Bush Defies Lawmakers To Solve Iraq
Gates Says Doubts Bolster Enemy
By Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 27, 2007; A01

Declaring "I'm the decision maker," President Bush yesterday challenged congressional efforts to formally condemn his Iraq plan, while Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned that a proposed Senate resolution criticizing the deployment of additional troops would embolden the enemy.

"Any indication of flagging will in the United States gives encouragement to those folks," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon. "I'm sure that that's not the intent behind the resolutions, but I think it may be the effect."

Bush consulted with Gates and Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who will head U.S. forces in Iraq, at an early-morning meeting at the White House. Speaking with reporters afterward, the president complained that lawmakers "are condemning a plan before it's even had a chance to work. And they have an obligation and a serious responsibility, therefore, to put up their own plan as to what would work."

Bush later met with House Republicans at a retreat on Maryland's Eastern Shore and, according to two Republicans present, mocked the Senate by telling the House members that he found it "ironic" that senators would oppose his plan to dispatch 21,500 more troops to Iraq but praise and unanimously confirm Petraeus, who helped design it.

Democrats responded angrily to Gates's comments, which were similar to what Petraeus said at his Tuesday hearing before his confirmation yesterday. "The American people will rightly dismiss these accusations as a desperate attempt by the administration to support a failed policy that is not worthy of the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) disputed Bush's suggestion that the Democrats have not come up with a plan. Speaking at the Brookings Institution, he said his party was united around the proposition that the United States should shift more responsibility to the Iraqis, begin a "phased redeployment" of troops and initiate more aggressive regional diplomacy to stabilize Iraq.

Yesterday's administration comments were part of a White House campaign to try to keep Republican lawmakers from signing on to any resolution that criticizes the president's new strategy in Iraq. By keeping down the number of Republican defections, the administration hopes to make any vote appear highly partisan and to buy Bush's new plan more time.

With Bush's leverage on Capitol Hill at a low, the White House appears to be relying heavily on GOP leaders to orchestrate the opposition to two resolutions condemning the troop buildup, according to lawmakers, lobbyists and administration officials. White House lobbyists and senior officials at the National Security Council are continuing to meet with lawmakers, but a number of senators said they did not perceive the lobbying as particularly aggressive. The strategy, as they described it, is to muddy the waters with a number of competing resolutions that could siphon support from a strong message of disapproval for the president's plan.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday approved a resolution opposing the introduction of the additional troops, calling for more diplomacy and a regional peace effort, and demanding that U.S. troops be deployed away from urban sectarian hotbeds to guard Iraq's borders, hunt down terrorists and train Iraqi security forces. Bush defied Congress yesterday to come up with an alternative to his Iraq strategy, but advocates say the committee's resolution amounts to one.

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) has offered a similar resolution, while also calling for measurable benchmarks in Iraq. Warner's resolution includes language accepting Bush's constitutional powers as commander in chief, leaves rhetorical room for some additional troop deployments and treats the fight with Sunni extremists in Anbar province as a matter separate from the sectarian violence in Baghdad.

GOP leaders, meanwhile, are coalescing around a resolution drafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would establish strict benchmarks for the Iraqi government and the Bush administration to meet, without criticizing the president's plan. The leaders may also offer a simple resolution of support for Bush, saying the president's plan should be given a chance.

Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said that the administration would still like GOP leaders to block any vote but that at this point even some of the most ardent Republican conservatives need some way to voice their skepticism on the record. The best the White House can hope for is what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called a "smorgasbord" of resolutions that splits both parties and pulls senators in multiple directions.

Like other GOP lawmakers, McConnell said time is running out for the president. "I think everybody knows what the consequences are. The president doesn't have a stronger supporter in the Senate than the person you're looking at, but I repeat, this is the last chance for the Iraqis to step up and demonstrate this government can function," he said. "The message to the Iraqi government could not be more clear."

Administration officials say they realize their position on the Hill is precarious. Many Republicans blame the war in Iraq for their electoral debacle last November, and if the situation does not improve soon, the administration will be faced with massive defections within the GOP -- not only on nonbinding resolutions but perhaps also on bills that limit the president's ability to prosecute the war.

But several administration officials said they felt they had a good week, with Petraeus making an effective case for more time at his confirmation hearing Tuesday and only one Republican, Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), defecting when the Foreign Relations Committee approved the resolution against additional troops on Wednesday.

"No one is under any illusion that we are going to win over many Democrats or turn around the country. What we need to do is stabilize Republicans," said one senior White House official who was not authorized to speak on the record. While many Republicans are very anxious to vent their displeasure with the situation in Iraq, Republican stalwarts still seem reluctant to part with the president.

"I think he made the case in the State of the Union message . . . that this is the best that he and his military commanders can come up, so give us a chance," said Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah). "If you are going to say no, you better have an alternative."

January 28, 2007
A Cleric’s Journey Leads to a Suburban Frontier

By ANDREA ELLIOTT
MIDDLETOWN, N.J. — Sheik Reda Shata pushed into Costco behind an empty cart. He wore a black leather jacket over his long, rustling robe, a pocket Koran tucked inside.

The imam, a 38-year-old Egyptian, seemed not to notice the stares from other shoppers. He was hunting for a bargain, and soon found it in the beverage aisle, where a 32-can pack of Coca-Cola sold for $8.29. For Mr. Shata, this was a satisfying Islamic experience.

“The Prophet said, ‘Whoever is frugal will never suffer financially,’ ” said the imam, who shops weekly at the local store and admits to praying for its owners. He smiled. “These are the people who will go to heaven.”

Seven months have passed since Mr. Shata moved to this New Jersey suburb to lead a mosque of prosperous, settled immigrants. It is a world away from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where he toiled for almost four years, serving hundreds of struggling Muslims for whom America was still new.

