Max Marder

As the Arab Spring enters its second year, democratic transitions in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Libya are still evolving towards uncertain ends. One of the most ubiquitous hopes for these countries in metamorphosis, expressed especially in the case of Egypt, is that they develop the “Turkish Model” for democracy. However, the construct of the “Turkish Model,” especially as a prototype for fledgling Arab democracies is fallacious and a naïve oversimplification, demonstrating a misunderstanding of Turkish history. The Turkish system has evolved over many years because of circumstances endemic to Turkey, and cannot simply be applied overnight elsewhere.

The allure of the “Turkish Model” is self-evident. Turkey, like the Arab countries in transition, is a majority Muslim nation. For centuries, there was (and in some places, there still is) a belief that democracy was incompatible with Islam—that Muslims were not civilized enough for representative government. The Orientalist myopia of the past still frames how the Middle East is seen. Thus as Egypt seeks to evolve into a democracy, its model is thought to naturally be the Muslim country that has achieved the most advanced democratic system.

To be clear, if Egypt could become as progressive and prosperous as Turkey, it would constitute an unquestioned victory for the Egyptian people and the Arab Spring. Turkey is a regional powerhouse. Its leaders have set the goal of making it one of the world’s ten biggest economies by 2023, the Turkish state’s centennial, and they might just achieve their goal. Turkey holds free and fair elections, has a robust parliamentary system, and peaceful transitions of power. These are all accomplishments which Egypt should aspire to.

However, Egypt’s path to success must be different than Turkey’s because the two countries have vastly different political cultures and histories. Furthermore, the “Turkish Model” is an artificial construct—it doesn’t exist. Turkey’s democratic system is 89 years in the making. It developed in an unplanned and unexpected fashion. Moreover, there are several aspects of the “Turkish Model” that Egypt and other nascent Arab democracies should not seek to emulate.

First of all, Turkey, despite being a majority Sunni Muslim nation, is not an Arab country. It emerged from the vestiges of the Ottoman Empire and was established in 1923. To properly understand Turkish political culture, it’s essential to understand how the state was established.

The Ottoman Empire, the “Sick Man of Europe,” was carved up after its defeat in World War I. During the War, the Arab population of the Ottoman Empire revolted against the Turkish center with the assistance of the British, most famously depicted by the movie Lawrence of Arabia. After the Ottoman defeat, the Arabs broke away from the Empire under Western mandates, eventually forming independent sovereign states.

All that was left was the Anatolian Peninsula, which was chopped up and divided as stipulated by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres between Greece, France and Britain, leaving an independent Kurdistan and Armenia and only a truncated Turkish state. Most of this territory was gained back through the Turkish War of Independence led by Mustafa Kemal and enshrined in the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.

But the decline of the Ottoman Empire, World War I and the Treaty of Sevres left an indelible mark on the Turks. These events have shaped Turkey and continue to today. They represent the aspect of the elusive “Turkish Model” that cannot be replicated in Egypt or elsewhere, even though Egypt’s colonial past and the Suez crisis in 1956, among several other events, have also left a deep-seated distrust of the West.

Dubbed “Sevres syndrome,” the first several decades of the Turkish Republic were marked by extreme paranoia and xenophobia directed at the Great Powers. For the vast majority of Turkish history, Turks have not trusted their Arab neighbors because of their treachery during World War I, thinking of themselves more on the level of sophisticated Europeans than ‘inferior’ Arabs. The Turkish state has also, for most of its history, been virulently secular. Mustafa Kemal, better known as Ataturk, is reviled by some pious Muslims for abolishing the Caliphate, the Sunni Muslim version of the papacy.

The political culture of the burgeoning Turkish Republic was a reaction against Ottoman multiculturalism, as well as state religion. Having lost the vast majority of its non-Turkish territory and population, the state hunkered down in a bunker of Turkish ethnocentrism. Despite Turkey’s progress over the years, its relationship with its Kurdish minority should not be duplicated as an archetype for Egyptian Sunnis treatment of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. As evidenced by the strong Islamist showing in Egyptian elections, the country is moving in the opposite direction, regarding the relationship of mosque and state, compared to Turkey in 1923.

