Author: Martin Kramer

Getting Iraq Right…from Miami…in Ohio

On By Martin Kramer

Adeed Dawisha is an old friend with a new book: Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton University Press). It’s a searing indictment of Arab nationalism from an insider’s perspective. And it’s especially relevant now, for the reason I underline in my jacket endorsement of the book:

Why does the world need this eminently readable book? Because academe is awash with speculation about the emergence of a “new Arabism.” Dawisha’s point is that anyone who lived through Arabism’s heyday knows how disastrous it was, and that the new Arabist nostalgia ignores history.

A lot of that new nostalgia fixed itself upon Saddam Hussein, who has now ended up in the same dustbin with Nasser.

I and my colleagues at the Middle East Quarterly thought so much of Dawisha’s book that we published an excerpt, which will give you the flavor of his uncompromising style. The book has now received a favorable review from the Oxford historian Avi Shlaim in The Guardian. Shlaim stands very much on the other side of the fence from me, and since we would agree on little else, Dawisha’s book deserves to be described as transcendent.

Dawisha was born in Iraq, and it’s worth quoting a few things he said on the eve of the war, since they were very courageous and prescient. Dawisha, speaking two months ago:

In academia, the prevalent attitude is to be anti-war, anti-invasion. I am not. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein is a subject of much higher moral order than avoiding a war. It is a mystery to me how people in academia, who consider themselves liberal, don’t see that in terms of justice and moral responsibility of a civilized world, we need to rescue the Iraqi people from this nightmare.

“War is an evil,” he told an audience at the University of Michigan. “But sometimes, unfortunately, war is a necessary evil. And in this particular case, I think it is…War against Iraq in my opinion is not only permissible, in fact when I say this I shock a lot of people… to me it’s a moral obligation. Every person with an ounce of civility in him should recognize this fact.”

Dawisha also made right-on predictions of outcomes. On March 18, he predicted that Iraqi soldiers would “slip away from their units” and let the invasion succeed. They did. On March 20, he predicted that Saddam would only be supported in the fight by “eight or nine thousand men in his special Republican Guard…they’ll fight the Americans because if they don’t die at the hand of the Americans, they’ll die at the hand of the Iraqi people. Everybody else in Iraq detests Saddam.” And so it was. Some loyalists did fight, the rest filled the streets on arrival of the Americans and Brits to celebrate Saddam’s demise. Two months ago, Dawisha predicted that, “given America’s certain victory, and the Iraqis’ certain support, today’s nay-sayers will look pretty dumb tomorrow.” It looks like that prediction was on the mark, too.

So it pays to listen to Dawisha’s opinion on the day after. First, he argues that the United States alone must fashion Iraq’s political framework. Dawisha sees a possible role for the UN and other powers in the economic reconstruction of the country.

But I’m not very clear why they should be brought in, in the political reconstruction of Iraq….We want to put Iraq on a democratic path, whether this takes six months or a year or eighteen months, but we want to be there when we’re trying to orient the Iraqis towards democracy creating political institutions, writing a constitution. I’m not very clear [on] what the Chinese, for example, or the Russians have to add to this endeavor.

I’m not sure the French would have much to add, either. And Dawisha doesn’t favor the quick turnover to Iraqis now demanded by Arab “opinion” and panicky Arab leaders (who would be all too pleased to see the Baath creep back). He argues for a two-year period of political reconstruction: six months of stabilization, during which a constitution would be written; six months for the creation of political parties; and elections a year later. All sensible.

Dawisha has written an important book, made courageous moral arguments in the midst of a storm, ventured accurate predictions, and offered practical solutions. All of which probably explains why he teaches at a place called Miami University in Ohio, while mediocrity is celebrated and rewarded at places like Columbia and Stanford. Go figure.

CLARIFICATION: A few readers have written me, to attest to the virtues of Miami University in Ohio. I intended no slight to the university as a whole. But no one would go there specifically to study the Middle East, and it is not listed among the 120-plus colleges and universities in the United States that boast of having Middle East programs. On the other hand, many places that have large programs, some of them subsidized from Washington, have no one of Dawisha’s caliber. And that, as I wrote, is hard to figure.

As the Cheering Starts

On By Martin Kramer

This commentary appeared in a symposium (contributors included William J. Bennett and John Derbyshire) at National Review Online.

The long-awaited scenes of celebration from Iraq tell us this: Iraq’s own people have lost their fear of Saddam. They know that even if he still lives, he will not return. A chapter is closed.

But in Baghdad, a joyous crowd celebrates every regime change. In 1958, a military coup destroyed the royal family. The crowd seized the body of the regent and dismembered it. The trunk was secured to the balcony of the Defense Ministry. “A young man with a knife in his hand climbed a lamp-post nearby,” wrote an Iraqi witness, “and began cutting off the flesh, working from the buttocks upwards.”

No doubt, there are many in today’s crowds who would do the same to the body of Saddam—including people who, only last week, pledged themselves willing to sacrifice their spirit and blood for him.

The Iraqis, in the end, did not rise up. They waited to see the whites of American eyes before they headed into the streets. They did not earn their freedom; they had it delivered to them, U.S. federal express. It is doubtful they are ready to assume its responsibilities.

