Letter from the Publisher
February 2009
As we go into the second month of 2009, three main topics are on everyone's mind when it comes to world affairs. The first is the recessionary state of the global economy which is affecting not only the Western nations but also the developing economies of India and China and the Persian Gulf states, which many thought were decoupled from the West and would help assuage the pain and aid in the recovery. The second is Israel's military operation in Gaza to stop Hamas from firing rockets into bordering Israeli towns that has resulted in the deaths of over a thousand people, most of them civilians, and has caused outrage among human rights organizations for their use of illegal phosphorous bombs. The third is of course the historic election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the United States and the promise of a new era of American leadership and engagement with the rest of the world.
The state of the world economy and its major financial institutions seems to be dire and every day we hear of major layoffs by international corporations in all types of industries. This along with drop in oil prices is now hurting the Persian Gulf region and especially Iran which relied heavily on its oil exports and does not have huge amounts of currency reserves to rely on during this rough period. It is going to take some time -and some analysts are predicting more than one year- for this recessionary trend to reverse itself, and it will require major economic stimulus packages by all governments to get us out of this crisis.
As to the invasion of Gaza, several prominent Israeli and American analysts have argues that the real enemy Israel is taking on is not Hamas but Iran. Although it is widely accepted that the Islamic Republic has provided financial and operational assistance to Hamas, it is not Iran's pawn. Hamas's ideology is militant enough even without Iranian inspiration and it has every reason to make its own decisions. The logic that Hamas is Iran's client and that if you crush it militarily you will also weaken Tehran and set back its agenda may be false. Iran does not have tangible assets in Gaza or the Palestinian territories, and its real influence in the Arab world comes from its reputation as the defender of the Arab cause of Palestine. Moderate Arab governments that blamed Hamas for the Israeli assault in the first few days had to backtrack and condemn Israel once the carnage became unbearable and Arab public opinion became staunchly critical of their leaders. Even Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most respected religious leader, issued a fatwa describing the attacks as "vicious" and calling on all Arabs and Muslims to "take practical steps in order to stop this cruel aggression." King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia used the occasion of an Arab summit on Gaza to call for Arab governments to unite in their response and efforts for resolving the Palestinian crisis saying that any division only serves to increase the influence of other powers in the region. This was perhaps a veiled reference to Tehran's strategy to undermine the Arab alliance forming against it nurtured by the United States.
