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2751. The Political Economy of Oil in the U.S.-Iran Crisis: U.S. globalized oil interests vs. Iranian regional interests

Author:
Thomas W. O'Donnell
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
In the U.S.-Iran nuclear crisis, U.S. motivations stem from its role as protector of today's market-centered, global oil system, herein "The One Global Barrel." This market itself is the principal basis of global energy security today, unlike the political-economics of the old neo-colonial system. But, most light-oil reserves are in P ersian Gulf states— Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Iran and Iraq. U.S. Grand Strategy prevents any from projecting power affecting another's production and undermining the open market. Hence, Iraq was driven from Kuwait, placed under sanctions and the Ba'athists overthrown. Iran alone now projects power independently. Its nuclear program is a gambit for a Grand Bargain to lift oil sanctions without surrendering Regional power status, or to accomplish this asfait accompli. A future national-democratic Iran could find U.S. limits on sovereign power equally obnoxious. These underlying oil-market interests must be publically recognized to advance negotiation of the present crisis.
Topic:
Oil and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, Middle East, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates

2752. Obama's First 150 Days: Perspectives from an Arab American Writer

Author:
Gregory Orfalea
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Abstract:
Barack Obama said in the first presidential primary in Iowa in March 2007: "I'm not running to conform to Washington's conventional thinking-I'm running to challenge it...We've had enough of politicians who put power over principle" Such strong words are downright revolutionary considering how business is normally conducted in this country concerning the Israel-Palestine dispute.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and Arabia

2753. The Forgotten Front

Author:
Christopher S. Bond and Lewis M. Simons
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Barack Obama's planned visit to Indonesia this November is not only a sentimental journey to his childhood home. It also represents a long-overdue recognition that to recapture the admiration and respect of the world's Muslims, Washington should focus neither on the stalemated chessboard of the Middle East nor on the chaotic Afghan-Pakistani frontier. Rather, it should concentrate its efforts in Southeast Asia, an increasingly democratic and peaceful region that is also beginning to face the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. The last time Americans took a sober look at Southeast Asia, military helicopters were snatching the last U.S. officials off Saigon rooftops as Vietcong soldiers marched on the panicked capital. Soon after the fall of Saigon, in 1975, Cambodia and Laos were toppled by their own domestic communist movements. Thailand trembled with the fear of North Vietnamese tanks churning across the Mekong River, and the other so-called dominoes shook, too. But the dreaded threat failed to materialize. More than three decades later, Americans no longer concern themselves with this corner of the world. One day, the United States' future seemed inextricably bound to Southeast Asia's; the next, Southeast Asia was forgotten. This is an all-too-familiar pattern: Washington ignores a country or region until it blows up; then, it belatedly discovers such nations and obsesses clumsily over them; and finally, it relapses into a self-imposed torpor, allowing new threats to emerge. This was the case in Afghanistan during the 1990s after it ceased to be useful as a bulwark against Soviet expansion, and it may also prove true of Southeast Asia today if Washington does not awaken to the region's growing importance. Southeast Asia is home to 250 million Muslims, concentrated in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand -- the supposed dominoes of the Vietnam era. Indonesia has the world's single largest Muslim population: 220 million -- three times as large as that of Egypt, the most populous Arab nation. Yet Indonesia remains truly unknown to most Americans.
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, America, Middle East, and Southeast Asia

2754. In the Quicksands of Somalia

Author:
Bronwyn Bruton
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Washington's repeated attempts to bring peace to Somalia with state-building initiatives have failed, even backfired. It should renounce political intervention and encourage local development without trying to improve governance.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States, Washington, Middle East, and Somalia

2755. Muslim Democratic Parties in Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco: An Economic Explanation

Author:
A. Kadir Yıldırım
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The recent emergence of Muslim democratic parties such as AKP in Turkey and PJD in Morocco draws attention to the perennial question on the moderation of Islamist parties yet again. Economic liberalization and the accompanying socioeconomic transformation underlie the democratic and liberal turn political Islam has taken in the Middle East. The precise nature of liberalization is critical to this moderation. Competitive liberalization, by enabling peripheral groups to benefit from liberalization, conduces to the renewed interest in democracy and a liberal system. Crony liberalization, by reinforcing the archaic rent-seeking relationship between the state and big business and continuing to marginalize the peripheral groups from politics and the economy, sustains the interest of peripheral groups in the reactionary discourse of Islamism. The strength of Muslim democratic parties is a reflection of competitiveness economic reforms introduce in the society and the economy.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Morocco

