Late last year, my colleague Blake Hounshell and I sat down with Anwar Ibrahim here in Washington, where he was attending a conference on inter-religious understanding. The Malaysian opposition leader (who is #32 one of our Top Global Thinkers of 2009) is today in a very different setting: the beginning of his trial for charges of sodomy that he says are politically motivated. Here are a few excerpts from that interview, including his thoughts on democracy, religion, and being an opposition figure.

FP: One criticism in the United States of the Muslim world is, people will say: the Muslim world is not addressing its own problems; The Muslim world is more likely to blame America for what is going on then to do soul searching about the state of discourse in Islam today. What is your response to that?

Anwar Ibrahim: I just answer, be equally responsible. You can't just erase a period of imperialism and colonialism. You have to deal, you can't erase, for example, the fault lines, the bad policies, the failed policies, the war in Iraq for example, and ambivalence you support dictators inside the top democracy. ...This night [in Malaysia], [there are] emails [circulating within] the national media, the government television network. They will  start a 5 to 7 minute campaign: Anwar is in the United States, he is a lackey of the Americans, he is pro-Jew. Period. And they go on with impunity, [as they have done] for the last 11 years. Because they want to deflect from the issue of repression, endemic corruption, destruction of the institutions of governance.

There is a difference. You [the United States] have Abu Ghraib and it is exposed -- and the media went to town. The atrocities in the Muslim world, in our prisons, [and I am] not talking about my personal experience, [are] all knitted up.

What we need is credible voice in the Muslim world, independent. Some liberal Muslims become so American in their views, so Western. I don't think you should do that. Americans need to appreciate the fact that I am a Muslim, there don't need to be apologies for that. But at the same time we must have the courage to address the inherent weaknesses within Muslim societies.

FP: When was it that you first decided this debate between religion was something you wanted to be a part of?

AI: In Malaysia, [this] is so critical. [It's] a multi racial country, a religious country. [There is a] Muslim majority of 55 percent, then Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians of various domination. I grew up being involved in the Muslim youth work, even when I was a student, engaging in this.  The Vatican supported the East Asian Christian Conference at the time and we started having these discussions. My initial work in the youth work when I was leading the Malaysia youth counsel which is an umbrella of all the Hindu youth and the Buddhist youth and the Christian youth. I benefited immensely ... we started engaging them. ... Then of course there was tolerance when we hosted a conference; they were mindful of the Hindus were strictly vegetarian or if the Christian organized, they were aware we did not eat pork or drink.

When I was I government the Muslim Christian dialogue was promoted, in fact I supported the program. There was a Muslim Christian center in Georgetown and we went to New Manila University. The majority of the Malaysians non-Muslims are not Christians but Confucianists, so we brought in Professor Tu Wei-ming one of the Chinese scholars of Confucianism from Harvard to come and tell us about Confucianism and we tell him about Islam. There is so much in common between Confucianism and Islam.

FP: How do you balance your life as a thinker and a politician?

AI: People do suggest that, but I quite disagree. Of course you simplify the arguments but the same arguments, the central thesis remains constant but the way you articulate it may differ. People say, Anwar you are opportunistic, how can you talk about Islam and the Quran here and then you talk about Shakespeare there and then quote Jefferson or Edmond Burke. I say it depends on the audience. [If] I go to a remote village, of course I talk about the Quran. In Kuala Lumpur ,and you quote T.S Eliot. If I quote the Quran all the time, to a group of lawyers, I am a mullah from somewhere.

[Some] think because I do court [Islamic votes] these days they think I am a Islamist. [But] you ask the question -- is it true, Anwar, that you are sound and consistent in your views and you are not actually a closet Islamist? I say, Why do you say that? [The] six years [I spent in] prison is not enough? And they say no, but you engage with the Islamists, and I said yes.

Like Bill Easterly, I think David Brooks goes a bit too far here:

Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism. But so does Barbados, and Barbados is doing pretty well. Haiti has endured ruthless dictators, corruption and foreign invasions. But so has the Dominican Republic, and the D.R. is in much better shape. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island and the same basic environment, yet the border between the two societies offers one of the starkest contrasts on earth — with trees and progress on one side, and deforestation and poverty and early death on the other.

