Finally, someone in the US government has followed through on President Barack Obama’s judgment that CIA-conducted and “-outsourced” torture—let’s call it by its common name—is “not who we are” as a nation.  Finally, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has given us a (still heavily-redacted) account of what the CIA did between 2002 and 2006.

There is good as well as bad news in all of this mess.  After all, the Senate Committee (or at least its Democratic members) was prepared to see the United States “come clean” about some practices that—certainly in hindsight and, for people of any true moral sense, as should have been obvious at the time—are unacceptable  to a civilized society.

How many other countries would have done the same? Quite a few it turns out, at least 28 at last count, in what are typically known as “truth and reconciliation commissions.” Notable have been those in South Africa, Argentina, and Chile. However, by contrast with crimes in those countries, mostly against their own people, what was done by US government officials and their paid servants—some US “contractors” and some foreign governments—directly affected only a few people; most of them were avowed enemies of the United States; and at least some of whom were involved in the worst foreign attack on the continental US since 1814.

The published part of the report actually contains few surprises, other than to reveal that some of the “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs), an antiseptic euphemism like the Vietnam War’s “termination with extreme prejudice,” was much more brutal than hitherto reported.  More details than previously known were provided by how officials of the Central Intelligence Agency lied to Congress—a felony—and also, supposedly, to senior officials in the George W. Bush White House (which had its own share of the cover-up).  Further, the report confirmed what many terrorism experts and insiders-now-outsiders had said before: that such techniques rarely if ever produce “actionable” intelligence and certainly not in this case.

Thus, the argument is now being made widely around the world that the United States—self-styled since 1630 as a City Upon a Hill,  the producer of regular human rights reports about  every other country on the planet, and a list-keeper of other peoples’ misdeeds—has confessed to its own inhumane acts.

Yes, that is still part of the (relatively) good news.  Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) and her Senate committee did not have to release the report. While the journalism community would continue to sniff at the edges of scandal, and awareness of thus-and-so would long be whispered around Washington, the full picture could have probably been buried, not quietly, but still buried.

The unalloyed bad news comes in different forms. As the inevitably-to-be-leaked list grows of foreign countries that either allowed the CIA to build private, purpose-built prisons or even took part in the “extraordinary rendition” of US terrorism suspects (to be tortured away from prying American eyes), there will be domestic embarrassment for some political leaderships that have not already been called to account (e.g., as has happened in Poland). As President Obama summed it up this week: “These techniques did significant damage to America’s standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners.”

The “bad guys,” especially the thugs of the world who have been subjected to American criticism or who themselves engage in immoral actions—like al-Qaeda, Islamic State (ISIS or IS), and a host of brutal governments, many but not all in the Middle East—will now claim a US precedent for what they do, and terrorist groups will use the Senate Committee revelations as a recruiting tool.

By any standard, the US is not in their league as a miscreant.  There is the issue of provocation to balance against the immorality of the CIA’s torture program. But at the same time, there is also the issue of efficacy—was the immorality worth the price? As President Obama said of the report this week: “It reinforces my long-held view that these harsh methods were not only inconsistent with our values as a nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests.” They were not only wrong; they didn’t work.

More bad news will be felt immediately by America’s diplomats abroad.  They will just have to hunker down, stick to the talking points that Washington gives them and, we hope, contrast our openness (though it took far too long) with rampant terrorism and state oppression by people who would not dream of repentance or accountability. We can also expect Schadenfreude on the part of some of our closest allies, including in Europe. “Too bad about what happened in the United States, tut, tut,” they will say. Some friendly governments will face popular resistance to cooperating with the US in other actions abroad, as this report comes hard on the heels of revelations about the National Security Agency’s spying on foreign leaders.  However, these views will be tempered among those who recognize that damage to America’s standing could also negatively impact  them, since they still need us as a security guarantor, a point that was underscored earlier this year by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

We are already seeing the worst of the bad news, and it is at home.  Senator John McCain (R-Az.), who himself was tortured in a North Vietnamese prison, has welcomed the issuance of the report; but for most other Republican members of Congress, it is the Democrats and Barack Obama who are somehow to blame for this whole business. They contest the evidence and claim that water-boarding and other EITs did indeed help forestall further terrorism on our shores.  They see a witch hunt by the current administration, although President Obama said in April 2009 that “For those who carried out some of these operations within the four corners of legal opinions or guidance that had been provided from the White House, I do not think it’s appropriate for them to be prosecuted.” (Whether such a pledge should have been made is another matter.) The Attorney General, Eric Holder, followed through on that pledge in August 2012 by dropping two prominent cases. Even worse are former officials of the CIA who have joined the chorus in arguing that what was done protected the nation. Their efforts at self-justification add to the case that the CIA needs a thorough house-cleaning.  The agency’s leaders during the period in question should be denied any further government service. Those who lied to Congress should be prosecuted; the lawyers who justified the breaking of laws should be disbarred. (If that could be done to a sitting president for lying about sex, surely it should be done in this case.)  And no one should be allowed to get away with saying, however they phrase it, “We were just following orders.”  That line of argument fell to pieces at Nuremberg almost seven decades ago. Prosecution?  Maybe not—though it would be true to the rule of law and would send a useful message. No further government service? Definitely. Actions, whatever the sincerity of motives, must have consequences.

Maybe some larger good can begin to come out of all this. I do not mean just, as President Obama has said:  “I will continue to use my authority as president to make sure we never resort to those methods again.” That is a worthy goal—though all-too-likely of short duration, as can be testified to by those of us who remember the hearings in the 1970s by the Senate’s Church Committee, whose report and resulting national debate should have stopped in its tracks what the CIA did after 9/11.

The larger good can be a recognition that accountability needs to be returned to government, in general – a quality that has never been in great supply. The last senior political figure to quit over an issue of principle and policy was Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in 1979, following the abortive hostage rescue mission in Iran.  While Britain tried to sort out responsibility after its prime minister, Tony Blair, misled his country into joining the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, we have never done so and never will. We have never held accountable the small group of senior officials who consciously misled not just the president of the United States but also the American people, thereby leading the country into one of the most costly mistakes ever in US engagement abroad.

There can be no doubt that we are a great nation; we are basically a moral society, and the overwhelming majority of people in government, including most but unfortunately not all elected politicians, Republicans and Democrats, are so as well and work to do what they think is the best for our country.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has started us thinking once again about the demands of creating “a more perfect union” and has reminded us that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Let us hope that we also make a serious start on raising both the standard and the practice of accountability, across the board, to validate President Obama’s statement: “Today is also a reminder that upholding the values we profess doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us stronger and that the United States of America will remain the greatest force for freedom and human dignity that the world has ever known.”

