Time To Recognize New Realities

With much of the world’s attention focused on the expanding war in Syria and increasing tensions with Iran it is easy to ignore the serious potential for major problems in an area largely overlooked for the last 30 years – the Sinai Peninsula. The scene of at least four major conflicts between Israel and Egypt from 1948 to 1973 this 61,000 km2 triangle of desert, jagged mountains, glittering tourist resorts and deep biblical significance has once again become a flash point in a region that does not need any more flash points.

The Sinai Peninsula

In a paper published last month by Chatham House (The Royal Institute ofInternational Affairs) Nicolas Pelham, The Economist’s correspondent in Jerusalem, notes that the Sinai used to serve as a buffer ‘cushioning the geopolitical aspirations of Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinians.’ Now, however, he cautions that that buffer has eroded as new players have asserted themselves in the vacuum created by the collapse of the old Egyptian regime of Hosni Mubarak.

For more than 30 years the Sinai was more or less ruled according to the so-called Camp David Accords signed by President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel in September 1978. Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai that it had conquered in 1967, evacuate 4,500 civilians, guarantee freedom of passage between Egypt and Jordan, and return the oil fields in the western Sinai. Egypt agreed to limit its forces in the Sinai, and guarantee freedom of passage for Israeli ships through Suez Canal and the straits of Tiran. The two antagonists opened formal diplomatic relations in 1980.

As Pelham notes, however, “the old accords underpinning regional stability have failed to keep pace with the changing times.” These accords were created when Egyptian and Israeli security forces ruled supreme. Now the emergence of the Hamas government in Gaza, newly assertive indigenous Bedouin tribes, jihadis, and other ‘non-state’ players in the region coupled with the weakened central control of the Egyptian government in Cairo has created a volatile situation filled with conflicting interests just waiting for the right fuse.

These simmering tensions have resulted in repeated attacks on the gas pipeline from Egypt to Jordan and Israel. More serious was the attack in August 2012 on an Egyptian military base in which 16 soldiers were killed. On top of these incidents have been the cross-border raids where militants killed several Israelis. There was also a missile attack on Eilat on the eve of the 2012 Passover holiday. Israel has responded in predictable fashion by moving additional troops into the area and building a high wall along the 240 kilometre border with the Sinai. Tourism in the area was hit by attacks on the Gold Coast of Sharm al-Sheikh. Egypt’s response to the August 2012 attack was to move against the vast tunnel system used to transport goods and weapons into Gaza from Sinai.

The key tourist town of Sharm al-Sheikh

 Local Bedouin tribes in the area have long been frustrated by wide-spread discrimination against them by the Egyptian authorities in everything from employment to land titles. Pelham notes that the rampant development of the ‘Red Sea Riviera’ in the 1990s and 2000s that was protected by a military cordon created a great deal of resentment as local Bedouin were pushed away from the southern coast. Since the fall of Mubarak these tribes have seized the opportunity to create new facts on the ground.

Relations between the Hamas government of Gaza and the Mubarak regime had been marked by mutual suspicion. Egyptian suspicion of Hamas’ anti-regime activities led to frequent closure of the Gaza-Sinai border and arrest of Hamas members accused of helping the militant bombings of the southern Sinai tourist resorts. With the election of the allied Moslem Brotherhood government in Egypt Hamas has attempted to show that it can be a force for regional stability rather than a home for militant Islamist attacks on Egypt as well as Israel. Hamas has pledged not to use Egyptian territory for back-door attacks on Israel and has curtailed the operational freedom it had given to some Islamist groups for actions against Israel.

Part of the elaborate tunnel system between Sinai and Gaza

Many in the United States Congress want to know if the new Egyptian government will continue to honor the Camp David Accords. A much better question is how to bring these accords in line with realities that did not exist in 1978. The time has come for some fresh thinking on how to bring stability to this region before it erupts even more. A good place to start would be Pelham’s suggestions of formally including Hamas in discussions of regional stability, fully integrating the Bedouin into formal structures of Egyptian rule in the Sinai, and formalize the access and trade relations between Gaza, the Sinai and Israel. Bringing these disparate groups inside the tent may be unwieldy and distasteful to many. But maintaining the fiction that they exist only at the margins will only lead to more unrest for all concerned.

The Country Has Changed. Deal With It.

I realize this blog is supposed to be about the Levant. But the American election provides too much material to pass up.

Mitt Romney’s chances of becoming president are disappearing faster than beer at a football game. Republican leaders, if there are any, in Congress are already distancing themselves from their candidate. “Mitt? Mitt who? Never heard of him.” All eyes will be on Mitt’s concession speech to see if he finally realizes his dream is over and whether he has the grace to leave the stage before the hook drags him off.

