An Alternative To War With Iran

By Richard Silverstein

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and the road not taken

Relations between Iran and the West, fraught with tension and conflict for decades, have in the past few months reached a fever pitch. There is talk of war on a daily basis from both sides. Hundreds of millions, if not billions, have been spent both to fuel the Iranian missile and nuclear program and the counter-measures taken by the West to frustrate it. Leaders on both sides have worked themselves into paroxysms of rage regarding the alleged homicidal intensions of the other side.

The situation is volatile and the danger of war real. But the premise of the Western approach to Iran has dangerous shortcomings.

There is a common conception of Western policy as based on a two-pronged, carrot and stick approach: one a diplomatic track and the other a military threat. There is certainly the guise of a real diplomatic track. Both sides have talked at various times of the need for negotiations, and for very short periods there have been talks. Recently, Iran expressed willingness to begin a new round of talks with its opponents about its nuclear program.

But by all appearances, the Western approach is solely designed to achieve Iranian capitulation to Western demands that it dismantle its nuclear research program. It is not designed as an open-ended negotiation in which both sides are open to compromise to achieve a mutually agreed-on objective. The United States and Israel are little interested in acknowledging Iran’s perceived interests or compromising over its nuclear program so that each side will end up with some of its key interests satisfied.

Bad Faith

To study the efficacy of the diplomatic track, let’s look at its history. In 2003, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami made his famous offer to discontinue Iran’s nuclear program in return for the full normalization of its relations with the United States, including an end to sanctions. In the run-up to the Iraq War and in the context of the Bush-Cheney “stand tough” approach to the Islamist militancy of that era, the United States not only spurned the offer, it soundly berated the Swiss diplomat representing U.S. interests in Iran for having the temerity to pass the proposal along.

Barack Obama came into office with some vague notions of pursuing talks with Iran, criticizing the unhelpful threats of the previous administration. Western powers, however, only held talks with Iran for a mere three weeks. At those talks, the West again presented demands on a more or less take-it-or-leave-it basis; this was again not a negotiation of equals. It was one side communicating to the other what it expected of them to end the impasse. That’s why the talks ended almost before they began.

In recent years, Brazil and Turkey successfully negotiated a compromise with Iran involving the transfer of the country’s enriched uranium to a third country. But the Obama administration dismissed the plan and wasn’t even willing to pursue further negotiations about it.

If the diplomatic track was truly what Western officials have claimed it to be, there would be a more flexible and less destructive sanctions regime in place. Even officials in the U.S. government told The Washington Post that U.S. policy toward Iran, including the sanctions plan, is designed to achieve regime change, rather than policy change. The administration later attempted to deny that its officials had made such a claim, but it’s no wonder that Iran understands the U.S. approach as unilateral and categorical, rather than open-ended.

One-Track Policy

So there is not a two-track policy regarding Iran. There is instead a one-track policy with two facets. On the one hand, there is a program of sanctions and covert war designed to intimidate and bloody Iran into capitulation. But if that doesn’t work (and it surely cannot), there is a military option designed to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. It’s no surprise, then, that the Iranians see their enemies closing in on them like a vise. An enemy who believes he has no options left is very dangerous. He is likely to lash out in unforeseen ways. Such desperation is precisely what could fuel not just a bilateral military conflict, but a full-scale regional war.

There is another misconception about Western policy. The liberals among us talk about a “military strike” as an option of last resort. The more clear-eyed, like the Brookings Institution’s Bruce Riedel, talk of a potential war against Iran. Neither is precisely right. As Israeli journalists have pointed out, there already is a war under way against Iran. It is bought and paid for by a $400 million allocation by the Bush administration in 2007. It has funded all the tools in the Mossad arsenal that were used to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program and foment general unrest inside the country.

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan outlined Israel’s thinking in a Wikileaks cable in which he told the State Department’s Nicholas Burns that Israel planned to sow general discord inside Iran by acts of sabotage perpetrated by domestic minority groups like the Sunnis and Kurds:

Dagan said that more should be done to foment regime change in Iran, possibly with the support of student democracy movements, and ethnic groups (e.g., Azeris, Kurds, Baluchs) opposed to the ruling regime…Iran’s minorities are “raising their heads, and are tempted to resort to violence.”

Dagan urged more attention on regime change, asserting that more could be done to develop the identities of ethnic minorities in Iran. He said he was sure that Israel and the U.S. could “change the ruling regime in Iran, and its attitude towards backing terror regimes.” He added, “We could also get them to delay their nuclear project. Iran could become a normal state.”

Though the cable doesn’t mention the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), the Mossad clearly views it as a potent force with an extensive internal network within the country, whose muscle could be exploited to further Israeli interests.

Mark Perry recently published an expose of one particular Mossad project, a false flag operation in which it recruited the leader of Jundallah, a Sunni terrorist group operating in Iran, by posing as NATO and CIA agents. When the Bush administration discovered the nature of the program, it was furious. But ultimately it decided it had other fish to fry and would not make a major stink about the danger the duplicitous operation posed to U.S. agents in the region.

Such Israeli tactics suggest that Israel pursues its own interests with little or no regard for how its behavior will impact friend or foe. For example, it utilizes the MEK as a partner in many of its terror operations inside Iran, even though U.S. State Department officially designates the MEK as a terror group.

This, of course, doesn’t stop the MEK and its well-paid domestic allies in the United States from pursuing an aggressive campaign to delist it as a terror group. Millions of dollars have been spent to further this goal, including enlisting prominent figures on both the Democratic and Republican sides to shill for delisting. The MEK appears to believe that terrorist activities in which it may be engaged inside Iran will not have an impact on its delisting by the United States. This is all the more reason for journalists in Israel and outside to make known its cooperation with the Mossad, so that the U.S. government can make an informed judgment about whether or not the MEK has renounced terrorism as it claims.

