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Middle East Dilemma

Michael C. Hudson (ed.)

Tauris & Co. Ltd

1999

4. From Pan–Arabism to the Community of Sovereign Arab States: Redefining the Arab and Arabism in the Aftermath of the Second Gulf War
Bassam Tibi

 

Since the creation of the Arab state system in the wake of the decolonization of Arab lands (Fromkin 1989), the rhetoric of pan–Arab unity has been the prevailing pretension in inter–Arab politics (Tibi 1997). Yet, conflict, not cooperation, has been the hallmark of highly competitive ) Arab state policies, and interstate relations have been characterized more by divisive coalitions than by cooperative integration (Kerr 1971).

Until the Gulf crisis, the basic belief underlying pan–Arab rhetoric was that all Arabs, as an imagined community, share commonalities on every level and thus need only to be unified into one, centrally governed nation–state. The fact that Arab unity is not yet a reality, but remains a dream that falls short of the requirements of a policy, is explained as an outcome of external conspiracies (mu‘amarat) directed against the Arabs by their Western enemies (Tibi 1993). The prominent Iraqi Ba‘th politician Sa‘dun Hammadi clearly puts forward this contention: "In the Arab homeland there exists no movement that suffers from the hostility of Western imperialism more than pan–Arabism does. The reason for this is that the West is aware of the consequences that may result for its presence in the area, if a mighty pan–Arab state could be built up" (Hammadi 1970, 166–67). Hammadi also blames the Arabs themselves for the absence of this "mighty Arab state," without, however, giving up on the notion of an external mu‘amarah (conspiracy) as a major explanation for the lack of Arab unity. This understanding of pan–Arabism perhaps influenced Iraq‘s decision to invade Kuwait in 1990. In the text of his declaration of the annexation of Kuwait, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein highlighted the pan–Arab perception that the West committed a "major crime" against the Arabs when it divided their lands. Saddam reminded his fellow Arabs that the region was "one entity when it was ruled by Baghdad" (Al–Muntada September 1990). The confusion of the Ottoman Empire with the Abbasid Caliphate is striking in this statement based on the perception of a sinister conspiracy. The notion of mu‘amarah and the threat perception related to it are salient features of pan–Arab rhetoric (Tibi 1993 and Spanish edition 1996). Some of the beliefs underlying the idea of a United Arab State had taken on a quasi–religious character, and to question them was viewed as tantamount to sacrilege.

The Gulf crisis changed this situation decisively, since it was ignited by the invasion of a sovereign Arab state by another Arab state, not by an extraregional power. At the outset, no external forces were involved. Efforts to deal with the conflict on a regional level, i.e., to deescalate the conflict within the framework of a hall al–‘Arabi ("Arab solution," see Tibi 1993, ch. 16), were hampered ) by the lack of an Arab institutional framework for conflict management (Kriesberg and Thorson 1991, 267–73). The fact that the Arab state system participates in a regional organization, the Arab League, changes little in reality (Macdonald 1965; Gomaa 1977). The Arab League simply does not have the institutions and the related mechanisms of collective policymaking required for regional conflict resolution. In comparison with the European Union (EU), the Arab state system also lacks the necessary institutional efficacy. Despite its well–known flaws, European integration provides a model from which the Arabs could learn much in their efforts to redefine Arabism in the aftermath of the Gulf crisis. I would argue that, had the Arab League been of the same caliber as the EU (and earlier the EC), both institutionally and in terms of policymaking, the interstate conflict between Iraq and Kuwait over oil and boundaries would not have erupted and escalated, let alone have led to war. But unfortunately the Arab League lacked the capacity to resolve, or even to deescalate, the conflict (Tschirgi and Tibi 1991; Tibi 1993, Part III).

The vision of a pan–Arab state, as it had prevailed until the Gulf crisis, was related to the ideology and rhetoric of pan–Arab nationalism, but not to an existing citizenship pattern nor to a model of integration of regional states. Pan–Arab ideology was directed against the existing institution of the nation–state, along whose lines all discrete states of the region are organized. In the political language of pan–Arab ideology, existing Arab states were not accepted as nation–states. They were downgraded and labeled al–dawla al–qitriyya (the domestic state) (Tarabishi 1982). The term meaning "the Arab nation–state" (al–dawla al–qawmiyya), was used only to refer to the visionary pan–Arab state aimed at, and allegedly hitherto impeded by, Western conspiracies. Thus, pan–Arab ideology, even though it negates the existing Arab nation–states, remains imprisoned in the nation–state idea. It simply aspires to a larger pan–Arab state that unites all Arabs. In fact, harmony and brotherhood were the central rhetorical themes of pan–Arab ideology, while real interstate Arab politics, as with any other politics, has been characterized by severe conflict.

