by Emile Nakhleh
Bahrain’s national election planned for this Saturday portends no change in the al-Khalifa regime’s anti-Shi’a stance and is yet another futile exercise in sham democracy. Even the mainstream al-Wefaq Shi’a opposition party has decided to boycott the election because of perceived bias in the recently gerrymandered electoral districts.
Most observers view the election as another public relations ploy by the minority Sunni regime to convince the outside world, especially Western countries, that all is well in the tiny kingdom. The regime is betting, perhaps correctly, that the West would not criticize its game of superficial electoral politics because of Bahrain’s participation in the US-led anti-ISIS coalition and Saudi Arabia’s influence in the process.
The regime’s sectarian repression of the Shi’a majority is deeply grounded in the same radical Sunni ideology espoused by Islamic State (ISIS or IS). In fact, extremist Sunni rhetoric has been tolerated in Bahrain in the name of fighting the Shi’a opposition and Iran.
IS enjoys significant backing in Bahrain among some pro-regime Sunni factions. Such ideological support, which is widely spread out among certain Sunni groups in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, is a key driver of IS in Iraq and Syria. This also explains why many IS jihadists come from the family-ruled Gulf states.
Promoting extremist Sunni ideology at home while ostensibly fighting IS in the Levant is a cynical ploy by the Khalifas’ to justify their continued suppression of Shi’a rights and policy of turning a blind eye to the poor living conditions in Shi’a villages and towns. Sitra, a tiny Shi’a island just south of the capital city of Manama, is indeed a world apart from the glitzy Khalifa strongholds in other parts of the island country.
Stoking sectarianism might be a winning strategy in the short term; it is certainly a losing proposition in the long run. It’s equally foolish for the Bahraini regime to believe that Western support, which is currently driven by the war against IS, would be sufficient to save them from the wrath of their people should a radical Shi’a uprising erupt.
Wefaq and the Election
The regime, and US policymakers for that matter, should take Wefaq’s boycott of the election very seriously. As a mainstream opposition political party, Wefaq has been willing to cooperate with the Sunni regime under the umbrella of the Khalifas as long as genuine reform is implemented.
For the party, meaningful reform includes free elections; reinstating the 1973 constitution; government accountability (particularly at the level of the prime minister); ending economic, political, and employment discrimination, especially in security and defense; and halting illegal arrests, trials, and convictions.
In fact, Wefaq supported the reform initiative of then-Emir Hamad in 2001-02 and endorsed the so-called National Charter believing that Hamad was committed to genuine reform. Several opposition figures came back from exile to cooperate with the new initiative.
Unfortunately, however, the only “reform” that resulted from Hamad’s initiative was changing the name of the country to the “Kingdom of Bahrain” and replacing his title of “Emir” with “King.” The reform initiative stalled because of opposition from Prime Minister Khalifa and the “Khawalids” in the office of the emir in Gulf countries, and defense, and judicial branches of government.
Overturning the Bahraini regime’s unconstitutional step of stripping Shi’a citizens of their citizenship has become a key reform demand for Wefaq. Despite the constitutional prohibition, a total of 40 Bahrainis have been stripped of their citizenship in the past two years—31 in November 2012 and nine in August 2014.
Article 17 of the Bahraini constitution states that a Bahraini citizen “cannot be stripped of his nationality except in case of treason. It is prohibited to banish a citizen from Bahrain or prevent him from returning to it.” Article 18 states, “People are equal in human dignity, and citizens are equal before the law in public rights and duties.”
Wefaq is the largest, most prominent and pragmatic opposition political party in the country. Its 18 members resigned from parliament three years ago to protest the draconian measures the ruling family has adopted against the opposition, particularly the Shi’a community.
Wefaq believes the regime will use the skewed election results to justify its massive human rights violations and continued campaign of harassment, arrests, and illegal detentions. Wefaq and other opposition groups—including Wa’d, al-Tajjamu,’ and al-Ikha’—decided to boycott the election, refusing to take part in what some of them call a pseudo-democratic political charade.
Jamil Kathim, who heads Wefaq’s Shura Council, said the election “does not represent the popular will and will not provide security for the country.” Matar Ibrahim Matar, a former Wefaq Member of Parliament who is currently living in Washington, DC, called on the government to postpone the election “until a national path forward has been agreed on.”
The opposition groups also urged King Hamad to “seek a national consensus to resolve the serious national issues that have bedeviled the nation since 2011 before holding elections.”
The mainstream opposition includes several leading figures with whom the regime could work with if it’s seriously interested in becoming more inclusive. These include Ali Salman, Secretary General of Al-Wifaq, Jamil Kathim, Abd al-Jalil al-Khalil, Ali al-Marzook, Matar Ibrahim Matar, Jasim Hussain, Mansoor al-Jamri, Nabil Rajab, Lamis Dhaif, Maryam al-Khawaja, Ali al-Ikri, and several others.
The regime, in defiance, has gone all out to publicize the elections based on Crown Prince Salman’s so-called “Common Ground” framework. In addition to “Electoral Districts,” the other four parts of the framework include “Legislative Authority,” “Cabinet Formation,” “Judicial Reform,” and “Security.”
Is There a Way Forward?
The regime is pressing ahead with the election while ignoring the pragmatic demands of the opposition. Human rights Watch and Human Rights First have frequently identified the egregious human rights violations committed by the regime against innocent civilians and political activists.
But Bahrain has waged a fierce public relations campaign to dissuade Western governments from raising the human rights issue in the country. The Khalifa regime has used an army of “access” academics, former diplomats, retired senior military officers, corporate executive think-tankers, and pliant media influential figures to act as informal advisers to “lobby” policymakers in Western capitals on behalf of the Bahraini regime.
What we are seeing now is a minority Sunni regime refusing to share the political process with the country’s Shi’a majority on the basis of fairness, equity, and justice. If the United States believes continued tensions in Bahrain and in the wider Gulf are harmful to its strategic regional interests, it cannot remain oblivious to these violations and to the possibility of radicalization in Bahrain.
Due to the Khalifas’ refusal to seriously act on the concerns of the country’s Shi’a majority, the elections on Saturday will not move the reconciliation process forward. Washington may be hoping to stabilize its relations with Iran through an agreement on the nuclear issue and to understand the regional factors that led to the rise of IS to speed up its defeat, but the growing chance of vicious sectarianism in Bahrain could undermine its search for regional stability.
]]>by Emile Nakhleh
The international media is currently mesmerized by the advance of Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) on the Syrian city of Kobani near the Turkish border, but Arab states and the US need to look beyond Kobani’s fate and Daesh’s territorial successes and defeats. The crumbling Levant poses a greater danger than Daesh and must be addressed—first and foremost by the states of the region.
The British colonial term, Levant, encompasses modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine, with a total population of over 70 million people. The population—mostly young, unemployed or underemployed, poor, and inadequately educated—has lost trust in its leaders and the governing elites.
The Levant has become a bloody playground for other states in the greater Middle East, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Iran, and Turkey. While dislocations in the Levant could be contained, the regional states’ involvement has transformed the area into an international nightmare. The resulting instability will impact the region for years to come regardless of Daesh’s short-term fortunes.
