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~~GULFWIRE~~PERSPECTIVES~~NOVEMBER 12, 2002~~THE WEST AND THE ARABWORLD: PARTNERSHIP OR A "CLASH OF CIVLIZATIONS" (fwd)



Here is a lengthy and very penetrating analysis of US-Arab relations and
various American and Arab misunderstandings. After discussing demographic
problems and political alienation within the Arab world, Anthony
Cordesmann goes on to discuss the region's overspending on military
budgets, the linkage between Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the problems
of security in the Arab Gulf states, the futility of the blame game (much
to blame on all sides!), the need for more balanced US policies to face
the fact of our energy dependence and need for good Arab-US relations.
Useful data on demography, military expenditures, and world energy
projections. This essay is quite relevant to the Politics of Oil, Arab
Israeli Politics, and Political Economy of the MENA, and hence is
forwarded to the resource pages of all three of my courses.

*****************************
Clement M. Henry
Professor of Government
University of Texas at Austin
Austin TX 78712
tel 471-5121, fax 471-1061

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 01:41:38 -0600
From: GulfWire e-Newsletters <GulfWire@arabialink.com>
To: "<<GULFWIRE>>" <GulfWire2@arabialink.com>
Subject: ~~GULFWIRE~~PERSPECTIVES~~NOVEMBER 12,
2002~~THE WEST AND THE ARAB WORLD: PARTNERSHIP OR A "CLASH OF CIVLIZATIONS"

****************************************
********GULFWIRE ~ PERSPECTIVES*********
****************************************

INFORMATION AND INSIGHTS ON MIDDLE EAST DEVELOPMENTS
NATIONAL COUNCIL ON U.S. ARAB RELATIONS AND
THE U.S.-GCC CORPORATE COOPERATION COMMITTEE SECRETARIAT

NOVEMBER 12, 2002
THE WEST AND THE ARAB WORLD:
PARTNERSHIP OR A "CLASH OF CIVILIZAIONS?"
BY ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN

===========================GulfWire~~Perspectives==========================
EDITORS NOTE:

It is GulfWire's good fortune to be able to occasionally offer the writings
of Dr. Anthony Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for
Strategic and International Studies. This GulfWire Perspectives provides
his presentation to the Fortune Global Forum 2002, "The Arab Countries:
Issues, Answers, And Opportunities" on November 11, 2002.

We thank Dr. Cordesman for allowing GulfWire to share this presentation with
you.

Patrick W. Ryan
Editor-in-Chief, GulfWire

===========================GulfWire~~Perspectives=========================


THE WEST AND THE ARAB WORLD: PARTNERSHIP OR A "CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS?"
By Anthony H. Cordesman

There is a time for politically correct rhetoric and a time for cold-blooded
realism. At this point, the tensions between the West and the Arab world
have moved beyond the point where they can be dealt with through comforting
words and political correctness. Western and Arab good intentions that are
empty of substance cannot deal with these issues. At the same time, debates
that reflect the polarized divisions and conspiracy theories of the
supporters of the Arab world and Israel, unthinking Western rhetoric about
legitimacy and democratization, and the kind of Arab rhetoric that
substitutes ideology for realism and planning only make the situation worse.

Nearly a thousand years ago, a Syrian Shi'ite poet -- who was trying to
come to grips with the tragedy of the crusades -- said that most people
thought of the world as divided between Moslems, Christians, and Jews. He
said that it was not. That it was divided between those who believe and
those who think.

Those words are as valid today as ever. It is terribly easy for Arabs and
the West to condemn each other. It is easy for the US to make broad
criticisms, and easy for Arab states to invent new conspiracy theories. It
is terribly easy for Arab and Jew to let the festering escalation of the
Second Intifada divide them even further, However, the end result will be to
make real problems worse, and in ways no amount of well-meaning speeches
about friendship and respect can deal with. The time has truly come to
think.

The Continuing Pressures on the Arab World

The first step in that thought process must be to look at the forces that
are driving much of the tension between the Arab world and the West. To do
this, we must to look beyond the immediate tensions of the Second Intifada
and Iraq, and beyond rhetoric about democratization and regime change. The
Arab world faces a broad and enduring crisis that is driven by deep
structural problems.

The most serious and most enduring such problem is demographic momentum. In
1950, the United Nations estimates that the entire Middle East and North
Africa, including all of the Arab world and Iran, had a population of only
112 million. In 1970, before the oil embargo first made the Middle East a
major strategic concern for the West, the entire Middle East and the Maghreb
had a population of 188 million people. By 1980, the population was 248
million. By 1990, the total was 334 million. By the year 2000, the UN
estimated the region had population at over 415 million. This is a near
quadrupling of the population in a half a century.[1]

The UN and the US Census Bureau both estimate a sharp decline in the rate of
population growth in most Arab states in coming years, but nearly half the
population is 18 years or younger and there is massive momentum. The UN
estimates that the population will increase to 501 million by 2010, 591
million by 2020 and have doubled to 833 million by 2050.

Far more is involved here than total population growth. Since 1970, changes
in health standards have doubled the number of people of 60 years of age.
This increase in the number of dependent aging citizens is projected to
double again by 2020. An immense new burden is being placed on both the
state and the extended family.

The key problem destabilizing the Arab world, however, is not age but youth.
Roughly five times as many young men and women now reach job age each year
as in 1970. The rate of increase in those seeking jobs has dropped
strikingly over the last decade – and the World Bank estimates that annual
population growth rates will drop from 2.6% during 1980-2000 to 1.8% between
2002 and 2015.

Nevertheless, the UN estimates that sheer population momentum from past
increases means that the labor force of the Middle East and North Africa
will increase by roughly two-thirds between 2000 and 2020 -- from 186
million to 307 million, and will nearly double to 405 million by 2040. The
problems in North Africa will be only slightly lower.

"Youth Explosion" and Economic Crisis

One of the key underlying forces behind instability in the Arab world, and
the tensions between that world and the West, is that Middle East is in the
middle of a "youth explosion" that will go for every year of the
professional life of the youngest person in this room. This is a "youth
explosion" that has already strained the educational system in most Middle
Eastern countries to near collapse. It puts a vast new burden on the need
for housing and infrastructure.

