Lebanon's Little Syria

Bashar al-Assad's enemies and allies are battling it out in the flashpoint city of Tripoli.

BY EMILE HOKAYEM

Most Lebanese certainly wished otherwise, but it was only a matter of time before the bloodshed that has overwhelmed Syria for the past 15 months arrived at their doorstep. The conflict has now come to the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, which possesses a social fabric and history that make it fertile ground for the long-awaited proxy war between enemies and allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The latest conflagration was triggered by the May 12 arrest of previously unknown Sunni Islamist activist Shadi al-Mawlawi and five others by Lebanon's General Security Directorate (GSD). Within hours of Mawlawi's arrest, Sunni protesters took to the streets, blocked the highway, and burned tires to demand his immediate release -- a call joined by the city's politicians and clerics. The standoff soon spiraled out of control: Armed men deployed in the poor Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh, battling with gunmen of the adjacent district of Jabal Mohsen, which is inhabited by staunchly pro-Assad members of Lebanon's small Alawite community. So far, the conflict, which has escalated to include rocket-propelled grenade and mortar attacks, has left five people dead and more than 100 wounded.

But there's more to this conflict than meets the eye. It seems that GSD officers mounted a trap -- Mawlawi was lured to a social services center under the pretext he would receive health care -- and had no valid warrant at the time of the arrest. The agency later leaked that Mawlawi had returned days ago from Syria, where he allegedly partook in the rebellion, though it is impossible to confirm these claims. Lebanon's Sunni prime minister, Najib Mikati, a native of Tripoli, called the manner of the arrest "unacceptable," adding that he "rejected and condemned [it]" during a meeting of Lebanon's Higher Defense Council, the top body in charge of internal and external security. Notwithstanding this torrent of words, a military prosecutor charged the six men on May 14 with belonging to an "armed terrorist organization" and "plotting to carry out terrorist acts inside and outside of Lebanon." A Lebanese newspaper on May 15 quoted intelligence sources saying Mawlawi confessed to the accusations.

The arresting party is, to say the least, controversial. GSD is one of Lebanon's many competing security agencies, and it is perceived as the internal arm of Hezbollah. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, who previously served as Hezbollah's and other Shiite factions' go-to man in military intelligence, heads the organization, which has a broad mandate that includes monitoring political activity, foreigners, and the media. An anti-Assad Lebanese parliamentarian on May 14 laid the blame for the conflict squarely at Ibrahim's feet, accusing him of "following a Syrian agenda in Lebanon."

In the absence of any history of impartial justice -- other security agencies are similarly corrupt and dominated by other sects -- Tripoli residents have focused their anger on the GSD for overstepping its authority. One friend in the city angrily asked me on May 14: "Does the Internal Security Forces [an agency seen as sympathetic to anti-Assad groups and the Sunni community] dare arrest someone in the south or Dahiyeh [the Hezbollah-controlled suburbs of Beirut]? No. So why is General Security even operating here?"

Lebanon's own pathologies have been exacerbated by the bloody crisis next door. Northern Lebanon has been particularly welcoming of the Syrian opposition, rebels and refugees alike. This is not surprising. The region suffered greatly during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, notably in the 1980s when a brutal war arrayed Islamist and Palestinian factions against the ultimately victorious Syrian military and its Lebanese Alawite allies.

Tripoli and the Sunni-dominated north, in general, have predictably become an anti-Assad and anti-Hezbollah bastion since Syrian troops withdrew in 2005. Since the outbreak of the Syrian uprising, the city and its suburbs have seen many pro-revolution rallies, and many roads are decorated with anti-Assad slogans and flags, some espousing extreme sectarian views. Unsurprisingly in this city on the edge, which is also plagued by poverty and state neglect, deadly clashes have repeatedly occurred between Sunni and Alawite gunmen in recent months.

On my visits to the areas even closer to the Syrian border, further north and east of Tripoli, the local population's enthusiasm for the revolution was unmistakable. This was particularly true in the region of Wadi Khaled, from where one can see the Syrian city of Homs and which has provided shelter for many of the refugees fleeing the military crackdown on that city and nearby villages. In the absence of the state, traditional networks supply the help needed. Syrian refugees stay in mosques and private homes; members of the Free Syrian Army regroup and find respite; and injured civilians and rebels receive medical care and sustenance.

Assad's Lebanese allies have tried, unconvincingly, to paint all this activity as the work of Islamist radicals. Asked about the accusations by the pro-Assad Lebanese defense minister that al Qaeda was running the smuggling to Syria, a village chief laughingly responded, "We are doing all what this villain says, except that we are not al Qaeda or extremists."