2756. Yakub Halabi, US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: From Crises to Change

Author:
Janice J. Terry
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009, 159 pp., ISBN 9780754675242. Janice J. Terry, p. 182Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p. 182
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, and Middle East

2757. USA and The New Middle East

Author:
Eddie J. Girdner
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
When the world met with what was really going on in Iraq through the public disclosure of the Abu Ghraib incident in the mass media, in one of my second year courses, despite the common abhorren ce, most of the students agreed that the torturers were personally not responsible for the violence since they were doing their jobs, acting professionally, obeying the commands of the authorities. In fact, what was going on Iraq had already been apparent and functioning long before the US attack on the country, in alliance with Britain. It had already embraced the world under different masks. But its appearance in the visual media left no room for pretexts and for discursive legitimation of capitalist rationality in terms of “sacrifices” from humanity –in terms of alienation- for the sake of the whole world. In this respect, the comments of the second year students in a country, which has been living under neoliberal capitalist system, sponsored by the IMF and World Bank among other international financial institutions, was telling in terms of the hidden recognition of the extent of self- alienation in the capitalist world. The torturers were assumed to have no responsibility due to their alienation; they were just doing their jobs, abiding by the contracts that they signed. The above argument for personal irresponsibility is cruel and feeds the violence that Iraq an d the Iraqis have been facing since the US invasion of Iraq.
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

2758. Report of the workshop on "The Mediterranean: opportunities to develop EU-GCC relations?

Author:
Christian Koch
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Within the framework of the al-Jisr Project on EU-GCC Public Diplomacy and Outreach Activities and with the support of the European Commission, the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and the Gulf Research Center organized a two-day workshop focusing on how the Mediterranean region can become a field of cooperation between the EU and GCC countries. The event brought together 30 policy officials and specialists to deliberate on questions such as: should the Mediterranean become a dimension in the EU-GCC political dialogue; where are the potential synergies when it comes to the role of energy; what ways and means of financial and economic cooperation present themselves to promote investment and development; and where do political and strategic interests between the EU and the GCC converge or diverge in the Mediterranean. A final roundtable served as a wrap-up for discussion with a focus on policy recommendations.
Topic:
Energy Policy, International Cooperation, Oil, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe and Middle East

2759. Why the European Union Needs a 'Broader Middle East' Policy

Author:
Edward Burke, Ana Echagüe, and Richard Youngs
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
European foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a highly fragmented construction. Since the mid-1990s the EU's policies with Maghreb and Mashreq countries have been pursued under the rubric of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and now the Mediterranean Union. This plethora of highly institutionalised initiatives has been developed with negligible linkage to policy in the rest of the Middle East. Relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council remain low key and strikingly disconnected from the EMP. Contrary to its rhetorical emphasis on supporting regional integration around the world, the EU has failed to build its strategy towards Iran and Iraq into a regional security framework. Even more reproachable, given its credibility and influence in the economic sphere has been the EU's inability to foster regional economic integration between the Mediterranean and the Gulf.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, Arabia, and North Africa

2760. Investment from the GCC and Development in the Mediterranean. The Outlook for EU-GCC Financial and Economic Cooperation in the Mediterranean

Author:
Bénédict de Saint-Laurent
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Basic questions posed in this study were whether the trend of Gulf involvement in the Mediterranean economies was sustainable, what the specifics of those investments are, and could a triangular cooperation be envisaged? What is clear is that Gulf investors have become major players in the Mediterranean with an investment volume of more than 70 billion Euro in nearly 700 projects since January 2003. The Gulf now seems to have joined Europe as a sustainable second investment pillar. The complementarities between needs and resources of Europe, GCC and Med countries call for the implementation of an integrated co-operation model, similar to the Japan-China-ASEAN triangle.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Middle East, and Arabia