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From: Office of Terje Rod-Larsen Subject: July 8 update Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:08:08 +0000 8 July, 2012 Article 1. The Economist The crisis in Syria: The tide begins to turn Article 2. Foreign Policy in Focus Will Syria Cause a Divorce Between Iran and Turkey? Giorgio Cafiero Article 3. YaleGlobal Is Islam to Blame for Freedom Deficit in Middle East? Riaz Hassan Article 4. Ma'an News Agency President Abbas, if you don't want to fight, negotiate Nasser Laham Article 5. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jordan's Ongoing Election Law Battle Kristen Kao Article 6. The Majalla Liypassing Hormuz Bryan R. Gibson The' Economist The crisis in Syria: The tide begins to turn Jul 7th 2012 -- SIXTEEN months into an uprising that has now left more than 15,000 Syrians dead, the diplomatic and military pace of the conflict has become a lot hotter. On all fronts President Bashar Assad is losing EFTA01179004 ground. No one knows when a tipping point may occur. But even his dwindling band of friends seems to recognise that he is on the way out. On the diplomatic front, buttressed by his dogged old Russian allies, Mr Assad is still refusing to give way. Even so, he may slowly be starting to sense defeat. "A few months ago he was in denial," says a diplomat close to the action. "But I think he should know by now that the end is near and that he should have to go." On June 30th in Geneva it was agreed at a conclave of foreign ministers from nine countries, known as the "action group", that a "transitional governing body" should be formed "by mutual consent". The gathering included the UN Security Council's five permanent members plus Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Turkey but not Iran or Saudi Arabia, deemed so antagonistic as to cancel each other out. The secretaries-general of the UN and the 22-country Arab League also attended, along with the EU's foreign-affairs chief. The Syrian opposition lamented the removal of a specific reference in the Geneva text to Mr Assad's departure that had been in an earlier draft. But Western diplomats insisted that even the Russians, despite their subsequent blustering denials, implicitly accepted the principle of Mr Assad's early exit, since it was inconceivable he could stay on in a transitional regime if mutual consent were given. "They realise he'll have to go," says the diplomat. "He needs some dignity. But he can't kill that many people and remain legitimate." Western governments, working closely with the Turks and Qataris and the Arab League, still hope against hope that the stalled peace plan presented in April by Kofi Annan, a former UN secretary-general, will regain some traction. "He's still the centre of gravity," says another diplomat. "He's the best way we have." The Syrian opposition is sceptical and impatient. To stress its disappointment, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the main group of armed rebel factions, shunned a subsequent meeting of Mr Assad's opponents in Cairo on July 1st. The Syrian Revolution General Commission, the leading network of political activists inside Syria, left early in a huff. The biggest such event to date, it was intended to forge a common blueprint for the wider opposition and to give at least the impression of unity. But the factions from within Syria suspected that exile groups were seeking to EFTA01179005 curry favour with foreign diplomats and donors by endorsing the Geneva plan at the expense of the revolution that they are battling to expand back home. The Cairo meeting did not mention the Geneva document but instead issued a vague set of constitutional principles, along with its own plan for a transitional government. Moreover, the intended show of unity was marred by rows over the composition of a joint committee to follow things up. Representatives of the Kurds, who make up around 15% of Syrians, walked out in protest against being termed an ethnic group rather than a people, and some left-wingers and secularists reiterated charges against the Syrian National Council, the largest exile group, that it was dominated by Islamists (in particular, the Muslim Brotherhood) and beholden to such foreign backers as Turkey, Qatar and the CIA. For his part, Mr Assad had upped the ante on June 26th by announcing for the first time that Syria was indeed "at war", decreeing new laws to punish his opponents (all lumped together as "terrorists"). State television broadcast a call for soldiers to seek "martyrdom" in service to the fatherland. His government voiced tepid approval of the Geneva plan, but as with Mr Annan's previous plan, which it formally accepted but largely ignored in practice, suggested that its opponents should first drop their weapons. This is not going to happen. The military pressure against Mr Assad is mounting. Day by day, town by town, the balance of power seesaws between the regime's forces and its loosely organised but increasingly better-armed opponents. But the tide is running against Mr Assad. In the hilly north-western province of Idleb, almost incessant shelling by government forces has not prevented rebels from keeping de facto control over swathes of territory, including parts of the border with Turkey which is 900km (560 miles) long. The war is now everywhere Fighters stroll across, ferrying in arms and medicine, and greeting refugees and defectors passing the other way. It is reported that Syrian soldiers patrolling the border have to be flown into some posts, since they are unable to cross hostile territory by land. A UN expert reckons that 40% of Syria's populated area is no longer fully under government EFTA01179006 control. The rebels have begun to gain ground, especially in the north- west and the east. In suburbs closer to the centres of power, the battle is also intensifying. Mr Assad's forces have shown no mercy there. Deploying tanks, artillery and air power, and now also routinely using spotter drones and helicopter gunships, they have smashed parts of Douma, a Damascus