Obama achieves ceasefire in Gaza; Republicans still complain

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ThinkProgress:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Egyptian [Foreign] Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr today announced a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, ending eight days of violence that resulted in nearly 150 dead and more wounded. President Obama dispatched Clinton to the region yesterday and the nation's top diplomat traveled to Jerusalem and Cairo today to help facilitate the deal. 

But in a statement on the Gaza ceasefire today, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) — one day after intelligence officials debunked their attacks on the Obama administration over Benghazi — didn't have any kind words for the president and his team. In fact, the new "Three Amigos" attacked Obama, saying there needs to be "smarter American leadership" in the Middle East. 

Yes, why the hell won't he launch an attack on Iran?! Who the hell does he think he is?!

These clowns are so partisan and so desperate that they can't even give credit where credit is due if it involves the president.

Their interests are their own, not the country's, and with the world looking to the U.S. for leadership (and getting it) in the middle of a bloody powder keg, and with peace a tenuous hope but now, thanks to that leadership, a serious possibility, their comments aren't just stupid, they're foolish, counter-productive, and downright dangerous.

This is a time when unity behind the president, along with the presentation of such unity to the world and especially to the various elements in the Middle East, would go a long way towards resolving this crisis. But that's obviously too much to ask of Republicans these days.

CIA documents say Obama was right on Libya attack

By Richard K. Barry

The Washington Post is reporting that the Romney campaign may have screwed-up in saying that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attacks were not supported by intelligence.

This is according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official.

The Post writes:

"Talking points" prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account, "The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations."

And this, I find much to the point:

The Benghazi flap is the sort of situation that intelligence officers dread: when politicians are demanding hard "yes" or "no" answers but evidence is fragmentary and conflicting. The political debate has focused on whether the attack was spontaneous or planned, but the official said there's evidence of both, and that different attackers may have had different motives. There's no dispute, however, that it was "an act of terror," as Obama described it the next day.

The official said the only major change he would make now in the CIA's Sept. 15 talking points would be to drop the word "spontaneous" and substitute "opportunistic."

So, there was a demonstration and some bad buys took advantage of the confusion? Whatever happened, it was an act of terror.

Is this really going to be where Romney hangs his hat on Monday?

One point worth making is that I thought Joe Biden did a very good job at the VP debate of suggesting just how complicated international relations are, especially in the context of violence or potential violence. Romney and Ryan want to throw around a bunch of stupid jingoistic platitudes and call it a foreign policy. As stated above, professionals in the field hate this kind of black and white nonsense that fails to appreciate the reality of complex dynamics.

Romney and Ryan aren't ready for the big time, and this is just one more reason why.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Culture of victimhood

By Mustang Bobby

Greg Sargent is astonished:

There is an astonishing amount of complaining among conservatives about how unfair the media was to Mitt Romney yesterday in reporting on — and calling out — his criticism of Obama over the Embassy attacks. The gist of the complaining is that the U.S. Embassy statement was, in fact, an apology in the face of aggression, and that news outlets are stifling legitimate criticism of Obama on foreign policy.

But oddly enough, the critiques tend to avoid directly addressing, or defending, the main thing about Romney's comments that news outlets and commentators found newsworthy or objectionable.

So it's the liberal media's fault that Mitt Romney and his campaign are contemptible jerks for exploiting a tragedy?

To quote the immortal Sir Alexander Dane, "It's always about you, isn't it?" 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Turning point

By Mustang Bobby

It seems that in every presidential campaign there comes a moment when it becomes very clear that we have reached a turning point. The choice becomes clear, and from that point on, it becomes a matter of running out the clock until the election. It's essentially over. Usually it's a gaffe or a mistake on the part of one of the candidates rather than a decisive move: Gerald Ford saying that there was no Soviet domination of Poland in 1976; Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan's "there you go again" in 1980; Michael Dukakis's bland response to a question about capital punishment in 1988, and John McCain's panic-stricken call to cancel the debates to deal with the financial crisis in 2008. Each of those snapshots, fair or not, went a long way to close the deal -- and the door -- on the choice in November

It may be too early to judge whether or not Mitt Romney shut the door on his presidential bid yesterday with his kneejerk and blatantly political response to the killing of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, in Libya and the riots in Cairo. Clearly his campaign saw the events in Libya and Egypt as nothing other than a chance to make political hay, going so far as to release statements bashing the Obama administration before all the facts were known. And when the facts and the timeline became known, including the fact that a senior American diplomat had been killed, Mr. Romney and his staff not only did not back off from their first response, they doubled down on it.

As a lot of people from every aspect of the political spectrum have noted, Mr. Romney's response raises a lot of questions about his judgment and temperament, not just as a candidate in at tight race, but as a potential leader of the nation. Turning a tragedy into a series of campaign talking points is bad enough, but the failure or unwillingness to retract or temper the remarks as the facts become known reveals a character flaw that should raise a lot of questions. Ironically, Mr. Romney's reputation as an Etch-A-Sketch on the issues may have come into play; for once he was going to stand his ground even if it was crumbling away underneath his feet.

If Mr. Romney truly believes that President Obama and the White House actually sympathized with the mob that stormed the embassy in Cairo and murdered our ambassador in Libya even though the facts prove otherwise, then he's showing a serious lack of judgment for someone who wants to be president. If Mr. Romney doesn't believe that but still goes ahead with it anyway for the sake of his campaign, then he's showing a degree of cynicism and opportunism that clearly disqualifies him as a leader of all Americans, not just the people who voted for him. In either case it shows us the true measure of his character and trustworthiness, not to mention crisis management and the ability to address a complex and evolving event.

Does any of this matter to the average voter? It may not, but it's hard to tell immediately. Unlike the Romney campaign, voters take a while to react to events like this. We will know in a few weeks if this moment is the one that marks the end of the Romney campaign, but as I noted previously, there have already been signs that the campaign is in trouble. This may have been the one we'll all look back on and know that's when the door slammed shut on Mr. Romney's run for the White House. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Craziest Republican of the Day: Jon Kyl

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Let me turn this over to New York magazine's Joe Coscarelli:

Rather than simply paying his respects to the dead from last night's attack in Libya, Republican Senator Jon Kyl somehow managed to make things worse and mention rape. In reference to the controversial statement released — before the killings in Libya — by the U.S. embassy in Cairo, the one already fumbled by Mitt Romney, Kyl explained, "It's like the judge telling the woman who got raped, 'You asked for it because of the way you dressed.' OK? That's the same thing. 'Well America, you should be the ones to apologize, you should have known this would happen, you should have done — what I don't know — but it's your fault that it happened.'" Nope, that's not the same thing at all. Not even a little bit.