His transition is a familiar one for foreign-born imams in the United States, who often start out in city mosques before moving to more serene settings.

For Mr. Shata, Middletown promised comfort after years of hardship. He left behind a tiny apartment for a house with green shutters set amid maple trees and sweeping lawns. He got a raise. He learned to drive.

But the suburbs have brought challenges that Mr. Shata never imagined. His congregation in Brooklyn may have been on the margins of American society, but it was deeply rooted in Islam. Muslims in Middletown were generally more assimilated but less connected to their mosque.

To be a successful suburban imam, he found, meant persuading doctors and lawyers not to rush from prayers to beat traffic. It meant connecting with teenagers who drove new cars, and who peppered their Arabic with “like” and “yeah.” It meant helping his daughter cope with mockery at school, in a predominantly white town that lost dozens of people on Sept. 11.

Mr. Shata knew from his years in Brooklyn that the job demanded more than preaching and leading prayers, the things for which he was trained in Egypt. In America, he helped to arrange marriages. He mediated between the F.B.I. and his people. He set up a makeshift Islamic court to resolve disputes among hot dog vendors.

Last summer, as he prepared to join a new community where the median income is roughly $86,000, he reminded himself that Islam has no quarrel with wealth — as long as the wealthy are pious. Still, he was stunned when a man at the mosque bought his daughter a new car, only for her to request a different model.

“Islam says to a Muslim you can own the world if you want, but don’t get attached to it,” said Mr. Shata, speaking Arabic through a translator. “Put the world in your hands, not your heart.”

The open spaces of Monmouth County appealed to the imam after years in a crowded city. But with space comes distance. It hardly surprised Mr. Shata that prayer attendance was thin; many congregants live more than 20 miles away.

In a land of Little League and shopping malls, signs of Muslim identity are few. At first glance, Mr. Shata’s new mosque could pass for an elegant office building. It has no minaret and a barely visible dome.

Girls in head scarves are scarce at the local public schools. Some cover their heads with hooded sweatshirts.

Compared with his congregants, the imam sometimes looks like an apparition from another century. In his silk hat and robe, he preaches to men in suits or blue jeans, cellphones clasped to their belts.

But Mr. Shata believes these men and women are vital to Islam’s future in the West. The religion’s survival, he said, depends not only on its ability to flourish in the immigrant footholds of America, but in its most settled corners.

“We are in this country, and we must learn to live with its people,” Mr. Shata said. “We have to absorb them and they have to absorb us.”

Leaving Brooklyn

One sunny afternoon in September, the mosque’s parking lot was empty but for a red 1997 Dodge Neon. It circled around and around, with Mr. Shata at the wheel. He was practicing for his driving test.

“Now we’re at the stop sign, and we must stop out of respect,” he said, slamming on the brakes. The car halted violently. Then he stomped his sandaled foot on the gas, and the car lurched ahead.

Mr. Shata had never driven a car until he moved to Middletown. As a boy, he became frightened of driving after a tractor killed a man in his Egyptian farming village. Since moving to the United States in 2002, he had managed without a car. But in the suburbs he had no choice.

Middletown is only 43 miles southwest of the city, but to Mr. Shata, it seemed farther.

In Brooklyn, his daily walk to the mosque, Masjid Moussab, caused a commotion, with cabdrivers honking and shopkeepers waving. In Middletown, where Mr. Shata now lives next to the mosque, he sees deer and rabbits on his way to the dawn prayer.

But Brooklyn had a way of following him. Fathers in Bay Ridge still sought the imam’s help in finding suitable husbands for their daughters. Unhappy wives called for the imam’s marital advice.

Every Friday, a dozen of Mr. Shata’s former Brooklyn congregants began appearing in Middletown to hear his weekly sermon.

“Maybe he’s here in body, but his soul is there,” said Amgad Abdou, an Egyptian driver who came every week, his limousine full. “He’s like the Statue of Liberty, part of the skyline. He’s part of Bay Ridge.”

Mr. Shata missed the city at times. But his relationship with Muslims in Brooklyn had changed after a series of articles about him appeared in The New York Times last March.

At first, he found himself a minor celebrity. The articles were reprinted in Arabic-language newspapers, both in the United States and the Middle East. Hundreds of strangers reached out to him, seeking advice.

The imam’s “little black book” — a roster of Muslims in search of spouses — quickly lengthened, by a third, to 820 phone numbers and names.

But the articles also stirred a controversy Mr. Shata never expected. Many Muslims were shocked to read that the imam thought oral sex was permissible for married couples (even though respected Islamic scholars in the Middle East concurred with his opinion, he said). Others objected to his view that Muslims could sell liquor or pork if they could find no other work.

One critique of Mr. Shata on a jihadist Web site in England singled out his hometown, Kafr al Battikh, which is known for its watermelons. “Oh, Allah,” it read, “preserve Islam and Muslims from the evil people of watermelons.”

In Bay Ridge, the articles prompted a fistfight outside a Dunkin’ Donuts. Fliers warned in Arabic that the imam was “a devil.”

“He just wanted to please the West,” said Hesham Elashry, a local Egyptian tailor. “No one can change Islam to make people happy.”

After weeks of defending himself, Mr. Shata felt worn down.

Other mosques had long tried to lure him away. As word of his troubles spread, recruiters stepped forward.

“He was tied to his people,” said Mohammed Mosaad, who sits on the board of the mosque in Middletown.

Like many suburban mosques, Masjid Al-Aman, which means “mosque of peace,” began in the 1980s with a group of families who met privately to pray. Eventually, they bought a six-acre property on Red Hill Road and raised $1.7 million to build their mosque, which was completed in 2003.

Leaders of the mosque, which has a largely Egyptian congregation, called the imam for months. They offered to renovate a house on the property, with a new kitchen and a custom-made library.

