Thje total number of 'liberals' at redscape = 3, and Chad barely posts in the politics forum. So out of the remaining two, so far as I can tell both Danivon and Ricky have expressed reservations about getting involved in Libya.

actually, from the several posts in another thread, Ricky seems to be all for this "intervention"
Danivon has not seemed to have taken a side (nor have many others) myself for example, I have posted some similarities between Iraq and Libya and am curious why they are so wildly different in the liberals mind. I see them as pretty remarkably similar but am not taking any side. I am very very leery of this and in fact, if pressed to pick a "side" I'm for staying out. Certainly I am absolutely not in favor of the US heading the damned thing as we (temporarily?) are. A minor role as junior partner if the rest of the world agrees ...maybe, this lead role (or possibly second to France?) is no way acceptable to me!

For what it's worth, I haven't reached a settled view yet either. In principle I'm supportive of efforts to overthrow oppressive and violent dictators, which is why I initially supported Iraq quite strongly, but in practice our recent efforts haven't worked out too well and so you'd be mad not to approach this with a little trepidation. I'm not convinced that the will is there to do what's necessary to actually beat Gaddafi. Lobbing a few bombs for a couple of weeks is unlikely to be enough, but then what ? You can be sure we won't want to invade, so how do we deal with the inevitable fallout of our likely failure to finish the job ?

My sentiments exactly!!!
...scary huh?

Setting aside the Libya thing, I'd like to add one more element to MinX's list of factors, simple demographics. Most countries in the Middle East have experienced a population boom in the last 50 years or so, and they now have a very high proportion of the population who are under 30. Egypt is the obvious example. At the turn of the 20th Century the population of Egypt was about 3 million, it's now upwards of 80 million and roughly 40% of that population is under 25 years old. As a result Egypt is one of the biggest importers of grain in the entire world. The situation is similar, if not quite so acute, in other arab countries. Although many of these countries have oil wealth they're essentially poor, desert countries with meagre environmental resources. Having a large number of young men compressed into a poor country with inevitably limited economic opportunities and at the mercy of erratic food and water supplies is a recipe for instability. Combine that with political repression, rampant corruption and fundamentalist religion and you have a powderkeg.

Yes, and one day the oil will run out!

All of the region would benefit from peace with Israel, that goes without saying, but I don't think it would solve Egypt's problems. They've always been totally reliant on the Nile for their fresh water and that isn't going to change. In fact the situation is liable to get worse because Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda all have growing populations too and they've been making noises about diverting a lot more of the Nile's flow to feed their own people. This is going to cause a war in the next 20 years I suspect, and it won't be pretty.

With that said, I was indeed lumping you, and MinisterX into the liberal category, although apparently you both now will protest. I've yet to see evidence of that to the contrary, but perhaps in your case, it's simple anti-American jealousy that I've mistaken for liberalism. I'll keep a sharper eye before assuming such again. The mInister has pretty much proven himself to be left of center. His attempts to claim to be a centrist would be almost as silly as me claiming to be.

I find this remarkable. I am, always have been and have always made clear at Redscape that I am a moderate conservative. On the rare occasions that Dan and I have found the opportunity to discuss British politics we generally disagree about pretty much everything. As a matter of fact I once worked as a parliamentary research assistant to a man called David Davis, who's generally regarded as being a leading figure of the Conservative right wing. Granted, his views are to the right of my own, but nevetheless I find it amazing that anybody could seriously view me as anything other than what I am, and my friends would find it hilarious.

Neither am I anti-American. Far from it in fact, I'm actually a strong supporter of the Atlantic alliance and fully aware that the alternatives to American power are liable to be far worse. You'll rarely find me being too strident in my criticism of America and you'll presumably have noted that I take an active interest in your affairs.

Where you and I differ, and I can only assume this is how you arrive at your misconceptions, is that I'm an atheist, firm believer in gun control and fairly liberal in my views on social issues. This is really not so uncommon among European conservatives but seems to be growing ever moreso among American conservatives. Perhaps when you've seen me express my views on these issues you've naturally tended to assume all kinds of other things about my opinions ? Or can there be no such thing as a moderate conservative in your eyes ?