Of course, for Republicans, there's rape and there's legitimate rape, and... oh, never mind. 

It's like they just can't help themselves, and like there's just no end to their fevered insanity.

In reacting to the violence in Egypt and Libya, Mitt Romney proves he's unfit for the presidency

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Unqualified, unprepared, unfit.

Even by the embarrassingly low standards (and utter disregard for the truth) he has brought to the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney's self-serving politicization of the events in Egypt and Libya, including the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three of his aides, marked a new low:

It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.

Actually, there was no sympathizing at all -- and certainly not from the White House. The U.S. embassy in Cairo, confronted with possibly violent protests, issued an entirely sensible statement criticizing "the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims." Both the White House and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton immediately distanced themselves from the embassy's comments, with an Obama administration official saying, "[t]he statement by Embassy Cairo was not cleared by Washington and does not reflect the views of the United States government."

Reaction has been swift -- and overwhelming negative for Romney. (Notably, RNC Chair Reince Priebus, who rivals Romney on the dishonesty front, was even more blatant, tweeting: "Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt. Sad and pathetic.") He has a few supporters, usual suspects like Bill Kristol (more on him in a moment) and others on the knee-jerk jingoist right, but otherwise he is being criticized from all sides:

Mitt Romney's sharply-worded attack on President Obama over a pair of deadly riots in Muslim countries last night has backfired badly among foreign policy hands of both parties, who cast it as hasty and off-key, released before the facts were clear at what has become a moment of tragedy.

Romney keyed his statement to the American Embassy in Cairo's condemnation of an anti-Muslim video that served as the trigger for the latest in a series of regional riots over obscure perceived slights to the faith. But his statement — initially embargoed to avoid release on September 11, then released yesterday evening anyway — came just before news that the American Ambassador to Libya had been killed and broke with a tradition of unity around national tragedies, and of avoiding hasty statements on foreign policy. It was the second time Romney has been burned by an early statement on a complex crisis: Romney denounced the Obama Administration's handling of a Chinese dissident's escape just as the Administration negotiated behind the scenes for his departure from the country.

"They were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it's just completely blown up," said a very senior Republican foreign policy hand, who called the statement an "utter disaster" and a "Lehman moment" — a parallel to the moment when John McCain, amid the 2008 financial crisis, failed to come across as a steady leader.

Furthermore:

The pundits' judgment was harsh. Time's Mark Halperin said Romney's "doubling down on criticism of the President for the statement coming out of Cairo is likely to be seen as one of the most craven and ill-advised tactical moves in this entire campaign." A senior Republican told BuzzFeed's Ben Smith it was Romney's "Lehman moment," a reference to John McCain's hasty reaction to the 2008 financial crisis -- a turning point in the last presidential campaign. Conservative pundit Matt Lewis wrote in the Daily Caller, "The problem with Mitt Romney continues to be Mitt Romney," comparing his reaction to the way Michael Dukakis was parodied as "weak and passionless" on Saturday Night Live. On Fox News, conservative commentator and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said, "In times of great drama and heightened crisis ... I always think discretion is the better way to go," saying Romney was leaving himself open to accusations of politicizing a tragedy. "I don't feel that Mr. Romney has been doing himself any favors in the past few hours," she said. Though Romney had his defenders as well, the gelling consensus was clearly against him.

Kristol seems to think there's some hope: "If Romney can prove both strong and thoughtful on foreign policy over the next few days, it could be an inflection point in the presidential campaign."

How utterly ridiculous. This could very well turn out to be an inflection point in the campaign, but if so it won't be in Romney's favor. And that's because, among other things, Romney isn't, and won't be in the immediate future (if ever), "strong and thoughtful on foreign policy." It is simply delusional to think that he'll be able to turn this massive blunder into a positive, let alone into something that could shape the rest of the campaign, possibly propelling him to victory. If you think that, you apparently know nothing of Mitt Romney.

He's embarrassed himself before, of course, notably when he went to London for the Olympics and managed to turn Prime Minister Cameron, Mayor Boris Johnson, and pretty much the entirety of the British people against him. And he's proven himself before to be grossly ignorant on matters of foreign policy and international affairs, such as when he called Russia America's #1 enemy, as if somehow we're back in the coldest days of the Cold War.

But this was different -- and for Romney, a different sort of test as he seeks the presidency. It was one of those "3 am" moments: what do you do when faced with a sudden crisis in the middle of the night? There are some who prove to be leaders and other who prove to be anything but. As has been the case throughout his presidency, Obama responded with dignity and gravity -- with leadership. (Including by not overreacting to the Cairo embassy's comments and understanding that the intention was to try to prevent violence: "It came from people on the ground, who are potentially in danger. You know, my tendency is to cut folks a little bit of slack when they're in that circumstance, rather than try to question their judgment from the comfort of a campaign office.") In contrast, Romney used the occasion to politicize a tragedy and smear the president, responding with knee-jerk jingoism and a reckless temperament well before the facts were known. That's not what a president does, and it proves once more that he's not even close to being ready for the job.

But, really, what else should we have expected? Nothing. This is a guy who thinks that America is still embroiled in the Cold War and that the best way to deal with China is to try to bully it into submission, and who otherwise has spent the past several years accusing President Obama, without any basis at all and one of the clearest examples of his utter disregard for the truth and willingness to say anything for votes, of apologizing for America abroad. Indeed, as Jon Chait writes, "Romney's strategy here was a perfectly straightforward application of the foreign-policy principles that have guided his campaign from the outset":

And so, when militant Islamists attacked an American embassy, Romney automatically reverted to this line, releasing a statement charging "that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks." This was triply false: (1) The statement in question was not made by the Obama administration but by the embassy staff, (2) it was not a response to the attacks but a (justifiably panicked) attempt to preempt them, in keeping with a long-standing bipartisan practice of distancing the U.S. from inflammatory religious provocation, and (3) it was not an expression of sympathy with attackers or other militants.

*****

The miscalculation at work here is that Romney believed his "Apology Tour" method would neatly fit the events at hand — take an event that sort of vaguely resembled an Obama apology to Muslims who don't like us, twist it around, and call it a day. But Romney had grown accustomed to spinning fantasies cobbled together from months-old Obama speeches and nurtured into legend by extensive repetition and exaggeration in the conservative subculture. What he failed to realize from the outset was that the embassy attack was an immediate, high-profile event that he could not hope to rewrite so brazenly. Forced to confront the yawning chasm between reality and the fantasy he had wallowed in so long, Romney was exposed and, justifiably, discredited.