Mr. Shata prayed for a sign from God. One morning at dawn, the imam said, he heard a voice telling him that the mosque in Middletown “is peace.”

He resigned that day.

Planting New Roots

One evening in July, shortly before Mr. Shata moved to the suburbs, he paid the mosque in Middletown a visit.

Crickets chirped. The grass whispered. The stars blinked from above.

The imam circled the mosque, accompanied by three friends. He paused to look at the trees, which seemed to sparkle.

Mr. Shata turned to the men and asked if the forest might have jinn, the Arabic word for spirits.

“No,” one of the men replied. “The bugs light up here.”

It was one of many things that impressed Mr. Shata about his new environment. He loved to sit on his front porch and write his Friday sermons. The rain, he said, was “like a symphony of music.”

In Brooklyn, the imam’s family rarely left their apartment. His 8-year-old daughter, Rawda, is epileptic and used to suffer frequent seizures. Now the four children run freely on the grass. Rawda has not had a seizure for months, ever since doctors changed her medication.

The imam’s wife, Omyma, looked up at the sky one September afternoon.

“Smell! Smell!” she said, inhaling deeply. “Pure oxygen. Pure.”

But if Mr. Shata’s family life had improved, his new mosque needed work.

In Bay Ridge, congregants lingered after prayers, exchanging kisses and hugs. In Middletown, an air of anonymity hung over the mosque.

“We needed someone to bring us together,” said one member, Omar Mostafa, 42.

Mr. Shata began by memorizing the names of his roughly 600 congregants and tracking their attendance. (The same prodigious memory had enabled him to memorize the Koran by the age of 8.)

A Jordanian-born cardiologist, Raed Jitan, missed the Friday prayer soon after he was introduced to the new imam. When the doctor reappeared at the mosque, he was stunned to hear Mr. Shata call out, “Raed, where have you been?”

It became common to hear the imam interrupt himself, midsermon, with admonitions like, “Ahmed, don’t fall asleep on me.”

One Friday, Mr. Shata ordered the congregants to stand up and exchange compliments. Another day, he told them they could not leave before shaking hands.

By the early fall, Masjid Al-Aman was a different place. Attendance at daily prayers had quadrupled. The imam’s evening lectures were packed.

“The seeds have taken root very fast,” Mr. Shata said.

He was relieved that many of his new congregants seemed modern-minded. But he is still adjusting to the fact that, at dinner parties, men and women often eat together. (Such engagements do not violate Islamic law, Mr. Shata said, but he and his wife prefer more traditional gatherings where men and women sit in separate rooms and have their own entrances.)

Mr. Shata uses Islamic contracts in Middletown, as he had in Brooklyn, to help settle disputes between married couples. But the money involved sometimes makes him gasp. In Brooklyn, a man had agreed to pay his wife $10 every time he insulted her. In Middletown, a similar contract brought $1,000 per insult.

Wealth became a frequent theme in his sermons.

“The true value of a person is not in his clothing, car or bank account, but in his account with Allah,” he said in one sermon.

At times, Mr. Shata could not help but think of his own financial status. He told himself that it did not matter that his house was modest compared with the “palaces” of some congregants, or that his used Dodge stood out among their Lexuses and BMWs.

“I am very satisfied with what God has given me,” he said one afternoon.

He did not know then that his 12-year-old daughter, Esteshhad, wanted to ask him for a cellphone.

A Generation to Guide

On Sunday mornings, the main worship area of the mosque — a place normally reserved for men — becomes a teenage oasis.

Girls in head scarves sit to one side, and boys in sweatshirts and varsity jackets to the other. Their cellphones beep with text messages as the imam stands before them.

“Who has a question today?” he asked one recent Sunday.

A curly-haired boy raised his hand. “According to the Prophet, at what age should a young man get married?” he asked.

Mr. Shata launched into a careful lecture about how modern life is different from the Prophet’s time, when boys married at 16. Islam, he said, dictates no specific age.

“Can a man marry more than one wife?” another boy asked.

“Why are the questions about marriage today?” the imam replied. “What’s going on?”

The room was silent. He wiped his glasses, trying to buy time.

“If you are able to marry one,” he finally said, “don’t think about marrying another one.”

Another hand shot up, that of a 16-year-old girl. “What are the specific circumstances that allow a man to marry a second wife?” the girl, Sara Abdelmottlib, asked.

Once again, the imam was cornered. Back in Egypt, young Muslims were reticent in the presence of sheiks. But in America, Mr. Shata noticed, children are taught to ask many questions.

Mr. Shata had no doubt about the answer: According to Islamic law, a man is allowed up to four wives. But the imam also believed that such arrangements never worked, and that discussing them was unhelpful in the United States.

He stared at the girls.

“There is no woman out there who agrees to her husband marrying a second wife, even if she cannot bear children,” he said.

Then he turned to the boys. “A man who is not satisfied with one wife will never be satisfied with four,” he said.

Miss Abdelmottlib looked over at the boys, her chin raised in triumph.

Mr. Shata often feels out of place among his youngest congregants. They seem so different from him — the way they dress, the way they speak, even the way they think. But he considers no part of his job more important.

“The tree of faith in their hearts has to be constantly watered before it dries up,” he said.

It seemed to Mr. Shata that young Muslims in the suburbs had no guide to help them balance Islamic virtues with adolescent urges, the culture of their parents with the pressures of their peers.

Some men at the mosque complained that their sons refused to kiss their hands in a show of respect. Mr. Shata sided with the boys: This tradition was cultural, he said, not Islamic.

Other parents forbade their daughters from joining swim teams at school, arguing that Islamic law does not allow women to reveal their bodies in public. The imam suggested a compromise: they could swim in bodysuits, with only females present.

Still, it was one thing for Mr. Shata to mediate these problems at the mosque, and another to face them at home.