suburb that has been controlled by the opposition and is home to 300,000-plus people, most of them Sunni Muslims increasingly disloyal to a regime dominated by the minority Alawite sect, to which the Assad family belongs. In Zamalka, another rebellious Damascus suburb, a bomb, widely said to have been planted by security forces, recently killed scores of mourners at the funeral of a rebel fighter. Such firepower, along with thousands of arrests and the systematic use of torture (chillingly documented in a detailed report issued on July 3rd by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby) has kept the centres of Damascus and Aleppo, Syria's second city, broadly under regime control. Yet attacks such as a recent bomb blast at a government ministry show that the rebels can slip in. Even as state television showed street sweepers returning to a "cleansed" (but also deserted) Douma, foreign journalists were being escorted among scores of armed FSA fighters just a few miles away, casually patrolling in full daylight. The rebels are felling soldiers at an increasing rate, with clashes doubling in number between March and June, the bloodiest month of the uprising so far; in the last week of it, around 100 people were said to be dying every day. Many security men now move around in inconspicuous shabby cars, thanks to a rash of assassinations, many of them in the capital. Higher- ranking officers, including brigadiers and generals, are fleeing. Turkish officials reported that on June 5th alone 85 military defectors crossed the border, bringing their families along to spare them retribution. The regime is loth to bring out of the barracks enough units to tackle all rebellious places simultaneously, fearing defections of the Sunni bulk. Instead, it relies increasingly on armed irregulars, many of them Alawites. Known as shabiha, they often make up the first wave of raiders and looters after bombardments by the army have subsided. EFTA01179007 But though the regime's forces can take back territory at will, victories against the rebels tend to be short-lived. FSA groups sprout again as soon as the firefighting squads move on to bash the next rebellious town, prolonging a game of whack-a-mole: as one insurgent pocket is squashed, another pops up. "This is a war not for gains, but to exhaust the other side," says Razan Zeitouneh, a lawyer in hiding in the capital, noting that the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor, where a rebellion seemed to have been suppressed a few months ago, is now aflame again. Moreover, Mr Assad is also feeling the heat of a failing economy. Inflation is running at 30% a year. The currency's value has slumped. Fuel is getting scarce. A Western boycott of Syria's oil, 90% of which was exported to Europe, is draining state coffers. Tourism is dead. The perception of Syria as a pariah state is blighting international trade and commerce. With the war spreading, the economy in trouble and diplomacy intensifying, Mr Assad looks ever more isolated and vulnerable. Even the Russians' loyalty may begin to wilt. Artick 2. Foreign Policy in Focus Will Syria Cause a Divorce Between Iran and Turkey? Giorgio Cafiero July 5, 2012 -- Turkey and Iran are two of the Middle East's oldest and most powerful states. Both aspire to play a greater role in a new regional order. Major geopolitical developments in the Middle East — the rise of Kurdish nationalism, the destruction of Saddam Hussein's regime, the expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory, the Israeli- Hezbollah war of 2006, and Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2008-2009 — have aligned Turkish and Iranian interests during the post-Cold War era. Nonetheless, as Ankara and Tehran seek to extend their respective influence throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, their interests and regional agendas have inevitably clashed, as evidenced by their EFTA01179008 conflicting positions on the turmoil in Syria. But although divergent interests in the Syrian conflict pull Turkey and Iran in opposite directions, their mutual interests in maintaining cordial relations will likely prevent the Syrian issue from precipitating a major split. Ups and Downs Ideological tensions and mutual accusations of state-sponsored terrorism led to hostile relations between Iran and Turkey in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution, although Turkey was an important trade partner of an isolated Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. Following the first Gulf War in 1991, a mutual concern over the possibility of an independent Kurdish state forming in Iraqi Kurdistan led Ankara and Tehran to form increasingly cooperative ties. Both states took collaborative measures to maintain Iraq's territorial integrity and combat militant Kurdish groups. When the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey in 2002, the Islamic Republic was quick to welcome an Islamist party in Ankara that prioritized closer ties with Turkey's Middle Eastern neighbors. For the last decade, Turkey and Iran have enjoyed increasingly cordial relations. Turkey's interest in finding a diplomatic solution to the standoff between Iran and Western governments over its alleged nuclear ambitions, in addition to their mutual opposition to Washington's one-sided position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and security dilemmas regarding the spillover of violence from Iraq throughout the region, has fostered closer ties. However, opposing stakes in Syria have led to a recent exchange of heated rhetoric. Sami Moubayed writes that: Ali Akbar, senior advisor to Iran's Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ... said that Turkey's model of "secular Islam" was actually a "version of Western liberal democracy that is unacceptable for countries going through an Islamic awakening." In response, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said: "I am addressing the Islamic Republic of Iran: I do not know if you are worthy of being called Islamic; have you said a single thing about what