As I said, even by Romney's already pathetically low standards, this was truly abysmal. And if there's anyone who's weaking and disrespecting America, it's not Obama, it's Romney, who in criticizing the president like this weakened America's standing and credibility (proving once more that Republicans on the whole are indeed the disloyal opposition out for themselves) at a time when everyone should have rallied behind the president following a tragedy, waited for the facts to come in, and recognized that the issue of U.S.-Muslim relations isn't black-and-white (as even George W. Bush recognized) but filled with the sort of complexity and nuance that makes foreign policy and international affairs so challenging.

Indeed, instead of walking back his initial statement somewhat, Romney doubled down: "I think it's a terrible course for America to stand in apology for our values." Again, no one is doing this, President Obama included. It's like Romney just can't get past this little lie of a smear-laden narrative that seems to be the very core of his thinking about foreign policy.

It remains to be seen how much this thorough discrediting will hurt Romney. Maybe he'll be able to pick himself back up by turning the campaign back to the economy. Or maybe this story will simply fade over the coming days, the short-attention-span media turning to other matters.

But one thing's for sure: Once more, Mitt Romney has proven that he's unfit for the presidency. He may still win a tight race at a time of economic difficulty, but it's hard to see how he overcomes his massive ignorance, appalling recklessness, and self-serving opportunism between now and election day.

Thankfully, he keeps reminding us just how unfit he really is.

Obama on Romney: Ready, fire, aim!

By Richard K. Barry 

You didn't realize I was quite this clueless, did you?

According to CBS News, President Obama used some gentle humour to address Mitt Romney's widely lambasted criticism of Obama's handling of recent violence in Egypt and Libya:

"There's a broader lesson to be learned here," Mr. Obama told "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft at the White House. "And I -- you know, Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later. And as president, one of the things I've learned is you can't do that. That, you know, it's important for you to make sure that the statements that you make are backed up by the facts. And that you've thought through the ramifications before you make 'em."

Asked if Romney's attacks were irresponsible, the president replied, "I'll let the American people judge that."

You see, Mitt, that's what a measured response sounds like.  

On this, it was easy to think of the proverbial "3:00 a.m. phone call" and who would handle a national crisis better.

James Fallows made the point as comparative responses were unfolding earlier in the day:

On the longer-term temperamental politics, this is a very vivid example of what people mean when they talk about "the 3 a.m. phone call." In these next few hours let us look very carefully at the first-reaction quick responses, and then the considered second-take positions, by the two candidates.* One or the other of them will be in charge of U.S. response to similar inevitable-surprise episodes in the next four years.

And just one more comment, this time from Josh Marshall at TPM:

Some moments show you when a candidate is ready or not to become President of the United States. I suspect last night will become one of those moments for Mitt Romney. The verdict will not be positive.

Pathetic.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

October surprise, anyone?

By Carl 

I don't think this is what Obama had planned to lay in front of Mitt Romney, but I'm thinking he'll accept the gift graciously.

Two items: 

1) Chris Stevens, U.S. ambassador to Libya, killed in Benghazi attack 

The US ambassador in Libya and three other embassy staff were killed in a rocket attack after the diplomat's car was targeted in the eastern city of Benghazi, it was confirmed on Wednesday. 

A statement from President Obama "condemned the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including ambassador Chris Stevens"... 

The assault followed a protest in neighbouring Egypt where demonstrates scaled the walls of the US embassy, tore down the US flag, and burned it during a protest over the same film which they said insulted the prophet Muhammad.

2) Obama Calls Netanyahu on Iran Nuclear Threat Amid Tensions

The two leaders spoke by phone last night for an hour, the White House said. While providing no further details, the White House said in a statement that Obama and Netanyahu "reaffirmed that they are united in their determination to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

Netanyahu declared earlier yesterday that the Obama administration has no "moral right" to keep Israel from attacking as long as the U.S. doesn't set its own "red lines" for Iran. His remarks reflect differences within his government about an Israeli attack on Iran and a bid to pressure Obama less than two months before the U.S. election. The call came after Israeli media reports, denied by the White House, that Netanyahu's request to meet Obama later this month was snubbed.

(How is that last one a gift? We were reminded yesterday of Netanyahu's initial reaction to 9/11: "It's very good." Then he edited himself: "Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.")

The Islamic world is in flames, the Israelis are acting like douchebags again, and Obama, just ahead of his re-election, gets the opportunity to make a real-world demonstration of the differences between him and Mitt Romney's foreign policy shortfalls. And he gets to raise the spectre of a nuclear Iran for free. That's a three-bagger.

Romney, by the way, had this to say about the Egyptian protest: "It's disgraceful that the Obama Administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks."

It's disgraceful that the Romney campaign's first response was not to support the administration in finding a peaceful solution to a mostly preaceful protest.

That this all happened on September 11 is no coincidence, I'm sure. Egyptians rallied around us, just as nearly every other nation on the planet did, including Libya. There's a deliberate syncopatic response in yesterday's actions in Egypt and today's in Libya.

So while Romney is left flailing about for a response and allowing Reince Priebus to cheerlead the death of Americans and failure of the current administration, President Obama gets to appear presidential and oh, by the way, behave precisely the way an administration should behave in the face of aggression by nebulous and angry mobs.

Unlike, say, eleven years ago... 

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Islamists vs. Islamists: a positive for Egypt? (Part 2)

By Ali Ezzatyar

(For Part I, from a few days ago, see here.)

The idea that the Muslim Brotherhood's ascent to power spelled the beginning of a dangerous era underestimated the complexities of the Egyptian landcape and overlooked a number of important nuances.

It is now clear that the Egyptian military establishment had no intention of letting the Brotherhood, or any party but its own, govern freely. While Mohamed Morsi is proving himself to be a competent tactician in the tug and war that has followed his election, his influence is still very limited. He and his party, backed by most Egyptians, are essentially locked in a power struggle with the military. The result of that struggle remains anyone's guess and will take many more months, if not years, to have any notion of permanence.

Further, insofar as Morsi is able to form and implement domestic and foreign policy, the circumstances under which he is forced to formulate such policy is necessarily bringing him away from the extreme elements in his own party. That should be an essential consideration for the international community, and particularly the West, in developing its own policies towards the new Egypt.