Partly due to the legacy of the War for Independence and Ataturk himself, and also unique processes within the Turkish body politic, the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) had significant autonomy and power over foreign policy, arguably up until the last year or two. Even though it was trusted as one of Turkey’s most democratic institutions, the TAF overthrew three civilian governments in 1960, 1971 and 1980. The clandestine influence of the TAF and the unelected elite in Turkish politics earned the name the “deep state.” Needless to say, this should hardly be a model for Egypt, whose Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) is trying precisely to secure analogous independence from civilian oversight.

In 1997, the army and the secular elite forced out Turkey’s first Islamist Prime Minister, Necmettin Erbakan. In power for a year, he was repeatedly embarrassed, forced to sign legislation banning headscarves in schools and pledging military cooperation with Israel.

Turkey’s geography has also shaped its identity and prevents parallel comparisons. Turkey sees itself as Western and Eastern, European and Asian, and Middle Eastern and Central Asian. Egypt, with the Suez Canal, is the gateway to the Mediterranean and a bridge between the Levant and Africa. But this geopolitical reality is unique from Turkey’s. In fact, perhaps the most influential process in the last two decades of Turkish politics has been its quest for European Union ascension—something that is irrelevant for Egypt and other Arab Spring countries. 

The urge to call for Egypt to adopt the Turkish model rests on the fact that Turkey is a majority Muslim country with a functioning democracy and impressive economic growth. Both Egypt and Turkey are built on the ruins of once great empires. The similarities end there. Egypt’s first elections have given Islamists an overwhelming mandate to rule. Turkey has been ruled by “Islamists” for only 11 of its 89 years.

Turkey’s electoral system is also unfit for Egypt. Turkey’s system has always favored and cultivated strong executives, which may not be best for Egypt after decades of Nasser and Mubarak. Turkey also has an especially high threshold—a party must win 10% of the vote to be represented in parliament. This may work for Turkey but would be poisonous for a young democracy like Egypt. Egypt has numerous small political parties and, more importantly, will develop more in the coming years as its democracy evolves and different political groups become more organized.

It has taken almost a century for Turkey to reach the high stature it has today. But the state still has issues. A lasting reconciliation with the Kurds has proved elusive. Turkey is one of the more dangerous places to be a journalist (on par with Egypt). The so-called Ergenekon case, which was launched after an alleged coup plot by the army against the ruling AK Party, has been a labyrinthine tragedy for the rule of law.

Driven by healthy domestic demand, low interest rates, economic liberalization and innovative industry, the mildly Islamist AKP has turned Turkey into an economic power. The AKP has piggybacked on the growth of Turkish city centers that started in the 1980s, expanding the economy far beyond Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. The development of the “Anatolian Tigers,” Denizli, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Bursa, Kocaeli, and Kahramanmara, should be a model for reforming the Arab world’s sclerotic and corrupt economic systems that have stagnated under autocratic rule.

Turkey’s democratic credentials are very impressive but the “Turkish Model” is a fallacy—a phantom which cannot be so easily applied to Egypt or other Arab Spring countries. The Turkish system is a product of the country’s unique history, political culture and 89 years of development. Turkey’s legacy of militant secularism, martial autonomy, and ethnic marginalization cannot and should not be a model across the board. Many in the Arab world admire Turkey and view its Prime Minister, Recip Tayyep Erdogan, positively. Turkey will be a vital partner and ally for Egypt, Tunisia and Libya as they develop.

But politically, what’s needed for Egypt is not a Turkish model, but an Egyptian one—a strong legislature, low threshold, weak executive, full civilian control and a strict commitment to minority and human rights. Egypt can learn lessons from Turkey, but needs to blaze its own trail.

Politics and economics are complicated pursuits, and as such, everyone from experts to casual conversationalists has a tendency to compare complicated phenomena to comparable incidents, hoping to inject some order into the chaos. Is Occupy Wall Street like the Tea Party? Is the financial crisis of 2008 like the Great Depression? Is Egypt like Tunisia? Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad like Adolf Hitler?

