>> Bob Axelrod: Welcome and good afternoon.

I'm Bob Axelrod, Walgreen Professor for
the Study of Human Understanding here

in the Ford School and in the
Department of Political Science.

It's my pleasure to welcome you all here today
on behalf of the International Policy Center

at Ford and our co-sponsor today,
The Center for the Middle East,

Middle Eastern and North African Studies.

And as -- we're pleased to Rami Khouri here
today and I look forward to your talk very much

but before we hear from him
let me introduce Norman Bishara

who will tell you a little
bit more about our speaker.

Norman is an Assistant Professor of Business
Law and Ethics at the Ross School of Business.

He has a master's degree in
public policy from the Ford School

and he's also chair of the
Ford School Alumni Board.

He holds a law degree from Cornell
and he currently conducts research

on cooperative governments,
international legal reform,

and business ethics in the developing world.

He's also a project consultant with the
Lebanese Transparency Association in Beirut

where he co-authored the first Lebanese
Code of Cooperative Governments.

Norm, I give you the pleasure
of introducing our speaker.

>> Norman Bishara: Thanks, Bob, and thanks,
special thanks to of course the Center

for Middle East and North African Studies and
to the International Policy Center, Jan Svejnar,

the Director who couldn't be here today but also
special thanks to Zana Kwaiser who is on staff

at the Center and who put together all of the
details of Rami's visit from start to finish.

We're lucky to have Rami Khouri here.

He comes to us from Beirut by way of Boston
which gives you a sense of how much he travels.

He, if you can construe Rami's
career and professional --

personal and professional lives you can sort
of look at it in terms of a long journey.

He grew up in Switzerland
and the U.S. and Jordan.

He now lives in Beirut.

He is often in the U.S. He is affiliated with
several universities and great policy schools,

the Kennedy School, Fletcher -- the Fletcher
School at Tufts, Syracuse's Maxwell School,

as well as Harvard's Kennedy School.

And University of Chicago's Harris School
as well, I don't know if I mentioned that.

But in practice he's still a
journalist as he is by training.

He holds two degrees, an undergraduate and
a graduate degree from Syracuse University

and as a journalist he still practices.

He contributes at least two
pieces per week in syndication.

I don't know if you saw his most recent New
York Times op ed piece but it is a must read.

And- but many of you know him through
that writing but you also know him

through other outlets so you may have
seen him on not only in the New York Times

but you see him on various U.S.
shows such as the Charlie Rose Show

or you may recognize his voice for the
Diane Rehm Show where is often contributing

to the Friday news roundup
in the International Section.

But Rhami is a bit more than that.

He is also the Director of the Issam Fares
Center at the American University in Beirut

and the Founding Director which really gives
you a sense of how much influence he has there,

not just in journalism but also
as a policy maker in the region.

In that sense, he often is seen as the voice
of the Middle East translating really difficult

and complex Middle East policy problems
for audiences all over the world,

particularly in the U.S. Not an easy task
to stay impartial but to be still be candid

and critical and yet very deeply respected.

So we're very lucky to have
him here today and I now turn

over the mic to our guest, Rhami Khouri.

Thank you.

[ Applause ]

>> Rhami Khouri: Thank you.

Thank you very much Norm and Bob.

Thank you for having me here.

I'm delighted to be at the
University of Michigan.

I was trying to time my visit
so I can catch a football game

or a basketball game and
it didn't work very well.

They told me that there's a hockey game outdoors
Saturday so I'm getting out of here tonight.

So I'm into American sports but I'm not sure
I could quite handle that but I will be back

and watch a football game and congratulations
for getting into a bowl game this year again.

Your team, like mine, Syracuse, is on the
up and up again, so the future is bright.

I want to thank the International Policy
Center and the Center for Middle Eastern

and North African Studies for co-hosting this
and particularly Norm Bishara and Zana Kwaiser

for all their work and having this happen
and I'm delighted to be here with old friends

and family, cousins, and
friends from high school days

and acquaintances from over the years.

And I'm, as Norm mentioned,
I'm a journalist by background.

I've spent about 40 years working in the Middle
East, mostly -- totally in the Middle East.

Working as a journalist, reporting,
writing, analyzing, observing,

trying to understand what's happening
in the Middle East and I'm --

in late middle age I decided to try to gain
some respectability and moved into academia

so I'm masquerading as a semi-academic
by running this policy institute

at The American University of Beirut.

But I'm really here to share with you
my analyses and ideas that I generate

from my journalistic work which primarily means
going around the region, talking to people all

over the Middle East, interacting with all
kinds of people from all levels of society

and all different kinds of countries, going to
Iran, going to the Arab-Israeli conflict areas,

Israel, Palestine, all over the region.

