"North Africa: Reform, Development and Islamism"

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Middle East Policy Council

Fiftieth in the Capitol Hill Conference Series on U.S. Middle East Policy

North Africa: Reform, Development and Islamism

Speakers:

William Lawrence
Maghreb and Islamic Affairs, Office of Science and Technology Cooperation, State Department

Reinhold Brender
Political Counselor, Delegation of the European Commission to the US

David S. Sorenson
Professor of National Security, Air War College, Maxwell Airforce Base

John Entelis
Professor of Political Science, Director, Middle East Studies Program, Fordham University

I. William Zartman
Jacob Blaustein Distinguished Professor of International Organizations and Conflict Resolution, SAIS

Chas W. Freeman, Jr.,
President, Middle East Policy Council

Cannon Caucus Room, Cannon Building
Washington, DC
Friday, September 14, 2007

Transcript by:
Federal News Service
Washington, DC

CHAS. W. FREEMAN, JR.: This morning, we are talking about a neglected topic, North Africa, where many things are happening and much attention is not being paid in the United States. This is odd because this is a strategically very important area with a close relationship to Europe, and it is a source of Muslim populations in Europe that have become a matter of interest and concern to us. So I'm very pleased today that we've been joined by Reinhold Brender from the European commission delegation here in Washington. He is a former reporter for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; and a scholar with a doctorate who has focused on relevant issues. He will be presenting a European perspective.

We will lead off, however, with a discussion of American policy in the region by Bill Zartman. Professor Zartman is a senior professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies with a wonderful record of writing insightful things about negotiation, pre-negotiation and exploratory dialogue, as well as about this region.

Dave Sorenson a professor at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, who is coediting the next issue of our journal, with its editor Anne Joyce and Pia Wood, associate vice provost of the University of Tennessee.

John Entelis will speak next. He is a professor at Fordham University with much experience in the area through various Fulbrights. He has written extensively on Moroccan and Algerian politics, as well as the general issue of Islam, democracy and the state in North Africa.

Finally, Bill Lawrence of the Department of State will complete the program. He is himself a Ph.D. with a very eclectic background involving music, the Peace Corps, North Africa development consulting, research and now science and technology relations with a focus on the new relationship with Libya.

I. WILLIAM ZARTMAN: I'm going to present an academic's eye view of American policy in North Africa. I have never made that policy, although God knows I've tried. And I have Uncle Sam over here on my right, looking over my shoulder, so when it comes to questions, you can address them to him, and he will correct what I've said. I'd like to talk first of all about the strategic importance of the area in U.S. eyes, then the view of the individual states, and then policy reaction - in fact, response - to that situation.

The region is of strategic importance. It may not be of direct, primary strategic importance in the same way that the Middle East itself is - we don't have commitments as we do to Israel or to Lebanon, and it doesn't have the oil concentration that the Middle East does - but it's important. First of all, it's the western most extension of the Mediterranean, that leads to the Middle East. We usually talk about strategic importance looking at geography, but its importance is geographic and political. North Africa is one of the shores that give access to the Mediterranean and, were it hostile, our ships would be beyond gun range, no doubt, except in the Straits. But still, it's important to have a friendly shore.

It's also Western Europe's backyard. It is Europe's Mexico. And therefore, it is, again, indirectly important, because it's important to people who are of primary importance to us. But third, as the western end of the Mediterranean, it's important because it's been more or less - and I'll get into that - an area of political friendship. The countries of the region are not and - except for Libya at one point - have not been hostile to the United States, though with various degrees of friendship and policy friendship. Second of all, it's important because it's the western end of the Arab world. That is, not its sea importance, but its land importance.

Maghreb means the area where the sun sets, and it is, and Morocco's name is, the extreme western end of where the sun sets. So, it is; it provides access to a political community that is of importance to us, access to the eastern and the core area of the Arab world as countries meet Arab heads of state, the Islamic Conference, and so on. Thus, and I'll mention it again, the United States has developed a free trade association with Morocco and with Jordan, so as to kind of frame an area where we look to develop a free trade area over the entire region.

It's also a cap on the African continent. We have the Trans-Saharan, a counter-terrorist initiative that the North African states take part in. And, it too represents countries that are not just geographically placed close to us, but include countries that are the closest among the Arab countries to us, countries that cooperate wholeheartedly, officially, in many American policy initiatives, and countries that do less, as I will get to. So its strategic importance is great.

With individual states, we have both negative and positive interests. Morocco is an old ally of the United States. Every time you mention Morocco, you have to say that it was the first country to recognize the United States and it has the oldest friendship treaty still in existence. It's been a steady political supporter of United States initiatives, particularly in the Arab world. They're helpful in the Israeli-Egyptian negotiations, supportive - publicly supportive - after the 9/11 incident, part of a free trade area, as I mentioned, and has an increasingly politically liberalizing atmosphere. It just held free and fair elections in a multi-party system - under a monarchy, to be sure, but one in which a moderate Islamic party took part and did quite well. It's also a country focused on economic reform and trying to bring its economy, largely agriculturally-based, but also developing industry up to modern standards.

Algeria is, in a sense, the reverse. It's a strategic ally; but it has frequently been a political adversary. It was a leading Arab country in the rejectionist front; it's a friend of Russia, Soviet Union before; and has gone through a heavy arms rearmament program with Russia. It has not free and fair elections, although it has a multi-party system. And its important to us as a window to the radicals.

Tunisia is an old ally, a long-time moderate friend, but also, with not free and fair elections. It cooperates, as does Algeria, in anti-terrorist activities, and follows kind of the Chinese model of economic liberalization and political controls.

Our policy aims, I think, are quite simple and broad in this area. They are: economic development, both for our interest and for theirs, because economic underdevelopment spurs, creates an atmosphere that leads to terrorism; political liberalization, both for our interest and for theirs, produces stability and produces a common value system, stems from it; and anti-terrorist cooperation, in which all three countries have cooperated very effectively.

The problem in this situation is that Morocco and Algeria are enemy brothers, are bitter rivalries for a long time, for reasons that I can develop if one wants to question it, but it's a fact. And so, because of their negative and positive interest to the United States, the United States does not want to offend either side because of its ties with Morocco and because of the danger of pushing Algeria further into a radical orientation. And so, American policy is one of balanced relations, which presents a framework for not too strong initiatives in any particular direction, but trying to develop close ties, balanced ties, while at the same time expressing our values.

So, that we regularly chide Tunisia doesn't cost us anything, for their lack of civil rights and their restrictive political system. And we sympathize with Algeria with its, as you've seen, its recurrent terrorist problem, but chide them because of their civil rights, while at the same time, congratulating Morocco for its enormous improvement in a previously bad civil rights record and now a rather good one. So that policies such as military support, we give a little in non-lethal weapons to Algeria, troubles the Moroccans tremendously. And therefore, we have to look into a balance in regard to both sides. Human rights embarrassment of Tunisia to our cooperation is also a troublesome issue as we try to maintain positive relations.

The biggest - I got it. The biggest - I'll save my last two minutes for the extreme problem, I'm glad I was reminded of that - is the issue of the Western Sahara, which brings the two countries, Morocco and Algeria, really nose to nose. And there is no doubt about it; Algeria is a principal party, or a principally interested party, in the Western Sahara conflict. There is no direct U.S. interest in the Western Sahara. We couldn't care less; it's of no value to us; we have no trade or anything of that kind.

But there's an enormous indirect interest. First of all, it is not then - as has been noted since Henry Kissinger - it is not in U.S. interest to see another micro-state in this region, another mini Mauritania, because that would be a source of instability; the country has very few resources, and it would be the prey of lots of political attempts at destabilization or control from the region. And it's also a threat to Moroccan stability. The Western Sahara issue is an existential issue for Morocco, a popular issue not just of one party, the Istiqlal or of the king, but of the entire population. And were it to lose in this situation, it would be a destabilizing event.

So what's our policy in this? First of all, it's a policy of backing self-determination and finding ways to implement that slogan in reality. Second of all, it recognizes Moroccan administration, but not sovereignty, as the U.N. does, over the territory. And third, after long supporting the U.N. position of a referendum, it recognizes that a referendum is impossible with, given both parties' position; both parties block it because they block, each of them supports a different list of voters.

And therefore, the United States backs the current U.N. position on negotiation between the parties, essentially on the basis of the first proposal to come out halfway between the extreme positions; that is the Moroccan position on autonomy. And the United States is impatient to get this monkey off of the world's back, to get it resolved, because it always is in danger of bursting forth in a more violent form and disturbing relations between the countries and with the countries, on the part of the United States, when we don't need it. So, it's an area of strategic interest with some troublesome problems of importance, not directly, but because of the troublesomeness of the problems to be resolved. Thank you.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you, Bill, for that admirable and succinct review of the region. And we will, I'm sure, get into some discussion of Libya as well, which has the distinction, along with Albania and North Korea, of being our only new friend in the world, and with which we are developing an interesting set of relationships. We now turn to Reinhold Brender and the European perspective. As I mentioned, Reinhold actually is German, as you might guess from his name and his work at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. But he's not here as a German; he's here as a European. And welcome, Reinhold.

REINHOLD BRENDER: Let me briefly present you the broad lines of EU policy towards Northern Africa. The EU has a keen interest in seeing this region enjoy the benefits of political and economic modernisation. Reasons for this are geographic proximity, the importance of political, economic and cultural relations and, last but not least, the risk of overspill of problems and tensions to Europe itself.

The challenges faced by Northern Africa are enormous. The analysis developed in a series of UNDP Arab Human Development Reports has found widespread recognition, since this analysis reflects reality well. Main deficits of the region according to these reports are: (i) a freedom deficit in political and civil liberties, (ii) a knowledge deficit in terms of education and access to information, (iii) a so-called "gender-deficit" that is to say Arab women are clearly at a disadvantage in their societies. The EU has long recognised that the way out of the region's current situation must encompass both political and economic reforms.