It has strained the ability of virtually every economy to create meaningful
jobs to the breaking point. No meaningful statistics are available on the
true level of unemployment in any Middle Eastern country because no Arab
state wants to admit the level of its economic problems or the existence of
massive amounts of disguised unemployment: Government jobs that serve no
purpose, and jobs in the private sector and service industries that could be
eliminated without any lose of productive output. The reality, however, is
that direct and disguised unemployment among young men in their late teens
and early twenties must be at least 20-25%, and the situation for young
women must be far worse.

Population growth and the "youth explosion" are also occurring in a climate
where regional economies have tended to stagnate. The World Bank estimates
average GDP growth in the Middle East and North Africa during 1980-1990 at
only two percent and it is far from clear that this growth is in real
dollars. This is well under the population growth rate, and roughly 25% of
the average growth rate in East Asia and the Pacific.[2]

The regions economic performance during 1990-2000 was somewhat better on
paper. The World Bank reports it averaged 3%, although far too much of this
supposed growth is a statistical artifact of the way the GDP's of the
developing world are calculated. Even if such growth was real, it would only
roughly equal population growth and at best be at least two percent below
the level needed for sustained development. It also would still only be a
little more than one-third of the rate of growth in East Asia and the
Pacific.

Oil wealth has also become a myth. In 1980, the total crude oil export
revenues of the Middle Eastern OPEC states peaked at $475.8 billion in
constant 2000 US dollars. In 1998 a year of low oil prices, export revenues
were only about $100 billion. In 2000, a year of very high oil prices in
recent terms, they were still only around $191 billion -- some 40% of their
1980 level. Given the fact, the population increased by 67% between 1980 and
2000, this means that per capita oil revenues in the Middle Eastern oil
states are now substantially less than 24% of what they were in 1980.[3]
Another way of illustrating just how much oil wealth has changed is to look
at two key states. The US Department of Energy estimates that Saudi per
capita income peaked at $23,820 in 1980 but was only $2,653 in 2001.[4]
Saudi and CIA estimates put the figure at over $6,000 and some estimates go
as high as $9,000. This is good for developing states but far below the peak
years of oil wealth.

The forces behind these trends are easy to understand. Saudi crude oil
export earnings peaked at $223.2 billion in 1980, in constant 2000 dollars,
and are estimated to be $55 billion in 2002. [5] The Saudi population rose
from 9.9 million in 1980 to around 23.5 million in 2002.[6] This means Saudi
Arabia's per capita oil income has dropped from a peak of $22,545 in 1980 to
$2,340 in 2002. Other calculations by the Department of Energy indicate that
Saudi per capita export revenues from crude oil peaked at $23,820 in 1980
but were only $2,653 in 2001.[7]

Iraq had a peak per capita oil export income of $57.8 billion in 1980,
before the long fall began in its economy during the Iran-Iraq War. It will
earn some $12.5 billion in 2002. [8] Its population has increased from 13.2
million in 1980 to 24.1 million in 2002. [9] As a result, its per capita oil
income has dropped from a peak of $4,379 in 1980 to $519 today. Even if it
produced at a sustained level of 2.5 MMBD in 2004, without foreign
surcharges and UN fees, its per capita earnings would still be around $780.

Most important, economic growth in the Middle East is skewed towards the
need to provide more food – even at the cost of depleting aquifers and
increasing desertification. It is skewed towards service industries than
often increase imports rather than productivity. To put these issues in
perspective, the World Bank estimates that that the value of industry only
grew by an average of 0.3% during 1980-1990, and 0.9% during 1990-2000.
Manufacturing did grow by 3.8% during 1990-2000, but only by relying on
steadily increasing imports.

The only saving grace in these statistics is that the World Bank indicates
the region's income per capita is still around $2,100 ($2090). This is
higher than the average in the world's middle income states, about twice the
$1,060 per capita income in East Asia and the Pacific, about five times
higher than in South Asia ($440), and over four times higher than in
Sub-Saharan Africa ($470). Some economies like Saudi Arabia have also been
able to diversify to the point where their per capita incomes are in the
range of $8,000-$10,000, and Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE remain energy export
rich in spite of population growth.

Coupled to a high level of average education and good overall
infrastructure, there is still reason for hope. The region's potential is
reinforced by vast energy resources and by large investments abroad.

At the same time, no Arab can afford to ignore two consistent trends that
are now half a century old: The Middle East and North Africa have steadily
declined as a percentage of the world's GDP, and as a percentage of world
exports.

Moreover, Middle Eastern and North African states have become steadily more
dependent on the non-Arab world. Every Arab nation now depends primarily on
non-Arab states for trade and remittances. In fact, Pan-Arabism and regional
development is a dangerous, futile myth. The importance of intraregional
trade has also declined consistently for a half century, and Arab dependence
on Arab industry and manufactures has declined even more quickly.

Demographics, Economics, and Social Change

We in the West should not be surprised if these forces sometimes produce
turmoil in the countries in the region, and forms of extremism that are
exported to the West. We tend to talk about the Arab world as "traditional,"
but no traditional structure can survive this rate of change. Population
pressures combine with other forces to produce deep structural changes in
Arab societies.

World Bank data indicate that agriculture makes up less than a quarter as
much of the labor force today as in 1970, while the urban population rose
from roughly 56 million in 1970 to 84 million in 1980 and 173 million in
2000. Nearly a third of the population in the Middle East now lives in the
biggest city in the country, and over 20% in cities of over one million.
The economic and political consequences of this rate of change would be
critical in any region, but much of the Middle East is a desert. Even the
few "water rich" countries already have problems in supplying water for
agriculture at economically competitive rates. Most countries already face
serious water problems even in supplying their populations. These water
problems also cannot be solved either by agricultural reform or by "water
wars." They mean permanent long-term dependence on food imports that can
only be paid for being a competitive part of the global economy.

At the same time, advances in global communications – satellite television,
the Internet, faxes, video tapes and CDs, are creating a new flood of
information that cuts across national lines and which defies censorship. We
cannot even begin to quantify this rate of change. The reporting on such
developments has to rely far too much on "legal" imports and reporting and
lags badly behind reality. However, no one who visits the Middle East can
believe that communication is now controlled by governments, relies on
traditional voices or the Mosque, or faces real-world limits on the level of
radicalization in what is communicated. Education may still rely on rote
learning. The Koran may still speak to men's souls. But radical changes in
every aspect of the forces shaping public opinion are an ongoing reality.
Education means change as well. No meaningful figures really exist on female
employment in the Arab world, but educational data make it clear that the
gap in skills between men and women is rapidly vanishing. Like it or not,
the Arab world also faces future in which it can only be competitive in
global terms if its labor force is restructured to use women as productively
as men. Ironically, the need for such change is particularly great in
nations like Saudi Arabia, where the number of female secondary school and
university graduates already exceeds the number of men. Tribal tradition and
discrimination against women are a luxury the Arab world already cannot
afford.