The hypocracy is right here, mate. Its all over the press/media (which I also mentioned in my post incidentally). People who decried President Bush's actions to specific and tangible threats to us and other nations are either lauding or ambivalent towards President Obama for taking the same actions against a nation that is no threat to anyone outside it's borders. This was not the case with Iraq. And oh by the way, the Iraq war was in a state of cease fire when Huseein violated the terms of it repeatedly, giving even further cause to act. He only viiloated 17 UN resolutions and the cease fire after all. The Obama administration has been caught utterly unprepared by this phenomenon of middle eastern/islamic revolutions,and yet he's being championed as some brilliant diplomat. He's actiing like a bumbling idiot, and it's only the presence of Secrataries Clinton and Gates that keep him from catastrophe.

Frankly I don't care how the media are spinning this, I was more referring to your specific criticisms of people here at Redscape, which I felt were wide of the mark. Having said that though, and notwithstanding my own reservations about the Libya campaign, I do think there's a fundamental difference. What was unfolding before our eyes in Libya was gross brutality and potential genocide that was taking place right now and could potentially be stopped by timely intervention. That wasn't really the case in Iraq, where there was no pressing need to act. I still tend to the view that removing Saddam was the right thing to do in any event, which I'll come to in a moment, but it's not true to claim that the two situations are the same.

Yes sir, perhaps you were, just like President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, the United Nations, and so on... Plenty of lefties in that crowd, who then found it politically expediant to jump ship.

What makes you think I've jumped ship ? You know precisely nothing about my views on Iraq. So far as I can tell you're simply projecting views upon me based on your conviction that I'm a 'leftist', but in actual fact you couldn't be wider of the mark.

I supported the invasion because I took the view that in the long run Iraq would be a better place for the removal of a tyrant and I had hopes that it could have a knock-on effect that would be beneficial for the wider region. I continued to be a vigorous supporter of the war, at least in terms of its conception, for many years after the fact and on the whole i still believe that it will ultimately prove to be a qualified success. You have absolutely no idea how difficult this position has been for somebody living in Europe. I've had to fight my corner tooth and nail, defending not just myself but by extension America and the Bush administration, and I've been at odds with pretty much all of my friends whenever the subject has come up. But even I can't defend how the war was planned and prosecuted. While I do happen to believe that toppling Saddam was the right thing to do, at the same time I can see that it was handled with shocking naivety and lack of forethought, and the result has been catastrophic. Iraq has blackened the name of liberal interventionism for a generation, and it needn't have done. I blame Bush, Rumsfeld and the rest for that, for failing to properly plan for the aftermath of the initial campaign and for screwing up the diplomacy so badly. Call that 'anti-American jealousy' if you wish, but you're a fool for doing so.

Back on the subject of water resources, this is going to be a growing issue in a number of countries. Turkey has plans to start damming the Tigris and Euprates, which would cause huge problems for Syria and iraq. One of the sticking points in the Arab/Israeli negotiations is over access to the aquifers. Israel is reluctant to concede certain occupied territory because they're concerned that it could threaten their water supplies. It doesn't get talked about much but it's certainly a factor. China has a massive growing problem with fresh water too, which maybe isn't so much a source of potential war but could certainly lead to internal stability problems.

Probably worth it to note that while instability in the Middle East is a combination, to a greater or less extent, of all 6 listed items, I think the strongest argument should (and has) been made for the effects of tribalism. It really is the root cause of almost all other sources of tension.

Population migration and the presence of semi-nomadic or nomadic peoples has been an issue in that area for 6000 years. Its the reason most civilizations in the Near East tend to be ruled by strongmen, and the continuing tradition of a greater force putting a damper on tribal tensions is probably the overarching political and ethnic theme in the Arab world. Much like Christianity did little more than put a thin veneer on tribal and then feudal conflict in Medieval Europe, Islam does no more (and might, in some ways, providing an aggravating effect, the same as Christianity did) to the disparate and mostly inter-hostile tribal groups competing for scarce resources in the Mid-East.