As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book “The Central Liberal Truth,” Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.

We’re all supposed to politely respect each other’s cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.

"Dictators, corruption and foreign invasions," it seems to me, vastly understates the political turmoil of Haitian history. Haiti has experienced 34 coups in its history -- an average of one every six years. There's simply no way to develop institutions under those conditions.

Brooks' analysis also seems to assume that all dictators are created equal. While the Dominican Republic's late 20th century dictators Rafael Trujillo (who played a not insignificant role in Haiti's tragic history) and Joaquín Balaguer were certainly brutal, they did at least demonstrate some interest in building that coutry's infrastructure, unlike the Duvaliers whose most lasting contribution to Haiti's infrastructure was probably the  98 percent deforestation that makes Haiti's hurricanes so deadly. 

Unlike Haiti, he Dominican Republic has also had a continuous, if flawed, democracy for the last three decades. Haiti's 2004 Hurricane hit just a month after the coup at Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the interim government was in no position to govern under the best of circumstances. Food riots and the four hurricanes of 2008 followed before the earthquake delivered the knockout punch. Skipping immediately to culture and religion while skipping over other factors, particularly political turmoil, seems far too simplistic. 

As for why Haiti has never had good governance, there's certainly no simple answer, and I think Tyler Cowen is right to ask, "Is it asking too much to wish for an economics [or political science, or journalism] profession that is obsessed with such a question?"

Jamal Saghir, the director of the energy, transport, and water programs at the World Bank responds to a Foreign Policy article by Phil Radford, the executive director of Greenpeace USA.

Mr. Radford's recent column "Banking on Coal" provides a highly misleading and inaccurate picture of the World Bank Group's efforts to help countries fight poverty and develop energy sustainably.

He asserts that the World Bank Group is funding coal projects to the detriment of renewable energy (RE). Wrong. Our RE and energy efficiency (EE) financing levels are at historic highs -- over 40 percent of total fiscal year 2009 energy financing.

He says the Bank has been increasingly subsidizing coal projects. Wrong. Our fossil fuel share of financing has been declining for years, and two thirds of our fossil fuel financing is for natural gas, the cleanest fuel for base-load supply. Mr. Radford cites 2008 as a big year for coal financing, but neglects to mention that in fiscal year 2009 our coal financing then dropped 62 percent. Mr. Radford says that Bank fossil fuel financing is twice what we finance in RE/EE projects. Wrong again. In fiscal year 2009 we financed more RE/EE projects (over 40 percent) than fossil fuels (about 32 percent).

Over the last six years, coal represented 7.5 percent of all World Bank Group financing for energy. In some years it was as low as one or two percent. And fully a third of the spending on coal is to clean up inefficient, polluting old plants, something that surely Greenpeace would not want us to stop.

Mr. Radford criticizes the Bank's recently released draft energy strategy. We haven't issued a draft strategy. What we are doing is consulting in an open way with key stakeholders, including civil society organizations, whose input will help us to write a draft strategy next year.

Mr. Radford's criticisms lack context. He says that the Bank-financed projects are a significant source of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Wrong. Our projects are a minuscule fraction of the global footprint. The new proposed South African project he criticized will use the cleanest super-critical technology and has $750 million in financing for renewable energy and low carbon energy efficiency components that otherwise would not be part of the project.

We're proud to be a leader in advancing environmental financing innovation, such as the Climate Investment Funds ($6.3 billion pledged with $3.2 billion in investment plans already endorsed to support more than $30.5 billion in clean technology projects), the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, climate risk management products, and "Green Bonds."

The bottom line is that for our 186 member countries, our primary focus is fighting poverty. There are 1.6 billion people living today without access to electricity. Under very limited, case-by-case situations with strict criteria, and when alternative lower-carbon technologies are not immediately available, we will support least cost, carbon-based energy solutions. And we will do this as an interim measure while we continue to help a country prepare for a cleaner energy development path in the medium term.