Tuesday’s release by the Senate Intelligence Committee of its long-awaited report on the torture by the CIA of detainees in the so-called “war on terror” does not go far enough, according to major U.S. human rights groups.

While welcoming the report’s release, the subject of months of intensive and sometimes furious negotiations between the Senate Committee’s majority and both the CIA and the Obama administration, the groups said additional steps were needed to ensure that U.S. officials never again engage in the kind of torture detailed in the report.

“This should be the beginning of a process, not the end,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “The report should shock President Obama and Congress into action, to make sure that torture and cruelty are never used again.”

He called, among other steps, for the appointment of a special prosecutor to hold the “architects and perpetrators” of what the George W. Bush administration called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) accountable and for Congress to assert its control over the CIA, “which in this report sounds more like a rogue paramilitary group than the intelligence gathering agency that it’s supposed to be.”

He was joined by London-based Amnesty International which noted that the declassified information provided in the report constituted “a reminder to the world of the utter failure of the USA to end the impunity enjoyed by those who authorised and used torture and other ill-treatment.

“This is a wake-up call to the USA; they must disclose the full truth about the human rights violations, hold perpetrators accountable and ensure justice for the victims,” said Amnesty’s Latin America director, Erika Guevara.

The Senate Committee’s report, actually a 524-page, partially-redacted summary of a still-classified 6,300-page report on the treatment of at least 119 terrorist suspects detained in secret locations overseas, accused the CIA not only of engaging in torture that was “brutal and far worse” than has previously been reported, but also of regularly misleading the White House and Congress both about what it was doing and the purported value of the intelligence it derived from those practices.

Water-boarding, for example, was used against detainees more often and in more of the CIA’s “black sites” than previously known; sleep deprivation was used for up to a week at a time against some suspects; others received “rectal feeding” or “hydration’; and still others were forced to stand on broken feet or legs.

In at least one case, a detainee was frozen to death; in the case of Abu Zubayda, an alleged “high-value” Al Qaeda detainee who was subject to dozens of water-boardings, the treatment was so brutal, several CIA officers asked to be transferred if it did not stop.

While the CIA officers and former Bush administration officials, notably former Vice President Dick Cheney, have long insisted that key information – including intelligence that eventually led to the killing of Osama bin Laden — was obtained from EITs, the report concluded that these techniques were ineffective.

Seven of 39 detainees who were subject to the most aggressive EITs provided no intelligence at all, while information obtained from the others preceded the harsh treatment, according to the report, which relied on the CIA’s own cables and reports.

In some cases, detainees subjected to EITs gave misinformation about “terrorist threats” which did not actually exist, the report found. Of the 119 known detainees subject to EITs, at least 26 should never have been held, it said.

Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, who fought hard for months to release the report over the CIA’s fierce objections, wrote in its Forward that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks, “she could understand the CIA’s impulse to consider the use of every possible tool to gather intelligence and remove terrorists from the battlefield, and CIA was encouraged by political leaders and the public to do whatever it could to prevent another attack.”

“Nevertheless, such pressure, fear and expectation of further terrorist plots do not justify, temper or excuse improper actions taken by individuals or organizations in the name of national security,” according to Feinstein.

For his part, CIA director John Brennan, a career CIA officer appointed by Obama whose role in the Bush administration’s detention programme remains cloudy, “acknowledge(d) that the detention and interrogation program had shortcomings and that the Agency made mistakes.”

“The most serious problems occurred early on and stemmed from the fact that the Agency was unprepared and lacked the core competencies required to carry out an unprecedented, worldwide program of detaining and interrogating suspected al-Qa’ida and affiliated terrorists.”

But he also defended the EITs, insisting that “interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives.” A fact sheet released by the CIA claimed, as an example, that one detainee, after undergoing EITs, identified bin Laden’s courier, which subsequently led the CIA to the Al Qaeda chief’s location.

With several notable exceptions, Republicans also defended the CIA and the Bush administration’s orders to permit EITs. Indeed, the Intelligence Committee’s Republican members released a minority report that noted that the majority of staff had not interviewed any CIA officers directly involved in the programme.

“There is no reason whatsoever for this report to ever be published,” said the Committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Saxby Chambliss. “This is purely a partisan tactic” which he said was designed to attack the Bush administration. Republicans also warned that the report’s release would endanger U.S. service personnel and citizens abroad by fuelling anti-American sentiment, especially in the Muslim world.

But Sen. John McCain, who was himself tortured as a prisoner of war in the Vietnam war, defended the report, calling it “a thorough and thoughtful study of practices that I believe not only failed their purpose …but actually damaged our security interests, as well as our reputation as a force for good in the world.”

McCain has championed efforts to pass legislation outlawing torture, particularly because Obama’s 2009 executive orders prohibiting such practices could be reversed by a future president.

Passage of such a law – whose prospects appear virtually nil in light of Republican control of both houses of Congress for the next two years – is one of the demands, along with release of the full report, of most human-rights groups here.

“The Obama administration and Congress should work together to build a durable consensus against torture by pursuing legislation that demonstrates bipartisan unity and fidelity to our ideals,” said Elisa Massimino, director of Human Rights First.

Many groups, however, want Obama to go further by prosecuting those responsible for the EIT programme, a step that his administration made clear from the outset it was loathe to do.

“We renew our demand for accountability for those individuals responsible for the CIA torture programme,” said Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented a number of detainees at Guantanamo, including Abu Zubaydah, in U.S. courts. “They should be prosecuted in U.S. courts; and, if our government continues to refuse to hold them accountable, they must be pursued internationally under principles of universal jurisdiction.”

“The report shows the repeated claims that harsh measures were needed to protect Americans are utter fiction,” according to Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth. “Unless this important truth-telling process leads to prosecution of the officials responsible, torture will remain a ‘policy option’ for future presidents.”

Noting that health professionals, including doctors and psychologists also played a role in the EITs, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) also called for legal accountability. “For more than a decade, the U.S. government has been lying about its use of torture,” said Donna McKay, PHR’s executive director.

“The report confirms that health professionals used their skills to break the minds and bodies of detainees. Their actions destroyed trust in clinicians, undermined the integrity of their professions, and damaged the United States’ human rights record, which can only be corrected through accountability,” she said.

