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As
the heated international situation related to Iraq continues to
accelerate, or degenerate, depending on one's perspective, a
delegation of National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Malone
Fellows has just concluded a visit to Oman. We met with some of
the country's highest foreign policy and domestic leaders, along
with key American officials posted here. In the process, no
subject of current interest pertaining to the bilateral,
regional, and multilateral relationships of Oman and the United
States has been spared examination and analysis. To see
the full
catalogue of pictures from the trip, click here.
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ISSUES AND INTERESTS
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The
scope and substance of the discussions have been extraordinarily
rich and timely. Uppermost among the topics addressed have been
the standoff between the United States and most of the United
Nations Security Council members regarding Iraq; the worsening
conflict between Israelis and Palestinians; and the recent
installation in Israel of a new, harder-line, and more
anti-Palestinian cabinet than in recent memory.
Regarding
the latter phenomenon, there is considerable concern over the
Sharon government's continuing attempts to weaken the influence
of American, European Union, Russian, and United Nations efforts
to bring peace and stability to the eastern Mediterranean.
No
less disconcerting is the unease rooted in how, as a direct
outgrowth of the situation related to Iraq and the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, what was near universal goodwill
towards the Bush Administration 18 months ago in the wake of
9-11 continues to erode. Indeed, to a degree that is more
obvious to anyone traveling outside the United States than
within it, anti-Bush Administration sentiments internationally
are becoming more and more deeply rooted and pervasive.
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PRO-AMERICANISM ON THE
DEFENSIVE
It is hard to
imagine how a sitting president of the world's most powerful nation, for
reasons stemming directly from how he and his advisers are perceived by
millions the world over as reeking of arrogance, abrasiveness, and an
antagonistic attitude seldom associated with any previous American head of
state could have fallen any faster or further in international esteem.
And this, even
the president's critics are quick to emphasize, with a full scale U.S.-led
invasion and occupation of Iraq not yet launched. Fortunately, in stark
contrast to these sentiments, no one among the delegation's participants
has experienced here any comparable degree of anger and disappointment
expressed towards the American people.
Two additional
subjects have been repeatedly discussed in meetings between the delegation
members and their hosts here. One relates to the state of popular
participation in Oman, pan-GCC, and other Arab states' national
development processes. The other centers on the mounting challenges
imbedded in these countries' educational systems, high population growths,
and limited employment opportunities for an increasingly youthful
citizenry.
To a lesser
degree, there have also been far-ranging discussions on other topics. One
is the effects of climate change upon individual countries' water
resources pertaining to supply, management, and conservation. The other is
the potentially irreversible damage that many see being inadvertently
inflicted by Washington's Mideast policies upon a range of
people-to-people relationships between Americans and Arabs and Muslims
generally.
FRAYED PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE
TIES
A frame of
reference for the latter phenomena is the continuing setback being dealt
the previous decades-long trend among Arabs to pursue their higher
education and medical treatment, and to take their vacations, in the
United States.
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In
this regard, here as elsewhere, it is apparent that the American
losses resulting from Bush Administration restrictions post 9-11
on visitation to and study in the United States by Arabs and
Muslims generally have been to the gain of Australia, Canada,
Great Britain, and Ireland. The evidence is plain to see. Arabs
and Muslims in large numbers are increasingly opting to travel
to and study as well as receive medical treatment not in the
United States but elsewhere.
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In the eyes of
some, the irony is that this is happening just as these and other Arab and
Islamic countries are becoming more open to discourse with Western
countries in general, and with Americans in particular. In contrast, the
United States is seen to be drawing in upon itself and limiting rather
than strengthening and expanding dialogue, tolerance, and reciprocity of
respect for other people's cultural values, moral principles, and
religious beliefs.
