The Scary Hidden Stressor - "The Arab Spring and Climate Change"

March 2, 2013

The Scary Hidden Stressor

By Thomas L. Friedman

IN her introduction to a compelling new study, “The Arab Spring and Climate Change,” released Thursday, the Princeton scholar Anne-Marie Slaughter notes that crime shows often rely on the concept of a “stressor.” A stressor, she explains, is a “sudden change in circumstances or environment that interacts with a complicated psychological profile in a way that leads a previously quiescent person to become violent.” The stressor is never the only explanation for the crime, but it is inevitably an important factor in a complex set of variables that lead to a disaster. “The Arab Spring and Climate Change” doesn’t claim that climate change caused the recent wave of Arab revolutions, but, taken together, the essays make a strong case that the interplay between climate change, food prices (particularly wheat) and politics is a hidden stressor that helped to fuel the revolutions and will continue to make consolidating them into stable democracies much more difficult.

Jointly produced by the Center for American Progress, the Stimson Center and the Center for Climate and Security, this collection of essays opens with the Oxford University geographer Troy Sternberg, who demonstrates how in 2010-11, in tandem with the Arab awakenings, “a once-in-a-century winter drought in China” — combined, at the same time, with record-breaking heat waves or floods in other key wheat-growing countries (Ukraine, Russia, Canada and Australia) — “contributed to global wheat shortages and skyrocketing bread prices” in wheat-importing states, most of which are in the Arab world.

Only a small fraction — 6 percent to 18 percent — of annual global wheat production is traded across borders, explained Sternberg, “so any decrease in world supply contributes to a sharp rise in wheat prices and has a serious economic impact in countries such as Egypt, the largest wheat importer in the world.”

The numbers tell the story: “Bread provides one-third of the caloric intake in Egypt, a country where 38 percent of income is spent on food,” notes Sternberg. “The doubling of global wheat prices — from $157/metric ton in June 2010 to $326/metric ton in February 2011 — thus significantly impacted the country’s food supply and availability.” Global food prices peaked at an all-time high in March 2011, shortly after President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt.

Consider this: The world’s top nine wheat-importers are in the Middle East: “Seven had political protests resulting in civilian deaths in 2011,” said Sternberg. “Households in the countries that experience political unrest spend, on average, more than 35 percent of their income on food supplies,” compared with less than 10 percent in developed countries.

Everything is linked: Chinese drought and Russian bushfires produced wheat shortages leading to higher bread prices fueling protests in Tahrir Square. Sternberg calls it the globalization of “hazard.”

Ditto in Syria and Libya. In their essay, the study’s co-editors, Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell, note that from 2006 to 2011, up to 60 percent of Syria’s land experienced the worst drought ever recorded there — at a time when Syria’s population was exploding and its corrupt and inefficient regime was proving incapable of managing the stress.

In 2009, they noted, the U.N. and other international agencies reported that more than 800,000 Syrians lost their entire livelihoods as a result of the great drought, which led to “a massive exodus of farmers, herders, and agriculturally dependent rural families from the Syrian countryside to the cities,” fueling unrest. The future does not look much brighter. “On a scale of wetness conditions,” Femia and Werrell note, “ ‘where a reading of -4 or below is considered extreme drought,’ a 2010 report by the National Center for Atmospheric Research shows that Syria and its neighbors face projected readings of -8 to -15 as a result of climatic changes in the next 25 years.” Similar trends, they note, are true for Libya, whose “primary source of water is a finite cache of fossilized groundwater, which already has been severely stressed while coastal aquifers have been progressively invaded by seawater.”

Scientists like to say that, when it comes to climate change, we need to manage what is unavoidable and avoid what is unmanageable. That requires collective action globally to mitigate as much climate change as we can and the building of resilient states locally to adapt to what we can’t mitigate. The Arab world is doing the opposite. Arab states as a group are the biggest lobbyists against efforts to reduce oil and fuel subsidies. According to the International Monetary Fund, as much as one-fifth of some Arab state budgets go to subsidizing gasoline and cooking fuel — more than $200 billion a year in the Arab world as a whole — rather than into spending on health and education. Meanwhile, locally, Arab states are being made less resilient by the tribalism and sectarianism that are eating away at their democratic revolutions.

As Sarah Johnstone and Jeffrey Mazo of the International Institute for Strategic Studies conclude in their essay, “fledgling democracies with weak institutions might find it even harder to deal with the root problems than the regimes they replace, and they may be more vulnerable to further unrest as a result.” Yikes.