The Levantine state has become marginalized and ineffectual in charting a hopeful future for its people, who are drifting away from nationalist ideologies toward more divisive, localized, and often violent manifestations of identity politics. National political identity, with which citizens in the Levant have identified for decades, has devolved mostly into tribal, ethnic, geographic, and sectarian identities.
The crumbling state structure and authority gave rise to these identities, thereby fueling the current conflicts, which in turn are undermining the very existence of the Levantine state.
The three key non-state actors—Daesh, Hezbollah, and Hamas—have been the beneficiaries of the crumbling states, which were drawn up by colonial cartographer-politicians a century ago.
Although the so-called deep security state has been able to maintain a semblance of order around the national capital, the state’s control of territories beyond the capital is fading and is rapidly being contested by non-state actors.
This phenomenon is readily apparent in Baghdad, Damascus, Ramallah, and Gaza, partially so in Beirut, and less so in Amman. Salafi groups, however, are lurking in the background in Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine ready to challenge state authority whenever they sense a power vacuum.
Political systems in the Levant are often propped up by domestic ruling elites, regional states, and foreign powers for a variety of parochial and transnational interests. More and more, these ruling structures appear to be relics of the past. A key analytic question thus presents itself: How long would they survive if outside economic, military and political support dries up?
Levant regimes comprise a monarchy in Jordan; a perennially dysfunctional parliamentary/presidential system in Lebanon; a brutal, teetering dictatorship in Syria; an autocratic presidency in Palestine; and an erratic partisan democracy in Iraq. They have subsisted on so-called rentier or “rent” economies—oil in Iraq, with the rest dependent on foreign aid. Providers of such aid have included Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Iran, Turkey, the United States, the EU, Russia, and others.
Corruption is rampant across most state institutions in the Levant, including the military and the key financial and banking systems. For example, billions of dollars in US aid to Iraq following the 2003 invasion have not been accounted for. According to the New York Times, American investigators in the past decade have traced huge sums of this money to a bunker in Lebanon.
The collapse of the Levant states in the next decade is not unthinkable. Their borders are already becoming more blurred and porous. The decaying environment is allowing violent groups to operate more freely within states and across state boundaries. Daesh is causing havoc in Iraq and Syria and potentially could destabilize Jordan and Lebanon precisely because the Levantine state is on the verge of collapse.
As these states weaken, regional powers—especially Saudi Arabia plus some of its GCC junior partners, Iran, and Egypt—will find it convenient to engage in proxy sectarian and ethnic wars through jihadist and other vigilante mercenaries.
Equally disturbing is that US policy toward a post-Daesh Levant seems rudderless without a strategic compass to guide it. It’s as if US policymakers have no stomach to focus on the “morning after” despite the fact that the airstrikes are proving ineffective in halting Daesh’s territorial advances.
Kobani aside, what should the Arab states and the United States do about the future of the Levant?
1) Iraq. If the Sunnis and Kurds are to be represented across all state institutions in Iraq, regional states with Washington’s help should urge Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to complete the formation of his new government on the basis of equity and fairness. Government and semi-public institutions and agencies must be made accountable and transparent and subject to scrutiny by domestic and international regulatory bodies. Otherwise, Iraq would remain a breeding ground for terrorists and jihadists.
2) Syria. If Washington remains committed to President Bashar al-Assad’s removal, it should end its Russian roulette charade toward the Syrian dictator. Ankara’s view that Assad is more dangerous in the long run than Daesh is convincing and should be accepted and acted upon.
If removing Assad remains a serious policy objective, is the US-led coalition contemplating the implementation of a no-fly zone and a security zone on Syria’s northern border any time soon to facilitate Assad’s downfall?
3) Lebanon. If Hezbollah and other political parties do not play a constructive role in re-establishing political dialogue and stability in Lebanon, it won’t be long before the Daesh wars enter the country. Are there regional and international pressures being put on Hezbollah to end its support of Assad and disengage from fighting in Syria?
The upcoming presidential election would be a useful barometer to assess the key Lebanese stakeholders’ commitment to long-term stability. If no candidate wins a majority, does Washington, in conjunction with its Arab allies, have a clear plan to get the Lebanese parliament to vote for a president?
Unless Lebanon gets its political house in order, religious sectarianism could yet again rear its ugly head in that fragile state and tear the country apart.
4) Palestine. If the Obama administration urges Israel to facilitate a working environment for the Palestinian national unity government, to end its siege of Gaza, and dismantle its 47-year occupation, Palestine would no longer be an incubator of radical ideologies.
An occupied population living in poverty, unemployment, alienation, repression, daily humiliation and hopelessness, and ruled by a corrupt regime is rarely prone to moderation and peaceful dialogue. On the contrary, such a population offers fertile recruiting ground for extremism.
5) Iran and Saudi Arabia. It is in the United States’ interest to engage Iran and Saudi Arabia—the two countries that seem to meddle most in the Levant—in order to stop their proxy wars in the region. These sectarian wars could easily lead to an all-out military confrontation, which would surely suck in the US and other Western powers. Israel would not be able to escape such a conflict either.
The Saudi government claims that it opposes Daesh. Yet one would ask: Why hasn’t the Saudi clerical establishment denounced—forcefully and publicly—Daesh’s ideology and rejected the so-called Islamic State Caliphate? Why is it that thousands of Daesh-jihadists are from Saudi Arabia and neighboring Gulf countries?
6) Development. Since Levant countries face high unemployment, it’s imperative to pursue serious job creation initiatives. Arab states, with Washington’s support, should begin massive technical and vocational education programs and entrepreneurial initiatives in the Levant countries. Young men and women should be trained in vocational institutes, much like the two-year college concept in the United States.
Vocational fields that suffer from shortages in Levant countries include plumbing, carpentry, home construction, electricity, welding, mechanics, automotive services, truck driving, computers and electronics, health services, hotels and tourism, technology management, and TV and computer repairs. Services in these fields are badly needed. But thousands of young men and women have yet to be trained to fulfill these needs.
In addition to vocational training, wealthy Arab countries should help the Levant establish funds for entrepreneurial, job-creation initiatives, and start-ups. A partnership between government and the private sector, with support from the US and other developed countries, could be the engine that drives a new era of job creation and economic growth in the region where the Daesh cancer is metastasizing.
Let’s be clear, the United States has significant leverage to help implement these policies should American leaders decide to do so. Yet one could ask why the US should make such a commitment. If Daesh is primarily a threat to Levantine countries, why can’t they deal with it? These are fair questions but, as we have discovered with Ebola, what happens in Liberia doesn’t stay in Liberia. A crumbling Levant will have ramifications not just for the region but for the United States and the rest of the world as well.
]]>by Emile Nakhleh
In a speech before the United Nations on Wednesday, President Barack Obama offered a rhetorically eloquent roadmap on how to fight the Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS) in Iraq and Syria. He called on Muslim youth to reject the extremist ideology of ISIS and al-Qaeda and work toward a more promising future. Obama repeated the mantra, which we heard from former President George W. Bush, that “the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.”