If Romney does indeed lose Republicans on the fringes will splutter with fury into their bourbons and wonder how those ‘socialists, atheists, tax-loving, non-Americans, French fry lovers’ managed to steal yet another election. The Tea Party fanatics will invoke the spirit of the Alamo and vow to keep fighting to their last tax deduction. Sarah Palin will undoubtedly re-appear and state loudly – she has no volume control – that the results would have been different if she had been the candidate.

Tea Party doing what it does best -- protest

What the Republicans fail to understand is that their recent hard-line, rejectionist policies have consigned them to pretty much a permanent minority status. They have yet to realize that the so-called ‘Golden Era’ of white, low-tax, low-benefit, all-powerful America is over, if it ever existed outside their fantasies in the first place. The world and America have changed since Ozzie and Harriet ruled the airwaves.

In many ways America has already become the personal and corporate welfare state that the Tea Party pretends to hate – until you start talking about removing some of their favourite tax deductions.

Would the Tea Party give up home mortgage interest deductions?

 By a wide margin Americans like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. They don’t like someone talking about reducing or taking those benefits away. States and local communities desperately need federal grants to help their schools and other public services. You’re not going to win votes by threatening to take those away. The federal government is indeed big, and it probably going to get bigger and more intrusive. No Republican, even the sainted Ronald Reagan and certainly neither of the Bushes, has been able to reverse that trend. The Republicans need to understand that the Tea Party actually hurts them. It allows the Democrats to portray the entire party as a group that wants to roll everything back to Calvin Coolidge.

Calvin Coolidge -- the real Republican candidate?

I am reminded of a friend of mine who is an Abraham Lincoln scholar, He was once invited to speak about Lincoln in, of all places, Vicksburg, Mississippi where Union armies won a key battle in 1863. Many people in the audience still thought of Lincoln as the devil incarnate. My friend looked over the audience of sceptical faces and started his address, “We won. You lost. Get over it.” Someone needs to say something similar to the Republicans. “The country has changed. Deal with it.”

Romney thinks the election will turn on the state of the economy. If it were that simple he would be far ahead in the polls. What he fails to realize is that the economy is only one of the several key issues. Yes it’s important, but so is preserving federal benefits. So is immigration. And so is the perception of fairness in taxation. Republicans can talk until they are blue in the face about the fact that the 1% pays a disproportionate share of tax, and that increasing taxes on that group isn’t going to help the budget all that much. Mathematically they’re right. Politically they’re dead wrong. The middle class they’re so fond of doesn’t want to hear about the benefits of tax breaks for the millionaires. The middle class has trouble understanding how an extremely successful company like General Electric can pay no U.S. corporate tax. It’s all legal and I’m sure there is a way to explain how it benefits the country. But not in the heat of an election. Not when you and your wife are working two jobs and have trouble meeting the mortgage.

The Republicans have given the Democrats a free ride on these critical ‘fairness’ issues. Instead of saying how their plans would preserve important benefits by putting the federal budget on a firmer foundation the Democrats can talk about the danger of taking them away. By simplifying the argument they have avoided serious debate on exactly how they will continue to pay for them. The Democrats' themes are very simple and very effective. Vote for me if you want your next Social Security check. Vote for the Republicans if you want to start eating cat food.

The less said about Romney’s foreign policy the better. Other than blustering about how big and powerful America is and how it won’t be pushed around by pygmies any more it’s very hard to discern just what he’s talking about. The neocons he relies on believe military threats will solve everything. They lament that America is trying to work with Russia and China, hasn’t bombed Damascus or nuked the ignorant radicals who storm our embassies, or basically that it is not trying to remake the world in the image of the discredited neocons. One hoped the neocons might have the grace to fade away silently after the fiasco of Iraq. No such luck. They’re back in full force as if the serial disasters of their policies never happened.

Again, it’s time to realize the world has changed. For all America’s power, it is now a multi-polar world with competing national interests. Countries like Brazil, India, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia have legitimate interests. America, for all its power, is in no position to impose its will or its idea of a world order. Foreign policy requires careful nuances and nudges, finding common ground, and avoiding conflict for the sake of conflict. It’s a tedious somewhat messy process. But it definitely beats the alternative.

The main question is the attitude of the Republicans after the election. Will they realize that their rejectionist policies really don’t work? Will they stop trying to repeal the New Deal? Will they deal with America the way it is instead of the fantasy that exists in their imagination? If they can do this, if they can find someone who will actually lead the party instead of blindly following the lunatic fringe they just might have a chance in 2016.

