was supposed to be the delivery of F-35 fighter jets, long sought after by Mohammed bin Zayed, the Abu Dhabi crown prince, deputy supreme commander of the armed forces and de facto UAE ruler. Much to his chagrin, Israel invoked what is known as its qualitative military edge (QME). The QME is designed to ensure that whatever weaponry the US sells to Arab states, none of it will challenge Israel’s military supremacy. The Israelis have two combat-ready squadrons of F-35s.

    And while Kushner and Israel made much of the deal signifying a common front against the Iranian threat, it is a simple fact that despite sanctions, the UAE, and Dubai in particular, do a lot of business with the Islamic Republic of Iran and has done so for decades. Trump’s “maximum pressure” tactics have not altered in any significant way that hard reality.

    Big Gestures

    Amongst other big gestures, Kushner and the Israelis hope to bring Mohammed bin Zayed to Washington in September to sign the deal and to celebrate what he sees — and Trump will claim — as history in the making. With the election heading into its final weeks, it will be sold as a diplomatic triumph for the president, intended to appeal to his evangelical base, hence the overblown title. Whether the Abu Dhabi crown prince will go along with such a blatant electioneering ploy remains to be seen.

    The deal does deserve to be acknowledged as significant if only because a third Arab state, an increasingly powerful and influential one, joins Egypt and Jordan in recognizing Israel. That is a breakthrough. Where Kushner has stumbled is in trying to hype it and sell it as something other than what it is. The Emiratis and the Israelis have been doing business for many years, but it has been done sub rosa. Normalization acknowledges that situation. And at a time when COVID-19 is laying waste to the global economy, it does herald economic benefits for both countries with deals in defense, medicine, agriculture, tourism and technology being mooted.

    Mohammed bin Zayed, though smarting at the nixing of the F-35 deal, can still lay claim to gaining much-added influence and stature in Washington, a situation that is not likely to change should Joe Biden win the presidency. For Benjamin Netanyahu, the wins are less clear cut. The settler movement, already outraged at his failure to deliver on annexation by July 1, may decide that what they see as his latest and largest betrayal — the suspension of West Bank annexation — is sufficient grounds to bring him down and force another election, one that, should he lose, will make him ever more vulnerable to a court case that could lead to conviction and jail for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.

    *[Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Mauritania recognized Israel, whereas it froze diplomatic relations in 2009.]

    *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

  • 125 Shares189 Views

    in World Politics

    The Unintended Economic Impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative

    China’s footprint in global foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased notably since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. That served to bring Chinese overseas FDI closer to a level that one would expect, based on the country’s weight in the global economy. China accounted for about 12% of global cross-border mergers and acquisitions and 9% of announced greenfield FDI projects between 2013 and 2018. Chinese overseas FDI rose from $10 billion in 2005 (0.5% of Chinese GDP) to nearly $180 billion in 2017 (1.5% of GDP). Likewise, annual construction contracts awarded to Chinese companies increased from $10 billion in 2005 to more than $100 billion in 2017.

    Interestingly, however, the American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment tracker recorded $420 billion worth of investment and construction in BRI countries versus $655 billion in other countries between 2013 and 2018. So China actually invested more in countries outside the BRI during the period, given that Chinese investment in developed countries tends to have larger market values, particularly for mergers and acquisitions.

    Additional Pain

    Based on other measures, however, Chinese investment in BRI nations was much larger as a percentage of its total investment for the period. For example, greenfield investment represented almost half of all investment in BRI countries, but only 13% in other markets. Chinese firms were awarded $268 billion worth of construction contracts in BRI countries versus $166 billion elsewhere. Greenfield investment and construction in BRI countries amounted to $340 billion versus $230 billion in non-BRI countries.

    The subsidies that Beijing contributes to its state-owned enterprises implies that many of the BRI projects actually cost it far more than the face value of the construction and investment, meaning that loan defaults — a common occurrence — add that much more additional pain to Beijing’s coffers.