Starting from these general observations let me present the two main frameworks of EU interaction with this region, namely the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Barcelona Process) and the European Neighbourhood Policy.

The overall objective of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership is to strengthen relations between the EU and Mediterranean Partner countries, in particular by promoting political and economic reforms in the partner countries. For more than ten years the Barcelona Process has been a central framework of the relations between the EU and ten Southern Mediterranean countries, namely: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Syria and Turkey.

It was launched in 1995 in Barcelona - hence its name - in the wake of the Madrid conference (1991) and the Oslo Agreement (1993) in order to create a multilateral framework for dialogue and cooperation. The 1995 Barcelona Declaration marked a turning point by establishing a true partnership in several dimensions: political, security, economic, financial, cultural and human.

Over the years the Barcelona Process has developed into a solid platform for the EU and its partners to discuss and to act on a wide range of issues of common interest, including the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean free trade area, transport, and energy networks and environmental issues. In the political sphere and despite negative repercussions of the Middle East conflict, the Barcelona process has helped strengthen confidence and trust. To give just one example: all Euro-Med partners including Syria and Israel, cooperate on issues of civil protection and all adopted a common Code of conduct on countering terrorism in the 2005 Barcelona Summit that now is being implemented

Trade liberalisation has also made significant progress. Since 1995, we have concluded bilateral Association Agreements with our Mediterranean partners. They provide for free trade in industrial goods. We hope to expand that to free trade in services and agricultural products over the next years. The EU is today the main trade partner for the Mediterranean countries, with more than 50 percent of trade of the region involving the EU. The EU is also the destination for more than 70 percent of some of the Mediterranean partners' exports. Europe is the main source of Foreign Direct Investment in the region (36% of total FDI).

To note also that the EU is the biggest donor in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Today we spend about 800 million Euros in grants and 1.5 billion in loans from the European Investment Bank per year on institution building, economic reforms and budget support as well as human rights. The EU's Financial Perspectives for 2007-2013 foresee an increase in funding of almost 32% as compared to the previous reference period 2000-2006. This reflects well that the region remains a top priority for the EU's external action.

Five years ago, the EU had a vision which led to a further strengthening of our relations with neighbours in the Mediterranean region and other countries. On the eve of the EU enlargement of 2004 which increased the number of EU Member States from 15 to 25, the EU dreamed of a zone of stability, prosperity and cooperation shared with all its "new" neighbours-to be. The idea of a European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was born.

The ENP is a major policy framework through which the EU interacts with North African neighbours. It is intended to avoid the emergence of new dividing lines, between the enlarged EU and its neighbours.

In its essence, the ENP is another, new important framework for reform and modernisation. I am tempted to say: as regards its immediate neighbourhood, it is Europe's approach to what in the US has been called "transformational diplomacy" and its underlying rationale of security through economic and political transformation.

The ENP covers the EU's neighbours to the East, inter alia Ukraine and Moldova, and along the Southern and Eastern Shores of the Mediterranean Sea: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. To note that for reasons related to the more general political context of our bilateral relations with these countries, Belarus, Syria and Libya presently do not participate in the ENP.

This brings me to what I would call the "added value" of the ENP. As compared to the Barcelona Process, the ENP in a highly innovative way aims at projecting genuine European experience beyond the borders of the enlarged EU in support of political and economic reform. Even though the ENP is distinct from enlargement, it builds on the experiences made with enlargement. Deeper economic integration, for example, should go beyond free trade in goods and services to also include "behind the border" issues: addressing non-tariff barriers and progressively achieving comprehensive convergence in trade and regulatory areas.

As well as 'traditional' trade preferences and financial assistance, ENP offers

�	new forms of technical assistance 'borrowed' from our proven methodology / 'transition toolkit',

�	concrete benefits such as gradual participation in our Agencies and programs in fields such as education, training and youth, research, environment, culture, audio-visual policy etc.

�	a new, specific and policy-driven financial instrument - the European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument - with increased funding and more efficient and streamlined procedures to better support partner countries' reform priorities

�	a new emphasis on improved cross-border cooperation along the EU's land and maritime borders.

A couple of days ago, on 3 September 2007, the European Commission in Brussels hosted the first ever Ministerial meeting of Ministers and representatives from all the countries covered by the ENP with their counterparts from the EU.

The meeting provided ample evidence that despite its short life the ENP has already achieved a lot. At the same time a range of new ideas were discussed, all intended to further strengthen the ENP, including economic and trade integration, visa facilitation, scholarships and exchange programs, new regional-level activities in the East, greater political cooperation (including in addressing regional conflicts) and additional financing mechanisms.

At the same time the ENP is not, and never has been, a one-size-fits all policy.. With each of its ENP partners the EU crafts a specific and unique relationship. That is the spirit which informs what we call the ENP "Action Plans". Quite simply, each Action Plan focuses on the policies, strategies and instruments which meet the priority of the individual country concerned. Where countries indicated that they had higher ambitions and wanted to go further in developing their relationship with the EU, we responded - whether that be with an aviation agreement, a memorandum of understanding on energy or additional assistance for border management.

As the policy develops, this differentiation will become more pronounced. When the EU launched the policy, we had to make it clear that the offer on the table was the same for everyone, with no discrimination. But as we get further and further away from the starting line, we expect we will see a more and more varied landscape, with as many different types of relationship developing as we have partners, but always within a common framework of the ENP.

The limits of what can be said in general terms about North Africa and also the broader Middle East is nowhere more obvious than in the topic of the relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (or Palestine). This brings me to another important aspect, namely the Middle East conflict and its repercussions on EU relations with Northern Africa. Suffice it to say that the EU plays a very active role in the Peace Process, as a member of the Quartet, together with the UN, the US and Russia. We are not only an important political interlocutor and mediator, but also the most important donor to the Palestinian Authority. I trust that the discussion will provide me with opportunity to expand on some aspects of the EU involvement in the MEPP.

To conclude my rapid overview of the topic "The EU and North Africa", let me stress again the fundamental interest of Europe in a stable and prosperous North Africa (and I would add: the broader Middle East). Promoting political and economic reforms remains key for translating vision into reality. With this in mind, through the Barcelona Process and the ENP, Europe has created broad and ambitious approaches to engage with the region, to the benefit of all partners in the region.

But we have to remain realistic. Decades of European interaction with North Africa and the Middle East from a European perspective offer the lesson that reforms takes time and patience. Pacing, the sequencing of political and economic reform, taking into account local culture and tradition - these and other factors complicate all efforts to instill democratic ways. From a European perspective there is "no quick answer" to the entrenched problems of the region.

In my own view North Africa (as the broader Middle East more generally) in the years to come may well remain a region in which outside actors have only modest impact. Shaping it from the outside will remain extremely difficult. Given the region's strategic importance and our own interests our efforts in this domain will nevertheless remain key for European and US foreign policy.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you very, very much. I think we've now had excellent descriptions of the perspective of the United States and Europe on this strategically very important region. And Reinhold made the very important observation that this issue is not at all neglected in Europe, however much it may be on the back burner here. It's useful for Americans to be reminded that the emerging European ecumene, if you will, casts a widening shadow and not simply in the east, but to the south as well, and is in fact extending habits of cooperation and rulemaking well beyond its borders.

This raises a question, which I hope we will come to in the succeeding discussion; there are several questions. Obviously, one question is: What is the relationship, if any, of the United States to the Barcelona Process? What degree of coordination do the United States and Europe enjoy, or lack, with respect to our efforts to support common interests and assist people in North Africa? And this comes in another context, referring to Europe's shadow, if you will. More broadly speaking in the Arab world, in the Mashraq, in the eastern part of the Arab world, there is a process of cultural and political integration proceeding, in which problems that were once regarded as local are now seen as pan-Arab, in a sense and with an intensity that was not the case before. I know that the concept Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat, the Middle East, which once was limited to the Levant and now is embraced in the entire Mashraq, the entire Arab east.

To what extent, then, is North Africa part of this process of broader integration of political attitudes? And to what extent is this relevant to Europe? These are questions we wish to come to. However, we also have the opportunity now to consider, with Dave Sorenson, the internal and external military threats to the region, which I think are relevant to the issues that I raised and which I hope we will discuss as we proceed. Dave, would you like to come up?

DAVID SORENSON: I'd also like to thank the Middle East Policy Council. It's been a pleasure working with Anne Joyce, and thank you Mr. Ambassador for chairing these proceedings. We did do this because we feel this region is neglected, and hopefully this will help to shed more light on some of the issues. I'd also be remiss if I were not to recognize somebody who kindled my interest in the Arab world, Doctor John Duke Anthony who persuaded me to travel there several times. I used to do security, I still do, but now I've blended security with the Arab world. And thanks to the National Council -

MR. FREEMAN: John Duke Anthony has done enormous damage over the years. (Laughter.)

MR. SORENSON: He has. He has and I'm one of his wounded, but I'm forever grateful for that exposure and I continue to be a major supporter of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. My business is security, and so what I'd like to offer is first, a security map of North Africa, and then to talk a little about military affairs. I'm going to keep my remarks brief because we do want to make sure that the participants we invited have ample to speak.

If you draw a security map of North Africa, as those of us who work for the military do, we look at internal as well as external threats. If we start with the external threats, if we ask the question, first of all, is there a prospect for interstate war between the major countries in the region, I think is the answer is: It's pretty low. Yes, there are tensions, as were mentioned between particularly Morocco and Algeria, but those tensions have been going on for an awful long time now. And to expect something that might return to the famous sand dunes war back in the '60's, I think, is unlikely. These are countries that I think have learned to understand that this conflict needs to be below the kinetic level. It's been diplomatic; it's been verbal; and it certainly has been cast in the Western Sahara, but I don't see this as real potential for violent conflict.

