Robin Wright Offers Hopeful Notes During "Dreams" Talk

The journalist and author is interview by Warren Olney in the Aloud series

by Jeff Warner

Robin Wright

Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East featured Robin Wright in conversation with Warren Olney as the March 13, 2008 edition of the Aloud series at the Los Angeles Central Public Library. Wright is a senior foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, and was formerly with the LA Times. She has covered a dozen wars and revolutions in the Middle East and other parts of the world. Olney is the host and executive producer of the daily 89.9 FM KCRW radio shows To The Point and This Way, LA? To The Point is nationally distributed on NPR.

Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East (Penguin 2008) is Robin Wright's fifth book about the Middle East, in which she describes visiting all 22 Muslim countries in the region plus Israel, and sought out individuals who are not in official positions but are making a difference in their country.

The conversation started with Warren Olney asking about a quote from Dreams in which Wright wrote, "the status quo in the Middle East is not sustainable." Nonetheless, she said she is now "more hopeful" because people using new technology are making a difference in many countries. "Bloggers are challenging existing leaders," she said, going on to describe a political blog in Egypt that gets over 50,000 hits every day. With some 1,000 blogs in Egypt, she added, "blogs are changing the dynamic."

Dreams and Shadows:
The Future of the Middle East

Dreams profiles seven nations—Egypt, Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Morocco—and Wright described unsung heroes from each of them. She did not write about Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or other small Persian Gulf nations because there was no existing political dynamic for change. She described individuals in several of these countries who are making a difference by doing grass-roots politics. They typically use technology to reach many people, and are making enough of an impact that they have forced governments to modify policies.

Speaking more generally, Wright said that there are three types of forces in the Middle East: democrats, autocrats, and theocrats. Although she is routing for the democrats, she deemed them the worst organized and least powerful. Autocrats control many governments, and Wright expects them to fight hard not to lose power. An example is Hosni Mubarak who has been president of Egypt for over 26 years, longer than all but two Egyptian leaders in the past 6,000 years—and they were Pharoahs. Wright said that Mubarak is grooming his son to succeed him. Finally, the theocrats have an advantage because they have the faithful as an automatic constituency on their side, and the absolute certainty that they have the one true path to progress.

Wright pointed out that there are commonly political differences within families. She gave the example of two sets of brothers who took different routes, including the Shakaki brothers from Palestine. One brother, Khalil, got a western education, returned to Palestine and is a respected professor of political science and the most respected political pollster in Palestine. His brother founded Islamic Jihad and was executed by the Israelis.

Another set of brothers is in Iran. One is a political outsider who campaigns to limit the power of the Supreme Leader (who has absolute power in Iran to overturn the work of the legislature and the President). He has been beaten-up and was not allowed to run for political office. His brother is the Supreme Leader.

Wright said a major problem in the Middle East is how nations will mesh political advancement with an Islamic reformation. When asked by an audience member about an Islamic reformation in light of the broad diversity that exists within Islam, Wright said the several Islamic denominations have to learn to get along with each other, and to clearly reject extremism.

She predicted that the "worst terrorist attacks are still to come." But she also said that the people are rejecting terrorism in general and al Qaeda in particular. She said the people want a better life and that means improved health care and education and economic opportunity, and the people do not see al Qaeda responding to those needs.

Turning to Iraq, Wright said that Kurdish leaders do not want that country to break into several independent states. Their fear is becoming a small, landlocked state at the mercy of the surrounding nations. She livened up the talk at this point by describing how she snuck into Iraq without a visa just prior to the U.S. invasion. She walked from Iran, across the border into Iraq, and kept walking until she met Kurdish militia who took care of her.

On Palestine, Wright said it was proper that the United States and Israel do not engage with Hamas, and will not until Hamas accepts the existence of Israel and renounces violence. She pointed out the weakness in that line of reasoning because clearly Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, and any Israeli-Palestinian peace will be almost impossible unless Hamas is involved. Yet she stuck to the conventional U.S.-Israeli line.

Wright claimed the region has "many Nelson Mandelas"—people who spent a lot of time in prison for their political work. But she did not describe anyone who is a critic of their respective government and who has the prestige even close to what Mandela attained. While he was still in prison Mandela was the symbol of black resistance to apartheid. The people Wright described are truly fighting for democracy, but none have a significant following.

An audience member asked if the Palestinian Marwan Barghouti was a potential Nelson Mandela, and how would it change the political dynamic if/when the Israelis release him from prison? Wright said that Bargthouti is indeed a potential leader of the Palestinians. She suggested that he would reinvigorate Fatah and finally end the Arafat era, but she did not suggest he would unify the Hamas and Fatah factions of the Palestinians. In other words she did not envision Barghouti as a Palestinian Nelson Mandela.

Near the conclusion of the evening, when asked by an audience member about Iraq, Wright said she was against the U.S. invasion, and the Iraq invasions was a monumental foreign policy blunder that would take the United States many years to recover from. But she did not have a good plan to withdraw U.S. troops. She did say the new president must immediately withdrawal some thousands of troops to show good faith that the U.S. does not intend to build permanent bases and to continue the occupation indefinitely.

Jeff Warner is a writer in Los Angeles and an activist with L.A. Jews for Peace.