is happening in Syria?" Turkey and Iran's conflict of interest in Syria must be seen within the context of the two states' regional ambitions and security dilemmas. Role of Syria in the Struggle for the Arab World EFTA01179009 The alliance that Hafez al-Assad and the Ayatollah Khomeini formed in 1979, frequently labeled a "marriage of convenience," has greatly influenced the balance of power in the Middle East. For over 30 years, Syrian and Iranian foreign policies have depended on this alliance to provide strategic depth during times of isolation, contain a mutual threat from Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and develop a Shi'a axis, stretching from Tehran to southern Lebanon, which resists U.S./Israeli hegemony. Hezbollah's strength vis-à-vis Israel, which was demonstrated in May 2000 and July 2006, is an outcome of the Syrian-Iranian alliance. Tehran has invested in Hezbollah to gain respect and legitimacy in Arab circles and deter Israel from launching a military strike on Iran. Damascus' support for Hezbollah has been useful for pressuring Israel into negotiating for a peace settlement that includes a return of the Golan Heights to Syria. Bashar al-Assad's ouster would likely bring Syrian Sunnis (who constitute 74 percent of Syria's population) to power in Damascus and end Alawite rule. Given Iran and Hezbollah's unpopularity among many Sunni Syrians, the viability of this "marriage of convenience" in a post-Assad era is extremely weak. Iran sees the survival of the Islamic Republic's closest Arab ally as a vital national interest. The decision to send Iran's military advisors into Syria to help the regime quell opposition forces indicates the value that Tehran places on the Syrian regime's survival. In contrast to Iran, which has much to lose with Assad's ouster, Turkey has much to gain. Following years of hostility that almost brought the neighbors to all-out war in October 1998, Turkey's relations with the Assad regime improved as the AKP's "zero problems" foreign policy prioritized rapprochement with Syria. Despite more than a decade of political alignment and expanded commercial ties, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ended relations with Assad and demanded that he step down from power in November 2011, comparing his former Arab friend to Hitler, Mussolini, and Gaddafi. Turkey abandoned Assad partly due to Ankara's view of the uprising in Syria as an opportunity to reverse Iranian inroads throughout the Levant and establish Turkey as the region's leader. A recent poll, conducted by the Brookings Institution and Zogby International in October 2011, confirms that Erdogan is the most popular world leader within Arab circles and that the AKP's form of democratic EFTA01179010 and moderate Islamism is the political system most desired by Egyptians. If a pro-Turkish and anti-Iranian government forms in Damascus, Turkey's position of power in the Arab world vis-à-vis Iran would only increase. The extent to which Ankara is invested in Assad's demise is evident by the Turkish government's decision to host the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army. The party with the most influence within the Istanbul-based umbrella of Syrian opposition forces is the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which has declared support for Turkey and the AKP's brand of Sunni Islamism. Mohammed Faruk Tayfur, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood's deputy secretary, defined his vision for Syria by comparing political Islam in Turkey and Iran. "Islamic culturally and secular politically, [Turkey] is the model for the Islamic movement," he proclaimed. "The Iranian [model], on the other hand, is the worst." Turkey's decision to host a NATO anti-missile system has been interpreted to demonstrate Ankara's willingness to take more aggressive measures against Iran. However, Turkey made this decision at the NATO summit in Lisbon in November 2010, several months before the uprising began in Syria. At the same summit, Turkey demanded that Iran not be mentioned as a threat. Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also stated that Turkey reserved the right to leave the anti-missile system within six months if intelligence ended up with non-NATO member states. Ankara would not "allow a regional balance based on Turkish- Iranian enmity," Davutoglu said in a television interview. "There may be people who want to start a cold war, but neither Turkey nor Iran will let that happen." Turkey announced in March 2012 that it would reduce imports of Iranian oil by 20 percent and compensate with increased imports of Libyan and Saudi oil. Although this decision was made as the violence in Syria continued, it should rather be seen within the context of Turkey's foreign policy objective of balancing its relations with Iran and traditional Western allies. The United States, which remains a close ally of Turkey despite the AKP's desire to gain greater autonomy from Washington, still has significant influence over Turkey. Thus, Ankara's decision to reduce Iranian oil imports is likely a consequence of pressure from Washington. In an effort to maintain a balanced position between the West and Iran, EFTA01179011 Prime Minister Erdogan reaffirmed his belief that Iran is not attempting to develop a nuclear weapon. Cooperative Rivals The outcome of sectarian conflicts and tensions in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, and Yemen will certainly have an impact on the capacity of Turkey and Iran to advance their hegemonic ambitions in a new Middle East. These conflicts of interests will position the two countries as competitive rivals who place bets on different horses. Nonetheless, mutual vital interests — primarily related to commerce, energy, and Kurdish nationalism — will likely prevent the two states from growing hostile as Iran and Iraq were throughout the 20th century. In the words of Alex Vatanka, a scholar at the Middle East Institute, Turkey and Iran have "lots to walk away from" after 10 years of fostering collaborative ties. Since the AKP