Blinded by the Right

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/24/blinded_by_the_right?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full

Blinded by the Right

The GOP's blatantly partisan love for Bibi obscures a dangerous reality: that unwavering support for Israel actually hurts wider U.S. interests in the Middle East.

BY MICHAEL A. COHEN | MAY 24, 2011

In 2003, Democrats upset about President George W. Bush's plans to invade Iraq invited French President Jacques Chirac, an opponent of the war, to address a joint meeting of Congress. It was blatant political play, an attempt by the opposition to work with a foreign leader in offering a counterargument to the president's invasion plans and limit his ability to carry though with his decision to go to war in the Middle East. Chirac was feted across Washington by liberal think tanks and pro-French lobbying groups as American politicians and Democratic activists fell over themselves to be identified with a strong anti-war leader.

This, of course, did not happen. The idea that Congress would openly side with a foreign leader against the president of the United States seems too far-fetched to believe. Remarkably, however, something not dissimilar happened in Washington Tuesday, May 24, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to a joint meeting of Congress (a speech interrupted more than 25 times by a rapturous standing ovation). While these types of congressional addresses are rare, this particular event is even a bit more unusual: The speech's intention -- with the full assistance and backing of the Republican leadership in Congress and implicit support of Democrats -- was to give Netanyahu a public forum to offer a rebuttal to President Barack Obama's recent proposals for moving forward with the Arab-Israeli peace process.

As the New York Times reported last week, the invitation was initially requested by Netanyahu of the GOP leadership before the president's Middle East speech plans had even been formalized: It was "widely interpreted as an attempt to get out in front of Mr. Obama, by presenting an Israeli peace proposal that, while short of what the Palestinians want, would box in the president." In turn, Obama's May 19 speech was scheduled purposely so that the president could get out ahead of Bibi's remarks.

It's one thing for Republicans to oppose the president's position on Arab-Israeli peace. In the hours after Obama's Middle East speech, Republican presidential contenders like Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney did just that, arguing that the president had proverbially thrown Israel "under the bus." (Never mind that Obama simply reiterated long-standing U.S. policy toward the Arab-Israeli peace process.) They were joined -- in a bipartisan manner -- by prominent Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in offering pushback on the president's words.

It is certainly appropriate for members of Congress to disagree with the president's foreign-policy agenda. But it's something else altogether to be appearing to work in concert with the leader of another country in trying to put the president on the defensive -- and seeking to score a partisan political advantage in the process. By openly siding with Netanyahu against Obama and making Arab-Israeli peace a partisan issue, Republicans in Congress are at serious risk of crossing a dangerous line and in the process undermining U.S. interests in the Middle East.

This behavior follows a concerning pattern. Last November, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, after a meeting with Netanyahu, suggested that a Republican Congress would serve as a check on the Obama administration when it came to Israel policy (a position he later sought to walk back). In the fall of 2009, Cantor criticized the Obama administration for its rebuke of the Israeli government over the eviction of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Most surprising of all, the attack was lodged from Jerusalem, where Cantor was heading a 25-person GOP delegation -- an unusual violation of the unspoken rule that members of Congress should refrain from criticizing the U.S. government while on foreign soil. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee took a similar position this February while traveling in Israel. He called the Obama administration's opposition to Israeli settlements (a position long held by Democratic and Republican presidents) equivalent to "racism" and "apartheid."

Last week, as Netanyahu lectured Obama at a frosty White House news conference and issued statements on what he "expected to hear" from the president about his commitment to Israeli security, Republican lawmakers barely batted an eye at behavior that by any other foreign leader would spark outrage from their caucus -- and instead aimed their attacks at Obama.

This seems at pace with the GOP's default position on Israel. This February, writing in the pages of National Review, Romney stated that "Israel must now contend with the fact that its principal backer in the world, the United States, is seeking to ingratiate itself with Arab opinion at its expense." It's a view that no doubt would have been met with astonishment in Arab capitals, where America's image remains largely negative. One can't help but wonder whether the tail isn't wagging the dog -- after all, is there a reason that the United States shouldn't seek to ingratiate itself with Arab public opinion? There is an implicit assumption here that no matter what Israel says or does the United States must continue to be blindly supportive -- an odd stance for an American politician to take, particularly when Israel's actions occasionally run counter to larger U.S. interests.

Although one cannot ignore the fact that strongly held empathy for Israel is, in part, motivating this position, there is of course a healthy dose of domestic politicking at work. Democrats have long relied on Jewish support -- both electorally and financially. Republicans, though less reliant on Jewish voters, have successfully made support for Israel a litmus test for Democrats to prove their national security mettle. Moreover, with strong backing for Israel among the party's conservative base, defending Israeli behavior has become a surefire way for Republicans to politically cater to social conservatives and evangelical voters. In fact, Israel probably enjoys more clear-cut support for its policies among social conservatives than it does among American Jews! (And Netanyahu, in particular, didn't just fall into this love fest: He has long supported and helped spearhead the alliance between the Israeli right wing and American religious conservatives.)

