December 2002 - January 2003

Newsweek columnist sees oil at the root of Mideast problems

Fareed Zakaria

Noted Newsweek foreign affairs editor and columnist Fareed Zakaria traced many of the current problems in the Mideast to oil during his lecture on the UNF campus last month.

Zakaria, who also supervises the news magazine’s overseas editions, told a packed banquet room at the University Center, that dependence of Mideast countries on oil revenue has isolated them from the political and economic changes other countries have had to endure in recent decades. The result is political and economic stagnation and the perpetuation of dictatorships and royal families in most of the Mideast.

All political dissent is therefore funneled into the mosques and that breeds fanaticism and terrorism because young men have no other outlet and see no hope of things changing, he said. “Religion has become the political language of frustration,” he explained, especially among the 75 percent of the Arab world who are under the age of 25.

In tracing the history of the problem, Zakaria noted that most countries impose taxes on those governed and a social contract develops in which citizens expect certain services in return. The social contract has not developed in Mideast countries because oil revenue has eliminated the need for taxation. “The attitude of the governments is we won’t ask much from you and won’t give you much in return,” he said.

In addition, countries that have viable political systems also generally develop the art of compromise. However, most religions are based on principles that are not to be compromised, Zakaria noted. So when political dissent is funneled into religious institutions, the populace lose the ability to find compromises to complex issues.

The foreign affairs analyst endorsed U.S. action involving Iraq and predicted that war will probably result. But he said the real test for the United States will be what happens after the military victory. It will be necessary to build a new nation and Zakaria said such a task can’t be done by the United States alone but will require a coalition of countries through the United Nations. “It will require intense political cooperation to encourage the forces of modernity and create economic and political opportunity in Iraq,” he said.

“If we fail at nation building, we will have planted the seeds of hostility in thousands of other places,” he warned. And if that happens, terrorism will become even more of a problem for the United States, he predicted.
The journalist explained that many people tend to discount the threat of terrorism since no major acts have occurred since Sept. 11. However, he described situations in which the U.S is extremely vulnerable to terrorist attack. For example, only 2 percent of the one million cargo containers coming into the United States each year are checked. This presents an opportunity for a small group of individuals to assemble a dirty nuclear bomb that could be detonated by remote control, he said.

With access to the Internet around the world, Zakaria said the knowledge of how to build such a bomb is easily available. “All you need to build a dirty bomb today is a good search engine,” he said.

This availability of knowledge combined with access to nuclear material from former Soviet Union countries make the development of such bombs extremely possible, he said. “We are one corrupt Russian colonel away from the sale of nuclear material to terrorists,” he added.

Trying to combat terrorism primarily with better homeland security only hurts our own economy. “You will never be able to lock this country down. We’re target number one and checking and rechecking everything coming across our borders creates enormous pressures on the U.S economy,” he said.

The ultimate solution, he maintained, is to make the necessary changes that give tens of millions of citizens of Mideast countries political and economic alternatives to terrorism . “Iraq will be the first test of our ability to do that. If we do it right, the benefits can be enormous,” he said.

The lecture was sponsored by UNF and the World Affairs Council of Jacksonville with support from the International Development Commission, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia Bank and the UNF Foundation.