He has a point: Residents of Wadi Khaled belong to tribes living on both sides of the border, and they support the Syrian rebels out of kinship rather than religious ideology. Smugglers in the area once transported cheap Syrian goods and gasoline into Lebanon -- when the uprising erupted, they simply reversed the flow. Now they carry everything from weaponry to medical equipment and drugs across the minefields that the Syrian regime has laid along the border, bringing goods and supplies to the hot zones around the western Syrian cities of Homs and Qusayr. It should come as no surprise that the Lebanese Navy recently seized a ship bound for Tripoli from Libya that was carrying arms presumably destined for Syria.

The more radical Sunnis reside further to the south, in the rugged mountains of Dinniyeh and in the slums of Tripoli (though, of course, many moderate Sunnis live alongside them as well). There, the Salafi influence is visible to anyone who drives through. In December 1999, Islamist militants fought fiercely against the Lebanese military, backed by Syrian forces. Dozens were killed and hundreds arrested. In 2007, a shadowy jihadi group, Fatah al-Islam, took over the Palestinian camp of Nahr al-Bared and battled the Lebanese Army for four months. Hundreds were killed in vicious fighting, and the camp was almost entirely destroyed. According to Lebanese intelligence, Fatah al-Islam members are now fighting alongside the rebellion in Syria, where a few were reportedly killed in April. The irony is not lost on many Lebanese who suspect, with good reason, Syrian intelligence of having contributed to its rise.

Ever since Syria's uprising began, Hezbollah and its allies in the Lebanese government have wanted to see a more forceful state crackdown on anti-Assad activities. This, however, would fatally destabilize a government over which they wield decisive influence -- alienating their shrinking number of Sunni allies at the risk of further inflaming sectarian passions. For his part, Prime Minister Mikati has tried to tread a thin line between assuaging his Sunni constituency and his pro-Assad allies in government, touting a shaky policy of neutrality and "dissociation" from developments in Syria. This has not prevented Lebanon's security agencies from monitoring, harassing, and even aiding in the rendition of Syrian dissidents, to the anger of the country's large anti-Assad constituency.

The possibility that the violence in Tripoli will spread across Lebanon remains limited, but the situation is undeniably deteriorating. Mikati's strategy depends on the ability and willingness of each faction to control the more destructive tendencies of its followers. As the case of Tripoli demonstrates, however, this is easier said than done: Sunni groups, feeling triumphant or angry, may think (mistakenly) the time is opportune to strike a blow against their rivals at home, as well as Assad abroad. Hezbollah, militarily strong but politically on the defensive, may decide that preemptive action is warranted. Any of the two scenarios would throw Lebanon into a sectarian hell.

Tripoli's descent into violence reveals two other ominous trends: the fragmentation of Sunni politics and the weakening of its mainstream politicians. Mikati, who came to power by displacing the vehemently anti-Assad Saad Hariri in January 2011, is one contender for the loyalties of Lebanon's Sunnis, as is the Lebanese finance minister, Mohammad Safadi, another Tripoli native and wealthy candidate for the premiership. Hariri remains a powerful figure, but his standing has taken a hit because of his lackluster performance and a long absence from the country. All three are increasingly seen as weak, indecisive defenders of their sect.

This provides an opening for radical Sunni groups. Tripoli already plays host to several competing Salafi factions. Incredibly, one group -- Harakat al-Tawhid -- is aligned with Hezbollah. Most, however, are vehemently anti-Shiite and anti-Alawite. Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian Salafi cleric who was expelled from Britain for his support for al Qaeda and a darling of the Western media for his fluency in English, resides in Tripoli. Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, a previously unknown Salafi cleric from the southern city of Saida, has emerged as a vociferous champion of Syria's revolutionaries and a challenger of Hariri's political dominance in the city.

The Sunni gangs fighting on the streets of Tripoli are not jihadi outfits -- yet. Rather, they are a mishmash of armed political activists, religious militants, and neighborhood strongmen who think they are protecting their communities. But the growth of Salafi movements would not only adversely affect Lebanon's fragile equilibrium -- it could well taint the Syrian revolution. It would provide Assad with timely evidence that his domestic opponents are not struggling for freedom and democracy, but are allied with violent, foreign Salafists who object to his government on fundamentalist religious grounds.