The Arab world is already deep into a demographic and economic crisis that
will play out over the next half century. The social structures of the past
cannot survive, and are already vanishing. Efforts to stay outside the
global economy can only result in dire poverty and falling hopelessly behind
in development, and a retreat to the past can only end in social chaos.
In fact, the Arab world has no need of external enemies as long as it has
Islamists, traditionalists, and Pan-Arab apologists seeking to deny the need
for change on a scale that can deal with these realities. Only a fool can
talk about the Arab world as if it could somehow retreat into the past,
solve its problems by creating a greater Arab nation, or avoid being deeply
involved in globalism in some form.

Similarly, however, only a fool in the West can talk about dealing with
demographic, economic, and social problems on this scale as if the issue was
one of choosing the right political system and could be solved by regime
change and political pluralism alone.

The Clash Within a Civilization

This does not mean the recognizing such problems suggest easy solutions or
even what solution should be applied. It is one thing to identify the scale
of the forces at work, and quite another to analyze their meaning. We are
talking about massive social forces that will play out over a period of at
least half a century.

Several important things do, however, seem probable:

o First, the points of friction between the Arab world and the West over
these pressures and changes will inevitably be limited compared to the
problems that will occur within the Arab world and Arab nations. Any "clash
of civilizations" along the periphery of the Middle East and North Africa
will be minor compared to the clashes within it unless governments and
peoples rise to the challenge of consistent, pragmatic, evolutionary change.

o Second, regional cooperation and regional development within the Arab
world will not be a major driving force in Arab success – at least during
the period in which the Arab world has to become globally competitive. A
relatively underdeveloped region cannot succeed by trading with itself. It
must succeed by attracting global investment, by exploiting comparative
advantage with states outside the region, and by becoming globally
competitive. Once again, Pan-Arabism may have cultural value, but is a
dangerous economic myth.

o Third, as is the case with virtually every developing region, success or
failure will be determined by internal efforts on a nation-by-nation basis.
There are some 21 Arab nations – depending on who wants to be Arab on a
given day. None of these nations is going to succeed or fail because of
outside aid from the West or from other Arab states. The level of outside
aid will always be minor relative to need.

The individual states in the Arab world differ far too much in terms of
national conditions, relative wealth, government, and technical competence,
and the myth of the "Arab nation" has no real-world substance. Only those
who help themselves are going to be helped at all. Indeed, the entire
history of economic development shows that only those states that can
attract foreign investment, reform their economics, and use economic aid
effectively ever get productive assistance from the outside.

o Fourth, even the most successful states are nearly certain to face
decades of tension with their social conservatives, because of the backlash
of social structures that are under such extreme stress, and because at
least some of their youth will be violently radicalized. No Arab state is
likely to do so well, that some form of extremism will not be a problem. In
fact, virtually every Arab state has already had to deal with such
extremism, and most have had to deal with terrorism. Several, such as
Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen have had civil wars.

o Fifth, even the most successful states are equally certain to face
decades of tension with their youth. No society in history has ever faced
forces on this scale without radicalizing part of its youth, and without
doing so in ways that lead some of that youth to take the path of radicalism
and violence. Ideas and levels of violence will have their own cycles.
Stability, however, is a dream when the forces at work are too large for any
quick or effective solution to the causes of extremism and terrorism. In
fact, the demographic forces at work in the Middle East will often be too
large or for either repression or democracy to control them.

o Sixth, a margin of extremists should not be confused with whole Arab
nations and societies. At least as yet, Arabs are not politically polarized
and are scarcely extremist in character. Arabs should not be typecast as
political extremists or supporters of terrorism. Polls of Arab public
opinion have consistently reflected pragmatic priorities of the kind
reported in the Arab Development Report.[10]

That report found that older Arabs of the age of 22 or more are very
pragmatic. A total of 45% saw job opportunities as their main concern, 23%
listed education, 12% the environment, 8% the fair distribution of wealth,
4% health care, and 4% poverty. Only 5% listed political participation.
Younger Arabs reflect equally pragmatic goals. A total of 25% saw education
as the key priority. Another 23% saw job opportunities as their main
concern, 15% focused on health care, 13% on the environment, 11% on poverty,
6% the fair distribution of wealth, 4% health care, and 4% poverty. Only 8%
listed political participation.

It is also worth noting that regardless of any clash of civilizations, the
Arab Development Report found that 51% of the older Arab youths wanted to
emigrate. If this number sounds high, the figure at one university in
Morocco was over 70%.

o Seventh, most Arab states do, however, operate in a political and social
climate where secular political options attract only a limited following and
Islam is one of the few options Arab populations still see as valid.
Nasserism, the Baath, Arabia with Sultans, Arab socialism, Marxism, state
planning, post-Colonial secular regimes, are at best yesterday's men.

Yesterday's leaders are equally dated. We should scarcely be surprised when
Arabs turn back to Islam. Societies under intense pressure look for options
and for values that allow them to deal with problems they face. In general,
we do not have failed nations, but failed secular elites.

o Eighth, opinion polls do show that Arabs deeply resent much of the
Western media criticism of the Arab world and Islam. More importantly,
something like 80% consistently see US ties to Israel as a major factor
behind the Second Intifada and are angry or hostile to this aspect of US
policy. In virtually every case, where Arabs express broad support for
violence or terrorism, it is focused on this one issue. Support for Islamic
extremism while all too real, is marginal except in this one context.

Zones of Arab and Western Friction

Most of the Arab world still has time to act before its internal pressures
and problems virtually force internal conflict. There is much the West can
do to encourage meaningful progress and reform, and to aid the Arab world
through fairer trade agreements, entry to the WTO, and increased foreign
investment.

There is virtually no chance, however, that the West and the Arab world can
avoid significant friction in several key areas, or that Arab extremism and
terrorism will not remain a problem for at least the next two decades. In
the real world, no one ever fixes history or ends it by solving all of its
problems without violence; the best that can ever be done is to make it
better.

In practice, this means both the West and the Arab world must be prepared to
live with political and economic friction and some degree of asymmetric
warfare and terrorist violence in four key areas.