The Egyptian military, led symbolically by its president, is currently embarking on an operation that is being called the most significant military exercise by its armed forces in 30 years. That operation, which targets Islamic militants, genuinely flies in the face of the conventional wisdom the world applied to Egypt when its revolution began. At the helm of power, the Brotherhood presidency has at least temporarily abandoned a number of its core pan-Islamic ideals. While this is likely seen by the new president as necessary to maintain stability in the short term, it also serves as a boon for none other than Israel, a purported arch-nemesis, and stability in the region.

This demonstrates two key things. First, power is begetting moderation, and second, Islamists, as with other long-time opposition parties that ascend to power, are rational when their hard-fought and won positions are at stake.

Naturally, since suspicion about the Muslim Brotherhood has not subsided, the media's spin on the events of the last two weeks has painted the military operation as Morsi's way of outmaneuvering the military. But that neglects the reality that the military still wields the power in Egypt -- any maneuvering Morsi is involved in, including dismissing members of the military itself, is likely with the military's support. It is unclear what this all means for the Brotherhood's longevity or its domestic policy going forward, but the current balance of power between the democratically elected party and the military suits the international community, and that community can take a few key steps to help maintain that balance:

First, it can provide the Egyptian military what it needs, in terms of material and moral support, to maintain domestic order. Besides the obvious practical necessities of stability, this will push the image that the government still has the ability to maintain order. Israel has set an example by allowing unprecedented access to movement within the Sinai. What this serves to do is build national confidence in the functioning of the Egyptian bureaucracy, which trickles down to the presidency only if the president publicly supports such activity. Given the precariousness of Morsi's position, he is obliged to give that support. If he later backtracks on the anti-militant stance he has taken, he may ultimately undermine his own legitimacy.

Second, the international community should continue to call on the Egyptian military to allow for the democratic process in Egypt to play itself out. Unlike its decision to ostracize Hamas in the aftermath of its election in the Palestinian territories to no benefit of Israel or the Palestinians, it has so far maintained a pro-democracy stance in Egypt. This is the only rational public face that the West can assume without losing the favor of the Egyptian people, but it is also a win-win situation tactically speaking. It can help further moderate Egypt's new government as it seeks to evolve and grow in stature. And since the military has demonstrated that international pressure to reform must have its limits, it is also relatively risk-free. The West can rest assured that the military will not be handing power to an Islamist government in short order. Meanwhile, the dichotomy between Egypt's two main domestic forces may serve to moderate both, which has the best chance for long-term stability and reform towards a healthy democracy.

Talk of a healthy democracy is still premature, to be sure. But with Morsi and other prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt recently calling for regime change in Syria, it would appear that some sort of order is emerging from the Egyptian chaos that can even serve as an example for Egypt's neighbors.

Islamists vs. Islamists: a positive for Egypt?

By Ali Ezzatyar

When purported Islamists in the Sinai brazenly massacred Egyptian border guards and broke through the Israeli border, it was difficult to interpret the event as anything but catastrophic. The attacks seemed to add some substance to fears of a new Islamist Egypt, the primary trepidation of many since the beginning of the uprisings in Tahrir square. Perhaps, though, this all presents an opportunity. The world only need to look at its most recent mistakes.

In the debate surrounding Islam, Islamism, and government, there is a critical question that remains to be answered. Does power moderate? There is little reliable data on the subject, since movements advocating for Islamic governments rarely win power; when they do, they are usually sabotaged.

In Algeria, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) came to power in the early '90s through free and fair elections. This represented the only hiatus from government control for the revolutionary FLN, which lead Algeria since its independence (and continues to do so today). The FIS openly called into question the democratic process that brought them to power, asserting instead that the rule of God was superior to the rule of man. Citing the threat to the democratic process that the FIS posed, the Algerian military annulled the electoral process after only two months, driving the FIS underground and Algeria into a bloody civil war that decimated the country.

At the time, many advocated for the FLN and the military to respect the results of a fair electoral process. The argument was made that, if the FIS lead government failed to do things like pick up the trash regularly, ordinary Algerians would regret their choice and ultimately pressure them to change. The experiment never had the opportunity to play itself out.

The more recent and very relevant example is on Egypt and Israel's own doorstep. The Palestinian territories had their first region wide democratic elections in 2006 that pitted Hamas, the Islamist party, against Fatah, Palestine's equivalent of China's Communist Party. Hamas, who still has not recognized the legitimacy of the state of Israel, won a majority. The international community did not know how to react. While they had advocated for democracy and reform in the Palestinian territories, they had trouble reconciling that with the result of the popular vote. As a result, most security council countries acquiesced to Israel's response of effectively annulling the results of that election and sidelining Hamas from any genuine government of the territories.

This was an unfortunate outcome. In that case, there was immediate evidence of Hamas' recognition that they needed to abandon their anti-Israel idealism since they had been transformed from a revolutionary, anti-government movement, to the majority in parliament. Behind the scenes negotiations and meetings revealed that Hamas would even negotiate directly with Israel. Israel and the United States, however, declared Hamas' vocal non-recognition of Israel as a non-starter. Hamas was ejected from the driver's seat rather arbitrarily. Like with the FIS in Algeria, in Palestine, no quantifiable evolution in the political conflict, or the democratic process, has resulted since. Circumvention of the democratic process at the expense of Islamists does not seem to be working.

The Muslim Brotherhood's election in Egypt incited predictions of horror, likening Egypt's future to that of Iran's. As with our other examples, these fears have allowed traditional parties to exercise their influence and maintain their authoritarianism with impunity. Take the dismissal of Egypt's democratically elected, Islamist parliament.

Enter the conflict in the Sinai. The new Islamist presidency in Egypt, contrary to what anyone could have guessed, is locked in a battle with none other than Islamists in the Sinai. Mohamed Morsi has been forced to crack down on the alleged Islamic militants with force, both rhetorically, and militarily (to the extent his limited power allows). The primary reason for this is the obvious necessity to maintain control within Egypt’s borders and prevent a broader conflict with Israel.

But there are other factors at play that are important to note. Firstly, the president of a party whose members vowed to sever ties with Israel as an election platform is now seemingly cooperating closely with Israel. The Israelis are allowing Egypt to perform military sorties in the Sinai for the first time since 1973, despite a peace treaty explicitly outlawing such activities. Israeli politicians have characterized Egypt’s behavior as "positive." Out of catastrophe has grown unexpected collusion of the highest order.