came to power, improved diplomatic relations with Iran have accompanied growing economic and energy ties. Vatanka notes that "trade volumes shot up from about $1 billion per year in 2000 to about $16 billion in 2011." According to Nader Habibi, professor of economics at Brandeis University, "in the first quarter of 2011, Iran was the leading exporter of crude oil to Turkey, with a 30 percent share of Turkey's total oil imports, while it was also the third largest provider of Turkey's natural gas, after Russia and Iraq." Turkey values Iran as an oil and gas exporter because it has enabled Turkey to gain greater energy autonomy from Russia. Additionally, Iran has provided Turkey with high levels of foreign direct investment in recent years. In 2002, only 319 Iranian firms operated in Turkey. This number rose to 1,470 in 2010 and 2,072 in 2011. The western-imposed sanctions on Iran have increased the value that Iran places on Turkey as a trade partner. Habibi writes that "Iran views Turkey as a valuable partner for neutralizing the international economic sanctions and reducing her international isolation; and by deepening its economic interdependency with Turkey, Iran is also trying to discourage Turkey from supporting the sanctions itself." Due to the sanctions, machinery and other products cannot be imported normally into Iran. Iranian industries have relied on Turkey (as well as China, Iraq, and Turkmenistan) to overcome the sanctions and be linked to the international economy. In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, Turkey and Iran also shared mutual concerns about the possibility of Kurdish independence in Iraqi Kurdistan. EFTA01179012 The fear of militant Kurdish separatists plotting attacks against Turkey and Iran from northern Iraq was the basis of their shared interest in opposing the division of Iraq's territorial integrity. Throughout 1993 and 1994, Turkey and Iran held approximately 10 meetings and signed a joint security protocol on November 30, 1993. After the second Gulf War, despite competition between the two states for influence in the vacuum created in northern Iraq, both Ankara and Tehran began to view the other as a necessary partner in their quest to deny the Iraqi Kurds an independent state. As old regimes fall and new ones emerge in the Middle East, legitimate security dilemmas arise for all countries in the region. However, as power vacuums emerge, opportunities for geopolitical advances are also presented. For example, Iraq was a bitter enemy of Iran for several decades, until the old Sunni Ba'athist order collapsed and Iraq's Shi'a came to power and formed deep political and economic ties with the Islamic Republic. If Assad's regime cannot survive the current uprising, the emergence of a Sunni government in Damascus will provide an opportunity for Turkey and Gulf states to forge closer ties with a state that is geographically and culturally centered in the middle of the Arab world and cut back Iranian inroads in Lebanon and Palestine. Iran's national interests in preventing such an outcome will create tension between Ankara and Tehran. Nonetheless, the rhetoric and actions of politicians frequently diverge. The fact that, so far, Turkey and Iran's opposing interests in Syria have only led to heated rhetoric indicates that Ankara and Tehran value their cooperative rivalry, even as the ongoing turmoil in Syria polarizes their interests. Yale-Global Is Islam to Blame for Freedom Deficit in Middle East? Riaz Hassan 5 July 2012 -- The age-old debate about Islam's role in the political backwardness of the Middle East has returned to the fore. Dramatic EFTA01179013 developments of the Arab Spring, followed by re-emergence of authoritarian tendencies, reignite the debate. While debates will continue, a tentative answer can be offered: Flirtation with authoritarianism could be linked more to millennia of Arab history and culture rather than with Islam. In his seminal work, Muslim Society, eminent British social anthropologist Ernest Gellner boldly asserted that, judged by various criteria, "of the three great Western monotheism, [Islam is] the one closest to modernity." He goes on say that had the Arabs won at Poitiers and gone on to conquer and convert Europe, the modern rational spirit and its expression in business and bureaucracy could only have arisen from Islamic thought. A Muslim Europe would have saved Hegel from indulging in tortuous arguments to explain how an earlier faith, Christianity, is more final and absolute than a chronologically later one, namely Islam. And in 1770, Edward Gibbon had little difficulty imagining Islamic theology being taught in Oxford and across Britain. But there's an acute deficit in development and freedom in the Muslim world, evident from the United Nations and World Bank Development reports, giving rise to contentious debate about the causes. Culprits include Islamic theology and culture, oil, Arab culture and institutions, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, desert terrain and institutions, weak civil society and the subservient status of women. Perhaps the most contested debates center on whether Islam is the main cause of these twin deficits of development and freedom. Evidence shows that, before the balance of power shifted after the European expansion in the 17th century, the Middle East was economically just as dynamic as Europe. Muslim merchants were just as successful in carrying their commerce and faith to far corners of the world as their European counterparts if not more. According to the late economic historian Angus Maddison, in the years 1000 AD the Middle East's share of the world's gross domestic product was larger than Europe's — 10 percent compared with 9 percent. By 1700 the Middle East's share had fallen to just 2 percent and Europe's had risen to 22 percent. Standard explanations for this decline among Western scholars include Islam's hostility to commerce and its ban on usury. But these reasons are unsatisfactory because Islamic scripture is more pro- EFTA01179014 business than Christian texts, and