The "Clash of Civilizations" in North Africa

The first such point of friction lies in the problem of immigration. This is
a key problem for Europe and North Africa, but it is scarcely one that does
not affect the US and the rest of the Arab world. Even if no further
Algerian civil wars take place, Arab emigration into the West will continue.

A recent article in the Economist notes that 10% of the population of
Austria is foreign born. The figures are roughly 9% for Germany and Belgium,
6% for France, four percent for Denmark, Ireland, Italy, and the
Netherlands. No one really knows how many immigrants are Arab because so
many are only quasi legal. The current numbers and percentages, however,
are somewhat irrelevant. As many as 100,000 Arabs and other Muslims are
emigrating a year, and low Birth rates in Italy, Germany, Britain, France,
the US and other countries -- along with an aging population – will create
a steadily increasing need for immigrants for at least the next two
decades.[11]

We have already seen the level of social tension that can arise,
particularly in European societies unused to dealing with any kind of
immigration and who are only beginning to create the kind of "melting pot"
that helps immigrants become full citizens. Far too often, in both Europe
and the United States, Arabs are not given the respect and tolerance they
deserve, prejudice and racism are an issue, and visible symbols of a
different faith – such as mosques and headscarves – become of problem.

Europe and the US are making progress in adapting to the needs of their new
Arab populations. There is still serious discrimination, however, and there
is a risk that the "people of the book" will become the "people of the
clash." Moreover, the West will always be a convenient proxy target for Arab
extremists and terrorist, and some Arab internal struggles will inevitably
spillover and be fought out by Arab emigrants on Western soil.

Moreover, what far too few in the West yet realize or admit is that more is
involved than reacting to a sometimes desperate Arab desire to emigrate to
find more security and a better life. Accepting immigrants is not a
humanitarian act or one based on mixing compassion with grudging acceptance.
The fact is that the West needs Arab immigrants. The aging of the population
in the West, and low birth rates in much of Europe, make accepting
immigrants a vital part of the future of Western economies. Immigrants,
however, are people, not shadows that sweep a broom in the night.

There is a case for seeking to reduce the pressures for mass immigration
through Western aid to the Maghreb and other Arab states. Ultimately,
however, the West must do far more to encourage cultural tolerance, to treat
Islamic and Arab customs with more dignity, to offer merit-based promotion
and professional qualifications, and to provide citizenship to those who
earn it.

It is all very well for the West to talk about pluralism and human rights in
the Arab world. The place to start is in the West.

The Threat of "Clash of Civilizations" Over the Levant: The Second Intifada
and the Arab-Israeli Peace Issue

The most dangerous direct source of friction between the Arab world and the
West is the Second Intifada and the collapse of the Arab-Israeli peace
process. This is a tragedy in which all sides are deeply to blame. The
recent governments of Israel have made many serious mistakes. So has the
West and particularly the US. But, Arab leaders have made the most critical
mistakes that have led to this crisis. And many go far beyond the tensions
between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

The Arab world can congratulate itself on producing the one great hero of
the modern Middle East: Anwar Sadat. Every outside observer must credit King
Hussein and President Mubarak with doing much to move their nations forward.
But, the failures of Assad and Arafat are a key reason why the Arab-Israeli
conflict is a now such a serious threat to Western and Arab military
relations.

In spite of the problems of colonialism, Syria is an almost uniquely Arab
tragedy. Hafez Assad was a disaster in every sense for the Syrian people. He
spent decades weakening the Syrian economy, failing to come to grips with
Syria's population and water problems, wasting vast amounts on arms, and
engaging in futile military adventures. He then refused a deal with Barak's
Israel that would have given him virtually all of the Golan and have
inevitably led to a far more stable future for Lebanon. It is easy to forget
Assad's prelude to the Second Intifada, but he must share much of the blame.

Let me be equally blunt about Yasser Arafat. He has failed to be an
effective leader in both forging a viable Palestinian state and in moving
towards a real peace. While I still have seen little detailed evidence that
he sought to create the Second Intifada in anything like its present form,
he failed to give the Palestinian movement honest government and leadership,
he at least used the tolerance of terrorism as a political weapon, and he
horribly mishandled Barak, Camp David, and the reality that he needed the US
and a friendly Israeli government to achieve a Palestinian nation. The West
may have helped create the crisis in Lebanon, but only the Lebanese could
turn it into a festering civil war.

Yes, Israel is much to blame, Europe wallows in ineffective good intentions,
Russia plays at the margins for its own self-interest, and the US is biased.
It is a reality that the US does have a dual standard. In fact, it has had
one for nearly forty years. The US does view Israel as a key ally. It does
provide it with massive military and economic assistance and tacit security
guarantees. It is also a reality that in periods of crisis, the US tilts
towards the position of the Israeli government of the day, and often
regardless of whether it is right or wrong.

If the Arab world often denies the failures of Arab leaders like, Assad and
Arafat, the US is often equally unrealistic in recognizing Israel's
failures. One recent example is calling Sharon a "man of peace." So far,
there are two failed leaderships involved in the Second Intifada, not just o
ne.

Given these realities, the West and the Arab world can only come to grips
with this tragedy by recognizing that blame and history are not the issue,
but rather the need for peace and a future that offers political, economic,
and social security for Arab and Israeli alike.

There are no quick, fair, good, or easy solutions. However, the first step
is to recognize that the Second Intifada is an asymmetric war based on
asymmetric means, values, and goals, and not a matter of one side's
"terrorism" or another side's "occupation."

Are the Palestinians sometimes guilty of pointless terrorism? Yes.

Have all Israeli government since the signing of the Oslo Accords been
guilty of going on with the expansion of settlements. Yes.

Is there a horrible equation that trades settlements for suicide bombings.
Yes.

Are both Israel and the Palestinians locked into an asymmetric war where
both sides are equally guilty and constantly escalating to nowhere without
any meaningful form of conflict resolution? Yes, they are.

Is the Bush Administration guilty of tilting too much towards this Israeli
government at the expense of any real hope of a long-term future for either
Israel or the Palestinian? Yes, to that too.

The time has come for both sides to deal with these realities. The Arab
world needs to unite to create a true peace partner in the Palestinians and
to do all it can to bring an end to the Palestinian side of the violence.
The West, and particularly the US, needs to make an open ended commitment to
actively pushing for a just peace for as long as it take. Progress depends
on consistent Arab, US and European efforts to create a viable Palestinian
state and focusing on future needs rather than past hopes and ambitions.