The Western Sahara, which we'll speak more about, has certainly become a frozen conflict; it's gone on a long time. And given that there are three different positions, upon which nobody will agree upon, and, quite frankly, very little external pressure to achieve an agreement. I was in Algeria recently, and the view there is that the United States, France, and now Spain are convinced that they must support Morocco, and therefore, the Algerians have been frozen out. And so I think unfortunately, this dispute is going to continue on, partly because, as was previous mentioned, the value to the United States is fairly marginal. And the solutions are simply too difficult to achieve because they involve compromises none of the parties are willing to make.

That said, will this ultimately evolve into violent conflict, or will it continue below the violent conflict level? And I think the prospects for violent conflict are pretty small. I could be wrong, but I think this will largely continue to be a diplomatic problem. It'll be a refugee problem. It'll be a money problem. And it will certainly be a strain on the Moroccan military; it continues to be a strain on the Moroccan military. We don't always appreciate that.

External threats I think are very low for the region. If I were sitting in the defense ministries of these countries, if they have one, and they don't all, I would look at the outside world and say: The prospects for conflict are pretty small. Could there be a dust-up with Spain over fishing or illegal immigrants or the parts of the island? Sure. But I think, again, that both parties have understood that this needs to be below the violent level. And when there was a dust-up, I think both parties worked pretty quickly to deescalate it. And I think that indicates something.

The real threat is internal. And I think there's no question that the growing concern in Algeria in particular - I think we've all been following the violence, much of it directed at the Algerian military - is the most troubling of all. Now, how much of this is related to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and how broad that organization has become is something that if I did know, I wouldn't be able to tell you. But it's shadowy. There do appear to be links coming out of Algeria; there do appear to be connections with other militant groups within the Maghreb. And those links also now appear to be growing in to the direction of Europe. It is rumored that there are links to France, to Spain. I've even heard rumors of links to Greece. I don't understand that, but the rumors are out there. And as you know, rumors often pass for truth in this part of the region.

The problem for the military is especially keen for civil military relations in the region, because when the threats are internal, the military becomes the police. And as I'm sure you all know, in all four of the countries we study, there is a gendarmerie tradition. And the gendarmerie is awfully close to the military. In Algeria, the gendarmerie work for the ministry of defense. And when you ask Algerians, what are the lines between the professional military and the gendarmerie, they are hard-pressed to tell you. The problem is that once the military engages in internal policing, it can often become drawn into internal politics. And as a consequence, I think that we need to recognize we've had at least three coups in these countries, and if you want to count the end of Bourguiba as a semi-military coup, that would be four, and I think we can do that.

The military have often broached into politics, and, as we know in Algeria, in a major way. They have withdrawn. The problem is that as internal threats become more severe, they increasingly draw the military into politics. That means that all of the regimes in this region need to find a way to keep them out. One way is to professionalize them. And I think that's been the pattern in Tunisia. I've operated with three of these four militaries just as an observer, and while I respect all of the militaries, I view the Tunisian military as probably the most professional. It is also the poorest in this region. If we look at military spending on professionalization as well as other things, it's really interesting that, while Morocco gets 5 percent of its GDP goes to the military, Libya 3.9, Tunisia is 1.4. It's a tiny budget. But again, this is a remarkably professional military.

The other way, of course, is to encourage arms sales, and we are seeing a growth in arms sales. Now, that's not just to keep the military out of the palace, but it's also to fuel an appetite that all militaries have, including the one I work for, particularly for fast airplanes. And we are seeing those sales growing, and I think that's the last part I'd like to cover because I think it raises some interesting questions. We've all heard the stories about Libya and France, and the potential for a $400 million initial agreement for French military equipment to go to Libya.

There's also Russian interest in selling to Libya. But the Russian interest, and I find this really interesting, is particularly directed towards Algeria. And in fact, what we have here, and I can read the numbers: 36 MiG-29s. By the way, a MiG-29 is a really sexy-looking airplane. But as someone who works for the Air Force, it's not that good. And the Russians are desperate to try to sell them. And if they sell to Algeria, along with 28 Su-30 fighters, Algeria will constitute 20 percent of total Russian arms sales. That's a record. And it's something we're not seeing.

I think that may have had something to do with Secretary Rumsfeld. Remember him? When he went to Algeria and said, we are not opposed to selling the Algerians' military. When I showed up at Algeria, the first thing they thought was, we were bringing F-16s along with us. So, they are interested. The sales are growing.

The one that is also most interesting to me is the French offer, and this is yet to be thoroughly and officially confirmed, but everybody in Morocco is nodding their heads when you say, yes, the first foreign customer for the French Rafale fighter will be Morocco. And I'm willing to bet on that. The problem is, this is expensive, and I think, most importantly, these are not necessarily the weapons that these countries need.

Because if a threat is internal, what they are buying are weapons that are sophisticated, expensive, and most appropriate for interstate conflict, for state-to-state conflict, for air force versus air force, rather than for the internal conflicts that I think really challenge these countries. And so I think that's going to be the challenge for civil-military relations, for North African militaries in general, and certainly, as we seek solutions for these conflicts that increasingly are getting complicated. So let me step down now; I don't think I've exceeded my time, so -

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you. We turn now - having set the stage for a discussion of some of the internal challenges - we turn now to the issues of Islamism and political development in North Africa that underlie some of these security challenges on the internal side and go back to the question I raised: To what extent is this region separate and distinct from the eastern part of the Arab world and the changes it is undergoing? John Entelis.

JOHN ENTELIS: Thank you. I'm one of the contributors to this special issue that will appear in December on North Africa, so I will be sort of excerpting certain sections from that paper. Often, in the discussion of North Africa, the metaphor of the glass being half-empty and half-full is often used, among other ways, of framing the questions of political change and development within North Africa. Another way of contextualizing the issues is the phrase, "plus �a change, plus c'est la m�me chose."

And in the case of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya, the four countries we were asked to evaluate, clearly there have been a number of significant, positive developments along the political as well as social and economic lines. And some of these positive developments have appeared recently, as in the examples of the elections in Morocco and the elections in Algeria, the developments in Libya, with the weapons of mass destruction, and the release of the Bulgarian nurses and so on and so forth. So, one could point to a number of so-called positive developments in each of the four countries including Algeria, where the military has been pushed aside as far as we can tell. Abde Bouteflika, he's retired people, Smain Lamari died last month; he was a significant military figure during the period of the civil war. Economically, one can talk about the privatization effort. One can talk about, in the case of Algeria, with the price of oil and gas being what it is, an incredible amount of infusion of rentier-type wealth that the Algerians are making full use of.

But at the end of the day, it seems to me that all of these positive accomplishments - social, political, and economic - are extremely precarious in the absence of what I would consider, and I think others would consider, in the context of comparing to the Arab Middle East as well, is the absence of democracy, of course, the famous democratic deficit - we can get into some detail about that - which reflects, I think, a more important and an issue that has much greater impact, and that is the absence of a separation of powers and the existence of the rule of law. In none of these cases does the rule of law emanate from institutions or constitutions, but they are concentrated in the hands of individuals, individuals within the executive branch of government, so that the legislative and judicial branches of government are fairly meaningless bodies, as long as they are controlled, as in fact they are, in all four cases by executive authority.

And flowing from that is the incredible gap that exists between state and society, between civil society and the political systems, that continues to manifest itself. And I would indicate as positive as the legislative elections in Morocco and Algeria, Algeria back in May. If you look at the turnout figures, among the lowest ever recorded, 37 percent in the case of Algeria, 35 percent and that's the government figures, so you can imagine they are probably even less. And that I think is a tell-tale sign of a much greater social malaise and discontent that exists within society, not all related to socio-economic issues, but equally related to political opportunity and political choice, of which there is very little. And to the extent that Islamism emerges at all and takes hold, both in its moderate manifestation as well as in its militant manifestation, it can't be detached from this enormous gap existing between state and society, and the degree of discontent and malaise that is manifested both by the number of people who want to leave North Africa and go to Europe, by those who engage in terrorist acts, and those who try to engage in legitimate political opposition, but are often denied the opportunity.

So, that is not only the glass half-empty; I think it's the very structure of the glass itself that in the case of Algeria, for example, Bouteflika is attempting, we assume a referendum will take place either the end of this year or the beginning of next year, to modify the constitution to further empower the executive by eliminating any kind of term limit, allowing him to continue as president, assuming that he doesn't die of cancer first. But assuming that his health remains, the attempt is to promote or further empower the executive branch of government.

He's got, as prime minister, Belkhadem, who is a very close ally of his, but who is also a highly conservative figure who has extremely good ties with the Islamists. He, for example, when he was the head of the Parliament back in the '80s, was instrumental in promoting and actually implementing, putting into law, the family code, which still remains an extremely conservative, if not reactionary, code, in the case of Algeria, unlike the case of Tunisia, going further back, and the case of Morocco.

What's interesting here is even where changes do take place that people consider positive, they tend to be all top-down; they all tend to be initiated by the top without much discussion with the mass public to try to achieve some kind of consensus. So that, when these laws are then finally implemented, if not imposed, there's a great deal of difficulty of making them effective if in fact the mass public has not been involved directly in their implementation.

Given the time limit, what I want to do, as you can see, I take a fairly critical view of the political processes in North Africa as they have manifested themselves in the last few decades. And as much as people tend to look at the more positive elements in the examples of human rights, let's say, or elections, or family codes, and so on, that they still remain at the mercy of individuals and they do not reflect the application of the rule of law or separation of power or institutionalization that will guarantee, regardless of who is or is not in power, that these positive achievements will be maintained.

So let me provide summary conclusions for each of the four countries and then a general conclusion reflecting my critical view. In the case of Algeria - Algeria does not practice a separation of power nor operate a system of constitutional checks and balances; the country's judiciary, for example, is not independent from the executive branch. The lack of impartiality and independence of judicial authority as a key foundation of any democratically constituted political order is widely criticized both within and outside Algeria.