for usury Torah and Bible do the same. The Prophet Mohammed and his first wife, Khadija, were very successful merchants. Many Muslims blame their economic backwardness on Western imperialism. So why did a once-mighty civilization succumb to the West? Duke University economist Timur Kuran, in his book The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East, persuasively discards these and related explanations. He marshals impressive empirical evidence to show that what slowed economic development in the Middle East was not colonialism or geography or incompatibility between Islam and capitalism, but laws covering business partnerships and inheritance practices. These institutions benefited the Middle Eastern economy in the early centuries of Islam, but starting around the 10th century they began to act as a drag on economic development by slowing or blocking the emergence of central features of modern economic life — private capital accumulation, corporations, large-scale production and impersonal exchange. An Islamic partnership, the main organizational vehicle for businesses of Muslim merchant classes, could be ended by one party at will, and even successful ventures were terminated on the death of a partner. As a result most businesses remained small and short-lived. The most durable and successful business partnerships in the Muslim world were operated by local non-Muslims. Inheritance customs hindered business consolidation because when a Muslim merchant died, his estate was split among surviving family members which prevented capital accumulation and stymied long-lasting capital-intensive companies. The resulting organizational stagnation thus prevented the Muslim mercantile community from remaining competitive with its western counterparts. Likewise, research by Harvard economist Eric Chaney debunks theories that the root cause of the democracy deficit in the Middle East is Islam or Arab cultural patterns, oil, the Arab-Israeli conflict or desert ecology. The democratic deficit, as reflected in the prevalence of autocracies in the Muslim-Arab world, is real, Chaney notes, but it's a product of the long- run influence of control structures developed in the centuries following the Arab conquests. EFTA01179015 Unlike Bernard Lewis, who argues that Muslim "rage" for having lost cultural primacy that was once theirs to the West is the root cause of their current conditions, Chaney has a more grounded historical explanation. In the ninth century, according to Chaney, rulers across this region began to use slave armies as opposed to their native population to staff armies. These slave armies allowed rulers to achieve independence from local military and civilian groups and helped remove constraints on the sovereign in pre-modern Islamic societies. In this autocratic environment, religious leaders emerged as the only check on the rulers' power. Religious leaders cooperated with the army to design a system that proved hostile to alternative centers of power. This historical institutional configuration which divided the power between the sovereign backed by his slave army and religious elites was not conducive to producing democratic institutions. Instead, religious and military elites worked together to perpetuate what Chaney calls "classical" institutional equilibrium — which is often referred to as Islamic law — designed to promote and protect their interests. Regions incorporated into the Islamic world after they were conquered by non-Arab Muslim armies, such as India and the Balkans, and where Islam spread by conversion, for example, Indonesia, Malaysia and Sub-Saharan Africa, did not adopt the classical framework. Their institutions continued to be shaped by local elite which preserved political and cultural continuity. Consequently democratic deficit has remained an enduring legacy in the Arab world and in lands conquered by the Arab armies and remained under Islamic rule from 1100 AD onwards. But Islamic countries such as Turkey incorporated into the Islamic world by non-Arab Muslim armies or by conversions the democratic developments have followed a more progressive trajectory. For the Arab Spring, history does not have to be destiny. Some optimistic signs suggest that it may be possible for the Arab world to escape its autocratic past. The region has undergone structural changes such as increasing levels of education, urbanization and industrialization over the past 60 years which have made it more receptive to democratic change than any time in the past. The widespread uprisings of the Arab Spring since 2011, while an expression of this change, would not automatically lead to democracy. EFTA01179016 The events unfolding in Egypt and actions of the Supreme Council Armed Forces to grab power in the face of Muslim Brotherhood's electoral victories sharpen the possibility of further violent confrontation. Failure of the UN monitors to stop the Syrian state from murdering and suppressing its people will only accentuate sectarian violence and bloodshed. It will take time to dismantle authoritarian institutions and mindsets of their minders. But there is one clear sign that Muslim countries will follow different trajectories. Countries like Turkey, Albania, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia are more likely to defy history than the Arab countries, but poverty and weak civil institutions remain obstacles to democratic change. Riaz Hassan is visiting research professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies National University of Singapore. His recent books include Inside Muslim Minds (Melbourne University Press) and Life as a Weapon: The Global Rise of Suicide Bombings (Routledge). Article 4. Ma'an News Agency President Abbas, if you don't want to fight, negotiate Nasser Laham 05/07/2012 -- I cannot work out an explanation for the state of "no peace, but no war" which has prevailed in Palestine in the last two years. We Palestinians neither want to fight the Israeli occupation, nor to negotiate with them. We use the term "steadfastness" to describe this stalemate, as