    The BRI: Keeping the Plates Spinning on China’s Economy

    READ MORE

    Asia attracted the majority of BRI-related investment and construction contracts between 2013 and 2018, receiving just over half of such activity, with Southeast Asia taking 46% of that amount. Africa received 23%, followed by the Middle East at 13%. Overall, approximately 38% of total investments and construction contracts were targeted at the energy sector in host nations, with 27% ending up in transport and 10% in real estate.

    The largest BRI project as of 2018 was the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which links Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang province with the port of Gwadar in Pakistan. Investments and construction contracts worth nearly $40 billion had been devoted to the project, with total spending likely to reach in excess of $60 billion by the time it is finished, equivalent to about 20% of Pakistan’s nominal GDP. The country endured a large increase in imports of materials and capital as a result, which aggravated its trade imbalance. By 2018, its current account deficit had expanded to more than 6% of GDP from less than 2% in 2016.

    Expensive Membership

    While Pakistan’s economic challenges were not and are not entirely attributable to the BRI, the strains added to it by the BRI became highly problematic. That turned out to be a common byproduct of the initiative among the countries receiving the largest amounts of investment. Large debts in countries with limited financial resources and means of generating revenue often undermine governments’ ability to successfully manage their economies. Rather than benefiting from the infrastructure investments made by China, they sometimes end up perpetually treading water.

    Rising debt service often increases a country’s borrowing costs, can raise doubt about its solvency, contribute to a depreciating currency and increase the local currency value of the external debt burden. Consequently, the macroeconomic fallout of being a recipient member of the BRI “club” can be severe, particularly for the smallest and poorest countries.

    A 2018 study from the Center for Global Development has noted, for example, that in the case of Djibouti, home to China’s only overseas military base, public external debt had increased from 50% to 85% of GDP in just two years — the highest of any low-income country. Much of that debt consists of government-guaranteed public enterprise debt owed to China’s Export-Import Bank (EXIM).

    In Laos, the $6-billion cost of the China-Laos railway represents almost half the country’s GDP. Debt to China, Tajikistan’s single largest creditor, accounted for almost 80% of the total increase in Tajikistan’s external debt between 2007 and 2016 period. And in Kyrgyzstan, China EXIM is the largest single creditor, with loans of $1.5 billion, or about 40% of the country’s total external debt.

    It certainly does not appear that Beijing put sufficient effort into contemplating the likely economic impact of the BRI prior to commencing it, either upon host nations or upon itself, for all concerned have borne the consequences of excessive and imprudent lending. Could it be that that Communist Party of China did not care, and that all that mattered was rolling the Initiative out as quickly as possible once it decided to do so?

    It is truly surprising that Beijing did not do a better job of envisioning the multiplicity of potential outcomes. That is undoubtedly the overriding reason why the Chinese government decided to pivot in 2018 and adopt a seemingly more rational, moderate and achievable approach to unleashing the remainder of the BRI upon the world. It now realizes that its reputation and legacy are at stake, never mind the hardship it has placed on scores of developing countries around the world in the process.

    *[Daniel Wagner is the author of “The Chinese Vortex: The Belt and Road Initiative and its Impact on the World.”

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

  • 113 Shares129 Views

    in World Politics

    The Next President Needs to Learn From Past Mistakes

    Thirteen years ago, in summer 2007, I wrote a memo for the future president of the United States. The one who would take office in 2020.

    At the time, I had no idea who would win the 2008 presidential election, much less an election in the distant future. In summer 2007, Hillary Clinton was the Democratic frontrunner, ahead of second-place Barack Obama by as much as double digits. Rudy Giuliani was on top of the polls for the Republican Party, with John McCain trailing behind him. I figured, wrongly, that it would stay that way.

    Does Joe Biden’s Transition to the Center Have Any Meaning Today?

