The Arab Winter

The events we have seen in Egypt and a swatch of other countries that is popularly called the Arab Spring is viewed as a disappointment by those who embrace the Liberal Democratic (or Neoliberal democratic) perspective across the world. My friend Mohamed Zeeshan, such a person from India, on his blog commented about the fate of the Arab Spring:

There are reasons why the Arab Spring didn't quite work out as well as it should have. The foremost reason is the goal of the Spring itself. In the Information Age where people from all parts of the world are connected with each other merely by the click of a button, ideas spread fast. Democracy was one such idea that traveled to places it had never been to. What makes democracy so attractive to the millennium youth is the fact that it is the only political system under which one has the power to script his own destiny, no matter who his father is or how much gold he possesses. It delivers power to the people and denies unilateral control to the hands of any individual, thereby making society a more level playfield and creating a whole world of untold opportunities. Well, that's in the ideal.

I Respect Mohamed as a young aspiring scholar but his youthful observance mistook the Arab Spring for something new, and mistook it as a sea change in the broader Dar Al Islam for a positive political change. He is hardly alone in this but the Arab Spring is not a spring but is in fact a fall, and we are coming onto the dawn of an Arab Winter.

One begins to see it as a winter when we began to follow the Breadcrumbs of the conflict between those who seek a broad coalition democracy (which ends up becoming pluralistic and free) and those countries like Iran and the Patron of many of these countries Russia which has pioneered small coalition democracies (where outcomes are democratically achieved but they are achieved by focusing on a smaller subset of the population)

You can look back at Ahmadinejad and his two elections: The monitors show no irregularities but you have areas where 90 percent of the population turns out for one candidate. This irregularities show a potamkin sort of democracy. We look at the Hamas electoral victory in 2006, the Iraqi Elections where Pro-Iran and Pro-Islamist candidates became players in the system, We look at Putin's Presidential Terms ending so he moves all the powers to the Prime Minister's office and when the laws are changed he moves all the powers back to the Presidency. We look at the actions of Hugo Chavez as well as his knock offs in Latin America who are following the same trend.

These Autocrats learned what Democracy really means:

The term originates from the Greek δημοκρατία (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) "people" and κράτος (kratos) "power" or "rule" in the 5th century BCE to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens; the term is an antonym to ἀριστοκρατία (aristocratie) "rule of an elite".

The greeks refer to who rules, and not who governs. As governance and rule are very different things as some of the latest issues with the IRS in the united States shows us. The civil society and those features of it that touch the state are how we are governed. The Code Inspector besets the businessman and homeowner with the Governance of the State. The City Councilman rarely meddles in how the building code is set up unless their are extreme issues (Such as Hurricanes or Tornados). This rule in turn is developed into governance. Or the Rule of Law vs the Law of Rules.

In the middle east a civil society is mostly non existent. So those at the top of the political order are not constrained by the needs of shop keepers to keep their business orderly. And what elements of a civil society DO exist are those that are advocating the excesses of the Arab Spring from the power of the state now.

The Arab Spring didn't fail: It did what the people pushing for it on the ground (who are not the Middle Eastern and other Neo-Liberals) wanted. It gave them the state where they had the political power to achieve their dreams

The Russian Standoff in Damascus

In this chess game The Russians are playing Chicken.

If it does nothing else, the recent Syria summit arranged by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry formally marked the re-emergence of Russia as a power in the Middle East, after a hiatus of more than 20 years. Yet Moscow’s objectives today are vastly different. Russia is out to raise the stakes for U.S. military intervention, which it sees as destabilizing for the world order; to minimize the impact of Islamist radicalism and extremism born out of the Arab Spring; and to try to find political solutions to a host of issues, from the civil war in Syria to Iran’s nuclear issue to post-American Afghanistan.

Dear Tablet Magazine: Your ideas are terrible and you should stop forming them into words.

The Russians have not played as large a roll int he middle east as they have during the cold war in the last 20 years, which is true, because Russians over the last 20 years have had bigger fish to fry. They have had their attempt to use oil and gas diplomacy to try to push their will on the good folks of the EU.

But where they see the play in Syria as a play of power, it is a play that comes from Weakness.

During the George W Bush Years The Moscow-Bejing Axis (called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization) began to form an alternative to the Washington Consensus on Foreign policy. The Washington Consensus didn't just form because the US was the cock of the walk after World War II (But that helped) it formed because a lot of the global interests of the NATO Powers and later the Asian Developed powers were very similar. Only during the 80s did we see Authoritarian Capitalist regimes crop up did we begin to see some friction against the Hypothesis.

This play came out in one of my best moments on twitter: Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter said that Susan Rice was going to get the UN Security Council to come down hard on Syria. I guffawed and bet her that would not happen (and I was right). Allowing Syria to deal with an internal issue was within the Conservative Westphalian wheelhouse of the SCO.

But China and Russia underestimated the Paradox of the Security Council. When the Communist Interests were united against western interests in a regional conflict it didn't stop the conflict: It just kept the major players out of the conflict until things begun to get out of hand (Bosnia and Vietnam are great examples, Korea happened because of the chaos involving China). The Western Powers have a domestic political interest that is influenced by the world they see on their cable news and on their Internets ( which is a series of tubes). This Pressure even in times of Austerity brings rise to the Western Consensus. Russia is not talking with John Kerry because they are a power in the Syria mess: They are at the table with John Kerry because this situation is getting out of control.

Russia and China are both Status Quo powers. They ally with those countries that promote their internal political status quos and allow them to move the ball a few yards forward. Unfortunately for Russia and China some times you end up on 3rd and 9 and your opposition forms a prevent defense. The only way for Russia and China to move the ball forward is either war, or to give up this drive and let Assad get what he deserves.

But the problem is if Assad gets what he deserves, what will happen in Iran if their regime gets whats coming to it? Its the same Paradox the US is in with Israel and Taiwan. If we let those countries fall it changes the expectations across the board with our allies. so we both get backed into a corner: and that's how wars start.

And if the Islamist "Rebels" win in Syria after winning in the Palestinian Territories, Tunisia, Egypt, and other places: Will these same elements within Russia become animated and think they can have their own Arab Spring?

Bayit Yehudi are putting on their big boy pants

One thing about living in a 2 party state we lose the parties that come out of the chaos of a multi-party system and either fade out or fall into the ashpile of history.

Bayit Yehudi however has decided to get into the mix on a major issue the big three parties in Israel have been working on: Breaking the back of Ultra Orthodox Power.

(As a Convert to the Right Wing of Liberal Jewish thought this is a personal big deal to be. Should I come to Israel this sort of action makes Bayit Yehudi more appealing to me)

If Naftali Bennett has his way, for the first time in Israel’s history, the Jewish state will begin funding all rabbis—including those from non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. The Ministry of Religious Affairs, which is headed by Bennett, announced today that it will be instituting reforms to abolish the position of state-appointed communal rabbis, replacing the current system with one in which rabbis are appointed by their communities, and then funded by the government. This revamping of the rabbinate would effectively take these positions out of the control of the ultra-Orthodox dominated Chief Rabbinate and place them into the hands of Israel’s citizens, who would be free to choose whichever rabbi they wish. As the Ministry’s brief on the reforms put it, the rabbis would receive state funding “independent of which Jewish denomination the relevant community belongs to.”

A Secular-Religious Right Wing Israeli Party (as opposed to a Secular Right Wing party or a Religious Right wing Party).

Finally the Israeli political system has something more appealing to me.

Maybe Next Year I can vote for them in Jerusalem