I've traveled in the last 40 years and
I've watched the development of the region

from inside the Middle East in the last
four decades or so and I'd like to share

with you my analysis of what I
believe is actually going on in terms

of the new power equations
that are emerging in our region

which are woefully almost criminally
underreported in this country.

As those of you who follow
the Middle East probably know

that the American press is not very good at
covering the realities of the Middle East.

It tends to be superficial, biased,
ideologically driven, emotionally exaggerated,

and has many faults and I know this from working
with many colleagues in the American media.

And the American media does some excellent
reporting but not on the Middle East,

unfortunately, not on the Arab-Israeli
conflict, not on the Arab World,

and now, not on the Islamic world either.

So I would like to try to possibly
give you a more accurate view possibly,

maybe a more complete view, a more nuanced view

of what I believe is actually
going on in the region.

And I think there are some really very important
things that are going on that have been going

on for the last 20 years or so and
that deserve much more I think accurate

and dispassionate analysis.

The area I'm talking about is
essentially the Arab world mainly

but what I'm saying also applies to a little bit
to Turkey and Iran and Israel, in some cases,

but I'm mainly talking about,
about the Arab world at one level

and other things, slightly broader perspective.

But when you look at the Middle East, you
essentially I believe have four players;

the Arabs, the Israeli's,
the Turks, and the Iranians.

You also have -- those are the four indigenous
players and you have external players.

The United States is now engaged in two wars
in the region, has 20 or 30 military bases all

over the area and so the U.S.
is a major player as well now.

And some of the other foreign forces -
the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese -

are there in economic terms, cultural terms,
political, military, and different ways

but essentially we're talking about Arabs,
Turks, Iranians, and Israelis who interact

to create the realities that
are defining our region today.

The first point I want to make is that
all of the realities of our region,

every dimension of life in the Middle East and
certainly in the Arab world is in the process

of significant and ongoing change.

This is a region that is often portrayed in the
Western and American media, is often portrayed

as one-dimensional, as, you
know, the Arabs are like that.

The Muslims are like that.

This is how they are and this is
how we have to deal with them.

The reality is that this region is
neither monolithic in its behavior

or attitudes or thinking nor is it static.

It's constantly evolving.

Every level of society and I would mention
six; the citizen, this community, the society,

the government, the country as a whole, the
region of the Middle East, and the Middle East,

and the world -- those six levels of
analysis, every one of them is in the process

of significant and ongoing change.

All of these dimensions have been changing
I believe most seriously since the end

of the Cold War, about 20 years ago and I can
see there's some people in this room, like me,

old enough to remember the Cold War.

And as you know, around 1990 when the
Cold War ended there were a lot of changes

around the world and there were a lot of
changes triggered by the end of the Cold War

in the Middle East except for
really two major changes --

foreign military interventions didn't
end and no democracy took place.

No democrat-- no democratic
transformation took place

in the Middle East unlike
much of the rest of the world.

But the -- all the main aspects of life started
to evolve because of the end of the Cold War,

because of economic pressures,
because some Arabs,

Egypt and Jordan signed peace
treaties with Israel.

There were a combination of reasons why this
region started to evolve more dynamically

and what happened really in the early
1990's really started in the late,

in the 1980's with the economic
pressures and the --

which forced some governments to liberalize
in the Arab world, not democratize

but to liberalize, to open up and to allow their
people more space to behave as normal people

in politics, in economics, in culture, in
arts, and the different aspects of life.

What happened was that a whole series of
forces were unleashed in Arab societies

where people could express
themselves a little bit more openly,

be involved in civil society
groups, maybe vote in an election,

and speak out in the media more openly.

And you had essentially the
what I call the resumption

of history happened in, around
1990 in the Arab World.

That a region that had been frozen essentially
politically and ideologically was frozen

for half a century because of the Cold
War and the Arab-Israeli conflict,

in the early 90's started to evolve again.

And forces that had always been there
-- religious sentiment, tribal forces,

private sector, civil society, democracy,
women's movements, groups, socials, artists,

students -- all of these things all existed in
society but all had been suppressed by the lids

that had been holding this region static,
the lids of the Arab-Israeli conflict,

the state building imperative, the Cold War,

and the emergence of the Modern
Arab Security State in the 1970's.

All of these things, all of these
things kept the region relatively static

and as these lids came off one by one, the
region resumed a normal evolutionary process

where individuals and groups and all kinds
of people in society started to behave

like people do in a normal society to
express themselves, to mobilize, to organize,

to challenge authority, to express ideas,
to work for change, to have a resumption

of history, to have a normal historical
process of change and transformation going on.

And now we can see some -- a few things that
we couldn't really see before very clearly.

We could see them, they were under the surface
but now they're up, out into the public.

