The Modern Middle East - A Political History Since World War I (Third Edition)

by Mehran Kamrava

  86. U.S. Department of Defense, “Operation Iraqi Freedom: U.S. Casualty Status,” www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf.

  87. Bassam Tibi first predicted this possibility years before the September 11, 2001, attacks. See his Conflict and War in the Middle East: From Interstate War to New Security (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), pp. 189–93.

  7. STATES AND THEIR OPPONENTS

  1. James Lee Ray, “The Democratic Path to Peace,” Journal of Democracy 8 (April 1997): 49–64. For critical discussions of the “democratic peace theory,” see Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey, eds., Democracy, Liberalism, and War: Rethinking the Democratic Peace Debate (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001).

  2. Although these labels or their variations appear elsewhere, my usage of them here is inspired by Jeff Goodwin and Theda Skocpol’s “Explaining Revolutions in the Contemporary Third World,” Politics and Society 17 (1989): 489–509. For other state typologies, see Anton Bebler and Jim Seroka, eds., Contemporary Political Systems: Classifications and Typologies (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1990), especially Bahgat Korany’s chapter, “Arab Political Systems,” pp. 303–29. See also Iliya Harik, “The Origins of the Arab State System,” in The Foundations of the Arab State, ed. Ghassan Salame (London: Croom Helm, 1987), pp. 19–46.

  3. Praetorian systems are dictatorships in which “social forces confront each other nakedly; no political institutions, no corps of professional political leaders are recognized or accepted as legitimate intermediaries to moderate group conflict. Equally important, no agreement exists among groups as to the legitimate and authoritative methods for resolving conflicts.” Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 196.

  4. Khaldoun Hasan Al-Naqeeb, Society and State in the Gulf and Arab Peninsula: A Different Perspective, trans. L. M. Kenny (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 6.

  5. Dirk Vandewalle, “From the New State to the New Era: Toward a Second Republic in Tunisia,” Middle East Journal 42, no. 4 (1988): 618.

  6. Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Making of the Modern Gulf States: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p. 63.

  7. Mehran Kamrava, “Preserving Non-democracies: Leaders and State Institutions in the Middle East,” Middle Eastern Studies 46, no. 2 (March 2010): 257–59.

  8. James Mahoney, “Path Dependence in Historical Sociology,” Theory and Society 29, no. 4 (August 2000): 507–48.

  9. Michael Broning, “The Sturdy House That Assad Built: Why Damascus Is Not Cairo,” in The New Arab Revolt, ed. Council on Foreign Relations (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2011), p. 202.

  10. Most of the top leaders in the Syrian state are members of the Al-Assad family. Hanna Battatu, “Political Power and Social Structure in Syria and Iraq,” in Arab Society: Continuity and Change, ed. Samih K. Farsoun (London: Croom Helm, 1985), p. 37.

  11. For an interesting study of the media in the Arab world, see William Rugh, The Arab Press (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987). Rugh does not discuss the Arab press’s coverage of local issues.

  12. James Rosberg, “Causes and Consequences of Judicial Independence in Contemporary Egypt,” paper presented at the Middle East Studies Association Conference, Phoenix, AZ, November 1994.

  13. Ismail Boulahia, vice president of the Democratic Socialist Movement (MDS) Party, interview by author, Tunis, May 27, 1996.

  14. Lisa Anderson, “Absolutism and the Resilience of Monarchy in the Middle East,” Political Science Quarterly 106, no. 1 (1991): 5–6.

  15. Daniel Brumberg, “Authoritarian Legacies and Reform Strategies in the Arab World,” in Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World, vol. 1, Theoretical Perspectives, ed. Rex Brynen, Bahgat Korany, and Paul Noble (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995), p. 233. For more on the “ruling bargain,” see chapter 10.

  16. Monte Palmer, Ali Leila, and El Sayed Yassin, The Egyptian Bureaucracy (Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 1988), p. 4.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Alan Richards and John Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), p. 192.

  19. Dirk Vandewalle, “Breaking with Socialism: Economic Liberalization and Privatization in Algeria,” in Privatization and Liberalization in the Middle East, ed. Iliya Harik and Denis Sullivan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 189.