The Home Front

One afternoon this month, a yellow school bus with mechanical problems pulled into the mosque’s parking lot.

The imam had just finished the afternoon prayer and was leaving the mosque. Eagerly, he walked up to the bus, his long robe flapping. He wondered if his daughter Esteshhad might be onboard.

As he drew closer, he saw the children pointing at him and laughing. He struggled, in English, to offer the driver help, but she politely declined. He searched for his daughter. It was not her bus. Relieved, he walked away.

For Esteshhad, life had been hard enough, he thought. After attending an Islamic school in Brooklyn, she is now one of only two girls who wear head scarves at her public middle school. She sits alone at the front of her bus. In the cafeteria, she eats by herself.

“They keep thinking I’m weird,” she said. “I feel weird, too.”

She hears about sleepovers and trips to the mall, but she has yet to experience these things. Her mother cannot drive, and Mr. Shata is reluctant to chauffeur his children until he feels safer in the car.

Outside school, Esteshhad’s only other contact with her peers comes at the mosque. But even there — where some girls carry designer bags — she often feels left out.

One night this month, she sat slouched on the edge of her bed. If only she had a cellphone or an iPod, she said, she might have friends.

“I have friends,” her 7-year-old sister, Rahma, piped up.

“You don’t wear a hijab,” Esteshhad shot back.

Recently, her mother noticed that Esteshhad had forgotten parts of the Koran. She was also becoming more assertive.

A sign outside her room read, “Please knock before entering!” and then, in smaller letters, “I’m angry.”

Esteshhad’s mother has thought of enrolling her again in an Islamic school, but Mr. Shata is reluctant. He wants to give public school a chance. Still, it pains him to see Esteshhad so alone.

When asked how he would respond if Esteshhad stopped wearing a head scarf, the imam thought for a moment. Such a scenario, for him, would have been unthinkable in Egypt.

“I would try to convince her and I would find 1,001 ways to her heart,” he said. “I hate aggression. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, ‘Teach, don’t humiliate.’ ”

Teaching, for the imam, also means learning. He will learn as he goes, he said, with Esteshhad at school, with the teenagers at his mosque.

It is a path he began in Brooklyn. To live an Islamic life in America, he said, requires a curious mind and a strong heart.

Mr. Shata tries to bring both to his youth group every week.

Only 11 young Muslims came to the first meeting in October. Now, the imam looks out at a room full of faces.

“Sixty and counting,” he said.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Privacy Policy

If our politicians and citizens see this 'move' by Saudi Arabia as reason to slow ALTERNATIVE ENERGY development efforts then WE DESERVE TO BE RE CLASSFIED TO A SECOND RATE NATION.

Of course the Saudi's will keep oil price just at the level to keep Alternative energy efforts 'in the distance'... they are not stupid and follow our politics CLOSER THAN THE AVERAGE AMERICANS.

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January 28, 2007
Saudi Officials Seek to Temper the Price of Oil

BY JAD MOUAWAD
Saudi Arabia, which benefited immensely from record oil prices last year, has sent signals in the past two weeks that it is committed to keeping oil at around $50 a barrel — down $27 a barrel from the summer peak that shook consumers across the developed world.

The indications came in typically cryptic fashion for the oil-rich kingdom. In Tokyo last week, Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, said Saudi Arabia’s policy was to maintain “moderate prices.” The previous week, on a stop in New Delhi, he effectively put his veto on an emergency meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to prop up prices after oil briefly dropped below $50 a barrel, the lowest level in nearly two years.

The events that propelled oil prices above $77 a barrel last July, then dragged them down again, were beyond the control of any single producer. Still, Saudi Arabia, which is by far the largest oil producer within OPEC and sets the cartel’s agenda, is seeking to avoid a repeat of the dramatic rise in prices while trying to put a floor beneath them.

Nowhere was last summer’s spike in oil prices felt more profoundly than in the United States. As gasoline rose above $3 a gallon, consumers cut their spending elsewhere, tamping down profits in retail, travel and other industries. United States automakers were devastated as consumers fled from large vehicles to smaller ones, which have historically been the specialty of the Japanese; on Thursday, Ford said that 2006 had been the worst year in its history.

The recent slide back to $50 a barrel for oil — which translates to about $2 for a gallon of gasoline — has eased the pressure on the domestic economy, quieting talk that oil prices and the declining housing market would lead to a recession.

The Saudis appear to be rediscovering that painfully high energy prices take a profound toll on the global economy, which in turn reduces demand for their oil. But other motives seem to be at work, too, including the Saudis’ desire to restrain Iran’s ambitions in the region.

How much influence the United States has exerted is an open question. Vice President Dick Cheney met with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh in November, but his office would not say if oil was discussed. The White House has been supportive of Saudi energy policy, and President Bush and his father are close with Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security minister and former ambassador to Washington.

Although Saudi officials say their oil policy is based on market considerations and not political ones, the meeting in November led to renewed speculation that the kingdom might be tempted to dry out Iran’s ambitions by pushing oil prices down. Prices have already been falling because of mild weather and slowing demand.

Prices at $50 to $55 a barrel are just about right for the Saudis, according to Saudi energy officials — not too high to hurt the global economy, not too low to hurt their own economy. Last year’s record highs meant that the growth in global oil demand slowed to 1 percent in 2006, compared with a 4 percent increase at its peak in 2004.

But 2006 was not the first reminder for the Saudis that too-high prices can backfire. The oil shocks of the 1970s and 1980s also set off a scramble for gas-sipping cars and a brief push to wean the West from its oil dependency. In recent months, the higher prices have rekindled America’s quest for alternatives and propelled energy security to the top of the agenda in the United States and Europe.

Even President Bush, who began his presidency emphasizing the need to increase domestic oil production rather than cutting consumption, called for a reduction in gasoline use over the next decade in last week’s State of the Union address.