    READ MORE

    One year later, in summer 2008, both Obama and McCain would come from behind to secure their parties’ nomination. And I would predict in a TomDispatch piece that Obama would win the election, serve two terms and leave the US in a perilous place in 2016 because of his policies of “muddling through.” Well, I got that part right.

    But in summer 2007, all I could focus on was the relative decline of the United States, as seen with “2020 hindsight.” The subprime mortgage crisis was unspooling that summer, the Bush administration was still sending more US troops to Iraq as part of its “surge” and the Chinese economy was growing by 14.2%.

    Casting my mind 13 years into the future, I tried to imagine which of these three factors — Iraq, financial crisis, China — would prove most salient in explaining the downward trajectory of US standing in the world.

    Here’s what I wrote back in 2007.

    Memo to the President 2020

    “As a member of the transition team, I’ve been asked to give a backgrounder on the ‘loss of global influence’ issue that played such a major role in the last election. I’ve submitted my study entitled End of Empire and I would encourage you to read my full analysis. I’ve been told that you might not have the time to read all three volumes. As a historian, I find it extraordinarily difficult to boil this question down to 750 words. But I will try. 

    Historians are divided into roughly three camps on the causes behind the end of the unipolar system headed by our country. The largest camp is the Iraq Syndrome group. They argue that the U.S. decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was the critical, history-changing moment. As you well know, the invasion turned into an unsuccessful 10-year occupation that sapped the U.S. economy and significantly eroded U.S. reputation in the world. More damaging, however, was the syndrome that followed the war. The unpopularity of the war made it increasingly difficult for the United States to launch military operations and virtually impossible to solicit international support. Although the Democrats tried to maintain high military budgets through 2010, they ultimately had to make significant cuts in order to salvage the economy. 

    Embed from Getty Images

    The second camp is generally called the China Rising group. These historians, influenced by the world-systems work of Wallerstein, locate the end of U.S. influence in shifting geopolitical power and particularly the growing influence of China. As of February 2019, the Chinese economy is now larger than ours, though we still maintain a lead in per-capita GNP. More importantly, China’s turn toward multilateralism in the early part of this century caught us by surprise. The transformation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) into the premier international security mechanism, with its own peacekeeping forces and development bank, undercut both NATO and traditional U.S. bilateral alliances. When the EU became a member of the SCO in 2014, the transatlantic alliance was effectively over. 

    The Iraq Syndrome and the China Rising arguments are familiar and persuasive. But I do not believe that they fully explain our fall. The third camp, to which I belong, is called the Subprime group. Although we are currently considered revisionist historians, I believe that my End of Empire books definitively establish that the financial crisis that the United States experienced in 2007 was the key element in destroying our position in the world. 

    As you might remember, the United States experienced a significant housing bubble beginning in 2001. Americans became obsessed with buying houses, and selling houses. The banks devised a way of lending money to people who ordinarily would not have enough credit to buy a house. This was called the sub-prime loan. Without going into the details — please see Chapters 2-8 in Volume One of End of Empire — I will simply remind you of the rising number of foreclosures in the summer of 2007, the bankruptcy of lenders, the failure of hedge funds, the collapse of retail, the devaluation of the dollar, and the coordinated global bank interventions that turned out to be only a stopgap measure. 

    At the time, U.S. economists predicted that the housing market would recover by 2009. That didn’t happen. The subprime crisis revealed not only the underlying fragility of the domestic U.S. economy but the global economy as well. It is a common fallacy to draw parallels between household economics and the functioning of the national economy. However, in this case, I have argued that the parallel did apply. Average Americans, with their large amounts of debt, had to give up their prized possessions, that cornerstone of the American dream, the house. So, too, did the United States, with its nearly $9 trillion national debt, have to give up its global position, its “house” so to speak. 

