The Modern Middle East (83 page)

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Authors: Mehran Kamrava

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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.

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