The difference between Arabs and Europeans has not been the difference between a harmonious and a conflict–ridden group of states. Rather, it has been the difference between European states as a group equipped with mechanisms of conflict resolution and a realistic concept of Europeanness, and Arab states blinded by ideological and extended tribal formulas such as brotherhood and pan–Arab harmony (Tibi 1990), which preoccupy their thoughts and policies. To put it bluntly, one of the lessons of the Gulf crisis ought to be the recognition of the strength of a policy–oriented, rather than an ideology–oriented, redefinition of Arabness.

As noted, pan–Arab ideology denounced the existing nation–states as dawla qitriyya (the domestic state). In fact, with the exception of Egypt and Morocco, all existing Arab states can be described as nominal nation–states in that they lack the substance of the nation–state institution first developed in Europe and then––in the course of globalization––adopted by the entire world (for more details, see Giddens 1987, 255ff and Tibi 1990). Third World states often have been described by international relations scholars as "quasi–states" (Jackson 1990). Nevertheless, the existing Arab nation–states are here to stay. Surely, the first lesson of the Gulf crisis must be that any effort to induce boundary changes in the existing Arab state system will erupt in violent conflict. In the case of the Gulf, the conflict cost the Arabs dearly.

To question the ideological concept of pan–Arabism and to plead for a redefinition of Arabness is not to rebuff the Arab aspiration for integration. If this aspiration were to be redefined in policy terms, it could develop into a pragmatic policy of integration that would contribute to Arab development and regional peace. With the aim of redefining Arabness along these realistic lines, I want to explore the usefulness of the European integration experience as a possible model for Arab politics.

Underlying my argument are two propositions. First, redefining Arabness must be aimed at developing a new design for inter–Arab relations: an interstate structure of sovereign states based on mutual respect. In early 1996 the Secretary General of the Arab League, Dr. Esmat Abdel–Meguid, made a proposal urging that the existing sovereignty of the Arab states be unambiguously accepted as a matter of "sharaf ‘arabi" (Arab honor). The integration pattern ought not question or violate the national sovereignty of the existing Arab states. For this reason, European integration is an experience from which the Arabs could learn.

Second, we must redefine the Arab as a citizen of a democratic state and divorce the notion of the Arab from its hitherto prevailing ethnic connotations. The Kurds of Syria and Iraq, the Dinka of Sudan, and the Berber of Algeria and Morocco could then feel like true Arab citizens, no longer outlawed by a quasi–racist ethnic–exclusive definition of the Arab. Furthermore, the new definition of the Arab should also be secular since not all Arabs are Muslims. A secular redefinition of the Arab smoothes the way for Arab Christians to honor Arabness as a citizenship that puts them on equal footing with their Muslim co–citizens (see the secular position of Christian Lebanese Mughaizel 1980; and the contrary position of the Egyptian fundamentalist ‘Imara 1981).

European Integration as a Model

It is common sense to state that the overall problems of the community of Arab states cannot be solved on the level of the existing discrete nation–states. However, regional integration seems to promise new avenues for progress. In this regard, the EU provides a model from which Arab policymakers could learn a great deal. Unfortunately, since these policymakers do not face the threat of being turned out of office by voters, they may not adopt these lessons. Integration is nevertheless not a new theme in Arab politics (see Luciani and Salamé 1988). The problem is that the term "integration" has been consistently used by Arab politicians as equivalent to the blurred concept of pan–Arab state unity. In this understanding, the EU cannot serve as a model for the Arabs since Europeans––as will be shown later in more detail––are not attempting to create a "United States of Europe." In Arabic, there are important nuances between integration (indimaj), cooperation (ta‘awun), and unity (wahda). However, in the language of Arab politics, all of these meanings are subsumed under the pan–Arab concept of central unity as designated by the ideology of Arab nationalism. If Arab politicians are to learn from the Gulf War in the context of redefining "Arabness," it becomes imperative for them to take a serious look at the structure and achievements of the European Community and its development to a European Union. This is why I believe it is important to reconsider and redefine "Arabness."