This article was first published by IPS and was reprinted here with permission.

On July 22, Jason Rezaian, an American-Iranian Washington Post reporter, was detained in Tehran by Iranian authorities along with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, and two other people whose names have been kept private.

The reason for the arrests was never publicly announced, and today, more than four months later, everyone but Rezaian has been released.

Salehi was released on bail in October, but any hope that Rezaian would soon join his wife was dashed on Dec. 3 when Human Rights Watch reported that Rezaian has been officially charged (the Post has since corroborated the report). We still don’t know the nature of the charges—only that his detention has been extended until mid-January while the investigation against him continues.

Rezaian’s arrest, which reportedly involved a raid on his home, came as a shock to everyone who knew him. He is a friend to many (including myself) in the press, and the general public. He is the kind of person who will set aside time to talk to anyone who reaches out to him.

A native of California who was born to an Iranian father and American mother, Rezaian’s interest in Iran from an early age ultimately grew into a love affair with the country. He ended up moving there, and even though Iran has long been criticized for its record on press freedom, became the Post’s Bureau Chief in 2012. He has since covered various aspects of the Islamic Republic, from its nuclear program to the effects of the sanctions regime on average Iranians to the growing popularity of American-style burger joints.

Since he was arrested, Rezaian’s family has reserved its calls for his release to only a few outlets, including the Washington Post, and CNN, which featured Rezaian and Salehi in the Iran-focused episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown show. Rezaian and his wife were detained shortly after the show was filmed, and Bourdain has since joined Rezaian’s family in calling for his release. A Facebook page and petition have also been setup for Rezaian.

The appeals for Rezaian’s release by his family (and Bourdain) have been extremely respectful of the Iranian authorities (just watch this video-message by Rezaian’s mother, Mary). This has been the case even though his family says the lawyer they hired to represent Rezaian has not been allowed to see his client (Salehi has visited her husband since she was released) and Jason has at least one health condition that requires consistent care.

Now Rezaian’s family has issued a public statement, which I am publishing in full below. The tone of this statement is considerably stronger than his family’s previous appeals, a likely testament to their growing state of distress.

FAMILY OF WASHINGTON POST REPORTER JASON REZAIAN RESPONDS TO CHARGES AGAINST HIM BY IRANIAN GOVERNMENT

December 7, 2014

Our family is deeply saddened to confirm that, after being held in solitary
confinement without charge for 137 days, Jason Rezaian was charged with
unknown crimes by the government of Iran.

In its ongoing disregard of Iran’s own laws, the Iranian judiciary has
continued to deny Jason access to legal representation, denied his request
for bail, and prevented access to review of his case file.

This continued disrespect for Iran’s judicial system should be a concern not
only to the international community who are eagerly awaiting normalization
of relations with Iran, but also to all those Iranians who claim that Iran
is a country of laws which should be recognized as such by major world
powers.

We urge Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to show the international
community that Iran is indeed a country that respects its laws, and order
the immediate and unconditional release of Jason and Yeganeh and end what
Iran’s own Head of the Judiciary’s Human Rights Council Mohammad Javad
Larijani, recently described as a “fiasco”.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Mo Davari

by Emile Nakhleh

Bahrain’s national election planned for this Saturday portends no change in the al-Khalifa regime’s anti-Shi’a stance and is yet another futile exercise in sham democracy. Even the mainstream al-Wefaq Shi’a opposition party has decided to boycott the election because of perceived bias in the recently gerrymandered electoral districts.

Most observers view the election as another public relations ploy by the minority Sunni regime to convince the outside world, especially Western countries, that all is well in the tiny kingdom. The regime is betting, perhaps correctly, that the West would not criticize its game of superficial electoral politics because of Bahrain’s participation in the US-led anti-ISIS coalition and Saudi Arabia’s influence in the process.

The regime’s sectarian repression of the Shi’a majority is deeply grounded in the same radical Sunni ideology espoused by Islamic State (ISIS or IS). In fact, extremist Sunni rhetoric has been tolerated in Bahrain in the name of fighting the Shi’a opposition and Iran.

IS enjoys significant backing in Bahrain among some pro-regime Sunni factions. Such ideological support, which is widely spread out among certain Sunni groups in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, is a key driver of IS in Iraq and Syria. This also explains why many IS jihadists come from the family-ruled Gulf states.

Promoting extremist Sunni ideology at home while ostensibly fighting IS in the Levant is a cynical ploy by the Khalifas’ to justify their continued suppression of Shi’a rights and policy of turning a blind eye to the poor living conditions in Shi’a villages and towns. Sitra, a tiny Shi’a island just south of the capital city of Manama, is indeed a world apart from the glitzy Khalifa strongholds in other parts of the island country.

Stoking sectarianism might be a winning strategy in the short term; it is certainly a losing proposition in the long run. It’s equally foolish for the Bahraini regime to believe that Western support, which is currently driven by the war against IS, would be sufficient to save them from the wrath of their people should a radical Shi’a uprising erupt.

Wefaq and the Election

The regime, and US policymakers for that matter, should take Wefaq’s boycott of the election very seriously. As a mainstream opposition political party, Wefaq has been willing to cooperate with the Sunni regime under the umbrella of the Khalifas as long as genuine reform is implemented.

For the party, meaningful reform includes free elections; reinstating the 1973 constitution; government accountability (particularly at the level of the prime minister); ending economic, political, and employment discrimination, especially in security and defense; and halting illegal arrests, trials, and convictions.

In fact, Wefaq supported the reform initiative of then-Emir Hamad in 2001-02 and endorsed the so-called National Charter believing that Hamad was committed to genuine reform. Several opposition figures came back from exile to cooperate with the new initiative.

Unfortunately, however, the only “reform” that resulted from Hamad’s initiative was changing the name of the country to the “Kingdom of Bahrain” and replacing his title of “Emir” with “King.” The reform initiative stalled because of opposition from Prime Minister Khalifa and the “Khawalids” in the office of the emir in Gulf countries, and defense, and judicial branches of government.

Overturning the Bahraini regime’s unconstitutional step of stripping Shi’a citizens of their citizenship has become a key reform demand for Wefaq. Despite the constitutional prohibition, a total of 40 Bahrainis have been stripped of their citizenship in the past two years—31 in November 2012 and nine in August 2014.

Article 17 of the Bahraini constitution states that a Bahraini citizen “cannot be stripped of his nationality except in case of treason. It is prohibited to banish a citizen from Bahrain or prevent him from returning to it.” Article 18 states, “People are equal in human dignity, and citizens are equal before the law in public rights and duties.”

