It is, I know, easy to criticise America's handling of what is a diabolical problem. Nevertheless, it is hard to escape the conclusion that what is taking place here is not some cautious husbanding of American power for the right moment, but an almost reckless willingness to allow American policy to be dictated by events on the ground.

And it is being dictated: by the Iranians, by the Turks, by the Saudis and even by the little Qataris, all of whom are directing forceful energy and considerable treasure to feed their proxies and fuel the conflict's escalation.

Not only is such an abdication of responsibility ultimately damaging to America's interest in the region, it will accelerate the downward spiral of American influence. If Obama's current approach makes it seem to regional allies and enemies alike that Syria does not matter to America anymore, then why listen to, or fear, America anymore?

In that regard, perhaps the most disturbing thing about the last week was not Obama's shuffle back from his own red line on intervention, but the language he used to justify it. In particular, this response to a reporter's question during a press conference with King Abdullah of Jordan caught my eye (my emphasis):

And I think that, in many ways, a line has been crossed when we see tens of thousands of innocent people being killed by a regime. But the use of chemical weapons and the dangers that poses to the international community, to neighbors of Syria, the potential for chemical weapons to get into the hands of terrorists -- all of those things add increased urgency to what is already a significant security problem and humanitarian problem in the region.

Obama thinks that 'in many ways' a line has been crossed when 'tens of thousands of innocent people' have been killed. Really? 'In many ways?' I would have thought a line had been crossed, full stop. Likewise, he says the use of chemical weapons would add 'increased urgency' to a 'significant...humanitarian problem'. This is bureaucratic-speak from the great American orator. Is 'significant' really the limit of his descriptive eloquence to describe a conflict that by UN account has already killed over 70,000 people and has become one of the world's worst refugee crises?

One might find excuse for Obama in the fact that it was an unprepared remark; perhaps it was a little underdone, rhetorically. In other circumstances (say the Boston bombing) it would even be an appropriate withdrawal from the hyperbole that has come to characterise public pronouncements on national security matters.

Instead, what it seems to reveal is a new habit of mind and expression that will not be reassuring to those who still see an important role for America in the world – even a more prudent America.

As Owen Harries and Tom Switzer argue in the latest edition of The American Interest, Obama 'rightly' wants to focus on nation-building at home. 'But only when he articulates an approach that emphasizes prudence and modesty in the most forceful and eloquent manner will such a doctrine win public acceptance.' To which I would add – public acceptance, both in America, but also abroad.

First, it is now at the mercy of events and mistakes. If a stray Israeli shell falls on a hospital or a kindergarten, Hamas may not be able to hold back even if it wants to. Hamas may also have trouble reining in other militant groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is closely aligned with Iran (which has its own agenda here).

Second, the neighbourhood has changed and Israel can no longer be entirely sure of how the new neighbours will react. One obvious change is that Egypt now has a Muslim Brotherhood president, though it is actually more complicated than that. The Muslim Brotherhood is not interested in picking a fight with Israel at the moment. In fact, for reasons of self interest, they have done quite a bit behind the scenes to reassure Israel and the US about it commitment to the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

The problem is that the new Egyptian regime's ability to resist being dragged into events in Gaza is weaker than that of its predecessor, not just because it is Islamist, but also because it is more populist. What is interesting about the recent escalation is that the attacks out of Gaza came at roughly the same time as the Egyptian military announced it was launching a new campaign to destroy the tunnels under the Gaza-Egyptian border in Sinai that are an economic but also military lifeline for the Palestinian territory.

Indeed, Hamas has become increasingly disappointed with the new Egyptian Government. Hamas had hoped that an Egypt led by a movement of which it is a branch would adopt a new approach, including by opening the border and by being less attuned to the security needs of Israel than was the Mubarak regime.

But the new Egyptian president has shown that he is no more willing to take greater responsibility for Gaza than was his predecessor. Unsurprisingly, the priority has been placed on the Muslim Brotherhood's interests: not just reassuring Israel and the US but also dealing with a serious security problem it has in North Sinai, which is in part fed by criminal and jihadist activity around the tunnels and the Gaza-Israel-Sinai border region.

The current escalation may well have been calculated (or is being exploited) by Hamas to force the new Egyptian Government into a more sympathetic position on Gaza. In this regard the missiles fired at Israel in recent days might really have been aimed at Egypt.

Photo, showing smoke rising after an Israel air strike in Gaza in December 2008, by Flickr user Amir Farshad Ebrahimi.

In Egypt, for example, former President Hosni Mubarak was not above stoking a bit of anti-Americanism when it served his political interests. His regime also allowed protests against the US on occasion, for example over the invasion of Iraq, but set clear red lines with protesters that were often brutally enforced by the Interior Ministry.

Today, however, both the red-lines for protest and the mechanisms to enforce them are weaker. The Interior Ministry and the police are in disarray, while politically the government walks a finer line. Even though President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have been building bridges with the US Government, they are mindful of the anger of their own constituents toward America and were thus slow to condemn the violence.

Third, this violence does not just reflect anger towards America. Whatever the Arab uprisings will eventually make of Libyan, Egyptian and Yemeni societies, they have for the moment made them more lawless and have accentuated social and economic problems. The involvement of football 'ultras' in the protests in Egypt, for example, suggests that the violence reflects some degree of mob activism. And you cannot rule out the possibility of political opponents using protests to undermine or embarrass new governments.

Fourth, extremism is making a comeback, although for how long and in what form is not yet clear. The fact that the Arab uprisings has weakened interior ministries in the region may be a good thing in the long run, given the role that their prisons and torture chambers served as incubators for extremist ideas and activists. But in the short run it has opened new opportunities for extremist movements to re-group and in some cases, such as in Libya, to re-arm with sophisticated weapons from looted military armouries. All of this coincides, unhelpfully, with the looming and mostly ignominious American and NATO drawdown in Afghanistan and the mess in Pakistan. 

So what can America do? A lot of advice will fill the pages of blogs and foreign policy journals in coming weeks. Some suggestions will be better than others: change US policies, renew the Middle East Peace Process, support democratisation, stop supporting democratisation, improve public diplomacy, use more social media, more drone strikes, fewer drone strikes, abandon the Middle East, re-engage with it, pivot to Asia, re-balance, re-set, abort. 