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Even
at this early stage in assessing only two aspects of the damage
wrought by various American policies since 9-11, the effect has
been to slow down what would likely have been a more robust
exchange of peoples and ideas between Arabs and Americans. To be
fair, no one here argues against the need to tighten and
streamline American procedures that had long left United States
national security at risk. But it is a measure of how fixing
what was in need of repair can result in unintended damage to
the American and Arab relationship. This is what is happening in
the present instance. Already an early consequence has been to
reverse an earlier American generation's accomplishments that
have time and again enabled the Arab-U.S. relationship to
survive in tact amidst periodically tumultuous political seas.
It
is the fruits of previous American pioneers' hard work and
dedication to build strong people-to-people ties between
Americans and Arabs, linkages that were among the more enduring,
that now stand frayed.
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This said, the
emphasis in many of the discussions here has been only partly on assessing
the perceived negative impact of American foreign policies upon regional
stability flowing from U.S. approaches towards not just Iraq and the
Palestinian conflict. The focus of numerous discussions to date has also
been on two other developments that, by any measurement, suggest that the
substantially heightened stress and tension in American-Arab relations is
unlikely to subside anytime soon.
OTHERNESS VERSUS US-NESS
One
development that is laced with anxieties stems from perceived shortcomings
in a range of Bush administration stances toward terrorism, Afghanistan,
India, Iran, and Pakistan. A common denominator to the perceptions of many
in this area is that Washington sees the people associated with these
phenomena not as co-equal human beings but, rather, as "other,"
"those," "them" - as "objects" rather than
as "actors" with legitimate needs and interests worthy of
respect and accommodation in their own right.
Another
worrisome development is centered on the implications of various U.S.
officials' stated intentions to "help democratize" and
reconfigure the geo-political boundaries of the Mideast. In the eyes of
many in Arabia and the Gulf, the perceived purpose of the last two
objectives is to make the actions and policies of the region's governments
more accommodating to American and Israeli interests regardless of the
consequences.
Even so not
every experience by the delegation's members has been intellectual. Nor
has the tone of the intellectual exchanges across the two countries and
cultures been bereft of delight at the vast array of common ground that
exists between Americans and Omanis.
EMPIRICAL EDUCATION
In addition to
meetings with policymakers and international affairs analysts, there have
been numerous visits to many of Oman's legendary cultural and historical
sites.
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Of
interest in this regard is that none of these visits have been
to inanimate relics of the past. All have been interspersed
among meetings with Bedouins, tribal and community leaders, men
and women, and citizens ranging from children and students to
representatives of the country's elders in town, desert, and
village. Veteran visitors to the Sultanate will hardly find some
of the observations conveyed here and below either new or
difficult to comprehend. Many will recognize and agree that such
empirical educational experiences, not only here but elsewhere
in the GCC region, are of exceptional interest and value to
anyone seeking to better understand the inner workings and
international relations of individual Arab countries.
As
with previous National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations'
delegations that have visited Oman, the mix of firsthand
experiences afforded the present group has been unique. This is
the more so for reasons owing to the relatively small number of
Americans who have steeped themselves in the culture and
heritage of Oman. This is understandable given that until as
recently as a generation ago the sultanate was one of the most
remote and forgotten corners in the Arab world.
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HORMUZ STRAIT
The visit
concluded at the end of our overland trek to and stay of several days in
the remote Musandam Peninsula region of Oman, which is separated from the
rest of the sultanate as Alaska is from the "Lower Forty-Eight"
of America's states. With its high mountains and numerous fjords, this
region of Oman is rightly likened as Arabia's Norway. On one of our days
here, we sailed in an aged dhow [Arab wooden sailing vessel] to the
northernmost tip of the peninsula that overlooks the Hormuz Strait.
This was my
fifth visit to the jugular of what ranks among the world's most
strategically vital maritime and energy export routes, and to areas near
Omani defense outposts overlooking the entrance and exit to the Gulf. The
latter, like the waist of an hour glass, links the world's most abundant
proven resources of petroleum to the engines of international economic
growth and the material well being of humanity as whole.