All this is a very far cry from George H.W. Bush's open conflict with Israel and the American Jewish community in 1991 over loan guarantees for Israeli settlements. That the perception continues to exist that Bush's aggressive stance cost him severely in the 1992 presidential election no doubt haunts the Republican Party -- and any American politician inclined to put public pressure on Israeli leaders.

But ultimately there is more than politics at stake here. At a critical moment in the political transformation of the Middle East, America's steadfast and unyielding support for Israel -- underwritten by both parties in Congress -- risks undermining America's long-term interests in the region. Last year, Gen. David Petraeus commented in congressional testimony that "Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples [in the region]." His statement provoked controversy in Washington, but ask any seasoned Middle East observer and you'd be hard-pressed to find one who disagrees with the general's assessment. It is not Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya which is the greatest source of anti-American attitudes in the Arab world -- it is the continued lack of resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the view of many in the region that the United States has its thumb on the scale in favor of Israel.

None of this is to suggest that Washington should turn its back on the Jewish state. But this is also a time when a more evenhanded position on the conflict is desperately needed -- particularly as the United States will need to deal with a new government in Cairo that will likely be less supportive of Israel, a wave of unsteady democratic reforms spreading across the Mideast, and a U.N. General Assembly that appears ready to endorse Palestinian statehood this fall. These events will have serious repercussions not just for Israel but for U.S. policy in the region. Obama at least seems to realize this fact and has -- albeit tepidly -- challenged a recalcitrant Israel to get serious about peace. Yet Congress seems intent on restraining his leverage, effectively holding U.S. actions hostage to the whims of partisan politics -- and in the process working in concert with a foreign leader to do it. At some point, it raises the legitimate question of who is looking out not for Israel's interests, but America's.

A FOREIGN POLICY EVENT

Feeling Betrayed: The Roots of Muslim Anger at America

Islamic World, Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Social Norms

EVENT SUMMARY

Anger at America in the Muslim world is one of the major challenges for American foreign policy. It has created the conditions within which al Qaeda and other anti-American groups have been able to thrive and pose a daunting threat to the United States. With the election of President Barack Obama, views of America have improved in other parts of the world, but in the Muslim world, hostility has not abated. When the Obama administration called for Egypt's President Mubarak to step down, many hoped Egyptians would warm toward the United States—but this has not occurred. How widespread is hostility toward the United States in the Muslim world? What are its roots and why is it so persistent? How much support is there for radical groups that attack Americans and why? What can the U.S. do?

On May 18, Steven Kull, a political psychologist with the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, will present findings from his new book, Feeling Betrayed: The Roots of Muslim Anger at America (Brookings Institution Press, 2011). The book is the result of a five-year study of Muslim public attitudes, which included conducting focus groups and surveys throughout the Muslim world, as well as comprehensively analyzing the surveys of other organizations. Kull will summarize his key findings and their implication for U.S. foreign policy, as well as discuss the implications of recent developments in the Arab world. Shibley Telhami will provide introductory remarks and moderate the discussion. Wendy Chamberlain, president of the Middle East Institute, will also provide commentary.

Good job, Hillary

Posted By Blake Hounshell Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 2:46 PM

Hillary Clinton gave a good speech today, excoriating Arab leaders for their lousy record on reform and bluntly warning that if they don't shape up, they'll face growing extremism and alienation among their beleaguered populations.

"In too many places, in too many ways, the region’s foundations are sinking into the sand," she said. "The new and dynamic Middle East that I have seen needs firmer ground if it is to take root and grow everywhere."

And she warned that "others will fill the vacuum" if "leaders don’t offer a positive vision and give young people meaningful ways to contribute."

"Extremist elements, terrorist groups, and others who would prey on desperation and poverty are already out there, appealing for allegiance and competing for influence," she added.

Clinton's talk, at a democracy conference here in Qatar, took place against the backdrop of spiraling unrest in Tunisia, growing tension in Gaza, and the collapse of the Lebanese unity government led by Sunni billionaire Saad Hariri. She seemed fired up, perhaps because she had met earlier with civil society activists from across the region and during her previous stops in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Oman, and Yemen.

According to Stephen McInerney, head of the Project on Middle East Democracy, Clinton struck the right notes.

