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| Volume XI, Spring 2004, Number 1 |
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| Book Review Essay Excerpts |
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The Paradoxical Kingdom: Saudi Arabia and the Momentum of Reform, by Daryl Champion. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 392 pages, including notes on transliteration and a glossary of Arabic words, map, an appendix on sources, bibliography and index. $32.50, hardcover.
The New Pillar: Conservative Arab Gulf States and U.S. Strategy, by Simon Henderson. Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Paper No. 58, 2003. 104 pages, including executive summary, maps and appendices. $14.95, paperback.
Brooks Wrampelmeier
U.S. Foreign Service Officer (ret.); served in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE
Saudi stability is the subject of Daryl Champion's book The Paradoxical Kingdom. Champion, an Australian research scholar, starts from the premise that Saudi Arabia remains of critical economic and strategic importance to the West. What happens in the kingdom, therefore, will have long-term consequences, not only for the Gulf region and Middle East but for the West and the global economy.
In Champion's view, it is economic rather than political security that is going to be the determinant of the kingdom's immediate and medium-term fortunes (pp. 2-3). In an introduction, Champion outlines the approach he will follow, stating that "[t]his book aims to bridge studies which emphasize the sociopolitics of Saudi Arabia and those which focus on the kingdom's political economy" (p. 15). In short, the author seeks to study "the way in which religion, tradition, society, economy, politics and the state in Saudi Arabia build upon, interact and influence each other in the current era of reform . . ." (p. 16).
Simon Henderson's The New Pillar is a very different kind of book. Henderson, a London-based former correspondent with the BBC and the Financial Times, has written extensively on energy matters and the Persian Gulf states. Brief and journalistic in style, his book is clearly aimed at a general readership with little knowledge of the subject. Writing after the initial military success of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the author covers more recent events than does Champion.
Henderson deals with all six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Interestingly, this book was initially entitled Reluctant Allies: U.S. Policy toward the Conservative Arab States of the Persian Gulf. A focus of this book is the way in which the United States and the smaller GCC states have been moving closer together while the United States and Saudi Arabia have been moving further apart. The new title was evidently chosen to reflect the author's theme that Washington should now give more weight to its relations with the smaller Gulf Arab states. The anti-Saudi thrust of the book is further underlined by a "Preface" signed by the Washington Institute's chairman and president. They state that the U.S. military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq "have had the derivative benefit of helping to free the United States from an embrace of Saudi Arabia that had become uncomfortable and, to some, even odious" (p. ix).
Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-honor World, by
Akbar S. Ahmed. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishing. 213 pages. $19.95,
paperback.
Antony T. Sullivan
Director of Faculty, International Institute for Political and Economic Studies, Crete
This is a painfully honest and intensely personal book that expresses the anguish Akbar Ahmed and many others who have worked in the arena of Christian-Muslim understanding have felt since 9/11. It captures those dark nights of the soul to which one may be more tempted to capitulate with every passing day. The question, implicit or otherwise, on every page, is this: Have all the efforts on behalf of interfaith understanding, tolerance and forgiveness been for naught? Especially painful for Professor Ahmed to relate must have been the efforts made by some Muslims over more than a decade to frustrate his initiatives on behalf of Abrahamic reconciliation. Ahmed candidly discusses the deterioration in the Islamic world that has contributed to the present crisis, while also pointing out the Western stereotypes concerning Muslims and their culture that have contributed to what he admits is now a clash of civilizations. Despite this mountain of bad news, the author nevertheless expresses hope for a better future. For all is indeed not dark, and Professor Ahmed offers examples of some of the positive signs. Clearly, he intends to continue his efforts to promote reconciliation between Islam and Christianity, and East and West. Can any of those who also work in this field fail to do likewise?
Palestinian Politics After the Oslo Accords, by Nathan J. Brown. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Notes, bibliography and index. 323 pages. $19.95, paperback.
Philip C. Wilcox
President, Foundation for Middle East Peace
To break this impasse and create a new approach toward resolving the conflict that goes beyond rhetoric and wishful thinking, American policy makers will need a better understanding of both Israeli and Palestinian internal politics. On the Palestinian side, Professor Nathan Brown's Palestinian Politics After the Oslo Accords would be a good place to start. Brown, who teaches political science and international affairs at the George Washington University, has rare credentials as a scholar of legal and constitutional development in the Arab world. He spent a year at Ben-Gurion University in Israel for field work in Palestine and intensive study of Arab language materials. The result is a broad, deep and richly documented analysis of the ups and downs of Palestinian state and institution building from the return of Yasser Arafat and the PLO in 1994 through June 2002.
In his preface, Professor Brown explains his goal of understanding Palestinian political development, not just as a subtext of the peace process and the conflict with Israel, and comparing the Palestinian experience with a broader Arab perspective. Acknowledging that this approach is controversial, he cites the unresolved debate among Palestinians over whether political reform and state-building must await liberation or whether winning a viable Palestinian state requires internal reform of Palestinian institutions.
Brown found that many Palestinians, while recognizing the serious limitations imposed by Israel's continuing control during the Oslo process in the 1990s, have been less willing than foreigners to blame poor Palestinian governance and institutional weakness on Israel and the "situation" and more willing to press for internal change. He also discovered a more serious and vocal debate about governance issues than in any other Arab society, where the problems of authoritarianism, corruption and lack of accountability are similar, and, in Brown's view, sometimes worse.
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