In the meantime, the Lebanese military has been called in to rescue Tripoli. The Lebanese Army is generally seen as the country's least politicized and least sectarian security force, though this image suffered when it stood idle as Hezbollah and its allies invaded Beirut in May 2008. Its deployment on the streets of Tripoli may contain the clashes for the moment, but it will merely serve as a Band-Aid -- the military will neither seize weaponry nor arrest militiamen involved in the fighting, thus doing nothing to prevent the same bloody cycle from repeating itself.

The sad fact is that there are precious few saviors willing to guide Lebanon through this crisis. The military on which many Lebanese have pinned their hopes reflects, rather than transcends, the country's many ills. Nor can the Lebanese count on their politicians -- the Syrian crisis has crystallized the existing divides in Lebanon, with each side hoping that its allies next door will come out on top in the conflict. It looks like all sides will be disappointed -- with little prospect of a game-changing development, the Syrian revolution will likely gain in complexity and violence, slowly dragging Lebanon down with it.

-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 15/05/2012
-Emile Hokayem is senior fellow for Middle East security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies

Saudi Arabia Seeks Union Of Monarchies In Region

By KAREEM FAHIM and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK from Manama, Bahrain

Saudi Arabia pushed ahead Monday with efforts to forge a single federation with its five Persian Gulf neighbors as the conservative monarchy seeks to build a new bulwark against the waves of change sweeping the Middle East.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said after a meeting in Riyadh of the loosely allied, six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council that the group had distributed a draft plan for the union to its members’ foreign ministers to review so they could resolve any issues. “I am hoping that the six countries will unite in the next meeting,” he said.

Several smaller gulf states have publicly balked at the idea, fearing Saudi domination of the group. The fact that no agreement was announced Monday, as some had expected, seemed to signal deep misgivings among several of Saudi Arabia’s neighbors. But Prince Saud’s public push forward despite their opposition underscored the kingdom’s continuing scramble — with diplomacy, money and even arms — to preserve or rebuild what it can of the old regional order in the wake of the Arab uprisings.

Saudi Arabia’s rulers fear that the contagion of popular revolt could reach their country’s borders and stir its own disenfranchised citizens and residents, including dissidents, members of minority groups and foreign workers, analysts said. “They don’t want the spirit of our uprising to reach their shores,” said Sayed Hadi al-Mosawi, a Bahraini opposition politician.

The move also highlights the Saudi monarchy’s preoccupation with its regional rival, Iran, which has been reflected in a series of Saudi interventions that have taken on distinctly sectarian overtones, including its support for Sunni opposition groups in Syria and its military intervention last spring on behalf of the Sunni monarchy in Bahrain.

Thousands of Saudi troops rolled into Bahrain last year to help Bahrain’s monarch put down a popular uprising led by members of the country’s Shiite majority. Bahrain, which is linked by a bridge to Saudi Arabia, is virtually the only country publicly endorsing the Saudi push for a tighter regional federation. In a statement released on Monday, the king of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, said, “We are looking forward to the establishment of the Gulf Union.”

Several Bahraini opposition activists rejected the idea and suggested it was not only government opponents who feared a closer union with its far more conservative neighbor. “We don’t want to be subsumed by Saudi Arabia,” said Ala’a Shehabi, a writer and opposition activist.

And several other states — including Kuwait, Qatar and Oman, have so far shown little enthusiasm for the kind of tighter union Saudi Arabia is pushing, perhaps modeled on the European Union.

“Each of them has its own reason not to be very warm to the idea of a more empowered Saudi Arabia,” said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies who is based in Manama. “Those tensions have been around forever, but what’s different at this point is a number of countries don’t feel they need a Saudi security umbrella. They’re quite ambitious independently. They know how to leverage their wealth. It doesn’t make sense to throw their lot right now in with Saudi Arabia.”

Saudi Arabia has already made moves to try to stretch the Gulf Cooperation Council far beyond its original regional mission to try to turn it into an alliance of monarchies that might band together against the democratic trend. Its diplomats have made overtures to include the kingdoms of Morocco and Jordan.

Saudi and Kuwaiti officials last year even leaked the idea that Egypt might become some kind of member of the group, though Egyptian diplomats quickly dismissed the idea. At the time, one senior Egyptian official suggested that Egypt’s revolution would fundamentally change the nature of the relationship with Saudi Arabia, a longtime ally of the deposed president, Hosni Mubarak.