First of all, people are expressing what
they feel in various ways, in the media

and public opinion polls,
occasionally in voting.

They are expressing themselves more clearly.

We can see the main players in society.

Who are the actors now in Arab
society and there is many of them.

Religious groups, tribal groups, business
groups, government people, political people,

artists, cultural -- there are
all kinds of people who are active

in society and now you can see the actors.

Before they were mostly suppressed unless
they were authorized by the government

and we can see the connections between
different aspects of life, economic pressure,

political pressure, ideological
issues, environmental stress,

all the different aspects of
life within these countries.

And then regional issues --
the Arab-Israeli conflict,

relations with Iran, foreign
armies coming at us.

You can now see the connections between these.

We see the stakes that are -- we, we
know what's at stake now very clearly

because people are expressing their concerns
and there's a more active political, cultural,

economic, and social dialog
taking place in these societies.

And therefore we have what I believe is a new
configuration of power in the region which is,

which I would summarize by basically saying
there are three conglomerations of power,

legitimacy, and authority that are now
active and you can see these three groups

in the shorthand that I call the
market, the monarch, and the mosque.

The market is the business sector,
private enterprise, civil society --

all of these groups who work
independently in society.

The monarch is the political authority, whether
it's a Republic or a Kingdom or an Emirate,

it doesn't matter what's the form of
government but the political authority

with its multiple layers of security
guards and military groups and police

and armies and intelligence agencies.

They have massive security complexes that
now define the modern Arab security state

and all of the people linked to
the governing power in society.

That's what I call the monarch for short.

And the mosque is the religious, tribal,
ethnic identities that, not the private sector,

not the government, but these other groups
in society that are extremely strong,

are now much more organized and working openly.

And between the market, the monarch, and
the mosque, you now have three broad centers

of power, legitimacy, and authority
that represent huge sectors of society.

They're not exactly evenly matched.

In some places the government,
the monarch, is dominant.

In some cases, the market is dominant.

In some cases, the mosque and the
religious tribal groups are dominant.

But these three are now creating, are engaged
now in a process which I believe is historic

and significant in this region and
is still evolving which is a balance

of power among three major power centers that
provides an informal form of checks and balances

and that provides also something else which
I believe is the rebirth or maybe we can talk

about the birth of politics in the Arab world.

For the first time in modern history, we have
serious contestation of power and legitimacy

and authority among groups that are operating
in public that are anchored in local society

that have huge numbers of people that they
represent that are seen to be legitimate,

that are seen to be responsible,
powerful, and credible actors

in society, seen by their own people.

And they are all, all of this
is now happening in public.

If you're in the Middle East, if you
take the time to observe what's going on,

you will see all of these things happening.

And what I think is important for us
to do is to understand what this means.

I am -- the title of my talk is Rights,
Respect, Resistance, and Righteousness:

The New Middle East Power Equations.

Rights, respect, resistance, and righteousness
I believe are four words that capture some

of the key themes that drive many
of these actors as well as driving,

as well as driving some of the
foreign forces that intervene

in our societies including the American
government and army and the British

and Europeans and, and, and many others.

But first of all, I think we have to
ask ourselves how did we get here?

We got here by looking at -- we can understand
how we got here by looking at a quick overview

of the last 30 or 40 years and I would mention
a few, I'll give you just 10 headline ideas

about what forces or what criteria or conditions
defined most of the Arab world for most

of the last two or three generations.

The first is that this is the only chronically

and collectively non-Democratic
region in the world.

Nowhere in the Arab world do you have a
credible, serious Democratic process at play

and while after the end of the Cold War you
had Democratic transformations in many parts

of the world, we had none in the Arab
world and this is an important factor.

The second point is that most
of the states in the Arab world

in one way or another are weak states.

They're, they're strong governments and the
states exist and have been there for a while

and will hang around for a while but
they are getting weaker in many cases

because the authority of the central
government no longer dominates all of society

as it used to 30 and 40 years ago.

The third point is that the legitimacy
of many of the governing powers

in the Arab world is being
slowly -- fraying at the edges.

It's not disappearing.

You still have strong, legitimate,
central governments with huge armies,

multiple security agencies,
tremendous economic power,

control of media resources
and many other things.

But the legitimacy of these institutions of
the central power are fraying at the edges

as many other people emerge in society and play
the role that the government normally plays

which is to provide people with security,
with representation, with a sense of hope

for the future, and a range of
basic services whether it's water,

education, jobs, or whatever it may be.

So the legitimacy of many central government
authorities and governments is fraying somewhat.

The fourth point is that this is a region
under tremendous demographic stress.

They -- we now have about 350 million Arabs.

In 1930 there was around 60
million, a massive growth,

highest population growth rate in the world.

