[Prior to tonight's first presidential debate on foreign policy, I am posting this report from my recent mission to the Persian Gulf, the first in a series. You're not apt to hear any questions about these matters in the debate. They're not on the radar of the mainstream media. More's the pity, because what happens in this region is likely to be more important to our future than many "events" parsed tonight with Bob Schieffer. This blog is the first in a series about my late September fact-finding mission to Oman and Kuwait. My trip followed the Arab Spring, the Egyptian revolution, and widespread uprisings across the Arab world over the anti-Muslim film, Innocence of Muslims, each of which have left a restiveness in the Arab street.
"Are democratic reforms desirable if they give the keys of power to people who would destroy it?"
With the question, the young Kuwaiti attorney’s ebony eyes held my gaze intently. He is part of a sophisticated, westernized generation of thirty-somethings in this most democratic state in the Arab world, and profoundly disturbed by Islamists who rode the Arab Spring to a 34-seat parliamentary majority in Kuwait’s elections last February. Fourteen of the seats are held by individuals linked by the Associated Press to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
My young friend is proud of the Kuwait monarchy’s democratic freedoms, with its elected parliament and elected House Speaker. But he believes the Arab Spring has made the country vulnerable to subversive poseurs who are politically manipulating the country’s still-tribal culture to seize power before the country builds the civic capacity to sustain democratic values.
“They’ll happily walk through the door democracy offers, but then lock it shut behind them. First Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Libya. Next Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait. Their goal is an Islamic caliphate across Northern Africa and the Gulf.”
A caliphate. In Kuwait.
Sharia law across one of the most important geo-political regions of the world.
To my friend’s thinking, George W. Bush’s “Freedom Agenda” for the Middle East was simplistic and catastrophic. I have always thought so too, but nothing brought it home more so than my recent two-week State Department mission to Kuwait and Oman, a trip designed for the travelers to learn from each other and increase mutual understanding.
As I left Kuwait, the country had plunged into a high-stakes game in which the Emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, had dissolved the 2012-elected parliament. The Supreme Court, declaring the royal decree unconstitutional, then reinstated the 2009 parliament, which the Emir subsequently also dissolved, leaving the country in a state of suspicion, consternation, and political upheaval.
Compounding the crisis, just last Friday the Emir decreed a new election law to govern new elections. The parliamentary opposition is enraged, believing the law is contrived to work against them. It has called for street demonstrations, a boycott of the election, and other civil disobedience.
Beneath the surface of the earth lay 10 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. Across the Persian Gulf lay Iran.
[NEXT: How the present election law works, what monarchies like Kuwait need most, and the conundrum for the U.S.]
October 22nd, 2012 at 7:09 am
Please keep ‘em coming, as you are an education, which I follow.
October 22nd, 2012 at 7:10 am
Les, please amplify your comment on the mood there about suspicion of American ill will and that ridiculous movie. If the movie has currency and power as a point of insult then they misunderstand America. What hey should be afraid of s something much bigger–the movement in the country and especially the Republican Party orthodoxy of opinion–that Islam is scary and bad. Remember GWB, after 911, said we were not at war with Islam but with a few people, Al Qaeda. The GWB of 2001 could not win a Republican primary now
October 22nd, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Has always sounded like The Ugly American, current century, to me. Your comments confirm this. Though you make such a fast jump here from the question you asked your friend to the (agreed) failed Bush agenda. So many details to fill in. Looking forward to hearing more.
October 23rd, 2012 at 10:24 am
Who, or what, has always sounded like The Ugly American, Amy?
October 29th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
Sorry Les, I meant the Bush Doctrine (the “Freedom Agenda)
not you!!! I think your post just made the case for the re-application of the metaphor very well, as in very well-stated, well-documented.
October 23rd, 2012 at 9:03 am
Thank YOU! This is dovetailing the reports from my friend who has been teaching high school in Beirut these last 5 years. You have my Awe Best B4 US CONCENTRATION…TEACHERS’ TEACHER! <3
October 23rd, 2012 at 3:00 pm
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October 29th, 2012 at 9:06 pm
Les, I meant to write last week and thank you for this new post. Very interesting. Sounds like quite a trip. I get most of my international news from the Economist, so have a general, if hazy, understanding of the troubling direction that much of that part of the world seems to be headed.
“Dear Lord, help me to find the truth, but spare me from those who have found it.” I believe that my freedom ends where your nose begins, but in this troubled world there seem to be many who would like nothing better than to force their beliefs on me. What to do (in a healthy way) about this state of affairs seems to me to be a tremendous challenge.
Best to you and Sue,
Jack
October 29th, 2012 at 9:13 pm
Thanks, Jack. I’ll write at least once more on the trip. I completely understand your last point.
Best to you and Bev.