There are two major conflicting paradigms in the Middle East: the pan–Arab and the Islamist (Tibi 1987, 59–74 and Tibi 1997, Part V), along with various ethnic and local–national subdivisions (Khoury and Kostiner 1990), which undermine the structure of the Arab nation–state and thus stand as obstacles to Arab integration.

In an interview with this writer on September 28, 1989, the late Shaykh of Al–Azhar, Jadulhaq Ali Jadulhaq, responded to a question concerning Muslim unity with his own question: "You come from Europe. What are the Europeans doing there?" In the Shaykh‘s mind, the EC was then a model for Arab or Muslim unity. The rationale of his question was that if the Europeans are uniting, why cannot the Muslims and Arabs unite as well. This logic can be found elsewhere in pan–Arab political thought. It draws on the model of German unity once described by Sati‘ al–Husri as an example for the Arabs to emulate and has been expanded to include commentary on the recent European progress toward unity. Yet, a closer look at the EU helps overcome this misconception that the European model is somehow comparable to the pan–Arab goal of a single Arab state. The realities of the ongoing European integration simply "do not fit with the notion of either a ‘superstate‘ or a ‘United States of Europe‘ " (Sbargia 1992, 2). What then is European integration? And to what extent can it serve as a model for the goal of Arab integration under a new definition of Arabness?

A recent Brookings Institution study states that "national governments are prominent actors in the [European] community, integral to its very identity" (Sbargia 1992, 12). This observation may shock or disillusion those Middle Easterners who look to the early EC and the current EU as a model for Arab state unity. Then too, this observation may relieve the fears of those Arab statesmen who pay lip service to pan–Arab unity while deep in their hearts and in their realpolitik, they resent it as a threat to national sovereignty. To reemphasize the true meaning of European integration: the European states are––without great fanfare––pursuing their politics of integration while maintaining and acknowledging the existing state units as the basis of representation within the community. The EU is not like the Arab League; it represents institution–building and substantive integration. The EU has created an internal market encompassing all member states which includes goods, services, capital, and labor. This eliminates all earlier existing nontariff barriers among the participating member states.

The second area of European integration is in policymaking. In substance, the political process of integration in Western Europe means nothing more than the building of institutions as a framework for policymaking. A prominent example is the European Court of Justice. Another is the European Parliament. The other major institutions include the EU Commission, the Council of Ministers, and the European Council. These institutions represent an extraordinarily complex political system of policymaking on all levels which, nevertheless, does not infringe on the sovereignty of decisionmaking and bargaining, and which is capable of translating "institutional capacity... into the effective representation of diverse national interests and needs at the community level" (Sbargia 1992, 3).

Most importantly, this system is underpinned by an intrinsically democratic political culture in which qualified majority decisions are recognized and unanimity is not basically required. Democratic leadership, democratic coalitions, diversity, bargaining, convergence, policy differentiation, and national government discretion are the terms around which the system of European integration can be described. Thus, decisionmaking in the European community is an interplay between member states and the institutions of the community (Sbargia 1992, 2–3). In short, European political integration is based on the institutional framework for interplay among sovereign states.

Having unraveled what European integration is all about, it might no longer seem to be attractive to those Arabs for whom al&-;wahda ("unity"––meaning the fusion of existing states into a larger union) is a kind of civil religion. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, the community that believes in this political religion has been diminishing. The different pan–Arab regimes in Syria and Iraq have sought to monopolize the secular religion of Arabism while denying it to the other and viewing the other as an agent of imperialism and Zionism. While waging a war of words and avowing pan–Arabism rhetorically, each regime has jealously protected its own national state sovereignty and concomitant security concerns. The rivalry between the pan–Arab Iraqi Ba‘th and the Syrian pan–Arab Ba‘th is just a case in point (Kienle 1991). A recent comparison between royal Hashemite and radical pan–Arab unionism leads to the same disillusioning conclusion (Mufti 1996). In light of the Gulf War, this pattern can hardly be considered a model for redefining Arabness. Nor can the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq‘s Saddam Hussein––the self–proclaimed Arab Bismarck––be an acceptable model for integration. 1