The Amazing Teflon Prime Minister

The domestic social, economic and diplomatic problems may be mounting for Turkey, but so far they seem to have no impact on the Teflon-like popularity of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The once torrid pace of economic growth has slowed dramatically. The growth of the critical construction sector has slowed from 11% in 2011 to 0.4% in the second quarter of 2012. Empty apartments and half-filled shopping centres dot the horizon around most cities. The budget gap has widened, and the government is forced to raise an extra $5.5 billion in taxes – mainly on cars and real estate.

Typical Tower Blocks All Over Turkey

 The foreign policy with its pretensions of regional and global influence has become bogged down in the quagmire of Syria. Prime Minister Erdoğan continues his loud, bellicose rhetoric against the Syrian regime, but is powerless actually to do anything about the bloody war in Syria. He can’t retreat without looking weak and foolish. And he can’t go forward without risking a military confrontation. The highly-touted ‘Zero-Problems’ approach is in shambles as the country is faced with hostile neighbors along its eastern and southern borders. Turkey never had many friends to start with, and now it is even more isolated. By default its best friend has become the United States, a country that many AKP supporters loathe.

Syrian Refugee Camp In Hatay 

 The militant Kurdish separatist group PKK, perhaps supported by the Assad regime in Syrian, is escalating its attacks in Turkey. Once isolated in the remote south eastern part of the country the PKK attacks are moving into large cities like Izmir. The large Alevi minority, a sect distantly related to the ruling Alawites in Syria, is under increasing pressure in Turkey and the government refuses to recognize them as a legitimate branch of Islam.

Alevis Protesting In Turkey

 In short, as the astute columnist Nuray Mert notes, Turkish delusions are ending.

Being a ultra realistic observer of Turkish politics who has long been labelled as ‘pessimistic,’ I suggested as early as 2007, that AKP rule will end up with a ‘governability crises’ if it insists in its obsession with power. I suggested that the ever increasing vote of the AKP would not ensure political stability since Turkey is a vast country where people with very different convictions and lifestyles find a way to live side by side. The most important aspect of good governance should have been thought of as ensuring pluralism and social peace through democratic conventions. I thought that the AKP’s understanding of ‘democracy as a majority rule’ was very risky for a country such as ours. Nevertheless, I could not foresee things would become so disastrous until very recently. 

Last but not the least, the government’s delusion that it is a global actor and major regional player came to an end with its handling of the Syrian affair. Even before the Arab Spring diminished Turkey’s regional role, but it was easier to dismiss. Yet, Turkey’s direct meddling in the Syrian uprising finally reduced its role to that of Qatar and Saudi Arabia on one hand and created clear and potential domestic problems on the other. Despite efforts by the government to cover its failures on two fronts by linking the Syrian crises and the escalation of clashes with the PKK, it has not helped the government overcome its difficulties on both fronts.

And yet support for the ruling party continues strong. A recent poll by Habertürk-Konsensus claimed that if an election were held today the AKP would win 53% of the vote. How can this contradiction of deteriorating conditions in the country and continued strong support for the government be explained?

One friend put it down to the fact that there is no opposition, no alternative. Indeed the so-called main opposition Republican People’s Party has been steadfastly unable to provide a convincing alternative to the increasingly authoritarian rule by Prime Minister Erdoğan.

ColumnistSemih Idiz points to another explanation of AKP’s strength – the continued deep resentment of the Anatolian masses toward the old republican bureaucratic, economic and military elites. Erdoğan continues to ride this wave resentment and portray himself as the standard bearer of the masses against the elites.

Idiz notes that historian Kemal Karpat “has shown that if there is one element the predominantly conservative and religious Anatolian masses have come to despise over the years, it is the elitists who ran the country for decades after the Republic was founded. . .
It was inevitable that this should, in time, feed deep resentments among ordinary Turks. The bottom line here is that support for the AKP continues despite serious social problems because of an almost blind team spirit.

While the elitism of an established order that is waning today has always been reprehensible, it is nevertheless true that some of the key reforms enacted under the Republic made Turkey leap forward in time and modernize itself in a way no Islamic society has achieved to date. 
What we see now, however, is an ongoing process where these gains are being watered down due to historic resentments, and in the name of conservatism, and the “religious generation” that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has openly said he wants to see in Turkey.
One can conclude, therefore, that the AKP is receiving strong support not to take the country forward, but to take it backward due to the resentments that have accumulated over time among the conservative masses.”