The group that calls itself the Islamic State must be defeated, but is the counter-terrorism roadmap, which the president laid out in his 40-minute speech, sufficient to defeat the extremist ideology of ISIS, Boko Haram, or al-Qaeda? Despite American and Western efforts to degrade and defeat these deadly and blood-thirsty groups for almost two decades, radical groups continue to sprout in Sunni Muslim societies.
Obama also urged the Arab Muslim world to reject sectarian proxy wars, promote human rights, and empower their people, including women, to help move their societies forward. He again stated that the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is unsustainable and urged the international community to strive for the implementation of the two-state solution.
The president did not, however, adequately address Muslim youth in Western societies who could be susceptible for recruitment by ISIS, al-Qaeda, or other terrorist organizations.
Contradictions
Arab publics will likely see glaring inconsistencies in the president’s speech between his rhetoric and actual policies. They would most likely view much of what he said, especially his global counter-terrorism strategy against ISIS, as another version of America’s war on Islam. Arabs will also see much hypocrisy in the president’s speech on the issue of human rights and civil society.
Although fighting a perceived common enemy, it’s a sad spectacle to see the United States, a champion of human rights, liberty, and justice, cozy up to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Bahrain, serial violators of human rights and infamous practitioners of repression. It’s even more hypocritical when Arab citizens realize that some of these so-called partners have often spread an ideology not much different from what ISIS preaches.
These three regimes in particular have emasculated their civil society and engaged in illegal imprisonment, sham trials, and groundless convictions. They banned political parties—Islamic and secular—and silenced civil society institutions as well as prohibited peaceful protests.
The president praised the role of free press, yet al-Jazeera journalists are languishing in Egyptian jails without any viable justification. The Egyptian government continues to hold thousands of political prisoners without indictments or trials.
In addressing the youth in Muslim countries, Obama told them “Where a genuine civil society is allowed to flourish, then you can dramatically expand the alternatives to terror.”
What implications should Arab Muslim youth draw from the president’s invocation of the virtues of civil society when they see that genuine civil society is not “allowed to flourish” in their societies? Do Arab Muslim youth see real “alternatives to terror” when their regimes deny them the most basic human rights and freedoms?
The Sisi regime has illegally destroyed the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have used the specter of ugly sectarianism to destroy the opposition. They openly and viciously engage in sectarian conflicts even though the president stated that religious sectarianism underpins regional instability.
Human Rights Watch and other distinguished organizations sent a letter to Obama asking him to raise the egregious human rights violations in Egypt when he met with Sisi in New York. Yet in his speech UN speech Wednesday, Egyptian Field Marshall Abdel Fattah el-Sisi expressed hope that the United States would tolerate his atrocious human rights record in the name of fighting ISIS.
Obama should not give Sisi and other Arab autocrats a pass when it comes to their repression and human rights violations just because they joined the American engineered “coalition of the willing” against ISIS.
New Realities
Regardless of how the air campaign against the Islamic State goes, American policymakers will have to begin a serious review of a different Middle East than the one President Barak Obama inherited when he took office. Many of the articles that have been written about ISIS on Lobelog and elsewhere warned about the outcome of this war once the dust settles.
Critics correctly wondered whether opinion writers and experts could go beyond “warning” and suggest a course of policy that could be debated and possibly implemented. If the United States “breaks” the Arab world by forming an anti-ISIS ephemeral coalition of Sunni Arab autocrats, Washington will have to “own” what it had broken.
A road map is imperative if a serious conversation is to commence about the future of the Arab Middle East. But not one deeply steeped in counter-terrorism. The Sunni coalition is a picture-perfect graphic for the evening news, especially in the West, but how should the US deal with individual Sunni states in the coalition after the bombings stop and ISIS melts into the population?
As the United States looks beyond today’s air campaign over Syria and Iraq, American policymakers should realize that ISIS is more than a bunch of jihadists roaming the desert and terrorizing innocent civilians. It’s an ideology, a vision, a sophisticated social media operation, and an army with functioning command and control.
Above all, ISIS represents a view of Islam that is not dissimilar to other strict Sunni interpretations of the Muslim faith that could be found across many Muslim countries, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan. In fact, this narrow-minded, intolerant view of Islam is at the heart of the Wahhabi-Salafi Hanbali doctrine, which Saudi teachers and preachers have spread across the Muslim world for decades.
Nor is this phenomenon unique in the ideological history of Sunni millenarian thinking. From Ibn Taymiyya in the 13th century to Bin Ladin and Zawahiri in the past two decades, different Sunni groups have emerged on the Islamic landscape preaching ISIS-like ideological variations on the theme of resurrecting the “Caliphate” and re-establishing “Dar al-Islam.”
Although the historical lines separating Muslim regions (“Dar al-Islam” or “Abode of Peace”) from non-Muslim regions (“Dar al-Harb” or “Abode of War”) have almost disappeared in recent decades, ISIS, much like al-Qaeda, is calling for re-erecting those lines. Many Salafis in Saudi Arabia are in tune with such thinking.
This is a regressive, backward view, which cannot possibly exist today. Millions of Muslims have immigrated to non-Muslim societies and integrated in those societies to escape this ideology.
If President Obama plans to dedicate the remainder of his term in office to fighting and defeating the Islamic State, he cannot do it by military means alone. He should:
If President Obama does not pursue these tangible policies and use his political capital in this endeavor, his UN speech would soon be forgotten. Degrading and destroying ISIS is possible, but unless Arab regimes move away from autocracy and invest in their peoples’ future, other terrorist groups would emerge.
The American president has over the years given memorable speeches on Muslim world engagement, but unless he pushes for new policies in the region, the Arab Middle East will likely implode with Washington left holding the bag. This is not the legacy President Obama would want to leave behind.
This article was first published by LobeLog and was reprinted here with permission. Follow LobeLog on Twitter and like us on Facebook
]]>As the wobbly anti-ISIS coalition is being formed with American prodding, the Obama administration should take a strategic look at the future of the Arab world beyond the threat posed by the self-declared Islamic State. Otherwise, the United States would be unprepared to deal with the unintended chaos.
Driven by ideological hubris, the Bush administration on the eve of the Iraq war rejected any suggestions that the war could destabilize the whole region and rock the foundations of the Arab nation-state system.
That system, which was mostly created under the colonial Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916, is now being severely stressed. The Obama administration should avoid repeating the tragic mistake of its predecessor. While trying to halt the advance of ISIS by focused airstrikes, and regardless of the coalition’s effectiveness in “degrading” and “defeating” ISIS, President Obama should instruct his senior policymakers to explore possible architectures that could emerge from the ashes of Sykes-Picot.
The stresses and fault lines we are witnessing in the region today could easily lead to implosions tomorrow. Rightly or wrongly, Washington would be blamed for the ensuing mayhem.
As Secretary of State John Kerry shuttles between countries chasing the elusive coalition to fight ISIS, the administration seems to be unclear even about terminology. Is it a war or a multifaceted counter-terrorism strategy against ISIS? Whatever it’s called, if this strategy fails to eradicate the Islamic State and its Caliphate, is there a “Plan B” in the making?
Briefing senior policymakers on the eve of the Iraq war, I pointed out the possible unintended consequences of the invasion. George Tenet, former CIA Director, alludes to several of these briefings in his book, At the Center of the Storm.