Wefaq is the largest, most prominent and pragmatic opposition political party in the country. Its 18 members resigned from parliament three years ago to protest the draconian measures the ruling family has adopted against the opposition, particularly the Shi’a community.

Wefaq believes the regime will use the skewed election results to justify its massive human rights violations and continued campaign of harassment, arrests, and illegal detentions. Wefaq and other opposition groups—including Wa’d, al-Tajjamu,’ and al-Ikha’—decided to boycott the election, refusing to take part in what some of them call a pseudo-democratic political charade.

Jamil Kathim, who heads Wefaq’s Shura Council, said the election “does not represent the popular will and will not provide security for the country.” Matar Ibrahim Matar, a former Wefaq Member of Parliament who is currently living in Washington, DC, called on the government to postpone the election “until a national path forward has been agreed on.”

The opposition groups also urged King Hamad to “seek a national consensus to resolve the serious national issues that have bedeviled the nation since 2011 before holding elections.”

The mainstream opposition includes several leading figures with whom the regime could work with if it’s seriously interested in becoming more inclusive. These include Ali Salman, Secretary General of Al-Wifaq, Jamil Kathim, Abd al-Jalil al-Khalil, Ali al-Marzook, Matar Ibrahim Matar, Jasim Hussain, Mansoor al-Jamri, Nabil Rajab, Lamis Dhaif, Maryam al-Khawaja, Ali al-Ikri, and several others.

The regime, in defiance, has gone all out to publicize the elections based on Crown Prince Salman’s so-called “Common Ground” framework.  In addition to “Electoral Districts,” the other four parts of the framework include “Legislative Authority,” “Cabinet Formation,” “Judicial Reform,” and “Security.”

Is There a Way Forward?

The regime is pressing ahead with the election while ignoring the pragmatic demands of the opposition. Human rights Watch and Human Rights First have frequently identified the egregious human rights violations committed by the regime against innocent civilians and political activists.

But Bahrain has waged a fierce public relations campaign to dissuade Western governments from raising the human rights issue in the country. The Khalifa regime has used an army of “access” academics, former diplomats, retired senior military officers, corporate executive think-tankers, and pliant media influential figures to act as informal advisers to “lobby” policymakers in Western capitals on behalf of the Bahraini regime.

What we are seeing now is a minority Sunni regime refusing to share the political process with the country’s Shi’a majority on the basis of fairness, equity, and justice. If the United States believes continued tensions in Bahrain and in the wider Gulf are harmful to its strategic regional interests, it cannot remain oblivious to these violations and to the possibility of radicalization in Bahrain.

Due to the Khalifas’ refusal to seriously act on the concerns of the country’s Shi’a majority, the elections on Saturday will not move the reconciliation process forward. Washington may be hoping to stabilize its relations with Iran through an agreement on the nuclear issue and to understand the regional factors that led to the rise of IS to speed up its defeat, but the growing chance of vicious sectarianism in Bahrain could undermine its search for regional stability.

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by Thomas W. Lippman

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia—On Palestine Street, in the heart of this steamy port city, the Baskin Robbins store and Dunkin’ Donuts have a new neighbor, Gold’s Gym.

Inside, the gym is presumably similar to others in the Gold’s chain, with the usual treadmills and muscle machines. But it’s hard to know, because unlike other Gold’s gyms, which feature big windows looking out to the street, this one is sealed off from the eyes of pedestrians outside by a solid black wall. A big sign on the wall—in gold letters, naturally—tells why: For Ladies Only.

Yes, it’s a gym for women. Until recently there was no such thing in this conservative country. Now there are many, another step in the march of Saudi women out of the past and into—well, if not the present, at least into the more recent past. Some girls now play sports in school, and in 2012 two women were members of Saudi Arabia’s team at the Olympic Games.

Exercise and participation in sports represent important progress for Saudi women, who have traditionally been excluded from most activities outside the home. It is not just a question of social evolution and liberalizing trends, it is a major public health issue. The kingdom has one of the world’s highest rates of obesity and diabetes. According to the International Diabetes Federation, more than 20 percent of all Saudi adults are afflicted with diabetes, which the government has recognized as a public health problem rivaling traffic deaths. A national diabetes research center is under construction at King Saud University in Riyadh. Local newspapers have reported that more than70 percent of adults over the age of 40 are medically obese.

The problem is acute among women. That is not surprising considering the nationwide addiction to fast food and the fact that until recently most women had little to do except shop and eat—although a male columnist for a local paper observed helpfully last week that women get more exercise than one might think just by doing their household chores.

Demand for exercise opportunities has been growing along with the need. A few years ago, an enterprising investor opened an all-female hotel in Riyadh—women only, guests and staff. A female journalist who went to report about it discovered that many of the rooms were rented not to travelers but to local women who wanted access to the gym.

The entire question of sports and organized exercise for women has long been controversial here. Women cannot just go out and run on the streets, or ride bicycles, as they do elsewhere. Until recently the country’s conservative religious establishment was firmly opposed to any form of exercise for women other than what they could do at home.

That is changing rapidly, as is the entire role of women in the kingdom. A newspaper reported the other day that the number of women holding full-time jobs in this country of nearly 30 million people rose from about 55,000 in 2010 to 216,000 in 2012 and the rate of employment is accelerating as more jobs are opened to women. The government has been encouraging the trend. By orders of King Abdullah, women now work in retail shops that cater to female customers, such as lingerie stores, from which they were banned until recently. In addition to their traditional jobs as teachers and pediatricians, women are employed by banks, insurance companies, the media, and even industry, in all-female factories. Now the government is reportedly directing private-sector employers to grant 10 weeks of paid maternity leave to full-time female workers.

More than half the students at Saudi universities now are female. That trend, coupled with the near-universal access to social media, has created a demand for exercise and physical conditioning, Saudi women say.

“People are promoting sports for girls, building walkways for them. It’s a big campaign,” said Samar Fatany, one of Saudi Arabia’s best-known advocates of women’s social advancement. Another, Reem Assad, an economist who led the campaign that resulted in the royal decree permitting women to work in shops, recalled that she was allowed to exercise as a girl—she took tae kwon do lessons—but “we were set back 20 years” by  the conservative backlash that swept the country in the 1980s. Now given the opportunity once again, women are eager to work out, she said.