    Historians in the two other camps overlook this simple and rather elegant explanation. Yes, the Iraq War was a tremendous drain on U.S. resources and thus a classic case of imperial overstretch. Yes, China played the multilateral card at just the right time and thereby built an international reputation. But it was a handful of greedy mortgage lenders that served as the catalyst. The market correction that followed the subprime crisis in fact turned out to be a much larger geopolitical correction that restored a certain balance to international affairs. Finally, with 2020 hindsight — to use this year’s most popular catch phrase — we can see that Iraq and China pale in comparison to the cold, hard bottom line. As you repeatedly said on the campaign trail, quoting one of last century’s most enduring lines, ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’” 

    Fact-Checking the Memo

    Before evaluating my central argument, let’s see what I got right with the three factors. The occupation of Iraq was indeed unsuccessful in many respects, though it lasted officially for only eight years, not a full decade as I predicted. US troops returned in 2014 as part of the campaign against the Islamic State, and approximately 5,000 are still there today (though Trump has announced a reduction to 3,500 by November).

    The debacle of the Iraq War has deeply affected US military thinking. It has made it more difficult for the United States to mobilize popular support and international backing for military campaigns. But during the Obama era, the US largely shifted from “boots on the ground” to war at a distance through airstrikes and drone warfare. The military budget, as a result of economic pressures, peaked in 2010 at $849 billion and then began to fall (just as I predicted but not as significantly as I would have liked to see).

    Embed from Getty Images

    China has steadily strengthened its global position since 2007. The US economy remains larger than the Chinese economy, as measured by nominal GDP. But if you look at GDP by purchasing power parity, China surpassed the US in 2017. Either way, of course, China is still behind the United States in GDP per capita. Whether China on balance has become economically more powerful than the US remains controversial.

    What is not controversial, however, is China’s creation of a rival multilateralism. It decided to do this not through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), as I predicted, but through a set of institutions that it could more easily control: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank it launched in 2014 and the various “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) initiatives that it started in 2013. Many European countries, by the way, joined the AIIB, over the objections of the US. Those defections didn’t end the transatlantic relationship, but they certainly weakened it.

    At the moment, the US is focused on China’s nationalism and the more assertive foreign policy of Xi Jinping. But even as it clashes with certain of its neighbors — India, Vietnam — China remains more focused on building a web of strong economic and diplomatic relationships around the world. And that makes China a more powerful rival for global influence than the flexing of its muscles in its neighborhood.

    Finally, let’s take a look at the US economy. The subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 turned into a full-blown financial crisis the following year when Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008. Nearly 10 million Americans lost their houses to foreclosure between 2006 and 2014, and less than a third of them would buy another house. In 2008, 2.6 million Americans lost their jobs. The housing market didn’t recover by 2009. But the Obama administration stabilized the economy with a significant bailout of the banks, and the US economy would eventually recover.

    But the financial crisis, in part because of the bank bailouts, also helped shift enormous resources to the wealthy. The resentment that caused, in the US and elsewhere around the world, helped generate a wave of right-wing politics that eventually deposited Donald Trump in the White House.

    Trump and the Next President

    In 2007, I could not have predicted the ultimate political triumph of Donald Trump. In fact, up until election night 2016, I still expected him to go down to defeat. Instead, I predicted that the backlash to Obama’s tepid, middle-of-the-road politics would hit in 2020. America B, the large part of the country that got hit hard by the financial crisis and never recovered, was itching for revenge. As I wrote in June 2016:

    “As long as America B is left in the lurch by what passes for modernity, it will inevitably try to pull the entire country back to some imagined golden age of the past before all those ‘others’ hijacked the red, white, and blue. Donald Trump has hitched his presidential wagon to America B. The real nightmare, however, is likely to emerge in 2020 or thereafter, if a far more capable politician who embraces similar retrograde positions rides America B into Washington.”

    Today, America faces a much more serious economic crisis. The stock market has barely taken any notice, as it heads back to its historic highs. Nor has Jeff Bezos and his fellow billionaires suffered from all the business closures and surging unemployment (indeed, Bezos has benefited tremendously from it all). America B, already weakened by President Trump’s trade war with China, is getting hit by the COVID-19 pandemic both economically and medically.