The US and the West must recognize that progress means a real and
unfaltering US commitment to putting pressure on Israel to halt the
settlements, and to rolling back the Israeli occupation to the limits of
greater Jerusalem area and limited security adjustments to the 1967 lines.
The Arab world must recognize that the US will never turn its back on
Israel, abandoning its firm commitment to Israel's security, or coercing
Israel into a peace that it does not wish to accept.

So far, only Crown Prince Abdullah has shown real courage on the Arab side.
Europe has dithered and the Bush Administration has failed to act decisively
and with consistent visibility -- much less consistent muscle. Every day
increases Arab frustration and resentment. Neither Israel nor the
Palestinians have any meaningful way out of their present tragedy. Jordan
and Egypt face a growing threat to their stability and the peace process,
and another generation of young men and women will be damaged or wasted.

At the same time, the Arab world must accept the fact that no one can
recreate the Levant of, 1948 or 1967, any more than Israeli extremists can
recreate Eretz Israel. No Palestinian refugee is ever going back to their
father or grandfather's home or orange grove in Israel. The Arab world needs
to face the fact that it must absorb virtually all of the Palestinian
refugees already in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria and there will never be a
meaningful right of return.

Yet, no peace can work without a radical new economic future for the
Palestinians already in the West Bank and Gaza. This means the West, Israel
and Arab states need to give far higher priority to dealing with the human
needs of today's Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and who are
refugees in Arab states.

The human problem does not consist of history, blame, UN Resolutions or
lines on a map. It consists of the demographic realities on the ground and
the future. In 1967, Gaza had a population of some 330,000. In 2000, Gaza
had a population of 1.13 million. In 2020, it will have a population of 2.3
million. There are nearly twice a many young Palestinians under the age of
14 today in Gaza as there were Palestinians of all ages in 1967.

The situation is only mildly better on the West Bank. In 1967, the West Bank
had a population of some 640,000. In 2000, it had a population of 2.02
million. In 2020, it will have a population of 3.5 million.
It will be hard enough to give the Palestinians already in Palestine a
future, and to find some productive way to link the economy of the new
Palestinian state to the economy of Israel and Jordan. This means, however,
that Arab states must accept the fact that virtually all of the
"Palestinians" in the rest of the Arab world are not refugees that will ever
leave, they are future citizens that will have stay.

The Threat of a "Clash of Civilizations" in the Gulf and Iraq

The third key friction point of friction between the Arab world and the West
is in the Gulf, and once again both sides are to blame. The Arab states in
the Southern Gulf – and particularly Saudi Arabia – have contributed to the
growing problems in three ways.

First, they have never explained to their own peoples the true nature of
their military plans and capabilities, they have never sought a real
consensus behind their arms purchases and force expansion, and they have
tried to deal with the US military presence more by silence than open
explanation.

Poverty has limited the abuse of military force in much of the Arab world.
The fact remains, however, that Middle Eastern states spend $52 billion a
year on military forces, and have some 2.4 million men under arms. This
spending amounts to an average of 8% of the region's GDP and 23% of all
government expenditures. North African states spend another $5.5 billion a
year on military forces, and have some 424,000 men under arms. In North
Africa, this amounts to an average of over 4% of the region's GDP and 12% of
all government expenditures. [12] An average of two-thirds of this spending
takes place in Gulf states.

North African arms imports have declined to an average of $600 million a
year and less than 2% of total imports. However, the Middle East still
spends some $18 billion a year on arms imports, or an average of well over
11% of all its imports.[13] Moreover, Middle Eastern and North African
states have signed some $38 billion dollars worth of new arms agreements in
the last five years, and $75 billion in the last decade. They have had to
pay for $49 billion dollars worth of arms since 1997, and for roughly $110
billion over the last decade. The vast majority of these arms purchases have
been in the Gulf and these figures do not include Iraqi and Iranian
expenditures on weapons of mass destruction.[13]

Second, they have ignored the problems of Islamic extremism when such
problems did not threaten their regimes, and have tolerated the export of
such extremism. The have failed to implement policies that give their young
men and women real jobs and real opportunities, and they have carelessly
allowed money to flow to violent and futile causes.

Third, they have refused to take proliferation truly seriously. They have
failed to look honestly at the long-term implications of what Iran and
particularly Iraq may do.

In fact, much of the Arab world seems to be in a state of denial when it
comes to Iraq. It ignores the contents of past UNSCOM reports. It ignores
Hussein Kamel's defection and the revelation of a massive Iraqi biological
weapons effort in 1995 – after five years of Iraqi lies. It ignores that
fact Iraq was found to be lying about the weaponization of VX gas in 1996
and 1997, and the pattern of Iraqi illegal imports – including Jordan's
discovery that Iraq was importing the guidance platforms for Soviet nuclear
armed, sea-launched missiles.

The US, however, is the only major Western power that now plays a role in
the Gulf and it too has failed to deal with several key issues.

First, it has failed to understand the reality that the US position in the
Gulf does not depend on the US abandoning Israel but it does depend on an
aggressive US effort to check the settlements and advance the peace process.

Second, the US has dragged Iran, with its very different problems and
challenges into an "Axis of Evil" with Iraq. It has tried to ignore the
reality of an elected Khatami faction in Iran, and continued with a policy
of economic sanctions that cuts US business off from Iran's middle class and
secular elements without affecting Iran's real world ability to buy arms.

Third, the US has failed to properly reassure the Arab world as to how it
plans to deal with Saddam Hussein. US public diplomacy has long been
shamefully incompetent in explaining why US forces are present in the Gulf,
the nature of US arms sales, and the role the US plays as a military
advisor.

What is currently most critical, however, is that the US has done far too
little to prepare the region for US and British intervention in Iraq if
UNMOVIC fails. To be specific, the US State Department has only made rare,
faltering, and shallow efforts to explain the realities of UN sanctions, US
containment, the oil for food program, and the reasons for the suffering of
the Iraqi people.

During the Clinton Administration, the US largely ceded the propaganda
battle to Iraq. It at best issued a few short papers written more for
audiences in the Beltway than abroad. Somewhat incredibly, the Bush
Administration has since compounded this situation by moving towards a
preemptive war with Iraq while failing to make a detailed, systematic, and
persistent public and private case that Saddam Hussein's proliferation is
truly dangerous. It has done so while it has normally tried to ignore the
growing linkage between this issue and the backlash from the Second
Intifada.