Some analysts have called this a black ops campaign or covert war. Whatever we call it, it is war by another means. If the United States is serious about seeking a diplomatic solution with Iran, then why would it both encourage and fund such a powerful campaign of terror inside Iran?

The campaign has included the Stuxnet computer worm, most certainly developed by the Israel Defense Force’s cyber warfare Unit 8200 with some U.S. assistance. Israeli security correspondents and a former Israeli minister reported to me that the Mossad and the MEK have jointly engaged in numerous terror operations that have killed five nuclear scientists and resulted in an almost fatal attack on a sixth. There have been crashes of Revolutionary Guard military planes and two more recent explosions: one that wiped out a missile base and killed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard general directing the entire national missile program, and another that sabotaged an Isfahan uranium enrichment facility.

So how much credence should Iran’s leaders put in the claim that the West is pursuing a diplomatic track? If there is no such real option for negotiation to resolve this conflict, is there any other prospect than war?

An Alternative to War

After following Iranian-Western relations for years, I believe the diplomatic track is a mirage and that the sanctions regime, which the West has pursued without success for 30 years, will not gain Iran’s capitulation. That leaves only two options: war, or Western impotence in the face of Iran’s implacable determination to pursue a nuclear option. Either option is bad, but the first is far worse than the second.

The fallout from a war with Iran has been widely discussed. Iran might mine the Straits of Hormuz and activate its shore-based defenses to repel U.S. naval forces. The price of oil would skyrocket, imperiling a global economy already teetering on the brink of recession or worse. Iranian allies in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria could make mayhem for Israel and the United States alike. Iran could activate elements inside Afghanistan and Iraq to make life even more miserable there than it already is.

Since the United States doesn’t appear prepared for a real negotiation with Iran regarding its nuclear program, there is only one real approach short of war: containment. The United States adopted this approach during the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Though it was never optimal, considering the dysfunction in the relationship between the superpowers, containment worked reasonably well until the Soviet collapse in 1989.

As former Defense Department Undersecretary Colin Kahl argues in his latest Foreign Affairs article, the United States already has the assets in place in the region to pursue a policy of containment: 40,000 troops are stationed in the Gulf, with 90,000 more in Afghanistan.  There are two carrier task forces deployed in the Gulf, and various allies view Iran with deep suspicion. They could be a local bulwark against any possible Iranian aspirations that threaten the regional status quo.

Containment still isn’t an optimal approach, but it’s the least bad one considering the current dysfunction characterizing relations between Iran and the West. In the future, Iran may turn to a reformist, more democratic government that might approach these issues differently. Or the climate in the West may change so that it would be willing to seriously engage with Iran on a similar basis to the Khatami 2003 proposals. But given the almost lunatic tone of the Republican presidential debates concerning Iran, and the fact that Barack Obama appears convinced that he must maintain impeccable national security credentials to protect his right flank, the United States is unlikely to adopt a more reasonable, pragmatic approach to Iran.

Under the circumstances, containment is the only remaining option that doesn’t lead to regional war, stalemate, and deeper dysfunction.

-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy In Focus on 25/01/2011
-Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Richard Silverstein writes Tikun Olam, a blog that explores the Israeli-Arab conflict, covers Israeli national security issues, and promotes Israeli democracy

Egypt's Uprising Continues To Be A Work In Progress

The next few months will determine how democratic the new Egypt will be. But there is already new vitality in the country's public life.

By Issandr El Amrani

There is a dramatic video made by Egyptian activists that has been circulating online lately. In it, actors play the roles of some of the major protagonists of the Egyptian uprising and its aftermath: Hosni Mubarak, the military, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafists, the liberals, and of course the courageous activists who took to the streets a year ago and toppled a "Pharaoh".

The narrative shows the military turning the political players against each other: the Salafist against the activist, the Muslim Brother against the Salafist, the liberal against the Islamists and so on. Later, the politicians do nothing as the military beats the activist: they are too busy with ballot boxes, and finish by fighting each other for an empty throne. The video ends with the words, "All of you sold Egypt."

For some of the revolutionaries who participated in last year's uprising, which began a year ago today, this serves as an accurate depiction of their betrayal at the hands of, well, everybody. The Muslim Brotherhood, which did not even back protests last January, has won nearly half the seats in parliament and is set to be the key negotiator of the military's handover of power to a civilian government by next July.

Since last October, over 100 protestors have been killed in clashes with army and police, even as elections were under way, and very few politicians joined the protestors' call for an immediate end to the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). Even as the anniversary of January 25 was being prepared and the same revolutionaries called for a "second revolution," the leading political parties were calling for a calm celebration of the revolution and trust in parliament to continue to transition process.

Meanwhile, the SCAF added insult to (grievous) injury by announcing it would distribute a "January 25 medallion" to every wounded revolutionary and every soldier drafted into military service since the uprising.

So is this what the Egyptian revolution of 2011 has come to, a deal with Islamists and the military to stabilise the country, repress democracy activists and keep the country going pretty much as it used to, except with a more religious and overtly militaristic veneer?

Not so fast. Implicit in the video is not only disappointment with Egypt's elites, but with its people. In recent months I have often heard the complaint that Egyptians are all too easily manipulated by the military and Islamist politicians, and too eager for a return to normality. It may be true to some extent - in autocracies and democracies alike public opinion is manipulated - but the bottom line of this worldview is a dead-end idea: that the people betrayed the revolution. It is an idea with no future because if not for the people, in whose name are the revolutionaries speaking?

In Egypt and other countries, I have heard the same thing from ordinary people. Most are too busy to take part in activism, because they must work to earn bread for their families. Joining in protests is too risky for them, because they risk getting arrested or hospitalised, and they are afraid - not for themselves as much as about what their families would do without them. And they are also willing to give the politicians a chance to negotiate a better future for them, having voted, many of them for the first time in their lives.

This is a bitter pill to swallow for the revolutionaries, whose comrades languish in military prisons, in hospitals. They have buried friends and paid a high price for their courage. It is little wonder they feel betrayed.