  20. Brumberg, “Authoritarian Legacies,” p. 235.

  21. Richards and Waterbury, Political Economy, pp. 257–58.

  22. Fouad Ajami, The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice since 1967 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 104.

  23. Anthony McDermott, Egypt from Nasser to Mubarak: A Flawed Revolution (London: Croom Helm, 1988), p. 198.

  24. Raymond Hinnebusch, “State and Civil Society in Syria,” Middle East Journal 47, no. 2 (1993): 247.

  25. Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 46.

  26. After the Iran-Iraq War and its invasion of Kuwait, Iraq fit more appropriately into the inclusionary than the exclusionary category of states. Nevertheless, even Saddam Hussein, who never served in the Iraqi army, was given the rank of general by his then superior, President Bakr. Before the two wars, Saddam often wore civilian suits, although in the months leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and his overthrow he was hardly ever seen not wearing his military uniform.

  27. James Bill and Robert Springborg, Politics in the Middle East, 4th ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), p. 247.

  28. Ibid., p. 267.

  29. Patrick Seale, “Asad: Between Institutions and Autocracy,” in Syria: Society, Culture, and Polity, ed. Richard Antoun and Donald Quataert (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), p. 107.

  30. Foreign Broadcast Information Service: Near East and South Asia (FBIS-NES), November 8, 1995, p. 21.

  31. For an insightful look at Egypt’s al-Gamaʿa, see Hamied Ansari, Egypt: The Stalled Society (Albany: SUNY Press, 1986), pp. 212–30.

  32. See Michael Collins Dunn, “The Al-Nahda Movement in Tunisia: From Renaissance to Revolution,” in Islamism and Secularism in North Africa, ed. John Ruedy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), pp. 149–65. At best, leaders of Al-Nahda, most of whom are in exile in Europe, denounce President Ben Ali through fax transmissions into the country. Western diplomat (who chose to remain unnamed), interview by author, Tunis, May 1996.

  33. Lisa Anderson, “Political Pacts, Liberalism, and Democracy: The Tunisian National Pact of 1988,” Government and Opposition 26 (Spring 1991): 244–60; U.S. Department of State, “Tunisia,” in Country Report on Human Rights Practices—1995 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 1996), pp. 2–3.

  34. For a vivid account of the events at Hama, see Thomas Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989), pp. 76–87.

  35. John Ruedy, Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 209.

  36. Pictorial or symbolic representations of the president (in terms of public places named after him) vary from one exclusionary state to another. President Hafiz Al-Assad’s larger-than-life photographs and statues could be found throughout Damascus and other Syrian cities, even after he passed away and was succeeded by his son. President Ben Ali’s portraits are somewhat less omnipresent in Tunisia, although there is no shortage of his photographs in various poses throughout Tunisia. Although there were many giant portraits of Sadat in Egyptian cities when he was in power, today there are few of President Mubarak, though some can still be found in Cairo and elsewhere.

  37. Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 38.

  38. Mohsen Milani, “Shiʿism and the State in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” in Iran: Political Culture in the Islamic Republic, ed. Samih Farsoun and Mehrdad Mashayekhi (London: Routledge,
1992), p. 152.

  39. Dirk Vandewalle, “Qadhafi’s ‘Perestroika’: Economic and Political Liberalization in Libya,” Middle East Journal 45, no. 2 (1991): 217.

  40. Bill and Springborg, Politics in the Middle East, pp. 291–92.

  41. Nikola Schahgaldian, The Iranian Military under the Islamic Republic (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1987), p. 34.

  42. Anoushiravan Ehteshami, After Khomeini: The Iranian Second Republic (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 27–29, 71.

  43. Fredric Wehrey et al., The Rise of the Pasdaran: Assessing the Domestic Role of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2009).

  44. Hooshang Amirahmadi, Revolution and Economic Transition: The Iranian Experience (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990), p. 89.