One of the briefings discussed the possibility that the Iraq invasion could fundamentally unsettle the 100-year old Arab nation-state system. National identity politics, which heretofore has been managed and manipulated by autocratic regimes—tribal, dynastic, monarchical, and presidential—could unravel if the Bush administration failed to anticipate what could happen following Saddam’s demise.
The artificiality of much of those states and their boundaries would come unhinged under the pressures of the invasion and the unleashing of internal forces that have been dormant. National loyalties would be replaced by religious and sectarian affiliations, and the Shia-Sunni disputes that go back to the 7th century would once again rise to the surface albeit with more violence and bloodshed.
The briefings also emphasized Iraq’s central Islamic dilemma. While for many Sunni Muslims Baghdad represents the golden age of Islam more than 1,200 years ago, Iraq is also the cradle of Shia Islam.
Najaf and Karbala in southern Iraq are sacred for the Shia world because it was there where the fourth Caliph Ali’s son Hussein was “martyred” and buried. Iran, as the self-proclaimed voice of Shia Islam all over the world, is deeply embedded in Iraq and will always demand a central role in the future of Iraq.
Bush administration senior policymakers ignored these warning, arguing Iraqis and other Muslim Arabs would view American and coalition forces as “liberators” and, once the dictator fell, would work together in a spirit of tolerance, inclusion, and compromise. This view, unfortunately, was grounded in the neocons’ imagined ideological perception of the region. As we now know, it was utterly ignorant of ground truths and the social fabric of the different Arab Islamic societies.
Many Bush White House and Defense Department policymakers generally dismissed briefings that focused on the “morning after.” It’s safe to say they cared less about the post-Saddam Middle East than about toppling the dictator.
The region still suffers from those disastrous policies.
ISIS did not emerge in a vacuum, and its transnational ideology, warped as it may be, seems to appeal to Arabs and Muslims who have become disenchanted with the existing political order in Arab lands.
Many citizens view their states as fiefdoms of the ruling elites with no genuine respect for individual rights, personal freedoms, and human dignity. The “securitization” of politics has alienated many young Arabs and is driving them toward extremism.
If the borders between Syria and Iraq are erased by the transnational “Caliphate,” what will become of the borders of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq? Is the Obama administration ready to pick up the pieces when these nation-states disintegrate?
These are the critical questions the Bush administration should have pondered and answered before it invaded Iraq. They are the same questions the Obama administration should ponder and answer before chasing after ISIS in the Iraqi/Syrian desert.
Photo: Then President-elect Barack Obama before taking the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009. Credit: White House/Pete Souza
]]>by Emile Nakhleh
Does repression force Islamic parties to moderate? This is the key question Shadi Hamid raises in his seminal book on political Islam, governance, and Islamist “illiberal” democratic ideology.
Temptations of Power: Islamists & Illiberal Democracy In a New Middle East is a first-rate, thorough, yet controversial study of what drives [...]]]>
by Emile Nakhleh
Does repression force Islamic parties to moderate? This is the key question Shadi Hamid raises in his seminal book on political Islam, governance, and Islamist “illiberal” democratic ideology.
Temptations of Power: Islamists & Illiberal Democracy In a New Middle East is a first-rate, thorough, yet controversial study of what drives political Islam as well as the complex relationship between political Islam and repressive regimes. The focus is on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Tunisia’s Ennahda, and Jordan’s Islamic Action Front.
The book is a welcome primer on contemporary political Islam and should be a required reading for students, academics, policymakers, policy and intelligence analysts, and anyone interested in the contemporary Middle East and the rise of Islamic political parties and movements. The author focuses on mainstream Sunni Islamist movements, the largest and most established of which is the Muslim Brotherhood, traces Islamists’ brush with political power, and examines at length their performance once in power, as in Egypt and Tunisia.
Shadi Hamid, a Fellow at the Brookings Institution, has spent several years interviewing Islamic activists and political party leaders in Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia. He started writing the book before the eruption of the Arab revolutions in 2011 and interviewed numerous senior leaders and thinkers of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, including the deposed Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi. The author’s deep expertise in political Islam’s ideologies, politics, governing style, and tactics is clearly visible in this highly welcome book.
Key Arguments
The author advances several hypotheses, which should keep scholars of political Islam occupied for years to come. Perhaps his most controversial thesis is that regime repression has pushed Islamists “along a more moderate path.” He examines “two distinct phases in the Islamist narrative—one defined by the experience of repression and the other by the democratic openings made possible by the Arab revolutions.”
Islamists’ electoral strategies were carefully developed in order not to arouse the suspicions of the regime, the ruling party, or other non-Islamist parties. By running a limited number of candidates in any particular election, Islamists emphasized their motto of “participation not domination.”
While Islamists opted for elections and political participation in Egypt and Jordan, according to Hamid, they were far from being liberal democrats. The Muslim Brotherhood, for example, views itself not as a traditional political party but as a religious, social, and educational movement or organization.
Despite their active participation in electoral politics, “the goal of Islamist groups is the ‘Islamization’ of society, [which] goes well beyond the political realm.” The author expertly discusses the stages of Islamization, which the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups have pursued to Islamize the individual, the family, and the society at large. Once in power, Islamists have pursued a form of “illiberal democracy” by infringing on the liberties of others. In essence, moderation in the past four decades has not made Islamists liberal democrats.
Islamists have been more comfortable in opposition than in power. Rachid Ghannouchi, head of the Tunisian Enmahda, according to the author, warned Islamists that they would be “loved by the people before they get to power and then hated afterward.”
The book’s central argument, which is perhaps the most controversial as well, is that regime tolerance of the opposition, including allowing more political freedoms, did not necessarily lead to moderating policies promoted by Islamists. On the contrary, the author asserts, “increasing levels of repression, rather than resulting in radicalization, can have amoderating effect on Islamist groups, pushing them to reconsider and redefine their policy priorities.”
Islam, Politics, and Ideology
As governing parties, Islamists have sought popular support for their policies by moving to the center. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) preached that “freedom and Islamization were not opposed but rather went hand in hand.” In the hundreds of hours of interviews, which the author conducted with MB activists and leaders, he sought to understand how and why Islamists adopted more moderate ideologies when they actually gained state power.
He challenges the prevailing view in academic literature, which states that Islamists moderate in response to “political participation and inclusion.” He tosses out the accepted “inclusion-moderation” hypothesis and the so-called “pothole theory of democracy” which maintain that when in power Islamists tend to focus on bread-and-butter issues and less on ideology. Hamid strongly argues that engaging Islamists, either on the part of the ruling regime or by outside actors, does not automatically push them to moderate.
This is a radical challenge not only to academic theorizing about Islamists’ political strategies but also to Western governments’ policies of Muslim world engagement, especially since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Policy makers in Western countries have urged authoritarian regimes in the Arab Muslim world to open up their political systems and allow mainstream Islamists to contest the political space. Regimes are told that as Islamists experience more freedom and less repression, they would move away from radicalization and extremism and move toward the moderate center.