These questions make for interesting debates but often obfuscate the matter at hand, reducing policy dilemmas to a cost-benefit analysis based on the most recent problem of a similar nature. Policymakers in economics and politics tend too often to make such simplifying comparisons. Too often our decisions are based on preventing the previous crisis instead of forecasting the next one.

This type of thinking is now being applied to the crisis in Syria from two different angles. There is currently a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the docket that would call for President Bashar Assad to step down and transfer power to his deputy.

On one side, the Russian Foreign Ministry, led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, argues against the resolution on the grounds that it will precipitate an international military intervention akin to that in Libya.

Coterminously, the United States and its European allies are supporting the measure, which would pave the way for a government of national unity. A similar deal has been implemented in Yemen. By no means is it unanimously popular or is it ensured to be effective. Brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the agreement has facilitated the departure of Yemen’s President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, into exile.

Here’s the problem: Syria is not Libya and Syria is not Yemen. Assad is neither Qaddafi nor Saleh.

Let’s start with Russia. Ostensibly its opposition to the UNSC resolution condemning Bashar Assad, who has killed well over 5500 of his citizens, amounts to invoking the sovereignty of a nation-state. The Libyan intervention irked the Russians, who felt that they were duped into supporting regime change by supporting a measure which was cloaked as a mandate to protect civilians. “I don’t think Russian policy is about asking people to step down. Regime change is not our profession,” said FM Lavrov.

The differences between Syria and Libya are staggering. A no-fly zone would not be the method of intervention in Syria since the majority of the fighting is waged on the ground and in urban environments laden with civilians. There is no unified armed Syrian rebellion. The Syrian crisis has lasted much longer and claimed more lives than the Libyan crisis when NATO intervened. The Libyan intervention swung the tide in favor of the rebels whereas an intervention in Syria would have much more of a burden in ousting Mr. Assad. Assad wears suits and Qaddafi wore eccentric tunics. Et cetera.

Not least of all, the resolution on the table regarding Syria would not necessarily lead to intervention at all. Few in Washington or Brussels are keen on intervention right now, not to mention some of the Syrian opposition. Russia has negotiated, offering support for resolutions condemning Assad so long as they equate the President with those protesting against him and proscribe any sort of future intervention. Other members of the UNSC have rejected the Russian counteroffer on the grounds that it would set a precedent for binding future resolutions.

The Russian invocation of Libya as a justification for opposing a resolution calling for Bashar al Assad to step down is disingenuous. Moscow wasn’t fooled into thinking the Libyan intervention wouldn’t put pressure on Qaddafi. The Colonel was simply less of an asset to Russian interests than is Mr. Assad.

Just as Chinese internet censors blocked the word ‘jasmine’ from internet searches after Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia, Russia does not want to lend support to a principle (UNSC resolutions calling for regime change) that could trouble its own undemocratic leadership in the future. The Syrian port of Tarsus is also the Russian navy’s only outlet to the Mediterranean Sea and the Putin regime accrues lucrative profits from arms sales and other business with Damascus. With his return to the Kremlin approaching, Mr. Putin can win points by defying the West.

As for the other side of the coin, the resolution itself (besides the fact that it won’t transcend a Russian veto) is tragically flawed. It is modeled after the GCC-brokered peace deal, implemented on January 22^nd, aimed at ending the political crisis in Yemen.

Yet the resolution has hardly ended the crisis definitively. Under the terms of the agreement, Yemen’s President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has left the country in order to seek “medical treatment” in the United States. He transferred power to his longtime deputy, which the Syrian UNSC resolution would also stipulate. In return he received immunity from prosecution.

There are a plethora of problems with the deal. Most importantly, it doesn’t bar Saleh from returning to Yemen or participating substantially in the upcoming “government of national unity.” He says that he will return to Sana’a after his treatment. Also, his deputy and vice-president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, is the sole candidate in Yemen’s upcoming presidential elections on February 21^st—hardly a sign of sweeping reform.

Furthermore, Saleh only accepted the GCC deal because it granted him immunity—as  approved by the Yemeni parliament, which has enraged the street. It is morally dubious, and perhaps politically unstable, for Saleh not to face retribution for ordering the deaths of peaceful protesters.