In recent weeks, Egyptians have taken to the streets to complain about the alliance, prompting the worst crisis in years between the countries. Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador after Egyptians, angered at the arrest of an Egyptian human rights lawyer while visiting Saudi Arabia, held protests outside the Saudi Embassy in Cairo. The lawyer, Ahmed el-Gizawy, had drawn attention to the detention of Egyptian workers in Saudi Arabia, who are employed under a restrictive sponsorship system.

But Egypt’s military rulers, fearful of losing billions of dollars in pledged Saudi aid in the midst of a fiscal crisis, quickly tried to heal the rift. Senior Egyptian officials, including senior leaders of the Islamist-led Parliament, flew to Riyadh to make amends with the Saudi king.

Saudi Arabia appears to be trying to make up with Egypt as well. After more than a year of waiting, it has released to Egypt the first $1 billion of a promised aid package, just in time to help Egypt land a larger loan from the International Monetary Fund.

And on Monday, Saudi officials said they were beginning reforms of visa rules that compel guest workers to maintain the “sponsorship” of their Saudi employer — a requirement many Egyptians say reduces guest workers to servitude. Although the planned reforms may be mainly cosmetic — Saudi government “sponsorships” will still be required — the Saudi announcement was played as major news Monday in Egypt’s state media.

-This commentary was published first in The New York Times on 15/05/2012
-Kareem Fahim reported from Manama, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo. Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo

Syrian Kurds Fleeing To Iraqi Safe Haven

By Samer Muscati


A Kurdish mother with her two daughters at the Domiz refugee camp. Although the immediate family feels safe at the camp, the mother said she is worried about the relatives they left behind in Syria. “We sold so many of our things to get here,” the mother said. “All that we have left is our children.” © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch

It was a January evening when his Syrian army unit raided a house near the city of Zabadani, not far from Damascus, the former sergeant recalled.  A 70-year-old man wearing a hospital gown was brought to the house, and the soldiers, including a colonel, interrogated him. When he wasn’t able to respond to their satisfaction, one of the guards beat him ferociously in the face with a helmet.

 “I heard the old man muttering in a muffled sound as he fell to the ground,” the former sergeant told me. “About 15 minutes after they first brought the man in, I went inside and saw his lifeless body. There was blood coming out of his nose and ears. I’m positive he was dead and they just disposed of his body.”

With violence raging in Syria, thousands of people are fleeing to neighboring countries to escape the bloodshed.  Although the flow of refugees to Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey has been covered extensively, the Syrians who have fled to Iraq, most of them Kurds,   have received less attention. As of April 14, when most of these photos were taken, more than 80 Syrian Kurds a day were crossing into Dohuk province, in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Most were coming from Syria’s poorer Kurdish northeastern provinces of Qamishli and Hasakeh.  About 1,300 Syrian Kurdish men, women and children were living in tents in Domiz, the main refugee camp for new arrivals, near the city of Dokuk.

After years of discrimination, neglect, and repression, the Syrian government made some concessions to the Kurdish community last year, including granting citizenship to an estimated 200,000 stateless Kurds.  It was an effort to keep the Kurds, about 10 per cent of Syria’s population, from joining the anti-Assad protest movement.

Protests and Exile

Since the start of the uprisings last year, the violence and repression in Kurdish areas have been less bloody than other parts of Syria. But many Syrian Kurds – mainly young men -- who fled to Iraq told Human Rights Watch that they felt they were in danger back home. Some feared arrest by security forces because of their political activism or participation in anti-government protests. Others left to avoid being conscripted into the Syrian army, or they deserted, as the sergeant did, after witnessing abuses and the targeting of civilians. Some who left the army joined the rebel Free Syria Army but left soon after because, as Kurds, they said, they were discriminated against or not trusted.

Human Rights Watch researchers who traveled to northern Iraq in April interviewed more than three dozen Syrian Kurdish refugees, who described the dire events they had witnessed at home.

A 17-year-old at another refugee camp, Moqabli, showed us his wounds, where security forces shot him during a peaceful protest in Qamishli on March 12 as he was helping an injured soldier who had been trying to defect. “As soon as I could limp, I made my way to the border,” he said. “I was so afraid that the army would be looking for me.”

Another army defector said that in Rastan, in Homs governorate, his battalion arrested 30 men during house raids one night in June in retaliation for the killing of a 19-year-old soldier, Omar Hamza.  After the soldier’s death, the defector said, he heard the brigadier general of the 41st regiment say, “We should not let the blood of Omar flow freely. There must be retribution.” The 30 men were interrogated and later that night taken out to a main street, handcuffed and blindfolded.  After making the men kneel to the ground, the brigadier general and two other soldiers executed them with machine guns. “I still have flashbacks from that episode,” the defector said. “I know it happened but I still don’t believe what I saw.”