  45. Samir al-Khalil, Republic of Fear: The Inside Story of Saddam’s Iraq (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989). Referring to alleged plotters within the Baʿth Party, Saddam himself is quoted as having once said: “We are now in our Stalinist era. We shall strike with an iron fist against the slightest deviation or backsliding beginning with the Baʿthists themselves.” Quoted in Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography (New York: Free Press, 1991), p. 117.

  46. F. Gregory Gause, “Regional Influences on Experiments in Political Liberalization in the Arab World,” in Brynen, Korany, and Noble, Political Liberalization, vol. 1, p. 286. Comparable data for the same years include 20.5 percent for Saudi Arabia and 18.8 percent for PDR Yemen.

  47. This number was reported to have been reduced to 350,000 following the Gulf War. John Paxton, ed., The Statesman’s Yearbook, 1988–89 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988); Brian Hunter, ed., The Statesman’s Yearbook, 1993–94 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).

  48. al-Khalil, Republic of Fear, pp. 30–31.

  49. Karsh and Rautsi, Saddam Hussein, p. 176. See also Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, “The Iraqi Bath Party,” in Political Parties in the Third World, ed. Vicky Randall (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1988), pp. 57–74.

  50. Karsh and Rautsi, Saddam Hussein, pp. 176–77.

  51. Vandewalle, “Qadhafi’s ‘Perestroika,’” pp. 218–19.

  52. Samir al-Khalil, The Monument: Art and Vulgarity in Iraq (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Donald Malcom Reid, “The Postage Stamp: A Window on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,” Middle East Journal 47, no. 1 (1993): 77–89.

  53. Karsh and Rautsi, Saddam Hussein, p. 224.

  54. Bill and Springborg, Politics in the Middle East, pp. 151–71.

  55. Ruedy, Modern Algeria, p. 240.

  56. Manoucher Parvin and Mostafa Vaziri, “Islamic Man and Society in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” in Farsoun and Mashayekhi, Iran, pp. 123–24.

  57. Abrahamian, Khomeinism, p. 38.

  58. Zahlan, Making of the Modern Gulf States, pp. 27–30.

  59. Rex Brynen, “Economic Crisis and Post-rentier Democratization in the Arab World: The Case of Jordan,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 25, no. 1 (1992): 70.

  60. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 115.

  61. Today, the Moroccan state relies for its legitimacy not so much on the country’s history of monarchic rule as on the “struggles” of the founder of the modern state, Mohammed V, against the French.

  62. Marina Ottaway and Meredith Riley, “Morocco: Top-Down Reform without Democratic Transition,” in Beyond the Façade: Political Reform in the Arab World, ed. Marina Ottaway and Julia Choucair-Vizoco (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2008), p. 169.

  63. Julia Choucair-Vizoco, “Movement in Lieu of Change,” in Ottaway and Vizoco, Beyond the Façade, p. 262.

  64. Julia Choucair-Vizoco, “Illusive Reform: Jordan’s Stubborn Stability,” in Ottaway and Vizoco, Beyond the Façade, pp. 46, 50–51.

  65. Al-Naqeeb, Society and State, p. 102.

  66. Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, p. 46.

  67. Ibid.; emphasis in original.

  68. Al-Naqeeb, Society and State, p. 107.

  69. F. Gregory Gause, Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994), p. 23.

  70. Ibid., p. 25.

  71. Zahlan, Making of the Modern Gulf States, p. 79.

  72. Ibid., p. 88.

  73. Peter Wilson and Douglas Graham, Saudi Arabia: The Coming Storm (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), pp. 20–21.

  74. Nevertheless, princely privileges appear more extensive in Saudi Arabia than in the other Gulf monarchies. The Saudi royal family has a separate satellite telephone network of its own, and all princes receive annual salaries ranging from $200,000 to $500,000. See ibid., pp. 19–22.

  75. Gause, Oil Monarchies, pp. 56–57.

  76. Ibid., p. 54.

  77. In 1986, in an attempt to shore up his Islamic credentials, King Fahd dropped the title of “His Majesty” and instead adopted the more humble “Custodian of Islam’s Two Holy Mosques.”