Over the nine years of his reign, King Abdullah has gradually but unmistakably opened social and professional space for women. He has appointed them to the consultative assembly, decreed that they will be allowed to run as candidates, and vote, in the next round of municipal elections, and encouraged the Ministry of Labor’s efforts to expand job opportunities. He has also reined in the social enforcers, often referred to as the religious police, who traditionally have roamed public spaces such as shopping malls to make sure the kingdom’s rigid code of behavior and gender separation was enforced.

For women seeking additional freedom, this may be the most important question as Saudi Arabia prepares for a transition from Abdullah, who is about 90, to the next king. Whichever prince inherits the throne can continue the liberalizing trend, or reverse it. Those gyms could still be shut down overnight.

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ISIS and Bahrain’s F-16

by Matar E. Matar

For the second time in recent history, the United States is trading away support for democracy and fundamental human rights protections in Bahrain as part of an effort to establish democracy and human rights protections in another Muslim country.

In March 2011, while the Obama administration was building a coalition to defeat Qaddafi in Libya, Saudi and Emirati troops were rolling toward Bahrain to reinforce a massive crackdown against unarmed pro-democracy protesters.

In her book, Hard Choices, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reveals how a very senior Emirati official pressed her to mute US opposition to this invasion if she wanted the UAE to join the anti-Qaddafi campaign. “Frankly, when we have a situation with our armed forces in Bahrain it’s hard to participate in another operation if our armed forces’ commitment in Bahrain is questioned by our main ally,” she quotes him as saying. It worked. Later that same day, in stark contrast to the US State Department’s response to the Russian intervention in the Crimea, Clinton issued a statement intended to soothe Saudi/Emirati concerns, saying in essence that their intervention in Bahrain was legitimate.

At that same time, large parts of the Bahraini population were being subjected to beatings, torture and imprisonment that had never occurred in the history of our country. Given our inability to protect our people from such abuse, several colleagues and I decided to resign our positions in Parliament in protest. I was then arrested while trying to inform the world about the casualties from excessive force and extensive torture. But Secretary Clinton was at peace with the trade-off: “I felt comfortable that we had not sacrificed our values or credibility,” she wrote in her memoir.

Today Bahrain is facing a similar situation. The US needs the appearance of strong Arab cooperation against the Islamic State (not because the US actually needs assistance from Bahraini F-16s), giving the Bahraini regime an opportune time to force bad deals on the people of Bahrain without criticism from Washington.

This time the regime is moving ahead, claiming that it has achieved consensus through what has clearly been a phony “National Dialogue”—the government’s response to international pressure for reconciliation after the repression of the pro-democracy movement.

The country’s absolute monarch, King Hamad bin Isa, dominates all power centers. He appoints all senior judges, members of the upper house of Parliament, and members of the cabinet, which is headed by the world’s longest-serving prime minister, Khalifa bin Salman (first appointed when Nixon was president). In addition, the King has given himself the right to grant public lands and citizenship to whomever he wants. He has abused these powers in a wide and systematic manner by concentrating wealth among his family and allies including within Bahrain’s minority Sunni population.

On October 12, 2011, half a year after the Bahraini uprising, opposition parties representing well over half of the country’s population issued a blueprint for democratic reform in Bahrain, the Manama Document. This paper identified a path toward an orderly transition to a constitutional monarchy, ensuring an inclusive government that represents all Bahrainis in the cabinet, parliament, and security and judicial institutions. Specifically, it called for the establishment of representative electoral districts; free elections; a single elected chamber in Parliament instead of the current bi-cameral arrangement, where the upper house is appointed by the king and only the lower house is elected; an independent judiciary; and the inclusion of Shia among all ranks of the military and security forces.

Instead of embracing any of these ideas, the unaccountable king has offered up pretend reforms, and the US government, with an eye to keeping the Fifth Fleet’s headquarters in Bahrain and now on keeping Bahraini F-16s in the air over Iraq and Syria, pretends that these reforms are real. Central to this pretense is the “national dialogue” that has been running in fits and starts since July 2011. In reality, it has been a one-sided conversation, since key leaders of the opposition have been systematically arrested.

Last month, the king tapped Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad to assume his first real political role in the government—namely taking the lead in closing the door on the dialogue and submitting what he considered to be its “common ground.” Among other things, the crown prince proposed a meaningless plan for redistricting that was later imposed by the king by royal decree. Under this plan, Shia constituencies, which comprise about 65% of the total population, would receive only about 45% of the seats in Parliament. The redistricting plan was apparently designed to reduce the variation in the size of districts by scattering the opposition throughout majority loyalist districts. Moreover, the variation in the size of districts would remain huge. For example, a loyalist-majority district of less than 1,000 voters would elect one MP while an opposition-majority district with more than 10,000 voters would receive the same representation in Parliament—a ratio of more than ten to one. In fact, 13 opposition-majority districts with more than 10,000 voters each would be treated this way under the plan.

Another part of the supposed “common ground” relates to the formation of the cabinet, which must be approved by the majority of the elected chamber of Parliament. If Parliament fails to approve the appointed government three times, then Parliament would be dissolved.

Thousands of Bahrainis rejected this proposal Sept. 19 by marching in western Manama in a demonstration of determination on the part of pro-democracy forces that have not diminished despite the repression of the last three and a half years.

Nonetheless, based on the purported “common ground,” the government now intends to hold elections on Nov. 22.

Time is short for constructive engagement between the opposition and the regime to resolve these political disputes, and the US needs to be heard. Washington should not think that its interests require it to remain silent about the need for real democratic reform in Bahrain. In fact, failing to speak out is detrimental to its own stated interests in Iraq and Syria. While the regime in Bahrain is participating in F-16 sorties against the Islamic State, its policies of systematic discrimination against its majority Shia population and its ongoing incitement in the media against Bahraini Shia (as agents of Iran and the US at the same time!) create a perfect environment for incubating terrorists who consider Americans and Shia their greatest enemy. Moreover, while the US government trains Bahraini “security forces” that exclude Shia (on sectarian grounds), it appears that some Bahrainis working for these same forces have left to fight with the Islamic State.

Yet when Nabeel Rajab, a prominent human rights activist, recently tweeted that the security institutions were the ideological incubator of sectarianism and anti-American attitudes in Bahrain, he was arrested on the grounds that he had “denigrated government institutions.”