What’s most galling about the debates among Security Council diplomats over the resolution and its wording is that nothing Bashar Assad has said or done over the past 11 months would indicate that he’d ever accept a Saleh-like deal. He was resolute and defiant in his speech on January 10^th. He’s made it abundantly clear that reform, exile and surrender are not options—especially since he can cling to power with the army’s support so long as the international community supports non-intervention. As Tony Karon writes in TIME, “Assad is not about to heed a resolution put before the Security Council by the Arab League — and backed by Western powers — that bluntly demands his surrender, because that outcome does not reflect the balance of forces on the ground.”

What we have on our hands with Syria is a resolution, modeled simplistically after a highly flawed deal that treated a murderous autocrat gently, which will be vetoed by Russia, and would not have been accepted by Bashar al Assad anyway. Ironically, it seems that the Russians are rejecting a resolution on the grounds that its reminiscent of action that was largely successful (Libya) while the US and Europe are supporting it because it’s evocative of a measure that’s thoroughly problematic (GCC deal in Yemen).

So what should be done?

First, enough of the erroneous comparisons to other countries. We must learn from history but not be constrained by it. Many of the objections to foreign intervention in Syria are based on specious comparisons to Iraq circa 2003 (similar warnings were aired about Libya). Again, the differences are profound, not least of all because the Arab League has been somewhat punitive in dealing with Syria and could yet support more robust measures to dislodge Assad. Syria is not Libya, nor Yemen, nor Iraq.

Secondly, the United Nations is probably a dead end. Moscow and Beijing are not keen on intervention in Syria, and their vetoes would preclude a consensus for such action.

Thirdly, it’s not enough to condemn Assad and say that his fall is inevitable. As Steven Cook argues in the Atlantic, “if the international community wants to see the end of the Assad regime, as virtually everyone claims, then it is likely going to require outside intervention. Nothing that anyone has thrown at Damascus has altered its behavior.” These are indeed valid arguments against intervention, the most compelling being that the Syrian opposition has yet to unanimously embrace the idea itself. Cook rightly asks “at what point in the body count is international intervention deemed to be an acceptably worthwhile option that can have a positive effect on the situation? After Assad has killed 6,000 people? 7,000? 10,000? 20,000?”

In conclusion, once the situation evolves to the point where the Syrian opposition calls categorically for international help, the world must be ready to answer. Those who have bashed Assad verbally must be ready to act. Most of the Syrian National Council (SNC) now endorses intervention of some kind, but the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCC) is much more wary. An American-European-Arab League-Turkish cooperative effort is not unimaginable. It would circumvent Russia and China’s vetoes, as well as concerns about Western imperialism, the other most compelling argument against intervention. Moscow and Tehran may have allies in Damascus, but they would be unlikely to wage a proxy war to cement Assad’s rule in the face of an international coalition with broad legitimacy.

Other opponents of intervention say that military action in Syria is against US interests. “Let Syrians work it out,” the logic goes, or “we have enough problems of our own.” However, the toppling of the Assad regime is in the US interest—in the short-term, Iran would grieve the loss of its biggest ally. But on a more important and more abstract note, intervention is in the US interest precisely because it’s not in the US interest.

I’ll explain.

The US must alter its image in the Middle East—which is endemic and loathed—away from being a frigid manipulator solely in pursuit of its own self-interest.  Liberalism is the new realism. It is in the United States’ long-term self-interest to forge a more positive relationship with the Arab street, the future stakeholders of Middle Eastern political affairs. Shadi Hamid writes that we must undertake the “difficult work of re-orienting U.S. foreign policy, to align ourselves, finally, with our own ideals.”

Most toxic is the thinking that Assad is the least worst option for Syria’s future. There are better alternatives than having his rule reach 2013, which would likely leave another 5,500 or more dead in his wake.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has beseeched the global community, and the UNSC, to resolve the Syrian crisis. Quoted in an article in Al Ahram, “The Council, he said, must be ‘united this time, speak and act in a coherent manner…reflecting the urgent wishes and aspirations of the Syrian people.’” Unfortunately, neither the Council nor the international community is united or speaking coherently at the moment.