High prices have also emboldened rivals within OPEC, among them Iran and Venezuela, which have used their oil revenue to prop up their governments and export their more radical agendas. Saudi Arabia has worked cooperatively with Iran since the late 1990s, when oil producers were panicked by the decline of prices to around $10 a barrel. More recently, Iran has favored rising prices over the moderation that Saudi Arabia seeks. Venezuela also tends to favor higher prices but wields less political influence in the cartel.

“High prices are not in the interest of Saudi Arabia,” said Sadek Boussena, a former OPEC president from Algeria. “We’ve all seen what $70 does: it attracts alternatives, it reduces demand. On the other hand, I don’t think the Saudis want oil below $50. They need the revenue.”

The Bush administration has repeatedly acknowledged Saudi Arabia’s efforts in trying to moderate prices. “Buyers and sellers have a common interest in maintaining reasonable prices for oil,” Samuel Bodman, the energy secretary, said in October.

There is no set formula for setting oil prices. In the 1980s, the market settled on around $18 a barrel as a fair price. In the 1990s, it was ratcheted up to $22 to $25 a barrel. Recently, oil producers have realized they can charge twice that amount, although consuming nations complain that the price is too high.

Mr. Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, borrowing the manner of a careful central banker, is rarely explicit about his plans. His every word is dissected by legions of analysts for the slightest hint of an inflection in policy.

Sometimes, the uncertainty gives rise to more conspiratorial theories. Oil traders have been buzzing in recent weeks about whether Saudi Arabia was seeking to depress oil markets in hopes of crippling Iran’s economy, as a Saudi analyst — albeit not one from the government — suggested late last year in an opinion article in The Washington Post. The Saudis quickly dismissed the claim, but given the tensions in the Middle East, oil and politics remain closely linked.

“It is difficult to work out what the Saudis really want, since they never say things explicitly,” said Leo Drollas, the chief economist at the Center for Global Energy Studies, a London-based research group founded by Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, a former Saudi oil minister. Sometimes, he said, “you have to read between the lines.”

The Saudi government does not disclose what oil price it uses when it builds its budget, but analysts at Samba Financial Group, a bank in Saudi Arabia, say they believe the price is $42 a barrel for 2007, with oil production at about 9 million barrels a day. With oil averaging $66 a barrel last year, the kingdom recorded a budget surplus of nearly $71 billion, Samba said, five times more than in 2005.

Saudi officials repeatedly point out that they do not set the price of oil on international commodity markets — they point the finger at hedge funds and other speculative traders for the heightened volatility in recent years. Nor, they say, do they run their oil industry with political considerations in mind.

Mr. Naimi has led the ascent of oil prices since 2000 and managed his various partners within OPEC toward better discipline within the cartel. Last fall, under Saudi stewardship, OPEC members twice agreed to cut their output to prevent prices from falling too steeply.

More than any specific target, the Saudis have always sought stability in oil prices. But stability may prove just as elusive this year as it did last year, given how vulnerable global oil supplies remain to the vagaries of the weather as well as political turmoil in the Middle East and Africa.

Although OPEC’s 12 members decide by unanimous votes whether to increase oil production — which lowers prices by making supply more plentiful — consumer pressures ultimately hold sway, and an extremely cold winter followed by a very hot summer could override whatever price goals the Saudis have set.

Not everyone is reading the Saudis’ recent public signals — scant as they are — in the same way. “The Saudi policy has not changed,” said Roger Diwan, an energy analyst at PFC Energy. The Saudis, he said, have “led the way in managing the market. They showed leadership in OPEC.”

But Amy Myers Jaffe, the associate director of Rice University’s energy program, said she thought that Saudi policy had shifted, backing away from a defense of higher prices.

“The debate in Saudi Arabia is about what is the right strategy, where demand is headed, and what is the right amount of investments,” she said. “And that’s a very tough question.”

Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting.

Culture Clash in Denmark
The close-knit Danes find their liberal ideals tested by a growing, alienated Muslim population
By Thomas Omestad

Posted Sunday, December 31, 2006, U.S. News and World Report

COPENHAGENˆThis, a recent study concluded, is the happiest country on Earth. With Denmark's cradle-to-grave social welfare, highly regarded healthcare and education, prosperity, and small-country ethnic cohesion, the land that gave us Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales also excels at producing a good life in reality.

And yet, over the past year or so, the contented Danes have been forced to face both their greatest international crisis since World War II and the rise here of separate Muslim communities where many are unable or unwilling to enter the Danish mainstream. The international uproar over publication of 12 prophet Muhammad cartoons in a Danish newspaper triggered violence that left at least 139 people dead, Danish diplomatic outposts torched in Lebanon and Syria, and Danish goods boycotted. Suddenly, Denmark felt dangerously exposedˆa country of just 5.4 million people facing the wrath of an Islamic world exceeding a billion people.

The violence outside Denmark ultimately quieted down, though the country's security-threat level remains elevated. At home, the bitter disputes over the cartoons have highlighted an unhealedˆand potentially hazardousˆrift between the dominant Danes and the Muslim immigrants living in what are being called "parallel societies." Ask Danes and Muslim immigrants alike, and many will say there is something a bit rotten in the Kingdom of Denmark.

The legacy of the cartoon uproar is not all bad. Private efforts at building bridges between Muslims and non-Muslim Danes have accelerated. Secular Danish Muslims condemned the violence overseas and appealed for dialogue. That, say Danes, has encouraged a greater appreciation of the differencesˆpolitical and otherwise-among Muslims here.

