Other reviews have well said that Walid Phares is a prophetic voice, so this review goes beyond their praise, which I heartily share, to review his prophetic idea.
In a series of 3 books (2006, 2008, 2010) about the war for democracy, Walid Phares described a growing Middle East brotherhood against democracy. In this book, the one from 2010, he speaks vividly about the war as a triangle, in which the anti-democratic brotherhood infiltrates Western democracies while it suppresses Middle Eastern opponents of autocracy. Phares says apologists in the West, funded by the West's oil dependency, inhibit support for democratic oppositions, which are then too weak to succeed against autocracies. Since 2011, we see those oppositions trying and failing as that prophecy comes true.
After reading the entire 2010 book, Preface, Introduction, and detailed chapters, there is also an Afterword from which I took the title for this review. "The Big Or" comes from a prophetic sentence in which Phares captures the whole war: either the brotherhood against democracy turns the entire Middle East into a Caliphate which then terrorizes the West into surrender, or nations in the Middle East revolt and blossom into democracies. Then follow prophetic visions for nations whose coming revolutions were given clear origins in chapters, with a final chapter about 2010 opposition leaders in exile and in countries.
One chapter reveals why Phares senses more urgency than our diplomats. He left Lebanon in October 1990 shortly after the Syrian army occupied the remaining free area of Lebanon and began killing the democratic opposition. Syrian occupation of Lebanon was accepted by America, in order to have Syria in the coalition ending Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Phares sees how the anti-democratic brotherhood would bully its way. He knows what life would be like under a creeping Caliphate, beyond the imagination of our diplomats.
His detailed chapters got me thinking ... we are now 3 years into the first wave of the revolutions which Phares saw coming. We can see that the brotherhood against democracy is fighting back. It has indeed kept the West from intervening with decisive force. It uses increasing levels of force against Middle East activists, while the West, weakly murmuring its objections to force, finds reasons not to anoint any of the opposition groups to govern. Phares foresaw the West's indecision. He foresaw tribal conflicts to be resolved in a democratic process. I think he did not foresee the degree of non-democratic militant tribalism between rival opposition groups which lets Western diplomats avoid choosing.
So I kept on thinking, about tribalism seen by other analysts ... there seem few in the West who fully understand the obstacles which Middle Eastern tribes raise for democracy. I reviewed several books by diplomats, for example Palmer and Nasr, who valued elections as if people in the Middle East were at least as educated and analytic as the West's middle class, and at least as willing to accept whoever wins. In 3 years of revolts followed by elections, people voted emotionally in blocs by tribe and religion. As a result, those elections anointed the strongest tribes or religions to rule the weaker tribes and religions, which is exactly what every tribal group most fears. The losers in those elections did not accept the winners.
Another reviewed analyst, Ker-Lindsay, saw the Cyprus election obstacle raised by partitions which cannot live together. In 2004 he looked forward to Cyprus joining the European Union, where the religious and ethnic groups would have a larger authority over them. In 2008 Cyprus joined, and its woes are less, but they have not quite vanished, most likely because the European Union still expects Cyprus to be a member nation electing and accepting a national government. Even while Cyprus follows European Union rules for member nations, its national government has unwelcome authority over the minority half.
After my thinking, I felt Phares is even more right in 2014 than in 2010 about the West needing to encourage, support, and guide democratic oppositions toward practical results. The national revolutions Phares saw coming have begun, but democratic oppositions which removed their dictators didn't achieve the visions Phares had for those nations. They tried to replace their tribal nation's dictators with national democracies, and it seems clear those nations aren't practical democracies. Experience since 2011 shows old national boundaries fueling tribal conflicts, and new winner-take-all autocracies arising.
I looked in the detailed chapters for practical info about conflicts in nations. All of them have multiple tribes, some with links across national borders. I saw that adjacent conflicts seem likely to weaken were they immersed in a region containing several neighboring nations. Thus it seems practical for the West to encourage regional ideas. Among tribes from several neighboring nations, none would have a national claim to govern all the others. Tribal and religious groups would then govern only themselves, which is exactly what they keep saying they want, independence from other tribes.
The tribes also say they want to be independent nations, yet the West knows small democratic nations are not practical. We know from 1960 experience in post-colonial Africa that independent small nations enabled new dictators who then claimed national sovereignty and freedom from international norms. Instead, Western democracies govern their groups in conflict by giving them nested levels of self-government.
After these thoughts guided by Phares, I felt practical history would favor nested self-government under regional Middle East governments for non-tribal, internationally audited, shared defense, diplomacy, and treasury. Without rogue national armies there would be no national coups. Without bullies owning minerals there would be no kleptocracies and no rogue alliances. Whatever shape our guidance takes, Phares has shown us the Middle East needs new democratic umbrellas under which tribes govern without terror, no longer fighting for winner-take-all right to enrich the tribe by governing other tribes. In case it isn't clear, I think Phares sees the Middle East so well, he keeps a few years ahead of our diplomats. Their challenge is to catch up.
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Top reviews from other countries
- Mon StirReviewed in Canada on September 20, 2014
this book is a great exercise in fantasy