The judiciary's serious deficiencies include its blatant politicization, weakened rule of law; public perception of corruption and bribery in the judicial system is widespread. Since the country's legislative bodies are themselves politically subordinated to the executive, there are no effective legislative or judicial checks on presidential authority. This reality explains the massive indifference of the Algerian electorate, most recently exhibited in the 35, 37 percent voter turnout in the May 17th 2007 legislative elections.

Simply put, until the current regime resolves fundamental constitutional questions: the armed forces' political role, presidential prerogatives, judicial independence, and the problem of establishing law-bound government, its claim that Algeria's democratic transition is moving forward on a step-by-step basis will remain hollow. The only possible outside actor, interestingly enough, that can nudge the process forward in a potentially decisive way, is the United States, since France has too complex and controversial a relationship with its former colony to act in a democratically meaningful way. Yet, for a range of geo-strategic and energy-related reasons, Washington has remained relatively silent regarding Algeria's inchoate democratic status.

As for Tunisia, let me quickly give a conclusion on that; and this, I think, is a situation that most people who are at all familiar with the Tunisian case do not dispute. But interestingly enough, while the regime has demonstrated a keen ability to sustain its authoritarian (stronghold/stranglehold ?) on Tunisia these many years. An increasingly restless and reanimated civil society is beginning to emerge in Tunisia. Paradoxically, the regime's own efforts in advancing the economy - this is a society with 70 to 80 percent of the population owns their own homes, and this is fundamentally a middle-class, in many ways a very advanced, society and economy.

Promoting the regime's efforts in advancing the economy and promoting universal education, progressives social policies, and gender equality, has aroused a political consciousness of a cross-generation of Tunisians who are now at the doorstep of democratic opportunity and insisting on being allowed in. Whether that entrance will be peaceful or violent rests on the hands of the incumbent leadership, many of whose members are extremely enlightened, but whose ability to influence an otherwise autocratic president, remains highly problematic.

With Morocco, I conclude that the state-society divide remains deep and dangerous in the country. Even the liberalized media and the relative openness of political discourse and debate in the country are vulnerable to state intervention and discontinuation when perceived as jeopardizing state interests. The precarious status of Moroccan journalists, for example, is best expressed by the media-monitoring group, Committee to Protect Journalists, which currently ranks Morocco alongside Tunisia as the Arab world's, quote, "leading jailer of journalists," unquote.

Nothing reflects this divide so dramatically as the gnawing gap separating social classes, in which a small elite conspires with a privileged, state-dependent middle class to maintain its hegemony over an impoverished mass public concentrated primarily in rural areas and within urban slums. Unemployment rates among urban youth remain excessively high, as does illiteracy, especially among women in the countryside. The overall result is a society wracked by social, class, and economic cleavages, confronting a state apparatus protective of its powers, patronage, and privileges. Under such oppressive conditions, it is no surprise that thousands of Moroccans, every year, seek to escape to Europe, or that some among them turn to radical ideologies, often jihadist in nature, to rectify what they see as an unjust, corrupt, and politically manipulative political order.

And with Libya, Qaddafi's willingness to collaborate with the U.S. on the latter's war on terror, including participation in intelligence gathering and other sharing of information involving alleged al Qaeda activities in the Sahara and the Saharan-Sahelian corridor, all speak to the pressure for change forcing itself on the great leader. It is uncertain at this point whether Islamic radicalism has taken a firm foothold in the countries efficient enough to undermine Qaddafi's fast-waning charismatic appeal, and the coercive apparatus associated with it.

In any case, the absence of legitimate institutional structures, intended to secure the system's longevity, leaves the regime vulnerable to sudden, if not violent, overthrow. Also uncertain in the status of Qaddafi's son, Saif al Islam, as his designated successor to his father, despite his high profile within the country. Whatever economic reforms the regime does or does not undertake, they will have little impact on the manner in which Libya is ruled, with political power still concentrated in the security and intelligence apparatus and the revolutionary committees both still under the control of the colonel. Plus �a change, plus c'est la m�me chose. Thank you.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you very much, Professor Entelis. Your discussion of the United States as possibly a crucial factor, possibly the crucial factor in democratization efforts in the region reminds me of a conversation I participated in in Beirut earlier this year under the auspices of the European Union, a dialogue with Hamas, Hezbollah, at which an Iranian spokesman said something very much like the following. He said: When you Americans began your drive for democratization in the region and set the spread of democracy as a major objective of your foreign policy, we wondered whether you knew what you were doing. Now, we know that you did not know what you were doing because every election that has been held has turned out to our benefit, rather than yours. And therefore, we are not surprised that you have abandoned this objective, set it aside. But, on reflection, we think you had a very good idea, and we intend to pick up where you left off.

Serious or not, I don't know; but it is interesting that the most convincing example of a genuine democratic movement, despite its other blemishes, is Hamas, an Islamist democratic movement, which may or may not have relevance to other parts of the region. We can talk about Mauritania later, yes, and indeed, that reminds me, that the last panelist, Bill Lawrence, served in Nouakchott as well as in, I believe, Marrakesh and Tunis and where else, Kuwait, Rabat, maybe, and knows the area well both from his pre-government service and from his service in the government. You might say a word about Mauritanian democracy. Please.

BILL LAWRENCE: Good morning. I'd like to thank the Middle East Policy Group for putting this together. The organizers showed a lot of vision in paying attention to an oft-neglected part of the world and I'd like to underscore everything they've said about how important North Africa is to everything we do in government and related to the global war on terror and everything else. I often say, within the department at sessions like these, we ignore North Africa at our own peril; and I encourage all of you to continue to investigate and to learn about North Africa because it's incredibly important for the future of the entire Middle East and Muslim world. And I would note: There's a lot of - I'm going to be talking about youth this morning - there's a lot of movements, east-west of North African youths, which I'll get to, and that's something that is not paid attention to enough as well.

I would also like to point out, since we don't have a historian in the panel, and I'm a historian by training, that there's a long and interesting history to be studied. And from this session, I'm on my way to the National Archives to pick up a copy of the 1797 Treaty of Friendship with Tunisia, the last of the Barbary states treaties and taking it over, we're going to have an event next week at Georgetown commemorating 210 years of U.S.-Tunisian friendship and have a discussion about, let's call it, the rise and fall of U.S.-Tunisian development assistance, which in itself is a very interesting case study in the effects of a large engagement with one of these countries by the U.S.

In 1960s, '70s, and '80s, U.S. assistance to Tunisia was so grand that it was a percentage of GNP of some significance. And things like the low, which I'll get into, the low growth rate of the Tunisian population is a direct consequence of cooperation and family planning etcetera. And then, with the closure of the USAID office and Peace Corps in the '90s, and other, let's call them, developmental disengagements, subsequently, Tunisia was sort of just, to some degree, left on its own. And so that, in and of itself, is a very interesting case study to ponder as we pay more attention to North Africa.

I'd also like to, since I was asked, to say something quickly about Libya. I was actually late this morning working on some urgent Libya business. Our engagement with Libya has been a very exciting part of working on the Maghreb at the Department. Almost every aspect of Libyan society and economy, including the oil industry, is ready for U.S. inputs. But it's been very difficult to get that relationship moving, and I'm a big fan, as you know, as a Peace Corps volunteer, as an educator, of track-one efforts, as well as track-two efforts. And I've been working very hard, over the years, on Libya to try to help get more Americans going to Libya and interested in Libya. There's almost no area where the Libyans aren't seeking cooperation and we haven't done a good enough job here and there's a lot of areas to cover, so that's just a pitch for paying attention to Libya and getting involved in that.

In terms of Mauritania, I note that the Mauritanian democratic transition is probably the most neglected political event in Africa of the last couple of years. We had a democratic transition in the country of Mauritania. Our deputy secretary went out for the inauguration of the new president, but it's hard to find much news coverage; it's hard to find much coverage in conferences. Mauritania, I will point out, to make a quick plug, is a member of the Arab Maghreb Union. I was hoping it would be included in today's program and I'm happy to take questions on Mauritania, but I think, among other things, the new abolition of slavery, and I think equally important is the return of the exiles of 1989 conflict, which hasn't gotten much attention, is very interesting in terms of the ethnic politics of Mauritania and the wider region.

So there's a lot of things to learn about that have been happening recently in Mauritania, and even more importantly for the subject today, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, the other Sahel countries and areas to the south of the Maghreb, are increasingly important strategically to the Maghreb. The Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership is just one aspect of the increasing attention to the Sahel; and we ignore the Sahel at our peril as well, as some of my friends in the other agencies will concur with.

In terms of my talk today, I wanted to focus on certain demographic and economic realities in North Africa, and some expressions of North African political culture. (Off mike.)

The first thing I'd just like to point out is that the North African population is among the youngest in the world. You often hear the phrase 65-70 percent of the population is under the age of 30 year old in these countries; it's true. The median age in Tunisia is 28, in Algeria 25, Morocco 24, Libya 23. Western Sahara has the same demographic spread in Mauritania, where the median age is 17. And if you look at the - I had a chart I was going to show you, but we didn't have the overhead projector - but if you look at the demographic trends over the next 10 to 15 years in terms of youth; the youth bulge and the echo boom we talk about in demographics of the previous big population spike, things in a population sense are going to get worse before they get better.

Even Tunisia, which has the best demographic profile of any of these countries, laments publicly and privately about how to find jobs for all of these young people graduating from all of these Tunisian schools that have been built over the last several decades. And the growth rates for all of these countries would have to be in the double digits to employ the number of young people who are coming up.