By contrast, the author argues that, when faced with extreme repression and the threat of eradication by the regime, Islamists tend to moderate. Despite continued regime repression and the massive arrests and convictions of MB leaders, the Muslim Brotherhood’s commitment to democratic politics has remained unshakeable. The MB followed a similar policy during Mubarak’s repressive regime. In the 1980s and 1990s, the MB formed political alliances with other parties in order to elect some of their members to the national legislature—first, with the Wafd Party and then with the Labor Socialist Party. Later on, MB parliamentary candidates ran for elections as independents.
Despite Egypt’s “turn to repression” in the 1990s, the MB continued to participate in parliamentary elections and to reach out to the West with their message of moderation, pragmatism, pluralism, and inclusion. In response to regime accusations in the 1990s depicting the Islamists as “regressive and close-minded,” the MB submitted more detailed statements to the public and to the outside world emphasizing their commitment to pragmatism and inclusion. The MB’s 1994 statement included sophisticated analysis of their commitment to pluralism, inclusion, women’s rights, and minority (read Christian) rights.
The last chapter “The Past and Future of Political Islam,” offers a brilliant analysis of the political ideology of political Islam, the recent experiences of political Islamists, and the lessons the region and the international community should take from these experiences. Although the MB committed huge political and ideological errors in its first year in office under Mohamed Morsi, it would be naïve and shortsighted to see the experience as a failure of political Islam itself. Although Morsi’s failure resulted from policies of a specific Islamist party in a particular country under unique circumstances, it could offer instructive lessons to other Islamist political parties that aspire to govern.
Concluding Comment
Sophisticated as this book is, the author did not establish a convincing causal relationship between repression and moderation and whether Islamists’ moderation was a response to regime repression or a strategy for survival.
For example, why was the MB “forced” to moderate, as Hamid puts it? If MB Islamists were “forced to moderate by their circumstance,” did those circumstances include regime repression, popular calls for democracy, the fear of liquidation by the regime, or a desire to win elections? Did the Islamists’ moderation reflect liberal tendencies or an innate desire to survive under repression? Were the frequent compromises the MB in Egypt and the Islamic Action Front in Jordan made in response to regime repression a sign of moderation or a strategy for survival? Was the shift the Muslim Brotherhood made toward political participation in the mid-1990s tactical or strategic? These critical questions are too often left begging.
Hamid does an excellent job, on the other hand, in discussing the role of foreign actors, especially the United States, in the MB’s evolving stance on democratic politics.
]]>by Emile Nakhleh
Much blame could go around regarding the current chaos in Iraq and the recent territorial gains of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Four contributing factors stand out:
The 2003 decision by the Bush administration to dissolve the Iraqi army and “debaathify” the country (ban the Baath [...]]]>by Emile Nakhleh
Much blame could go around regarding the current chaos in Iraq and the recent territorial gains of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Four contributing factors stand out:
Senior US diplomat Paul Bremer’s decision in 2003 to dissolve the Iraqi army and to debaathify the country, with the approval of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, was disastrous. Overnight, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and thousands of officers, many of whom were Sunni Muslims, found themselves on the streets without a job and with a debilitating loss of influence and status. Their anger fueled the first insurgency.
Most Iraqis were expected to hold Baath party membership under Saddam Hussein if they desired a position in the government and in the private sector, including education, health services, and corporations. Bremer’s decision to lay off these people because of their party affiliation produced millions of unemployed Iraqis — angry, alienated, desperate, and willing to carry arms against the new Shia-dominated power structure and the US occupation.
According to media reports and published memoirs, Vice President Cheney and his top advisers, including David Addington and Scooter Libby, believed on the eve of the invasion that Iraqis would view the US military as liberators, not occupiers.
They failed to realize at the time that Iraqis’ dislike for Saddam did not automatically translate into love of foreign occupation. Debaathification and dissolving the army created a “perfect storm,” which explains what’s happening in Iraq today.
Prime Minister Maliki has pursued a narrow-minded partisan policy, which excludes anyone — Sunni and Shia — who does not belong to his Dawa Party. Visitors to his office would be hard-pressed to find any senior employee without party affiliation.
Contrary to American advice, Maliki refused to keep thousands of Sunni tribesmen, who were involved in the “Awakening,” on the government payroll. Here again, thousands of these tribesmen who received regular incomes from the American military became unemployed.
Not surprisingly, they became the backbone of the second insurgency against the Maliki government.
Maliki misjudged his countrymen thinking that they would tolerate a regime based on divisiveness, sectarianism, systemic corruption, and a budding dictatorship. He promoted sectarianism even among the senior military officer corps and promoted party allegiance over competence and experience.
He thought mistakenly that for geopolitical reasons, both the United States and Iran would continue to support him despite his poor policies. This support is now tepid at best; even mainstream Shia political leaders are calling for his removal.
Maliki has clearly reached a dead end and should be replaced. Following the US departure, he failed to lead Iraq into a more inclusive and stable country. Key regional and international actors no longer believed his accusations that his critics were “terrorists.”
ISIS’ territorial advances, as were dramatically depicted on television screens around the world, highlight the disintegration of some divisions within the Iraqi army. It’s an embarrassment not only for the Iraqi army, but also more significantly for the US military, which trained these units.
Depicting ISIS’ sudden success as another case of “intelligence failure” is tempting. In reality, the US military had inadequate knowledge of the loyalties, commitment, professionalism, and sectarianism of the Iraqi military. Abandoning their uniforms and weapons and refusing to fight for their country meant Iraqi officers did not believe in what they were fighting for or their mission. Billions of dollars spent by the US on training these units went to naught.
Washington’s failure to bring about the fall of Assad early on has also emboldened Sunni militants to fight in Syria. “Jihadists” from across the globe, including from Western countries, descended on Syria for the same cause. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and other Gulf countries have funded these groups.
Bashar al-Assad’s self-fulfilling prophecy that terrorism is the main enemy in Syria has come home to roost, not only in Syria, but also in Iraq.
The way forward
A failed state in Syria and a dismembered Iraq could push the entire Middle East toward sectarian wars and instability, which could in turn unsettle oil markets and rattle the global economy. Before the 2003 invasion, former Secretary of State Colin Powell warned President George W. Bush of the Pottery Barn rule. The United States pushed Iraq into this mess; it’s time Washington owns what it broke.
This article was first published by LobeLog and was reprinted here with permission. Follow LobeLog on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
Photo: Demonstrators carry al-Qaeda flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq on June 16, 2014.
by Emile Nakhleh
The Bahraini Arabic language newspaper al-Wasat reported on April 9 that a Cairo court began to consider a case brought by an Egyptian lawyer against Qatar accusing it of being soft on terrorism. The “terrorism” charge is of course a euphemism for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt, Saudi [...]]]>
by Emile Nakhleh
The Bahraini Arabic language newspaper al-Wasat reported on April 9 that a Cairo court began to consider a case brought by an Egyptian lawyer against Qatar accusing it of being soft on terrorism. The “terrorism” charge is of course a euphemism for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have designated a “terrorist” organization and have vowed to dismantle.
The two partners and the UAE also loathe Qatar for hosting and funding al-Jazeera satellite TV. The continued incarceration of the Al-Jazeera journalists and dozens of other journalists on trumped up charges is no coincidence.