Bahrain is a small country, but it represents a major test for US credibility. The Obama administration has traded Bahraini democracy away once before. Three years of bloodshed in Bahrain has not only radicalized elements of the opposition there but has also instilled a culture of abuse and impunity in Bahrain’s government and security forces, some of whom are now looking to the Islamic State to satiate their new-found appetite for violence. Any potential benefit the US thinks it might gain from an unaccountable (Sunni) autocrat’s F16s in the bombing campaign against the Islamic State is more than offset by the sectarian extremism that these alleged allies continue to provoke (and promote) at home.

Washington should not sell out democracy in Bahrain again. With a little attention and encouragement, President Obama could help bring democracy to this Arab country and claim at least one good result for his (currently empty) “win” category.

Matar Ebrahim Matar is a former Member of Parliament who served as Bahrain’s youngest MP representing its largest constituency. In February 2011, along with 18 other members from his Al-Wefaq political party, he resigned from Parliament to protest the regime’s crackdown against pro-reform demonstrators. During the Feb. 14 uprising, he served as a major spokesman for the pro-democracy movement. Matar was subsequently arbitrarily detained, and, after his release, left Bahrain for exile in the United States. In 2012, he received the “Leaders for Democracy Award” from the Project on Middle Democracy (POMED).

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by Ellie Geranmayeh

The meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and British Prime Minister David Cameron on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly yesterday was an important moment for geopolitics, British-Iranian relations, and the growing European dialogue with Tehran. Such an encounter has not taken place since the 1979 revolution when Iran switched from a monarchy to an Islamic Republic. The timing of the event was critical given the turbulence in the Middle East, which poses security threats to Iran and Western countries. The meeting also underlines the shift that has been taking place in the United Kingdom’s policy on Iran, triggered by the progress made in the talks over Iran’s nuclear program under Rouhani’s administration and the escalating crises emerging from the group calling itself the Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS).

Diplomatic relations between the countries were officially cut in 2011 after a crowd of Iranians stormed the British embassy in Tehran following the announcement of British sanctions on Iran. The current warming of relations comes at a time when traditional alliances and geopolitical landscapes in the region are changing. Both sides agreed to hold the Sept. 24 meeting at heads of state-level rather than the lower foreign ministerial rank. In doing so, the UK sent a strong though symbolic gesture from a Western country to the Iranian supreme leader that it is seriously open to changing its relations with the Islamic Republic in the pursuit of British interests.

1st meeting b/w UK & Iran heads of state in 35 years: 1 hour of constructive & pragmatic dialogue, new outlook #UNGA pic.twitter.com/Ax9cf72rup

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) September 24, 2014

While Iran and the UK have been moving toward restoring diplomatic relations since the resumption of nuclear-focused negotiations under Rouhani last year, this week’s meeting was spurred by serious British deliberations over incorporating Iran into the UK’s anti-ISIS strategy (even if most of the coordination with Iran may ultimately be done privately). In the absence of engagement, and with or without the downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, more Western countries are recognizing that they can only effectively combat ISIS in Syria through a coordinated effort with Iran. This type of operation cannot be managed solely with the West’s traditional regional allies—notably the Gulf States, Turkey and Egypt—who have little leverage over Assad.

Cameron this week also met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, perhaps signaling a desire by the British PM to be more active on the global scene and raise the UK’s leadership profile in tackling security threats. While France is calling on Europe to step up its military response to ISIS, the UK is still working out what its role will be as part of the international coalition. Cameron’s outreach has probably come too late to be considered a real “game-changer” on the international stage given the amount of back-channel talks now taking place between Iran and the US on both the nuclear issue and ISIS. Nevertheless the British parliament will assemble this Friday to explore how and if the UK will increase its military response against ISIS; the meeting with Rouhani will no doubt be a strong feature in the discussions.

The UK’s former foreign secretary, Jack Straw, wrote yesterday that the West must take a leap of faith in settling a final nuclear deal with Iran, describing Iran as “fundamental to securing stability in Syria, northern Iraq and the Lebanon.” The position of the P5+1 (France, UK, US, Russia, China and Germany) countries, currently in talks over a final deal on Iran’s nuclear program, has been that the regional and nuclear dossiers must be kept separate. Although the UK has stuck to this line, Cameron outlined in his General Assembly speech yesterday that “Iran’s leaders could help in defeating the threat from ISIL.”

Yet there should be no illusions about the extent to which Iran and Western countries could work together against the Islamic State. While tactical coordination is currently possible, cooperation is improbable, not least because of domestic politics. The Rouhani-Cameron meeting occurred before Cameron’s speech at the UN, during which he cited “severe disagreements” with Iran, including “Iran’s support for terrorist organizations, its nuclear program, and its treatment of its people.” Although Cameron emphasized potential cooperation between the two countries in the same speech, the backlash to his remarks was immediate.

“Prime Minister David Cameron’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly represented a continuation of the self-centered view of [London's] government that has a history of turmoil in our area,” said Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Marzieh Afkham yesterday, referencing the UK’s history of colonialism in the Middle East.

Iranian hardliners also seized upon the comments. “There is no expectation from Cameron and the Prime Minister of England to do anything other than speak and act against Iran,” said Seyyed Hossein Naghavi, the spokesperson for the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.

While Iran and the West have held discussions over ISIS in Iraq, on Syria they are far apart due to deep divisions over Assad’s continued leadership role in the country. Ever since Syria became the only Arab country to side with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, the countries have been strategic allies. Now this alliance has effectively excluded Iran from officially partaking in the US-led international coalition against ISIS. Of course, Iran hasn’t expressed disappointment. Last week Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called the group a “coalition of repenters” at a think tank event in New York, a reference to the Gulf states’ and Turkey’s alleged roles in supporting the rise of ISIS. But the US still reportedly notified Iran ahead of launching airstrikes in Syria this week, which Rouhani tepidly criticized.

Out of all the European member states, the UK’s diplomatic relations with Iran suffered the most over the last decade. Yet despite persistent tensions, Cameron and Rouhani marked a clear road ahead for the expansion of British-Iranian relations this week. Their meeting can instigate more frequent and wider channels of dialogue between the UK and Iran following on the announcement in June that their respective embassies would reopen. Italy, Germany and France, which have maintained trade ties with Iran, are also already exploring ways to expand business ventures with Iran if a final nuclear deal is signed.