I was given an assignment to design a schedule of events for a hypothetical, United Nations backed workshop on promoting Palestinian democratic development. The list that follows was originally created with that in mind but its tenets are easily transferrable to other evolving Arab democracies (and to some ‘developed’ democracies).

There are two caveats. First is that the list is vague; specificity was sacrificed for breadth. Secondly, many of these projects that are listed will be self-evident to some, and most of them are being addressed already by some people working in some places. The list is simply intended to provide a hypothetical and general framework for addressing the obstacles to Palestinian, Arab and global democratic development. The list is in no particular order.

1. Changing the Narrative: Engaging the media to bring more attention to Palestinian non-violent civic activism.
2. How to forge strong and organized political parties and civil society structures as a precursor to democratic viability.
3. Education Reform in the Arab World: Teaching children how to be independent democratic citizens—to innovate rather than repeat.
4. Economic Self-sufficiency and Resiliency: How to move from reliance on oil and foreign aid to generating entrepreneurship and industry at home.
5. The Trial Without the Error: How to apply the lessons, positive and negative, of the first months of democracy in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
6. One Man One Vote is Only the Beginning: How to foster economic and social equality to cultivate a stable democracy.
7. Striking a Balance: How to walk the tightrope between political solidarity and a healthy culture of dissent and minority opinion.
8. The Power of the Fringes: how to empower women, the economically disadvantaged, and ethnic and religious minorities to be equal stakeholders and forces of change.
9. Finding a Democratic Partner: How to connect with Israeli civil society to unite in the battle against anti-democratic and occupational forces
10. Voter registration, familiarity with the electoral framework, polling stations, and electoral integrity—how citizens can run free and fair elections.
11. A level playing field among politicians and citizens—increasing transparency, integrity and an open government so that citizens feel that they have a voice.
12. A multi-disciplinary approach: How to connect democracy development, economic development and infrastructure development at the level of civic society.
13. Ennahda, Ikhwan and al-Nur: What role has Political Islam played in the Arab world and what does it mean for the future?
14. Balancing Growth with Equity: How to boost GDP while ensuring access to social services for all.
15. Social Media, its Benefits and its Limitations: What the Internet Means, and Doesn’t Mean, for Civic Empowerment and Activism.
16. Attacking Youth Unemployment: Allowing the private sector room in which to operate; investing in skills that the market; reforming labor market regulations to increase mobility and flexibility; and establishing inter-regional agreements that facilitate the flow of skilled labor among Arab states.

On December 17th, 2010, a young Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire after his unlicensed street cart was confiscated, protesting the economic malaise and rampant corruption which left him destitute. The story has become legend, as his suicide as set a chain of events in motion which is far from over. His death sparked massive demonstrations in his hometown of Sidi Bouazid. Sidi Bouazid led to Tunis, Tunis became Cairo, Cairo moved to Tripoli. The phenomenon could yet in earnest spread to Damascus and Sana’a (or maybe even Tehran or Riyadh).

But on Sunday, October 23rd, Bouazizi’s mother cast her ballot in a free election in Tunisia. “Now I am happy that my son’s death has given the chance to get beyond fear and injustice,” Manoubia Bouazizi told Reuters. “I’m an optimist, I wish success for my country.”

The above quote, from an article in al-Arabiya, noted another upbeat fact: the official count put the turnout at over 90%, which confirms the legitimacy of the results and the general faith in the electoral system. In a week in which Israel and Hamas’ prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit and the death of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya stole the headlines, the elections in Tunisia are going to have a much more tangible impact on the future of Middle East peace and the Arab Spring than either. Just as Tunisia’s revolution was a forbearer of events across the Middle East, its election and its aftereffects will tell us a lot about what’s to come.

Some alarm bells have been ringing about the election, however. Will the new 217-seat Constituent Assembly have trouble finding a consensus? Will the new government be unable to fix the severe structural problems of the Tunisian economy? Will there be acute divisions between secular and religious parties? Will there be actors in power with connections to the despised Ben Ali regime? Will Ennahda, the Islamist and overwhelmingly dominant party as a result of the election, have a cooler relationship with the West than its predecessor, Zine Abidine Ben Ali?