My advice, from the lyrics of a favourite Radiohead song: 'breathe, keep breathing'. There are no silver bullets for managing America's relationships in the Middle East and things will probably only get harder in coming years. But there is no escaping, much less pivoting from, those interests either. 

By appointing a prominent and respected judge as his vice-president, Morsi has also signaled to the judiciary, parts of which are also strongly linked to the old regime, that it too needs to curb its political meddling. Key judicial bodies like the Supreme Constitutional Court had intervened repeatedly in Egypt's transition, and often in a way that seemed designed to obstruct the Brotherhood's political ascendancy.

Morsi's moves are positive insofar as they shift power from the unelected SCAF to the elected president and get Egypt's stumbling transition moving and government functioning again. But the concentration of power in his hands is extremely dangerous in a country only recently released from decades of autocratic rule. Three key tests will tell us what Morsi's new power means for Egypt's transition to democracy:

1. How Morsi and the Brotherhood treat non-violent opposition and public criticism: Morsi can justifiably argue that some of the criticism directed at him by opponents in the media has verged on incitement. But with power now so preponderantly in his and the Muslim Brotherhood's hands, his willingness to allow even his most irreconcilable critics to have their say will be a key sign of his commitment to building a more open and democratic Egypt. Recent moves against two journalists deemed to have 'insulted the President' are a bad start.
2. How Morsi manages constitutional process: the constituent assembly is drafting a new constitution which should be complete before the end of the year and will then be put to a popular vote. Because Morsi now has the power to appoint a new constituent assembly if the current one is incapable of completing its work, there is now a disincentive for opponents to mount legal challenges or obstruct the assembly. The question is whether Morsi will use his power to build a consensus around a new constitution or abuse it to pursue the Brotherhood's constitutional aims.
3. How Morsi manages new parliamentary elections: one of the more disturbing aspects of Morsi's moves is the fact that he now holds executive and legislative power. The Brotherhood held a majority in the most recent parliament until the Supreme Constitutional Court prompted its dissolution. Morsi has promised to hold new parliamentary elections a few months after the constitutional process is complete. Whether Morsi keeps that promise and the manner in which the elections are conducted will be the final test of Morsi's commitment to Egypt's democratic transition.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Nevertheless, these SCAF/old regime moves to curtail Egypt's democratic transition should not be celebrated. Egypt has lost the chance of a relatively short, orderly and reasonably (although clearly not entirely) non-violent transition towards a more democratic system. (Incidentally, Tunisia seems to be managing its transition a lot better).  

After Mubarak was overthrown, it should have been possible to construct a transition process that sought consensus across the political spectrum and reassured various political players that their core interests would not be immediately threatened by a new political system while consolidating and broadening the political space opened by the fall of Mubarak. Instead, almost all the political players over-reached and under-performed. 

Young revolutionaries, poorly organised and suspicious of everyone, wanted to put a civilian leash on the military right away, as if there weren't at least a dozen other things they could have focused on to consolidate the democratic opportunity they had created through their own blood and toil. 

The Brotherhood saw its political chance and decided to go for the maximum, rather than showing some restraint out of consideration for the genuine fears their political ascent had created. Meanwhile, some liberals and parts of the Coptic Christian minority once again sought refuge in the belief that a secular dictatorship is at least better than a religious one, underlining yet again that Islamists are not the only potential threats to democracy in the Middle East. 

None of this absolves the SCAF of the growing list of anti-democratic moves it has made, especially in the last week. There is now a real danger that things will take a more violent turn if various pro-revolutionary forces decide to take on the military in the streets.  

In this regard, while the SCAF seems confident that it has the measure of the revolutionary youth, should it come to more sticks and stones, the key will be what the Brotherhood does. For the most part it has avoided confrontation with the military; in one case last November, it abandoned protests it had launched after only 24 hours, leaving the young revolutionaries that had followed it onto the streets to the not-so-tender mercies of the security forces. 

Even though the Brotherhood is making some threatening noises about what it will do if Morsi is not allowed to assume the presidency, its first instinct will be to strike some kind of deal with the SCAF. The Brotherhood still fears it would lose any violent confrontation. The only thing that might change this calculation would be the Brotherhood's belief that the SCAF really is lining the movement up for a major crackdown. Nevertheless, even if a Brotherhood and SCAF deal avoids greater violence, it will also continue the process of squeezing the younger and more independent revolutionary forces out of the political equation. How they will react remains an interesting question.

The more hopeful analysis is that, notwithstanding these setback, Egypt will now be in for a long period of political turmoil and tug of war between pro- and anti-democratic forces, where violence is sporadic but contained, similar to what happened in Turkey over decades before that country finally emerged a much stronger democracy. Ezzedine Choukri Fishere's sombre but ultimately hopeful piece in the FT is a great articulation of this view. 

There certainly seems something to the view that the release of new political energy and the raising of expectations over the last 17 months means there is simply no going back to the Mubarak days, no matter how much the old regime might want it.

Still, at this stage, it is hard not to be pessimistic. In recent years, the media has made a cliché of Arabs holding up purple ink-stained fingers as a sign of them just having voted in a free election. After the last week, the purple on the fingers of Egyptian voters seems to more aptly signify the door being slammed on their democratic aspirations.

Photo by Flickr user AsianMedia. 

In the Gulf, America is trying to reach a nuclear deal with Iran. Even if this effort is successful, it would still require deep American diplomatic and military engagement to make sure any deal sticks and to reassure America's allies in the region.

In Syria, America is gradually exhausting its non-military options for pressuring Bashar al-Assad from power. So desperate is it to avoid another military entanglement in the region that it would probably even accept Bashar alone departing, leaving the rest of the regime intact. Nevertheless, while Assad remains, every atrocity his regime commits or permits drags America closer towards some form of military intervention. And even if Bashar departs, Syria will still probably end up in civil war which will require copious amounts of American attention, if not intervention.

Meanwhile in Egypt, there is cause to worry about the future of what was one of the crowning achievements of American diplomacy in the Middle East: the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. 