For most of a
morning near the end of our stay in this sub-region of the sultanate, we
visited with families and children of fisher folk in a cove of Kumzar, one
of the islands closest to the Hormuz Strait.
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Given
its age-old difficulty of access until the ascent of Sultan
Qaboos to the rulership of Oman in 1970, it is only in recent
years that Kumzar's inhabitants, still linked to the rest of the
country and the world as a whole only by boat, have derived the
benefits of electricity, a clinic, and an elementary school.
It
is hard to describe the effect upon our group of inquisitive
souls who came ashore to interact with this community that, in
many ways, seems as though it was hermetically sealed in a
bottle from bygone centuries. However well traveled these
Americans had been before, their experience here drummed nearly
everyone into awe and the prolonged silence that comes from
wonder that such places still exist on planet earth. In stark
contrast to the oft-used image of an island or an oasis in the
midst of a storm or desert, here we encountered the exact
opposite, a metaphor turned inside out. For several hours we
mixed among an island folk clinging to a traditional way of life
the likes of which, among their religious and ethnic
counterparts elsewhere, no longer exists except in a handful of
the more remote reaches remaining in Arab and Islamic lands.
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TELEGRAPH ISLAND
The capstone
of our sojourn to this southeastern rim of Arabia was a late afternoon's
visit to a tiny spot amidst this ancient archipelago: Telegraph Island.
Sheltered in becalmed waters in the midst of a cluster of larger islands,
this particular outpost of an earlier empire lies adjacent to the gateway
to the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean, to the south,
and to the six-country GCC region plus Iran and Iraq, to the north.
The island's
barren rocky outcropping stands like a ghostly whisper to a bygone era.
Awash by the sea on every side, it is all that is left of a maritime
doorstep in a region that since then has become vital for all of humanity.
In its heyday, the island's status and role were firmly rooted in a pax-Britannica
that helped maintain a semblance of regional order and stability that
endured for more than a century and a half.
Telegraph
Island's position and role was that of a way station along the
telecommunications line that linked London to Iraq's southern city of
Basra and onwards to Bombay. Although it took ten years to lay the cable
from end to end, the manager's station on Telegraph Island and the island
itself were abandoned only five years after the station's construction in
1864.
Even then, the
impact of new telecommunications technologies was rapid and far-reaching,
rendering obsolescent what only a short time before had been regarded
worldwide as one of humankind's pioneering breakthroughs that, in the
minds of its inventors and marketers, would surely last a generation.
The experience
of visiting and viewing what remains of a once vital communications link
that enhanced the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people at
the time has not been without effect. Some in the group have pondered the
allegorical incongruity of how, in the shadows of the potentially dark and
foreboding days at hand, there may be lessons for present-day American
assumptions regarding regional paramouncy.
For some, it
seems possible that the tattered remains of Telegraph Island, like some
English Ozymandias, may soon become emblematic of future Arab-U.S.
relations occasioned by the cumulative impact of American arrogance in the
Mideast.
Many, to be
sure, are of an opposite view. These, citing the unparalleled
international extent of U.S. strategic and technological preeminence, as
well as its monetary and military might, believe that this is America's
moment in the Mideast.
These appear
less concerned than others with what a post U.S.-led invasion and
occupation of Iraq may portend for the future of American interests in
this region. Those who accept such reasoning uncritically might profit
from reading, or rereading as the case may be, the uncommon wisdom of
Shelley.
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Ozymandias
I
met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words apppear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy
Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
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OMAN IN
FOCUS
Following
are some unusually perceptive and incisive comments conveyed by members
of the delegation.
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"Oman
is an oasis of peace in a desert of looming regional conflict.
Her gentle people, through timeless negotiations, have settled
age-old border disputes and live in friendship and harmony
with all her neighbors" - T. N. (A 1993 State Teacher of
the Year)
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"[Given
what the U.S. Government seems intent on doing in this
region,] being in Washington, D.C. [for the pre-departure
program] made me nervous. Oman makes me feel safe. Not because
I am protected, but because there is no danger here" -T.F.
