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| Join Daniel Pipes on a Fact Finding Expedition to Israel (For full details click here) Please take a moment to visit and log in at the subscriber area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in your area. The Middle East Forum: Strategy, not Advocacyby Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/01/the-middle-east-forum-strategy-not-advocacy
Given the many excellent organizations dealing with Middle Eastern and Islamic issues, what niches does the Middle East Forum's fill? We provide strategic counsel, as opposed to advocacy or apologetics. To understand what this means, look at the Arab-Israeli conflict, which attracts particularly intense attention and vehement views. Advocates fill the news pages and airwaves with passionate statements of justification and condemnation. Their work involves morality: which of the combatants acts with justice, and which acts in evil ways? Those advocates who win this argument shape public opinion and that, in turn, influences or even determines government policies. But morality and justice are not the only important debate; another one, more specialized, concerns strategy – not who is right or wrong, but how to win. This latter discussion focuses on an assessment of forces and offers ideas how to achieve one's goals. The strategist takes the goals for granted (i.e., a secure Israel) and focuses on achieving them. Advocacy and strategy each have their role. The advocate speaks of right and wrong, the strategist deals with success and failure. Passion marks the former, ice runs in the latter's veins. The advocate would choke on presenting his adversary's viewpoint but the strategist routinely puts himself in his opponent's place (think of war games). For example, I have imagined myself in charge of the Islamist movement, figuring out what it should do so as to understand how best to stop it. Like most research institutes, the Middle East Forum focuses primarily on strategic activities. This is, I believe, the best use of our having devoted years or even decades to the study of our topics. To defend our outlook, attack the views of our opponents, and convince the undecided are crucial tasks, but not ours. We focus on helping our side figure out how to win. Not being based in Washington, the Forum's work is directed primarily toward two audiences: (1) the public and (2) specialists who both share our outlook and seek information, analysis, and policy recommendations. For example, when I discussed the media's biased coverage of Israel, I do so not to discredit it but to understand its logic and to suggest ways for those concerned with Israel's security and welfare to deal with it. Likewise, during the Gaza hostilities of 2008-09, I stayed away from justifying Israel's conduct or excoriating Hamas but instead criticized Israeli strategic ineptitude and offered an alternative approach. Debates, responses, corrections, defenses, polemics, and apologetics have a crucial role; but the Forum is engaged in finding the path to victory. (January 31, 2012) Related Topics: Daniel Pipes autobiographical, US policy Anarchy, the New Threatby Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/01/anarchy-the-new-threat
The scourge of the twentieth century was overly-powerful governments; could the looming problem of this century be too-weak governments?
The largest number of fatalities was 78 million killed by the Chinese Communists, then 62 million by the Soviet Communists, 21 million by the Nazis, 10 million by the Chinese nationalists, and 6 million by the Japanese militarists. Even this listing is incomplete; as Rummel puts it, "post-1987 democides by Iraq, Iran, Burundi, Serbia and Bosnian Serbs, Bosnia, Croatia, Sudan, Somalia, the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and others have not been included." And while murderous regimes certainly continue to rule and massacre, there is a new danger looming – anarchy. Consider several cases in the Middle East in chronological order:
Syria is not yet anarchic but the regime has lost control of several towns (Zabadani, Saqba) and more could be on the way. The same story holds in many countries of Africa, including Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Parts of Russia and Mexico suffer from anarchy. Piracy has grown to the point that it afflicts several parts of the world. Because this pattern is so much at variance with the old problem of overweening central government, it tends not to be seen. But it is real and it needs to be recognized. (January 28, 2012) Related Topics: Middle East patterns This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL. | ||||||||
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The political scientist R. J. Rummel estimates, in his evocatively titled study, 
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