Tomgram: Juan Cole, American Policy on the Brink

The resistance in Egypt has vastly expanded since this essay was
written. Perhaps the most critical and hopeful aspect of the uprising is
its secular nature. Until now, the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood
has been the only significant opposition to the Mubarak regime. They
do not support the students and workers in the streets as there are no
religious demands advocated. Now, there is restiveness within their
own organization, many younger members demanding support for the
struggle. This is mirrored in Tunisia, as we know, but also in Yemen,
Algeria, Jordan and much of the Arab middle east. It is not, repeat NOT
a Muslim revolt, but more akin to what's happened in Latin America,
focussing on poverty, government corruption and civil rights. It may fail,
of course, but this is the first area-wide revolt since their independence
from European imperialist control, half a century ago.

I just heard a M.E. reporter on kpfk saying the Brotherhood has ordered
their members into the streets to join the protest, already organized for
after Friday's prayers. Something's happening, Mr. Jones, so stay tuned.

Ed

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175346/tomgram:_juan_cole,_american_policy_on_the_brink/

From: TomDispatch
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2011 7:30 AM

Tomgram: American Policy on the Brink, and
Juan Cole: The Corruption Game: January 25, 2011

"The problem: Washington's foreign-policy planners seem to be out of ideas,
literally brain-dead, just as the world is visibly in flux."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently took a four-day tour of the
Middle East, at each stop telling various allies and enemies, in classic
American fashion, what they must do. And yet as she spoke, events in
Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, and even Egypt seemed to spin ever more out of
American control. Meanwhile, the regime in Tunisia, one of the autocratic
and repressive states Washington has been supporting for years even as it
prattles on about "democracy" and "human rights," began to crumble.

In Doha, Qatar, in front of an elite audience peppered with officials from
the region, Clinton suddenly issued a warning to Arab leaders that people
had "grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order" and
that "in too many ways, the region's foundations are sinking into the sand."
With Tunisia boiling over and food riots in Algeria and Jordan, she insisted
that it was time for America's allies to mend their ways and open themselves
to "reform." A New York Times report, typical of coverage here, described
her talk as a "scalding critique" which also "suggested a frustration that
the Obama administration's message to the Arab world had not gotten
through."

And there, of course, was the rub. After all, since Barack Obama entered
the Oval Office in January 2009, U.S. foreign policy has essentially been in
late-second-term-Bush mode and largely on autopilot, led by a holdover
Secretary of Defense and a Secretary of State who might well have been
chosen by John McCain, had he won the presidency. Look at Clinton's address
again and, beyond a reasonably accurate description of some regional
problems (and that frustration), only the vaguest of bromides are on offer.

The problem: Washington's foreign-policy planners seem to be out of ideas,
literally brain-dead, just as the world is visibly in flux. In their
reactions, even in their rhetoric, there is remarkably little new under the
sun, though from Tunisia to India, China to Brazil, our world is changing
before our eyes.

One of the new things on this planet has certainly been WikiLeaks, whose
document dumps were initially greeted by the Obama administration with
stunned puzzlement and then with an instructively blind and repressive fury.
(Forget the fact that the State Department should be thanking its lucky
stars for WikiLeaks' latest document dump. Overshadowed by the Pentagon as
it is, all the ensuing attention gave it a prominence that is increasingly
ill-deserved.) As TomDispatch regular Juan Cole, who runs the invaluable
Informed Comment website and is the author of Engaging the Muslim World,
makes clear, it's not just America's Arab allies who are "sinking into the
sand." These days, for the Obama administration, it's a quagmire world.

Tom

---

The Corruption Game

What the Tunisian Revolution and WikiLeaks Tell Us about American Support
for Corrupt Dictatorships in the Muslim World

By Juan Cole

Here's one obvious lesson of the Tunisian Revolution of 2011: paranoia about
Muslim fundamentalist movements and terrorism is causing Washington to make
bad choices that will ultimately harm American interests and standing
abroad. State Department cable traffic from capitals throughout the Greater
Middle East, made public thanks to WikiLeaks, shows that U.S. policy-makers
have a detailed and profound picture of the depths of corruption and
nepotism that prevail among some "allies" in the region.

The same cable traffic indicates that, in a cynical Great Power calculation,
Washington continues to sacrifice the prospects of the region's youth on the
altar of "security." It is now forgotten that America's biggest foreign
policy headache, the Islamic Republic of Iran, arose in response to American
backing for Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, the despised Shah who destroyed the
Iranian left and centrist political parties, paving the way for the
ayatollahs' takeover in 1979.

State Department cables published via WikiLeaks are remarkably revealing
when it comes to the way Tunisian strongman Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and his
extended family (including his wife Leila's Trabelsi clan) fastened upon the
Tunisian economy and sucked it dry. The riveting descriptions of U.S.
diplomats make the presidential "family" sound like True Blood's vampires
overpowering Bontemps, Louisiana.

To read more:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175346/tomgram:_juan_cole,_american_policy_on_the_brink/