30, 40 years ago, the Arab world was mostly
old people, middle age or old people,

living in rural areas, poorly
served in basic services.

Today the Arab world is 65%
urban, it's mostly urban.

It's mostly young people about 65% to 68% of
the Arab population is under the age of 30.

And these are people whose basic
needs are pretty well met now.

The state building from the 1930's to the 1980's
provided a very strong infrastructural base

so most people in the Arab world, especially
in cities and towns can walk to a hospital

or clinic and walk to their school, can walk

to a fresh water source, that
basic services are there.

It's a young, urban, well-served
population or decently served population

which is tremendously politically frustrated
because it doesn't enjoy political rights

to any significant degree and is
increasingly concerned about environmental

and economic stress and therefore you
have this tremendous demographic pressure

from within society which drives
many of the forces that we're seeing.

The fifth point is environmental stress.

This is a region in which
environmental management

by the governments has been not very good, by
and large, to the point now where we're starting

to see in countries like Iraq and Syria
and other places, environmental refugees,

internally displaced environmental
refugees who are moving simply

because they can no longer
live in their communities.

The water has run out, the land is
no good for farming, or other reasons

and you're seeing this now in countries.

And, you, in a recent poll done of young people
by Gallup, it's about 18% of young people

between the ages of 15 and 29 said that they
expect to have to move their place of residence

in the next five years because of environmental
stress, only because of environmental factors,

so environmental conditions are a big problem.

Widening disparities is a problem that
we are seeing all over the region,

particularly in economic terms with small
groups of very wealthy, well-serviced people

and growing, growing numbers of
people who are more, more poor.

The seventh main thing we can see in the
region is a tradition of foreign armies

that keep coming into the region.

The foreign armies, since the
days of Napoleon, will rationalize

and justify why they come into our region.

The reality is from the receiving end

in the Arab world most people
are fed up with foreign armies.

They don't think they should
be coming at us regularly

and they don't think they make things
better but they make things worse.

The eighth point is the unresolved
Arab-Israeli conflict

which remains I believe the
most important destabilizing

and radicalizing force in the region.

The Palestinian exile now is five or six years
longer than the ancient Jewish Babylonian exile

and the Palestinians in exile are
now acting like the Babylonian exiles

which is recreating the consciousness of
a nation in exile and therefore a nation

that will find its way back home
and restore its national rights.

The mentality of exile of the Palestinians
into the third generation now in Palestine

as in Babylon has created a psychological and a
political condition which is redrawing the map

of the Arab-Israeli conflict and you see in the
behavior of groups like Hezbollah and Hamas,

just two signs of a different attitude
towards war or peace with Israel.

So the Arab-Israeli conflict is a huge
factor and the more it remains unresolved,

the more problematic the region is.

The ninth point I would say is
a growing sense of injustice

and double standards felt by
many people in the region.

And the injustices and double
standards that more and more people

in our region feel are anchored both in
local exercise of power, how Arab governments

and governments in the region are
treating their own people in an unfair,

inequitable, and sometimes brutal way.

And also at injustices that we feel are
coming from abroad, the double standards

in the application of U.N. resolutions, access
to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes,

and the use of force for political change.

Many complaints are made in our region routinely
about the West but also about the Arabs

and the Israelis, so this
is a very common complaint.

And number 10 point, I believe that is an
important indicator of how we got here is

that the rule of law, the
application of the rule

of law has been very erratic
throughout the Arab world.

There is rule of law but it's applied
in an erratic and inconsistent way

and has created a greater sense of
indignity among ordinary Arabs who feel

that what their governments are
doing or what the power structures

in the societies are doing
is not fair to everybody.

That most people don't have a fair chance
to really advance in life and benefit

from their education and their hard work,
that the, the, the situation is skewed

to help the small group of people
who hold power while the majority

of other people are disadvantaged.

And this erratic application of the rule of law

and equitable power distribution is a major
point that has driven protest movements

and activism around the Arab world, particularly
Islamist movements who have become very strong

and are critical of their own governments as
they are critical of Israel and Western powers.

But the main driving force of
most of the Islamist movements

in the modern period has been domestic
imbalances, social inequity, abuse of power,

corruption, unfair application of
state assets, etcetera, etcetera.

So those 10 points I think are
the main ones as many, many others

but I think they help explain why is
it that this region is so turbulent

and is so violent in many situations.

And why is it in many cases why the
governments and the power structures in many

of our countries have responded to these
stresses by becoming more autocratic and, and,

and dominating society to a greater
degree and not opening up and liberalizing

as many other countries that are in
the world after the end of the Cold War

but rather tightening their controls.

The consequences of these trends and
other ones are pretty clear to see.

There's a widespread fear and
vulnerability among, a sense of fear

and vulnerability among many people in the area.

They feel that they're increasingly vulnerable.