Ultimately, anti government Islamic militancy has forced the new persident's hand in a way nobody, perhaps even Morsi himself, would have imagined. Given the suspicion surrounding his presidency, and the flagrant nature of the attacks in the Sinai and Israel, he had little choice. In essence, power for the Muslim Brotherhood has obliged them to act as any government would have in a similar scenario: crack down on militants that undermine your legitimacy and authority. With the unexpected killing of Egyptian border guards by these militants, an inevitability has surfaced of the sort that the FIS and Hamas never had the opportunity to witness: Power seems to be moderating. But it is more complicated than the events of one week. Sustaining this transition takes effort from everyone.

(Part 2 later in the week.)

Egypt's important hour: Will democracy survive the weekend?

By Ali Ezzatyar

Nobody who has followed the Egyptian revolution would assert that it has progressed without a hitch. But with the Egyptian high court on Thursday invalidating Egypt's first democratically elected parliament and reinstating the candidacy of a former Mubarak crony to the presidency, the revolution has officially fallen off the rails. With the intentions of the previous regime and the military now clear, events of the next couple of months may prove to be among the most pivotal in Egypt's modern history, with implications for the entire region.

Since crowds in Tahrir Square lead to Mubarak's ouster over one year ago, the question of how much the rest of the former regime maintained control over the levers of power remained unanswered. There was an understanding that Mubarak was the leader and figurehead of a broader system, but still some hope remained that the old guard would choose to melt into the new democracy, rather than risk overt assertion of their arbitrary power again. The high court's recent decision is the most compelling evidence to date that the old guard is not only still there, but intends to stay, confirming the suspicions of the more pessimistic observers of the revolution both inside of Egypt and out. With the presidential run-off imminent, the future of Egypt's fragile democracy hangs in the balance.

While the Supreme Constitutional Court cited the unconstitutionality of a law allowing for partisan candidates to win seats designated for independents, there is little doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood's majority was the primary motivator of the decision. This sets the stage for this weekend's elections, where the Islamist candidate Mohammed Morsi will face off against Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's former prime minister. Even the most optimistic of Egypt's revolutionaries will be concerned that Morsi, the favorite, will be prevented from ascending to power one way or another. Even before the election has even taken place, allegations of plans for vote-rigging have surfaced from Egypt's opposition. Indeed, it would make little sense for the high court to invalidate the Islamist parliament, only for the old guard to allow the Islamist candidate to come to power; without a parliament, Morsi's power will be virtually unrivaled until a parliament is reinstated.

That leaves Egypt in the most precarious of positions; anger and resentment towards the former regime is palatable, and any result that does not see the Islamist candidate come to power will be considered a return to dictatorship. Especially after the high-court's decision, even an unlikely victory for Shafiq that is fair will be viewed as unsupportable by a majority of Egyptians. So, after almost 18 months of revolution, transition, and congregations in Tahrir Square, Egypt can for all intents and purposes revert to dictatorship again this weekend.

It takes little imagination to perceive what this could mean for Egypt. Its young project of democracy has yet to beget civil society institutions that would allow Egyptians to challenge their government in a meaningful way; that leaves coercion, and potentially violence, as the only means to break dictatorship's cold and tight grasp once again. Is Egypt ready to go back to square one, and claw its way back out of dictatorship?

The State Department's musings on the subject have produced only a vague and general response, that the tide of democracy in Egypt cannot be turned back. But it is unclear how much influence even the United States can have at this juncture, with its closest patrons within Egypt partially marginalized, and no strong alignment with Egypt's opposition, of which it is suspicious.

Too bad, because if the next few months prove to turn back the tide of history in Cairo, it will be a monumental failure for the very project of the Arab spring, with ramifications likely to be seen everywhere. Libya's factions will grow more paranoid of one another. Syrians have persisted through over a year of civil war; failure in Egypt will send an ominous sign to Syria's opposition and be a boon for Assad. There is more riding on Egypt than Egypt alone. And it all begins to come down to the next couple of weeks. Watch this space.

The Syrian uprising's interested onlookers: Iran, Israel, Russia, and Saudi Arabia

By Ali Ezzatyar

The Arab Awakening has a common denominator: the people want the downfall of the regime. It is a pretty good one, too. While it ensures nothing, it is the first, and perhaps the most difficult, of many steps before democracy.

Bashar al-Assad, Tyrant of Syria

It goes without saying that each Arab country, with all of its distinctions, will see its individual route meet special hurdles and circumstances. An unfortunate reality is that many of these obstacles have nothing to do with domestic considerations at all, but rather international ones. We knew this. It's the story of the modern Middle East. But what has become increasingly clear over the last 14 months is just how important one of these countries actually is to everyone else. We get some color on the American perspective by reading the paper. But this is how the other important players are looking at the biggest prize of the Arab dictatorship club, Syria:

Iran: The world's initial fears that the Arab Spring would play into the hands of the champion of anti-Americanism, Iran, seem unfounded at this juncture. Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, for all of their imperfections, have not turned into hotbeds of terror ripe for Iranian influence. Syria is the one country in the Arab dictator family that was traditionally pro-Iranian all along. It was the only Arab country that provided material assistance to Iran during its war with Iraq, and it is an important buffer and ally in Iran's support of anti-Israeli groups. Syria and Iran share a disdain for the Saudi royal family; they also have had poor, often adversarial relations, with the Arab world's West-friendly dictators past and present. So while Iran touts itself as the champion of populist and Muslim revolution, lauding Egyptian and Bahraini revolutionaries as the continuation of the struggle for justice, it has kept its hands muddy and bloody in assisting Syria's crackdown against its own people. For Iran, the survival of the Ba'ath regime is imperative; it is its only genuine ally in the region, and it will stop at nothing, including assisting in the crackdown against innocent civilians, to ensure that Syria does not become the Arab Awakening's next casualty.

Israel: Israel often distinguishes itself as a democracy in a sea of dictatorships, but it was horrified by the Arab Spring when it began. The reality was, most of the Arab dictatorships had cooperative relationships with Israel, and their powerful armies had a leash on the anti-Israeli sentiment that is rampant among their respective populations. There are even reports that Israel explored the idea of sabotaging the revolution in Egypt in its early days in Tahrir square. But for the same reason that Egypt was a potential nightmare, the Syrian revolution is viewed more positively in Israel. Syria is, by any account, Israel's real arch-nemesis. The two countries have been to war multiple times, and Israel occupies Syrian land in the Golan Heights. A more democratic regime, in Israel's view, is less likely to support terrorism, and is less likely to align itself with Iran. There does remain the danger, however, of a more legitimate Syrian regime being more successful in convincing the world that Golan should be returned. That is bad for Israel. On account of this uncertainly, Israel is watching developments very closely in Syria, with a preference for the ouster of the Assad regime, replaced by a weak, fragmented Syrian government incapable of challenging Israel or harnessing support for anti-Israel groups in Lebanon.