This is not because I believe any new Egyptian government will abandon the treaty, but because Egypt's loss of security control in the Sinai could draw Egypt and Israel into confrontations neither want. Today one finds in the Sinai everything from Bedouin gangs masquerading as jihadists to sophisticated weapons looted from Libyan armories. There have already been cross-border attacks into Israel from the Sinai, and Israeli reprisals have inflamed popular passions in Egypt.

And while Osama bin Laden is dead and al-Qaeda central is probably dying, the terrorist threat is unlikely to disappear. Before 2001 there were only two real ungoverned spaces in the broader region that were serving as incubators and training grounds for extremist groups, namely Afghanistan and Somalia.

Today, in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings, you could list at least six such ungoverned spaces that are, or might soon, be hosting some form of extremist presence: Somalia, parts of Yemen, the Sinai, parts of Syria and Iraq, and parts of Libya, with the possibility of parts of Afghanistan returning to the list not long after NATO withdraws in 2014.

You can add to these and other issues demanding American attention in the Middle East the fact that the American national security budget is shrinking. At the very least this means there probably won't be a whole lot of balance in any re-balancing.

But it also raises an interesting issue for Australian strategic thinkers who seem to remain, as ever, pre-occupied with planning for the wars Australia never actually seems to fight. That is, if America is going to re-balance into East Asia it is probably going to need even more help from friends and allies in West Asia. Australia recent decade of heightened military and diplomatic engagement in the region is, therefore, unlikely to be its last.

Photo by Flickr user United States Forces - Iraq.

In short, whether and how the SCAF and the Brotherhood reconcile their differences over constitutional and other issues will determine the course of Egypt's political transformation, at least in the short term. And here the immediate battle is less likely to be over whether Egypt should be an Islamic state or a secular one than whether power should shift to the parliament (which the Brotherhood prefers) or stay with the president (and until a president is elected, the SCAF).

As these negotiations play out, the main risk is that the SCAF and the Brotherhood's hitherto workable, if at times uneasy, relationship will break down. If this happens it could be very bloody, given the number of people both sides could put on the streets. But there are almost as many dangers for Egypt's democratic evolution in a relationship between the SCAF and the Brotherhood that is too cosy and that sees the interests of the broader community — including copts, women, secularists, and the young — sacrificed to serve their narrower interests.

2. Will Egypt avoid an economic crisis?

The need for the SCAF, the Brotherhood and indeed all political actors to show greater political leadership and responsibility is underlined by Egypt's economic circumstances. According to Egypt's Central Bank, foreign investment declined 93% in the first nine months of 2011. Tourism has crashed, economic growth has sunk, inflation is rising and foreign reserves have declined to dangerously low levels. 

Add to this high popular expectations for economic improvement and Europe's economic woes (which will see fewer German, Spanish and Italian tourists in Egyptian beaches even if the country stabilises) and you have an enormous political and policy challenge.

It is little wonder the SCAF has suddenly become more interested in an IMF loan they summarily rejected late last year. But while an injection of funds will undoubtedly help, more important will be how it is spent. Unfortunately, as a friend and an astute observer of the region told me after a recent trip to Egypt, for the moment at least everyone seems to want political power while avoiding responsibility for getting Egypt out of its economic mess.

Will the revolutionary youth return to the streets, or to the cafes, or what?

There has been a tendency of late both inside Egypt and outside to question the continuing relevance of the young revolutionaries that were at the forefront of the uprising. 

Critics point to their unwillingness or failure to organise politically after the overthrow of Mubarak, reflected in their poor showing in the parliamentary elections. The critics argue that street protests, clashes with security forces and demands for 'revolution 2.0' have become ends in themselves, at odds with the desire of most Egyptians for security, stability and economic improvement.

It is easy to be critical of the motley collection of Tahrir youth. For all the courage, idealism and high principles they have shown in the last year, they have also been naive, willful, egotistical and at times even thuggish. But I have sympathy for them on the question of their supposed political failure.

They were able to confound and outmaneuver the Mubarak regime precisely because they were not like the traditional opposition movements that the regime had by-and-large tamed. So it is no surprise that, after the revolution, many were reluctant to become conventional politicians. Indeed, those that that did often fared badly in the elections, for a combination of reasons, but not least because they were up against movements like the Muslim Brotherhood with a long history and experience of political mobilisation and electoral contests.

But this does not mean that the young guard should just 'keep on keeping on'. Even if a drift into conventional politics would have been (or in some cases, was) a mistake, an indefinite occupation of Tahrir Square, both literally and figuratively, is not the answer either. To do so risks them becoming cannon fodder for, or even marionettes of, the SCAF, the Brotherhood, or both. Or it could see many of their numbers drift away, disillusioned with politics altogether. 

More importantly, it risks widening the gulf between the young guard and the broader population. Here the young should learn from the Brotherhood, which has been successful not just because it is well organised, as is so often said, but because its community networks allow it to better understand what people want. 

To remain relevant, the revolutionary youth need to develop similar political antennae while coming up with new forms of activism that enable them to more effectively and constructively articulate their interests and demands. In effect, they need to become more like politicians while, at the same time, remaining less like them.

Between and around these two opposition groups is the rest of the political spectrum. Some liberal and secular forces privately back the SCAF's effort to provide guarantees against what they see as growing Islamist political power. Others fear that the SCAFs foot-dragging over the transition period (for example, pushing back new presidential elections to the end of next year or even 2013) is a sign that the military is not as uninterested as it claims to be about staying in power. Beyond this there is the silent majority, who oscillate between sympathy for the protesters, especially when they are treated harshly, and a desire for a return to stability, security and economic activity.

Against this background, are we seeing yet more, albeit extremely serious, revolutionary indigestion or uprising 2.0? 

My gut tells me it is the former. The military will be wary of launching a more brutal crackdown for fear of losing the support of the wider population. The Brotherhood leadership's cautious instinct will be to avoid any sustained confrontation with the SCAF, although at a further cost to its credibility even among its own members. And while the revolutionary youth will not be easily placated — underlined by their rapid dismissal of Tantawi's decision to bring forward presidential elections to the middle of 2012 – they also risk losing broader societal support if they are seen to be too uncompromising, which would in turn help the military justify a crackdown.