  78. In this respect, in fact, family control over state institutions is far more extensive in Syria than in Jordan.

  79. Omar Bendourou, “Power and Opposition in Morocco,” Journal of Democracy 7, no. 3 (1996): 110–11.

  80. Ibid., p. 110.

  81. Quoted in ibid., p. 114.

  82. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, “Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World: An Overview,” in Brynen, Korany, and Noble, Political Liberalization, vol. 1, pp. 46–47.

  83. For a detailed discussion of the distinctions between “viable” and quasi democracies, see Mehran Kamrava, Politics and Society in the Developing World, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 198–205.

  84. Jeremy Salt, “Turkey’s Military ‘Democracy,’” Current History 98 (February 1999): 72–78, and Mehran Kamrava, “Military-Professionalization and Civil-Military Relations in the Middle East,” Political Science Quarterly 115 (Spring 2000): 70–76.

  85. Henri Barkey and Graham Fuller, Turkey’s Kurdish Question (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), p. 12.

  86. Feroz Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 12.

  87. Quoted in ibid., p. 181.

  88. Ahmet Evin, “Demilitarization and Civilianization of the Regime,” in Politics in the Third Turkish Republic, ed. Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 30–32.

  89. Mehran Kamrava, “Pseudo-democratic Politics and Populist Possibilities: The Rise and Demise of Turkey’s Refah Party,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 25 (November 1998): 288.

  90. Barkey and Fuller, Turkey’s Kurdish Question, p. 140.

  91. The 1996 and 1999 elections have shown that the electoral reforms of 1992 have not had their intended consequences of strengthening the prime minister’s hand in dealing with the Knesset. See Gideon Doron and Michael Harris, Public Policy and Electoral Reform: The Case of Israel (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2000), pp. 71–73.

  92. Asher Arian, The Second Republic: Politics in Israel (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1998), p. 266.

  93. Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel, Statistical Abstract of Israel, 2012, no. 63 (Tel Aviv: Government Publishing House, 2013), pp. 88, 90. Of Arab Israelis, approximately 82 percent are Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 8 percent Druze. Although Israeli authorities consider the two as members of separate communities, the Druze are actually Muslims with their own ethno-sectarian identity.

  94. Don Peretz and Gideon Doron, The Government and Politics of Israel, 3rd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), p. 56.

  95. Arian, Second Republic, p. 38.

  96. Peretz and Doron, Government and Politics of Israel, p. 7.

  97. Arian, Second Republic, p. 294.

  98. Ibid., p. 297.

  99. Eva Etzioni-Halvey, “Civil-Military Relations and Democracy: The Case of the Military-Political Elites’ Connection in Israel,” Armed Forces and Society 22 (Spring 1996): 413.

&
nbsp; 100. Tom Najem, The Collapse and Reconstruction of Lebanon, Durham Middle East Papers 59 (Durham, NC: University of Durham Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 1998), p. 7.

  101. Charles Winslow, Lebanon: War and Politics in a Fragmented Society (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 80.

  102. Arend Lijphart, “Consociational Democracy,” World Politics 21, no. 2 (1969): 216. See also Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 31–47.

  103. Winslow, Lebanon, p. 274.

  104. See Human Rights Watch, Fatal Strikes: Israel’s Indiscriminate Attacks against Civilians in Lebanon (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2006).

  105. The phrase “Ministry of Mobilization” was originally used by I. William Zartman, quoted in Ibrahim Karawan, “Political Parties between State Power and Islamist Opposition,” in Between the State and Islam, ed. Charles E. Butterworth and I. William Zartman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 179.

  106. Karawan, “Political Parties,” p. 182.

  107. Timothy Piro, “Liberal Professionals in the Contemporary Arab World,” in Butterworth and Zartman, Between the State and Islam, p. 186.

  108. Fouad Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation’s Odyssey (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), p. 7.

  109. For an account of these and other Arab intellectuals of their generation, see ibid.

  110. John E. Esposito and John O. Voll, Makers of Contemporary Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 16–17.

  111. Much of the information contained in this and the following paragraph comes from Esposito and Voll, Makers of Contemporary Islam.