"Time bomb." Still, the cartoon crisis itself did not prompt any basic rethinking of how to integrate Muslims more deeply into Danish society. And the country is now preoccupied with things Muslim. Attention is riveted on any controversy linked to its Muslim residentsˆso-called honor killings of female relatives, street crime, terrorism probes, unemployment, forced marriages, use of veils, and so on. Denmark is pondering the specter of ever more young Muslimsˆunemployed and undereducatedˆfinding their identities not as coolly secularized Danes but as fervent or even radical Muslims. "We are sitting on a time bomb," warns Eva Smith, a law professor and racism expert at the University of Copenhagen.

The ferment in Denmark is especially striking because of its progressive traditions, but it also reflects the broader tremors rattling western Europe, where tangled issues of national identity, culture, religion, and security arising from Muslim immigration have bolted to the fore. Old, ethnically grounded societies are being roiled by the presence of Muslim newcomersˆor at least by the reaction to them. "There's kind of an unspoken assumption that they're not really Dutch, not really Danes, and so forth," reasons one senior U.S. official who follows the phenomenon. "Europeans are uncomfortable with Islam, and they see it as an alien body in their midst. ... Europe's got a huge problem, and they're just getting their minds around it now."

The cartoon controversy, along with frustration over the slow pace of Muslim integration, is leading some Danes to question their prized image as an open and tolerant nation. This, after all, is a people who under Nazi occupation spirited nearly all of their 7,000-some Jews to safety in Sweden. In the 1960s and 1970s, Denmark sought to offer one of Europe's most liberal immigration policies. Many came as guest workers and were later joined by family members and asylum seekers. Even so, Denmark remained remarkably mono-ethnic; only about 4 percent of the population is Muslim. Coming mostly from Arab states, Iran, and Pakistan, the immigrants have clustered in a few neighborhoods in Copenhagen and other cities.

Yet as the preoccupation with Muslims has deepened in recent years, Denmark has swung in the opposite direction, erecting perhaps Europe's most restrictive set of rules. A rightist, anti-immigration party sits not in government but at its side; the ruling coalition relies on its votes to govern. The mood toward immigrants has, with exceptions, soured. The share of Danes who view Islam as incompatible with democracy has shot up. And Muslims are often portrayed as troublemakers who sup at the table of Danish generosityˆall the while rejecting what makes Denmark special. "They create ghettos. ... There are a lot of criminals," says Henrik Pedersen, a Dane who runs a Copenhagen trucking business. "Muslim people should be in a Muslim country."

More sophisticated immigration skeptics worry that "Danish values" are under threat by politicized Muslims who resist assimilation. These values include democracy, far-reaching personal freedoms, equality between the sexes, and the trust born of unusually strong social bonds. One government minister frankly called the Danes a "tribe" in describing their group identity. "The whole quality of Danish life stands or falls with this community of values," adds Ralf Pittelkow, a newspaper columnist and coauthor of a bestselling book on the Islamist challenge. "Danes need to feel reassured that the main features of Danish society remain unchanged. ... We are at a crunch point."

Some Danes argue that evading the impact of immigration is impossible. "Some people want to keep Denmark as a kind of museum," says Helle Stenum, the chairwoman of MixEurope, a pro-integration group. "We are a rich, safe society that is scared." Adds Copenhagen schoolteacher Maia Lisa Petersen as she rushes to a subway station, "These other cultures, other values force us to wake up. ... We can't hide anymore in this nice, perfect little Scandinavian world."

Nor can the Muslim immigrants easily hide in enclaves that insulate them from the culture that surrounds them. They say that the political and media atmosphere has turned against themˆparticularly since the cartoon crisis. "It totally changed my view of Danish society," says Mustafa Kucukyild, 26, who came from Turkey as a 1-year-old boy. "The spotlight is on Muslims. I'm much more cautious about what I say." As the kebab and pizza restaurant where he works fills up with blond-haired college students, he is talking about his estrangement from the Danes. Kucukyild is asked if, having spent nearly all his life here, he feels Danish. "Definitely, no," he replies. "No matter how much you want to be, you always have this black hair," he says, grabbing at a lock of his own. "I will always be a foreigner."

The alienation is pervasive, and it goes well beyond the discomfort some Muslims feel toward Denmark's permissive atmosphere. "Danish people are very hard people, very cold," claims Hassan, a middle-aged, Iraqi-born businessman in the Copenhagen district of Norrebro, where Danes often mix with immigrants. Hassan says that his children are adapting better than he is, though his 15-year-old daughter has faced problems in classˆa teacher has chided her about her head scarf. Other immigrants report occasional hassles of other sorts: snide comments or being bumped on buses, being barred from nightclubs or followed by department store security officersˆor the "what are you doing here?" stares in coffee shops. (Some Danes counter that Muslims are being overly sensitive, playing up an image of victimhood.)

A young doctor of Palestinian descentˆfluent in Danish as well as Arabic and English and a fan of the country's famed pastriesˆdescribes tensions that have ensued from being overtly Muslim. A radiologist colleague turned to Suher Othman one day and announced, "I don't like scarves." One patient refused to be treated by her; another resisted until a fellow patient intervened. Othman, 27, says immigrants are routinely seen as "a burden." Still, she adds, "this is the only society I've ever known. They have to face that we're going to stay here."

Stay indeed, but many without jobs. In a country with an aging workforce, negligible unemployment overallˆand even labor shortagesˆjoblessness among non-European immigrants is shockingly high: Barely half work. Employers say that discrimination is not to blame but rather language barriers, scant job experience, and lack of motivation to work. Jobless benefits rival the wages of entry-level positions. Companies even cite immigrants' inability to understand the ironic Danish sense of humor.

The depth of alienation between ethnic Danes and the Muslim newcomers is, in one respect, surprising. Denmark has long been one of Europe's bastions of tolerance and openness. Part of the Danish mentality is an outsize will to do good in the world. The country ranks fifth in the share of income donated to overseas development aid. Especially in the past, newcomers to Denmark received generous benefits, including three years of free instruction in Danishˆa perk that continues. It is an impressive record that might encourage some Danes to feel that nothing more is required of themˆperhaps even create some blind spots. "We are so sure we are good," says Smith of the University of Copenhagen.