The court case is symptomatic of the current Saudi-Egyptian relationship in their counter-revolution against the 2011 pro-democracy upheavals that toppled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his fellow autocrats in Tunisia, Yemen, and Libya.
The pro-autocracy partnership between the Egyptian military junta and the Saudi ruling family goes beyond their opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood and the perceived threat of terrorism. It emanates from the autocrats’ visceral opposition to democracy and human rights, including minority and women’s rights.
What should be most critical to them as they contemplate the future of their coalition of counter-revolutionaries, however, is the growing Western conviction that dictators can no longer provide stability.
The Egyptian Field Marshall and the Saudi potentate also abhor the key demands of the Arab uprisings and reject their peoples’ calls for freedom, dignity, justice, and genuine economic and political reform.
They are equally terrified of the coming end of the authoritarian paradigm, which could bring about their demise or at least force them to share power with their people. The Saudis and their Gulf Arab allies, especially Bahrain and the UAE, are willing to trample on their people’s rights in order to safeguard family tribal rule.
The Saudi-Egyptian partnership is also directed at the Obama administration primarily because of Washington’s diplomatic engagement with Iran.
According to media and Human Rights Watch reports, at least 16,000 secular and Islamist activists are currently being held in Egyptian prisons, without having been charged or convicted. This number includes hundreds of MB leaders and activists and thousands of its supporters.
Many of them, including teenagers, have also been tortured and abused physically and psychologically. These mass arrests and summary trials and convictions of Islamists and liberals alike belie the Saudi-Egyptian claim that theirs is a campaign against terrorism.
A brief history of Egyptian-Saudi relations
Egyptian-Saudi relations in the past 60 years have been erratic, depending on leadership, ideology, and regional and world events. During the Nasser era in the 1950s and ‘60s, relations were very tense due to Saudi fears of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Arab nationalist ideology.
The Saudis saw Nasser as a nationalist firebrand arousing Arab masses against colonialism and Arab monarchies. He supported national liberation movements and wars of independence against the French in North Africa and the British in the Arab littoral of the Persian Gulf.
The Saudi monarchy viewed Nasser’s call for Arab unity “from the roaring ocean to the rebellious Gulf” as a threat to their survival and declared a war on “secular” Arab nationalism and “atheist” Communism. They perceived Nasser’s war in Yemen against the tribal monarchy as an existential threat at their door and began to fund and arm the royalists there against the Egyptian military campaign.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia were the two opposite poles of the “Arab cold war” during the 1950s and ‘60s. Nasser represented emerging Arab republicanism while Saudi Arabia epitomized traditional monarchies. Nasser turned to the Soviet Union; Saudi Arabia turned to the United States.
In the late 1960s, Saudi Arabia declared the proselytization of its brand of Islam as a cardinal principle of its foreign policy for the purpose of fighting Arab nationalism and Communism.
It’s ironic that Saudi Arabia is currently supporting and funding the military junta in Egypt at a time when the military-turned-civilian presidential shoe-in Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is resurrecting the Nasserist brand of politics. In the next three to five years, the most intriguing analytic question will be whether this partnership would endure and how long the post-2011 generation of Arabs would tolerate a coalition of secular autocracy and a religious theocracy.
Saudi Arabia supported Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat’s war against Israel in 1973 but broke with him later in that decade after he visited Jerusalem and signed a peace treaty with Israel.
By the early 1980s, however, the two countries re-established close relations because of their common interest in supporting Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and in pushing for the Saudi-articulated Arab Peace Initiative.
The Saudi King viewed President Hosni Mubarak warmly and was dismayed by his fall. He was particularly incensed by Washington’s seeming precipitous abandonment of Mubarak in January 2011.
The Saudi monarchy applauded General al-Sisi’s removal of President Muhammad Morsi and pumped billions of dollars into the Egyptian treasury. They also indicated they would make up any deficit in case American aid to Egypt is halted.
The Saudis have endorsed Sisi’s decision to run for president of Egypt and adopted similar harsh policies against the Muslim Brotherhood and all political dissent. Several factors seem to push Saudi Arabia closer to Egypt.
The Saudis are concerned about their growing loss of influence and prestige in the region, especially their failure in thwarting the interim nuclear agreement between the Iran and world powers known as the P5+1. Their policy in Syria is in shambles.
Initially, they encouraged jihadists to go to Syria to fight the Assad regime, but now they cannot control the pro-al-Qaeda radical Salafi jihadists fighting the Damascus tyrant.
The Saudis also failed in transforming the Gulf Cooperation Council into a more unified structure. Other than Bahrain, almost every other state has balked at the Saudi suggestion, viewing it as a power grab.
In an absurd form of retaliation against Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from that country. The Saudis are engaged in tribal vendettas against their fellow tribal ruling families, which is out of place in a 21st century globalized and well-connected world.
The oil wealth and the regime’s inspired religious fatwas by establishment clerics have a diminishing impact on the younger generation connected to the global social media.
Despite the heavy-handed crackdown, protests, demonstrations, and confrontations with the security forces are a daily occurrence in Egypt. It’s becoming very clear that dictatorial policies are producing more instability, less security, and greater appeal to terrorism.
It won’t be long before Western governments conclude that autocracy is bad for their moral sensibilities, destructive for business, and threatening for their presence in the region. The Saudi-Egyptian coalition of autocrats will soon be in the crosshairs.
In order to endure, such a coalition must be based on respect for their peoples, a genuine commitment to human rights, and a serious effort to address the “deficits” of liberty, education, and women’s rights that have afflicted Arab society for decades.
Photo: Photo released by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) shows Egypt’s Interim President Adly Mansour (L) listening to Saudi Crown Prince Salman after his arrival in the Saudi Red Sea port city of Jeddah on Oct. 7, 2013. Credit: Xinhua/SPA
]]>by Emile Nakhleh
The State Department’s Inspector General’s report on the US Embassy in Bahrain, which I have been asked to comment on, has generated much reaction, both among the pro-government factions and within the opposition.
The opposition fears that a report critical of the US ambassador’s job and managerial [...]]]>
by Emile Nakhleh
The State Department’s Inspector General’s report on the US Embassy in Bahrain, which I have been asked to comment on, has generated much reaction, both among the pro-government factions and within the opposition.
The opposition fears that a report critical of the US ambassador’s job and managerial performance might denote a change in US policy toward Bahrain in favor of the ruling family and away from demands for a genuine dialogue with the opposition. The report also has caused some anti-Shia, pro-regime, Sunni talking heads in Bahrain, like Abd al-Latif Mahmud, head of al-Tajamu’, to be gleeful about the harsh criticism of Ambassador Thomas Krajeski’s performance.
Both feelings are misplaced. The report does not denote a change in American policy toward Bahrain, nor is it a rejection of US standing policy in favor of human rights, even if it is being spun in some circles.
Background
Every US government department (ministry, in the parlance of other countries) by law has an in-house Office of Inspector General (OIG), which is required periodically to inspect the operations of different entities in that department, domestically and overseas, and the job performance of key personnel in that entity. These reports are known around Washington as “IG Reports.”