(Radio Talk Show Producer)
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"Oman:
if ever there was an island of reason in a sea of doubt; if
ever there was a need to reach that far-flung shore" --
P. O. (Author)
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"The
chance to visit Oman is unique. It affords one an opportunity
to meet, enjoy, and learn from a lovely people who have
endured a long and tumultuous history and emerged with an
enviable dignity and serenity that is firmly rooted in their
strong Islamic faith and traditions." --- M.D.
(University Publications Director).
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"It's
hard to overstate the meaning of being able to come to Oman at
such a troubled time in the U.S.-Arab relationship. To be with
the Omani people, to haggle for frankincense in the Mattrah
souk [traditional market], to wonder at the marvels of age-old
architecture in the form of castles, forts, and watch towers;
to gaze at the stars and ponder the roots of monotheism before
sleeping in the open in the desert remoteness of the renowned
Wahiba sands; to trek in our four-wheel drive through the
wadis of the Bani Ghafir and the Bani Hina' en route to Jabal
Shams, at 10,500 feet the country's highest mountain; and at
every step to speak and wave to children; to listen to the
wisdom of the country's shaikhs and to learn so much about the
Omanis and their special position in the world ..." - F.F.
(National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Morris Arab World
Journalism Internship Alumnus).
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"For
anyone to have, as we have had, an opportunity to visit in the
home of a tribal shaikh, spend time with a Bedouin family in
their simple barasti [date tree palm frond] hut in the middle
of the desert, play stick ball with children in a village deep
in the country's interior, and have candid dialogues with some
of the most prominent public and private sector personalities
among the leaders of one of America's oldest Arab allies --
would, by any standard, be an unforgettable experience.
"Throughout,
we have experienced the legendary friendliness and hospitality
of everyone we have met. For many, this observation might not
seem out of the ordinary considering what it says about a
people who are renowned for their moderation and tolerance
towards the inhabitants of other countries, including
Americans, to whom, in 1840, Oman was the first Arab country
to send an Ambassador. Yet it is remarkable to witness the
pervasiveness of such attributes especially at this time, when
U.S. policies towards Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict are seen as being so hostile, dangerous, and
potentially destructive not only to the interests of the
people throughout this vitally important region, but to
American interests as well." -- J.T. (Attorney and Malone
Fellow alumnus).
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"Coming
to Oman has provided an incredible range of insights far
beyond what I had reason to expect. I've been able to
experience directly the multifaceted positive results of
policies shaped and implemented by one of the world's most
extraordinarily far-sighted leaders; to learn humility in the
presence of a peaceful and loving people; to find joy in the
smile of the ubiquitous Omani children; to enjoy an ancient
and creative way of life infused with a twenty-first century
flair for modernization and development amidst the ongoing
manifestation of traditional values." - R.C. (State
University Professor of International Relations; winner,
University Teacher of the Year Award; Malone Fellow Alumna).
"Little
did I know in deciding to come here at this time that I would
succeed in both my objectives - to learn how much progress
Oman has made under Sultan Qaboos (since 1970) and how Omanis
view the Mideast policies of President Bush and Prime Minister
Blair." -- W. F. (Columnist, and Malone Fellow Alumnus).
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Dr. Anthony with his friend of 15 years, Hamad Al-Rabbani,
Chief Curator, Jabrin Fort,
Jabrin, Oman.
[Photo Credit: Peter J. Ochs, II]
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Dr.
John Duke Anthony is President and CEO, National Council
on U.S.-Arab Relations; Publisher of GulfWire; and Secretary
of the U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee. All three are
Washington, D.C.-based non-profit and nongovernmental
organizations dedicated to educating Americans and others
about the Arab countries, the Middle East, and the Islamic
World.
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