Boom!

السلام عليكم

Condé Nast Portfolio this month ran an excellent cover story about the oil boom in Iraqi Kurdistan and what it means for the Kurds who live there and Iraqi as a whole:

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/international-news/portfolio/2008/02/19/US-Oil-Plans-in-Kurdistan#page1

What's so remarkable here is not so much the amount of development that is occurring in Iraqi Kurdistan, but the speed. Even with only a fraction of the Kurdish oil fields actively pumping, Kurdistan is witnessing a development boom reminiscent of that of Dubai in the early 1990's. Its not hard to imagine that 20 years from now Northern Iraq will be awash with glittering skyscrapers and new Ferraris. Not only that, the Kurds love us:

"And the Kurds love Americans. Love, love. Investors swarm in from all over the globe, and foreigners are common in Erbil, but if you mention tentatively and apologetically that you’re American, a shopkeeper or café owner is likely to take you aside and grip your arm and address you with the passionate sincerity of a drunken uncle: “I speak not just for me but all of Kurdish people. Please bring your United States Army here forever. You are welcome, welcome. No, I will not accept your money today, please take these goods as my gift to America."

Of course much could go wrong. The Kurd's are the world's largest ethnic group without a country of their own, and the border that divides Turkey and Iraq cuts Kurdistan neatly in half. As Turkey's Kurds peer over the fence and watch Iraq's Kurds get obscenely rich, it’s hard to imagine that they'll want to remain Turkish. In fact the open volleys of a nasty border war between Turkish troops and Kurdish separatists were exchanged in October of 2007 and continue daily. This won’t be a short-term conflict.
Additionally, as pointed out in a side piece that appears here: http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/international-news/portfolio/2008/02/19/Beyond-the-Iraqi-Oil-Boom the Kurds are selling oil without the permission of the Iraqi government. All oil is supposed to be owned by the federal government in Baghdad, but I don’t think it’s going to matter in the long run. Any effort to force the combination of the Iraqi and Kurdish economies would impede the one thing in the country that’s going really well. I don’t think the government in Baghdad has the muscle to achieve it anyway, especially since – with an election coming up and gas prices rising – it’s not in the interest of the American overlords.

Welcome to Islamic Reformation 101

السلام عليكم

A truly remarkable thing is happening in Ankara: 1,200 years of Islamic tradition are being tossed out the window in an attempt to reform the world's most practiced religion. This superb article by Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol gives us a brief history of the early formation of Sunni Islam, explaining why Islam, as its taught in the present era, is so dogmatic and essentially unchanged since the 9th century AD (notice I said, “the Islam taught”’, not “the Islam practiced”... there's a big difference). He then goes on to explain how a group of Turkish theologians are looking back at what's been accepted as fact all these centuries, and deciding it might not actually be all that factual.

http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2008/03/welcome_to_islamic_reformation_101.php

This re-evaluation of Islam has tremendous consequences and is centuries overdue. That its happening in Turkey is no surprise:

"[...]Turkey is an important case study, because as arguably the most modernized of all Muslim nations, its believers face questions that their co-religionists in, say, Afghanistan, don't. Today an urban Turkish Muslim lives in an environment in which equality between sexes is taken for granted and people openly question, or even defy, the religious teaching that suggest otherwise. The same urban Turkish Muslim probably supports the country's EU bid, because that is much better for his business and the future of his kids."

Will this development have an immediate impact on the Middle East? No. Will it be embraced by the masses as a sort of Islamic Protestant Reformation? No. Will these theologians fall short of really creating a modern reformed Islam? Probably. The miracle here is not that this will cause Muslims to search for a new Islam, but rather that those Muslims already searching for a new Islam will have something to find.

Mission Statement

السلام عليكم

The goal of this blog is to provide links to what I believe are the best pieces of journalism and scholarship on the web concerning the Middle East. I'm doing this not to impress or claim that I, myself, am any great scholar on the subject, but to highlight stories that go beyond the typical war and terrorism pieces to which we've all become so inured. Will I tackle war and terrorism? Absolutely! But along with that I'll be featuring articles on travel, literature, food, camels, language, and the ever important history.
I will be posting links to articles that confirm the commonly accepted truths of the state of the Middle East and also those that dissent, illustrating what I perceive to be the truth based on my own personal experiences travelling in and studying the region. Often times I will post two conflicting pieces admitting that either, both or neither may be right. I will also be posting links to articles that I believe are misleading or blatantly false and explaining why I feel that way. My goal is to draw on sources from both the Western and Middle Eastern media in equal measure, translating articles from Arabic for my readers where necessary. I will also add some of my own content in the form of book reviews, travel stories, and op-ed pieces, though this is not my primary objective. Naturally, I will be open to suggestions for links and submissions of original content.

-Brad