The Cameron-Rouhani meeting will also have an important impact on deepening relations between the EU and Iran, which could expand beyond the nuclear issue to dialogue on trade and human rights. This week in New York, Presidents François Hollande of France and Heinz Fischer of Austria also met with Rouhani for the first time. Over the last year, Zarif has visited a large number of EU member states and hosted over ten European foreign ministers as well as the EU’s high representative in Tehran. Given the standoff with Russia over Ukraine, there have been serious considerations in the EU over how it could diversify its energy pool through Iran’s gas exports in a post-nuclear deal scenario.

The unprecedented meeting between Rouhani and Cameron also adds to the general mood of Western détente with Iran that could open new doors for a meaningful resolution in Syria and an effective military response to the Islamic State. How quickly and the extent to which this happens depends on the outcome of the nuclear talks over the next two months.

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by Emile Nakhleh

In a speech before the United Nations on Wednesday, President Barack Obama offered a rhetorically eloquent roadmap on how to fight the Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS) in Iraq and Syria. He called on Muslim youth to reject the extremist ideology of ISIS and al-Qaeda and work toward a more promising future. Obama repeated the mantra, which we heard from former President George W. Bush, that “the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.”

The group that calls itself the Islamic State must be defeated, but is the counter-terrorism roadmap, which the president laid out in his 40-minute speech, sufficient to defeat the extremist ideology of ISIS, Boko Haram, or al-Qaeda? Despite American and Western efforts to degrade and defeat these deadly and blood-thirsty groups for almost two decades, radical groups continue to sprout in Sunni Muslim societies.

Obama also urged the Arab Muslim world to reject sectarian proxy wars, promote human rights, and empower their people, including women, to help move their societies forward. He again stated that the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is unsustainable and urged the international community to strive for the implementation of the two-state solution.

The president did not, however, adequately address Muslim youth in Western societies who could be susceptible for recruitment by ISIS, al-Qaeda, or other terrorist organizations.

Contradictions

Arab publics will likely see glaring inconsistencies in the president’s speech between his rhetoric and actual policies. They would most likely view much of what he said, especially his global counter-terrorism strategy against ISIS, as another version of America’s war on Islam. Arabs will also see much hypocrisy in the president’s speech on the issue of human rights and civil society.

Although fighting a perceived common enemy, it’s a sad spectacle to see the United States, a champion of human rights, liberty, and justice, cozy up to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Bahrain, serial violators of human rights and infamous practitioners of repression. It’s even more hypocritical when Arab citizens realize that some of these so-called partners have often spread an ideology not much different from what ISIS preaches.

These three regimes in particular have emasculated their civil society and engaged in illegal imprisonment, sham trials, and groundless convictions. They banned political parties—Islamic and secular—and silenced civil society institutions as well as prohibited peaceful protests.

The president praised the role of free press, yet al-Jazeera journalists are languishing in Egyptian jails without any viable justification. The Egyptian government continues to hold thousands of political prisoners without indictments or trials.

In addressing the youth in Muslim countries, Obama told them “Where a genuine civil society is allowed to flourish, then you can dramatically expand the alternatives to terror.”

What implications should Arab Muslim youth draw from the president’s invocation of the virtues of civil society when they see that genuine civil society is not “allowed to flourish” in their societies? Do Arab Muslim youth see real  “alternatives to terror” when their regimes deny them the most basic human rights and freedoms?

The Sisi regime has illegally destroyed the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have used the specter of ugly sectarianism to destroy the opposition. They openly and viciously engage in sectarian conflicts even though the president stated that religious sectarianism underpins regional instability.

Human Rights Watch and other distinguished organizations sent a letter to Obama asking him to raise the egregious human rights violations in Egypt when he met with Sisi in New York. Yet in his speech UN speech Wednesday, Egyptian Field Marshall Abdel Fattah el-Sisi expressed hope that the United States would tolerate his atrocious human rights record in the name of fighting ISIS.

Obama should not give Sisi and other Arab autocrats a pass when it comes to their repression and human rights violations just because they joined the American engineered “coalition of the willing” against ISIS.

New Realities

Regardless of how the air campaign against the Islamic State goes, American policymakers will have to begin a serious review of a different Middle East than the one President Barak Obama inherited when he took office. Many of the articles that have been written about ISIS on Lobelog and elsewhere warned about the outcome of this war once the dust settles.

Critics correctly wondered whether opinion writers and experts could go beyond “warning” and suggest a course of policy that could be debated and possibly implemented. If the United States “breaks” the Arab world by forming an anti-ISIS ephemeral coalition of Sunni Arab autocrats, Washington will have to “own” what it had broken.

A road map is imperative if a serious conversation is to commence about the future of the Arab Middle East. But not one deeply steeped in counter-terrorism. The Sunni coalition is a picture-perfect graphic for the evening news, especially in the West, but how should the US deal with individual Sunni states in the coalition after the bombings stop and ISIS melts into the population?

As the United States looks beyond today’s air campaign over Syria and Iraq, American policymakers should realize that ISIS is more than a bunch of jihadists roaming the desert and terrorizing innocent civilians. It’s an ideology, a vision, a sophisticated social media operation, and an army with functioning command and control.

Above all, ISIS represents a view of Islam that is not dissimilar to other strict Sunni interpretations of the Muslim faith that could be found across many Muslim countries, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan. In fact, this narrow-minded, intolerant view of Islam is at the heart of the Wahhabi-Salafi Hanbali doctrine, which Saudi teachers and preachers have spread across the Muslim world for decades.

Nor is this phenomenon unique in the ideological history of Sunni millenarian thinking. From Ibn Taymiyya in the 13^th century to Bin Ladin and Zawahiri in the past two decades, different Sunni groups have emerged on the Islamic landscape preaching ISIS-like ideological variations on the theme of resurrecting the “Caliphate” and re-establishing “Dar al-Islam.”

Although the historical lines separating Muslim regions (“Dar al-Islam” or “Abode of Peace”) from non-Muslim regions (“Dar al-Harb” or “Abode of War”) have almost disappeared in recent decades, ISIS, much like al-Qaeda, is calling for re-erecting those lines. Many Salafis in Saudi Arabia are in tune with such thinking.

This is a regressive, backward view, which cannot possibly exist today. Millions of Muslims have immigrated to non-Muslim societies and integrated in those societies to escape this ideology.

If President Obama plans to dedicate the remainder of his term in office to fighting and defeating the Islamic State, he cannot do it by military means alone. He should:

1. Tell al-Saud to stop preaching their intolerant doctrine of Islam and revise their textbooks to reflect a new thinking. Saudi and other Muslim scholars should instruct their youth that “jihad” applies to the soul, not to the battlefield.