And by way of further explanation, I would just point out that the reason for the demographic explosion in North Africa is often misunderstood. It's not high fertility. Fertility rates have been plummeting over the last several decades. It's just the death rates have been falling faster. The reasons the death rates are falling faster is the introduction of modern medicine, modern nutrition, and modern sanitation; it is part of the developmental success in this area.

And I would note in passing as well that most of our development programs around Africa have more to do with survival than they do with what Europeans call insertion of people into the workforce. Millions upon millions upon millions of extra youths are surviving through to adulthood in all of these countries with no prospects for employment, given the current economic structures of these countries.

And it gets worse for the next 10 or 15 years or so, depending on the country. I do not want to argue that youth are a threat; in fact, I wrote a 500-page Ph.D. dissertation arguing with the notion that youth are a threat. Rather, to quote one of the recent articles critical of the youth bulge concept, I'd like to frame youth bulge as a challenge. And youth can be mobilized just as effectively to deal with the problems of youth as any other segment of society.

And I would point out in passing the incredible role, from 1995 to 1999 in Algeria, of a youth group known as Rassemblement Actions Jeunesse, the Rally for Youth Action, that did the grassroots reconciliation work in Algeria that was necessary for the civil concords to be effective; literally, working the neighborhoods of Algerian cities and in the countryside from which young Islamists were being produced, and finding new ways of communication and reconciliation that allowed a greater chance of success for the successive reconciliation efforts by the government since then.

I also would be remiss in not pointing out the high unemployment rates in this part of the world of youth. We have 43 percent youth unemployment in Algeria - that's a semi-official statistic - Morocco 17 percent, Tunisia 31 percent - that across the region, the countries we're looking at this morning; it's the highest unemployment rate among youth in the world, higher than sub-Saharan Africa by eight points, 25 percent versus in the teens, 17. This is serious, and if anything - if we don't address all of the larger issues of youth in our developmental efforts, unemployment alone should be enough to engage the international organizations and the governments over the next many years as a major challenge.

One other thing I'd like to point out is that the U.S. policy for the region is not only to help with reform and economic growth, and to work on counterterrorism, but it's to seek a more unified group of countries. So one thing we've been working on very hard in my office, and in the other functional offices around the State Department, is more cooperation among the Maghreb countries towards solving these problems. Not only among the Maghreb countries, but as I mentioned previously in the trans-Sahara initiative, north-south cooperation. I think only with much greater partnership among the countries could we even begin to address some of the very serious issues that need to be addressed.

Ultimately, reconciliation for Algeria will have to finish its course. It needs to continue with the grassroots level; economic development is a big part of solving the problem here. A policy response to these population flows, east-west and north-south - I'd be happy to answer further questions during the Q&A. The connection between terrorism and smuggling, and a lot of youth are involved in black market activities in these countries, where the economies are fairly dysfunctional.

And the last point I'd like to make is long-term: If we see these issues as essentially security issues, this response won't be sufficient. We'll have to place a big emphasis on political, economic, judicial, and cultural and other kinds, educational, other kinds of engagements with youth, or we'll never be able to succeed. Thank you.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you very, very much. A plug about Mauritania - turn your mike on.

(Cross talk, off mike.)

MR. : (Off mike) - or the issue after, of the Journal of North African Studies, there's an article devoted exclusively to, just on Mauritania's democratic elections, and whether or not this is a model for democratic reform in the area, for any of you who might be interested. Thank you.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you very much. Bill's point about the absence of coverage of important developments is unfortunately not limited to North Africa. I was reminded yesterday, by a very senior American correspondent who remains active in his 80s, that after World War II in the late '40s, early '50s there were 2,500 American foreign correspondents; there are now 238.

So the level of coverage of international events that is available to Americans continues to decrease even as globalization accelerates our involvement with the rest of the world, and the stakes increase. Here again, the contrast with Europe is quite large. You will find in the British, French, German, and Italian and Spanish press, much coverage of the region we've been discussing. But you won't find it here.

So on that note, we turn now to the discussion period. I would ask those of you who have points you wish to make, or questions you wish to pose, to go to the microphone to do it. And please John, why don't you lead off and tell us who you are, and try to be as succinct as I think the presenters were, and to the point. And you don't have to go and form a line there; if you signal me, I will try to make a note of you and give you a heads-up when it makes sense to go to the microphone. Yes, sir?

Q: My name is Ali Ramadan Abuzaakouk, I'm the president of the Libya Forum for Human and Political Development. I would like to, first of all, appreciate the initiative by the Middle East Policy Council to touch on the area. But listening to "North Africa: Reform, Development, and Islamism," I would have liked it if it were the Union of the Maghreb States, because that is a political entity there that brings all of them together, the five countries together.

The second one, I would have liked it if there were some speakers from the area. And I think in our city here in the States, there are professionals and people who are from the area, who can really make shed more light. Speaking about reform, development and Islamism, I haven't really learned much, maybe because I am from the area, but I wish that the speakers had touched on all these three issues because in many ways, rehearsing what we have learned is okay; but we are looking forward to what is the whole of the Islamic groups, or Islamism as we say here, in the development and in the reform, political and otherwise, in the area.

What is our role when we propose a lot of democratization, Middle Eastern partnership initiatives, broader Middle East and so on, and nevertheless we have seen there is a diversion, if not a digression, from those slogans that our policymakers have taken. Does the only thing that we care about is to get some interest in the oil fields, or strategic in the war on terror, and what is the role of the war on terror in our relationship with moderate Islamists in the area? Thank you.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you for your advice and counsel. Since it was directed mainly to the speakers, I will turn to the speakers and perhaps John you want to start, or Bill? Turn your mike on, please.

MR. ZARTMAN: All right, I think some of it falls in with what my colleague, John Entelis, was talking about, but I wanted to say a few things. You mentioned the UMA, the Arab Maghreb Union, which is the regional organization of North Africa, and I think that needs to be mentioned. It was an early and serious one of the spate of regional organizations throughout Africa; it has had a good deal of promise behind it. It is kept frozen now, for several decades really, by the western Sahara conflict, and by the fact as well that economically these countries are competitors in the foreign market, rather than complementary in their economies.

Nonetheless, were it to drop its hostile barriers between the countries, and were there to be an enthusiastic participation, there would be a good chance of improvement of economic conditions. There would be a chance too - and the security talk approached this issue - for a security community; that is, a community where armies cooperated together rather than looking at each other as potential - perhaps not actual but potential - military opponents.

So there is promise within UMA to be developed. It is not going to be, however, as I guess your question may have suggested - it is far, far, far, and many lifetimes ahead from being a single unit, an operating unit. The nationalisms of the countries are still too strong to bring them together into a political unit.

I would just mention, on the Islamic front, and then I think John has much more to say, that I think all of the countries, particularly Morocco and Algeria, have experimented with the notion of encouraging a moderate Islamist party, and trying to give the opportunity for such a group to participate within the political system. There are those for whom a moderate Islamist party is not an Islamist party; that working within the political system is a betrayal of their notions for change of the political system. And there's a quiet battle going on, a political battle, between where people who see themselves as political Islamists are going to go; will they go within the moderate option.

But I would also finally say you throw democracy at the United States, and say why aren't we democratizing the North African countries? That's a contradiction in terms: you can't democratize from the outside. The countries themselves democratize themselves, by the existence of participating political parties within a system, and a political system that allows full participation of political parties. And that's an evolutionary kind of action. So it is - I would say encouraging an arrogance from the outside to say that democratization is our business, and our responsibility. We can help it and encourage it, but it has to come from at home. And there are plenty of programs by NDI and IRI and others to help political parties develop themselves within these countries.

MR. ENTELIS: Yeah, just a few comments about the UMA. I think it's been acknowledged that the organization has been in a prolonged hibernation stage for a number of years, but not because Maghrebis do not want to unite at the level of civil society. I mean, I think North Africans very much identify with each other, and would love to be able to concretize this.

It's the nature of the leaderships, that the various personal and political disputes that obstruct the ability of this organization to become a viable - I mean, it's so logical for it to exist, and its impetus was economic initially, on the model of the European Union. But as you know so well, the way in which the conflict, whether it is the western Sahara, whether it's Qaddafi's unpredictable behavior and so on and so forth, it's made this almost a meaningless organization.

And one, I think, evidence of that is for those of you who read the Economist Intelligence Unit, and look at the various country reports. At the end of those reports, they identify the various regional organizations that these countries belong to, in the cases of Libya, Morocco, Algeria. And they talk about the League of Arab States, and they talk about the African Union, and so forth; they don't even mention the UMA. It's not even mentioned. This is a matter of procedure. And just again, I think, to reflect on the to what level it has been produced, but not because the desire isn't there, but because I think the leadership is much at odds with each other.

Now, the Islamist phenomenon is extremely important, but from a political science point of view it's extremely important because of what it says about politics, not what it says about religion. And as a result, what I see is an incomplete process of inclusion that seems to be taking place when the PJD or the MSP and other such organizations are permitted to participate, is that it's again a process of top-down political manipulation to try to co-opt and prevent the real opposition to challenging the regime. And I think most of the electorate understands that, and as a result, does not even go into vote, as the recent figures indicate.

So we in the West, we're looking so closely at the role of the PJD, sort of comparing with the case in Turkey and others, failing to appreciate the fact that from the point of view of the electorate itself, it wasn't the inclusion of the PJD that mattered, it was whether or not real opposition parties that represented a significant segment of the electorate was allowed to participate; like, for example, with justice and welfare association. Not that it wanted to, necessarily, but at least to provide it with a certain amount of legal cover.

So the Islamist movement is, first and foremost, a political movement, representation of opposition that is not being permitted to be expressed. And secondly, that which is allowed to be expressed and is permitted to be organized is essentially co-opted by the regime. And in so doing, in the very co-optation process, it de-legitimizes the movement in the eyes of the populace. So not only are they back to square one, but they've discredited the democratization process further, rather than enhancing it by demonstrating its manipulative character in the way it's being used.

