Notes From the Other Side: A Look at Arab Media and the U.S.

To dispel the sense of 'Otherness' that exists vis-a-vis us and the Arab world, this diary is dedicated to showcasing different streams of thought in the Arab news world.

"Wait", one might object, "I'm familiar with the ethnic breakdown in Iraq, and the history of the House of Saud. I don't need to read contemporary Arab editorialists!". To which I would reply: "Knowing the history or ethnic breakdown of a nation or peoples, although important, tells us little of that society, as it tangibly exists, as its own peoples know it, and by extension know the world". Thus this diary is dedicated to fostering a more complex understanding between what occurs 'over here' and how our actions are perceived 'over there'.

First, examine Abdullah Iskandar's sophisticated analysis in Dar Al-Hayat of the structural limitations of the US political system, even with Democratic takeover of congress:

The Democrats' leaders realize that, despite statements challenging the Republican administration, they will not be able to implement their electoral promises without seeking to find a common ground of understanding with the White House and fellow Republicans in Congress. They also know that their narrow majority in the House of Representatives (233 out of 434) and their unstable majority in the Senate (51 out of 100) will force them to back down from the ceiling they had set for the points of their electoral program, because they might need Republican votes in some cases.
...Although the Democrats are adhering to the Baker-Hamilton recommendations, particularly in terms of the general approach that links the Middle East crises with openness toward Syria and Iran, they will be forced to deal with the new plan for Iraq that Bush is expected to announce within days - even if this includes an increase in the number of troops, which is likely, and especially if the plan involves a new vote on additional funds to cover the expenses of the war. The Democrats cannot afford the accusation that they abandoned their soldiers in Iraq, with the start of preparations for a presidential campaign, or the charge of abandoning crucial US interests under the pretext of the rising costs of protecting these interests.

I wish a lot of people on the American Left were as dedicated analysts of our structural political biases as Iskandar.


Let us now turn to a much more fiery, Anti-American piece, also in Dar Al Hayat by Daoud Shirian, entitled 'The Americans Can Never Be Trusted":

The mendacious mutual recriminations between US officials and the rulers of Baghdad, regarding the way former President Saddam Hussein was executed, condemns and holds Washington culpable for the timing, the way the barbaric act was carried out, and the fact that it was shown to the people. Washington could have adhered to the implementation of the new Iraqi Constitution, which stipulates that three persons ratify the death sentence, and which prohibits the execution of the sentence during holidays, but it condoned the way the Constitution was adopted, in the sense that 'we did not order it and it does not harm us', and replaced the Constitution, justice and humanitarian senses with dependence on the opinion of the religious authorities and intolerance.

The hasty implementation of the death sentence against Saddam Hussein was an urgent US demand, just as it was a lust for sectarian revenge by the al-Maliki government, and evidence that what was reported as Washington's acquiescence to growing pressure from the ruling elite in Baghdad was a mere allegation.

...What is going on in this country is a dirty and premeditated scheme: Washington dissolved the Iraqi army, while we were busy finding excuses for US policy, which is ignorant of the region's history and the nature of the structure of the Iraqi people. The US allowed the adoption of a Constitution that cancels the Arabism of Iraq. We hailed this Constitution as an act of democracy. Then the execution of Saddam revealed Washington exercising an unprecedented savagery and its support for a handful of fanatic Shiites to replace the neo-conservatives for the implementation of the so-called 'New Iraq' project.

Although I cannot assign even the Bush Administration such insidious motives as Shirian, I must admit that reading an opinion piece such as this shows the limitations of discourse within our domestic media.

Finally, look at this scholarly, prescient, and biting article by Azmi Bishara in Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly, entitled "End of the Neocons":

In 2006, American conservatives have scurried home to their bases having left many neoconservatives dead and wounded by the wayside on the return trip from the mad escapade into which the latter had led them, and after having reassured themselves on the welfare of Arab regimes which had been practically begging Israel to try to put some sense into the American administration that had been twisting their arms so determinedly. Now, in the wake of the interventionist adventure, it's back to issuing strong advice, giving subtle winks and not coming out in favour of those in Palestine and Lebanon who might support Israel because that would only work against them. Do they think everyone simply missed the point, as though 2006 was international brain-dead year and this part of the world the capital of brain-deadness?

...The current "internal" strife in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon is a continuation of the clash with Washington's neoconservative administration by other means. In Palestine, the last of the neocons are to be found in the clique surrounding the Palestinian president, which refuses so much as a domestic compromise on the basis of the 4 June 1967 borders. This is the group that insists on meeting US-Israeli conditions, that frowned at the national reconciliation document because it could not serve as a basis for entering into negotiations with Israel, that prayed that the Israeli offensive against Lebanon would teach Hizbullah and all inspired by it a lesson and then lamented the victory of the Lebanese resistance, that wants Europe and the US not to lift the blockade against the elected Palestinian government so as to help it back into power. The remnants of the neoconservatives are still to be found among the 14 March group in Lebanon, who regard the Baker-Hamilton report as a defeat for them, who fear the very thought of a dialogue between the US and Syria and Iran, who rejected a ceasefire during the war on Lebanon before they could be assured that the country could not revert to its pre-12 July conditions, as though they had been the ones to have launched the assault to begin with. The last of the neocons are to be found among the Iraqi forces that restrict even those who could from reining in the militias, who obstruct any possible dialogue with the Baath Party, who have turned national reconciliation conferences into a façade that Bush can use to support his claim that something is moving forward in Iraq, into parleys that succeed in drafting closing statements only because the intent to follow through was never there to begin with, into the type of surgery that can be followed by the pronouncement, "The operation was a success, but the patient died."

That's a hard one to follow up on, so I'll leave it at that. And that is, of course, just a peek into the Arab Media world. It would be prudent of us to start looking more often.