A 23-year-old Kurdish political activist who lived in Damascus said he was arrested last July and severely beaten because he was well-known to the authorities as a regular at protests. He was released only after he signed a guarantee that he would refrain from future protests. “In prison, they kicked me so badly I felt like they were playing soccer with my body,” he said. “They also slapped and beat me, they treated me no better than a dog.”

Crossing the Border

To escape such horrors, many of the Kurds, the largest ethnic minority in Syria, have told us they paid hundreds of dollars to guides to help them navigate across the border through informal crossing points to Iraq, a country better known for exporting refugees than receiving them. Their hours-long journeys on foot were often perilous. In some cases, the refugees said, Syrian guards shot at them as they approached the border.

One 19-year-old activist said that a Syrian border patrol shot at his group of 37 asylum seekers on April 8 at 2 a.m. when they were about 400 meters from the border. “Shots rang out from the border patrol base toward us,” he said. “I saw two from our group getting shot and dropping to the ground. I don’t know if they survived because after that we all scattered in different directions.”

Domiz was set up in early April.  Before that, many new arrivals had been going to Moqabli, a camp already occupied by Kurds who fled Syria in 2004 after a crackdown by security forces. Local authorities started moving the new arrivals to Domiz in early April.

With about 50 new arrivals daily to Domiz, local authorities and relief agencies, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration, have been struggling to keep up with the influx. They are concerned about their ability to meet future demand, especially for food supplies.

Other refugees are living outside the camps in other areas of Iraqi Kurdistan, where they have friends or family, or where they have greater opportunities for finding employment. Local authorities estimate that as many as 5,000 Syrian refugees have moved to Iraqi Kurdistan since the start of the year.

Although they are now safe in Iraq, the refugees said they worry about loved ones left behind and what the future holds for their country. They said they want to return to Syria once things get better but fear that they and their Kurdish community will continue to face enormous challenges and discrimination in Syria regardless of who leads their country.

-This commentary was published first in Foreign Policy In Focus on 14/05/2012
-Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Samer Muscati is the emergencies researcher for the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. He is a lawyer, documentary photographer, and former journalist who has worked in post-conflict countries such as Iraq, Rwanda and East Timor

Lebanon Forced Into A Conflict It Does Not Want

                                                                        (The National on 15/05/2012)

Iran Is Cornered By Sanctions: Give It A Face-Saving Way Out

By Afshin Molavi

At the Dubai Strategy Forum five years ago, Iran's Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani famously dismissed US efforts to isolate or intimidate Iran over its nuclear programme by saying: "The US plays baseball. We play chess. Let them come." The comment was probably uttered with a flick of the wrist and more than a measure of pride.

Well, "they" have indeed come, and five years later Iran finds itself cornered by an elaborate, multi-pronged, gradually escalating diplomatic and economic squeeze.

In fact, from the time Mr Larijani made that statement until today, there has been a methodical squeeze led by the United States with a growing cast of partners, several of whom have taken the lead in their own right. Those countries that are not "on board" have been persuaded, pushed, cajoled, intimidated, sanctioned, shamed and threatened. They have largely fallen in line, with concessions both big and small.

The western countries leading the "squeeze" are no slouches when it comes to chess. Consider the following: Iran's oil and gas sector is in precipitous decline, hitting production lows not seen in a decade. Because of sanctions, persuasion and intimidation, no major bank is willing to do deals with Iran, no major re-insurer will provide cover for Iranian ships and the European Union will stop all purchases of Iranian crude oil by July 1. Foreign corporations with healthy profits from Iran operations are packing up and fleeing, and Iran's own investors and industrialists are sending capital abroad rather than invest in an uncertain environment at home.

Iran has become toxic in European investment circles. Even companies that can legally operate in Iran are too intimidated by the cloud of sanctions, and are packing up. What about Asia? After all, most of Iran's crude oil goes to East Asia. Figures for the first quarter of 2012 show that Iran's biggest buyers - China, Japan, and South Korea - have cut purchases by a combined 30 per cent. Chinese companies that signed multibillion dollar investment deals in Iran are dragging their feet. Japanese companies are looking for oil elsewhere. Korean banking authorities are shackling Iranian banks.

