Contact Information

Editor: srihani@globalcomplexity.org

[This website was launched on 24 June 2001. It has proved to be popular with those interested in the international political economy, development, and complexity. By end July 2008 the website had attracted about 305,475 visits from over 111,637 Internet addresses. The home page attracted 30,903 visits.]

Website's Aim

The website is dedicated to the dissemination of ideas that seek to promote a better understanding of the factors that shape social, political and economic events. 

More specifically, its mission is to accelerate the growing shift away from mechanistic perceptions in these fields to a viewpoint that recognises them as uncertain evolving outcomes arising from complex interactions between local actors. For technical information please see Complexity. 

The viewpoint advocated in the website values variety and asserts the right, and in fact the need, for nations to pursue their diverse concerns peacefully and without internal or external coercion.

Visit Site Map for access to all pages and Archives for older articles.

Good reads presents an assortment of books and websites covering a range of topics.

Recent articles are available in General Articles, Iraq, and Palestine.

You might like to read: 

Iraq: A Way Forward (published 21 July 2008)

Inshallah versus Can-do (published 1 June 2007)

Lessons from War (published 1 May 2007)

Iraq: Mission in Their Madness (published 12 February 2007)

Neoliberalism (published November 2006)

America's Suez (published November 2006)

Iraq: RIP (published August 2006)

Israel's worst enemy (published July 2006)

Dr Haseeb's lecture (published May 2006)

Plight of Iraqi Academics (published May 2006)

Time to Divorce God from Religion (published February 2006)

Hamas Electoral Victory: a Glimmer of Hope (published February 2006)

Islam: a Disturbing Philosophy for Some (published July 2005)

Arab Human Development Reports (published June 2005).

Iraq's Holocaust (published 30 August 2004).

Political Legitimacy and Reclaiming Power (published 21 August 2004). 

America's Turbulent Decline (published April 2004).

Vanishing Democracy (published February 2004).

Bush's Unpardonable Sin (published March 2004). 

Update on Iraq's tragic circumstances

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the so-called coalition forces, and revelations about death, torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners and civilians, have done little to calm things in the Middle East. These events caused a great deal of harm to America's reputation and that of its close allies. The Iraqis have been relieved of Saddam Hussein and his cohorts. They have now discovered, however, a most unlikely truth: conditions could be even worse than what they endured before. 'Freedom and democracy' have never been so unattractive!

It is significant to recall now that the early names chosen for the campaign; Operation Iraqi Liberation and Operation Ivy Lightning (see The Washington Post of 13 August 2003), had the acronym OIL. Enough said!

Popularity of both George W Bush and Tony Blair has slumped, but then they are not in this game to be popular. The effects on their countries and citizens have been devastating. The eventual cost of the war is now put at between $1.2 and $3.0 trillion (yes trillion!). Iraq was of course not the recipient of this largess. Iraqi and American funds are being looted through corruption and mismanagement on a scale unseen before in Iraq or elsewhere. Numerous reports have been produced on the subject but the pillage goes on.

By contrast, catastrophes continue to assail the vast majority of people in Iraq, both as groups and as individuals. Some 600,000 to one million civilians have lost their life since Spring 2003. About 3,000 persons are killed every month. Over two million Iraqis have left their country. A similar number have left their homes but are stranded in Iraq. This comes after thirteen years of gruelling sanctions that turned out to be in effect just short of UN inflicted genocide. Hardly any family has escaped the pain. 

The hidden social and economic cost is devastating. Health services have disintegrated. When the president of Iraq was unwell he had to go to Jordan for tests! People who manage to leave are those with something to offer; money or expertise: assets critically needed in Iraq. At the same time there has been a persistent campaign to kill intellectuals and academics and to intimidate others to leave the country. The Christian community has experienced the biggest exodus. In my own case, not a single person of my extended family remains in Iraq. The reservoir of talent, so abundant in Iraq previously, has been drained virtually dry. To replenish this loss will take many generations even if the occupying forces were to leave and a farsighted government was to take over, tomorrow; unlikely events in any case. In short Iraq has entered its dark ages. Readers might wish to visit some of the articles on this depressing topic (see above).

Happily, people in the USA and Britain have started to express their views through the democratic process. Elections in Britain in May 2006 left the Labour government in no doubt about how the electors felt. Blair has lost much of his credibility. He is now a spent force with little or no authority. Amusing, if it were not so tragic, once Blair departed as Prime Minister he was appointed as peace envoy in the Middle East to help the Palestinians on the way to self rule. And his best qualification (apart from his whole hearted support to Bush in devastating Iraq)? He is approved of by the Israelis: so that is fine then! It is futile to wait for the presidential elections in the USA. Ultimately, the solution to Iraq's problems lies in the hand of Iraqis.

