By Saad Eddin Ibrahim

Published in Newsweek International

Issues 2005 - Who will win the battle for control of the boiling Arab-Muslim world? Every leader in the region is feeling the post-9/11 heat from within and without. At the risk of oversimplification, the dominant position is now held by aging authoritarian leaders in major states, particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria, which are all preparing (or recently completed) a family succession. Though these sons have raised hope of reform, those promises are false. The real potential lies in the smaller states at the periphery of the Arab world.

But the false prophets first. Saudi King Fahd is more than 80 years old, and the five brothers and half-brothers in line for the throne are all in their late 70s. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, also in his 70s, intends to run unopposed for a fifth six-year term in October 2005, becoming the third longest-serving ruler in his country's 5,000-year history, while preparing to pass the mantle to his son Gamal. The one exception to ruling well past retirement age is Bashar Assad of Syria, who inherited the presidency in 2000 and is still only 39. But Bashar also inherited his father's inner circle of aides, who are all in their late 60s and 70s, and they have dashed the early promise that Bashar would bring change and opening to Syria.

The same scenario of father-to-son succession was set to take place in Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein and is anticipated in Yemen and Libya as well. Rulers of these republics have to cloak nepotism in the trappings of formal legitimacy. Securing the support of the armed forces and internal security agencies is a must, which is why Bashar Assad got an Army command before he got the presidency. In Egypt there is a notable variation. Gamal Mubarak has shown no interest in an Army career, so he became a major power broker as head of the policy committee of the ruling National Democratic Party. In a mid-2004 cabinet reshuffle, eight key ministers came from Gamal's committee and are known to be his close associates.

All opposition parties and major civil-society organizations object to the young Mubarak's slipping into office Syrian style. Some, however, would support the Mubarak succession in return for real reform, including a constitutional amendment setting term limits of one six-year or two five-year terms and direct elections. The current practice—a plebiscite on one candidate in which the results are always about 99 percent "yes" to Mubarak—has become a joke in Egypt. Nevertheless, regime insiders are busy marketing young Mubarak to the West, saying his mix of liberal ideas for economic reform and conservative politics is the best guarantee for continuity and stability. Libya's Muammar Kaddafi is following a similar —path of strategic retreat to appease the West, while practicing repression as well and prepping his son to take over his job.

So where are the signs of real change? Yemen has distanced itself from the authoritarian core states since 9/11. The regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh offered full cooperation with the United States in the war on terrorism, conducted parliamentary elections with international observers on the scene, allowed greater freedom of the media and unequivocally welcomed economic reform. Yet Saleh is also grooming his son to take over, which could trigger tribal infighting and leaves Yemen in a kind of gray area between the hard-liners and reformers.

The most interesting reformers are all small states on the margins. Well before the fall of Saddam, a set of young monarchs had recognized the need for political modernization. Morocco, Jordan, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar are all evolving into constitutional monarchies. Elected parliaments that hold the top executive accountable are either already in place or under construction in those countries. Morocco's King Mohamed VI and Qatar's Sheik Hamad al-Thani are not only young, Western-educated and leading the region in political democratization, but also overseeing a revolutionary social transformation of their societies.

In December 2003 the Moroccan king proposed a bill providing for full gender equality in all aspects of life, putting Morocco ahead of Egypt and Tunisia on women's issues in the Arab world, and on a par with Turkey in the larger Muslim world. He has lifted censorship and set up a commission, modeled on Nelson Mandela's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, to investigate human-rights violations committed under the previous ruler (his own father), try those responsible and repatriate or compensate victims and their relatives.

Most important, the king has quieted fears that reform will create an opening for extremist parties: the leading Islamic party has become a responsible member of Parliament. In fact, wherever ruling regimes allow an opening for participation of all political factions, the Islamist center is strengthened over its right wing. Jordan is a case in point. There Islamist deputies and ministers failed to deliver on election promises and were defeated in subsequent elections.

At the other end of the Arab world, Sheik Hamad of Qatar earned much notoriety by allowing his tiny Gulf state to host the Al-Jazeera satellite-television network in 1996. Many in the West see Al-Jazeera as a forum for extremism, but I would argue that it is the single most important factor in opening up and expanding public space in the Arab world. Its freewheeling debates, talk shows and daring news coverage have energized Arab intelligentsia and empowered ordinary Arab citizens, who can call in and express themselves freely. Many other radio and TV stations followed suit. Meanwhile, Sheika Moza, Qatar's outspoken First Lady, has demolished the traditional stereotype of a veiled, submissive Arab woman, pushing hard for gender equality and broader modernization. The royal couple's latest project is the Doha Debates, modeled on the Oxford Union and moderated by a BBC host, in which lead-ing experts debate public issues before a live college audience. The Doha Debates promise to be no less revolutionary than Al-Jazeera; both are doing so much to liberate Arab minds that they infuriate their tyrannical neighbors.

It may be argued that a country like Qatar, with its small population and bountiful oil wealth, can afford to undertake such daring and costly ventures. The counterargument, however, is that the same country, with the same demographic and economic base, under a previous aging leadership did nothing of the sort. Likewise, countries with populations several times larger and a fraction of Qatar's wealth have managed to be as daring in moving forward with a radical reform agenda; those include Morocco, Oman, Bahrain and, to some extent, Jordan.

If the Arab world's biggest powers, from Saudi Arabia to Iraq, had leaders with the same youth and mind-set, it could make all the difference. There, populations are longing for real reforms, though not yet at the point of a foreign gun. The sad truth is that unless these dinosaurs yield to the forces of moderate and peaceful change welling up inside their own borders, they will face the fate of Iran in the last days of the shah, or Iraq's last days under Saddam. And neither alternative is acceptable to the Arab majority.

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