Imperial Scorn
RUBIN, BARRY
Imperial Scorn Arabia, the Gulf and the West by J.B. Kelly Basic Books. 504 pp. $25.00 Reviewed by Barry Rubin Author, "Paved with Good Intentions: The American Experience and Iran " J.B. Kelly...
...Kelly's indictments are so unremitting that ultimately they not only vitiate his best case but become as questionable as the monotonous praise of the Arab and Iranian regimes by their apologists...
...Kelly also passes over crucial facts that at least partly explain why the West is so hated and mistrusted in the region...
...In the 1950's when theories of "modernization" were first applied to underdeveloped countries, Marxist and liberal scholars alike agreed that these societies would evolve and become more "like us...
...Scholars like Edward Said and Geoffrey Jensen have gone so far as to claim that a cabal of "Orientalists" is systematically trying to discredit the Arabs and Moslems by distorting their thought and institutions...
...As is frequently the case with heated presentations, however, those already convinced of Arab/Islamic fanaticism, irrationality and political bankruptcy will find Kelly's work grist for their simplistic notions, while the naive at the other end of the spectrum will not be persuaded by his overly pugnacious tone...
...That is, traditional society would be replaced by either a liberal democratic or Communist system, depending on the predilection of the writer in question...
...This book is unsatisfactory on several points...
...An arch-conservative who clearly prefers the era of British primacy in the Gulf, Kelly attributes opec's rise to power and the spread of political and military instability in the region to the withdrawal of British forces in the 1960s...
...Governors and governed alike are depicted as selfish, corrupt and hypocritical, spouting phrases and ideologies they only half understand...
...He usefully deflates as well the mindless optimism and the distorted statistics in some recent portraits of the Gulf states painlessly marching toward a brave new world, a Utopia built on oil revenues...
...from its historical experience, its mode of thought, its ethical values...
...The first category embraces writers who combine aspects of Rousseau and T.E...
...Brute force is the only means of maintaining control in these societies, nor have they ever known any other way...
...It was precisely Britain's determination to preserve its influence in Egypt, Iraq and the smaller Gulf states that stoked the flames of anti-Western movements in the 1950s and the 1960s, and fear of the West still seems a more potent factor in shaping Arab policy than does arrogance...
...The result of Western culture and ideas—or Communist ones, for that matter—meeting Middle Eastern values is more likely to be a hybrid than a clone...
...But its virtues are too often undermined by a stridency leading to sweeping generalizations that do not withstand close scrutiny...
...from the West's empirical and scientific traditions...
...In his estimation, the present regimes of the Arabian peninsula and the Persian Gulf are characterized by bad faith, evil intentions and incompetence...
...Furthermore, proponentsof this school of thought usually regard with great suspicion any criticism of the regimes and movements—whether "progressive" or "moderate"—now in the ascendancy in the Moslem world...
...He claims, for example, that the Saudis cannot comprehend that" the products and skills of the West are inseparable...
...But it contains many acute observations about the weakness of Arab political culture, and it drives home unpleasant yet important truths that ought to be taken as a corrective to the prevailing conventional wisdom concerning the regimes of the Persian Gulf...
...The infusion of new money, he writes, has only led to "a strident welter of frantic expenditure, heedless waste, conspicuous folly and ceaseless activity" in which one can only rarely discern "any enduring element of cohesive-ness...
...According to Kelly, those currently in power in the area are consumed by a passion to humble the West...
...Instead, by allowing the Moslems to get away with playing on Western guilt, the well-intentioned (but spineless) industrialized nations have enabled them to wreak havoc with established norms of international law and disrupt the world economy...
...Kelly's arguments are a reminder that the Persian Gulf is too important a region to permit the unchallenged sway of wishful thinking...
...since they respect only strength, concessions to them would amount to appeasement...
...In recent years, particularly after the upheavals in Iran, scholars are coming around to the view that modern education, communication and technology will not quickly eliminate tribalism, sectarian conflict or other manifestations of traditional society...
...Were the West to assert itself, the underlying conflicts of interests within opec would soon emerge and the cartel would start unraveling...
...Lawrence with a more modern Leftist and "liberation-ist" ideology...
...The individual country studies that make up the bulk of the book contain much valuable material...
...Kelly set out to write a rousing polemic on one of the most controversial regions of the world, and he has certainly succeeded...
...He also argues that Arab and Islamic unity is a chimera...
...Behind the acrimonious debate between the cynics and the romantics over immediate policy questions there is a fundamental disagreement on the effect of economic-technological advances and social-political change in the Middle East...
...Kelly rightly points out that what the oil producers purchase with their wealth is frequently used to reinforce the old order...
...Kelly represents the second school...
...Kelly rejects even this modified position...
...Radio broadcasts readings of the Koran, television makes it possible to maintain sexually segregated education, jet fighters and machine-guns help preserve monarchies...
...For anyone trying to understand the roots of the current Iran-Iraq war?both the territorial dispute and the underlying political issues—this volume will be rewarding...
...They take for granted that they can buy the most advanced technology "without their being required to understand, let alone adapt to, any of the philosophical attitudes and cultural values which brought this technology into being...
...Two approaches are clearly discernible in contemporary works about Arab and Islamic politics: the "romantic" and the "cynical...
...And the author is excessively pessimistic, never allowing that perhaps the rapid changes in the Persian Gulf countries during the last decade have not really been a totally undiluted and destablizing plague...
...In their view, the Islamic peoples have been so badly treated by the West that almost any kind of reprisal is justified...
...He sees no hope for any marriage between modern and age-old mores...
Vol. 63 • October 1980 • No. 19