Russia: We can always count on Russia to pull no punches with respect to disregarding human rights in the interest of geopolitics. And they are putting on a master-class display in Syria. Since the days of Hafez al-Assad, Syria has been Russia's most important ally in the Middle East; it houses an important army base there and has billions of dollars worth of commerce with the Assad regime. In addition, Bashar is a key element of the Moscow-Tehran-Damascus triangle, helping Russia compete with American dominance in regional affairs. For the same reason that Russia refuses to come down hard on Iran vis-à-vis its nuclear activity, it has singlehandedly (making use of its sizeable influence on China) paralyzed the international community's ability to institute a legal reprimand of the Assad regime. With Russia on the Security Council, thousands more can die in Syria without the United Nations getting involved in a meaningful way.

Saudi Arabia: The primary outside supporter of the Syrian uprising, Saudi Arabia is pouring cash and arms into the hands of anyone who will help hasten Bashar al-Assad's demise. It is the most worthy of missions, in the Saudi mindset, to eliminate Saudi Arabia's traditional Arab foe. Among the many proxy wars these two countries have fought against each other, including in Lebanon, the downfall of Syria helps further weaken Iran, the country that Saudi Arabia views as most dangerous to its survival. Iran has called the Saudi dictatorship the least legitimate of regimes, and dreams of the day Saudi Arabia's substantial Shi'ite population, which happens to be in one of the most oil-rich provinces of the country, will rise up against the Saudi regime. This is Saudi Arabia's doomsday scenario.

And the Arab world's longest-lasting uprising continues.

Egypt's progress

By Ali Ezzatyar

Approaching the one-year anniversary of the Arab spring, it's very easy to forget that the events of 2011 would have been unthinkable last Christmas. Browse through the op-ed pages of every major newspaper or foreign policy journal, or the title of any of the books that were being published on the region this time last year: not a single clear, quantifiable notion that one man's self-immolation in Tunisia would light the entire region on fire. One of the earliest, and perhaps the most important, of these fires, was Egypt. I venture to say, contrary to many, that things are going fine there a year later. 

It's not ideal that the ruling military establishment remains effectively in power even now; its promises to step aside and hand rule over definitively to elected civilians are still unfulfilled. It is also clearly tragic that about 200 Egyptians have lost their lives since the stepping down of Hosni Mubarak, in continued clashes with each other and the security forces. But, almost a year after Egyptians rallied past security forces and into Tahrir square, the signs appear more positive than negative.

One big fear of mine was that, with the ouster of Mubarak, the leaderless mass movement comprising most of Egyptian society that ousted him would get complacent. That could have happened for many reasons. It could have happened because a society that is not allowed to demonstrate in mass for decades out of fear of reprisal can easily lose focus when its immediate goals are achieved. It could also happen, like it did in Iran, because an event or series of events from outside of Egypt would allow the military to consolidate its power at the behest of the people. In fact, Egyptians have demonstrated remarkable resilience and intolerance for the continued vestiges of authoritarian rule. With the help of social media, activists have continued to organize and maintain focus on the goal they espoused on the eve of their revolution. They are keeping the pressure on the military, including through democratic elections and continued reforms.

Additionally, the extreme elements of Egyptian society, notably the Islamists who were supposed to fight for an Islamic State, never showed up. I don't know if they existed, existed in such a small number, or are singing another tune post-revolution, but the reality is clear: The largest Muslim block in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, has not espoused ideas that are any less democratic than most "Western" countries. They are also being watched closely by those same Egyptians watching the military, since their inactivity in the early revolution has discredited them, and their unwillingness to confront the military head on continues to do so. This is all healthy. While the Muslim Brotherhood probably has a plurality of Egypt's support, there are probably more people who, together, could combine to make their lives very difficult when they step out of line. So, while the military has always acted as a counterbalance to the Brotherhood, a large cross-section of the Egyptian population now has the tools at its disposal to create its own counterweight, and it has done so.

Finally, while fully-fledged democracy hasn't been born overnight in Egypt, nobody can say the revolutionary project has unraveled. It is a work in progress, and it is moving forward. Continued strife, even oftentimes despotic rule by the Egyptian military, has not slowed it down. The more the military ratchets up its behavior or words the people don't like, the more people are pouring back into Tahrir square. The Egyptian blogosphere is as active as it has ever been. Everyone is under scrutiny by everyone else, and the system in place now is moderately democratic and moving in the right direction.

We can't say we are happy with Egypt as it is today, but a status quo takes years to build. Perhaps we can say, at least (and with tacit encouragement for Egyptians to continue), that we are happy with its progress, less than one year in.

Occupation distraction: The incoherence of the Occupy Wall Street movement

Guest post by Infidel753

Infidel753 was born in New York state, grew up in California and now lives in Oregon. His area of academic specialization was the Middle East. He is a life-long atheist and long-time liberal with a special interest in social issues and technology.

(Ed. note: This is Infidel's second guest post for us. You can find his first, on the ignorant fundamentalism of the Republican Party, here. -- MJWS)

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I'm increasingly worried that the Occupy Whatever movement could do the progressive cause in this country some real harm. It's sucking up attention and enthusiasm which, especially right now, are needed elsewhere.

If you haven't already, please read the critiques I linked to in the last link round-up over at my place, by Joseph Cannon and Feminisnt. The problem with the Occupy movement is that (a) it does not have specific, clearly-articulated goals, and (b) there is no sense of how, exactly, the actions it is taking are going to achieve whatever the goal is.

The movement claims inspiration from Tahrir Square. But Tahrir Square had a clear goal -- the end of the Mubarak regime. And it succeeded because it was a mass movement -- the protests drew hundreds of thousands of participants, not just thousands. When the Occupy movement can get 300,000 mainstream Americans together in one protest, in one place, and they stay there for weeks or months, it may accomplish something, but right now it seems very far from that point.

