In less than a week of international economic turmoil, hundreds of millions of people lost their nest eggs, and while Western governments initiated a variety of bailout schemes - the only polite term one is able to ascribe to the ongoing global theft - many saw their dreams either shattered, or significantly curtailed. It will be a while before most investors trust the financial system with their earnings even if options are somewhat limited.
As if this troublesome week was not unsettling enough, one had to put up with asinine comments, from the most unlikely sources. Reporting from Damascus, two generally reliable observers of the Middle East, Lionel Barber and Roula Khalaf, wrote in the Financial Times (October 10) that the "Middle East [was] Jubilant Over Wall St Woes." What is one to make of this wild contention and is it true?
For the two veteran journalists, the global financial meltdown may well have "provoked undisguised gloating among the US's enemies in the Middle East, who claim the global financial crisis is a further sign that the US has lost its superpower status".
According to their reportage, "from Damascus to Tehran, a loose coalition of government officials and clerics view the financial meltdown as the result of divine retribution and the Bush administration's costly foreign policy in the region, notably the invasion of Iraq."
To further buttress their claims, Barber and Khalaf quote Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, an Iranian cleric known for his extremist views, that the crisis was nothing short of a punishment from the good Lord himself.
Jannati often speaks in God's name, but all he spews are worldly prose that betrays his calling. He may be on more solid ground if he were to maintain that Iranians sought reciprocal consideration and, perhaps, political respect, and that the absence of such privileges permit them to gloat when opportunities knock.
The Financial Times quoted Jannati declaring: "As Americans are happy to see problems in Iran we are happy to see the US economy disturbed and problems extended to Europe. They see the results of their vicious acts and God is punishing them."
To balance their broad coverage of the "Middle East" spectrum, the two journalists then turn to a senior Syrian official, who concluded that the financial fall-out illustrated that "the US [was] no longer a superpower. It [was only] a big power."
Whether Damascene officials believed that a new chapter was being written in international affairs and that their own ossified system - which seldom improved the average Syrian wage earners' standard of living - should be adopted elsewhere, was difficult to determine. For some, recent European and American interventions to overtake major banks and prop-up various stock markets illustrated state control of central financial institutions, but there were significant differences between these emergency and largely temporary measures with long-term socialised systems.
In fact, the collapse of the Soviet Union was not an example of state control success, and chances were excellent that Syria would not manage any better than its pre-capitalist ally. Consequently, it would be bizarre to assert, as Abdullah Dardari, the deputy prime minister responsible for the Syrian economy did to Barber and Khalaf, that the recent meltdown "proved [that] our vision of reforms [was] right." Even the late Syrian president Hafez Al Assad, who started to move from a centrally planned economy to a more liberal system, would have objected.
No doubt
There is no doubt that Iran and Syria are important countries in the region, but neither - alone or any conceivable combinations - come close to representing the entire Middle East. Such a conclusion is, simply stated, wrong.
In fact, the six Gulf Cooperation Council States were seriously affected by last week's crisis, losing $150 billion before starting their gradual recoveries. To my knowledge, no one in Saudi Arabia or the UAE applauded, that God was punishing those vile capitalists. No one in Oman or Bahrain was jubilant that hundreds of millions of ordinary people were on the verge of poverty. No one in Kuwait or Qatar danced in street celebrations that London, Frankfurt or New York experienced financial catastrophes.
Naturally, and beyond the Gulf States, no one in Egypt or Algeria or Iraq or Yemen or any number of Arab countries - certainly the vast majority of the Middle East - were "jubilant" about a difficult situation. To assert otherwise is tabloid journalism - not worthy of a great newspaper like the FT.
While it is correct to conclude that the apparent failures of liberal economic policies accelerated the global American hegemony, it would be a mistake to attend its interment, as the body is not cold yet. We will debate whether the decline is terminal or simply in remission, and there are specific reasons for the current doldrums (sub-prime mortgage crisis, huge costs associated with the War for Iraq, and other regional concerns) that provide food for thought, but a premature death tends to be ineffective.
As any market crash, this one will recover once regulatory controls check excessive speculations in the banking sector. In fact, as a percentage of GDP, the "War for Iraq" was a marginal factor in the American economy, although it carried huge political consequences. To claim otherwise is infantile.
The Middle East is not insulated from an American-led economic downturn, even if such a theory is popular in Damascus or Tehran. Not only have a vast majority of local stock markets suffered when their global counterparts endured heavy losses, most started their recoveries when the latter recuperated, further illustrating existing linkages.
One wishes Iran and Syria prosperity, but pleads with them to refrain from relying on deity for revenge-type solace. It is unlikely that the Lord lurks around waiting for failures to chastise his own creations. Furthermore, one prays that otherwise reliable journalists writing in a classy outlet would adopt more poise in their generalisations, for fear of ridicule or, even worse, irrelevance.
Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is a commentator and author of several books on Gulf affairs.
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