But even if the revolutionary youth succeed in forcing the SCAF to establish a new civilian-led transitional administration – or even if they force Tantawi himself to resign – they cannot simply make the military as an institution, its interests and influence, disappear overnight. The military will continue to shape Egypt's transition whether in the form of the SCAF or less obviously behind the scenes. 

Indeed, the tragedy here is that both the protesters and the SCAF seem to have lost touch with this reality. Establishing civilian control of the military is probably going to be a very gradual process that will rely in large part on the military's willingness to cede such control. But equally, as Issandr el-Amrani has argued, there was no need for the SCAF to make its power and prerogatives so explicit, through supra-constitutional principals and other measures, when everybody pretty much understood its power and its red lines already.

Photo by Flickr user lilianwagdy.

This Afghan Voices paper also includes an interview conducted last week by Hekmatullah Azamy and Susanne Schmeidl with the governor of Uruzgan province, Mohammed Shirzad. The governor is more positive, even effusive, about Australia's contribution in Uruzgan. He was also particularly keen to refute a front-page story run by the Sydney Morning Herald on 10 November that claimed he wanted to leave the province because he feared for his safety.

We know that presenting two such differing views will not help those still trying to make up their minds about Australia's commitment in Afghanistan. No doubt opponents and proponents of Australia's presence will cherry-pick evidence from either Omaid or the governor that best supports their case.

The reality is, however, that local attitudes on these issues are complex and sometimes even contradictory. Different communities in Uruzgan have different experiences of Australia's presence there, often depending on whether their main interaction is with Australia's development effort or with the Australian Special Forces' aggressive effort to remove the Taliban from the province. For those communities that encounter both, it is often hard to reconcile Australia's kinetic efforts (including night raids and house searches) with its reconstruction and development work.

In fact, I found both perspectives useful. The governor — who is respected by many in Uruzgan — provides some reassurance that progress is being made. But Omaid reminds us that what Australia is doing in Afghanistan needs to be repeatedly checked against local perceptions and local realities. There should always be room for accepting justified criticism.

Ultimately, however, the views provided by Omaid and the governor are valuable if for no other reason than they provide the Afghan voices that are often missing from debate on the war in Australia. And that, literally, is what the Afghan Voices series is all about. My attitude to the war and Australia's role in it is neatly summed up by the words of our Afghan Voices editor Susanne Schmeidl, who has been in Afghanistan for a decade. As she said in an interview with The Australian on the weekend:

We are there and we cannot turn back history. Having intervened to begin with comes with a certain responsibility and obligation; and, frankly, I think that is what international actors should keep in mind. Leaving when things are falling apart is not necessarily the best and most honourable way to go, and not fair to all the Diggers (who) have put their lives on the line so far.

Afghans have a good way of putting it, Schmeidl says: 'It's like cutting open a patient and deciding halfway through the operation to not finish the job and hastily sew things back up. Would we think good of such a surgeon? Unlikely. We probably would sue for malpractice.' You can download the paper here.

It will not lead to any greater willingness by Israel to negotiate with Hamas, or for Hamas to soften its stance towards Israel. In fact, the big loser here (once again) is the one person the Israelis say they would be prepared to negotiate with, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The prisoner release has overshadowed Abbas' effort, opposed by Israel and the US but popular among Palestinians, to take Palestinian ambitions for statehood directly to the UN Security Council. 

So while the tangible fruit of Hamas' negotiations with Israel are now (mostly) returning to their families in the West Bank and Gaza, Abbas' largely symbolic effort is yet to be put to a vote and in any event faces an American veto.

Shalit's release has also revived the memory of one of the saddest and most searing experiences of my three-year posting to Israel as an Australian diplomat. One of the Palestinians released in exchange for Shalit was Ahlam Tamimi. Tamimi was an organiser of the suicide bombing at the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001 that killed fifteen people. Among the victims was 15-year old Malka Roth, whose family had emigrated to Israel from Melbourne. I attended Malka's funeral as a representative of the Australian government (I was charge d'affaires at the time). Malka's family, among others, unsuccessfully petitioned the Israeli Government not to release the killers of their loved ones. 

Ten years after Malka Roth was murdered, Gilad Shalit is free, but there is still little prospect that Israelis and Palestinians will escape this conflict.

It turns out that the Ili is also a wedding hall. The fireworks out the front of the hotel were the first give away, followed by the tooting car horns. Any further doubt was removed by the music that shook the floor of my room, the bed, the mattress, my pillow and all of the teeth in my head.

Unable to sleep, I accompanied Konrad downstairs to investigate. We did not linger, although we did discover that the Ili is something of a deluxe wedding hall, able to host two weddings simultaneously. As we walked back to our rooms Konrad turned to me and asked, 'Do you think they will be finished by 10?'.

Don't get me wrong.  I do not think ill of the Ili. In fact, if you are planning to overnight at Zarkhent in the near future, do stay there — just not on a wedding night.

Kazakhstan shares a long eastern border with the world's fastest growing oil market — in fact, neighbouring Xinjiang province is being developed by the Chinese into a major energy hub. Yet most of Kazakhstan's oil flows westward. In comparison to the CPC's current 35 million tons, the sole oil pipeline to China only achieved its 10 million tons a year capacity last year (including, apparently, a small volume of Russian oil). There are plans to expand this to 20 million tons by 2013, but it is not clear that this amount of oil will even be available for the pipeline by then. 

Unlike some global resource exporters, Kazakhstan is not placing all its energy eggs in a Chinese basket. The reflects a mix of factors: the government's policy of pursuing diverse markets, local fears and sensitivities about China (some of which Konrad noted in his earlier post), and the Byzantine nature of Central Asian pipeline politics. 

Equally, our impression from the last two weeks in Almaty is that that the Chinese have adopted a patient strategy. The Chinese have significant investments here — they are now responsible for around a quarter of Kazakhstan's oil production — but are treading carefully. The purchase by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) of privately-owned MangistauMunaiGas in 2009, for example, was done in partnership with the Kazakh state oil company, thereby assisting the Kazakh Government's avowed policy of clawing back stakes in national assets sold off in the 1990s.