Others have drawn inspiration from the Arab Spring. Earlier this year, anti-austerity demonstrations in Portugal and Britain drew hundreds of thousands of participants. Yet notice that even they have not been able to force their governments to change course, partly because these were one-day events, big but quickly over. Also, democratic governments are less brittle than dictatorships.

Today, the people of Greece are launching their own campaign against the austerity policies which their craven rulers are forcing on them at the behest of the EU -- a campaign of mass strikes and a tax revolt. They've got a chance if participation is high enough -- hundreds of thousands of working people, not just thousands of people from the fringe.

Some have made an analogy with the Teabaggers, hoping that the Occupiers can become a similar force for the left. But insofar as the Teabaggers have accomplished anything, they did it by focusing on electoral politics -- supporting candidates and getting them into office. Amorphous ranting against "the system" has certainly been there, but that's not what got things done.

How many of the Occupiers voted in 2010 -- when a collapse of turn-out enabled the Republicans to take the House and create the paralysis they decry? How many will vote next year?

So far I see nothing that suggests the Occupy movement has the potential to achieve any concrete results whatsoever (well, there's one small exception, but I'll get to that in a moment).

Right now, we do have an opportunity to achieve something real. With his American Jobs Act (AJA), Obama has finally broken away from the Republican navel-gazing over the deficit that has consumed Washington for months, and made a serious proposal to deal with the greatest concern of mainstream Americans -- unemployment. Economists agree that the plan will stave off another recession at least. As Booman Tribune points out, Obama is finally doing what his critics on the left say they want -- drawing a line in the sand and showing willingness to fight for what the country needs. The Republicans insist the plan is DOA, but mass public pressure has swayed legislative outcomes before -- never forget how, in 2007, a mass outpouring of public fury (which crashed the Senate's telephone system) stopped an illegal-alien amnesty which had bipartisan support and was considered a done deal. Who's to say that a similar mass display of support now couldn't scare enough Congressional swing votes to get the AJA through?

Yet when I look around the liberal blogs today, I'm seeing very little being posted about the AJA, and a lot being posted about the Occupiers. The energy and enthusiasm which, properly focused, might actually get something done, is being diverted into what looks like an exercise in plowing the sea.

As I mentioned, I do see one small sign of hope about the Occupy movement. This is the fact that it's attracting some significant support from unions. Unions are pragmatic and not ideological; they have clear goals and know what works and what doesn't work to achieve those goals, and they're very engaged with electoral politics and the Democratic party. And -- forgive my bluntness -- their decision-makers are people older and more experienced than those who seem to predominate among the Occupiers.

If the union connection can help the Occupy movement become coherent -- help it develop specific practical goals and grow into a large-scale, sustained movement with a plan for achieving those goals -- then it may actually get something done. (And by "large-scale" I mean what I said about Tahrir Square above. 500 people in each of 15 cities doesn't mean anything.) A sign of this would be if the movement starts pushing for action on the AJA.

(Cross-posted at Infidel753.)

HBO's Koran By Heart: Can't contest this documentary's greatness

By Edward Copeland

This week's installment in HBO Documentary Films' summer series, Koran By Heart, is being promoted mainly as a film about the International Holy Koran Competition where young Muslims from around the world descend on Cairo to compete in a spelling bee-like competition testing their skills at reciting the Koran, both in terms of memorization and presentation. While that is the major focus of director Greg Barker's film, Koran By Heart tackles so much more than the competition and contains a richness and universality that makes the documentary a film that should be required viewing for everyone.

The documentary covers the 2010 competition which, as the contest always has, occurs during the Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan, which begins today and commemorates the month when the first verses of the Koran were said to have been revealed to Mohammed. Because of the Arab Spring, particularly with Hosni Mubarak's ouster in Egypt, it wasn't clear if there would be an International Holy Koran Competition this year, especially in Cairo. Google news searches could find similar contests being held in Iran and Saudi Arabia, but no mention of the large contest or, of the documentary's most fascinating figure, Dr. Salem Abdel-Galil, deputy minister of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Egypt, who coordinates the contest. I could find no news stories indicating if this self-proclaimed moderate Muslim warning against extremism and fundamentalists still holds his post, but found that he does have a public figure page on Facebook.

Dr. Salem does take on a monumental task in arranging the event. He lets his staff handle the logistics, which would be overwhelming alone, making certain that 110 competitors from 70 different countries all make it to Cairo for the event. They range in age from their early 20s to as young as 7 and some, even the young ones, come without adult chaperones. The reciters, as they are called, all are Muslims, but all hail from different parts of the world and have learned to memorize the Koran in Arabic even though many do not speak Arabic and don't understand the content of what they are saying. While Salem's staff takes care of the administrative side, he concerns himself with what he calls "the creative" side, namely orchestrating how the contest runs. He chooses the questions and decides the criteria for judging the reciters. "The Koran is the only book that can be completely memorized. It's a miracle children can memorize it even without understanding its meaning," Dr. Salem says. I hate to differ with him, but being raised in the Bible Belt, I've known a lot of people who can recite Bible verses to you and if you try, anything can be memorized. Dr. Salem also has other duties with his job unrelated to the annual contest. He oversees 100,000 mosques and also is a well-known media personality in Egypt, hosting his own weekly TV show, The Final Word, where he preaches his message of moderate Islam and being true to the Koran, saying extremism and terrorism goes against Mohammed's teachings. As he says when we first meet him in the film:

"The irresponsible actions you see in some Muslims are because they are estranged from the Koran or don't understand the Koran. So stealing, sex outside of marriage, intoxication, injustice, aggression and terrorism — these are not allowed"

With 110 competitors, that would be a daunting task for filmmakers as well so director Greg Barker chooses to focus on three 10-year-olds from different parts of the globe:

Nabiollah, who lives in rural Tajikistan and attends a Madrassa where the only education he receives concerns the Koran.

Rifdha, a very smart girl from the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean who excels in all subjects, especially math and science, and is one of only 10 girls in the contest, though her parents have very different visions for her future.

Djamil, who is coming to Cairo by himself from his home in Senegal in West Africa, and has been told by his teacher that he won't just be representing Senegal but the entire continent as well.