Close-knit. The closeness of the Danes, though, leads Muslims to conclude that the Danish club is a hard one to join. Othman has the education and language skills to fit in. Yet, she says, "it is very difficult to break into this culture." Other Muslims contend that too many Danes lack respect for them and their cultures. "They have a picture of the Muslim immigrant as a parasite," says Mahmoud Alsaadi, who runs a sweets shop in Norrebro and has worked as a carpenter. Alsaadi, 37, is a Palestinian from Lebanon who arrived here in 1990. "We appreciate a lot about Denmark, but we feel that they could also learn from us"ˆparticularly about close-knit families, he says. "I don't want to impose my ways on them, and I don't want them to impose their ways on me."

The sheer religiosityˆand signs of devotion are said to be growingˆof some Danish Muslims is itself a source of worry in Denmark. The Danes generally take a relaxed approach to their leading religion, Lutheranism. A mere 3 percent of Danes attend church at least weekly, the lowest such rate in a recent survey of 21 countries. Secularism is celebrated, and religion, in a typical Danish view, is a strictly personal affair that should be kept out of the public eye as much as possible. Some Danes are offended by demonstrative manifestations of Islam, including the veil. Concerns also arise from the growing number of Muslim parents who are opting to send their children to private, religiously oriented schools. The government's culture minister has publicly commented on the inferior status of a "medieval Muslim culture." Says Tim Jensen, a religious historian at the University of Southern Denmark, "There is a sense of threat by an antimodern, medieval force [Islam]." Pressures from immigration, globalization, and the European Union all "make Danes feel more insecure. We are constantly being asked what you are, constantly being confronted with people who behave differently."

Against this backdrop of clashing cultures came the Muhammad cartoons on Sept. 30, 2005, in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The impetus for publication, says the paper's cultural editor, Flemming Rose, was to stir a debate about self-censorship after he learned that illustrators refused to work on a children's book about Muhammad for fear of offending Muslims. Muslims regard any depiction of Muhammad as sacrilegious. Danish Muslims protested the publication, albeit peacefully, contending that the cartoons mocked their prophet. One cartoon showed a turban in the shape of a lit bomb.

Their complaints met with a stiff response from the paper, which saw the issue as a fundamental test of freedom of speech. The paper eventually expressed regret for any offense caused-but not for publishing the caricatures. Rose, who has received death threats and was working from Washington until recently, says that demands for observing such taboos amount to "asking for my submission." He adds, "You should not allow special treatment of religion."

"Smearing." Islamic activists also pressured the Danish government to rein in the paper. There, as well, they got nowhere. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he could do nothing that might erode freedom of speech. He also rejected a request to meet with Muslim-country ambassadors who complained about a "smearing campaign" against Islam and Muslims by Danish politicians and media.

Lacking clout in Denmark, some of the local imams decided to export the controversy. Two missions were dispatched to the Middle East to publicize the cartoons and the Danish government's uncompromising response. Some Arab ambassadors in Copenhagen also played up the controversy. Within weeks, violence flared on the streets of the Middle East, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Indonesiaˆsome of it orchestrated by national governments and Islamists, according to both Danish and U.S. officials. "The Danes didn't know what hit them," says a senior U.S. official. The Bush administration at first reacted cautiously, hoping not to do anything that might align itself with religiously offensive drawings and further harm its own standing in the Islamic world. Then the shaken Danes complained to their American allies that they were not getting enough public support. They got it.

Though Denmark itself saw no violence, the images of deadly mobs burning Danish flags deepened the sense of threat from Islamists, wherever they may be. But the crisis did not lead to any rethinking of the government's strategy for integrating Muslims. "We have to agree on some fundamental values," says Rikke Hvilshoj, the integration minister. "Denmark is not just a piece of geography where we live side by side." In power since 2001, the current government has tightened the immigration rules that affect many Muslims, slicing arrivals in the categories of family reunification and asylum from more than 17,000 that year to fewer than 5,000 in 2005. A foreign spouse must now be at least 24 before legally coming to live in Denmark; benefits for newcomers were reduced, and collateral was required for their support. At the same time, overall immigration, especially from within Europe, is rising.

The government's moves, at the least, have sought to give Danes a breather from rapid immigration. After years of policy neglect, Hvilshoj says, "the number [was] too high. ... we needed to get control of immigration." The government is stepping up efforts to reduce immigrant unemployment and emphasizing success stories, sending "role models" into Muslim communities.

The governing coalition has a persuasive reason not to soften its stand on immigration: It needs the tacit backing of the right-wing Danish People's Party to stay in power. With 13 percent of the seats in parliament, it appears to wield more influence than any other such party in Europe. Critics accuse it of outright xenophobia, a charge it rejects. But Danes know where the group stands in the culture wars. Its party chairwoman has called Islamic leaders here the "Trojan horse in Denmark," and another lawmaker's website referred to Muslims as "cancer tumors." The party aims to keep Denmark the way it is. "We don't want to change our ways. They [immigrants] have to adapt their ways," says Soren Espersen, a prominent People's Party lawmaker. Espersen likens political Islamists to communists and Nazis and says they aim to limit Denmark's democracy. "There are people now who want to tell us what we can laugh at," he says. "I don't want to respect Islam. Why should I respect the prophet Muhammad?"

There is political combat within Denmark's Muslim communities as well. Ahmed Abu Laban, an imam who leads Copenhagen's Muslim Faith Society, tells U.S. News that he helped organize the foreign missions publicizing the Muhammad cartoons in order to counter "an anti-Islamic campaign." Says Laban, "We have been demonized for six, seven, eight yearsˆthen the cartoons." Laban adds, "The Danes don't like religion, and they don't like Islam. ... I see nothing bad in this country except the spirit itself." Many Danes now loathe Laban as a virtual traitor for having promoted the controversy overseas.

