The State of the Arab Family

Smiles and cordiality seemed the order of the day as the 22-member countries of the Arab League gathered this past week in Kuwait for their 2-day annual meeting. Nothing in the way of dispute or demonstration was evident. But even a slight scratching of the veneer revealed such a different reality.

Not so subtle snubs abounded. Thus, the United Arab Emirates sent along as their summit representative Hamad bin Mohammed Al Sharqi, the ruler of Fujairah, the least influential of the seven emirates that make up the UAE. But it was the Saudis who seemed particularly bent on singular behavior. Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who flew back to Riyadh after just the first day of the summit, nonetheless managed during his one-day attendance to make clear his regime's continuing support for Syria's rebel Sunni opposition - and by implication his hatred of Syrian President Assad and Mr. Assad's patron, Shia-dominated Iran. Egypt's new military government is exactly what the rife-torn country now needs to foster stability, according to the Prince, and it is entirely justified in removing former Egyptian President Morsi, and in its persecution of the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, the Prince went so far as to denounce Qatar's support for the Brotherhood, even withdrawing, earlier this month, the Saudi ambassador from Doha, the Qatari capital, and pressuring the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain to do likewise. While at the Arab League summit, he reportedly instructed his host, the Kuwaiti emir, to butt out from attempts at mediating between the Qataris and himself. And when the Prince hosted President Obama in Riyadh one day after the summit, he suggested that America extend a bit more warmth towards Egypt's military leader (and probable new President) General al-Sisi, who has recently proceeded to renew a dialogue with Russia's Putin, another of President Assad's patrons.

So, given all this multi-level dissension within the Arab league countries, it is remarkable that the Kuwaitis managed to even hold, then conclude, the summit. (It's difficult to imagine next year's meeting, planned for Cairo, proceeding as smoothly.) A declaration read out at the end of the summit said only that the members of the Arab League would “pledge to work decisively to put a final end to divisions”. No one state, however, was called upon to take any specific measures in pursuit of this goal. Notably, and disappointingly for the Palestinians, there was no mention of the Israeli siege of Gaza, indeed, no expressed support at all for the Palestinians. It seemed, as Al Arabiya News commented, what mattered was "that the summit succeeds, not that the Arab states achieve anything".

Maybe This Time

Few places on earth can match Colombia's experience with the civil wars that have ravaged it during its 200-year history as an independent nation. By most counts, there were eight in the 19th century alone.

The current conflict, which dates from 1964, has been the longest-running in Colombia, or anywhere in the world, and Colombia's deadliest, exceeding even the bloodbath known as La Violencia between 1948 and 1958. Some 250,000 are estimated to have been killed (other figures are much higher) and 5 million displaced over the past 50 years. And it's been much more than a two-sided battle, at times being closer to a state of complete anarchy, as left-wing guerrilla groups, principally the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), have fought not just government forces but also each other and right-wing paramilitaries, for control of land, especially drug plantations, and drug trading. FARC sees itself as an embodiment of Bolivarianism, operating as a peasant army with a mandate to promote small-scale agrarianism and to fight against imperialism and Colombian elitism. But several countries consider it a terrorist group; it's accused of human rights violations by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the United Nations, and the American government and the EU. It regularly recruits teenage children, typically from poor households that can offer no good options, and who, once in, are prevented from leaving (Human Rights Watch estimates that a quarter of FARC's guerrillas are under 18). Murder, torture and sexual abuse against civilian women and recruits are standard forms of intimidation, with reports of forced abortions carried out by FARC doctors. Its annual revenue is put at $300 million a year, coming from the taxation of drug trafficking and gold mining, but also at times from ransom kidnappings, bank robberies, and extortion of landowners and even multi-national corporations.

Given this record, and given a succession of failed peace efforts over the past 30 years, many are at least skeptical that the current peace talks between the government and FARC, which started in Oslo in 2012 and are continuing in Havana, have any chance at all of ending this conflict. Colombia's President, Juan Manuel Santos, thinks otherwise. Facing re-election in May, and with therefore good reason to talk up the prospects of a deal, Mr. Santos predicted last week that negotiations, supported by both Cuba and Venezuela, had advanced sufficiently in recent months to make 2014 a historic year - "hopefully by the end of the year, we will have this deal done", he told the Guardian newspaper. The two sides have already reached draft agreements on rural development and political participation for minority parties. And there are independent reports coming from Havana of progress regarding drugs - one of five main items under negotiation - to be made public shortly as a pre-election boost for the President. Congressional elections earlier this month left the Santos ruling coalition in power (though with a smaller majority), and a recent Gallup poll shows most Colombians support the talks (though they are uneasy with the possibility of amnesty for, and political participation by, FARC fighters). All this enables the President to push forward with his peace initiative.