This is the time to put illusions aside, and take a hard look at the people whose fates we now control. Just as they could not remove the dictator without American lifting, they cannot make a civil order without American prodding. There’s nothing exceptional about an excitable crowd in Baghdad. “Liberation Day” will come only when the Iraqis go to the polls, and convene a parliament.

Saudi Oil Lobby Puffs Middle East Centers

On By Martin Kramer

When my book Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies appeared just after 9/11, the Middle Eastern studies crowd panicked. They feared that unfavorable publicity would damage them in Washington, and endanger the millions of dollars they receive in government subsidies. The then-president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) talked about hiring a “professional communicator.” But who could do the job, and how would MESA pay for it? I’m not sure how those questions were answered, but the magazine Saudi Aramco World has just published the biggest puff job ever done on Middle Eastern studies.

It’s a twelve-page cover story, lavishly produced, with big glossy photographs of noted professors and MESA officers in thoughtful poses (here is a text-only version) The author is a former staffer of the magazine, who now bills himself as a “corporate communications expert.” And the focus is very precise: it’s about the invaluable role of Middle East centers that receive U.S. government subsidies under Title VI, the Department of Education’s international education program. The centers are presented as loci of deep knowledge, as oases of wisdom in a desert of soundbites. Here are the real experts, and they deserve every penny they get.

I would guess that Saudi Aramco World is sent gratis to a lot of influential people, including congressmen. They’re clearly the target audience of this lobbying piece. One of them is even quoted: David Obey (D-Wis.), patron saint of Title VI funding, who helped the centers land a major increase in funding just after 9/11. Obey: “We need more understanding of the Middle East, its cultures and the issues facing the region. Area-studies centers… [are] critically important in resolving the immediate crisis and in developing long-term solutions.” More understanding obviously will cost more money, and if Obey is to be believed, there is no such thing as a wasted taxpayer dollar when it comes to Middle Eastern studies.

My book showed otherwise, and more evidence has accumulated since it appeared. But at no point is the reader told that Middle Eastern studies are controversial. Instead, the article makes the story of Middle Eastern studies in America sound like a march of linear progress. More programs, more funding, more enrollments—Middle Eastern studies are celebrated as a growth industry. In fact, the article reads like a promotional piece on oil exploration. So does its title: “The New Push for Middle Eastern Studies.” Let’s get in there with some investment, and develop and pump those reservoirs of expertise.

Yet despite the federal focus, this piece is an excellent reminder of how indebted Middle Eastern studies are to Saudi largesse. Because this is Saudi Aramco Magazine, it has to fuss over the recently-endowed Saudi programs at the centers. The article reports that Saudi businessman Khalid Alturki last year added $500,000 to the $1.5 million he’d already given to establish the Contemporary Arab Studies Program at Harvard. And the article reminds us of the biggest of the Saudi endowments at a major center: the Sultan Endowment for Arab Studies, established in 1998 with a $5 million gift from the Prince Sultan Charity Foundation. That’s the same Prince Sultan who is long-time defense minister of Saudi Arabia, and whose son is Prince Bandar, Saudi ambassador in Washington.

What does it mean for a place like Berkeley’s center to land this kind of gift? Well, start with accommodations, as described in this account from the San Francisco Chronicle:

In Stephens Hall at UC Berkeley, the Center for African Studies occupies a two-room office marked by cracked walls and scuffed linoleum floors.

Down the hall, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies operates out of a sumptuously appointed suite of offices with stained glass, gleaming copper paneling and a trickling fountain.

A few years ago, these centers were virtually the same. Both made do with modest budgets and tiny offices. They shared a copier.

Then Nezar AlSayyad, chairman of Middle Eastern Studies, took two trips to Saudi Arabia with UC Berkeley chancellors.

The rest is history. Prince Bandar showed up in person at Berkeley in November 1998 to deliver the check. Not only did the royal family buy an Arab studies program on prime academic real estate. The Sultan Foundation records that a million dollars of the Sultan Endowment at Berkeley is earmarked for “outreach”—that is, activities beyond the campus.

At this point you may be scratching your head, asking why the Saudis are putting their money and public relations clout at the service of left-leaning academics, whose sympathies are decidedly not with oil monarchies. Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? They may be left-leaning, but they’d all like sumptuous suites with trickling fountains. Needless to say, academics who dream of princes bearing gifts are not going to throw bolts of criticism at Saudi Arabia, or even tell you whether the Saudi monarchy might be in trouble.

Which is why it makes perfect sense for Saudi Aramco World to handle the public relations for Middle Eastern studies. It keeps the professors indebted. But it also makes the MESA crowd look good. On the pages of Saudi Aramco World, they don’t come across as flakey radicals, recently led by Joel Beinin and always enamored of Edward Said. Instead they seem like part of that great machine that assures the steady supply of oil at reasonable prices.

Hey, it’s America. Slick salesmanship is perfectly legitimate. And I have to hand it to these people. They think Washington is run by a “cabal” and that the Saudis sleep with the Bushes. Yet they regularly manage to extract generous subsidies from both. Pecunia non olet (money doesn’t smell) seems to be their motto. Of course, the same can’t always be said of academia.