The IG reports, by law must stay clear of politics and policy. The recent State Department IG report is no exception. Their primary purpose is “to promote effective management, accountability, and positive change” in whatever entity that’s being inspected.
The IG reports usually make key judgments and recommendations to the secretary (minister) or other senior leaders in the department relevant to the report. In this case, the recommendations are made to the secretary of state.
The department’s senior leadership is not bound to accept the report in toto; it can accept some recommendations, take others under consideration, and still reject others. When the State Department’s spokeswoman was asked at a March 28 daily press briefing about the report’s recommendations, she gave the following answer:
The State Department values the oversight provided by our inspector general and we take IG recommendations seriously and rely on them to make improvements in how we operate. With regard to this specific inspection report, Department official are reviewing the report and its recommendations and will respond to the inspector general formally. While we agree with some recommendations, we disagree with others… But we believe the report contains a number of factual inaccuracies and take issue with several of the report’s assertions. Our ambassador in Bahrain is qualified, highly capable, and we have full confidence in his leadership of the mission. He has served with distinction for over 35 years in some of our most challenging missions, including Iraq and as our ambassador in Yemen; has repeatedly been recognized for his service and leadership, including multiple Superior Honor Awards and the President’s Distinguished Service Award.
Takeaways
The first key judgment in the IG report states the following: “The embassy has two competing policies: to maintain strong bilateral military cooperation and to advance human rights. The Ambassador has forged strong relationships with U.S. military leaders based in Bahrain to promote common goals.”
On the other hand, the IG report has strongly criticized the ambassador’s management style within the embassy, his dealings with the staff, and his ad hoc management approach to the on-going human rights crisis in Bahrain. Due to the two diametrically opposed US goals in Bahrain, it is a no brainer for the IG report to assess that “Embassy Bahrain faces significant challenges balancing U.S. military interests with U.S. human rights policies.”
The IG report praised the ambassador for forging “a strong relationship with the heads of U.S. Naval forces Central Command and U.S. Marine Forces Central Command to promote consistent U.S. policy messaging. He is respected by many Bahraini officials and is well liked by mission staff.” On the other hand, the ambassador’s “lack of access to some key government officials, his poor media image, and the lack of an effective strategy to address these issues have created friction with principal officials in Washington.”
Most of the recommendations focus on embassy operations regarding personnel, finances, housing, property, etc. but NOT on US policy toward Bahrain.
Ambassador Thomas C. Krajeski is a seasoned, experienced, and distinguished diplomat who has served his country for over three decades. The report has failed to recognize the fact that the ambassador’s “lack of access to key government officials” in Bahrain has been caused by his strong stance on human rights and constant and justifiable criticism of the Al Khalifas’ dismissive attitude and repressive policies toward its Shia majority.
The report should have pointed out that the ambassador’s “poor media image” was primarily caused by the fact that most Bahraini media is either pro-government or government supported and directed. Some pro-government media outlets have even cancelled the ambassador’s appearance when he was planning to discuss one of his hobbies, gourmet cooking!
Since he went out on a limb in pointing out the damaging policies of the ruling family, he found himself in “friction with principal officials in Washington,” according to the report. The report, however, failed to identify who those “principal officials” were.
The ambassador serves at the pleasure of the president of the United States and the secretary of state. It stands to reason, therefore, that his continued service in Bahrain as head of the mission means he still commands the respect and confidence of both “key principals.” I have seen many of these IG inspection reports during my service in the government, and like the State Department spokeswoman, I accepted some of those reports’ recommendations and rejected others. That’s the nature of the beast!
My bottom-line judgment
The report was not written for, or driven by, political or policy reasons. It’s primarily an “Inside the Beltway” Washington report. Pro-government talking heads in Bahrain would be mistaken to take comfort from the report. The criticisms of the ambassador pertain primarily to his managerial style and the internal operations within the embassy, not to his rightful stance on human rights violations in Bahrain.
Abd al-Latif Mahmud and others should take another look at the report. If they continue to misread it, then they don’t understand Washington or the nature of the American political system. I hope Al Khalifa leaders do not make a similar mistake.
Photo: Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel meets with Bahraini Lieutenant General Sheikh Mohammed Al Khalifa, Minister of State for Defense Affiars, US Ambassador to Bahrain Thomas C. Krajeski and US Army General Lloyd Austin, upon his arrival in Bahrain on December 5, 2013. Credit: Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo
]]>The summary mass trial and conviction of 529 Egyptians to death this week is yet another example of Egypt’s descent into lawlessness and blatant miscarriage of justice. The rushed decision showed no respect for the most basic standards of due process under the military dictatorship.
The Egyptian court spent less than a [...]]]>
The summary mass trial and conviction of 529 Egyptians to death this week is yet another example of Egypt’s descent into lawlessness and blatant miscarriage of justice. The rushed decision showed no respect for the most basic standards of due process under the military dictatorship.
The Egyptian court spent less than a minute on each of the 529 defendants before sentencing to them. Defense lawyers were barred from challenging state “evidence” and defendants were not allowed to speak. Yet, the Sisi government and the pliant Egyptian media did not question the sentences.
The U.S. State Department issued a statement in Secretary of State John Kerry’s name condemning the sentences. Kerry said he is “deeply troubled” and called on the Egyptian interim government to “remedy the situation.”
The decision, according to the statement, “simply defies logic” and fails to satisfy “even the most basic standards of justice.” Amnesty International deemed the death sentences “grotesque.” Most Western countries have expressed “deep concern” over the sham trial and convictions and the hope that the decision would be overturned on appeal.
In his heady rush to seek the presidency, however, Field Marshall turned civilian Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, however, is not paying much attention to America’s warnings or to international condemnations of the Minya judge who dispensed the ruling.
Sisi sees the Obama administration moving away from values of good governance and the rule of law in Egypt to a myopic doctrine of national interest, which includes coddling Arab dictators and tribal ruling potentates.
Since the Arab upheavals of 2011, President Obama has identified American values of tolerance, justice, fairness, and democracy as a guiding principle of post “Arab Spring” relations with Arab countries. These values, the U.S. President frequently said, “define who we are” as a people and as a nation.
Sisi, on the other hand, much like Putin’s power and land grab in Ukraine, feels empowered to defy the U.S. because he perceives it unwilling or unable to confront him or to shun him or cut military aid to Egypt. He counts on Washington’s inaction against him despite rising lawlessness by state institutions because of Egypt’s pivotal standing in the region.
By ignoring the Egyptian constitution and its traditional claim of judicial independence, the Egyptian judiciary seemed to kowtow to the military-run interim government.
The mass death sentences coupled with Sisi’s announcement of his candidacy for the presidency seem to bring the coup that toppled President Mohamed Morsi full circle. For Sisi, the January 25 Revolution is history, and the demands for democracy are now subsumed under the rubric of fighting “terrorism”, which he equates with the Muslim Brotherhood.
It’s symbolic that Sisi made the announcement on Egyptian television in military uniform even though he had just resigned as minister of defense and as member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). He told the Egyptian public he would continue the struggle “against terrorism” and would fight to “regain Egypt” and restore its “dignity and stature.”
Sisi must have taken a page from the American Tea Party book about “taking back America” and from Putin about taking back Crimea. As if someone has stolen America from Tea Party, or Ukraine from Russia, or Egypt from Sisi.