The last six or so decades have seen small groups and cliques able to control various nations because they control the one product of any desirability and marketability that comes from the region. That power has enabled them to buy the loyalties of tribal and ethnic coalitions and maintain power. I think Friedman may have touched on this very briefly in an op-ed piece, but the danger now is not "will there be a dictator or not," but "when the dictator goes, will there be tribal warfare to control who picks up the pieces or not?" And given the history of the region, its hard to argue that scenario won't play out.

I think tribal and ethnic leaders have, until now, always realized that they could not fight the ruling elite alone and that any attempt to do so, or organize a coalition of other tribes to do so, would merely end in the powers-that-be either (a) crushing them (as the British or Ottomans might have done, being far more powerful), or (b) isolating them by offering status and wealth to rival tribes, prerogatives that a ruling group will always have a more immediate access to.

Now that the door is open in some of these places, I think you'll see out and out scrambling for power. Many reports from the region touch on it briefly, but always in the context of how tribal group A or ethnic group B is opposing a dictator, with the implication being they are siding with popular democratic protest, and not in the sense that the real bloodshed is likely to start when the tanks and the surface to air missiles start being divided up among competing interests, and not lined up all on one side of the battlefield.

Having a nation-state that's atomized along tribal lines is certainly problematic, but there is some grayness here. If the alternative to tribalism was a society that was well-organized and without division, that would be wonderful, but that's not the situation. It is possible to see tribes in a positive light if you think of them as a form of decentralized governance where leaders are both closer to and more responsive to be folks they govern than the nation's Head of State, and where their positions (at least in a generational sense) are based more on consent than is the Head of State's. Tribal leaders cannot afford to be as arbitrary as a Saddam, Ghaddafi, Assad, Khomeini, Mubarak, etc.

Case in point: when al Qaeda in Iraq was going strong before the surge they had successfully (but certainly not fully) co-opted certain key tribes by arranging marriages. Their interactions with the indigenous Iraqis was conducted largely at the tribal level. But those tribal leaders were much more interested in the welfare of their tribes than in jihadi ideology or global politics. As a result, when they began to see that their tribes would be in better shape if they changed allegiances, they did so. No doubt they also lined their own pockets in the process, but whereas Mubarak stole tens of billions and could retire to the French Riviera, tribal leaders usually stay put and if they were to become ostentatious they'd have serious problems with their neighbors.

I'm not endorsing tribalism, merely highlighting complexities. If I could snap my fingers and magically dissolve all tribes in Arab-speaking lands I'd think twice before I did so. Without tribes, would Arabs evolve into nations? or devolve into bands and clans?

A separate observation: it's important to not get the impression that tribes are important all over. There's more intermarriage than ever in these countries, and with increasing urbanization and modernization the centrality of tribal institutions recedes. Even where it may still be relevant as regards wife selection and some other social customs it can be losing ground steadily when it comes to economic insularity and political fealty.

HERE, for instance, is an interesting story from Lebanon. It's confusing in its failure to clearly define the difference between clan and tribe, but I suspect a tribe consists of more than one clan. (It may not be even that clear-cut.) Lebanon is one of the more modern and urbanized lands, and one of the least Arab-ish of the Arabic-speaking nations, so I found the story surprising. The key quote/point:

"[there is a]...slow historic transition that is weakening the clans," Labaki said. "Those intervening in the clan affairs are increasingly religious leaders or major parties -- meaning the higher Shiite council, Hezbollah or (its ally) Amal -- rather than tribal leaders.

So while tribes (or at least clans) are still relevant in Lebanon, the trend is toward "integration of the clans within the larger community."

Finally, let's not forget that pre-state tribes exist in other parts of the world, and if we suggest that tribes contribute to instability in the Mideast we shouldn't neglect a comparative analysis.

I want to suggest the centrality of oil as a problem. Oil is a very strange economic base and source of wealth. It is not labor intensive, unlike gold or diamond mining. It requires advanced technology. It's easily monopolized within a state by the central governmental apparatus. In a surprising percent of the places where its pumped the local demand is miniscule compared to export demand, even on a per capita basis. Until recently it was a critical military-strategic commodity and thus doubly sensitive to control/instability. It's still militarily important, but not to the same degree; it's now strategically important primarily in a broader economic context.