And yet they have been right to keep protesting, to keep spreading the truth about the murders committed by the military and police. Almost every time protestors have taken to the street they have managed to extract concessions from the SCAF and political parties alike. Note, for instance, the recent pledge by the Muslim Brotherhood's General Guide, Mohammed Badie, that the military will be held accountable for its mistakes, or SCAF's release of nearly 2,000 prisoners, many of whom had been put through the military justice system the protestors oppose.

The reality is that the generals, even as they scheme to expand their powers, are on the defensive in a way that is unprecedented in over 60 years of military rule.

The military, the backbone of the regime since 1952, may retain for some time to come both formal and informal influence in post-Mubarak Egypt. The next few months will be crucial to determine exactly how far that influence, not unusual in countries that are attempting a transition to democracy, will go.

But Egypt has also gained a new vitality in its civil society and in its political life: look not only at the many political parties that have been created (including, for the first time in Egypt's history, political parties based on a liberal, social-democratic platform), but at the myriad youth groups, single-issue advocacy movements, and other organisations that have made a discourse on human rights and democracy mainstream. This is another Egyptian first.

There is little doubt that there will be trials and tribulations ahead. The military and the security services will not relinquish power easily. Islamists in parliament may want to implement agendas that are not just conservative, but retrograde. Egypt's economy stands on the brink of a disaster that could discredit the revolution.

But a year later, the Egyptian revolution is real. Its anniversary an occasion to celebrate, to mourn, to express anger at the missed opportunities and mistakes of the last 12 months and to remind those who cling to power and those who have only just reached it that the Egyptian people have expressed a genuine desire for change, for accountability, and for social justice.

As Egyptian activists like to say, the revolution continues.

 -This commentary was published in the National on 25/01/2012
–Issandr El Amrani is a writer and analyst based in Cairo. He blogs atwww.arabist.net

The Zintan Militia And The Fragmented Libyan State

In an effort to oust Qaddafi, independent militias of varying strength have been formed inside Libya and are threatening regional security inside the country.  Of these the Zintan militia is one of the foremost examples of a brigade with strong organizational skills, effective tactics and entrenched authority in their base city of Zintan. On December 10th, the Zintan brigade was involved in a firefight with the convoy of the ex-commander-in-chief of the National Army, Major General Khalifa Haftar. The Zintan Brigade acted without orders from the National Army, which they accused of not notifying them of the convoy’s approach to the Tripoli airport. It is becoming a major challenge for the Libyan Transitional Council to integrate, rather than marginalize, these militiamen in the new security structure of Libya. The Zintan Brigade and other militias will continue to be key actors in Libya affecting the domestic security situation until they become fully integrated into the new Libyan National Army.

By Dario Cristiani

Osama al-Juwali, Zintan militia member and Minister of Defense in the Libyan Transitional Cabinet

One of the major challenges for the future of Libya concerns the presence on its soil of a variety of autonomous militias of various sizes, geographical origin, ideology and organizational aims. The consequent fragmentation of the security environment is a major obstacle for Libyan efforts to achieve an effective and functional statehood.

Efforts to integrate the militias into a new national army and police force have been stymied in part due to the unpopularity of Major General Khalifah Haftar, chief-of-staff of the Libyan National Army until he was replaced earlier this month. General Haftar appeared to have lost the confidence of the government, with Transitional National Council (TNC) chairman Mustafa Abd-al-Jalil reportedly describing the American-backed Haftar as “suspicious and arrogant” at an official meeting between al-Jalil and a number of militia commanders (al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 12, 2011).  On January 3, Haftar was replaced as chief-of-staff by Colonel Yusuf Mangush, who was promoted to general. Mangush, a Misrata native and retired officer from the Libyan military, joined the rebel forces after fighting began last spring, only to be captured by loyalist forces during the struggle for Brega in April. Though Mangush has the support of Abd al-Jalil and Prime Minister Abd al-Rahim al-Kib, the powerful Benghazi rebel faction have denounced his appointment as “undemocratic” while promoting their own candidate, General Salah Salem al-Ubaydah (AFP, January 3; Jeune Afrique, January 13). General al-Mangush is determined to establish a supreme defense council and speed up the integration of militia fighters into the national army and police, but he may need a greater level of support than he has now to be successful (Jeune Afrique, January 13).

Libya’s Difficult Transition

In political science, especially following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the term “transition” is mostly used to define those political processes leading to a – more or less – effective (liberal) democracy. In Libya, at present, it is impossible to use transition in this meaning, as the first step to start a transition to democracy is to have a government capable of imposing its rule on the people and groups in its national territory. The 42 years of the Jamahiriya (State of the Masses) – a very personal Qaddafi creation lacking institutions typical of modern states – makes this an enormous challenge, even in the event of a scenario (at present completely detached from the reality on the ground) in which everyone in Libya acted to meet the need to create a functioning state without seeking to advance narrow and factional interests at the same time.

The success of this transition is strongly connected to how Libyans will be able to manage the thorny issue of militias and the risk of starting a political shift to warlordism rather than democracy. The continuous clashes between different militias – the latest occurring in near Gharyan (50 miles south of Tripoli), involving a militia from Gharyan pitted against another militia from neighboring Assabia – are a powerful reminder of the menace they pose to Libya’s increasingly volatile and fragmented security environment (Reuters, January 14; AFP, January 16). One of the most important and well organized groups in present-day Libya is the Zintan militia, which controls the Tripoli airport and other institutions in the capital. The group has been the protagonist in several political and security incidents over the past few weeks.