It should be obvious that the US and the West can only avoid provoking a new
crisis with the Arab world over war with Iraq if it can rapidly demonstrate
that the people of Iraq and the region will be much better off after such a
war than under Saddam Hussein. It is still totally unclear, however, how the
US plans to deal with Iraq's recovery and nation building, and that it will
not try to foist a hapless outside Iraqi opposition upon the Iraqi people.

The US has talked in vacuous terms about democracy in Iraq while failing to
try to win the minds and support of Arab intellectuals and peoples for it
military actions and presence. As a result, it is far from clear that the
Bush Administration can now convince the Gulf and the Arab world that if it
does decide to strike at Iraq that it is realistic enough to act quickly and
decisively and will do so with minimum cost to the Iraqi people and risk to
the region.

The US has not made it clear that it will never seek to profit from such an
intervention. It has not made any public attempt to show how free any new
regime will be of reparations and debt. It has made no public promises to
treat the Iraqis as a partner rather than an occupied people. It has made no
promises that it will not retain a military presence in Iraq or that
Iraqis – and only Iraqis – will determine how Iraq's oil resources are to be
used, and that they will only be used for the common benefit of all Iraqis.
The US has expressed no vision of the Iraq to come and a Pandora's box of
feckless conspiracy theories is already open.

Perhaps worst of all, the US as a whole has reacted to the events of
September 11th by ceasing to treat friendly Arab Gulf states with the
respect and dignity they deserve. If anything, the US has acted as if it
has no faith in any of the governments of its Arab allies, and as if some
miracle would suddenly transform Iraq magically into a modern democratic
state which would then – in turn – use sympathetic magic to catalyze equal
change throughout the Arab world. And, it would do so regardless of all the
real world political, cultural, economic, and demographic realities
involved. This view of US intervention in Iraq may be excusable as a fantasy
of some Israelis reacting to the trauma of the Second Intifada. As American
policy, however, it crosses the line between neo-conservative and neo-crazy.

At best, the US and the West may only have months to change this situation.
At this point in time, the US and Britain can only salvage the situation –
if they do go to war – by a victory so quick and decisive that it is nearly
bloodless and then by showing that we will make a commitment to nation
building in Iraq that is truly unselfish, fully successful, and gives the
Iraqi people the future they deserve. Without such an effort, the future of
US and Arab relations could be grim indeed.

The Threat of a "Clash of Civilizations" and the Problem of Energy
Dependence

The West has never come fully to grips with Western dependence on Gulf and
Middle Eastern energy exports. In fact, key nations like the US have often
tried to deal with the issue by a policy of denial. This is reflected in the
constant emphasis on efforts to make comparatively unimportant reductions in
import dependence in the Bush Administration's policy statements,
Congressional debates, and carelessly researched news articles.

If one looks at the projections made by the Energy Information Agency of the
Department of Energy, which are the authoritative source for US government
analysis, one gets a very different "fact-based" view of the West's future
dependence on Middle East energy exports. For all the political and media
"noise" surrounding the energy policy the Bush Administration issued in
2001, and the resulting Congressional debate over the 2002 energy bill, the
fact is that such projections show that even if all the additional US
production of oil and all other forms of import savings called for in such
policies were actually achieved, the end result would have virtually no
impact on US strategic dependence on oil exports.

The Bush energy policy documents issued in 2001 never addressed the foreign
side of energy supply and consumption, and never included any meaningful
quantified forecasts of the impact of its policy. However, the Energy
Information Agency has issued quantified forecasts since that time.[15]
Even though these forecasts call for significant additional energy
efficiency and conservation, and increases in other fuels and renewables,
they still call for US direct imports of oil to increase from roughly 9.2
MMBD in 2002 to a best estimate of 26 MMBD in 2020 (a 183% increase over
less than two decades), and to a range from 25 to 29 MMBD.[16]

Yet, even these estimates grossly understate US dependence on oil imports.
The US now imports around $1.2 trillion worth of goods and services a
year.[17] Many are manufactured goods from Europe and Asia that are
critically dependent on imported oil. The US government has never issued an
estimate of such indirect energy imports in any of its energy plans, but it
is clear that they would add at least another 1 MMBD to its import level –
far more oil than either the Bush energy policy or Congressional variation
on this policy in the 2002 energy bill – would save in terms of energy
imports. Our imports and true level of oil import dependence will also
increase through 2020.

Moreover, all Western states are critically dependent on "globalism" in
terms of the ability of other nations to buy their exports and invest in
their economies. They also must all compete for oil imports at market prices
in a world market – an issue that makes where a given nation's oil imports
come from in any given period largely irrelevant. Their vital strategic
interests depend on the global availability of oil at moderate prices, not
on the size or cost of their own imports.

If the world economy is to keep growing a moderate average rate during the
next two decades, the EIA indicates that total Middle Eastern oil production
capacity must increase from 29 MMBD in 2002 to 51 MMBD by 2020 – a more than
75% increase. Total Gulf capacity must rise from 24 MMBD to 43 MMBD – a
nearly 80% increase. Saudi capacity alone must increase from 11.4 to 22.1
MMBD – a 93% increase.[18]

World demand for oil exports will continue to steadily increase in spite of
major projected increases in gas, renewables, other fuels, and energy
efficiency and conservation. Total petroleum exports are projected to
increase from 42.4 to 70.9 MMBD (a 67% increase), and exports from the Gulf
from 14.8 MMBD to 33.5 MMBD (a 126% increase). While the US and other
industrialized nations will consume part of this increase, most will be
vital to the growth of less developed nations. The EIA projected that
industrialized states will need another 6.2 MMBD by 2020, but that
developing nations will need an increase of 17 MMBD. China alone will need
7.2 MMBD.

Moreover, the projections of the International Energy Agency – which
includes all of the key European powers and Japan – indicate that the West
will be dependent on the world's key source of oil exports for decades to
come. The US and other Western nations can talk about self-sufficiency at
the political level, but the strategic reality is clear. The West needs the
Arab world.
This means that the West can only continue to ignore the Arab world's need
for development at its peril, and that the risks go beyond the previous
points of friction. It is clear from such figures that the West cannot stand
aside from any turmoil in the Arab world and there is a clear need for an
enduring partnership between the West and Arab world in ensuring energy
development and stability.