MR. FREEMAN: Very briefly, Bill Lawrence and Dr. Brender.

MR. LAWRENCE: I'd just like to say quickly that the U.S. government is very much in favor of the Arab Maghreb Union succeeding. Almost all of the programs in the region that have to do with reform are regional, and it's very much trying to encourage cooperation among the states in every venue.

And there has been some success in the educational sphere, in the scientific sphere; if the AMU has succeeded anywhere, it's been in those spheres, and that's an area in which we are trying to engage even more. But as the other speakers said, until you have a solution to the Western Sahara issue, you won't be able to go very much further. And I would say that it's the U.S. interest in regional integration that's one of the major drivers of encouraging negotiations over the Western Sahara. So it's all connected.

(Off mike.)

MR. BRENDER: Thank you. Two quick comments, the first on cooperation with UMA: As you know, probably, there are some member states. It's not an EU approach, but there are the southern countries of Europe who have a dialogue, the five plus five format. With UMA specifically, there are discussions on political issues and other issues between some member states. At the member states level, it is nevertheless priority to implement and make a Euro-Mediterranean partnership, and UMA is particularly interesting insofar there are indications and trends that could facilitate the south integration economically in order to create a common economic space.

The second point on the Islamic movements that's my own assessment, I think there is no European commission line or European line specifically. My own sense is that very much depends, of course, on how these movements position themselves, ultimately, on what appear now to be gray zones: How will they deal with Sharia, how with they deal with minorities, religious minorities, how will they deal with political group pluralism and rights of women once they have power? That is the question, the question is these movements operate in a political space which provides democratic expression, freedom for expression. The question is, at the end of the day, once they are in power how will they implement their vision, and are they ultimately ready not to implement the Sharia?

MR. FREEMAN: The two gentlemen who've been doing knee bends over there are now on call. John Duke Anthony

Q: John Duke Anthony, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. A brief comment with some humor, and my question. The brief comment is that Ali Abuzaakuk asked a very good question about the Arab Maghreb Union, and Bill Zartman gave a good response in terms of its paralysis. In taking something close to 40 delegations to the region in Morocco, this question was put: What about the Arab Mahgreb Union? And one of the interlocutors said, really under the microscope, you can call us a bungling band of brothers. Can you see our king playing tennis with Qaddafi, or going falconing, or a pajama party or sleepover or even a walk in the park? We're more diverse than we are similar, let alone united.

In Tunisia, where the position, role and rights of women is substantially more advanced than the others, one woman president of a Tunisian university said that we've been trying to serve as a role model for the others, but you can say that from a clinical perspective, we are a sordid sack of sisters, and remember those statements from the region there.

The question is to Mr. Brender. How does the Barcelona process differ, if at all, with the Euro-Med dialogue? Is one the successor to the other, do they complement one another, or are they polar opposites or competitors to one another? And what is the status of EU-GCC dialogue pursuant to a free trade agreement, which is now in its 20th year, and is nowhere nearer to closure than it was before; and is that of greater importance to the EU than Arab North Africa as a strategic challenge, an economic one, and a political one?

And then lastly on the euro: Where does the EU come out in terms of the strong Euro, the weak American dollar, in a growing discussion about the positive aspects, potential, of switching to the euro or basket of currencies replacing or supplementing the dollar as the primary financial medium for international commerce, trade, and investment?

MR. BRENDER: Thanks. The first question - just to be clear, the Barcelona process is referred to also as the Euro-Med partnership, therefore it's the same. Your question, I understand, refers what is the complementarity between the Euro-Med process and the European neighborhood policy because the first two elements which I mainly referred, Barcelona process and Euro-Med are exactly the same thing; they are two names for the same process.

Therefore, the key question is what is indeed the complementarity, or not, between the Euro-Med process, Barcelona process on the one hand, and the new European neighborhood policy. That is a key question, of course. Is there an added value? And as I tried to say in my presentation, the added value of the European neighborhood policy is that it tries to bring elements of intra-European cooperation into our cooperation with our neighbors. That is the new element. The new element is the effort to project genuinely European cooperation mechanisms into our cooperation with our neighbors.

As to the second question on the gulf cooperation council, honestly I don't know whether trade agreements presently stand - I'm frank. I only know it is crystal clear that there was historically, so to speak, a challenge; and that challenge was to take the gulf region seriously in terms of our interaction with the Arab world, because the Barcelona process initially did not foresee a direct involvement of these countries. Therefore it is another component of our cooperation with the Arab world in the broader sense. The gulf cooperation countries are not integrated into the Barcelona process, and they are not in the European neighborhood policy, but the cooperation with the gulf cooperation council is another process of interacting with key countries of the Arab world.

On the euro and the dollar: Honestly, I don't feel prepared to answer this question. I am willing to take the question up and to look into this, and to come back with an answer after the meeting, not now. Thank you.

MR. FREEMAN: I will make a comment on the euro and the dollar relevant to the region. When the United States uses the dollar, and its central role as a reserve currency and major trading medium, to extend extraterritorial controls on trade; for example - as is currently being discussed with respect to the revolutionary guard in Iran, a central pillar of the Iranian state - we risk enormous friction with our European allies who are not prepared, generally, to accept that kind of extraterritoriality from us, and we drive others away from the dollar, and into the euro. But it is, in the end, economic reactions of these sorts; not policies by governments, that push things in the manner that they do.

I think Bill Lawrence wanted to add just one very brief point.

MR. LAWRENCE: Just one quick point that when the U.S. government engages in North Africa, almost everything we're doing, almost everything, is dwarfed by anything Europe is doing. And there's been several attempts in several areas to increase coordination when the interests of Europe and the U.S. coincide and overlap, which is in almost every area.

I'd also point out that this coordination is nascent; it hasn't gone very far yet, but there is a lot of possibility there. And I'd also like to point out that the European accords with the North African states have some conditionality in them, which is interesting in the reform area.

Q: Good morning, I'm Gordon Brown, a defunct diplomat. And my question, I think, builds from Dr. Lawrence's notice of the youth bulge; and specifically it is to Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Entelis, and that is I'd like a few comments on the educational system in these countries, and how they're dealing with the youth bulge in terms of designing curricula that do a little better than it would've done in the Mashrek (ph) in terms of co-opting youth into the state apparatus, rather - or not the state apparatus, but the state mentality rather than creating opponents to the state.

MR. LAWRENCE: I'll start with an answer, and if Professor Entelis wants to add anything, I'd invite him to do so. While I'm not an expert on North African education, I was in the system for three years. I taught at a university and high school level, and have been at universities in all five of the countries, and engaged with the universities. And my own take is what's remarkable about North Africa vis-�-vis the Middle East is the huge number of people in the educational system. These countries are spending - and I don't have the exact figures - but 20 percent of their revenues on education, or higher.

(Off mike.)

Well, I was going to get to that. He asked what are they teaching. I think there's a history of certain disciplines not being covered in some of the countries; there's a lot of discussion about methodologies and pedagogies and inquiry-driven methods and this type of thing; and also the methodologies they're trying to implement haven't been fully implemented yet. There's a bit of an educational revolution going on, in many ways, that hasn't fully trickled through the systems.

I think the major issue, though, is not the educational systems vis-�-vis youth. It's, well, in some cases, some countries, it's keeping the kids in the system and then, for all the countries what to do with them when they come out. These kids are highly web-savvy and Internet-savvy. They come out with computer skills; there are Internet cafes in most of these countries. The youth of these countries have technical skills and appetites for learning which exceed the educational system. They're learning on their own, in many ways.

And in addition to the educational efforts of the government, the economies of these countries are not absorbing all of that wasted talent. The extreme version of it is the hunger strikes of the graduate school graduates in Morocco, which is just sort of an indication of part of the problem. But while there's a lot of things you can do in educational reform, it's the neglect of what to do with the graduates that I think is the major neglected problem.

MR. ENTELIS: There's an absolute need for a fundamental transformation of the North African educational system, which is still very much a reflection of the French influence. And as much as young people in North Africa want to learn English, and realize English as an absolutely essential source of, you know, for business and commerce and so on, it's not easy. And often what they do is they turn to these commercial establishments of questionable educational credibility, because they realize so much how much they need this qualification, but they can't find it elsewhere.

And in this instance, by the way, the French have not been helpful at all. When El - (unintelligible) - for example was being established, or any type of American-style institution of which there is no other, except for that one in Morocco. I mean, the French have worked really hard to undermine that possibility when you compare what's going on in the gulf with the number of American-type institutions or relationships that now exist. That doesn't exist in North Africa; even though my sense is that they want that to exist, they push in this area. English language, for example, in the places where they're being taught, including what official American embassy function might be, there's an excessive demand for English learning.

So the systems absorb much too many students, the quality of education is nowhere near what is necessary for providing the jobs, and the result is a huge bulge of frustrated though technically certified young people who can find jobs neither in the public sector nor in the private sector. And the private sector is increasingly highly competitive and requires people with all kinds of skills. And that again explains one of the reasons why they still want to go to Europe, where the possibility of work exists.

Q: Bill Jones, with EIR News. After the Oslo agreements, there was this major conference in Casablanca to discuss the economic backup to a possible peace in the Middle East. One of the proposals that was put forward there was to create a Middle East development bank, which would be a development bank providing loan guarantees and the like for major infrastructural projects: water, desalinization and the like. As the process moved on, of course, the development bank became something more of a merchant bank and was operating on normal profit motive principles, and therefore very little came out of that.

However it was a vision, I think, which represented a tremendous boon; not only if it were implemented for the Arab-Israeli situation, but also for all of North Africa. And of course, the Arab-Israeli possibilities of peace there focused attention on the need for something like that. Since then, of course, we've gotten away from that vision. We're dealing on the bilateral basis, as Mr. Bertram said, we're dealing with trade agreements.