Moving on from the Jamahiriya State

Libya as a unitary state has always been characterized by several internal fault lines, with ethnic, tribal, cultural and political cleavages characterizing its political and social environment. These fault lines were exploited by Qaddafi during his rule. For example, in the very early stages of his rule after the 1969 coup, Qaddafi tried to downgrade the importance of the tribes, but, after a few years he understood that it was impossible to maintain a strong grip on the country without the support of at least some of the major tribes. The resulting “divide and rule” policy was a major feature of the Qaddafi jamahiriya (state of the masses). In the long run, stressing these divisions proved to be unsustainable and was a key factor in explaining the eruption of the revolts in February 2011.

It is no coincidence that the core of the revolt was the eastern city of Benghazi, the stronghold of the pre-Qaddafi Sanussi monarchy and the area most penalized under Qaddafi. The Libyan east-west divide is a long standing feature of the Libyan political and social landscape and is essential to understanding Libya’s fragmentation. The increasing weight of local, regional and tribal interests – which emerged clearly in the protests against the appointment of the new transitional government – is connected to this domestic cleavage. Though very important, this dynamic is only one of many working against the establishment of a unitary state in Libya.

The killing of Qaddafi was not only the symbolic end of an era but visible proof that his rule cannot return to Libya. The psychological relief this provided had another side to take into account; the death of the common enemy opened the underlying structural fissions within the heterogeneous bloc of rebels who carried out the revolution. In this context, the presence of autonomous armed militias on the ground represents a major obstacle to the normalization of the Libyan security environment.

Recent Clashes in Tripoli

At the end of November, fighters of the Zintan militia stopped Abdulhakim Belhadj at the Tripoli airport, accusing Belhadj of travelling to Istanbul on a fake passport. Only after a direct intervention from Libyan interim leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil was he able to catch his flight (Tripoli Post, November 26, 2011). Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council, a former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and one of the most important figures in the anti-Qaddafi revolt, is considered to be one of the main enemies of the Zintan group. His military council presents a direct challenge to the Zintan Brigade in the struggle to control the security of Tripoli. Like other militias active in the Libyan capital, establishing control over the city is considered to be a strategic necessity for these groups to enable them to advance their interests and agendas in the new political balance. In this context, control of the airport is considered fundamental.

The Zintan Brigade was the protagonist in another incident at the Tripoli airport on December 10, 2011, when the militia was involved in a firefight with a convoy carrying Major General Khalifa Haftar. Two members of the militia were killed and several injured (see Terrorism Monitor Brief, December 16, 2011).  Khalid al-Zintani, a spokesman for the Zintan militia, said that members of his group did not try to kill Haftar and that clashes occurred simply because no one notified the Zintan revolutionaries of Haftar’s intention to travel to the airport (AP, December 11). Al-Zintani and Mukhtar al-Akhdar, the commander of Zintani fighters at the airport, criticized the nascent National Army, of which Haftar is now the ex-commander-in-chief, saying that the presence and influence of this army on the ground is almost nonexistent and adding that the Zintan Brigade will step down only once the new government authorities are able to fully guarantee security in Tripoli. Only a few days later, the members of the Zintan militia were involved in another clash with members of the neighboring Mashashiya, arresting 20 members of the tribe, which was considered loyal to Qaddafi’s regime (AFP, December 12, 2011).

The Zintan Militia Benefits from Strong Organization

The Zintan militia is named for Zintan, a city of roughly 50,000 people in the Nafusa Mountains of western Libya. The relationship of this city with Qaddafi’s regime was always unsettled. Though located in that half of the country that benefited by the shift in the political balances following the overthrow of the monarchy, Zintanis remained rather critical of Qaddafi and his Jamahiriya state. Some Zintanis participated in the failed 1993 coup against Qaddafi that was organized by some members of the Warfalla, Libya’s largest and most powerful Libyan tribe and usually regarded as a power base for the Qaddafi regime (though this support was far from unanimous). Zintani fighters joined the 2011 revolution during its very early stages and were responsible for arresting the fugitive Saif al-Islam Qaddafi in southern Libya (Jeune Afrique, November 30, 2011). The charismatic founder of the Zintan militia, Muhammad Ali Madani, was killed by loyalist forces on May 1, 2011 (al-Arabiya, September 7, 2011)

The Zintan Brigade has an inflexible approach in its recruitment procedures - only those who can fully demonstrate that they were not attached to the previous regime can join the group. As shown by the dispute with the Mashashiya, the Zintan Brigade has a more general, non-negotiable approach of rejecting any possibility of collaboration with people attached to the previous regime.

Another characteristic of the Zintan militia is their strong and efficient organization, which allows them to implement an effective control of the areas under their informal rule. Unlike other Libyan militias that are composed mostly of civilian volunteers, the Zintan Brigade has a balanced but strictly hierarchical mix of civilian volunteers from Zintan and former members of the Libyan national army who defected in the early stages of the revolution and are now in command positions within the Brigade.

It is not surprising that a member of the Zintan militia, Osama al-Juwali, was appointed Minister of Defense in the new transitional cabinet (al-Jazeera, November 22, 2011). Unlike other members of the Libyan leadership, al-Juwali has opted for a milder approach towards the militias, aimed at integrating and co-opting these groups.  Al-Juwali says that time is needed to settle this situation, without setting any deadlines. In mid-December al-Juwali suggested that six weeks was the minimum time needed in which to expect some results concerning the normalization of the militias’ presence (Reuters, December 19, 2011). This stance is part of a wider pragmatic approach pursued by al-Juwali, who wants to integrate militiamen in the new military and security services of the country. He stressed the fact that these men represent those marginalized during Qaddafi’s era and will bring new blood into the Libyan security forces (al-Jazeera, December 26, 2011). In his efforts, al-Juwali can count on his growing reputation within the revolutionary forces as a member of one of the most powerful Libyan militias with the support of a wide network of personal relations within it.

