hearts and minds

Editorial in the Gulf News on the whole Dubai Ports World affair:

Nevertheless, the whole affair served as a lesson for other Arab companies who may have thought of investing in what has proved to be a hostile US atmosphere. All the free trade talk proved to be just empty rhetoric. Another irony is that the Democrats, the supporters of globalisation, were the key opponents of the deal. There must have been something else behind the sudden change of heart.

It was definitely not the concern for national security, as they fully know the Bush administration had run a meticulous review of the deal, which established it was not a threat. Was it the "Israeli element" as some have suggested? Maybe. Otherwise, why would some Congress members bombard the

DP World executive, during last week's hearing, with questions about the Arab boycott of Israel? Did they want to force the UAE to end the pan-Arab boycott of Israel in order approve the deal?

These questions need to be investigated. But the fact remains it was an ugly scene in Washington. Other foreign-owned companies run US ports but they were not Arab. That is the message.

And we got it.

Meanwhile, Chinese government-owned companies control terminals in Los Angeles and other West Coast cities, and both ends of the Panama Canal.

Had the present Administation been taking port security seriously for the past five years, this whole afair would have been rendered moot. Instead we have this fiasco.

Sectarian violence or civil war?

Dan Darling has an important piece at Threatwatch that analyzes whether the sectarian violence in the aftermath of the Samariyya bombing amounts to a genuine civil war or not. FWIW I agree that the sectarian violence after the Samariyya bombing probably did not amount to a genuine civil war, and that if anything Iraq has already been embroiled in a low-level civil war of sorts ever since the first post-invasion bombing at the shrines of Najaf that killed an ayatollah (Hakim?).

However, my opinion is that if a successful destruction of the shrines in Karbala or Najaf is carried out, then we will assuredly see a true and genuine civil war, with likely breakup of the country resulting. I've previously mentioned that in my view, partition of Iraq is tantamount to defeat of our goals (however you wish to define them).

Also, I don't really buy into the Iranian angle for Samarriya, as others have suggested. If anything I think that Iran benefits mroe from a united Iraq dominated politically by the Shi'a rather than a sectarian breakup. I don't see how a civil war really benefits Iranian aspirations; in many ways it actually hinders them, because it would create a hostile Sunni state on their doorstep.

open letter to the MSA at U of Illinois

I wanted to share another link, this time from Ali Eteraz. In it, he details his involvement in the Cartoon controversy, specifically chastising the muslim students association for their utterly abdication of their responsibility to use their media exposure for a genuine cause - instead, they wasted it on a trivial matter by falsely attempting to suggest a latent Islamophobia in America.

That there are Islamophobes in the US is not a matter of dispute; but the assertion that the environment in America is equivalent to that in Europe is quite easily refuted. Ali does a fine job of making the case - though he starts out with the relevant backstory first. It is a worthy read.

Also, in comments at Eteraz' site, Thabet points to this FindLaw article about the Cartoon controversy that makes a number of important points. Among them, the emphasis on the different legal environments in Europe and America with respect to free speech and hate speech laws. I personally strongly support a boycott of Danish goods, because what offended me was not the expression, but rather but the intent of the speech in question.

Shari'a

In the wake of various polls that purportedly prove that British muslims desire Talibanesque rule, I'd like to bring attention to the following commentary on Shari'a from Thabet of the Muslims Under Progress blog:

Shari'ah exists where ever Muslims happen to exist. So if a Muslim decides not to eat a bacon sandwich, to avoid alcohol, to visit the mosque on a Friday, to perform the qui-daily pray, to pay zakat, to ritually wash herself, and the Muslim does all this living in London, New York or Sydney, then shari'ah is in existence and being observed.

This teaser excerpt does not do the essay justice; please do read the rest. Or not, as you prefer - I have discharged my duty. Thabet is based in the UK and thus speaks with more authority than I - as well as similar biases.

Those with more interest in understanding Shari'ah are also advised to research the Abbasid Inquisition, and the battle between the Rationalists vs the Traditionalists. Disclaimer, I am Shi'a, and thus biased towards Rationalism in a fundamental way. But Shari'ah as understood today largely arise from the victory of the Traditionalists within mainstream Sunni Islam and represented a form of political control. I welcome dialouge on this topic from genuinely interested observers.

tomb of Salman al-Farsi attacked

seems to be only minor damage, thankfully:

BAGHDAD, Iraq Feb 24, 2006 (AP)— Gunmen fired two rockets at a tomb sacred for Shiites south of Baghdad causing damage but no casualties, a Shiite official said.

The tomb of Salman Pak, also known as Salman al-Farisi, was attacked after sunset with two rockets, said Jamal al-Saghir, an aide to Shiite political leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim.
[...]
One rocket hit the gate to the tomb while the other exploded a few meters from the structure, al-Saghir said.

is Partition equal to Victory?

My NEBV colleague Pejman alludes to the idea that an acceptable outcome in Iraq is to partition the country into three ethnic enclaves. Were most supporters of the war here polled a year ago as to whether partition was an outcome that fell into the "victory" camp, I think that the answer would have been a resounding No. It is telling that our expectations for the Iraq project have dropped to the point where our primary definition of victory appears to be avoidance of civil war rather than a free and stable democratic Iraq.

