Tag: Iraq war

Columbia Prof Plumbs the Shiite Mind

On By Martin Kramer

A lot is being written these days about Iraq’s Shiites, and the media avidly pursue anyone who seems like an expert. When demand exceeds supply, expect tendentious analysis.

Consider, for example, Professor Hamid Dabashi, head of the department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) at Columbia. The other day, a correspondent from the Boston Globe asked him about the mood among the Shiites. “The Shiites are horrified,” announced Dabashi.

Not only are their fellow Shiites and, in fact, their fellow Muslims maimed and murdered right in front of their eyes by the Americans, but the most sacrosanct sites in their collective faith are now invaded by foreign armies. The next time the British and Americans ask themselves, “Why do they hate us?,” they better remember the horrid scenes of their armies trampling on the sacred sites.

What in the world is Dabashi talking about? Coalition forces have been absolutely scrupulous about avoiding the sacred Shiite shrines in Najaf, Karbala, Kazimayn, and elsewhere. There have been no “horrid scenes” of coalition forces “trampling” on these sites. As for “murder,” the really horrid scene so far has been the brutal murder of two Shiite clerics—by their “fellow Shiites”—inside the shrine-tomb of the Imam Ali in Najaf. “They cut his body to pieces!” another Shiite leader said about one of the victims. “To pieces!” And if the Shiites are so “horrified” by this war, why did so many of them turn out in Najaf to greet the 101st Airborne as liberators? And how is it that even Robert Fisk reports that, “for the moment,” the massive Shiite slum in Baghdad “smiles at the West”?

Dabashi, of course, doesn’t have a clue as to what “the Shiites” think. He simply knows what he thinks. Dabashi has been a militant opponent of the war from day one. Most recently, he participated in that infamous “teach-in” at Columbia, in which one professor-participant called for “a million Mogadishus.” Dabashi’s contribution to the festival:

Because there are no answers to our questions about this war, we just get angrier and angrier. But this is where the blessed thing called “teach-in” comes in handy. Tonight, we think for ourselves. Revenge of the nerdy “A” students against the stupid “C” students with their stupid fingers on the trigger.

Again, one is left wondering just what Dabashi is talking about. And just what are Columbia students to conclude from such a quote in their campus newspaper? That a pro-war position might drop them to a “C”? Professors (especially departmental chairs) have no business suggesting even the most tenuous correlation between grades and politics. It’s just one more example of Dabashi’s egregiously flawed judgment.

Dabashi finds the war horrid, therefore when asked what “the Shiites” think about it, he says they are “horrified.” It’s pure projection, which is what passes for “expertise” on the Middle East when people don’t know what they are talking about. So we are told that “the Arabs” think this, or “the Muslims” believe that, when in fact they’re just racks on which to hang the prejudices and preferences of the “expert.” Here’s another fresh example. Last week, UCLA’s Gabriel Piterberg, a habitual anti-war demonstrator, told a “teach-in” that the Iraqis who defaced Saddam’s images and welcomed U.S. troops were not representative of typical Iraqi sentiment. How could Piterberg possibly know that? Answer: he doesn’t. He just wants to believe it.

And so the “experts” dwell on events that never happened (the “trampling” of Shiite holy sites), and dismiss events that did (the defacing of Saddam’s icons by Iraqis). Maybe the next time around, U.S. forces should “embed” academics. No group is more desperately in need of a dose of Middle Eastern reality.

UPDATE: Readers of Sandstorm will recall that last month, the renowned composer John Corigliano criticized the politicization of MEALAC during an acceptance speech at a Columbia University award dinner in New York. Department chair Dabashi dashed off an intemperate rejoinder. Since then, Corigliano has weighed in once more. After reviewing Dabashi’s hodge-podge of assertions, Corigliano composes this coda:

Students deserve real self-discipline from their professors. I miss evidence of this quality in the illiberalism, sloppy research, and near-hysterical tone of these statements Dabashi has written for publication. It’s deeply disturbing to me that—at this time, of all times—such a person chairs the department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia.

I do hope the administration has the courage—for it will take a lot of courage—to stand up to demagoguery of this nature. Columbia has done so in the past, and, if it is still the institution I remember, I expect it will do so in the future.

The logic for regime change at MEALAC gains momentum.

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.