The Indian plant he references will have lower emissions than the average for OECD countries (2005). Turning away from South African or Indian aspirations for affordable energy means turning away from energy for schools and hospitals and homes in those countries. It's particularly ironic for Mr. Radford in the United States to criticize our very modest portfolio when half of U.S. electricity comes from coal. While the World Bank Group is working to support low carbon paths, Mr. Radford advocates a double standard that will help ensure poor countries will not cooperate in addressing global climate change.

The World Bank Group is committed to fighting poverty and supporting economic growth and opportunity in a sustainable manner. Our increased lending for renewable energy and energy efficiency and our innovative financing demonstrates that we are serious about it.

See the World Bank's climate site here. 

John Moore/Getty Images

This afternoon, the New America Foundation hosted "The New Forgotten War," a talk about the future of Iraq. It featured Ad Melkert, the special representative for the U.N. secretary-general in Iraq.

Melkert, a former Dutch member of parliament, remains cautiously optimistic about Iraq's future, with an emphasis on the cautious part. The good news is that security in Iraq is better than it was two years ago. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been able to confront violence in the southern part of the country, Melkert said. As a result of the safer state, investment is starting to rise, but it still has a long way to go. Corruption, the terrible infrastructure, and legal concerns hamper Iraq's ability to draw serious investment.

One serious problem for the nascent state is budgetary, Melkert said. When oil prices are high, the government spends all of its revenue, but when they fall, they have to slash the budget.

Further, Iraq is still under dozens of UN chapter seven sanctions, stemming from Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. The current leadership says these sanctions need to be lifted because they were implemented against Hussein and not the current government.

These problems could potentially be amplified in the coming months and years as foreign security forces draw down in the country. Melkert said that one of two things will happen. Either the Iraqi forces will somehow maintain order, or the insurgents will attack as soon as the United States leaves. Right now, police officers, public servants, and UN workers and buildings remain prime targets.

New America Foundation/Flickr

It was reported last week that attacks on and kidnappings of aid workers in Chad have caused six aid organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, to suspend operations there. Undeterred, this morning the top U.N. official in Chad announced "positive signs on the horizon," predicting increased peace and stabilization in the country.

This isn't the first time violence has driven away aid groups: in May, 2008, the head of the Eastern Chad mission of British aid organization Save the Children was shot and killed. At first, the organization announced that it would continue working in the country, but five months after the killing ultimately decided to leave.

At this point, the situation doesn't seem that dire with regards to the ICRC: In an interview, Bernard Barrett, an ICRC spokesman, said, "We're not pulling out totally. We're suspending some activities -- we're maintaining life-saving services, particularly medical services." The organization's other work in Chad ranges from water sanitation projects to animal vaccinations; hardly trivial work, particularly given the persistent lack of food security. As far as resuming these activities, Barrett reports a wait-and-see scenario. "Once we've obtained the release of our delegate who was kidnapped, at that point we'll be able to ascertain the security situation," he says.

Chad is a country in dire need of help. Last May, Doctors Without Borders led the effort to combat an outbreak of meningitis, immunizing 7.5 million people in the region. DWB is another organization that has been driven to suspend operations in Chad because of the recent violence. It's terrible to contemplate how many deaths might have resulted from the 65,000 cases of infection in and around Chad had DWB left just six months earlier.  

The violence that has hindered desperately needed assistance ultimately stems from poor governance, said Richard Downie in an interview with FP. According to Downie, a fellow with the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "Until you have credible political parties and some sort of civil society developing, it's hard to see the long-term prospects of Chad looking bright."

That sort of civil society seems a ways off. Chad ranks 173 out of the 180 countries surveyed in Transparency International's 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index, just three spots up from Afghanistan. And the country's heavily oil-dependent economy has only reinforced the political maladies that accompany "the devil's excrement."

It's tough to avoid Downie's conclusion: "I don't see a long-term solution to what's going on in Chad at the moment without much more engagement from the international community."

Photo:  FRANCESCO FONTEMAGGI/AFP/Getty Images

On Sunday, the New York Times published an article exposing problems with the wildly popular microfinance organization Kiva, a person-to-person lending site whose virtues Oprah Winfrey and Nicholas Kristof have extolled.