Prime Minister Erdoğan is the undisputed and un-challenged ruler of Turkey, the most powerful politician since Atatürk himself. It would be refreshing if he used that power to correct the errors of the past rather than simply roll the clock back.

Enough Is Enough

Greece is one of the few countries that has been tried, convicted and sentenced to flaying alive in the court of global public opinion. The once proud Hellenic Republic has become the flashing neon sign for corruption, tax evasion, dysfunctional bureaucratic and judicial systems, and a broken political system that misled its partners and failed to deliver basic economic security to its own citizens. Foreign politicians and pundits have been merciless in their steady drumbeat of criticism, schadenfreude, and bad jokes about Greece.

Unfortunately, other than groveling and saying mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, please dear sir give me more money, Greek leaders have done very little to counter this damning indictment.

Can I get the next loan disbursement, please?

Greek officials at home and abroad act like small woodland animals paralyzed in the glare of the headlights of a huge, rapidly moving truck labeled Troika – European Central Bank, European Union, and the International Monetary Fund.

This litany of unfavorable, condescending media coverage would be merely sad and somewhat humiliating if it didn’t affect real economic decisions from tourism to investments. The charms that make Greece a wonderful tourist destination still exist.

The Reality  .  .   .

The sun, the sea, the unmatchable islands, the mountains, the cultural heritage are still here. But given the sharp drop in tourism this year you would think Greece has suddenly become Elizabeth, New Jersey.

And the current perception of a holiday in Greece

I have spoken with several potential major investors who are very polite until I mention the word ‘Greece’. Any suggestion that Greece does, in fact, have some very interesting investment opportunities is met with words not found in a family newspaper.

The negative impact of this very public global trial seems to be lost on Greek leaders. They don’t seem to understand the broad, global dimension of the damage. Their response so far has been narrowly focused on private meetings with European leaders and bankers. I met with the press officer of a major Greek embassy in Europe and said he must be very busy meeting with the local media to share information about Greece. Absolutely not. If anyone from the media called he ran for cover. I asked how he communicated the daily messages and information he must get from Athens. What messages? What information? There were no messages, no guidelines, nothing from Athens to counter the avalanche of bad press. “Oh,” he said, “They did send me a nice poster of Mykonos once.”

The tragic irony of this non-policy is that Greece actually has a story to tell. Obviously there many critical bureaucratic and administrative reforms that remain to be done, but it is time to start giving credit for what has been accomplished. On the foreign trade side, for one, the trade deficit has declined from €33.7 bn in 2009 to €20.8 bn in 2011 as imports dropped 10% while exports jumped 56%. Interestingly, exports to Turkey have almost tripled since 2009, and that country is now Greece’s third largest export market, just behind Italy and Germany. A recent report from Goldman Sachs noted the real drop in Greek labor costs and government expenses. The Goldman report also says that much of this improvement is structural rather than merely a reflection of the deep recession in Greece.

What to do about this? The last thing Greece needs now is a program to fix the image of the country. No amount of polishing will make the antics of the ridiculous political class over the last several decades look reasonable. It’s enough to communicate effectively the reality of Greece, to acknowledge the costly mistakes of the past and to focus now on the real steps taken to repair the damage of those policies.

Greece is rich in talent at home and abroad if it wants to come out of the bunker and start communicating effectively. First, the various public and private groups in Greece need to clarify the message. Exactly what do you want to say? Selecting and training the right people to give this message would also help. While every government minister’s wife may think he looks and sounds like George Clooney, the reality more often is that he comes across on television like Mr.Bean.

No Comment

Be careful who you put in front of the public or on the box. One bad presentation can undo months of work. Mobilize the diaspora. Make better use of the dedicated and talented diplomatic corps. Take advantage of the global presence of Greek business people.

It’s time to end the open season on Greece and change the dialogue. Instead of hammering away at sins of the past and what Greece should do, start to focus on what Greece has accomplished and what it actually can do. Ultimately Greece will make the reforms required to change the economic and administrative structure of the country. They probably will never satisfy those who want to turn Greece into Bavaria-by-the-sea, but that’s not going to happen regardless. Greeks will remain Greeks and will resist being shoved into someone else’s mold.

Changing deeply ingrained perceptions takes time and money, but the cost of doing nothing is much, much greater.

Will Istanbul Get The 2020 Olympic Games?