The Arabs have been talking for decades about integration in terms of pan–Arab unity without progressing toward this rhetorically proclaimed end. In contrast, integration in Europe was a policy issue, not pan–ideological rhetoric. Inherent in this policy has been the consistent honoring of the existing nation–states in Europe. Institutionally supported respect for national differences on all levels, and thus for plurality, has been the hallmark of the EU. Rather than purporting to abolish diversities, which pan–Arab nationalists disregard as iqlimiyya (see al–Husri 1963), the Europeans established the institutional framework to deal with the conflicts arising from these diversities in a democratic and pluralistic manner. One of the lessons of the Gulf War is that existing Arab nation–states––regardless of their historical background––are here to stay. This insight makes the European model of integration, which honors diversity as plurality and which views national governments as the major players in the policymaking process, more appealing to pragmatic Arabs who turn away from the conflict–igniting ideologies that have blinded past generations and wasted their energies and their resources. In discussing Arab integration, Ghassan Salamé reminds us that the ideology of pan–Arab nationalism was clearly based on the "utopian idea of a single Arab state" (Luciani and Salamé 1988, 264). Yet all Arab governments that avowed this utopia have instead practiced "isolationist policies with pan–Arab vocabulary." This discrepancy between dishonest rhetoric and realpolitik has been the hallmark of Arab politics since the creation of the Arab state system.

I share Salamé‘s view that the Arab League has failed to achieve anything worth mentioning with regard to Arab integration because it pays lip service to the utopian idea of the pan–Arab state while simultaneously doing everything possible to prevent it. Even in terms of modest integration goals, such as cooperation frameworks, the Arab League has achieved little. In an environment in which the political culture necessary for practicing democracy is lacking, the rhetorical call for unanimity replaces actual political bargaining on the grounds of mutual acceptance of sovereignty. Salamé refers to the 4,000 resolutions adopted by the Arab League since its creation: "80 percent of them, though adopted by unanimous votes, were never applied.... [T]here is no need to establish majority rules since even when unanimity is possible it remains ineffective" (Luciani and Salamé 1988, 75). He also refers to the impressively large number of treaties signed under the auspices of the Arab League:

Applied, they would have created a very high level of pan–Arab integration. This is obviously not the case.... The major obstacle [is] the lack of implementation even of unanimously voted resolutions.... It is the discrepancy... between the dream of unity and the reality of inter–Arab politics. Arab regimes... would be threatened by a higher level of integration in the Arab world. And they clearly, systematically oppose this integration even when the state religion is Arab nationalism. (Luciani and Salamé 1988, 278)

Integration is perceived by Arab regimes as a threat not because the incumbents are traitors, "agents of imperialism and Zionism" and the like. Nation–states have national interests. The utopian and illusionary ideology of pan–Arab nationalism (Tibi 1997) is aimed at abolishing boundaries and establishing an ill–defined central pan–Arab government at the expense of competing national interests. No Arab state honestly wanted to be subjugated to such an unstable polity. However, if integration is understood as a politico–institutional framework for policymaking among equal nation–states––as is the case in the EU––then the threat–perception of Arab policymakers would abate.

The Arabs can learn a great deal from the European process of political and economic integration because no single Arab state can hope to cope with its problems in the absence of such integration. This process of Arab integration could take place while simultaneously maintaining and acknowledging the importance of the national governments participating in this process as sovereign actors. Policymaking within the framework of regional integration along the lines of the EU then would be a democratic process that does not violate the national interests of the member states. Thus conceptualized, "the role of national governments can be incorporated into a fuller understanding of policy making within the community" (Sbargia 1992, 12) as the EC model teaches us. This model could serve as a successful case to emulate while providing the basis for second thoughts on the overall failure of pan–Arabism and its rhetorical concept of Arabness.

Regional Integration in the Light of the Peace Process

In the same year of the Gulf War the Madrid Peace Conference took place and indirectly led to the Oslo Declaration of Principles and the ensuing Israeli–Palestinian peace accords in Washington and Cairo. Within this framework three economic summits––Casablanca in 1994, Amman in 1995, and Cairo in 1996––followed, in which many (but not all) of the Arab states participated, along with the United States, European Union member countries and––significantly––two key non–Arab Middle Eastern states––Israel and Turkey. A regional formula dubbed the "New Middle East" was promoted in these meetings, especially by the United States and Israel. (Indeed Israel‘s former prime minister Shimon Peres wrote a book with this title [Peres, 1993]). Unlike the Arab state system, the "New Middle East" comprises all the states of the region. A competing formula, which also emerged in the course of the peace process, is Euro–Mediterranean cooperation and integration. As awareness has grown of the significance of the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries for Europe (especially those member states on the northern Mediterranean coast), the European Union started to develop its own approach to the region. One important milestone in this trend was the Mediterranean Summit held in Barcelona in November 1995. The "New Middle East" is considered to be an American policy for the region while "Mediterranean integration" is seen as a European approach. It is clear that both new visions bring to the fore the fact that in the post–Arab–Israeli conflict and post–Cold War eras integration in the Middle East area is no longer an exclusive inter–Arab matter. In all of the aforementioned summits multi–billion–dollar funds were promised for financing the economic development of the Middle East as a whole, not just the Arab states. The establishment of the Regional Bank for Development in the Middle East in Cairo in March 1996 was the first concrete step for promoting the "New Middle East." This U.S.–supported measure faced tough European opposition.