    So, it turns out that my memo to the 2020 president is eerily prescient. The cratering economy is shaping up to be the downfall of Trump. Let’s assume that the Democrats win in November. If they want to save the country — and that is the goal, not restoring America to its unipolar position — they’d better not repeat the mistakes of the Obama era. The cold, hard bottom line is that stabilizing the economy is not sufficient, particularly if it means locking in the economic inequality of US society, preserving the unsustainable nature of US manufacturing and agriculture, and relying on financial services to pull the economy out of its current hole.

    The next president has to deal with all the debacles of the Trump era — the failure to contain the pandemic, the miscalculated confrontations with China, the self-defeating hostility to internationalism. But the next president must also ensure that Trumpism doesn’t return in a politically more palatable form. To do that will require the kind of economic transformation that Obama didn’t have the political nerve (or the congressional backing) to enact.

    To win in November, the Democrats have to remember that simple electoral catchphrase of the 1990s. To govern successfully and remain in charge in Washington, however, they’d better repeat to themselves an updated mantra: It’s the sustainable economy, stupid.

    *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

  • 113 Shares99 Views

    in World Politics

    Israel and the UAE: The Myth of Normalizing Abnormalities

    As the El Al flight 971 touched down in Abu Dhabi, a number of people looking at the aircraft wondered about the significance of the message it carried. The number for what both sides claimed to be Israel’s first-ever commercial flight to the UAE was the dialing code for the Emirates, with the return flight to be 972 — Israel’s dialing code. More significantly, the aircraft’s name, clearly written on the cheek of its front fuselage, Kiryat Gat, is that of a Palestinian village, Iraq al-Manshiyya, whose population was forcibly removed by the Israeli Defense Forces in 1948 and ultimately annexed to become the Israeli city of Kiryat Gat.

    The symbolism was unmistakable. UAE’s military strongman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, had earlier tweeted that his decision to “normalize” relations with Israel was part of a deal that will stop the annexation of the West Bank. Immediately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by contradicting Bin Zayed, stating that his decision was only a temporary suspension, requested by President Donald Trump, an indication that even the suspension itself was not influenced by Bin Zayed.

    Annexation or No Annexation, Little Will Change in Israel-GCC Relations

    READ MORE

    The deal with Bin Zayed, Netanyahu affirmed, was “peace for peace.” Nothing more. The aircraft’s name was a confirmation that even as the flight carried the Arabic, English and Hebrew words for peace, it was not intended to revoke Israel’s annexation program. Ultimately, like Kiryat Gat before, the West Bank will also be annexed.

    How Normal Is Normal?

    It is the sovereign right of every country to define its relations with any other party. What Bin Zayed has done is revoke the promises made to the Palestinians by the UAE and other Arab nations, including the current undertaking, first declared in the Arab summit conference in Beirut in 2002 and reaffirmed as recently as 2017. Known as the Arab Peace Initiative, it offered normalization, but only if certain conditions were met. The UAE is a signatory to the original and subsequent declarations, including the 2017 document.

    Embed from Getty Images

    This and similar earlier declarations over the years by Arab governments had prevented Palestinians from seeking their own methods for liberating their lands. Negotiations, mainly controlled by Arab governments guided by their own political and economic agendas, had monopolized the Palestinian struggle for the past seven decades. In the process, Israel had become more powerful, imposing an increasing fait accompli by creating more settlements, while Palestinians still remain scattered in refugee camps, generation after generation, in hope that Arab governments will ultimately help them regain their rights. With Mohammed bin Zayed deciding to normalize relations with Tel Aviv, the question that springs to mind is how normal can relations be when one party to that normalization refuses to abide by normal behavior and in fact continues to evict, imprison, confiscate land, bulldoze houses and create more forced realities on the ground that deny the Palestinians some of the most basic human rights?