if doing nothing at all and remaining motionless has become steadfastness. Palestinian intellectuals have long criticized the Arab regimes because they neither want to fight Israel, nor accept reconciliation with the occupying country. For 40 years, we have been suffering fatally on a daily basis under occupation, while Arab TV stations have been slamming Israel in their EFTA01179017 news, and at the same time resistance fighters were being detained in Arab countries for politically-motivated security reasons. At that point, late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was fed up and broke the silence by saying that the same Palestinians who fight and carry out military operations will make peace and sign agreements. Over the past two years, the Palestinian leadership -- including the PLO and Hamas -- have been facing a crisis over what slogan to raise. Therefore, neither the Palestinian public knows what its leadership is up to, nor does the leadership know what the public wants. Palestinian leaders restricted themselves to issuing sharply-worded political statements cursing and slamming occupation, and blaming this occupation for as many offenses as they wanted. In the newsroom, we receive statements from Palestinian leaders reading as bizarre sentences as: "So and so condemns the occupation for the murder of children in Rafah." And it goes on. So and so Palestinian leader condemns the Israeli incursion in Nablus, and another leader holds the occupation responsible for the confiscation of one third of West Bank land. Another leader denounces Israeli attempts to judaize Jerusalem and to break into the al- Aqsa Mosque or carry out excavations under the mosque. Some leaders even condemned other leaders because they did not condemn the Israel occupation over detaining someone. What good is this? Is this the policy we need in order to free Palestinian prisoners and liberate Jerusalem? For two years, the Palestinian leadership has refused to negotiate with Israel. They went to the UN seeking recognition of a Palestinian state, but the US fought that bid very firmly, proving that it is the number one enemy when it comes to UN resolutions on the Palestinian people's rights. Up until now, the Palestinian leadership still refuses to negotiate with Netanyahu or meet with Israeli leaders, but at the same time they urge the Palestinians to halt resistance activities. So how will this dilemma end? Seemingly, Israel will eventually take control of the whole West Bank, complete its plans to judaize the Jordan Valley, segregate Gaza once and for all, and the Arab city of Jerusalem will end up a poor neighborhood within the greater Jewish Jerusalem. Jerusalem will eventually meet the same end as Jaffa, which was once the most important Palestinian city before it became nothing more than a poor neighborhood in Tel Aviv. EFTA01179018 Despite everything, the Palestinian leadership is still adamant in rejecting both negotiations and resistance. President Abbas, if you don't want to fight, and you don't want us to fight, go and negotiate so we can see what could happen. Nasser Laham is the editor-in-chief of Ma'an News Agency. Anicic 5. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jordan's Ongoing Election Law Battle Kristen Kao July 5, 2012 -- Following a series of Arab Spring-inspired reforms, Jordan's parliament passed a new electoral law on June 19, paving the way for elections to be held by the end of this year. The vote was not without contention. In a manifestation emblematic of the larger debate raging over the type of electoral system the legislature should adopt, 20 MPs threatened to resign—two even came to blows—over the proposed law. Hours after it was approved, leader of the Islamic Action Front (IAF) Hamza Mansour dismissed it as "just a cosmetic change meant to buy time and insufficient for real reforms." Opposition parties have long called for amending the "single non- transferable vote" (SNTV) system in place since 1993, on the basis that (among other shortcomings) it benefits tribal nominees rather than those affiliated with a party. Unlike most electoral systems, SNTV combines multimember districts with the rule that a single vote is cast for a particular candidate, which often results in candidates winning seats with the support of only a small minority of the voting population. Under the new law, the electorate will have two votes: one for candidates competing under the old (SNTV) system at the district level, and another for candidates competing under a proportional electoral system at the national level. While the institution of a proportional system will promote gains for parties rather than tribes, the opposition still threatens to boycott the elections because only 17 seats (or 12 percent) of the now 140-seat EFTA01179019 parliament will be elected on this basis. In response to the threat of a boycott, on June 29 King Abdullah asked the parliament to convene an extraordinary session to reconsider the election law, and on July 4 the government proposed increasing the number of seats designated to the newly instated national proportional system to 27 (or about 19 percent). The IAF swiftly rejected this proposal; it seeks to have at least 30 percent of the seats be contested under this system. However, it remains to be seen if the party will announce an official boycott of the elections. Although the main debate is over the electoral system, the new law also introduces two other significant changes. First, members of the security forces will be allowed to vote for the first time. According to a conservative estimate of this demographic published on the government's website, this could affect approximately 10 percent of the country's total vote (based on the number of voters in the 2010 elections). Considering that these individuals rely on the regime for their livelihoods and tend to come from tribal backgrounds (Jordanians of Palestinian background are not eligible to hold positions in the army), they are unlikely to vote for the opposition. Moreover, three more seats for women