Djamil feels an extra burden on his shoulders since his father is a respected imam in Senegal, though the boy has risen to be the country's top reciter without being able to speak a word of Arabic. He tells the filmmakers that his parents told him to learn the Koran before anything else and that every Muslim should do the same. Besides, Djamil adds, he "likes the way the letters look." Djamil's teacher sounds a message similar to that of Dr. Salem's as he prepares to send his star pupil off to Cairo by himself. "Now as you go to Egypt, the world is a mess. People are bombing and killing each other, but if all people understood Koran, there would be peace on Earth," the teacher tells the 10-year-old. "So by not using the Koran as God intended, what is the result? All these problems in the world and what is the solution? Return to the Koran. Learn it. Apply it." It still seems odd to be sending a 10-year-old child off on his own to another country, especially one where he doesn't speak the language. Later, once Djamil has arrived in Cairo, there's a scene where he's trying to speak with his mother on a cell phone, but the connection proves so terrible that neither can hear the other. It shows the family in Senegal saying they must have faith that Djamil will be OK.

Above and beyond the fascinating material itself in Koran By Heart, is the way that director Barker approaches it. At times, it's as if you're watching a feature film instead of a documentary. His direction can be quite stylish, the contest itself automatically creates suspense, he tosses in extra details for both color and, sometimes, laughs as in one instance where some visiting judges are congregating in a lobby and one says to the others, "At my hotel, the call to prayer is done Saudi-style morning, noon and night. Are we in Egypt or what?" which makes the others laugh. There also is something intrinsically funny when we briefly meet Australian Muslims speaking with full-on Aussie accents. Barker's most intriguing touch though is how he layers more information about the people and places we've seen by leaping both backward and forward in time to reveal more. For example, we don't learn until much later in the film that before Nabiollah, the boy from Tajikistan, left for Cairo, the secular government of Tajikistan had closed his Madrassa, trying to clamp down on any rise in extremism. His father took him to a secular school to see if he could be admitted there and we learn that Nabiollah is functionally illiterate. Since the Madrassa only taught the Koran, the 10-year-old can't even read or write in his native language of Tajik, let alone Arabic.

The competition itself makes marathon poker players look like wimps since they get breaks and can eat and drink at the table. The International Holy Koran Competition has qualifying rounds first that last three days and nights — during Ramadan, which means everyone fasts during the day, though they break for the traditional sunset meal. The night session begins at 9:30 p.m. and lasts until 3 a.m. Rifdha actually falls asleep on her father's shoulder waiting for her name to be called. Her father, who will turn out to be the most extreme person depicted in the documentary, never stops being negative and even after Rifdha shakes herself awake and recites, when she returns to her seat, he immediately tells her that she won't make it to the next round so while Rifdha might be happy when she learns she's received 97%, the highest score of the competition so far, her father just looks pissed. How the contest works is that a reciter selects a symbol on a computer screen which randomly selects a question, beginning a passage from the Koran and telling the contestant where he or she should end. It's like Songburst, except they give you the ending. If a reciter makes a mistake and corrects him or herself, they lose half a point. If a judge has to correct them, they lose a whole point. If they make three mistakes, they forfeit the question. The judges enter scores on their computers, which calculate. 100% is the highest score. They are judged on pronunciation, memorization and "The Rules of Tajwid."

This isn't just dry recitation, there's a musical quality to it. Kristina Nelson, considered the top non-Muslim expert on the contest and author of The Art of Reciting the Qur'an, was attracted by this lyrical aspect. She, as well as the judges are extremely impressed by how good Nabiollah is; he even moves some judges to tears and they make a point of hugging and kissing him when he's finished his performance. Though it's just the beauty of his voice — strictly speaking he doesn't follow the Rules of Tajwid to the letter, but the boy had never heard of them until he came to Cairo. He closes his eyes tightly when he recites to avoid distractions and so he can visualize the text before him. Even though Nabiollah and other non-Arabic reciters don't know what they are saying, Dr. Salem says that the level of Heaven that Muslims reach depend on how much of the Koran they have memorized. According to Nelson, the full text of the Koran runs about 600 pages with 114 chapters ranging from three verses to 286 verses long.

While Nabiollah gets by fine without knowing Arabic, it ends up being Djamil's downfall, who unfortunately gets a Koran verse that starts like multiple verses in the book. The judges try to get the young Senegalese boy on the right track, but he of course doesn't understand a word that they are saying, though he keeps trying, through tears, he keeps trying. The judges finally have to stop Djamil who only scores 22%. Because everyone felt so bad for Djamil but admired his perseverance in trying to continue, they arrange for him to recite at one of Cairo's most prestigious mosques. When he goes home to Senegal, he admits things did not go well, but he's able to say so with a smile on his face. After the initial three days of qualifying, 12 of the 110 move on to the finals which are held on national TV before the country's president, still Hosni Mubarak then, and both Nabiollah and Rifdah make the final 12. I won't spoil how they finish for you. With a few days off, they get to sightsee, something else that alienates Rifdah's father who talks more about moving the family away from the Maldives when they get back and how Egyptians aren't very good Muslims.

The director frequently cuts back to the Maldives where we see Rifdah's mother brag about her and we've seen how different the place is. When we first meet Rifdah, she's speaking English and we meet another man in the Maldives who explains how it's always been a secular Muslim country, where women were allowed to work and go about uncovered but that a fundamentalism started to reassert itself in the 1980s. While Koran By Heart doesn't raise the issue, I find it interesting that the extremist Muslims wanting a return to fundamentalism started to occur first in Iran in the late 1970s and elsewhere in the 1980s — the same time fundamentalist Christian groups such as The Moral Majority starting asserting themselves politically in the U.S. and rabid activist groups such as Operation Rescue started protested abortion in less-than-peaceful ways. Another quote that Dr. Salem says in the film really brought home that connection to me:

"The fundamentalist movement is not good for society. They want Islam to turn back the clock on society. Not long ago, they wanted to ban television…Unfortunately those who promote extremism have satellite TV channels with huge audiences and they get a lot of money and they present themselves as 'the voice of Islam' So their voice is louder than ours and we're the moderates. This is very dangerous."

Just substitute Christianity for Islam and think of the late Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. They might not have a body count that comes close to equaling Islamic extremists such as al-Qaida, but it does seem as if they've followed the same timeline, only one group of religious fanatics chose force while the other has chosen political infiltration.

While I won't give away how Nabiollah and Rifdah finish, that to me is what makes this great documentary end on a sad note. We see Rifdah's mother say she'd like her to go into math or science, but it will ultimately be up to her, but her father has different ideas, insisting that though he plans to move the family to Yemen for better religious education and that Rifdah will be educated, ultimately, she will be a housewife.

Koran By Heart is one of the best documentaries HBO has offered this summer. It debuts at 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific and 8 p.m. Central tonight on HBO. 

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)