When oil extraction becomes a major industry in a locale that was already industrialized, with a transparent economy and democratic institutions, as was the case in Texas, it still creates great upheavals. The Texas boom created whole new classes of important people: wildcatters, prospectors, petroleum geologists, and so on. Sudden prosperity (for some) created a small but strong magnet that attracted all sorts of new things. Governmental tax revenues jumped, and thus so did spending. Much of the state's culture was radically altered, and Texas is about forty times the size of Kuwait.

So imagine what happens when oil suddenly generates $$$$$$$$$$$$ in a place with almost no previous industry, zero economic transparency, few skilled laborers, an autocrat, and a culture that actively resists modernization when it can. It almost doesn't matter what religions or religious schisms exist there or whether there were tribes in place, a history of colonialism, important trade routes, etc. - things are going to be turned upside down.

In the Mideast, even states that don't have oil have been influenced greatly by the oil boom. For one thing, mere location made some strategically critical. Many states were heavily influenced by Wahhabi "missionary" activity funded by Saudi oil wealth. Oil wealth has helped fund the wars against Israel, Arabic-language media/news, and enables Iran to influence Syria to influence Lebanon.

So whatever else we may look at when studying something as broad as "stability" in the Mideast, we ought to be sure to include a good long look through the lens of oil. (Wait, wouldn't that be hard to see through...?)

I've tried to describe what the discovery of oil did to the Mideast. I would not know how to predict what the discovery of cold fusion via a mechanism the size of a food processor would do - in other words, what happens after oil. Oil will end, either slowly or quickly or in between, either sooner or later or in between. If it's quick and soon the instability we're seeing now will probably look like a game of marbles compared to what will happen then.

The oil is already running out. I've seen plenty of estimates that say production peaked sometime in 2006. I also saw the Wikileaks report from the former head of Saudi Aramco in which he told the US ambassador that his countries reserves had been exaggerated by about 40%. Scary huh ?

Certainly we need to be preparing to live without, if that's even possible. There's no way we can continue to feed a global population of 6 billion or more without access to cheap oil.

Sassenach wrote:The oil is already running out. I've seen plenty of estimates that say production peaked sometime in 2006. I also saw the Wikileaks report from the former head of Saudi Aramco in which he told the US ambassador that his countries reserves had been exaggerated by about 40%. Scary huh ?

Certainly we need to be preparing to live without, if that's even possible. There's no way we can continue to feed a global population of 6 billion or more without access to cheap oil.

Oil has been running out since I was a little boy (in the 60's).

That's such a complacent way to look at things. Obviously in a sense it's strictly true in that since oil is a non-renewable resource we've been using it up with every passing year, but I assume that what you mean is that because we've managed to keep discovering new fields in the past we won't have any trouble doing so for the foreseeable. That's very unlikely to be the case though. The oil that's now being extracted is coming from sources that wouldn't have been economic a few years ago. Deepwater drilling, extraction from the tar sands where it costs one barrel of oil for every two that you extract. How long can we go on like that when consumption is expanding at breakneck pace as well ? Oil will still be available for a long time of course, but human society is built on cheap oil and you can be sure that the long term price isn't going to be coming down.

Perhaps ... there was lots of carbon life all over the earth before humans came on the scene and not just in this place or that ... the carbon is under all of us in one form or another ... some of it is dirty (like the tar sands) and some of it is hard to get to (under the deep sea) and some of it is sweet and light (which is considered the easiest to get and the best to refine and is in Libya). But access to carbon (oil, coal, gas) is a function of technology, economics, and regulation. Technology keeps improving. Regulation is largely a function of economics (through a political lens). There is tons of oil off the coasts of the US which we won't drill for, although that may change if oil goes to $300 per barrel.

I'm not being complacent. I'm just trying to take the long view. I do think that global warming and ocean acidification are real issues. That can be solved by carbon sequestration. Or solar (light and thermal) technology may improve substantially ... it is on a fantastic pace and enable us to bypass carbon all together.

There will be shocks, but I'm not worried as long as we get governance right (democracy + capitalism).

By the way, in other posts, people are talking about a shortage of fresh water, but that is also a function of energy because we have the capability to convert oceans to fresh water. It just takes a lot of energy. Go solar go.