Conclusion

Apart from a powerful shared aim to get rid of Qaddafi, the various loose-knit groups of the rebel camp had little in common, leaving a general feeling of mistrust and suspicion as the main denominators of their relationship. Every militia has its own self-narrative and myth concerning its role and weight in destroying Qaddafi’s Jamahiriya. As shown by the recent clashes in and around Tripoli, the ability to obtain a consensus among the militias seems slight and the possibility that these groups will voluntarily give up their arms and get out of Libyan streets appears to be remote. The Zintan militia is a rather powerful example of how much militias matter in the current Libyan environment; well organized, tough, irreducibly anti-Qaddafi and even in a way reliable, they patrol several areas of Tripoli and, although at odds with some residents and local groups, have been able to perform a more or less effective job of controlling their districts. Their role during the revolution bought them some credibility amongst ordinary Libyans and other revolutionaries. With some other factions, however, relations remain tense, especially with groups vying for control of Tripoli such as the Tripoli Military Council, the Misrata militia and the National Army.

Any state pretending to be effective and functioning cannot allow the presence of armed groups on its territory that act independently. The efforts of al-Juwali, a member of the Zintan group, will be aimed at integrating, rather than marginalizing, these militiamen in the new security structure of Libya. The presence of a militia member in the position of Minister of Defense is a vivid demonstration of how much the militias matter. That the Minister is a member of the Zintan militia displays the importance of this group and suggests that the next political moves by the Transitional Government will not be hostile to Zintani interests.

The presence of an enormous number of “liberated” weapons on the streets of Tripoli and the strong possibility that not all the militias will be satisfied by the new political balance make the outcome of the process started by al-Juwali very uncertain. Optimism regarding a settlement of the militia issue in Libya in the short term appears to be unrealistic.

-This article was published in the Terrorism Monitor of Jamestown Foundation on 19/01/2012

Is There Still Hope For A Democratic Egypt?

It is seeming increasingly unlikely that we will achieve a democratic government by April, says the man who helped broadcast the revolution

By WAEL GHONIM

An anti-Mubarak protester holds an Egyptian flag in front of riot police as they stand guard outside the police
academy where former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is on trial in Cairo.

In March 2011, 14 million Egyptians voted in favor of constitutional amendments that would create presidential term limits, require that the president choose a deputy within 30 days of being elected and would define the president’s powers to propose new constitutional amendments. (I was not one of those who voted in favor, but I respected the decision of the clear majority.)

The road map that voters approved would first allow the election of the People’s Assembly members, next it would pave the way for a presidential election and then, under the supervision of legitimate, elected officials, a new constitution would be drafted.

Even the Military Council, which was effectively running the country at the time, supported that process, while conferring on itself — temporarily — the powers of the presidency until a new president is elected. Since then, however, the Military Council has vowed to slow down the process, suggesting that it would remain in effective control for much longer, overseeing the drafting of a constitution prior to holding presidential elections, many months from now. So when will a democratic Egyptian government gain legitimate, true power?

It’s still possible for Egypt to elect a president on April 1, less than four months from now, if the presidential campaigns commence immediately after completion of Shura (advisory) council elections on Feb. 22. But it is increasingly unlikely, and many people are tempted to accept the Military Council’s proposal to oversee a new constitution first. Some might hope that that process could be done so quickly that we could still achieve a democratic government by April. Yet there are three obvious problems:

1) This will be a departure from what Egyptians approved in the referendum because it alters the agreed upon sequence of events, keeping the military in charge much longer.

2) It’s practically impossible to appoint the constituent assembly, draft the constitution, launch it for community debate and hold a referendum on it in less than 45 days. The constitution teems with many issues that require dialogue among, and consensus of, the political powers and the public at large. It will be a great shame if the constitution of our country is hastily developed.

3) More fundamentally, constitution drafting should not take place while the Military Council is in power. The Military Council is not an authority elected by the people to undertake that role.

Egypt needs to immediately hand over authority to a democratically selected body, elected by all of its people. This is the issue that I — as an Egyptian who strives for a better Egypt and the preservation of the integrity of our military — believe to be our most significant task. I hope that the elected parliamentarians — the legitimate representatives of the people — play a prominent role in achieving this. The longer our transitional period drags on, the more we will be exposed to further economic and political problems and controversy.

We are trying hard to achieve the objectives of the Jan. 25 revolution. The longer the Military Council remains in power, the longer we wait without success. Politics does not reward promises, only results. The 1952 revolution is a vivid example: Ali Maher Pasha — the post-revolution appointed prime minister — promised that Egypt would have a democratic parliament to take over authority from the Revolution Leadership Council within a maximum of six months. Sixty years have passed, and his promise has yet to be fulfilled. Egyptians are still waiting.

-This commentary was published  in Time’s blog on 24/01/2011
-Ghonim, on sabbatical from his position with Google, is developing an NGO supporting education and technology in Egypt. The views expressed are solely his own

A Forward Strategy Of Freedom

It's neither perfect nor pretty, but the Arab Spring proves that neoconservatives were right all along.

BY ELLIOTT ABRAMS

There is a sour mood nowadays about the so-called Arab Spring. Armed gangs roam in Libya, Salafists win votes in Egypt, and minorities like the Egyptian Copts live in fear -- as does the Shiite majority in Bahrain. The whole "experiment" seems to some critics to be a foolish, if idealistic project that promises to do nothing but wreak havoc in the Middle East. These same critics cast blame at the Americans who applauded the Arab revolts of the past year: naive, ideological, ignorant, dangerous folk.

As one of those folk, allow me to strike back.

The failures of the Arab world's rulers were manifest and explicitly described well before 2011, and it was no secret that these deficiencies threatened their hold on power. In 2002, the U.N. Development Program's Arab Human Development Report noted that the spread of democracy in recent decades from Latin America to Eastern Europe "has barely reached the Arab States." It was precisely this lack of freedom, the report argued, that "undermines human development and is one of the most painful manifestations of lagging political development."

U.S. President George W. Bush recognized this stark reality. "Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism?" he asked at the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy. "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."