My day at KIOGE ended with a quick tour of the trade exhibition. According to event organisers there were 495 exhibitors from 30 countries. Exhibitors offered scale models, mini-skirted promotional girls and miniature sweets as they spruiked everything from drilling rigs to legal services. CNPC had a large and impressive display (pictured left) and there were a significant number of smaller Chinese exhibitors. The overall impression though — whether intended or otherwise — was of China being one among many seeking a piece of the Kazakh energy pie.

The language barrier has usually prevented extended conversations with our various drivers, although there have been exceptions. One driver asked me the meaning of a few English words. 'What does darling mean?' he asked. 'Dusha', I replied, hoping that it meant the same in his Russian as it did in my Croatian. He tapped his hand on his heart, so I guess it did. 

In fact, the only real difficulty we have had is with appointments at more obscure locations in the city. On one occasion I ended up guiding the driver with my iPad.

Walking is also a pleasure here. There are many beautiful parks and the streets are thickly lined with trees of great variety, all turning golden and red with autumn: poplars, oak, elm and silver birch (or so Konrad, who lives in Tasmania, tells me). Drivers have a maniacal obsession for stopping at zebra crossings, often slowing from great speed at the slightest hint of a pedestrian wanting to cross. But hesitate for a moment and they, having stopped, toot impatiently for you to get moving.

We begin every day (and have ended a few) at the groovy Coffeedelia, heavily patronised by 'centrovski', as the patrician residents of Almaty's inner district are known.

This undoubtedly marks us as the worst kind of soft-bellied tourists who seek comfort in familiar surroundings rather than more exotic experiences. In our defence, it has good coffee and not a few mysteries. Why do they fill my 7Up right to the brim so that only the surface tension keeps it in the glass? Why are the urinals filled — and refilled — with crackling ice cubes? We haven't yet mustered the courage to ask.

'Is this shirt from China?'

'Yes.'

'And where is this shirt from?'

'Turkey.'

'Is it cotton?'

'Maybe 30 per cent polyester.'

'And this shirt from China is 100 per cent polyester?'

'Maybe 200 per cent polyester.' 

An English speaking local later told us that these reservations did not stop the locals in multitudes (and no doubt others from outside Almaty) from swarming through Barakholka on weekends to buy the same goods that were more heavily marked up in Almaty's high street shops.

The day's demonstration of China's mercantile skills ended with a visit to a Russian orthodox cathedral (left), built in 1907, entirely of wood, including the pegs holding it together. Then we walked into an 'urban culture' festival (below) attended by hundreds of young locals thronging multiple stages offering BMX riding displays, rap dancing and hip-hop, all sponsored by Snickers.

Even as Kazakh-China ties expand, it seems strong competition remains for the souls, the minds and wallets of the locals. We will post more later in the week.

And who built Dubai? Gill argues that 'the plan was money. The architect was money. The designer was money and the builder was money'.

Well the money was certainly Dubai's. But the planners, architects, designers and builders were often Westerners, happy to take the money and share in the fantasy. Or if they have been locals, they are not recently retired bedouin, but the products of some of the West's best universities.

Dubai is not a reflection of local culture or, as Gill suggest, its absence. It is a mirror, albeit a distorted one, of our own.

Photo, of the Souk Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai, by Flickr user P.J.P.

Foreign Minister Rudd has done a decent job at spelling out why this is the case. He is right to argue that the future socio-economic and political evolution of the Middle East (but I would also include Southwest Asia) will impact on everything from the price we pay for our petrol, to the terrorist threat we face, to refugee and people trafficking flows and to the pace of the global economic recovery.  

Australia is never going to be a decisive player in West Asia, but as a reasonably wealthy, fairly well-educated, technically capable and outward looking country, we have the capacity and resources to make a meaningful contribution to the region's development.

Indeed, the Middle East's current political upheaval offers the possibility of transforming the West's — and Australia's — relationship with the Middle East. For much of its modern history, the West's engagement has been a negative one. That is, we bomb, sanction and peace-keep, because of something that is going wrong in the region. Now, there is an opportunity for positive engagement with the region, based on something good that is happening.

Take for example the West's military intervention in Libya. It may have been necessary and right (even if I am not sure it is smart), but we will still cop flack for having double standards (when we don't do the same or similar in other countries), or for killing civilians — and that's even if the thing works. By contrast, if we support the democratic transition in Egypt with money and expertise, we provide a more positive example of the West's engagement in the region, as well as having a greater impact on the region's potential transformation than Gaddafi's removal will ever have (much as I would like to see that too).

As Rudd rightly notes, Australia has the added advantage that in supporting these transitions we do not carry the colonial baggage of other western countries in the region. We also have experience of supporting Indonesia's not dissimilar political transition to draw on — particularly the role played there by the Australian Electoral Commission. All of this would seem fairly uncontroversial, except for the fact that the suggestion Australia has interests and a role in the Middle East, has pretty consistently drawn everything from quiet dismissal to open scorn from many of our foreign policy practitioners and observers.

This is hardly surprising given that most in this group have made their careers focused on the Asia Pacific. But it is also reflects the dearth of official thinking about where West Asia fits into our foreign, security and aid policy landscape.

Which brings me to the second question. By definition, the reactive and contingent nature of these aid disbursements means there is probably not much of a West Asian development strategy — but correct me if I am wrong.

This is understandable. It echoes what has happened on the military and foreign policy fronts. Our presence and engagement in West Asia over the last decade, has developed so rapidly that there probably has not been a lot of time to catch our breath.

Nevertheless, as we look to the future, as we try to make some coherence out of this patchwork of programs, and as the Arab uprisings make new calls on our aid budget and stretched diplomatic resources, it is time we defined our aims and means in West Asia, including where they sit in our overall foreign, defence and aid priorities. Not just for today, but in years to come. 

Photo, of Australian defence personnel on their way to Pakistan, by the Australian Defence Force.

Already the White House and Downing St are drawing back from the transparent nonsense that this is not about regime change. That is great, but it means that, so long as Qadhafi survives, coalition aircraft will have to strive ever more desperately to deliver the coup de grace. If this does not work (or kills too many civilians in the process), pressure will build for boots on the ground.