Irrespective of further developments either in the direction of a "New Middle East" or a "Mediterranean network" (or a combination of the two competing formulas) the real issue is the need for regional cooperation that goes beyond the confines of the Arab state system. Middle Eastern peace can only be enduring if combined with the needed economic underpinning to be ) achieved through regional integration. The funds promised by the international community can only be made available on these grounds within this context.

In order not to create any tensions between the unfolding of a community of sovereign Arab states and these two new approaches to regional integration Arabs need to be assured that economic cooperation arrangements involving Israel would not serve as an umbrella for promoting Israeli regional hegemony. Similar Arab reservations are also valid concerning the inclusion of Turkey and Iran in a "New Middle East." A substantial water arrangement with Turkey and the abandonment of Iranian expansionist policy in the Gulf are, from the Arab point of view, as important as an honest and wholehearted Israeli commitment to a just peace. Following the 1996 elections in Israel (which brought Benjamin Netanyahu to power) and the ensuing Arab summit meeting in Cairo, the actors in the Arab–Israeli conflict have traded their roles: the Arab states are now asking for peace, and the new ) Likud government is rejecting the spirit (if not the letter) of the Oslo "peace process." A basic repercussion has been the blocking of both projects––"New Middle East" and "Euro–Mediterranean Integration"––and the freezing of their economic planning.

In short, the development of a community of sovereign Arab states and a structure for comprehensive Middle Eastern regional integration could become complementary rather than antagonistic to one another, but only under conditions of true Arab–Israeli peace based on mutual recognition in all substantive areas. At present the obstacles are tremendous and unlikely to disappear. So for the time being Arab integration must remain the top priority.

Toward a Secular, Non–Ethnic Arab Citizenship

A democratic framework for a new concept of Arab integration could provide a basis for redefining Arabness. A new approach to integration must be directed by and oriented toward the needs of the Arab people rather than by an ideology obsessed with rhetorical political utopias.

In pan–Arab ideology, Sati‘ al–Husri defined Arabness along the lines of Herder‘s German romantic idea of the nation as a Kulturgemeinschaft, i.e., a community determined by a common language and a shared history (on the German impact on Husri‘s thought, see Tibi 1997, 127–38). Basically, al–Husri‘s concept was a secular one. Nonetheless, this concept became mingled with Islam and Arab ethnicity in Arab politics (Hudson 1977, chs. 2–3). Non–Arab minorities such as the Kurds, the Dinka, and the Berber; non–Sunni Muslims such as the Shi‘a; and non–Muslims, either were practically outlawed or were not considered to be full members of the community. Muammar al–Qadhafi put it most blatantly when he said that Arab Christians ought to convert to Islam if they wanted to become true Arabs. While it is possible to switch from one religion to another through conversion, no one can escape their ethnicity. Kurds, Dinkas, and Berbers could never become ethnic Arabs even if they wanted to do so. The uprising of the Kurds and the Shi‘a in Iraq (Nakash 1994, 273–81) in the aftermath of the Gulf War reveals the consequences of attaching Arabness to a Sunni–Arab ethnic–sectarian concept. In the light of the Gulf crisis, a redefinition of the Arab is urgently needed. A secular, nonethnic and nonsectarian concept of citizenship in a civil, i.e., democratic, society provides a way out of this dilemma.

Even ethnic Arabs do not share a common identity, given their involvement in subethnic, sectarian, and tribal communities (for more details, see Esman and Rabinovich 1988 and S. E. Ibrahim 1995). Arab societies are still traditional societies characterized by ethnic strife and tribal identities (see Tibi in Khoury and Kostiner 1990, 127 ff). As Giddens tells us: "The population of traditional states did not know themselves to be ‘citizens‘ of those states, nor did it matter particularly to the community of power within them.... The expansion of state sovereignty means that those subject to it are in some sense... aware of their membership in a political community" (1987, 210). Citizenship is not based on commonly shared ethnic origins but rather "is anchored psychologically in distinctive features of modern societies.... The extension of communication cannot occur without the ‘conceptual involvement‘ of the whole community in a way in which traditional states were not" (Giddens 1987, 219).

