Bush delaying new AHDR

I'd never thought I'd write this, but Thomas Friedman actually has something interesting to say in his latest column! Friedman is revealing, for the first time I think, that the Bush administration is behind the delay of the release of the third installment of the Arab Human Development Report, which is on governance:

Then I started to hear disturbing things - that the Bush team saw a draft of the Arab governance report and objected to the prologue, because it was brutally critical of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Israeli occupation. This prologue constitutes some 10 percent of the report. While heartfelt, it's there to give political cover to the Arab authors for their clear-eyed critique of Arab governance, which is the other 90 percent of the report.

But the Bush team is apparently insisting that language critical of America and Israel be changed - as if language 10 times worse can't be heard on Arab satellite TV every day. And until it's changed, the Bush folks are apparently ready to see the report delayed or killed altogether. And they have an ally. The government of Egypt, which is criticized in the report, also doesn't want it out - along with some other Arab regimes.

So there you have it: a group of serious Arab intellectuals - who are neither sellouts nor bomb throwers - has produced a powerful analysis, in Arabic, of the lagging state of governance in the Arab world. It is just the sort of independent report that could fuel the emerging debate on Arab reform. But Bush officials, along with Arab autocrats, are holding it up until it is modified to their liking - even if that means it won't appear at all.

It makes you weep.

Incredible.

Comments

[Moritz]

looks like bush made his point clear many years ago and still sticks with it. "everyone who is not with us, is against us!* and besides, these arab intellectuals are the same nutters as these crazy terrorist loving (tree hugging) democrats in the US anyway. (sarcasm off) it makes me speechless! if you should get your hands on the draft of that report, post it!

moritz

[Josh Stacher]

This is all the more sad when you consider when the GMEI was released last February - I remember Nader Fergany, one of the AHDR's authors, saying the the GMEI borrowed heavily from the AHDR for the same reason a drunk uses a lamppost - for support not illumination (Archer, "Greater Middle East" LeMonde Diplomatique, April 2004).

I think I actually have Ferghany in a research interview discussing how the US was being disruptive after last year's AHDR was released. I vaguely recall the US was pressuring the UN to cut research funding for Ferghany and Co. Need to review my notes.

[issandr]

I made a call this morning to Fergany's office to confirm this, but he's apparently out of town. I should be seeing him on Monday and I'll publish the interview here if he has something interesting to say.

The Monde Diplomatique article that Josh refers to can be found http://mondediplo.com/2004/04/04world">here and it's by Gilbert Achcar, not Archer.

[leila]

This idea of spouting received, obnoxious ideas as "cover" for more difficult, challenging ones explains a lot of Friedman's most irritating work. I don't read him too much any more but when I do, I can usually tell which is his cover story and which is the idea he's trying to slip past the Israel-right-or-wrong crowd. Analyze a few of his columns and you'll see for yourself. He often says the most obnoxious things and then follows with something relatively reasonable and fair (from an Arab point of view) that might make the right-or-wrongniks scream if they had to read it straight.

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