So, then, were the grand designs truly empty? Disillusionment certainly has afflicted notable neo-con war proponents such as Francis Fukuyama:

More than any other group, it was the neoconservatives both inside and outside the Bush administration who pushed for democratizing Iraq and the broader Middle East. They are widely credited (or blamed) for being the decisive voices promoting regime change in Iraq, and yet it is their idealistic agenda that in the coming months and years will be the most directly threatened. Were the United States to retreat from the world stage, following a drawdown in Iraq, it would in my view be a huge tragedy, because American power and influence have been critical to the maintenance of an open and increasingly democratic order around the world. The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them. What American foreign policy needs is not a return to a narrow and cynical realism, but rather the formulation of a "realistic Wilsonianism" that better matches means to ends.

Eric Martin of American Footprints points out that Fukuyama is essentially arguing for a return to liberal interventionism - in the mold of Bill Clinton and John Kerry. Martin follows up with a discussion of the strengths of a multi-polar approach to foreign policy - the advantages of which were well-discussed in detail by Gary Hart in his book, The Fourth Power: A Grand Strategy for the United States in the Twenty-First Century.

Fukuyama is not alone in his disillusionment with neoconservative ideology. Conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. arguably a founder of mainstream conservative ideology, has declared the Iraq war a failure:

Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.
[...]
...the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.

(note: in this, Buckley has essentially aligned with Howard Dean, who said in December of last year, "...the idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong.")

There clearly is a rank pessimism about the viability of our venture in Iraq. To my mind though, civil war would hardly be staved off by partition. For a sobering preview of what lies in store down that road, one need only look at the history of ethnic partitions in recent times - notably in the Subcontinent, where the Partition into Pakistan and India (and later, the separation of East Pakistan) led to horrific violence whose legacy still poisons the well in Indo-Pak relations to this day.

Partition would create a Kurdish state free to align economically with China and foment separatist tensions with Turkey; a Shi'a state that would enormously complicate our attempts to isolate Iran; and a pitiable Sunni state with no resources or potential industry other than terror manufacturing. But worse, it would be tantamount to an acknowledgement that the base motivation for the Iraq war was never about freedom and democracy, but rather The Great Game redux. The result would be a true setback for the cause of what President Bush called in his State of the Union speech the "calling of our time."

I am less concerned with the legacy of the present Administration and more concerned with the legacy of American leadership as a beacon for freedom and liberal constitutional government. I don't see how anyone can in good conscience argue that partition would lead to anything but a repudiation of these ideals.

cross posted to No End But Victory.

Brass Crescent links roundup: carnivals of the Islamsphere

The Brass Crescent Awards were a great success - but you don't need to wait another year to sample the best of the Islampshere. Thabit of Muslims Under Progress (who won an Honorable Mention in the Best Thinker category) is hosting the next State of the Ummah blog carnival (as you may recall, Umm Yasmin of Dervish blog hosted the first SotUmmah carnival last year). The SotUmmah is a nice complement to the Brass Crescent Awards, since the former will occur a number of times throughout the year and be focused more at the level of individual posts, and posts on given themes, rather than at the blog level like the Awards.

In fact, the theme of this SotUmmah is Beyond hatred and apologia: contemporary Muslim responses to sacrilegious treatments of Islam. As Thabet explains:

The Danish "cartoon controversy" has become a huge story. The publication of those cartoons have been blown out of all proportion, but the issues raised are real enough. Of course, this isn't the first time such a "clash" has occurred. For this reason I've decided on a topic which revolves around Muslim responses to productions (novels, plays, visual arts) that are deemed sacrilegious. The emphasis is on responses to the arts, because equally offensive material is produced every year under the guise of news, history or politics, but there are no such widespread angry response (these might be considered worse because they are being passed off as "fact"). As the theme of the Carnival suggests, I am looking for those posts which engage with the issues, not merely suggest they stand for "free speech" or "against Islamophobia". Posts needn't be limited to the recent Danish controversy, although I suspect most of them will be about those 'toons (which, as an individual who grew up reading comics and watching animation, I have to say are aesthetically unpleasant. That's twice the insult!).

Blogging carnivals are driven primarily by submissions by the authors themselves - in other words, a chance for you to promote your own work. To participate, simply send an email to thestateoftheummah [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk with the following information:

- The name of your blog with a link (with a hyperlink).
- The title of your submitted post and a link to the post (with a hyperlink).
- A couple of sentences to describe your submitted post (which may be edited by the host).
- Optional (for host and blogger): a trackback link.

NOTE: Submission deadline is March 6th.

In addition to the SotUmmah, the group blog Living Tradition (which won a Brass Crescent Award in the Best Group Blog category) is also hosting a blog carnival, dedicated to the Prophet of Islam, Mohammed Rasulullah SAW. The carnival is entitled In Honor of the Prophet and is a truly wonderful collection of tributes.

I consider it a source of pride that these two blog carnivals are how we in the Islamsphere have responded to the Danish cartoon issue. The one is our assertion in favor of our dignity in the face of gratuitous insult levied at ourselves and our Prophet SAW. The other is an outpouring of love, a triumph of the infinite Deen against the vulgarities of Dunya.

Let me also take time to mention the most recent Carnival of the Liberated, hosted by Dave Schuler at Dean's World, which regularly features the voices of Iraqi bloggers across the spectrum. In any roundup of Islamsphere carnivals, the CotL deserves equal standing, and Dave sincere kudos for his tireless work in that regard.

No word on whether the Brass Donkey Awards will be held this year or not. We can only hope. Surely the jafis must be given their due...