The economic stress, foreign armies, their
own systems, their own security systems,

criminal activity, environmental pressures,
all kinds of reasons why people should be more

and more concerned, particularly young
people worried about getting a job

and having an opportunity to live a decent life.

And second consequence is that this is
a region widely riddled with violence

as a normal means of political expression.

And the violence is practiced by three main
groups; the governments and political structures

of these region use violence against their own
people or against neighbors, opposition groups

and terror groups use violence, and foreign
armies and invading forces use violence.

And these three main groups have
now created this cycle of violence

which is a common vocabulary of political
conduct throughout the Middle East.

Third consequence is the fragmentation of
the central power and authority that used

to define the, most of the
countries in this region.

If you had come to the Middle East -- and this
applies to Turkey, Iran, the Arab countries --

if you have come there in 1950 or
1960 you essentially had to deal

with one central government which controlled
everything, the military, the police,

the economy, the media, the schools.

They controlled everything.

If you go to most Arab countries today, you
have to, there is no one central authority

that controls everything, even in government,

even in countries where the government is very
strong, like Jordan, like Turkey, like Morocco,

where you have a strong, tough,
credible, legitimate central government.

But even there they don't have
the control that they used to.

People get their media information
from other sources than the government.

They get a lot of their services
from the private sector and NGOs.

A lot of people turn to non-government
forces for even the representation

of their very identity, whether they turn
to Islamist groups or to tribal groups

or to ethnic leaderships or private corporate
groups, they, they don't necessarily turn

to the government as the main group that
represents them but there's other groups

that compete for, for this kind of authority.

You have therefore many new
actors emerging in society,

non-state actors is how they
were traditionally called.

But I would say that they were
actually parallel-state actors.

You have now groups like the Muslim brothers,
like Hezbollah, like Hamas in Palestine,

some of the big tribal federations
and tribal organizations,

some of the private sector corporations,
even some big NGOs in some countries.

You have a whole range of groups that now are
active in society openly, publicly, legally.

And they operate at a level in which they do
similar services to what the governments used

to do, including providing security,
providing political representation,

negotiating with foreign powers, and
therefore you have a whole bunch of new actors

who are not just non-state actors,
they're parallel-state actors.

We have a very strange phenomenon
in the Arab world

where we have multiple authorities
and single sovereignties.

So in Lebanon for instance you have
Hezbollah and you have the government.

In Palestine you have Hamas, you have Fatah.

In Somalia, you have a whole
range of different people.

In Iraq, you have got all
kinds of groups now emerging.

So you have these multiple centers
of power and authority and legitimacy

and service delivery who coexist very easily.

They're not fighting each other to take over.

They're not necessarily -- it's not a zero sum
game where only one group is going to emerge.

That's how it used to be back in the 50's
and 60's but now there's more sophistication,

maybe just more weariness, whatever.

But people now are much more nuanced about
coexisting with different power structures

and power authorities working
alongside each other.

And they sometimes share power
as in the government in Lebanon.

You have Hezbollah, you have
the Hariri led March 14 groups,

and they're part of the same government,
half of which is aligned with Iran,

half of which is aligned with the United States.

So the Lebanese government is the
first Iranian-American joint venture

and political governance in the Arab world.

But it exists and it works and
people find it very natural.

Similarly, in Palestine at one
point, Hamas and Fatah were

in a unity government and they split up.

They'll come back at some point one day and
you find this going on in Yemen and Somalia,

in Egypt and every, all over the place.

You find this process of different
legitimate groups competing with each other

but then coming together when
they, when they, when they need to.

Another trend or consequence of this is that you
have now many different conflicts in the region,

a region that used to be dominated and
defined by the Arab-Israeli conflict

and the Cold War and that was about it.

Those were the two major conflicts.

The Middle East now is defined by a wide
range of conflicts internally within countries

like Yemen, like Somalia,
like Lebanon, like Palestine.

Then you have problems in Iraq, obviously.

Then you have conflicts between countries -- the
Arab-Israeli conflict, tensions between Syria

and Lebanon which now have eased but they
come and go, tensions between Arab countries

and Iran, and many of these internal
conflicts as in Lebanon and Yemen and Palestine

and Iraq are proxy battles for
bigger conflicts between Iran

and the United States and other groups.

So you have a whole range of conflicts
now that, that take place in the region

and they've all come together
in a kind of regional Cold War.

So it's impossible now for somebody to go in
as they used to try to do before to say, "Okay,

we're going to try to solve
the Arab-Israeli conflict."

You can't solve the Arab-Israeli conflict
unless you address Syria, Lebanon,

Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria.

There's many different tensions and conflicts
that have to be addressed now collectively

and this is part of the complexity
of this region which comes

about because we've had this process going
on for decades and decades and decades.

