What does Mr Obama mean by smart power?

Ellie Shalhoub, a regular columnist for the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, wrote on Jan 28 that George Mitchell had embarked on his tour of the region "carrying in his pocket the directives of his boss", President Barack Obama. These directives make it clear that the top priority for Mr Obama is to "cement the ceasefire" in Gaza by creating "a system to prevent smuggling" of weapons to Hamas.

As for the main leverage on which the new administration is leaning, Shalhoub argued that "it is the concept of 'smart power' which, means a use of all the American elements of strength, not only military force that was mauled after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq". "Here, we must point out that the first seeds of this approach were planted by Condoleezza Rice but the heavy inheritance from President George Bush, the stubbornness of the remaining hawks in his administration and the limited time left to her prevented the approach from bearing fruit during her tenure. The question remains, he concluded: for what end will the Obama administration use "smart power?"

Khalad al Harbi, a regular columnist for the Saudi newspaper Okaz, wrote on Jan 28 that the main problem of the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is that it is "a government body that suffers from too much decentralisation since its branches and employees depend far too much on their own personal opinions and ideas".

Al Harbi asserted that the members of the committee, "no matter how inexperienced and young they are", look to study any given situation for half a minute, then they seek the relevant religious and legal directives in their own heads for another half-minute, then they make the decision that they feel is right in around 10 seconds". "We thank God every day," the author added, "because we live in a Muslim society and in a country that is extremely anxious about implementing the instructions of our religion". "It is not the duty of the committee to fight a war against anyone because its role is a regulatory one similar to all other government bodies." The men of the committee, he concluded, are human the same as the rest of us "and they make mistakes the same as the rest of us so they must be subjected to a general bill to govern their actions".

Issa al Halyan, a regular columnist for the Saudi newspaper Okaz, wrote on January 27 that whenever "we see a rash or random or inflammatory fatwa, we also see a corresponding rise in the intensity of the talk about the importance of regulating fatwas, enacting laws to govern their issue, uniting the entities that issue them, and forcing them to seek permits from official religious institutions".

But, if it is in the public interest to regulate fatwas and return them to the control of official institutions, is it equally good to allow one faction to monopolise fatwas, the author asked. "In my opinion," he said, "fatwas are only a real and true sign pointing to the nature of what is happening in the religious arena that is racked by convulsions, contests, and inner strife that are themselves the product of political, religious, social and ideological factors." "Therefore, we must solve the root of the problem if we want to come up with a real and viable solution for the issue of the unreasonable fatwas".

"The fierceness of the aggression and the political developments accompanying their war on Gaza, clearly showed that the Israeli war machine that destroyed Gaza and killed its people firstly aimed at addressing a strong blow to the Palestinian cause, thus burying it - if possible - under the rubble that was caused by the Israeli attack in the Strip," wrote Egypt's Al Ahram.

The paper added that the Israeli strategy to "finish off the Palestinian cause" was based on a wager that their war on Gaza would generate an escalation of the Palestinian dispute and deepen Palestinian divisions. "At the same time, the Palestinian disputes that might hinder the reconstruction of Gaza could contribute to the spread of a state of instability in the region, if the Gaza population was to be forced to redo a collective escape attempt from the Palestinian Rafah to the Egyptian Rafah."

This would violate the Egyptian national security equation, the paper concluded, "whose dangerous dimensions are known to Egypt? Therefore, it seems clear that the Palestinian factions are urgently required to reach a national unity government, in order to rescue the Palestinian cause, begin the reconstruction of Gaza and prevent the spread of a state of instability in the region." * Digest compiled by www.mideastwire.com