Bush and the U.N. Development Program's analysis were right, and those who judged that the old regimes could survive forever were wrong. What has been called "authoritarian resilience" turned out to be less impressive after all, and the popular hatred of those regimes much greater.

The Arab Spring is therefore not a peculiarity of history, but a natural outcome for regimes that had quite simply become illegitimate in the eyes of their subjects. Of the possible sources of legitimacy -- such as democracy, religion, monarchic succession, or the creation of great prosperity -- they had none. They were kept in place solely by force, and they were far less stable than the vast majority of scholars, diplomats, and political leaders thought. They were not overthrown because Bush criticized them or President Barack Obama failed to shore them up, but because they lacked a coherent defense of their own rule.

Thus the neocons, democrats, and others who applauded the Arab uprisings were right, for what was the alternative? To applaud continued oppression? To instruct the rulers on better tactics, the way Iran is presumably lecturing (and arming) Syria's Bashar al-Assad? Such a stance would have made a mockery of American ideals, would have failed to keep these hated regimes in place for very long, and would have left behind a deep, almost ineradicable anti-Americanism. This kind of so-called "realpolitik" is the path U.S. President Richard Nixon's administration took after the Greek military coup in 1967, and nearly a half-century later the Greeks have still not forgiven the United States.

Of course, the best answer is that we should have been pushing harder for reform all along, but that is after all the Bush/neocon/democracy activist line. Take U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's 2005 speech at the American University in Cairo or Bush's second inaugural address -- both reviled by "realists." It would be nice if some of the critics now admitted that such speeches were prophetic, even if the United States was far too tentative in adopting, as Bush put it at the National Endowment for Democracy, "a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East."

Instead, the critics condemn such a strategy for producing the dangers we now see. That is exactly wrong, for it was in fact the policy of ignoring gross oppression that helped bring us to the precipice of today's dangers. Bush, after all, was not urging instant remedies; he said democratization was "the concentrated work of generations." He was urging reform, in part because it is usually far safer than revolution. Those who thought "durable authoritarianism" could persist forever have far more to apologize for than Bush, democracy activists, or neocons do.

But we are where we are, so the next question is whether the Arab Spring will actually fulfill its promise of greater democratic rights or whether it will simply usher in an era of extremist Islamist regimes or new forms of authoritarianism. The pessimists might yet be proved right -- any comparison of the Arab lands to Eastern Europe suggests that many positive elements are missing, not least the magnet and model of the European Union.

Nothing is inevitable, though. African countries such as Botswana, Ghana, and Mali -- and India, for that matter -- have attained democracy despite poverty, low literacy rates, and social divisions roughly similar to those that exist in the Arab world. Nor does experience suggest that Islamist victories are unavoidable -- or at least, are permanent. A study of 21 Islamic countries conducted by scholars Charles Kurzman and Ijlal Naqvi found that Islamist parties fare far more poorly than popularly believed and gain their highest vote total in the first election.

Kurzman and Naqvi describe a common political arc for Islamist parties. They often emerge from the oppression of the previous regime with a reputation for honesty and courage, and attract many voters who are not zealots. Then when they fail to produce tangible results -- when, to put it starkly, Islam turns out not to be the answer -- many voters turn elsewhere. As the authors put it, "when Muslims are given the opportunity to vote freely for Islamic parties, they have tended not to do so."

There are plenty of caveats, of course. Islamist parties do better on average in Arab than non-Arab lands, and in any event, this process takes time, often requiring second and third free elections. But time is also part of the antidote to extremism. As Bush noted in his speech at the National Endowment for Democracy, "The daily work of democracy itself is the path of progress. It teaches cooperation, the free exchange of ideas, and the peaceful resolution of differences." So can Islamist parties learn to play along? Kurzman and Naqvi say yes: "[T]he Islamic parties' overall trend toward publicly embracing global norms of democracy and human rights is significant.… The experience of political participation, both in government and in civil society, has changed their outlooks in ways that they did not imagine when they started down the path of electoral politics."

Again, stripping away long-standing and deeply rooted authoritarian systems is a long, dangerous, and violent process. If disorder and economic collapse are the result, we may see the Russian experience repeated: Democracy is equated with chaos; a Vladimir Putin emerges. As we see now in Russia, though, with the surprisingly poor showing of Putin's ruling party in the recent parliamentary elections and the mass protests in Moscow, this too does not appear to last forever.

As the old Arab regimes have found out the hard way during the past year, authoritarian rule is inherently unstable. Simply put, people want more. "[T]he regime is branded as an expedient, something temporary and transitional needed to meet the exigencies of the time," Columbia University professor Andrew Nathan wrote about China's communist system. "Authoritarian regimes in this sense are not forever. For all their diversity and longevity, they live under the shadow of the future, vulnerable to existential challenges that mature democratic systems do not face."

The new governments of the Middle East will need to win the loyalties of populations that seek more dignity, more freedom from oppression, and better lives. Arab culture will prove an obstacle to moving forward: Both the treatment of women and the widespread conspiracy theories blaming Jews and others for national failures will undermine a population's ability to take responsibility for its own future. Years of danger lie ahead, and there will surely be very uneven patterns of democratization -- as has been the case, after all, not only in Africa and Latin America, but even in Europe. But the sour "analysis" that the Arab revolts will lead only, inevitably, and permanently to disaster is based in neither experience nor scholarship.

What should the United States do? Batten down the hatches, for one thing. Who can say what Egypt's or Libya's political situation will be in two years, or four? Prepare to protect U.S. interests and America's allies if, during this long and uneven process, they are threatened. In addition, what America should do is help: help the liberals, the constitutionalists, the democrats, and the human rights advocates, whose enemies -- in the mosques or streets or barracks -- will have plenty of outside support.

You might call it adopting a "forward strategy of freedom," requiring, as Bush said, "persistence and energy and idealism." We will not determine the outcome of these struggles, but we can do our utmost to help the good guys win, and win sooner.