Bodyguards. Laban dismisses a recent political initiative by moderates to form the group Democratic Muslims, calling it a "fake approach." The leader of the new group, a secular Muslim lawmaker named Naser Khader, needs 24-hour-a-day bodyguards. His effort is popular with Danes, but hard-line Muslims like Laban call Khader a "shield" for the Danes and vilify him. The group makes it "very difficult to say, 'You Muslims,'" says Khader. "We are democratic without any reservations. ... We are Danes first and Muslims second." Naser says that the Islamists consider secular Muslims like himself as their principal enemy. "They are seen as more dangerous than Christians and Jews," he says. Still, only 14 percent of Danish Muslims back his group, according to a recent poll.

Meanwhile, Danes are edgy about growing Muslim radicalismˆa development that is not quantified but is almost universally suspected. The primary threat to Denmark may be external: Its sturdy support for the Bush administration, including troop commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the cartoon case has raised its profile in the Muslim worldˆin a most unwelcome way. A poll of Egyptians rated Denmark as the second-most-hostile country after Israel. Officials have tallied some 200 threats against Denmark, including one from al Qaeda during the cartoon crisis.

Yet there are worries about what is happening inside Denmark as well. Two terrorism cases are headed for trial. One involves arrests in October 2005 of alleged militants in a Copenhagen suburb said to be connected to a Sarajevo-based plot against European forces in Bosnia or elsewhere. The other case emerged from police raids into an immigrant neighborhood near the city of Odense last September. Investigators uncovered supplies of ammonium nitrate, metal shavings, and the explosive TATP. Five of the nine arrested are still jailed for allegedly planning attacks that authorities say would have been "the most severe ever in Denmark."

Security agents enjoy wide latitude for spying on suspected extremists, and they employ that most Danish of practices: the "preventive visit." According to Hans Jorgen Bonnichsen, the former head of operations at the Danish Security Intelligence Service, the "knock on the door" sometimes leads to tense conversations, but more often they are "friendly." "It's a way to tell him, 'Be careful. We know what you're doing now,'" Bonnichsen says. The visits can serve to neutralize a suspect because his cohorts then cannot know whether he has turned informer. The Intelligence Service has more than doubled its size since 9/11, adding Arabic speakers and analysts.

Still, Danes talk as though it is only a matter of time before they are hit, and the alienation Muslims feel from unemployment, discrimination, and being portrayed as radicals may be feeding the danger. The government's philosophy is "always pushing these immigrants away," argues Fatih Alev, a moderate imam. "The government says it wants integration, but what it does is anti-integration." Adds Jensen, the religious historian, "They are constantly put under suspicion of being fifth-column people." He asks, "Are we contributing to the production of terrorists?" For the happy but wary Danes, it is a question as essential as it is grating.

Iraqi Police Learn Rule of Law, Concept of Tolerance
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26, 2007 – A U.S. military police brigade deployed in Baghdad is teaching Iraqi police about democratic principles such as tolerance in addition to law enforcement skills, the unit's commander said today.

"Our fundamental role here is to support the Iraqi security forces as the Iraqi government moves forward towards securing the populace," Army Col. Michael S. Galloucis, commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade, told Pentagon reporters during a satellite-telecast news conference.

Galloucis said his unit is focused on training local Iraqi police and not the national police, which are instructed by other coalition forces.

The Civilian Police Assistance Training Team is another U.S. military organization that trains Iraqis attending the Baghdad Police College, the Jordanian Police Training Center in Amman, Jordan, and another training academy in Numaniyah, located south of Baghdad, he said.

"We work very closely with CPATT all the time, and the training that we do at the local station level builds upon their efforts," Galloucis said, noting his brigade includes airmen as well as soldiers.

Galloucis said his people serve as instructors, coaches and mentors. They assist the Iraqi police as they develop organizations, procedures and skills necessary to serve and protect the people of Iraq under the rule of law.

Iraqi police learn concepts of freedom and democracy in addition to policing skills, Galloucis said. Instructors discuss the importance of free speech, the value of diversity, the sanctity of human life, and the notions of tolerance, restraint and forgiveness, he said.

Iraqi police also learn "that nothing good ever comes out of hatred and murder," Galloucis said, noting Iraq's citizens acknowledge the importance of establishing a constabulary that operates according to principles of fairness and justice.

The Iraqi police are improving rapidly as they work side by side with their American counterparts across Baghdad, Galloucis said.

"They are making tremendous strides over here and are out there every day putting it all on the line to help turn the tide and stem the flow of violence that has been so prevalent here," the colonel said.

Yet, dampening the level of violence in Iraq's capital city won't occur overnight, Galloucis warned, pointing to Iraq's complex social and political environment. "We see here gradual movement, gradual progress, and it just is going to take time," the colonel said, noting Iraq was run by a brutal dictator for 30 years.

"There are a lot of people in this country that have responsibilities for trying to stop the violence that we see," Galloucis said. "The Iraqi police are one part of that."

The colonel described the current climate in Baghdad as "dynamic and dangerous." However, senior Iraqi officials are determined to rebuild Iraq and protect its citizens, he said.

"By enhancing the capabilities of the Iraqi police, we are helping set the conditions for more Iraqi self reliance," Galloucis explained.

Iraqis are tired of violence and are eager to embrace a system of accountability and justice that treats all citizens with dignity and respect, the colonel said.

The colonel cited the "superb" courage and commitment demonstrated by his soldiers and airmen. He also praised the contributions of U.S. military members in Iraq. Their selfless service benefits Americans at home as well as Iraqis, he said.

U.S. servicemembers "truly are making a difference here in Iraq," Galloucis sai