    Under what definition can a relationship between Israel and the UAE be termed “normal,” especially given Abu Dhabi’s repeated commitments to the Palestinians under the Arab League Charter and Arab summit conferences? By this normalization, Bin Zayed has unconditionally opened to Israel doors that were promised only as part of a comprehensive settlement for the Palestinians. This is not normalization. This is a sellout and betrayal of Palestinians who were denied — through Arab compromises and declarations — to seek their own route and method to a solution.

    The UAE’s abrogation of its commitments is not the first one we see. The US has abrogated its commitments under several international agreements. And the Palestinians themselves have been on the receiving end of numerous Israeli violations of their treaty commitments toward Palestinians, including many UN resolutions that obligate Israel, as a UN member, to obey. But the UAE used a pretext that the Palestinians find insulting — the claim that this normalization is part of a deal that will stop annexation of the West Bank. This claim is not only a foolhardy lie, as Netanyahu’s immediate denial shows, but also demonstrates political immaturity and lack of understanding about the 72-year Palestinian struggle.

    The Palestinian fight has never been about stopping or suspending Israel’s West Bank annexation but about the entire history of Palestinian rights that are being systematically eradicated while Arab governments continue to hijack their cause. If indeed Bin Zayed is correct that such an understanding exists, then Netanyahu’s turnaround will probably be just the first, but certainly not the last, that the UAE will experience in its dealings with Israel. The well-known Palestinian politician, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, told RT: “The UAE will experience what we have seen many times over the years. Israel doesn’t respect any treaties, any covenants, any promises it makes.”

    Of Dying and Forgetting

    Referring to Palestinians in the diaspora, Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, had said, “The old will die. The young will forget.” More than 70 years after the creation of the state of Israel and the forced eviction of Palestinians, many of them hold the keys to their homes which are passed over to their children. Every year as Israel celebrates another anniversary of its creation, Palestinians mourn another anniversary of the Nakba — the Catastrophe — that descended upon them. The old have died, and the young refuse to forget.

    Khalid al-Sheikh Ali, a Palestinian living under Israeli occupation in Al Shaafath refugee camp, told Al Jazeera: “We live here in prison. We live in a camp while we have a plot of land inside Palestine — it is empty. You want me to be an intellectual human being, a well-informed human being, a non-violent human being and so on. But I am not living like a human being here. You go out, you see the army, the overrunning drains, the piling garbage, the humidity that is eating into us and our dwellings, the dirty drinking water. The most painful thing we suffer, everyday, is to try to go outside the barriers.”

    This misery is being inflicted upon Palestinians to force them to abandon their homeland, throw away their keys, forget and escape. Instead, they endure, passing the barbed-wire barriers that separate them from their homes the keys to which they still hold on to, sure that they will return. Indeed, given the never-ending misery Palestinians inside and outside Palestine suffer, it is impossible to imagine Ben Gurion or any of his successors ever realizing their dream. Enduring pain has its own way of sustaining memories.

    In an act that again demonstrated the inability of Arab rulers to resolve Arab problems, Iran and Turkey — repeatedly accused of interfering in Arab affairs — have been vindicated by Bin Zayed. Arabs, especially Palestinians, indeed need to look to regional solutions instead of Arab solutions. Clearly, Arab rulers have decided that self-preservation takes precedence over national preservation. The deal with Israel, supported by the US, aims at enabling Netanyahu and Trump to win elections with the quid pro quo of helping Mohammed bin Zayed push back the growing internal opposition to his rule. The security agenda in this deal unmistakably stands out by the deafening silence of the dealmakers on the subject. Going forward, this deal will result in more draconian methods to silence the growing opposition. 

    Following the arrival of flight Kiryat Gat in the UAE, two explosions erupted almost simultaneously, one in Abu Dhabi, on a road leading to the airport, and another in Dubai. The government claimed gas leaks to be the cause for both. The coincidence and the timing are an uncanny precedence, in a country where such incidents are unheard of.

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More