And again the Arab-Israeli conflict is the
single most destabilizing and problematic reason

for the degradation of the
stability and security of the area.

There's other reasons, it's not
the only one, but it's the oldest

and the most serious reason why
you have all of these problems.

Imagine if the Arab-Israeli
conflict had been solved in 1975.

Hamas and Hezbollah probably wouldn't exist.

They came into existence in the early 80's,
mainly as a response to Israeli occupation.

The Iranian-Israeli tension
probably wouldn't be there.

So there's many reasons why you have
a clear link between the continuation

of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the security
problems and pressures that you can see

in many other parts of the region.

Another important thing that, trend that
we can see is as a, as a response to many

of these developments, there is a new sense
of kind of what I could call defiance.

Some people talk of resistance
but you have hundreds of millions

of people in the Arab world and Iran.

You have something like 500 million people.

Out of those 500 million people,
the vast majority in the last 25

or 30 years have asserted in public their
political and personal views and worked actively

to try to change conditions
that they complain about.

Whether it's their own domestic
political hypocrisy, foreign intervention,

Arab-Israeli wars, occupations, economic
disparities, whatever is the reason

of their complaint, what you have and I would
say this is the single most important political

development in our region in the last
two generations is the end of docility.

That huge numbers of people and I would say
we're talking here of 2 to 400 million people,

are no longer willing to acquiesce in
the conditions that they have inherited

of occupation, of foreign subjugation, of
domestic inequity, political abuse, corruption,

lack of democracy, fixed
elections, the kinds of things

that they've suffered internally
and regionally and globally.

And they're trying to do
something about it and they --

and this is why you have all of these actors.

Islamist movements, democracy movements,
human rights movements, civil society groups,

student groups, women's groups,
professionals, lawyer's associations,

there's all kinds of mechanisms that
people have used including violent actions

by small militants and terrorist
groups, militia groups.

There's all kinds of different
groups during different things

but the single common denominator I
believe that's important for us is

that there is no longer a docile, acquiescent
population in the Arab-Islamic region

of the Middle East that is willing to, to
be docile in the face of its own subjugation

or occupation or marginalization
or pauperization.

And this is what we're seeing I think in all
of these groups that are much more active

and much more dynamic in society.

Another impact of all of
these things has been the role

of the United States is particularly
important I think.

The United States is the biggest
international power and it is actively involved

in the Middle East with its
army, with its diplomacy,

with its economic aid in many different ways.

But the striking thing about the U.S.
in the Middle East I believe is the fact

that the vast majority of people in that region
and I'm talking here of Arabs, Israelis, Turks,

and Iranians, the vast majority neither
respect nor fear the United States anymore.

This is a strong statement, I know,
but I think it is probably correct.

And if you look at how the United
States has behaved in the last, say,

15 years, this is a recent phenomenon.

If you look at how the United States has
behaved with the Arabs, with the Israelis,

with the Turks, with the Iranians, threatening
them, cajoling them, trying to buy them off.

I know the recent, the most recent, yesterday
the U.S. said its given up its attempt

to get the Israelis to free settlements which
they tried to do by pressure and they tried

to do by buying them off and
in neither case were they able

to do it and the U.S. just backed away.

They tried to pressure the Turks in different
things but the Turks stood up to them,

wouldn't let the Americans
go into Iraq through Turkey.

They've had sanctions and all kinds
of threats against Iran and Syria

which has just emboldened Iran and Syria
and they've used all kinds of pressures and,

and policies to get the Arabs to be compliant.

And while many Arab governments
have been compliant with the U.S.,

a lot of people in the Arab world
have become much more defiant.

And this is a very, very significant
situation which I think needs

to be studied much more carefully.

I believe it is, it is fair to
say that a majority of people

in our region neither respect
nor fear the United States.

And this is a shock I think if you're an
American citizen or the American government.

If people neither fear you nor respect
you, then you have virtually no influence

and I think this is the situation the
United States has found itself in.

It's waged two wars and is quickly
trying to get out of both of them.

It's trying to use its diplomatic efforts and
in no case has it had any significant success

with the Israelis, with the
Arabs, with the Iranians.

It's a very serious problem for the
United States and I think it is part

of the bigger picture that I'm trying
to draw which is in the old days,

when all they had to do was deal
with a bunch of Arab leaders,

then the Arab countries did
everything you wanted them to do.

Or a non-democratic Iran or a non-democratic
Turkey, it was very easy for you to just deal

with these leaders and you, and everything was
hunky dory, especially during the Cold War.

The situation has changed radically,
that large numbers of people in all

of these societies including in Israel
which is a very strong American ally,

the Israelis will not be dictated to by the
United States and they'll stand up to it

and we just saw a very good example of it.