At present, however, the US and the West do not focus on partnership, but
rather on competition and finding alternative sources of energy. They rely
on market forces without creating the conditions that will ensure the market
can operate in a secure and stable way, and ensure a steadily growing flow
of oil at prices the world can afford.

The Threat of a "Clash of Civilizations" in Dealing with Terrorism and
Asymmetric Warfare

Finally, the US has wasted the sympathy and support it got following
September 11th in much of the Arab world. This is partly a result of its
failure to sustain a clear commitment to the Arab-Israeli peace process. It
is partly a result of its failure to explain and justify US actions towards
Iraq and its military presence in the Gulf. But, to be blunt, it is also
partly a result of what has often been a mean-spirited and even xenophobic
treatment of Arabs simply because they might be terrorists, of nations like
Saudi Arabia, and of a tendency to bully rather than persuade.

Once again, I believe many Arab regimes were all too complacent in exporting
the threat of their Islamic extremists, and in ignoring the peace process
and tacitly allowing extremist movements to operate as long as the target
was Israel or secular regimes in Central Asia. The combination of the
Taliban and Al Qaida was intolerable in Afghanistan long before September
11th, and it perverted, rather than served, the cause of Islam.

But, this is no excuse for condemning every Arab regime, and particularly
Saudi Arabia, as if they had never been friends. It is no reason for
ignoring the progress in most Southern Gulf states. It is no reason to see
the Arab world as if its culture and political society encouraged
terrorism – particularly given the fact that virtually every moderate Arab
government began the fight against such marginal extremists long before we
did.

Here, outside experts and the US media must assume the bulk of the blame and
not the US government. In spite of real leadership of President Bush in
distinguishing between Islamic terrorists and the Arab world, far too much
US post 9/11 criticism has acted as if the Arab world and Islam never sought
progress and reform, but should be treated with contempt.

The underlying message that is perceived in the region is not that we share
a common threat in dealing with Islamic extremism and terrorism -- and share
common goals in helping Arab states develop -- but rather that we are
holding entire nations accountable for actions of their worst citizens. We
see the flaws of Arab states as unforgivable while we ignore our own.

Far too often, we have lost sight of the fact that the West does not face a
clash between civilizations. It is rather on the margin of a clash within an
Arab civilization. The key struggles will be fought out within the Arab
world, and one nation at a time. In most cases, the West will not be a
direct target of these struggles but a proxy.

Redefining the West's Role and Arab Political Legitimacy

If we are to succeed, and if we are ever to become real "peoples of the
book," we must take a different path. The Arab world must accept the fact
that it cannot solve its problems through denial, conspiracy theories, and
exporting both the blame and the responsibility to act to others.

Arabs need to understand the West can only provide marginal help to the Arab
world in this evolution, and the most significant such help will be in the
form of foreign investment and technology transfer through market forces.
The West needs to understand that those who try to help by focusing solely
on pluralism and human rights in a Western context not only are not part of
the solution, they are part of the problem.

The Arab world must face the fact that Arab peoples and Arab nations must
take most of the key actions that are necessary to deal with Arab problems.
It must focus on the need for decades of sustained, pragmatic evolutionary,
advances and to find solutions that meet the future needs of Arab peoples
rather than today's Arab leaders and intellectuals.

The only thing that can avoid a series of political implosions in the Arab
world, violent failed states, and political crises which spillover into the
West is steady evolution. It is economic, social, and demographic progress
in individual Arab states on a broad and consistent front.

The West can help the Arab world deal with many of its problems and can
sharply reduce the frictions between the Arab world and the West, but only
if it is willing to accept the need for such Arab solutions and to
understand the true scale of the problems affecting the Arab world.

Western illusions cannot be a substitute for Western thought, any more than
Arab illusions can be a substitute for Arab thought. Furthermore, Western
ignorance cannot be an excuse for assuming that Western solutions must be
found to Arab problems, any more than ignorance serves as an excuse for
xenophobia.

The West must learn to look through Arab eyes. It must recognize the impact
of issues like a past history of colonialism, a real cultural differences,
US support for Israel, and tensions over Western military intervention.

More broadly, the fact the West sees itself in terms of secular successes,
does not mean all or most Arabs do, or that they will ever change their
cultural or religious values to become Western. Western secular values have
a degree of materialism that appear to many Arabs as an unfair level of
wealth, exploited without deeper values, that they can never afford.

The West also needs to be far more careful about regime change and
legitimacy. The Arab Development Report has shown with great validity that
the Arab world needs more political pluralism and more respect for basic
human rights. Virtually without exception, there is a need for a more
balanced and fair rule of law in both human and commercial terms.

Nevertheless, the West needs to take a much harder look at Arab governance.
It cannot define "legitimacy" simply in terms of whether Arab states clone
Western democracy and human rights in the legalistic sense of the term. The
future of hundreds of millions of lives is fundamentally determined by
economic reform and the ability to come to grips with demographic pressures.

The real key to successful Arab governance is the quality of
nation-by-nation economic planning and economic reform. It is a government's
current and future ability to deal with the most basic conditions of life in
terms of water, jobs, and educational opportunities. Tragedies of the
minority can never be ignored, but tragedies of the vast majority are even
worse.

Here, the Western and particularly the American focus on "democratization"
are often shallow and vacuous to the point of being actively stupid. Instant
democracy can only make things worse in nations with no stable political
parties, no tradition of compromise and respect for minorities, no
experienced democratic leaders, no valid history of a separation of powers,
and a limited political consciousness where some form of radicalism is often
the only organized opposition.

The Arab world can and should evolve towards political pluralism, but "one
man, one vote, one time" is simply a recipe for new worse forms of
government and not a solution to anything. Moreover, even stable forms of
republican government are desirable ends in themselves but not a route to
economic development, If anything, they can lead to factional and
self-centered service politics that actually make things worse.

The priority for both Western efforts to aid the Arab world, and for judging
legitimacy, must be to focus on Arab regimes capable of leading to economic
and demographic reform. It must be to focus on how they actually spend their
government revenues, the quality of their economic plans, whether they show
realism in dealing with demographic pressures and over dependence on foreign
labor, and whether they are committed to realistic efforts to attract
domestic and foreign investment and diversify their economies.

Western political scientists, politicians, human rights groups, and
columnists who cannot understand these realities are not part of the
solution – they are part of the problem. So are those who have never read an
Arab budget or a five-year plan, and condemn "traditional" regimes like
Saudi Arabia or Oman for their political systems without any regard as to
how they spend their national wealth or their efforts at economic reform.