In the short-term, the answer to all of these questions is ‘probably yes.’ But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This is democracy. Get used to it. As Erik Churchill wrote in Foreign Policy last week, “Many now fear that the elections will fail to resolve deep societal divides, or will even make things worse by empowering Islamists or restoring former regime figures. But those fears should not overshadow the hope that Tunisia has a chance to get things right and once again set an example for the Arab world.”

The is a lot of worry about Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party that will take somewhere between 43%-48% of the seats (official results to be announced later today) and may have gotten more than 50% of the vote. While their closest challengers, the Progressive Democratic Party, might not even take 20% of the spoils, the Tunisian system was designed to make it nearly impossible for any party to receive more than half the seats. Some consensus will be needed.

Ennahda’s success shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s a moderate Islamist party in a country full of, well, moderate Islamists. The fact that Ben Ali waged war on Ennahda for the past 20 years did nothing to hurt its popularity. Like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ennahda also has the advantage of having had an organizational structure and fundraising apparatus in place before the Arab Spring.

The West should regard Ennahda with restrained optimism. The party was democratically elected and is representative of the values of the Tunisian majority. An eye needs to be kept on the party’s approach towards women’s rights, for example, but the West need not impose its cultural standards on Tunisia’s fledgling democracy. Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of Ennahda, sees himself as a more soft-spoken version of Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan’s policies may clash with some Western values and interests, but this has not prevented economic cooperation with the EU or political cooperation with the United States. Moreover, Tunisians will hold Ennahda accountable not for its piety, but for its ability to improve the economic situation that sparked the revolution in the first place.

In a statement after Tunisia’s election, US Secretary of State Clinton remarked that “The United States remains committed to working with the government and people of Tunisia as they pursue a more peaceful, prosperous and democratic future.” I sincerely hope this remains true, even if there are divergences between the policies of Ennahda and the United States government. In the end, the same values that the US has espoused over Tunisia should apply to Bahrain and the Palestinian territories. Without consistency, there is no trust. The only way towards long-term stability for the United States in the Middle East is for it to embrace short-term instability.

The road from Ben Ali’s flight to Election Day was not smooth in Tunisia. Revolutions rarely follow direct paths. Tunisia has had an easier time of it than Egypt. Unfettered prosperity won’t come to Tunisia tomorrow, but as many citizens expressed fter casting ballots that actually matter, dignity has come today.

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to take my first field trip since I was in high school. The School for Peace, the organization that I work for, facilitates encounter and dialogue groups between Israeli and Palestinian professionals from the similar fields. The basic idea is to teach participants about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have them confront it, and take ownership of it in their personal and professional lives. My field trip began when my boss invited me to join her and the SFP staff at a workshop for Israeli and Palestinian environmentalists in Beit Jala, a city adjacent to Bethlehem in the West Bank.

I don’t know much about environmentalism, but it was a great opportunity for me to play pretend-journalist, and talk with the Israeli and Palestinian participants about themselves and their feelings when they were outside of the group setting.

I was particularly lucky to be with Ashraf and other Palestinians in the West Bank on the weekend that Mahmoud Abbas adressed the UN General Assembly, and handed his request for statehood over to the Secretary-General. The highlight of my weekend was seeing Ashraf and his friends (a cohort of Palestinian married professionals, all loveable trouble-makers, who reminded me of teenagers at the back of the bus) dance joyously in tandem with Israeli Jews after Abbas finished his speech.

One of the most fascinating people I met was Ashraf, a Palestinian environmentalist who sees himself as something of a Middle Eastern political oracle. Ashraf works with managing Palestinian water resources. He’s not a politician or a journalist or a scholar. But the opinions and perceptions expressed by Ashraf (and people like him across the Arab world) are vital to understand. It is people like him that will control the fate of the Arab world before too long. His opinon matters precisely because he isn’t a politician or a scholar or a journalist, and people like him deserve more attention from those very same politicians, scholars and journalists. As Ashraf was fond of repeating during our conversations throughout the weekend: “the world is changing.”