2. Nothing succeeds like (cheap) success

If Western military intervention in Libya succeeds, let's hope no one notices. The Middle East is rich with no-fly zone possibilities. In Yemen, a powerful and brutal general has just gone over to the opposition. This hopefully signals the fracturing of the regime (as occurred in Tunisia and in Egypt), leading to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's relatively peaceful departure. But what if it leads to a civil war instead? Saleh does not need to be as brutal as Qadhafi to create pressure for another 'humanitarian' intervention, especially if the one in Libya succeeds relatively quickly and easily. 

But in Yemen, the West's concern about the presence of al Qaeda will make the US and its allies much more reluctant to repeat the Libyan exercise.

Some might argue that the worst that will happen is that the West is yet again accused of double standards. But there is also a danger of hubris and over-reach. What if we are talking not about countries like Yemen and Bahrain, where the West has interests to protect, but about unrest in countries where the West may actually be tempted by the possibility of regime change, like Syria (where they started shooting protesters over the weekend) or Iran (where they are always shooting protesters)? 

Hey, I don't like these regimes either, but I learnt my lesson with Iraq.

3. Arab springs eternal 

If the Western intervention in Libya fails, it will be bad for Libyans and bad for Western credibility, but it will not be, as some have suggested, bad for the Arab spring.

The uprisings reflect deep currents of change in the region that came to the surface dramatically in places like Tunisia and Egypt, but that have been swirling around beneath the region's autocratic regimes for a decade or more. Even if there are opposition defeats in Libya, Bahrain or elsewhere, these currents are not going to disappear any time soon. They won't always lead immediately or inevitably to regime change, but will crop up in years to come in ways we cannot anticipate now. 

The region's al-Jazeera-led media revolution in the mid-90s, the social media revolution of the mid-noughties, the myriad socio-economic crises afflicting virtually all states in the region (if to different degrees) and the crisis of authority caused by sclerotic bureaucracies and, in many cases, geriatric leaders — all these factors make early pronouncements about the end of the Arab spring premature. 

Indeed, the most important event in the region in recent days was not the Western decision to intervene militarily in Libya, but the Egyptian constitutional referendum that saw an unprecedented turnout. So even as the region's autocrats look to Qadhafi's repressive example for ideas about how to respond to their domestic opponents, the region's democrats will take even more inspiration from what is happening in Egypt and elsewhere, illustrating the new horizons of Arab politics.

Photo by Flickr user Defence Images.

Faced with a choice between protecting Mubarak and his inner circle and responding to the protesters' demands, they chose the latter, thereby preserving their reputation as a respected national institution (but also protecting their interests and probably avoiding dissension in their middle and lower ranks). I think the military's interests are narrow enough ('order' and the protection of their privileges and funding) to be more or less reconciled with the protesters' demand for democratisation. 

The main danger is that the protesters read the military's hyper-cautiousness about what to do next as obstruction; or that the military feels its relatively narrow interests are being targeted by the protesters. Any resulting confrontation would be bloody and could turn a military inclined to eventually cede power to civilians into the dictatorship everyone fears.

4. Throw out your old assumptions about Egyptian politics (well, a lot of them, anyway): If the last few weeks have demonstrated anything, it is that many old assumptions about Egyptian politics and political actors simply no longer hold. It used to be said, for example, that Egypt's secular middle classes were weak, meek and self-interested. Yet we have seen Mubarak overthrown by protests organised in part by a Google marketing executive based in the UAE. With the dead weight of Mubarak gone, expect new actors and forces to emerge, and probably quicker than we all think.

5. There is a big generational division at play: Related to my previous point, to understand the new divisions in Egyptian politics, old categories of 'regime' and 'opposition' will be less useful than 'old guard' and 'new guard'. Many of the protesters are revolting not just against Mubarak but against his generation of politicians and actors, whether in the regime or in the opposition. For example, we are already seeing a revival of tensions between young Muslim Brothers and its geriatric leadership over the former's participation in the protests. 

These kinds of fissures will spring up all over the place, including in other opposition movements and groups, and possibly even in the army.

 Photo by Flickr user giladlotan.

It had a chance to dispense with Mubarak but save (much of) itself. For a solid week and-a-half we were in post-Mubarak Egypt. Whether Mubarak was going to go now, or in September as he promised, was simply a matter of detail — albeit a very important detail. In effect, what we were witnessing was a negotiation between the rest of the regime and the protesters about how different post-Mubarak Egypt would be from Mubarak's Egypt. The regime hoped to make the minimum concessions to get the protesters off the streets. 

But now, by allowing Mubarak to hang around, by so spectacularly under-bidding in this negotiation, the regime has ensured that even when Mubarak is eventually forced to go — as I still expect he will be — the wrath of the protesters will remain focused on the system as a whole.

We are in a really dangerous phase. If the military does indeed move to protect the regime, it will lose the confidence of the population, potentially paving the way for a direct and very bloody confrontation and splits within the military. If the US has any role to play in this now, it is to get a very firm message to the Egyptian military not to go to war with its own people.

The Muslim Brotherhood will see the current unrest not as an opportunity to seize power, but to relieve the great pressure that has been on the movement from the state. This has particularly been the case since 2005, when the regime began a massive campaign of arrests and seizures of the Brotherhood's assets after its startling victory in that year's parliamentary elections.

It is true that more revolutionary strands of thought emphasising the seizure of power have emerged from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood over the generations. But these individuals and ideas have consistently been expelled from the movement, which has stuck to its incrementalist and grassroots approach. 

If there is genuine change as result of this current unrest — and beyond pushing aside the Mubarak family's pretensions to dynastic rule, it is not clear there will be — I would expect the Muslim Brotherhood to compete in any free and fair elections. It may even finally form its long-promised and internally debated political party. But I don't see it putting up a candidate for president and it would probably be wary of accepting any cabinet posts. 

The Muslim Brotherhood knows there are fears both inside and outside Egypt about what it is planning. It also understands well the pressures that actual participation in government places on ideological principles. For both reasons, the Muslim Brotherhood is unlikely to sacrifice greater opportunity to achieve its long-term aims for any short-term — and possibly short-lived — grab for power.