For a glimpse of the onslaught on Iraq's assets and identity please see Plight of Iraqi Academics. This scourging of Iraq is not an accident or a reflection of the state of lawlessness that has gripped the country. From the first moments of the war the targets were obvious; as happened for example when the nation's archives and museums were looted and destroyed. Killing academics and professionals, or terrifying them into self-imposed exile, was simply the next obvious step in that process.  

Update: the 'Middle East problem'

What is happening in Iraq could not be divorced from the ongoing effort to destabilise the whole Middle East. 

Publication by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) of four excellent Arab Human Development Reports (the latest was launched in November 2006) was a significant event in many ways. See AHDRs.

Muddling and meddling in Iraq increased instability in the Middle East, as seen in the Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. And it certainly did not reduce the price of oil (the price in June 2008 was over $130) or diminish OPEC's power. The opposite is nearer the mark. The awful loss of life caused by terrorist explosions in London in July 2005 simply brought home the message that aggressive foreign policies do not bring peace to either party. Again, the opposite is the more likely outcome.  

The release by the US National Security Archive of papers relating to Rumsfeld's mission in the 1980s as American special envoy to Saddam during Reagan's presidency has heightened observers' appetite (see The New York Times of 23 December 2003 and www.nsarchive.org ). 

Israel's extremist governments continue to wage war on the Palestinians in the name of peace. The 'Israel Wall' is a rising monument to years of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. The situation was summed up well by the Palestinian thinker Hanan Ashrawi in a speech at the Hyatt Regency in Garden Grove on 23 August 2003:

"We are the only people on Earth asked to guarantee the security of our occupier ..while Israel is the only country that calls for defense from its victims .."

While on the subject of penetrating comments, I though the following quote from Haaretz concisely illustrated the twisted logic of Sharon's government when he was in power: 

"Following the liquidation of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin this week,... The defense minister explained that the "wave of hits" was intended to meet the "wave of escalation in terrorist attacks that will follow in its wake."

The latest political twist came in late January 2006 when Hamas candidates won the majority in free elections in Palestine. Once again, freedom and democracy did not deliver a government acceptable to the 'world community'; with the USA and Israel in the lead. It would seem that Hams has to deliver a number of assurances before it is accepted as a legitimate actor on the ground, which takes us back to Ashrawi's comment above.  

The situation deteriorated further since then. At the moment Israel is busy energetically making new enemies. As usual, these ventures, actively encouraged by the USA, will lead nowhere. Meetings held in late-2007 to restart the so-called peace process led nowhere. This fruitless process continued in 2008. There is a promise of talks but in the meantime Israel began new aggressive operations in Gaza and new settlements in the occupied territories just in case. For a possible explanation please read Israel's worst enemy on this website.

Update on the Economic Liberal model

And events in Iraq and the wider Middle East cannot be divorced from what is happening in the global political economic field. 

The world has been in the grip of an extreme neoliberal economic model which has been promoted, and in many cases imposed, in all four corners of the world. The concept is simple: the economy is the most important aspect of life on earth, people should be free to pursue their economic self-interest, in doing so everyone benefits, and the whole process should proceed without interference from governments (see Neoliberalism).

The myth put forward by advocates is that the economy will go through peaks and troughs but left to its own devises the economy will swing into action to bring itself back to a state of equilibrium (through the operation of Adam Smith's fabled invisible hand). Advocates also maintain that economic liberalism (not to be confused with the broader concept of liberalism as envisaged by the French revolution) is value free. Some people will become hugely rich but that is acceptable because all members of society will be better off (through the equally fabled trickle down effect). 

Things did not go according to plan in the 1920s and 1930s. The invisible hand was found wanting and government action was deemed most necessary: Keynes macroeconomics became fashionable. Once the catastrophic events of the inter-war years were forgotten supporters of rampant economic liberalism resurfaced and the whole process of enriching the few at the expense of the many began in earnest. Vast inequalities within and between nations appeared and went almost unchallenged, and essentially unreported by the media until recent times. 

The World Bank published its Global Economic Prospects 2007 ( www.worldbank.org/gep2007 ) which provided an illuminating view of the serious problems facing the leading economies both through internal problems (such as a challenging dependency ratio of retirees in relation to those in work) and through external challenge posed by emerging economies (China, India,...) who now find globalisation to their liking. 

Another revealing report, based on the Economic Mobility Project, was published in November 2007. The report was interesting because it brought together think tanks from the left and right of the political economic spectrum. Shortcomings of economic liberalism were presented in painful detail. The report was not against economic liberalism it must be said. It simply demonstrated that promises and reality are not the same.

The problems that rocked the financial markets in the latter part of 2007 are simply a symptom of the larger problem facing Western economies. Interestingly, government central banks quickly swung into action to rescue banks and building societies (as in the case of Northern Rock in the UK where the bank was finally nationalised; a dirty word until then). Lobbyists for unrestrained economic liberalism who were vocal in resisting 'government interference' seem to have lost their voice altogether. It would seem that political interference in economics is acceptable after all.

In complex systems, expect the unexpected. Put another way, don't believe what politicians and economists tell you. It is necessarily so!