As a Palestinian, Ashraf had the most to say about his own nationality. As ecstatic as Ashraf and his buddies were about the speech, none of them had any illusions about things changing instantly on the ground. He told me that it was all about dignity, even getting to see Abbas deliver a speech in front of the other 193 nations of the world. “If the Palestinians are accepted by the General Assembly, we can bring Israel to international courts.” When I told him that that might not change anything, due to israel’s continued violation of dozens of UN resolutions against it, he didn’t disagree. He had no illusions about having the statehood bid pass the Security Council and American opposition. We could both agree that it’s brought attention to the Palestinian cause, and that given its reasonance in the gradually more people-power-centric Arab world, pressure on Israel to make peace will only mount.

I told him how embarassed it made me to be an American, watching all of the Palestinian environmentalists’ joy after Abbas’ speech, to know that my country was obstructing their dream. We both agreed that US power and reputation were in decline in the region. He said there will be new superpowers in the region. “The Arab people?” I asked. “Well, I meant Russia and China,” he replied, although he seemed to like my idea.

he told me that peace will come to Israel and Palestine, but that both sides, as well as the US needed leadership makeovers. “Netanyahu doesn’t want peace,” he told me. He also felt that, despite the strength and bravery that Abbas showed in the UN bid, he wasn’t a strong enough leader to acheive peace. “Arafat was a revolutionary leader, not a politician, but he had a connection to what people thought on the Palestinian street. Abbas is a politician, but he goes against the street.” Ashraf, although he didn’t condone violence and thought it was counter-productive to the Palestinian cause, felt that Abbas’ removal of the option of violence from the table was against the will of the street and gave the Palestinians less leverage. “Peace will come after Abbas,” he said. Even though he is no fan of Abbas, Ashraf supported the UN gambit. He said that Abbas might not deliver on the ground results, but that his bid exposes the United States as not being a neutral arbiter of Israeli-Palestinian peace and leaves Abbas and the Palestinians with dignity and a positive legacy.

Ashraf was very excited about the revolutions in the Arab world, but warned that change would not be quick or simple. “Libya will be the new Somalia. For 15 years,” he said. “Egypt will have another revolution” before it would become stabilized, he predicted, in five years. “Then they will be one of the leaders of the region.”

When I asked about Turkey, Ashraf was quick to respond. “Turkey will lead the region.” The regional partnership between Turkey and Egypt that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu presented seemed likely to come to pass, according to Ashraf.

I asked him about Syria too, and humbly Ashraf told me that “Syrians don’t know what will happen in Syria.” He seemed to think that it would get much worse there before it would get better. The people will not stop protesting and the government will not stop shooting, he told me.

Perhaps his most interesting comments were about Iran. I asked him what role Iran would play in the future Middle East, as another non-Arab state (Turkey) he acheived influence in the Arab world instead of Persian Iran. I asked him if the spirit of the Arab Spring (and the 2009 Green Movement in Iran) would topple the regime there. He didn’t think so, saying that the United States and Iran both needed each other for domestic reasons. “Iran is the monster that the US needs to stay involved in the Middle East,” he said. He applied a similar logic to Iran’s use of anti-Americanism (and anti-Israelism) to gain leverage in the region.

Despite feeling like the Arab Spring won’t produce stable, prosperous democracies for many years in Libya, Syria or Egypt, Ashraf was very positive about the development in the region in 2011. “Hamas doesn’t exist anymore, al-Qaeda is through,” he said. In general, he felt that the Arab revolutions irreparably harmed the narrative of violent religious extremist groups. He felt that Abbas had outmanuevered Hamas, that the protesters in Tahrir Square had shown the world that al-Qaeda and Hezbollah’s tactics were not as effective as youth-led, technology-driven, peaceful revolution.

After one of Ashraf’s long monologues, an Israeli environmentalist who had been dancing with the Palestinians after Abbas’ speech turned to me and said, “by the way, I agree with everything he’s saying.” Ashraf smiled at him, and put his arm on his shoulder. “Have you ever heard an Israeli agree with you on these things?” the Israeli asked.

“This is the second time,” he said. He turned back to me. “The world is changing,” he said, beaming.