The other thing that should not be forgotten is that, if there is a genuine democratic opening in Egypt, other actors will emerge. The Brotherhood might have a head start, but expect to see new secular and Islamist parties emerge, all of whom would compete with the Brotherhood. In this regard, Egypt is more likely to resemble post-Suharto Indonesia than post-Shah Iran. 

Critics have long pointed to the weakness of secular political forces in Egypt, and many of their criticisms are valid. But remember that one of the big reasons secular alternatives to the regime did not emerge was because they were not allowed to. In this regard, while Mubarak made constant use of the Islamist threat as a reason for not democratising Egypt, his real fear was of a secular opponent: witness the rough treatment his regime dealt out to Ayman Nour when he emerged as a possible opposition candidate for president.

It is time for everyone to get over their Ikwanophobia. For too long, Western governments have been prepared to sacrifice pressure and support for democratic change because of these fears. Some things the Brotherhood advocates are objectionable, but the movement will face real pressures to change as it tries to reconcile its ideological principles with the demands of political participation and even perhaps participation in governance. 

If you need any further convincing, take a look at the pictures of the protesters bloodied by the regime's plain-clothed goons and hired thugs. Is this really the kind of regime we want to be standing behind? Are these really the kinds of hostages we want to make to our often ill-informed fears?

Photo by Flikr user Erik.

3. The regime's strategy is to wait out the protesters. It is counting on people wearying due to the disruption the protests have caused, including business closures, food shortages and rising prices. It is also counting on some of the counter-protests we are starting to see in Cairo and Alexandria to provoke violence that will wear down the protesters and perhaps even provide a pretext for the Army to step in. The regime knows this strategy won't move the hard core, but it probably hopes it will reduce the numbers of protesters sufficiently for the hard core to be less of a threat. 

4. Will this strategy work? It is very difficult to say. We are witnessing something pretty unprecedented in terms of popular protest in Egypt (and in the region). That makes it very hard to predict how resilient the protesters will be. It is still likely that Mubarak will be forced out before September, but inside the regime, the calculations have changed. While Mubarak is finished, the regime is still trying to save itself. In this regard, it is no longer a question of whether the regime and the Army will stay loyal to Mubarak because it best serves their interests. The question now is whether, for the same reason, they will stay loyal to Omar Suleiman.

But the military may figure it no longer needs Mubarak, particularly if it can portray itself as 'saviour of the nation'. Nor does the military necessarily trust that Mubarak won't re-institute the succession to his son once the situation is stabilised.

3. Mubarak might be finished, but this does not mean the regime is — not yet, anyway. 

Even if, as I suspect, the regime will push Mubarak out, the real credit for this will lay with the people on thee streets, who have withstood the onslaughts of the police, state security and other assorted regime thugs, a number paying for this steadfastness with their lives. The problem for the protesters is that it may be difficult to do more. While this diverse bunch could coalesce around the demand of Mubarak's ouster, it is going to be harder for them to force out the rest of the regime. 

For one thing, agreeing on what that means is not going to be easy. The protesters can refuse to accept the 11th hour appointment of Suleiman and demand the departure or arrest of some other easily identifiable Mubarak cronies. But the regime — or perhaps more accurately, 'the system' — goes well beyond Mubarak's family and a few hangers on, and extends to an entrenched network of corruption and patronage throughout the political sphere, the economy and society. Real change is going to have to be deep and be negotiated over weeks, months and even years. The protesters, meanwhile, will eventually have to go home.

4.  Who gets to stay and who has to swim? 

Notwithstanding my previous point, it won't be easy for the regime as a whole to survive Mubarak's ouster. There will be winners and losers as the remains of the regime search for the minimum necessary to placate the protesters. Or, to continue the wreck on a sandbar metaphor, the rest of the regime will be throwing things overboard hoping that each item will be just enough to refloat the boat without everyone being forced to abandon ship. 

So, first Mubarak goes, then if that doesn't work, you throw some of his close cronies overboard, promise constitutional reform etc, etc. And, as always occurs, it is usually the guy with the gun (ie. the military) that gets to decide who and what is thrown overboard.

5. El-Baradei is probably not the long-term solution. Much has been made of former IAEA head Mohammed el-Baradei's appearance at the protest in Cairo overnight and the apparent agreement among the opposition that he might serve as some form of transitional figure. This is plausible in the short term. A key task will be to change the constitution that makes it very difficult for anyone outside the ruling National Democratic Party to run in presidential elections. This can't be negotiated from the street and needs someone to unify and articulate the protesters and opposition demands. 

But unless El-Baradei does spectacularly well in any transition, it is less certain he will emerge as a long-term leader. Some protesters already see him as 'Mohammed-come-lately', not just to these protests, but to the reform movement in Egypt, having spent more than a decade living outside the country.

Photo by Flickr user Collin David Anderson.

3. I had my doubts about the extent to which social media played a role in Tunisia's revolution (in part because I know little about Tunisia and even less about social media). But there is no doubt that it has played a key role in Egypt. The protest was organised via Facebook and Twitter at a time when the big opposition movements (both legal and illegal) including the Muslim Brotherhood were equivocating about taking to the streets.

This is not to say that what we are witnessing in Egypt can be attributed to social media alone: people have to be angry enough to protest, and they have to believe that they have a chance of success (see Tunisia point above). Other forms of media also played a role, including 'old-fashioned' al-Jazeera. Nevertheless, social media has undoubtedly been a lubricant for dissent. It almost makes you want to sign up to Twitter (almost).

4. We will not see the outcome of this for days, weeks or months.  Although the action will be on the streets, the critical decisions will be inside the regime. Key elements — including state security, the army and business elites — will have to decide whether their interests are best served by sticking with Mubarak or abandoning him. 

In Tunisia, the regime decided that abandoning the leader served their interests, but the calculations are different in Egypt. For one thing, the profits of corruption are more widely spread within the regime and among its supporters. Moreover, the regime will have the Tunisian example to follow, and they will have noticed that it is not yet clear that just getting rid of the dictator is enough to save their own skins.

5. It is also possible that the protesters will rally behind some figure outside the regime and put him (or less likely, her) in power. I am discounting this possibility because no such figure has emerged yet; certainly not one that the opposition and the diverse protesters on the streets would be willing to unite behind. 