But it seems to me that, given the conditions in the area, something like that should also be implemented, possibly if there is really any motion on the Arab-Israeli front. And I'm very skeptical about the upcoming November conference, but nevertheless at some point, something's got to happen. Again, this idea of creating a bank, which can be a bank for developing infrastructure in the area would be absolutely essential. And maybe Mr. Lawrence or Mr. Brender would like to comment on the idea.

MR. FREEMAN: I'm interested that you know it's a conference. We weren't sure what it was, but I share your pessimism. I think probably there are several people who want to comment and I invite you to go first, Bill, if you wish.

MR. LAWRENCE: I'm not an expert on the banks, and on this particular initiative I would point out that banking is a big part of it; and banks with programs can play a pivotal role in addressing the types of structural issues that I raised, and some of the others raised. I would simply point out that it's just one piece of the puzzle, and I think sometimes we make larger claims for what banks can do than what they're able to accomplish in terms of addressing these issues.

MR. FREEMAN: We still don't know the answer to the historic question, whether bankers are an intelligent life form or not. Mr. Brender.

MR. BRENDER: I don't have the answer to this question, and I have elements of an answer to the first question on this Middle East development bank on this proposal.

From a European perspective, it is critical to leverage funding of development banks into projects of the region; that is clear. The question is how to do it; I'm not an expert myself, and therefore I'm not in a position to judge this particular idea. I can only say that the need has been clearly recognized, and there are ways and means for the European Union to leverage funding, for example, of the European investment bank, and also of the European bank for reconstruction and development in cooperating with this region.

And that is one of the elements of the European naval policy: to try, that is one practical strand of cooperation, to try to get funding from these major institutions. And the European commission money, specifically, is frequently used as seed funding to leverage bigger projects of these development banks.

MR. FREEMAN: Professor Entelis.

MR. ENTELIS: The whole purpose of the UMA, at least initially, was functional in the sense of trying to integrate economically the region, which then can serve as a foundation, as a stronger economic foundation in its relation with the European Union and the global economy as a whole.

Instead of that happening, the trade between the countries in the Mahgreb has lessened vis-�-vis the bilateral trade agreements existing between Europe and the individual North African states. So the very assumption of why an UMA should exist along functional lines has been undermined by the practice these countries have been pursuing these many years.

As an illustration of that in the case, for example, of Algeria and Morocco, when they built those natural gas pipelines, through Tunisia to Sicily and Italy, and the other one through Morocco to Spain. And the demand was such that there was a need for additional pipelines being built along both lines, that in the case in the west, that now they're avoiding Morocco altogether, and building a pipeline directly to Spain.

And this is, I think, testimony to the fact that so much of these decisions are politically motivated, and however advantageous economic cooperation might be, and which outsiders continuously encourage, the reality is that very little has changed along these lines. If anything, it's gone backwards, and I think that has hindered the possibility of not only economic integration but then political unity to make the UMA at all meaningful.

MR. FREEMAN: Bill Zartman.

MR. ZARTMAN: Just quickly, they are members of the African development bank, which I believe moved to Tunis after the collapse of the system in Ivory Coast.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you, sir?

Q: Jeff Steinberg, also from EIR magazine. There's a lot of skepticism up here on Capitol Hill, recent hearings of the Africa subcommittee in the House, about the much-anticipated rollout of the African command. There's a lot of questions about whether it's going to be located in Tampa, Florida, or whether there'll be some location in Africa where we'll actually be invited to be headquartered.

In particular, two areas of concern that have been voiced in these congressional hearings that I sat in on: One, an uncertainly about the nature of how the global war on terrorism is going to be conducted throughout Africa; and number two, the concern that we're getting into kind of a new energy and strategic raw materials geopolitics or confrontation.

There's a lot of talk about whether the Chinese recent moves into Africa represents the real target for this restructuring of the military command; similar concerns about some of the major European stakes in places like Libya, the parts of the Mahgreb region, the French talking about building basically nuclear energy farms to export electrical power to Europe, the recent deals with Libya over uranium. So I'm wondering if someone could illuminate what the status is, and what the underlying policy intention is of this fairly dramatic shift in at least the structure of our military deployments there.

MR. FREEMAN: I think your moment has come, Dave.

MR. SORENSON: Well, I wasn't one to want to defend the African command, or for that matter the structure of any of the combatant commands, because quite frankly I think they're created as druids consult sheep entrails; there's not a whole lot of careful thinking that goes into it; it's done by compromise.

The problem for Africa is, as I think you all know, is that it's divided within the central command and the European command, and quite frankly, neither one of those commands cared a lot about it. And for those in the administration who really believed that Africa needed more attention, you create this command. A good idea perhaps in practice, but in theory the problem is it takes North Africa, which European command in my view is paying more attention to recently, and it puts it into a command where it's going to become essentially subsumed into all the rest of Africa.

If I were to be asked - and I wasn't, thank you - I would've said no; I think what we need to do is create broader divisions within the European command to pay more attention to North Africa, because North Africa is in many ways integrated in with Europe, as we've heard.

So again I can't tell you exactly why all this happened, and why Egypt of course got spun out, because Egypt clearly didn't want to be a part of this. But in terms of how much influence it will have, who will be the combatant commander over the long term, and whether or not this is a symbolic role for domestic politics which quite frankly, I think has something to do with it as well, I think it's actually probably going to weaken U.S. policy towards North Africa, and therefore I would disagree with the formation. But it's way beyond my pay grade, and it's essentially been done.

MR. FREEMAN: It's a done deal, except of course in the sense that it doesn't have roots in any region. And just as point of addition, note that CENTCOM has part of Africa that is the Horn, and PACOM washes up against it, so it's even more confused than you suggested, David.

I think we have a comment from John, and would you like to comment, Gordon, because I know this is your - but do it at the microphone, if you would? This is Gordon's -

MR. : If I could make a comment as somebody who has worked with one of the regional commands. What you're going to see if African command is set up quite rapidly is that the combatant commander is going to have more resources than the ambassadors in the area. And that does tend to skew our policy in many ways, because all of a sudden the programs we're running in those countries are not necessarily developmental or political programs; but they're military cooperation programs. And it has a long-term and rather insidious effect on our policy, although in the short term, it's always useful, and ambassadors usually are more than happy to have these extra assets. But the assets come from a different pocket in our government. And I would say - I get on my usual soapbox, and say, what we really need is a national security policy.

MR. FREEMAN: I think we need to comment also on the last part of your question, but before we do, John. Bill, you want to intervene?

MR. ZARTMAN: Yeah, I think the danger that Gordon points out is even more complicated, because as these plans - all very nebulous at the moment, as I understand them - have pointed out is that they don't just want to be military. They want to work also on the development of sound economies and on the political aspect. So it's not only that they have more money than the ambassador, but they are actually in competition with other programs that would come from the non-military side, and that poses an interagency question of rivalry in our own government that we'll be working on.

MR. FREEMAN: John?

MR. ENTELIS: Just a comment about the domestic reaction in North Africa, across the board, in the press and elsewhere, I mean sort of vehemently, vehemently opposed to having AFRICOM located in either Libya or Morocco or Tunisia or Algeria. I mean, it is exceptional given the amount of military and intelligence cooperation taking place between these governments and the U.S. that the reaction was as vehemently opposed as it was.

MR. FREEMAN: The question was raised about the Chinese entry into the African Resource Development game. I would like to comment very briefly on that. This is, of course, highly objectionable to the traditional sponsors of things African in the United States, and to some extent in Europe, who have tended to treat Africa as a humanitarian theme park, from which capitalists and other strange beings should be excluded.

And now, we actually have people turning up and putting money into development projects because the demand for resources in China - for example, China now produces 46 percent of the world's steel, 44 percent of the world's cement, accounts for 60 percent of the world's furniture production and so forth and so on. These drive huge intake requirements for resources. And we actually have the Chinese participating in investment on a fairly large scale, and they've become the largest investors in Africa.

The effect of this is - well, first of all, it is not military involvement by China; it is economic. It is free of politics explicitly because Chinese do not export a model of any kind, and are assiduously respectful of sovereignty, even when it is extremely badly managed, as it is in many African countries. But the net effect of all this is very clear - and that is, that the era when either the United States or Europe or the two of us combined, could set agendas for Africans is over. They now have alternatives in China and India, in particular, because the Indians are also very involved. And we do not have the level of cachet, influence or ability to direct events that we once did.

So this is part of a global reduction of Western power, and a sort of a recession of the explosion into dominance of the Atlantic world that took place over the last 500 years. It's a very historic development. And it's very difficult for people to accept. But it cannot be answered by military means. They are quite irrelevant to this, I would argue.

Q: My name is Tariq bin Yousef, counsel at the Embassy of Tunisia. I would like to thank the panels for the interesting and different perspective they have brought today on North Africa. I would like to make a comment and a clarification or a precision regarding my country, Tunisia.

The first one, I would like to join Bill Lawrence in saying that the most important security challenge in North Africa is unemployment, and giving people and young especially educated people with a sense of hope and perspective. This can be achieved definitely nationally, bilaterally, sub-regionally, and also internationally. And the United States of America and the European Union, in my sense, has an important and instrumental role in helping countries of North Africa in raising this challenge.

The other point that I would like to raise, if you don't mind, is regarding the process of reform and democratization in North Africa. We have to agree to disagree that democratization is not perfect in any other country. And each country has its own peculiarities. Tunisia has its own model of development, which has been inspired by a tradition of reform, which goes back to the 19th century. It has been today ranked as the most competitive country in Africa thanks to the good governance, thanks to the inclusive and the transparent process, and the planning of its development project. I respectfully disagree with Professor Jon Entelis in describing Tunisia as the leading jailer in North Africa.