And part of the reason for this I believe, I
mentioned many different factors, environmental,

political discontent, lack of democracy,
foreign armies, occupations, etcetera,

but I think that if there's a single
reason within the region I would say

that it is the pauperization of the
region and the demographic transition.

We're dealing with a region that is
I said about 65% under the age of 30.

This is a very young region and it's highly
urbanized and like I said basic needs are met.

People can walk to school and the health center.

They're not starving.

Nobody is dying of lack of vaccination.

But they feel that their, their biological
survival is not matched by a response

to their basic need for human dignity and
more importantly their sense of citizenship.

What does it mean to be a citizen of a country?

That you can vote in a non-rigged election,
that you can make your voice heard,

that you can hold your government accountable,

that there can be a normal process
of give and take in society.

People have not felt that their
citizenship rights have been exercised

and they're responding to that but most

of all I believe the single most
important factor is the economic stress.

And in the last 25, 30 years this
has been one of the most important

but understudied factors I believe in
the entire transformation of this region.

And I want to give you just two statistics.

One is for the entire, for the entire Arab world
-- this is World Bank data from last year --

if you take the 22 Arab countries and
you look at the gross domestic product

and constant prices, and constant
prices, not those adjusted for inflation.

In the decade of the 1980's, the per capita
GDP which is a rough measure of average wealth,

the per capita GDP in the 1980's
averaged over that decade was $2671.

In this decade from 2000 to 2009, that figure
of $2671 after 20 years has dropped to $2557.

This is adjusted per capita real
income, real GDP per capita.

And this is a shocking situation and
this is for the entire Arab world.

If you take away the oil states,
the wealthy, and you take away--

and you leave just the poorer countries --
Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, etcetera, Yemen --

you are dealing with a region that has been poor
for ma- a long time and continues to get poorer

and this is one of the greatest problems.

Let me give you one more, more dramatic example.

If you take the country of Jordan, just one
country, and you take that critical decade

from the 19 mid-80's to the mid-90's which
I believe is the critical decade which co-

coincides with the economic stress on the Arab
world in the mid-80's, the end of the Cold War,

and then the transitional years after that.

From 1985 to 1995, in one country,
Jordan, which is a pretty normal country,

it's not an oil state; it's not a
completely desolate, poor state.

It's a pretty normal place and those of you
who know Jordan know that it's a nice place

and it's pleasant and, and the people
are dynamic and they're friendly.

But between 1985 and 1995, if you take the
gross domestic product per capita in Jordan

and you just take those dinar figures which the
government gives you and then you translate them

into constant prices in U.S. dollars -- and
the reason you have to do it in U.S. dollars is

because most of what Jordan consumes,
like most of the Arab world, is imported.

Airplanes, fuel, furniture, computers,
food, most of it is imported,

so you have to denominate in dollars
to see what is the actual real income

or purchasing power of an average citizen.

In that period between '85 and
'95 in Jordan, the GDP per capita

in constant U.S. dollars
declined from $2244 to $908.

It's an unbelievable drop.

You don't hear these figures very much
because people in the Middle East tend not

to like to talk about this reality.

But this is the reality that we're dealing
with, whether it's at the micro level

of the entire region or if it -- and if
you take this same exercise and do it

for any other country in the region you're
going to get a similar range of views.

And therefore you have a situation
today where across the region --

and here I'm talking about
only the Arab world, though,

leaving out Israel, Iran,
and Turkey for a moment.

And across the Arab world, you have a huge,
young population that is suffering this kind

of economic stress with the environmental
stress, with the domestic political constraints,

with the regional tensions and
frustrations of the Arab-Israeli conflict,

with the international pressures of foreign
armies and, and the perception that the U.N.

and the world, the West, are
applying double standards.

When you put all of these things together,
you end up with a population of mostly young,

very frustrated and worried people.

But more than just being frustrated and
worried, we're dealing with a young population

that in more and more cases
is gradually detaching itself

from the anchorage of its own society.

And I think if you look at the most interesting
data that I think we have today is a poll

that was just done by the Gallup organization,

a poll of youth in every single
Arab country, aged 15 to 29.

And the polling done by Gallup for a
group in Qatar called Silatech which deals

with transitions of young people from education
to employment, the Arab youth's polling

that has been done has given us some
really important indications of the reality

of young people who are the majority of people.

But I think the youth's perceptions reflect
the wider perceptions of all Arab society,

showing the reality which is that you have
serious pressures, concerns, vulnerabilities,

fears, worries, serious ones, combined
with powerful forces for self-confidence,

hope for the future, a sense of security.

And this is the reality of the Arab
world which is so important to grasp.

Why at the same time do you have evidence of
violence, extremism, dysfunctional behavior,

etcetera, etcetera, combined with
this strong sense of stability?