Istanbul is one of three cities short-listed to host the 2020 Olympic Games. This is the fifth time that Istanbul has bid for the Games, and Prime MinisterTayyip Erdogan is getting a bit desperate. Unfortunately the prime minister did not help his plea for the Games when he complained that Madrid has hosted the games twice and Tokyo has hosted three Games. “This is not a fair approach,” he was quoted as saying. In fact Madrid has never hosted the Games, and Tokyo has hosted the summer Olympics just once, in 1964. Of course he could be confusing Madrid with Barcelona that hosted  the 1992 Games – something that will not go down well in the fiercely proud capital of Catalonia.

In the same story in the Hurriyet Daily News the prime minister also introduced a new issue, religion, into the selection process. “No country with a majority of Muslim population has ever hosted the Olympics. . . People will ask ‘Why? What is missing in these countries?’” he said. True enough, but it’s not altogether clear why that is a relevant point. Also, Qatar proved that nothing is missing in Moslem countries when it bid successfully for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Qatar played on its role as bridge between the Arab world and the West, but religion per se was not a featured part of its presentation.

The prime minister’s ‘chip-on-the- shoulder’ or ‘you-owe-us’ approach might play well in Turkey but it is less clear how it will influence members of the International Olympic Committee. This is deeply unfortunate because in many ways Istanbul would be a superb setting for the Games. Turkish construction companies are among the best in the world, and I have absolutely no doubt that high quality facilities would be built in plenty of time. Even Istanbul’s chaotic traffic would be tamed by draconian measures that people would accept because the Games would be sold as an issue of national pride – a critical point with manyTurkish citizens who harbour deep suspicions that their country is underappreciated. Istanbul offers some of the finest hotels in Europe, and the views are unsurpassed. There would be crash courses in several foreign languages to help the thousands of volunteers speak enough to guide visitors to the right venues. No, the physical aspects of the Games would pose no problems at all. But there are other potential drawbacks.

One of these is political. What will Turkey do about the Republic of Cyprus, for example? Currently the island of Cyprus is divided between the European Union member and internationally recognized – except  by Turkey – Republic of Cyprus in the south and the isolated Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus – recognized only by Turkey -- in the north. No Republic of Cyprus plane or ship is allowed into Turkey. Will Turkey change this policy by 2020? Will Turkey insist that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, if it continues to exist by that time and not just become the 82^nd province of Turkey,  be allowed to send a team?

Divided Island Of Cyprus

 Another key issue is the very infrastructure of Turkish sport. Winning medals is not an overt criterion for selection, but it doesn’t hurt. A story in the Turkish daily Radikal bemoans that thus far in these Games Turkey has not even “entered the Bronze Age.” Turkey sent a team of 114 members with much fanfare, but so far this large delegation has not managed to win a single medal of any colour. This might change with the traditional Turkish sport of wrestling, but more than one week into the London Olympics the rewards for all the show and expense are slim. 

Dejected Turkish Weightlifter

As Radikal points out this is by no means the fault of the athletes themselves who are dedicated and train as hard as anyone. The newspaper faults the officials who put great pressure on the athletes to “win a medal, and win it now!” I wonder if these same officials realize that it takes much more than overbearing officials and willing athletes to win medals. Do they have any idea of the depth of support required to win medals? Financial support, development programs, coaching, fitness training, psychologists, diet, equipment are all key factors in developing successful international sport programs.

Turkey has tried the short cut of getting medal contenders from the athletic equivalent of eBay, but that doesn’t really demonstrate a country’s commitment to sport. It worked with the great weight lifter Naim Suleymanoglu who was a native of Bulgaria who was persuaded to move to Turkey where he won numerous Olympic medals. But it hasn’t been very successful in most other cases.

And then there are the opening ceremonies. Turkey has the vast opportunities to draw on millennia of culture in Anatolia as well as the deep well of artistic talent in the country. 

Opening Ceremonies In London

But one has to wonder if officials would take a lesson from the opening ceremonies in London that demonstrated the difference between patriotism and jingoism, the difference between genuine pride and insecure arrogance, and, most of all, the value of whimsy, of not taking oneself too seriously.

The Queen, James Bond, And The Corgis

Turkey’s hard working athletes deserve a chance in the international spotlight. It would be useful if the officials took real steps to make that happen rather than rely on whinging rhetoric.



Update (11/8/2012): The Turkish team improved in the second week of Olympic competition with a bronze in wrestling, a silver in Tae Kwan Do, a silver in women's boxing, and a very impressive gold and silver in the women's 1500 meter race. Well done, but the question remains as to whether the country's sport infrastructure is developed enough to build on this. Scandal-marred Turkish football does not set a promising example of administrative competence.

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Note: Readers of this blog might also be interested in following my posts in the online beyondbrics section of The Financial Times at http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/#axzz22ghkHDsC. My posts can be found by entering my name in the search panel.