It is noteworthy that the organised opposition is starting to get in on the action; the leaders of one of the legal opposition parties, the Wafd, has issued a set of reform demands. But the really important actor here is the Muslim Brotherhood. It could double the numbers on the streets and bring its impressive organisational machine to bear on the protests. If the Muslim Brotherhood decides to join the protests, it will be another sign that the regime is in serious trouble. So far, it is staying out.

6. Because Egypt is a pivotal American ally in the region, Washington will be hyper-cautious about being seen to abandon Mubarak — and the realist in me understands why that is the case. But this will cost America even more public support in the region, even if (especially if) Mubarak survives. It does not help matters when Secretary of State Clinton says dumb things, such as her initial response to the unrest:

...our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.

What, with tear gas? Clinton has since made a better statement: 'We believe strongly that the Egyptian government has an important opportunity at this moment in time to implement political, economic and social reforms to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.'

Photo by Flickr user Al Jazeera English.

Second, although the US alliance is not necessarily popular among progressives, Afghanistan is the kind of of alliance commitment progressives should support. The left marched against American unilateralism at the time of the Iraq war. In the case of Afghanistan, however, Washington is acting multilaterally, in concert with allies and friends. If Australia turns away from America now, when a progressive president is trying to maintain international support for a difficult struggle — if we insist that Americans should now bear this burden alone — then we validate the argument of American conservatives that it is better for Washington to act on its own.

Third, we have moral responsibilities to Afghans – not least the most vulnerable Afghans. There is an ethical dimension to this problem that progressives should not ignore. True, the coalition did not topple the Taliban to liberate Afghan women, but this does not change the fact that Afghan women can now work, go to school, vote and run for parliament in ways that were impossible under the Taliban.

Nor can we ignore the fears expressed by Afghan women that these relative improvements will be sacrificed in any deal between the current Afghan government and the insurgents.  Such a deal may well be a necessary condition of peace, but the coalition still has the ability to influence the details of those negotiations — but not if we are heading for the door.

Will Western governments make the protection of women a condition of any agreement between Kabul and the insurgency? Maybe, maybe not. But this is precisely why it is incumbent on progressives to make this point in the debate about Afghanistan and not simply rest on empty slogans like 'troops out now'.

Despite the contention of some progressives, coalition troops in Afghanistan are doing more good than harm. They help prevent civil war or the return of the Taliban to power; they make it more likely that the insurgents will be forced into a negotiation on terms more attractive to the current government; and by training the Afghan Army, Afghanistan's one real national institution, they give the country a chance of keeping neighbours and transnational groups at bay in the future.

It is naïve to assume that were the coalition to leave, the violence would stop. It is more likely that we would see a new civil war like the one that preceded the Taliban's rise, as insurgents, warlords and what remains of the central government fight over power.

Progressives point to the Australian lives lost in this war – a matter that deserves the very gravest consideration. On this matter, both sides should be wary of conscripting dead soldiers and their families, friends and comrades in a cause which they may or may not share.

None of the above is an argument for open-ended or overly ambitious nation-building commitments in Afghanistan. It is an argument for giving Obama's new strategy time to work and for giving Afghans the opportunity to build their own nation.

Progressives have long supported the Afghanistan war, and for good reasons. Most of those reasons still pertain. We should not rush for Afghanistan's exits: rather, we should make sure that when we leave we have discharged our responsibilities to the international community, our allies and most importantly to the people of Afghanistan.

Photo by Flickr user The US Army, used under a Creative Commons license.

In this regard it does not really matter if an early and expedient coalition withdrawal were to result in a return of the Taliban or another civil war. What it will mean is a continuation of Afghanistan's role as a vector of regional instability, with broader international implications, whether it be terrorism, drug trafficking or the risk of war between India and Pakistan. This should concern us.

The symbolism here is also important, particularly in relation to terrorism. It is no coincidence that foreign fighters seem to be returning to Afghanistan. In a forthcoming paper, the Afghan NGO, The Liaison Office, points to foreigners dubbed 'Zarqawieen' (in reference to the late al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi) in parts of Kandahar province. Al Qaeda's partisans read our newspapers and understand the impact of anything that might be portrayed as an al Qaeda victory in Afghanistan will have on debates about the al Qaeda narrative elsewhere, from the Middle East to Indonesia.

What the critics and, one suspects, many of the mandarins can hide behind are doubts about both the coalition strategy, and Australia's ability, given its size, to impact on that campaign.

I share their doubts about the coalition's counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy. It seems to require our infantrymen to become diplomats, development workers and anthropologists as they help build an Afghan nation. As a crusty veteran of the Australian Army told me recently, it is hard enough making them infantrymen. No disrespect was intended, just an appreciation of what is involved in making a good soldier today, without adding kilos of unrealistic expectations to their packs.

Even if Australian soldiers and their allied counterparts do not live up to the unrealistic nation-building rhetoric of their military and political leaders, they can still help Afghans prepare a foundation for their own eventual nation-building (most of which would happen, if it happens at all, long after we have left). 

Simply by being in Afghanistan, our military provides a counterweight to the prospect of civil war or the return of the Taliban to power; by holding off the insurgency they make it more likely that the latter will be forced into a negotiation, hopefully on terms that are as unattractive as possible; and by training the Afghan Army (Afghanistan's one national institution at the moment), we help Afghans escape their decades-old role of weak prey for neighbours and transnational groups. There are other non-military things we must do as well, but little of it can be done without a significant military role.

Is Australia too small to matter in this? Only if we continue to think small, to eschew responsibility, and to imagine that what we do has no substantive or symbolic impact. Uruzgan, where we are based, is not an unimportant part of the strategically vital south. The Dutch went there with a strategy and as this report suggests, they had a positive impact both in Uruzgan and on what would become the more commonsense elements of the COIN strategy.

There are non-military things Australia can do too. Australia has a reasonably good diplomatic relationship with Afghanistan's neighbours, without any of the colonial or Cold War baggage. While we train Afghans to defend their sovereignty, we should be helping to forge a regional agreement to ensure that Afghanistan's neighbours respect it as well.  In this way we help out not just the Afghans, but help ourselves out of Afghanistan in a sustainable and responsible manner.

Photo by Flickr user ussocom_ru, used under a Creative Commons license.