from Bedouin districts will be added, giving these already overrepresented tribal districts even more power in the parliament. The SNTV system presents a number of problems for large parties with regionally dispersed support, like the Muslim Brotherhood's IAF. The framework makes it difficult for parties to know the optimal number of candidates to run, as well as for voters to coordinate their votes. In each district, a party would want to run as many candidates as it believes it can win seats for; no more, because this will split its vote too thinly, resulting in none of its representatives being elected, and no less, so as to maximize the number of MPs. Trouble can arise, however, if party supporters fail to spread out their votes evenly among candidates; if, for example, all voters flock to the top nominee, that representative will emerge with more than enough votes to win, and too few votes will remain to support other party candidates. Additionally, the SNTV system is easily gerrymandered. The regime created large, multi-member districts in opposition party strongholds to magnify the problems of electoral strategy and voter coordination. The more seats a party expects to win within a single district, the more difficult these problems are to overcome—and the more EFTA01179020 likely that the party will win fewer seats than it could have under a proportional system. Voter representation among districts in Jordan has historically been very disproportionate, with more seats allocated to areas that are regime-loyal and fewer ones apportioned where Islamists and Jordanians of Palestinian origin reside. In the last election (2010) the most underrepresented district had just over 46,000 voters per MP—while the most overrepresented had less than 8,000. Given that the regime has information on the sizes and distribution of the various tribal populations, it is able to carve out districts tailored to the electoral success of the tribes that make up the backbone of its support. Tribes can be likened to small, well-disciplined parties; tribal voters are honor-bound to support family members in elections and often hold primaries to select candidates and coordinate their votes for the actual election; tribes also tend to be small enough to nominate only one or two candidates. These factors help to solve the problem of vote-splitting among the multiple contenders that larger political factions face. Finally, the SNTV system pushes candidates to cultivate a "personal vote."1 When asked what their daily job entails, Jordanian MPs typically provide three answers: 1) the passing of legislation, 2) the monitoring of ministry budgets and affairs, and 3) the providing of personal services to their constituents. This last item creates conflict of interest in carrying out the first two duties of parliamentary office; MPs often end up trading approval of legislation, budgets, and other ministry affairs for personal favors on behalf of their constituents. Many MPs are also tied to their tribes back home by the same honor code that elected them, which requires that they provide for the welfare of their clans. For a political party like the IAF, which lacks access to the particular governmental benefits enjoyed by tribal candidates, it is difficult to compete against this dynamic. Given these disadvantages, it is not surprising that the IAF has boycotted the majority of elections run under the SNTV system. The party's preference is to return to the "block vote" system of 1989, in which each voter has multiple votes in multi-member districts, but can only vote for each candidate one time. This system often results in giving the group with the largest and most well-organized support base more seats than it deserves under strictly proportional rules. For example, in the 1989 EFTA01179021 elections, the Brotherhood won about 20 percent of the vote but took close to 30 percent of the parliamentary seats, while tribal candidates won around 60 percent of the vote but were rewarded with only about 40 percent of the seats. While this system is a bit complicated at times— imagine selecting nine different candidates to vote for in Irbid—it encourages the electorate to support candidates based on impersonal qualifications. The national proportional system mitigates most of the problems of both the SNTV and bloc vote systems in Jordan. Yet, of serious concern is the lack of well-organized parties in the country besides the Brotherhood. There is no party list restriction on candidates running in the national proportional system, and large tribes that cross district boundaries still have a good chance of picking up some of these new seats. It remains to be seen whether or not the new electoral law will actually lead to a meaningful change in Jordanian parliamentary politics. Kristen E. Kao is a Ph. D. Candidate at UCLA and a 2012 Boren Fellow. This article is based on research she conducted as a fellow at the American Center of Oriental Research in Amman, Jordan. Anicic 6. The Majalla Bypassing Hormuz Bryan R. Gibson July 6, 2012 -- During the Iran-Iraq War, Iran implemented an attrition strategy and a policy of economic strangulation to force Iraq into submission. This led to an Iranian deal with Syria to cut off Iraq's trans- Syrian pipeline in 1982. The closure of the Syrian pipeline, together with the closure of Iraq's Gulf ports at the start of the war, meant that if Iraq were to stay financially solvent it had to find a way around the Strait of Hormuz or hurt Iran's ability to export oil or both. This led to the so- called `Tanker War' where both sides targeted each other's shipping in the Gulf, a dramatic rise in shipping insurance rates, and to efforts by Iraq's allies, including the U.S., to seek out ways to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. EFTA01179022 Looking at the situation in Gulf today, with Iran threatening once again to close the strait, it has becoming apparent that the Gulf States had heeded the lessons of the past and have applied them to the current crisis. Simply put, the Iran-Iraq War taught them that