But let me just give you a few statistics from
-- remember this is talking about young people

in the entire Arab countries, 22 countries with
nationally representative samples by Gallup.

90% of young people feel that they
actually are free to express themselves.

This is really important.

They feel they have the freedom to speak, partly
because of the new information technology --

internet, and cell phones and stuff.

They can express themselves which people in my
generation and before couldn't do so easily.

They feel they are -- 65% roughly -- are
satisfied with the freedoms in their life

to do whatever they want which is quite
significant, about two-thirds of them almost.

There are positive elements like 86 percent,
the overwhelming majority, feel that if they are

in a moment of need, that they have people in
their immediate environment, family, friends,

cousins, neighbors, NGOs,
charitable societies --

they have people who will help them immediately.

That they feel, 86% feel that they have somebody

who can immediately help
them if they need something.

Along -- then you have something
like 88% to 90% feel that religion

and family are important forces in their
society or they can rely on those forces.

So you have some strong indicators of a large
number of young Arabs who are not desperate,

who feel that they have protection.

They have anchorage in society
that they can turn to.

It's not the government.

It's mostly family, friends, religion,
neighbors, etcetera, but though to be fair also

about 70% or so say that they are content.

They feel that their environment that
they live in in their town or village

or city, they're satisfied with it.

It's not, you know, five-star luxury,
but they're, they're satisfied.

They think that their living
in decent conditions.

Yet, the negative aspects are equally striking.

30, 30% only feel that they can
find good, affordable housing.

They are worried about, they don't have
-- they can't find affordable housing.

They can't get married.

They're particularly worried
about housing as an impediment

to leaving youth, childhood,
and becoming adults.

30% on average across the region want to
immigrate permanently, to go to another country.

And this 30% is for the regional average.

It goes up to 45% in some
cases like Algeria and others.

It goes up to 45% or more but 30
is the entire regional average.

If one-third of your young people who are
educated, who are the most productive element

in your society, one-third of these
people want to leave, that's a bad sign.

And they would leave if they
could but most of them can't.

Nobody will take them.

They won't get -- they can't get visas.

You have a problem with confidence in
the integrity of the central government.

About 50 percent, 51% say that
they have -- well, excuse me --

51 and 53 because you have
males and females are different.

But they -- about 51 or 53% feel they
have confidence in the central government.

In other words, almost half of the young people
have no confidence in their central government.

Same thing for the judiciary, about 53% have
confidence in the judiciary but 47% don't.

Only 45% have confidence in the media.

The young people have completely
turned away from their mass media.

They don't follow it.

They don't -- they, they,
they create their own media.

This is one of the results of the youth
study that we have just completed.

Only 40% of young people
in the Arab world believe

that elections held in their country are honest.

60% feel that elections are a sham.

These are very strong, clear, accurate,
dispassionate indicators of societies in stress.

And I've mentioned the main reasons that I
think help us to understand how we got here.

I think -- what, what, what, what we can see
now is that there are many actors in societies,

in our societies who are behaving in a way
that represents their desire to change things,

to address some of these problems and pressures.

And again, there's a multitude
of different actors.

Each one is motivated by something else,
religious groups, tribal sector, political,

militant, and all kinds of groups but the
reality is that they're all working at once

and what you have for the first time is a
dynamic situation of change and transformation

in which these groups as I said
coalesce into three broad categories;

the monarchy, the mosque, and the market.

And they give us a bit of a balancing act
now which creates a little bit of stability.

Now we have a stable system -- it,
it's a dynamic but stable system

but this is a transitional moment, this
situation isn't going to last for a long time.

And people are talking about
the four R's that I mentioned.

People are demanding their
rights, they're demanding respect,

and the respect they are demanding is from their
own authorities as well as from foreigners.

Whether it's Hamas demanding respect
from Israel or Syria demanding respect

from the United States or somebody demanding
respect from somebody else, the respect is, the,

the, the respect is probably the single greatest
common denominator among all of these actors.

It's an intangible element of being, of
being treated fairly, being treated decently,

of being allowed to behave as
a human being and as a citizen.

Not to be treated like an animal or
a second-class person and this demand

for respect is oriented to people's
own governments and societies

as well as foreign, foreign ones.

So respect is, is incredibly important.

Resistance is what many people say they
are doing in the Arab world and Iran.

Resisting forces that they believe threaten
them whether it's Israeli forces occupying them

or Americans or British army
or Arab conservative forces

or private sector dominating
corporations, whatever.

They have many accusations against many people.

But resistance is the term that people use
now and, and, and the Syrians and the Iranians

and others are grouping themselves with a range
of different organizations in our societies

and they call themselves the
Resistance and Deterrents Front.

You, you may think this is crazy.