-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 23/01/2012
-Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for global democracy strategy in U.S. President George W. Bush's administration

All Silk Roads Lead To Tehran

Sanctions aren't the answer. If Washington is serious about building a new economic and security architecture across South and Central Asia, it can’t avoid working with Iran.

BY NEIL PADUKONE

American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Speaking last September on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Secretary Hillary Clinton articulated the U.S. government's vision of a "New Silk Road" running through Afghanistan. In a throwback to the circuit that once connected India and China with Turkey and Egypt, she argued in favor of a network of road, rail, and energy links that would traverse Central Asia and enable Turkmen gas to fuel the subcontinent's economic growth, cotton from Tajikistan to fill India's textile mills, and Afghan produce to reach markets across Asia.

By enhancing economic integration, the strategy aims to boost local economies and stabilize the region. There are certainly doubts about the plan's feasibility. But at least, after years of endlessly repeating the myth that Afghanistan is the "graveyard of empires," this new Silk Road recognizes that, from the times of the ancient Persians to Alexander the Great, and through the Mongols, Mughals, and Sikhs, Afghanistan was at the center of global exchange.

This effort has the dual benefit of distributing the Afghan burden away from Pakistan, which has long been America's only link to Central Asia. For decades, Washington's dependence on Islamabad has amounted to U.S. support for a Pakistani military-economic complex that has played a bloody double game in Afghanistan, uses terrorists and militants as strategic weapons, and has proven the world's most flagrant nuclear proliferator. And it's working: By late 2011, increased use of the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) through Central Asia shifted NATO's dependence on Pakistan from bearing nearly 70 percent of its supplies and fuel in previous years to less than 30 percent today. But the NDN comes with pitfalls of its own, giving Russia and Kyrgyzstan increased leverage over U.S. supply lines, forcing the United States to turn a blind eye to unsavory dictators in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and costing three times more than shipping from the Arabian Sea.

Yet there is an important stretch of this new Silk Road that is conspicuously overlooked: Iran. Because Iran lies strategically between Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, Central and South Asia, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Sea, a broader network of trade is nearly impossible without it. Even the original Silk Road had Persia as a central pillar, including the key trading posts of Gedrosia in modern Baluchistan, Hecatompylos in today's Semnan Province, and Traxiane, currently Khorasan province.

Today, the Iranian "Eastern Corridor" in particular has the potential to reshape Afghanistan's strategic future. Constructed by India in September 2008, the road passes from Chabahar Port on the Arabian Sea through Iran's relatively stable Sistan-Baluchistan and Khorasan provinces, and onward to the town of Milak on the Afghan border. From there it connects with the Indian-built Zaranj-Delaram highway in western Afghanistan's Nimruz Province, which subsequently links to the Afghan Ring Road. New Delhi, Tehran, and Kabul have planned a railway line along the entire route to facilitate trade -- particularly of Afghanistan's estimated $1 trillion in minerals -- to and from Central Asia. New Delhi -- like Ankara and others -- is coming up with "creative" ways to engage with Iran while insulating itself from punitive action by the United States, including building new, independent corporate entities that do not participate in Western markets.

At 135 miles, the Chabahar road to the Afghan border is far shorter than the nearly 1,100-mile trip from Karachi to the Torkham border in northeastern Pakistan, and even shorter than the 500 miles from Karachi to the Chaman border in northwest Pakistan. Thomas Barfield, author of the comprehensive Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, puts it succinctly: the "new transport corridor" through Chabahar "ends Pakistan's monopoly on seaborne transit trade to Afghanistan ... [making] Iran the most efficient transit route into Central Asia."

In contrast to the zero-sum logic that defines the current escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, the two countries share substantial interests in increasing regional trade and stability. Tehran hopes to stabilize Afghanistan and export its own natural gas and petroleum -- 16 percent and 10 percent of the world's total reserves, respectively -- to the world. Indeed, its existing infrastructure -- albeit in need of much improvement -- is better suited to bring Turkmen natural gas to market than alternate plans to construct new pipelines across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, or all the way through the Caspian, Caucasus, and Turkey.

However, Washington so vehemently sought to shut Tehran out of any regional plans that it even preferred to endorse the Taliban in an effort to stabilize and develop energy pipelines through Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. At the time, Iranian Deputy Minister of Oil Ali Majedi stated, only slightly hyperbolically, "the total cost for [shipping Central Asian hydrocarbons through] Iran would be $300,000. How does that compare with [well over] $3 billion for a pipeline through Turkey?"

Cooperation between Washington and Tehran on economic matters seems exceptionally unlikely these days. In fact, the United States is pushing for more sanctions, not more interaction. But Iranian and U.S. political goals in Central Asia are not necessarily in conflict: Within Afghanistan, the militantly Sunni Taliban that threatens the West is similarly anathema to Shiite Iran -- Iran's alleged tactical support is decidedly driven by anti-American rather than pro-Taliban motives.

Despite U.S. attempts to isolate Tehran, countries like India, China, Turkey, and Russia are banking on Iran for the long haul, precisely because it is a relatively stable, energy-rich geographic lynchpin. With emerging projects like an Iran-Pakistan-China gas pipeline, an Economic Cooperation Organization railway from Istanbul to Tehran and Islamabad, and the North-South Trade Corridor, Iran's regional influence is inevitable. The United States may as well adapt itself to that fact while it is still engaged in the region.

And yet, engagement with Iran is a virtual heresy in Washington. The discussion in the U.S. capital is focused on a renewed campaign of ever-tighter sanctions, and militaristic rhetoric from the nation's top officials is paving not a silk road, but a warpath.

Ratcheting up war pressure simply strengthens Tehran's drive to get the bomb, increases regional instability, and drives up energy prices in the midst of a recession. Only concerted diplomacy will yield mutually beneficial shared interests, including cooperation in Afghanistan and Iraq -- something Tehran had delivered in the wake of the invasions -- and a fully functioning New Silk Road.

