Hajj season brings good news, hope to Middle East

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- The annual Hajj is drawing to a close in Mecca without any major accident, tragedy or terrorist attack. And across the Middle East, developments look -- at least for the moment -- uncharacteristically positive.

Over the past 30 years the Hajj often has been marred by tragedies such as crowd stampedes. The government of Saudi Arabia, which administers the holy places in Mecca, continually pours billions of dollars per year into ambitious infrastructure programs to improve crowd control and security, but it is always racing against the very success of Islam. Figures of Hajj attendance continue to break records every year. This year, at least 2 million people went on the pilgrimage that every adult Muslim is required to do at least once in his or her life.

There had to be at least some conflict. The Saudi authorities try to keep the Hajj ceremonies and celebrations free of politics, but Iranians predictably tried to squeeze in at least one protest demonstration.

Still the peacefulness, success and record numbers of this Hajj highlighted an expected but welcome trend: Across the Middle East, despite the world economic crisis, things are looking good in a surprising number of places.

The focus of international terror appears to have shifted, at least for the moment, from the Middle East to Central and South Asia. The Taliban continue to make significant gains in Afghanistan, and the pro-Western government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is struggling to rein in the extreme Islamists and mujahedin groups that became deeply embedded in their ties with the Pakistani police and armed forces during the nine-year rule of his predecessor, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama enjoys a wide range of popular support in the Arab nations of the region and in Israel, too. He and his designated secretary of state, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., are expected to launch a major new initiative to try to bring about a lasting Israeli-Palestinian settlement and to strengthen the shaky West Bank state of Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas against the challenge it faces from Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, in Gaza.

Iran has been enfeebled by collapsing global oil prices that are now down to less than 30 percent of their value of midsummer. The Saudis and the Gulf Arab sheikdoms are in a strong position to ride out the oil price crash with their gigantic financial reserves, but Iran is not.

The financial crunch could not come at a worse time for the mullahs in Tehran, with presidential elections coming up. Even the global economic crisis, which is bringing so much woe everywhere else, therefore has been strengthening relative moderates in the Middle East, led by Saudi Arabia, at the expense of the Iranians and their allies.

In Iraq, too, the news has been good rather than bad. Al-Qaida continues to carry out a deadly campaign of mini car bombings, especially aimed at assassinating low-level officials in Baghdad, but violence in the city is still running at a fraction of the level it was two years ago. The United States and the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have agreed on a Status of Forces Agreement. Obama and Maliki met during the summer, and they see eye-to-eye on the future course of a phased American military withdrawal from Iraq.

It is always a mistake to be too optimistic or too confident where the Middle East is concerned. Just when outsiders are sounding more optimistic, major crises tend to explode out of nowhere. But the fact remains that, after so many years of bad news from the region, this Hajj and Christmas season is actually seeing a wave of good news instead. Long may it continue.