Redefining the Arab, therefore, in the aftermath of the Gulf crisis needs to take place within the nonethnic and secular features of citizenship. Regrettably, instead, the outcome of the Gulf crisis so far has been a strengthening of Islamic fundamentalism (Piscatori 1991; Tibi 1998, ch. 3) rather than the development of an awareness of the importance of citizenship based on neither religion nor ethnicity.

Once again, the European experience provides a salutary model. In the EU, the collective decisionmaking process rests upon the free and democratic interplay of citizens and interests within each state, and upon the democratic behavior of member–states themselves in regional institutions. When we acknowledge that the EC is neither a state nor an international organization but rather a state system of policymaking, it becomes clear that in the European model of integration, "the nation–state truly becomes the member state" (Giddens 1987, 258). If this model seems acceptable to those responsible Arab policymakers searching for an alternative to failed paths, the following issue areas become relevant to Arab integration as a viable alternative:

The Middle Way

To conclude, under the present process of globalization, the discrete weak Arab nation–states cannot survive on their own. Yet the old Arab dream of a United Arab State has proven to be a fallacy. Between the isolation of some Arab states and the expansionism disguised as pan–Arabism of others there exists a middle way of integration for which the EU can serve as the most successful example. Arabs can learn a great deal from this model while working to redefine Arabness and the Arab. The first thing to be learned from the EU experience is the need for a highly institutionalized structure that is neither a superstate nor a commonly shared citizenship, but is rather, a political culture of policymaking within a civil society. These factors are crucial for the integration of Arab states. Integration, in turn, is badly needed to foster development and the capacity to resolve conflict.

It must be noted that the institutionalization of the policymaking system in Europe would have been unthinkable without one crucial requirement: the process for which Charles Tilly coined the term "the civilianization of governments" (Tilly 1990, 122). By civilianization is meant the building up of institutionalized statehood and the concommitant depersonalization of power. In this regard most Arab states have (to varying degrees) weak statehood and a very low degree of civilianization. This civilianization created the substance of the nation–state. Elsewhere I have argued that the present nation–states in the Middle East lack this substance; they remain nominal nation–states (Khoury and Kostiner 1990). The groundwork for redefining Arabness, then, must be laid first on this very basic unit of action, the state. The civilianization of governments and the related institutionalization of the nominal Arab nation–states themselves would be the prerequisite for creating a functioning inter–Arab state system and democratic citizenship. These, in turn, are the indispensable bases for Arab integration. In pursuit of this needed pattern of Arab integration a new definition of the Arab League is also required. The League, once established by "politicians more experienced in intrigue than in the debate, mediation and compromise of international relations" (Macdonald 1965, 281) proved to be most unsuccessful during the Gulf crisis. In addition to its lack of an institutional structure for policymaking, one of the consistent failures of the Arab League has been "its reluctance to accept its role as a regional organization. The inclination has been to regard the League as a step along the path to Arab unity" (Macdonald 1965, 300). However, as we have seen, this inclination never went beyond rhetoric. Arabs need to free themselves from this rhetoric while making efforts at democratization of their societies and the civilianization of their governments in order to strengthen the statehood of existing polities. Anything else would be wishful thinking.

In light of the Gulf crisis, ideological and rhetorical pan–Arabism ought to be buried once and for all, not for the sake of a further fragmentation of Arab politics, but rather, with the aim of establishing a stable Arab integration system based on a democratic, nonethnic, and secular understanding of what it means to be Arab. Without this buildup there can be neither a stable Middle East nor real peace in the region.

Acknowledgment

This article is based on papers presented at the Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the American University in Cairo. It was completed at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University during my term there as an "Akademie" Fellow of the Volkswagen Foundation.

Endnote

Note 1: In the declaration of the annexation of Kuwait, the terms wahda (unity) and indimaj (integration) were collapsed into one term to form the title of the text: Wahda indimajiyya. The Arabic text can be found in the special issue of Al-muntada (September 1990), published by Arab Thought Forum, Amman. The idea of an Arab Bismarck needed to unite the Arabs stems from Sati‘ al Husri (See Tibi 1991,152, and also the chapter on the Arab Bismarck as a secular Imam in my most recent book, Der wahre Imam, Munich: Piper Press, 1997). Back.


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