Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants : The Economic Collapse of the Arab World

Rating:
Summary: A coverage of the economic collapse of the Arab
Review: A coverage of the economic collapse of the Arab world might seem incongruous, but Stephen Glain's analysis in Mullahs, Merchants & Militants surpasses the usual history and contemporary political analysis to focus on an under-covered area: the region's economic structure. Chapters examine sustained economic decay in the region and its impact on political instability and extremism, recounting the ongoing decline of the Arab empire and its increasingly limited ability to pioneer new technologies and sciences. Stephen Glain was the Wall Street Journal's Middle East corespondent from 1998-2001: his familiarity with the region and his in-depth history adds a depth and dimension to discussions of economic instability.


Rating:
Summary: A question of economics
Review: Although a journalist for the Wall Street Journal wouldn't pass as an historical materialist, a stethoscope put to the economic malaise of the Arab world fairly threatens to uncover the prime mover of its current troubles. With a series of vignettes hopscotching through Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and Egypt, the author produces a significant diagnosis, with an emphasis on capitalist fundamentals that isn't market mania. Indeed, there is an ambiguity here. For all the emphasis on democratic capitalism by the West you have to wonder if these crocodile idealists with a nasty penchant for imperialism could havew done a better job crippling Arab economies if they had set out to do so deliberately. And the crippling of the economic potential of Palestine ranks as a bit of glaring contradiction to stated objectives.With so much money at stake in the status quo, it's better to blame Arafat.
Beyond that, the social mix of dictators and elites in the Middle East as portrayed is not a nice picture, and the degree of incompetence shown gets the silver metal after the Western powers for sheer botch.
The destruction of the Iraqi economy is especially depressing, as is the current American initiative amounting to considerable propaganda and the inability to restrain one's Halliburton compulsions. As the author notes, the systematic exclusion of Iraqi's from their own reconstruction fairly well shows the game in action, behind the market hype. The Iraqis had the electrical grid up and running in a few weeks after the first Gulf War.
Briskly informative and useful account.

Rating:
Summary: How strong is the Arab economy?
Review: The author is a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. And he's advancing a thesis that the Arab world is headed the wrong way economically. I tend to agree with that. After all, except for sales of natural resources, the Arab world is not particularly competitive. That's not a good sign. And while some people disliked Glain's anecdotal treatment of the region, I think it actually worked fairly well to highlight some of the problems.

Glain implies that a major Arab economic collapse wouldn't be good for anyone, and I certainly agree with that. Glain paints a pessimistic picture, and I basically agree with that as well.

Okay, why didn't I give it five stars? I seem to agree with its facts, its presentation, its conclusions, and, surely, with its politics.

But the truth is that I find fault with all of the above.

Had I been writing such a book and come to the section on Israel, I know what I would have said. I would have explained that Israel is a prime example of Arab failures to deal with truth and reality. And that it is also a prime example of present Arab opposition to justice and human rights. I would have connected all this to Arab economic and societal problems.

I would have talked about Camp David, and I would have shown how greedy and unjust Arafat's demands were (while admitting that neither side actually was offered anything of genuine value to it: Arafat was not offered Israel's head on a platter, and the Israelis were not offered peace). I would have made the point that Glain made, namely that Robert Malley and his boss, Dennis Ross came up with quite different views about the facts of what happened at Camp David. But I would have drawn the obvious conclusion from that! Namely, if you drag folks into negotiations with thugs, only to offer them nothing and then tell all sorts of lies about them, eventually people will refuse to negotiate with thugs no matter how much you want them to.

Instead, Glain seemed to imply that in a just world, Israel can't really maintain a huge 8000 to 10,000 square mile Empire. And that is pure nonsense. Worse, acceptance of such obvious absurdities is at the core of the failure of the Arab world to value truth, justice, human rights, and prosperity.