"Secretary Clinton's remarks today are the clearest sign yet that she understands the vital need for genuine reform and progress in the region and the dangers of maintaining the status quo," he said in an email. "I think we're seeing the impact of recent developments in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere around the region, as well as the impact of the Secretary's meetings with civil society on each stop of this trip."

Still, things are not looking good for the U.S. position in the Middle East right now. The peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians are hopelessly stalled; Lebanon is in shambles; traditional U.S. allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are losing influence. There's definitely growing frustration with the authoritarian order across the region, though not necessarily to America's advantage.

Improbable as it may have seemed a month ago, much depends on how events play out in Tunisia. A relatively peaceful transition of power could inspire and empower reforms across the region. An even bloodier crackdown could provoke more destructive feelings of despair and empower radicals. Or, most likely of all, the Middle East will continue to limp along as it has been, never really advancing but never really dissolving into chaos. We'll see.

The Death of the Secondary Boycott Against Israel

Posted: 25 May 2010 12:36 PM PDT

by Roger Alford

At the recent Northwestern Law School conference on the Israeli-Arab Dispute and International Law I had the good fortune to address one of the few bright spots in current Arab-Israeli relations.

Most international law scholars of the Arab-Israeli conflict seem to know little about international trade, and focus almost exclusively on the laws of war in their discussion of Middle East relations. Therefore when I was choosing my topic for discussion, I decided to analyze the current status of the Arab League boycott against Israel. The secondary boycott, of course, involves the blacklisting of any corporation that does business in Israel.

As a result of the secondary boycott, Arab consumers suffered because they did not have access to the most efficient source of goods and services. Israeli investment also suffered because foreign corporations often chose to sell their products to dozens of countries with hundreds of millions of consumers rather invest in one small country with a few million consumers. Third-country corporations were caught in the middle and forced to make hard choices that they should never have been forced to make.

The good news is that in the past fifteen years the secondary boycott against Israel has died a quiet death. According to official reports from the United States, of the twenty-two members of the Arab League boycott, only three countries–Iraq, Libya, and Syria–continue to enforce a secondary boycott. Even then, it appears that only Syria is serious about it. USTR has recently stated that the secondary boycott “has extremely limited practical effect overall on U.S. trade and investment ties with most Arab League countries.” As a practical matter, we are experiencing the death rattle of the secondary boycott against Israel.

One can only speculate about the cause of death, but I would hazard that it has much to do with the legalization of international economic relations. Since the end of the Cold War, thousands of bilateral investment treaties have been signed. Hundreds of those involve Arab countries, with Egypt having signed seventy-nine, Morocco seventy-three, Oman seventy-one, Lebanon forty-nine, Jordan thirty-five, etc. These BITs are unusually significant in that they depoliticize disputes by guaranteeing foreign investors the right to pursue treaty-based investment arbitration. If an investor is blacklisted as a result of the secondary boycott against Israel, then it likely has a viable claim for a BIT violation, such as compensation for conduct tantamount to an expropriation or denial of fair and equitable treatment.

Equally momentous is the binding nature of the WTO rules, which prohibit discriminatory import bans. The Arab League boycott violates WTO rules against MFN treatment and quantitative restrictions. Not surprisingly, none of the twelve Arab League countries that are WTO members enforce a secondary boycott, and only three of them–Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE–continue to enforce a primary boycott.

Even the primary boycott is subject to a strong legal challenge before the WTO, but Israel thus far has decided to forego this avenue, concludingthat “the boycott right now is on the defensive as a result of working behind the scenes…. We do not wish to politicize the WTO.” One may take this at face value, or conclude that Israel fears that such a challenge would require the WTO to finally interpret the national security exception, an ambiguous provision that deserves careful interpretation in a less politically-volatile context.

WTO accession talks will continue to create pressure to eliminate the secondary boycott. In its accession talks, for example, Saudi Arabia confirmed that “the application of secondary and tertiary boycotts had been terminated in practice and in law.” Recent WTO decisions involving China’s accession commitments now make clear that those promises are subject to legal enforcement. The three secondary boycott holdouts–Iraq, Libya, and Syria–are all seeking WTO membership, and given the nature of accession talks, one can be sure that termination of the secondary boycott will be a precondition of their membership.

That’s great news for the Arab street. The importance of promoting foreign investment is particularly acute in the Middle East. The Arab world is facing a ticking time-bomb, with approximately 70 percent of its population under twenty-five years old. It desperately needs to find ways for its growing population to contribute to its economy. For most Arab countries, the commitment to strengthen their economies and develop trade relationships has taken precedence over the desire to enforce a secondary boycott against Israel. Almost nine out of ten Arab countries have concluded that the costs of continued enforcement of the secondary boycott outweigh the benefits.