In fact, it was Sisi and the military junta that stole Egypt from the January 25 Revolution in a military coup. It was Sisi’s regime that has put over 15,000 Egyptians — Islamists and secularists — in jail through illegal arrests, sham trials, and without due process for challenging the coup.
Sisi envisions his presidency to rest on a three-legged stool of pliant media, submissive public, and adulation of him as a rising “selfie” star. In the name of “serving the nation,” Egyptians are being brain-washed not to question the personality cult of Sisi’s budding populist dictatorship.
In addition to frightening the public into submission, Sisi has also shuffled SCAF by sidelining potential challengers like General Ahmed Wasfi and promoting supporters like General Sidqi Sobhi. He sees these actions as an insurance policy against a possible coup that could topple him, much like he did against Morsi.
Although much has been written about Egypt in recent days, the death sentences and Sisi’s presidency have created two serious concerns, which Washington and other Western capitals must confront. First, these actions likely will result in a growing radicalization of some elements within the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups in Egypt.
Radicalization usually begets violence and terrorism.
It would be a nightmare scenario for any Egyptian government if the new radicals join forces with Salafi jihadists in Sinai. Such coordination, which could create an opening for al-Qa’ida in Egypt, would wreak havoc on the country and on Western interests and personnel there.
Second, continued instability, lawlessness, and repression in Egypt under a Sisi presidency would begin to attract Islamist jihadists from Syria to Egypt. Unlike their counterparts from Afghanistan, the new jihadists are honed by combat experience and trained in the use of all kinds of weapons. A jihadist base in Egypt would certainly spread to neighboring countries, including the Gulf tribal monarchies.
To stem this nightmarish tide, The United States and its Western allies must urge Gulf monarchies to start serious dialogue with their peoples toward inclusion and tolerance.
They also must convince Sisi that no stable political system would emerge in Egypt without including secularists and Islamists in the process. An adoring public, a pliant media, a sycophantic government, and an unfettered and corrupt military are a formula for disaster for Egypt and the region.
]]>by Emile Nakhleh
Yesterday’s public announcement by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain that they’re withdrawing their ambassadors from Qatar signals a serious rift within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The seismic regional changes that have occurred since the establishment of the GCC 33 years ago will likely torpedo [...]]]>
by Emile Nakhleh
Yesterday’s public announcement by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain that they’re withdrawing their ambassadors from Qatar signals a serious rift within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The seismic regional changes that have occurred since the establishment of the GCC 33 years ago will likely torpedo this tribal organization.
The stated reason for the ambassadorial recall is Qatar’s perceived support of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the three states view as a threat to their rule. Yet, the other two GCC members — Kuwait and Oman — did not support the move.
Saudi Arabia is angry at Qatar for striking an independent foreign policy course in responding to Arab upheavals in the past three years. The Saudis are lashing out probably because of their arguably waning influence in the region. For example, they failed to get a unanimous GCC support for sending troops to Bahrain to quell the anti-regime uprising in 2011.
They were equally unable to sell the call for unification of the GCC states. Only the Bahraini King supported the Saudi position, which forced them to shelf the proposal.
The Saudis have also disagreed with Qatar’s position on Iran and Syria. As the largest and most powerful member of the GCC, Saudi Arabia resents Qatar’s larger than life posture in the region and internationally. Riyadh’s rulers are wary of Doha’s pro-active search for modernity, Western education, and political and ideological pragmatism. Qatar’s satellite news station Al Jazeera has been a thorn in the Saudi and Bahraini side.
The GCC came into being May 26, 1981 for the sole purpose of preserving the tribal, Sunni and hereditary family rule in the Gulf Arab states and countering perceived rising threats.
At the time those threats included the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Iraq-Iran war, and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Ruling Sheikhs and Emirs viewed the rising wave of terrorism in the region as coming from Iran and its Shia supporters across the Gulf and beyond.
The establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan forced Gulf rulers to turn to Sunni Islam, including the Muslim Brotherhood, for protection against the “atheist” Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the “Safavi, Persian menace.”
They preached and bankrolled Salafi Sunni jihad against both perceived enemies. By recasting the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as the current enemy, these rulers are being seen as hypocritical and shortsighted. They are also playing a dangerous game.
Bahrain, for example, has promoted a Sunni Islamic ideology at home that is well grounded in the MB as a line of defense against the Shia opposition. Over the years, some Bahraini political and business Sunni leaders have established close relations with the MB, regionally and internationally, according to media reports.
The Saudis and the Bahrainis are also financing Sunni Salafi jihad in Syria against the Assad regime. Earlier they supported similar groups in Iraq against the Shia power structure. In fact, in the past two years, several radical Sunni activists from Bahrain went to Syria to wage jihad against Assad, presumably with the approval of the Bahraini authorities.
The Saudi, UAE and Bahraini anger at Qatar is yet another manifestation of the tensions that have simmered for years within the GCC. While they recognized growing threats to their rule in the early 1980s, they disagreed even then on how to respond to those threats.
The Al Khalifa regime, especially, finds itself in a dilemma: Supporting the Egyptian military junta against the MB, and at the same time relying on pro-MB activists to fight the Shia opposition and Iran, which they blame for the unrest in Bahrain.
Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait, on the other hand, are pursuing active political and economic relations with Tehran based on pragmatism and mutual economic interests.
Despite their annual summitry and the public rhetoric of Gulf unity, GCC rulers in the past thirty years have pursued their respective national interests separately with barely a nod to the organization. On very few occasions they acted collectively under the umbrella of the GCC security agreement.
The May 1981 GCC agreement stressed the importance of cooperation in education, manpower training, and economic diversification. But the GCC has been unable to transcend security and establish regional cooperative working arrangements in other areas.
GCC states shied away from economic complimentarity, as envisioned in the original agreement, and established separate airlines, banking systems, investment corporations, and media enterprises. Although they cling to authoritarian hereditary family rule, Kuwait has established a pseudo-democracy. Bahrain had a brush with representative democracy in the early 1970s but scuttled the experiment shortly thereafter. Each state devised a political system that is commensurate with its perceived cultural and demographic particularities regardless of their commitment to the GCC.
When I was doing research for my book on the GCC in the mid-1980s, I asked a successful Arab Gulf businessman what he thought of the GCC. He responded colloquially with one word, “Hatchi” meaning “just talk.”
A real gap exists in the minds of Gulf citizens between the rhetoric of the GCC as a collective organization and its social and economic accomplishments. While the member states have advanced in their individual pursuits, the GCC seems to be withering as an organization.
American and Western policymakers regularly cite the GCC in their public statements, but in reality they deal with member countries as separate states with little consideration of the organization.
Although Qatar is being accused of promoting the Muslim Brotherhood, especially providing a home for the televangelist preacher-scholar Yusif al-Qaradawi and his family enterprises, the tensions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia are much deeper than al-Qaradawi and Al Jazeera, which carries his programs.
Instead of blaming Qatar and recalling their ambassadors, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain should address their poor human rights record at home and respond to their peoples’ demands for genuine reform and social justice.
]]>