Timely implementation of any accord, if achieved and if passed by Congress, will be critical. President Santos is already calling for international help to provide funds and know-how to ensure the reintegration of guerrilla fighters into modern Colombian society. He characterizes the process as a swap of guns for votes. He tells fighters, "...many former guerrillas in Latin America are now heads of state, so think about it - let's stop the war". And he tells the world, "this is a tipping point, whereby we are building the conditions to build peace forever, not just for one or two years, but to change the history of this country, and to sharply reduce the global supply of cocaine".

Elusive Popularity

Seems being popular may not be a goal worth pursuing for elected officials from any point along the political spectrum.

In America, it's a reasonable conjecture that one of President Obama's wishes for the new year could have been simply that 2014 be better for him, at least politically, than 2013. So far, a different story is unfolding. On Tuesday this week, Republican David Jolly won, narrowly and surprisingly, a special election for a Florida Congressional seat (vacated by the death of long-standing member C.W. Bill Young), largely by advocating the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).Then on Wednesday, a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll placed the President's rating at 41%  - "his worst job approval rating in the survey's history" - and only slightly above that of President George W. Bush (38%) just before the 2006 midterm Congressional elections in which the Republicans lost their House majority. Moreover, the slight decline to 41%, from 42% in January, was not a blip: the last time Mr. Obama's approval rating was above even 45% was in June 2013. It gets worse - the steady erosion over the past several months has come mostly from Democrats, a record 20% of whom now disapprove. The poll continued to show a near-majority of all respondents opposing Obamacare, and, more broadly, a majority opposing the President's handling of the economy. All this of course bodes badly for the Democrats either gaining control of the House, or more importantly holding their control of the Senate, in the upcoming midterms in November. And Republican domination of the entire Congress would virtually eliminate Mr. Obama's chances of building his legacy in his last two years in office. 

A lot could change between now and November, of course. But it is difficult to identify any positive catalyst for the President. It is hardly likely to come from abroad, where events in a number of countries have reached crisis proportion and could easily worsen. The latest of these, in Ukraine, which may appear to be an old-style, cold-war showdown, is really yet another example of a failed country, economically desperate with little in the way of mature political infrastructure, that could easily split into at least two parts. While watching Mr. Putin exploit the West's apparent unwillingness to respond militarily in Ukraine (and previously in Syria), President Obama must continue dealing with numerous other foreign policy tests, trying to maintain some influence in an increasingly authoritarian Egypt, attempting to negotiate settlement with Iran regarding its nuclear program, restarting the Israeli/Palestinian peace process, withdrawing from Afghanistan, ending the ongoing slaughter in Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, and preventing tensions between Japan and China from escalating beyond their persistent skirmishes in the East and South China Seas.

But it's not just the President and Democrats who are facing political challenges in the upcoming midterm elections. Circumstances are equally uncertain for some Republicans. At least six incumbent Republican senators face challenges - not only from Democrats, but first in primaries from so-called tea partiers from the right of their own party. Republican primary voters will at times pick candidates more for their ideological purity than their electability; thus, for example, one of the leading Republican contenders for the open seat in Georgia, Paul Broun, has described evolution and the Big Bang theory as "lies straight from the pit of hell". Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell faces a similar challenge, from within, from Matt Bevin, a businessman, a father of nine, and a basher of Obamacare, bank bail-outs and McConnell's pivotal role in raising the debt ceiling earlier this year. McConnell told the New York Times that he expects to "crush" Mr. Bevin in the primary (in part by massively outspending him). But he will remain vulnerable against his Democratic opponent. Apparently nearly 30 years of service as Kentucky's senior Senator, and of backroom deal-making in the Senate, are not sufficient to ensure easy re-election. 

This eventful week did end with a rare display of bipartisanship in Washington. In an early celebration of St. Patrick's Day, the Irish Prime Minister arrived Friday for his traditional visit, among other things lunching with House Majority Leader Boehner who also invited President Obama, Vice-president Biden, and the press. Boehner and Obama were shown joining together in singing the chorus of "Wild Rover", a traditional Irish folk song. Perhaps both men felt this was one of the few ways left to them to reverse their sinking popularity.  

An Exception to An Otherwise Dismal Pattern

 Over the past few years, in one country after another, a disturbing pattern has emerged, of which unfolding events in Ukraine are just the latest example. Mass demonstrations, by despairing citizens, arise, typically in the central squares of capital cities, then spread to the provinces; these, in turn, spark often violent reaction from governments desperate to retain their long-standing hold on power, taking the form of placing riot police, army personnel and even tanks in the squares with, at times, instructions to shoot at and kill protesters; then, as global press coverage increases and demonstrators prove extraordinarily resilient, the reigning autocrat is forced to give up, flees the country or is imprisoned, and his regime collapses; the world applauds, rushing in with emergency economic aid, while an IMF team waits in the wings, ready with a long-term recovery plan that invariably includes multi-billion-dollar loans conditional on fiscal reform, including the phasing out of unaffordable, but very popular, fuel and food government subsidies; finally, a new government is formed by political opponents who call early elections and promise to be honest and representative in the interim.