they needed to reduce their reliance on what former US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance called "the jugular vein of the West": the Strait of Hormuz. Simply put, the Iran-Iraq War taught them that they needed to reduce their reliance on what former US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance called "the jugular vein of the West": the Strait of Hormuz. Recognizing the threat that the strait's closure posed, in the early 1980s, Saudi Arabia constructed two major pipelines, both over 1,000 km long, from the Eastern province to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. By 1992, after the Gulf War, the Saudis had expanded the pipeline to a capacity of 4.5 million bpd. The purpose was undoubtedly to mitigate against potential threats to the Strait of Hormuz, which Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States were almost completely reliant upon. But Saudi Arabia was not alone. As I point out in my book, Covert Relationship (Praeger, 2010), during Donald Rumsfeld's famous trip to Baghdad in December 1983 he urged the Iraqi regime to agree to build a "tie in" line from Iraq's southern oil sector outside Basra to Saudi Arabia's existing Petroline, which consisted of two parallel pipelines running eastward to the Red Sea. Completed in September 1985, this become known as the Iraq Pipeline in Saudi Arabia (IPSA) and was operational until 1990, when Saudi Arabia cut Iraq off in response to its invasion of Kuwait. It was expropriated completely in 2001 as payment for outstanding Iraqi debts. Nevertheless, with the end of the Iran-Iraq War in August 1988 the threat to the Strait of Hormuz subsided, at least until recently. In late December 2011, amid Israeli threats to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, the Iranian government threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in the event that it was attacked. The situation continued to escalate into January and February, when the European Union agreed to an embargo of Iranian oil and the U.S. froze the assets of Iranian financial institutions and banned the international banks from making oil transactions with Iran or face being blacklisted. After a brief period of hope in April and May, when Iran agreed to talks on its nuclear enrichment program, things fell EFTA01179023 apart and the EU and U.S. sanctions came into effect at the start of this month. The implementation of the sanctions has raised the stakes for Iran, which is already in dire financial straits, and increased the likelihood that it would close the Strait of Hormuz, though this would harm Iran just as much as any of the Gulf States by cutting off its own oil exports from its main terminal at Kharg Island. But Iran would not suffer alone. If the Strait of Hormuz was actually closed it would have a devastating impact on the already struggling global economy. Indeed, as Charles Emerson and Paul Stevens from Chatham House point out, "a sharp oil price spike could tip the global economy into a further slowdown." The problem is that approximately 17 million bpd pass through the Strait of Hormuz, roughly 32 percent of daily global oil exports. But it appears that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the U.S. have long been preparing for this contingency. Unfortunately, the smaller Gulf States, like Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, as well as Iraq, will be in trouble, but they will not be alone. At the time of Iran's renewed threat to close the strait in early 2012, Chatham House estimated that the capacity of the pipelines that bypass the strait was somewhere around 8 million bpd. However, in the past two weeks Saudi Arabia and the UAE announced separately that a further 3.15 million bpd could still make it onto the market if Iran were to do so. On June 28, Saudi Arabia announced that it had been secretly testing the IPSA for the past four months to ensure that it could be converted back to the use of oil instead of the natural gas it transports at present. This meant that an additional 1.65 million bpd could stay on the market. In addition, in late June the UAE announced that its Harshen-Fujairah pipeline, which began construction in 2008, had come online and would be fully operational by August, allowing an addition 1.5 million bpd to bypass the strait. These two pipelines, combined with the 8 million bpd already bypassing the strait, meant that at least 11.15 million bpd will still be able to bypass this choke point and make its way onto the market. Unfortunately, the smaller Gulf States, like Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, as well as Iraq, will be in trouble, but they will not be alone. Depending on the means that Iran chooses to respond to the new sanctions, it could also starve itself of the meagre 1.5 million bpd that it is EFTA01179024 currently exporting, while the remaining 1 million bpd it is pumping sits in storage on and off shore. However, the U.S. had made it clear that it will respond aggressively to any Iranian provocation, with the New York Times quoting one U.S. official as saying, "Don't even think about closing the strait. We'll clear the mines. Don't even think about sending your fast boats out to harass our vessels or commercial shipping. We'll put them on the bottom of the gulf." The U.S. has also quietly expanded its military deployment in the Gulf to include a floating military base, which could be used as a stationing point for mine sweeping, and, in a worst- case-scenario, military attacks against Iran. Interestingly, this is a throwback to U.S. operations in the Gulf during 1987-88, which led to direct clashes with the Iranian Navy, the sinking of several of its vessels, the destruction of a number of oil platforms, and the mistaken downing of an Iranian passenger plane killing all 290 passengers on board. The Iranians have not forgotten this and over the past few days have been rattling sabers in the Gulf. In the end, how the crisis turns out will ultimately boil down to how Tehran decides to act. If it chooses to act aggressively, it w