The same is true of those who do not give the economic reform efforts of
Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia proper weight, and the strange
fantasists who feel all of Iraq's problems -- and then those of the entire
Middle East – can be solved by giving Iraq instant democracy.

A stable move towards pluralism is important. So are human rights and the
rule of law. But, economic development and dealing with demographic crisis
are even more important, and any revolution is almost certain to mean
tragedy for any Arab nation where revolution takes place.

NPTES
1. All population data are taken from the database on the UN web site. The
U.S. Census Bureau estimates are roughly similar.
2. All economic data are taken from the World Bank Development Indicators
report for 2002
3. DOE/EIA, OPEC Revenues Fact Sheet, June 2002,
www.eia.gov/emeu/cabs/opecrev.html
4. DOE/EIA, Saudi Arabia, October 2002, www.eia.gov/emeu.cabs/saudi.html
5. DOE/EIA, OPEC Revenues Fact Sheet, June 2002,
www.eia.gov.emeu/cabs/opecrev.html; DOE/EIA, Saudi Arabia, October 2002,
www.eia.gov/emeu/cabs/saudi/html
6. CIA estimate, based on World Factbook,
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sa.htm
7. DOE/EIA, Saudi Arabia, October 2002, www.eia.gov/emeu/cabs/saudi.html
8. DOE/EIA, OPEC Revenues Fact Sheet, June 2002,
www.eia.gov/emeu/cabs/opecrev.html
9. CIA estimate, based on World Factbook,
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sa.htm
10. Arab Development Repor, p.30
11. “The Longest Journey,” Economist, November 2, 2002
12. Author’s estimate based on the U.S. State Department web site at:
http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/bureau/ac/wmeat98/wmeat98.html
13. Author’s estimate based on the U.S. State Department web site at:
http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/bureau/ac/wmeat98/wmeat98.html
14. Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to the Developing
Nations, 1994-2001, Congressional Research Service, RL31529, August 6, 2002


15. See the DOE/EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2002, and International Energy
Outlook, 2002
16. The data on US energy dependence as taken from the EAI, Annual Energy
Outlook for 2002, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/results.html#report
17. CIA, World Factbook 2002
18. These data, and the following figures, are based on the reference case
projections by DOE EIA in International Energy Outlook, 2002,
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html

===========================GulfWire~~Perspectives==========================
FOR MORE ON THE GLOBAL FORUM 2002 VISIT:
GLOBAL FORUM 2002 - The Power of Leadership: Mastering the New Realities
11 - 13 NOVEMBER 2002
http://www.fortune.com/sitelets/conferences/global02/global_index.html
GLOBAL FORUM 2002 - The Arab Countries: Issues, Answers, and Opportunities
http://www.fortune.com/sitelets/conferences/global02/arab.html
===========================GulfWire~~Perspectives==========================
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DR. ANTHONY CORDESMAN holds the Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies and is Co-Director of the
Center's Middle East Program. He is also a military analyst for ABC and a
Professor of National Security Studies at Georgetown. He directs the
assessment of global military balance, strategic energy developments, and
CSIS' Dynamic Net Assessment of the Middle East. He is the author of books
on the military lessons of the Iran-Iraq war as well as the Arab-Israeli
military balance and the peace process, a six-volume net assessment of the
Gulf, transnational threats, and military developments in Iran and Iraq. He
analyzes U.S. strategy and force plans, counter-proliferation issues, arms
transfers, Middle Eastern security, economic, and energy issues.

Dr. Cordesman served as a national security analyst for ABC News for the
1990-91 Gulf War, Bosnia, Somalia, Operation Desert Fox, and Kosovo. He was
the Assistant for National Security to Senator John McCain and a Wilson
Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian. He has
served in senior positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the
Department of State, the Department of Energy, and the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency. His posts include acting as the Civilian Assistant
to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Director of Defense Intelligence
Assessment, Director of Policy, Programming, and Analysis in the Department
of Energy, Director of Project ISMILAID, and as the Secretary of Defense's
representative on the Middle East Working Group.

Dr. Cordesman has also served in numerous overseas posts. He was a member of
the U.S. Delegation to NATO and a Director on the NATO International Staff,
working on Middle Eastern security issues. He served in Egypt, Iran,
Lebanon, Turkey, the UK, and West Germany. He has been an advisor to the
Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Forces in Europe, and has traveled extensively in
the Gulf and North Africa.

===========================GulfWire~~Perspectives==========================

BOOKS ~~ DR. ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN

"Iraq and the War of Sanctions: Conventional Threats and Weapons of Mass
Destruction"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275965287/arabialink
"Iraq: Sanctions and Beyond," (CSIS Middle East Dynamic Net Assessment)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0813332362/arabialink
"Saudi Arabia: Guarding the Desert Kingdom," (CSIS Middle East Dynamic Net
Assessment)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0813332427/arabialink
"Terrorism, Asymmetric Warfare, and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Defending
the U.S. Homeland"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275974278/arabialink

===========================GulfWire~~Perspectives==========================

GULFWIRE PERSPECTIVES ~~ DR. ANTHONY C. CORDESMAN

October 22, 2002 - Strategy in the Middle East: The Gap Between Strategic
Theory and Operational Reality
http://www.arabialink.com/CDSupport/GWArchives2002/GWP/GWP_2002_10_22.htm

October 10, 2002 - A Firsthand Look at Saudi Arabia Since 9-11 -- GulfWire's
Interview with Dr. Anthony Cordesman in Saudi Arabia
http://www.arabialink.com/CDSupport/GWArchives2002/GWP/GWP_2002_10_10.htm

July 12, 202 - Iraq: A Dynamic Net Assessment
http://www.arabialink.com/CDSupport/GWArchives2002/GWP/GWP_2002_07_12.htm

June 2, 2002 - If We Fight Iraq: Iraq and its Weapons of Mass Destruction
http://www.arabialink.com/CDSupport/GWArchives2002/GWP/GWP_2002_06_02.htm

June 1, 2002 - If We Fight Iraq: Iraq and the Conventional Military Balance
http://www.arabialink.com/CDSupport/GWArchives2002/GWP/GWP_2002_06_01.htm

===========================GulfWire~~Perspectives=========================

**GULFWIRE 2002 CD-ROM ~~ NOW AVAILABLE AT SPECIAL SALE PRICE**
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