Allow me to tell you that no journalist in Tunisia is imprisoned for his opinion, and there is no political prisoners for their opinion in Tunisia. The civil society is a vibrant civil society. And this is a witness of how all different stakeholders in Tunisia operate. And thanks.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you very much for the comment. I think we should invite comment from both Bill Lawrence and John Entelis. (Inaudible.) You were praised. You don't want to accept the praise? All right, John?

MR. LAWRENCE: I know the longer John Entelis thinks, the more interesting the answer will get, so I'll stall. I'd just like to say that I hope I made it clear in my talk that the sheer data numbers indicate that this youth problem has got to be considered the primordial problem. Although I hope I made the point, and if not, I'll make it again, that employment and economics aren't the only way you deal with the youth issue. There are many other aspects - political, cultural, and others - giving youth - and I gave the example of that youth group in Algeria that played a role in the political reconciliation. There is a number of ways youth can be engaged. And you can engage with youth in a way that doesn't dismiss them as marginalized or not understanding.

I had a whole chart on this that I show sort of visually what I'm talking about. We may be able to show it towards the end. But what was the second point about - well, the other thing I wanted to say was, Tunisia has been a real model for social and economic development. Its transparency has been praised, on the economic side. Its growth rates have been astounding. And yet, even Tunisia, as you indicate and I indicated, can't meet the needs of what we're talking about. I'm curious what you think about the characterization of Tunisia having a Chinese model of development. I've heard that before. But the solution has got to be holistic, just as the problems need to be viewed holistically.

MR. FREEMAN: John.

MR. ENTELIS: Yeah, first of all, I was just quoting the Committee to Protect Journalists regarding the status of journalists in Morocco and Tunisia, in support of my position of course. But just so that in terms of where the data was coming from. The irony of your comment is it's the very fact of Tunisia's exceptional accomplishments along all these lines of gender equality, education, social improvement, economic development. I mean, the list is fairly lengthy. And everyone concurs about the impressiveness of these accomplishments over a long period of time.

But it is exactly those accomplishments that sort of compel - it seems - not only outsiders, but I think many Tunisians for the political side to achieve - and the side of civil liberties and competitive media and so forth - that that be commensurate with these incredible achievements on the other side without necessarily undermining the stability of the state or threatening the regime. I mean, this is where, you know, academics phrase it in terms of the puzzle. And there is an enormous puzzle with Tunisia, we just can't figure out, because it seems like the regime has an incredible amount of excess political capital that it can use without going all the way to what some puritanical or absolutist definition of democracy is. But it's not even close to that.

So it's that enormous gap between the socioeconomic accomplishments and the - what I and others would view as - the excess amount of political capital that is not being used to provide more legitimacy, it would seem to me, and I think diminish the amount of discontent, which people are increasingly expressing. And some of that may ultimately become militant, if not terroristic. So there are, I think, significant implications for the regime itself, if it maintains the status quo. And this is how I would argue.

MR. FREEMAN: So you're saying that Tunisia is a wonderful place to visit - which we all know - but you wouldn't necessarily want to be a reporter there or try to exercise suffrage. Sir?

MR. BRENDER: Just to say that from a European perspective, Tunisia certainly in the domain of economy performs very well. But as has just been said in a very eloquent way, from a European perspective, certainly there are human rights issues, which are serious. And there were a range of incidents surrounding the World Information summit some time ago, which were highlighting issues of human rights and democratic development.

We are very glad that we can discuss it with Tunisia; that is the important issue, that there are chances and opportunities and frameworks for discussion with Tunisia in the framework of our bilateral relations and we take it forward. And therefore, it's a constructive relationship. I do now want to be misunderstood. It is by recognizing difficulties that we can move forward. It is not by possibly not seeing things that we are that we move in the right direction.

I have two more general comments. Perhaps will there be a last round at the end, a bit more general issues?

MR. FREEMAN: There will be.

MR. BRENDER: Thanks, then I wait.

MR. FREEMAN: Dave Sorenson wants to comment on the specifics.

MR. SORENSON: Quick comment on Tunisia and transparency and accountability in North Africa. I've heard the argument, and I've heard it several places, that it is partly a function of economic progress, that the demand for democratization has been very high in places like Yemen and the Palestinian Authority because people are so poor. In Tunisia, the demand is less because people are doing so well. Some have argued it's a measure of the success of the Tunisian economy that has, in a sense, dampened down the demand for more political openness and transparency. I'm not saying that's true, but I think it's an interesting question, and I think it needs more exploration.

MR. FREEMAN: Maybe that's the Chinese model that was referred to, because if living standards go up, as they do in China, at the rate of 17 percent a year, and if the GDP in 29 years is 58 times what it was 29 years ago, then people are reasonably content and don't demand new management when the current management is doing so well. So perhaps this is, again, a half-empty, half-filled cup.

I think we have come to our conclusion. We had an offer of a slide show, but I think instead I will ask the panelists simply to make any concluding comments that they wish to make. If you need the slide show to make your comments, I guess we could do that. Your choice, Bill. (Off mike.) All right, roll it over, and the concluding comments will include cartoons. This is not Saudi Channel One where the cartoons follow the reading of the Koran, but something else.

MR. ZARTMAN: I think that we've brought out the subtlety and strength at the same time of the importance of the region. It's not a region of catastrophe and disasters; it's a region that is making slow progress with bumps along the way. And it's a region therefore that is of great interest to the United States in doing what it can to encourage stability and development and participation and liberalization within the societies themselves.

So shall we start? Bill Zartman, would you like to offer any concluding thoughts?

I'd just like to make one philosophical comment, and that is that we Americans are impatient. We got there; we forget how long it took us in history to get there. And we think everybody should be up where we are, depending on what particular value we're talking about. The cost of too rapid change is known as revolution. And the cost of revolution can be great, because instability can be great. And so we want to see a development of stability at the same time as we see a development of progress.

We hear on the Moroccan elections or some of the other elections, comments by what I would call the democratic absolutists that say the monarchy is not liking Linser (ph) Spains (ph), and practically everybody can't participate or not everybody can participate - even those who don't want to like the Islamist - (unintelligible). But the fact is that both in human rights and - in the Moroccan case, since it had the most recent elections, in human rights and in electoral choice that enormous progress has been made.

And so, we have to look at that part of the glass that is half filled and see how one can - both at home and from us, abroad - add to help the filling further, knowing that this will take time.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you. Reinhold Brender?

MR. BRENDER: Two quick comments, two points, which I still wanted to see mentioned in this discussion from the European perspective at least. The first is, I think, the war on terror has not facilitated our cooperation with North Africa. That is to say that the war in Iraq in particular clearly is in the back of the minds of many people in the region. And it is complicating our interaction with this region. I wanted to say this, and I wanted also to flag that on the issue of democracy promotion, there are many commonalities between us and the United States, but also important differences.

The second point that I wanted to mention is that we need a solution, a settlement of the Middle East conflict. It is very clear that the Middle East conflict overshadows also the relations that we, as the European Union, have with North Africa, like the United States. And as long as this very important conflict has not found a solution, our relations will not reach the level we want them to reach. Thanks.

MR. FREEMAN: In the American context, it's a very radical suggestion to consider that we try to understand the motivations of those who are displeased with us, angry and capable of striking at us. It's not foreign to our military thought, however. And Dr. Sorenson, you may wish to make a comment

MR. SORENSON: Those of us in the security business who look at threats to security in military terms are often shortsighted. And I include my own organization as among those. Yes, security issues in North Africa do require partly a military solution. But they are much bigger than that. And I think the other panelists have highlighted a lot of those issues. It is about education. It's about continuing economic development. It's about opening closed systems or only partly open systems to more inclusion so people have options.

And I think ultimately, the security will be when the military budgets in these countries go down to the level of that of Tunisia, which again, about 1.3 percent of the total GDP. I think that's progress, because that suggests that there are other solutions beyond the military. And the military spending binge that I think we're beginning to see in the region, I think may ultimately be counterproductive to some of these other goals. Thank you.

MR. FREEMAN: Dr. Entelis?

MR. ENTELIS: Yeah, I guess the point I would just simply want to reemphasize is that there is a serious misperception on the part of the political leaderships of North Africa by the degree to which their own societies are prepared and predisposed to a much greater political maturity than they acknowledge and their leadership acknowledges. And though I agree with Bill about the evolutionary character of change and the implication for change, the fact is that North African civil societies are extremely dynamic. These are progressive societies in tune and networked with what's going on in the world. They're highly informed; they travel; and so on and so forth. The Internet is fully accessible at least, you know, legally or illegally.

So the point is that, North African civil society is, I would argue, at the doorstep and has been at the doorstep for political opportunity for a number of years. And the regimes - however much they've been sort of incrementally opening up the systems - are nowhere near as rapidly as society itself, I think, is demanding. And the longer they wait and the greater the manipulation of the political system, the greater the frustrations, especially in light of the economic hardships and the issues of the youth and the unemployment that we've been talking about.

So that's the aspect that I would keep an eye on, and to the extent policy is being made or encouraged along these lines, it's for the United States to put more pressure on these regimes to open up in a much deeper and comprehensive way, even if it doesn't necessarily satisfy immediate, short-term, American national interests. But I would argue might have much more beneficial, long-term national security interests, admittedly in the context in which politicians have very short time spans.

MR. FREEMAN: Thank you very much. I don't know about those of you in the audience, but I learned a great deal. This was very interesting to me. I would like to thank the panelists, all of them, for such excellent and well focused and succinct presentations. The transcript of this discussion will be up on our website at the Middle East Policy Council in unedited form rather shortly, perhaps next weeks. And in edited form, it will appear as the lead in the forthcoming issue devoted to North Africa for which I again thank Pia Wood whom I'm delighted to have met at long last and also Dave Sorenson, as well as our own Ann Joyce. Thank you all very much. Please join me in a round of applause for the panelists.

(Applause.)

(END)

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