This pattern has so far not typically ended well. In the Arab Spring movements, for example, new regimes have proven themselves inept, utterly incapable of filling political vacuums (think Libya), or simply bent on instituting their own alternative form of autocracy (think the Muslim Brotherhood and former President Morsi in Egypt); economic pressures have persisted and usually worsened; and the state of the post-demonstrations union, and the everyday plight of most citizens, have remained at least as dismal as ever. Clearly, bringing down a despotic, extractive regime has been the relatively easy part; replacing it with transparent, effective government is quite another task.

There are exceptions to the pattern, usually in countries where the process of democracy is entrenched. Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto, has become - given his, by now, well-known antics, utterances and crack pipes - something of an international joke, and certainly an embarrassment to a city and province now obliged to investigate him, and to a country not normally thought of as being out of control. But notwithstanding that Mr. Ford has managed to remain in office quite beyond his expiry date, Canada's largest city has a framework in place in which citizens can choose to replace him without resorting to igniting fires in the streets and squares. They won't risk being beaten, imprisoned or murdered for demanding change. In a mature democracy, it's called, simply, a scheduled election. And following on the theme of this blog - that finding better leaders to replace ousted despots is the really hard part of the process - Toronto has a number of declared candidates for mayor (think especially John Tory), any one of which could be counted on to restore competent leadership and administration.

Advocates and students of democracy have always regarded it as a potent but imperfect mechanism. John Adams, an Enlightenment political theorist, America's first vice-president, and its second president, even thought that "democracy never lasts long". Recent world events, in which democratic experiments appear to have failed, or at least stumbled badly, certainly attest to this view. But some nascent democracies, like the one in America when John Adams was writing, may start out as fragile, but can and do mature. Those long-lasting ones, such as what exists in Canada's largest city, do continue to function - often messily - but in a way that produces peaceful political transition. That's quite a lot - and why the world should not give up nurturing democratic movements however fitful their beginnings.  

Latin American Dynamism

There seems no end to the stream of reports describing rising political tensions between world powers, violent demonstrations wherein governments shoot at and kill their own citizens, desperate refugees fleeing war zones, or imminent economic collapse of whole nations. In this regard, one thinks of recent developments in such countries as Ukraine, Syria, Egypt, South Sudan and Central African Republic, and such regions as the South and East China Seas (all of which this writer has addressed in previous blogs).

So it's time for some good news. Wracked for years by hyperinflation, corruption and political instability that frequently morphed into outright thuggery and terrorism, Peru has in the past decade transformed itself into Latin America's economic star. Over this period, growth has averaged some 6 per cent per annum, rapid enough to almost double the size of the economy, and inflation has been beaten down to a precedent-setting (especially for Latin America) rate of some 2 per cent. This remarkable performance reflects in part a prolonged and favorable climate for foreign investment undertaken by the world's gold- and copper-mining corporate giants; capital inflows have surged, at times to a point requiring the Peruvian central bank to intervene in the foreign exchange market to prevent both too rapid an appreciation of the sol and excessive domestic liquidity. But it is also the result of good, or at least much improved, government. A string of Peruvian administrations, often following guidance from the IMF and World Bank, has implemented and sustained an ambitious reform agenda that has included investment in both human capital (education) and physical infrastructure as well as the removal of labor market bottlenecks, all of which have enhanced productivity and international competitiveness. There are challenges: the global growth shock that permeates through lower commodity prices in recent quarters is reducing the country's growth through a drop in exports and widening of its external current account deficit; and with slower (though still strong) growth, and still-high poverty, inequality, and crime rates, Peru's increasingly reclusive, center-left President, Ollanta Humala, faces rising unpopularity.

Overall, though, Peru is a political and macro-economic success story. Lima, its capital, now receives thousands of foreign tourists, who traditionally headed mostly to Cusco, the former Inca capital, and the ruins of Machu Pichu. As typically happens as an economy develops and matures, whole new sectors of the economy are emerging, from the bottom up, notably, for example, the restaurant industry. Lima's business district is the home of the Astrid y Gaston restaurant, ranked 14th in the world by Restaurant magazine. (The Astrid's founder, Gaston Acurio, who has set up 37 restaurants in several countries that now record annual sales of $100 million, is so popular as to be talked about as a Presidential candidate.) Further, Lima has 52 privately-run cooking schools, and is home to France's Cordon Bleu school's only Latin American location.

Governments throughout the world, in both developed and developing countries, anxious to foster economic development such as has occurred in Peru, would do well to emulate just what that country's policy-makers have done - summoned the political courage and persistence necessary to implement a broad, macro-economic, political and legal framework within which private sector investment can flourish.