That’s also great news for Israel. It is now enjoying a tremendous influx of foreign investment. The boycott’s greatest risk was always that it would impede direct foreign investment into Israel. That fear no longer animates the discussion. In the same year that Israel was at war with Lebanon, it enjoyed record direct foreign investment of over $13 billion.

Opinion: Do Terrorists Hate Us, or What We're Doing?

May 18, 2010 9:32 AM

In my latest AOL column I make a concerted effort to drive AOL's right-leaning readers into an apocalyptic rage by arguing that in the wake of the Times Square bombing (allegedly perpetrated by Pakistan Taliban terror groups) it's worth remembering that some terrorists hate us not because of who we are . . . but what we do:

(May 17) -- Flying menacingly over northwest Pakistan, U.S. unmanned drones have become the deadliest tool in America's war on terror. While wreaking havoc on al-Qaida's leadership, they have extended the anti-terrorism fight to include al-Qaida's nominal Pakistani Taliban allies, the TTP. So it should come as little surprise that the TTP is now targeting the U.S.

According to Attorney General Eric Holder, the group is suspected of hatching the recently bungled Times Square bombing plot. Suspect Faisal Shahzad has allegedly cited the drone strikes against the Pakistani Taliban as his motivation.

Have U.S. military actions in Pakistan -- including the reported assassination of the TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud last year -- helped to increase the threat of terrorism on American soil?

It's an important question, but there's a good chance it won't be asked. Since Sept. 11, 2001, those who have sought to kill innocent Americans have been portrayed as "evildoers" or "haters of freedom." In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, for example, President George W. Bush spoke to a joint session of Congress and declared that those who attacked America "hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."

While there's no question that al-Qaida resents Western influence in the Muslim world -- and has yet to make peace with the forces of modernity -- many of its grievances are more specific. It resents the presence of U.S. soldiers near Islamic holy places in Saudi Arabia. It is angered by U.S. support not only for Israel but also for corrupt Arab regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. And it seeks to weaken U.S. influence throughout the Middle East.

It's not that terrorists simply hate American values -- they hate America's foreign policy and its impact on the Muslim world.

This is not to suggest that America's policy choices have been necessarily wrong. There's plenty of justification for them. But there's been very little discussion in the U.S. as to whether these policy choices continue to serve America's interests -- and may in fact be doing more harm than good.

Does unwavering support for Israel hurt our image, particularly in the Arab world? Should the U.S. be pushing countries like Egypt, Jordan or Saudi Arabia toward greater political openness, even if it risks strengthening Islamic political movements? Has the use of military force in Iraq and Afghanistan, to paraphrase former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, helped to create more, not fewer, terrorists? Finally, would changing any of America's behavior on the world stage leave our country safer?

The tendency among policymakers, legislators and journalists is to not even broach these questions. But only focusing on the inherent "evil" of terrorists provides Americans with an incomplete understanding of the threats they pose.

Along these same lines, current U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan have focused on the importance of weeding out Taliban militants from the Afghan population. Military officials boast about the reduced number of civilians being killed by American arms, ignoring the fact that our very presence in southern Afghanistan helps to inflame the insurgency, plays into the Taliban's anti-occupation rhetoric and almost certainly leads to more civilian casualties.

If, in fact, the Pakistani Taliban is actually responsible for Times Square attack, it raises the question: If the U.S. were not dropping bombs on TTP leaders in northwest Pakistan, what would be the rationale for Pakistani militants -- whose main grievance is with their own government -- to kill New Yorkers?

Earlier this year, an Afghan national named Najibullah Zazi was arrested for plotting to attack the New York subway system. Is it so incomprehensible to imagine that U.S. military actions in Afghanistan may have prompted Zazi to act?

Again, this is not to say that American actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan are necessarily wrong. Attacking al-Qaida leaders who are plotting to kill Americans is certainly appropriate. But if broadening those attacks creates new and greater terrorist threats to the U.S., then perhaps the ends don't justify the means. At the very least, it is a matter worthy of public debate.

When it comes to the war on terrorism, the U.S. likes to portray itself as a benign force in the world: We're innocent bystanders being attacked by terrorists for who we are, not what we do. In that plot line, terrorists are fundamentally irrational and "evil." In reality, they're often rational political actors using what they believe to be their most effective weapon: terror.

A more honest national discussion about terrorism would recognize that America's policies and its broad definition of national interests -- for better or for worse -- can have direct, and often deadly, consequences for the American people. In other words, what we do -- rather than what we are -- matters.

Michael Cohen