Of course, the story goes that diplomacy did not even work when President Barack Obama "extended a hand" to Tehran in mid-2009. But as Trita Parsi describes in his book A Single Roll of the Dice, diplomacy with Iran actually did not fail at all; it was abandoned due largely to domestic political concerns. Key among them were objections from Saudi Arabia, Israel, and their supporters in the United States, who "fear[ed] that a thaw in U.S. relations with Iran would come at the expense of America's special friendships" with both states.

Washington needs to decide how many more terrorists must be bred, and troops, dollars, lives, and years expended along the Durand Line to keep validating this perception. As Brazil, Turkey, India, China, and the rest of the world work to capitalize on Iran's undeniable potential, it would serve the United States well to follow their lead.

-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 23/01/2012

A Pragmatic Principle Gains Ground In Islamist Politics

The rise of Islamists has brought new emphasis to a pragmatic aspect of Sharia law, one which puts a premium on the public interest.

By Hassan Hassan

The results are final: Islamists have secured 75 per cent of the seats in Egypt's parliament. They will shape politics for at least five years to come, a chilling thought for many. But the reverse might also be true, not only in Egypt but in every country where Islamists are winning at the ballot box: politics will shape Islamism.

The rise of Islamists in the region has revived a pragmatic form of Islamic jurisprudence that has been neglected for centuries: "siyasa shariyyah", or Sharia-compliant realist governance, deals with politics, economics and law based on an overarching principle known as "maslaha", or public interest. In practice, siyasa shariyyah is often seen as in opposition to traditional jurisprudence.

But it is a school of thought that is gaining ground in different quarters. "Politics is mainly about maslaha," says Dr Salman Al Odah, one of Saudi Arabia's more prominent clerics. Dr Al Odah is in the process of preparing a study on the subject that deals with Sharia in the context of the Arab Spring.

Sheikh Mohammed Hassan, one of Egypt's top Salafi clerics, has used the principle of maslaha to justify the need to comply with the peace treaty with Israel. He maintains that it is not in Egypt's best interests to break the accords, citing the example of a 10-year truce Prophet Mohammed signed with Quraishi leaders when Muslims were weak. Although it was a deeply "unfair and humiliating" agreement, Sheikh Mohammed says, the Prophet adhered to the truce until it was eventually broken by the Meccans. Egypt's Salafi Al Nour party has recently held training courses for its members on siyasa shariyyah.

Ibrahim bin Omar Al Sakran, a Saudi intellectual, has been attacked by extremist Salafis after writing a treatise on siyasa shariyyah in which he argued that the Islamic political concept of "shura", or consultation, meant that all Muslims must be consulted - rather than a select group - bringing the idea of shura closer to a democratic system. He also argues that governments have contracts with the people that can be revoked just like any other contract if the terms are breached. Political engagement of the entire community, he says, falls within the national maslaha.

The significance is that these opinions come from moderate figures within the Salafi movement, who base their arguments on Sharia texts (the Quran and the Hadiths) and the views of Islam's early generations, making the ideas more credible in the eyes of other religious scholars.

Here in the UAE, the judiciary offers concrete examples of how the principle of siyasa shariyyah is applied. In 2010, Abu Dhabi's Court of Cassation set a legal precedent by ruling that a Muslim can be executed for the murder of a non-Muslim although the UAE hears cases under the Maliki school of jurisprudence - which stipulates the contrary. The lower courts found a Sudanese man guilty of stabbing to death a Christian woman from Ethiopia, and sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

The Public Prosecution appealed against the verdicts and demanded the case be tried under Hanafi teachings, the only Sunni school that calls for the death penalty if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim. Prosecutors said it was in the interest of the country to ensure equality for residents. The victim was a legitimate resident and therefore entitled to protection, security and sanctity for her "blood, honour and money", according to the prosecutor.

The case was then retried under the Hanafi school and the man was sentenced to death. As the cassation court's rulings are binding on local courts, all Abu Dhabi courts now have to treat Muslims and non-Muslims equally in criminal matters. Magistrates at the time cited the pragmatic principle of siyasa shariyyah.

"In Islamic jurisprudence, judges can announce that a person is sentenced to death in accordance with Sharia but should not be executed in consideration of politics," says Dr Ahmed Al Kubaisi, the head of Sharia studies at UAE University. "The interests of the nation precede the interests of the individual. Justice that safeguards the interests of the whole nation is preferable to that which safeguards the interests of the individual."

In another case, the federal Supreme Court ruled against a borrower who refused to pay interest that he owed on delayed loan repayments. The man claimed that interest was forbidden by Sharia and therefore he was not obliged to pay. Lower courts accepted his argument but the Supreme Court ruled the bank's right to charge interest was in line with both UAE secular laws and Sharia.

"As a general rule, interest, whether simple or compound, is prohibited by Sharia," the Supreme Court ruled. "But it has been made necessary for banks to accept simple interest. As long as the necessity persists, and until an economic alternative is established to replace the current banking system, interest is lawful."

The judges based their ruling on the Hadith: "A rich man's delay in payment is an injustice.

"In line with the Hadith, ordering the borrower to pay interest for late payments can be considered a sort of damages, which is compliant with both the UAE law and Sharia," the justices ruled.

Over the last century, Islamic scholastic tradition has been largely shaped by faqihs, or Sharia scholars, whose fatwas have been based purely on religious texts, even if the issues involve scientific fact or public interest. Siyasa shariyyah, on the other hand, requires judgements in light of the specific context and the general maslaha.

Across the region, the principle has gained momentum since Islamists rose in the political arena after the Arab Spring. It is not enough for a scholar to issue a maslaha-based opinion; the reasoning still must be based on a religious text. That is why siyasa shariyyah has such an imposing authority within Islamist thought. And it is why it may fundamentally reshape Islamic jurisprudence in public affairs.

This commentary was published in The National on 23/01/2012