Most people thought Kiva works like this: Entrepreneurs in poor countries explain their need for a small loan on the site. Then, donors select a project they support, give an amount of their choosing, and watch the donations tally up on the page. Kiva trumpeted that "the people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals."

That was true. But it really works much differently, David Roodman of the Center for Global Development figured out. Kiva doesn't take dollars from one person and send them directly to another. All of the recipients are vetted, approved, and given loans by another organization -- then put on the site after the fact. Roodman wrote a meticulous (and ultimately complimentary) blog post debunking Kiva's story of itself and touched a nerve, ginning up thousands of comments and spurring the start-up to respond.

The problem wasn't just that Kiva misrepresented itself as a person-to-person microlender -- but that Kiva misrepresented itself as a hypertransparent organization. The information about the financial pathways was on the site, sure, but you had to dig around to find it.

Kiva has responded by changing the language on its site and clarifying the loan process. I'm happy to see it becoming more accountable and transparent, particularly as it becomes a larger organization. (Just this month, it lent its one-hundred-millionth dollar.)

But, at the end of the day, a $10 donation backstopping a pre-existing loan to a Colombian farmer doesn't seem so different to me than a $10 donation helping create a loan for that Colombian farmer. And if pooling the donated funds helps keep overhead costs down (high overhead being the main argument against person-to-person direct microlending), I'm all for that.

A World Bank research paper posted today finds that countries with a high proportion of young males with low levels of secondary education are significantly more conflict-prone. The combination of these "youth bulges" and low rates of secondary education is especially likely to lead to conflict in low- and middle-income countries, the authors also report. The findings focus particularly on Sub-Saharan Africa, as "the continent with the largest youth cohorts and the lowest levels of male secondary education, scoring on average nearly 30 percentage points lower than the world average."

Countries outside of the region also call for concern. In Syria, for example, males 14 years old and younger make up nearly 20 percent of the population. Only 39.1 percent of secondary school-aged students are enrolled in school, making it the 101st lowest-ranking country of 135 surveyed. In the long run, Syria is facing declining oil production and rapid population growth - a recipe for violent unrest.

The policy implications are clear. Programs that focus on primary education, like the U.N.'s Education for All and Millennium Development Goals programs are important (after all, students have to read and write before they can pursue secondary schooling), but there must be more support for programs like the World Bank's own Secondary Education in Africa initiative.

The total cost of a secondary education in Kenya is estimated at $6,865. A 2007 Oxfam report found that on average a "war, civil war, or insurgency shrinks an African economy by 15 percent," and conflict causes the continent to lose about $18 billion a year. You do the math.

Photo: SONIA ROLLEY/AFP/Getty Images

In a talk given this afternoon at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, retired Gen.  John Abizaid outlined his view of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. He argued that it is foolish to approach issues on a country-by-country basis, complaining that "we look at Iraq through a soda straw. We look at Afghanistan through a soda straw." Instead, says Abizaid, the United States must develop a regional strategy that accounts for the roles of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

For the same reason, he suggested, the debate over whether or not to send more troops to Afghanistan has been over-simplified; the discussion should be broadened to include the relative demands of Iraq, Afghanistan and the region at large.

Abizaid also emphasized the ideological nature of the conflict, and the need for soft power to address the root causes of radicalism. He noted that Baitullah Mehsud, the top Taliban leader, is referred to as "the commander of the faithful."

"While we may chuckle at that title," Abizaid said, "the people fighting for him do not." When asked whether there should be a shift to a counter-terrorism approach in Afghanistan that relies more upon targeted strikes than nation-building, Abizaid responded that such a plan is impractical. Stabilization in Afghanistan and Iraq is a precondition for effective counter terrorist operations, he argued, because it provides the infrastructure needed to develop the "superb, superb intelligence" needed.

The theme of the talk was that instability anywhere in the region is a serious threat to surrounding countries. With our "ground forces spread thin" and "our 24-7 forces totally engaged," the United States must more fully incorporate diplomatic, political and economic plans to get a handle on the region. A number of questions were directed to the resources required for such a broad regional approach, and towards the end of the talk, the retired general was asked if the situation would be better in Afghanistan had the United States not invaded Iraq.

"All's I know is that we did what we did, and we are where we are," he answered.