2. Tell Sisi in Egypt to stop his massive human rights violations and allow his youth—men and women—the freedom to pursue their economic and political future without state control. Sisi should also empty his jails of the thousands of political prisoners and invite the Muslim Brotherhood to participate in the political process.

3. Tell al-Khalifa in Bahrain to end their sectarian war against the Shia majority and invite opposition parties—secular and Islamic—including al-Wefaq, to participate in the upcoming elections freely and without harassment. Opposition parties should also participate in redrawing the electoral districts before the Nov. 22 elections, which King Hamad has just announced. International observers should be invited to monitor those elections.

4. Tell the Israeli government the situation in Gaza and the occupied territories is untenable. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu should stop building new settlements and work with the Palestinian national government for a settlement of the conflict. If the US president concludes, like many other scholars in the region, that the two-state solution is no longer workable, he should communicate his view to Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas and strongly encourage them to explore other modalities for the two peoples to live together between the river and the sea.

If President Obama does not pursue these tangible policies and use his political capital in this endeavor, his UN speech would soon be forgotten. Degrading and destroying ISIS is possible, but unless Arab regimes move away from autocracy and invest in their peoples’ future, other terrorist groups would emerge.

The American president has over the years given memorable speeches on Muslim world engagement, but unless he pushes for new policies in the region, the Arab Middle East will likely implode with Washington left holding the bag. This is not the legacy President Obama would want to leave behind.

This article was first published by LobeLog and was reprinted here with permission. Follow LobeLog on Twitter and like us on Facebook

Imagine hearing news that North Korea was planning to organize an international conference on criminal justice reform, or being invited by Cuba to a conference promoting political freedom. The likely reaction would be incredulity, followed by laughter. Well, those conferences are imaginary, but here’s a real one: a “Global Conference on Human Rights,” sponsored by Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia? That absolute monarchy where political parties and labor unions are prohibited, religions other than Islam are forbidden, women are second-class citizens, and human rights activists are routinely locked up?

Yes indeed, unlikely as it may seem. Saudi Arabia’s official Human Rights Commission, a government organization, and the Gulf Research Center, a think tank, have announced that they will organize a three-day international rights conference, to be held in Riyadh in December, “under the patronage” of King Abdullah. The announcement says the event “will gather together Heads of States and representatives of national ministries, members of Parliaments, international, regional, and inter-governmental organizations, religious scholars, academics, national Human Rights Commissions, and NGOs.”

Given Saudi Arabia’s unsavory reputation on this subject—it is routinely denounced in the State Department’s annual human rights report and by activist groups such as Human Rights Watch—Riyadh might seem to be an unlikely venue for such an event. But the key to understanding the rationale for this conference lies in the announced theme: “Promoting a Culture of Tolerance.” This is not about individuals’ freedom of expression, or the status of women, or freedom of assembly. This is about the Islamic State, or ISIS.

According to the announcement, “The objectives of the conference are to consolidate efforts to promote and protect human rights with a special focus on the promotion of a culture of peace, tolerance, dialogue and mutual understanding among people at the national, regional and global levels…Given the ever growing increase in cases of intolerance, discrimination, social exclusion and acts of violence including those motivated by religious and political extremism, this conference seeks to provide recommendations to be implemented by at the policy level.”

That language is entirely consistent with the ideological position Saudi Arabia has sought to stake out as the threat from the Islamic extremist group has spread across neighboring Iraq and in Syria. The Saudis, who find their position as the worldwide leaders of Sunni Islam challenged by ISIS’s proclamation of itself as a “caliphate,” or trans-national Muslim state, are preaching that the ISIS message is a perversion of Islam, unjustified by religious texts or by history, and that its ruthless violence contravenes the principles of the faith.

Last month, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh, the highest religious authority in the country, said ISIS and its ideological parent al-Qaeda, were “enemy number one of Islam,” not representatives of the faith. “Extremist and militant ideas and terrorism which spread decay on Earth, destroying human civilization, are not in any way part of Islam, but are enemy number one of Islam, and Muslims are their first victims,” he said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. King Abdullah and other senior princes of the ruling al-Saud family have issued similar statements. Earlier this year the government made it a crime for Saudi citizens to support ISIS or to go to Iraq or Syria to join the group’s military ranks.

Saudi Arabia is a conservative Sunni state that adheres to the most rigid form of the religion, known to outsiders as Wahhabism, and enshrines religion as a cornerstone of national policy. All citizens must be Muslims. In the last two decades of the 20^th century, the kingdom spent billions of dollars of its oil wealth to promote that version of Islam across the Arab world, in Africa and Asia, and even in the Americas. But the rulers got a rude awakening in 2003 when al-Qaeda, denouncing them as corrupt agents of the West, began an armed uprising inside Saudi Arabia. It took the Saudis more than three years, punctuated by gunfire in the streets, to suppress that challenge.

Since then, they have been preaching a modified version of Islam that might be described as softer at the edges: the rules of personal and social behavior remain strict, as dictated in the Koran, but the religion favors tolerance, understanding, and non-violence. The Ministry of Islamic Affairs has published a “Platform of Moderation,” which declares that “beneficial knowledge and good deeds are the key to happiness and the basis of Deliverance.” King Abdullah even promoted an “Interfaith Dialogue” and allowed himself to be photographed with Pope Benedict XVI.

That is the context in which the agenda for the planned conference should be understood. Topics to be discussed include “national policies and strategies aiming to combat all forms of intolerance, discrimination, ethnic exclusiveness, and acts of violence based on religion or belief,” and establishment of an “international partnership for the promotion of a culture of tolerance, dialogue among civilizations, and combatting hatred.”

Saudi Arabia has never deserved to be included among the ranks of the world’s most oppressive regimes, as it is every year by Parade magazine. Life is restricted for women, and discrimination against the kingdom’s Shia majority is entrenched, but male Sunni citizens have far greater freedom than people in Cuba or North Korea. They are allowed to travel abroad, live where they like, take whatever jobs they find suitable, make money and keep it, interact with foreigners, have as many children as they want, attend any university they can get into, take their families to the amusement park or the beach, and—with some restrictions—surf the Internet. But those freedoms are granted by the regime, which can revoke them at any time for any reason, or for no reason. Public actions or statements that the authorities interpret as challenging the monarchy or promoting terrorism are likely to result in harsh punishment. Apostasy—a term that is interpreted broadly—is punishable by execution.

The announcement of the December rights conference makes no mention of any of Saudi Arabia’s domestic policies.