In Dubai, which has usually been open to Iranian business, the climate has changed dramatically. Simple banking transactions have become cumbersome and routine business matters get stuck in red tape. When rumour spread that Emirati banks would no longer trade in Iranian rials, the currency crashed in Tehran. Today, most Emirati banks simply refuse to do business with Iranian banks, to "avoid any headaches down the road", as one bank official put it.

The story goes on. The SWIFT interbank messaging system made history by expelling Iran from its service - a first. Lloyds Register, the world's most important shipping adviser with a presence in every major port, has simply packed up and left. While Asian insurers are still willing to brave Iran "risk", none of the major re-insurers will do so, leaving many ships packed with Iranian crude without cover. Iran's major tanker operator, NITC, routinely turns off its on-board vessel tracking systems, going "undercover" to unload their wares. Reports abound of ships idling at sea loaded with Iranian crude.

But lest we go too far, it must be remembered that the Iran squeeze is still just that - a squeeze, not a chokehold. Yes, Iranian oil production is down and, yes, the EU oil import ban, and Asian refiners' cutbacks, will hit Iran's bottom line. All told, it will probably mean that Iran will need to find new buyers for about one third of its oil. Even if it is unable to do so, it will still be able to sell two thirds of its oil. As one of the top five oil exporters, this is still a significant amount, up to $100 billion (Dh367 billion) last year. Losing one third of revenues is not a small matter, but it is not an existential threat.

So, where does that leave Iran and the P5 + 1 talks over its nuclear programme, to be picked up again in Baghdad on May 23? Clearly, Iran is hurting, but it is not drowning. The P 5 + 1 - the UN Security Council members plus Germany - should be cognisant of this fact. Iran wants the squeeze to end. By all accounts, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, made that clear to Lady Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief who led the P 5 + 1 side in the recent Istanbul talks.

It will be critical for Lady Ashton to come to the table with clear incentives, and a road map for a face-saving exit for Tehran. Too much political capital has been invested in the nuclear programme for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to simply slink away and retreat. But if a technical agreement on uranium enrichment with verifiable inspections could be reached, which Iran can sell to its public as a "victory", the P 5 +1 and Iran might end up with the most common result between advanced chess players: a draw.

We are not there yet. There are more moves to be played, and Iran's king is increasingly cornered in the chess match. But there are no time limits on this match-up and, to be sure, this is no game. A checkmate will not mean a clean handshake and a goodbye. It could turn out to be dangerous. Playing for the "public" draw, while staying true to the P 5 +1 red lines, might be the best strategy going forward.

-This commentary was published first in The National on 15/05/2012
-Afshin Molavi is a senior adviser at Oxford Analytica and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation

How The Arab Spring Beat Al Qaeda

In his newly released papers, Osama bin Laden recognized the gravity of the loss of Muslim opinion, though he was powerless and sidelined to halt the decline.

By Fawaz A. Gerges

Al-Qaeda offers no economic blueprint, no political horizon, and no vision for the future. While millions of Arabs demand effective citizenship, genuine elections and the separation of powers, Al-Qaeda considers elections and democracy “heresy” and an “evil principle.” (Lionel Bonaventure, AFP / Getty Images)

A month before he was killed in a U.S. Navy SEAL team raid on his compound in May 2011, Osama bin Laden  described the Arab Spring uprisings as a “tremendous event,” according to a cache of letters and documents seized from the al Qaeda leader’s hideaway and recently released by American authorities. Bin Laden suggested launching a media campaign to incite “people who have not yet revolted and exhort them to rebel against the rulers” while hoping to guide them away from “half solutions” like secular democratic politics.

The documents show that bin Laden was deeply troubled by an apparent loss of Muslim public support and a few months before his death, he considered changing the name of al Qaeda to allow it to better exploit the Arab revolts of 2011. One of the major lessons learned from the small selection of documents (only 17 out of tens of thousands were made public) is that bin Laden, along with his very few surviving top lieutenants, was fully aware that al Qaeda’s standing among Arabs and Muslims suffered a major setback and that rebranding his group was essential to its survival. 

Indeed, long before the Arab uprisings, the bin Laden group—as we might term its remnants—had lost the struggle for Muslim hearts and minds. In many countries, information about al Qaeda suspects now comes from citizens, including family members, friends, and neighbors, not from surveillance and intelligence sources. This shift demonstrates a hardening of Muslim public sentiment against bin Laden’s men, as the preaching of a borderless jihad centered on terrorism stopped resonating with ordinary Muslims. 

Contrary to received wisdom in the West, there never was any swell of Muslim public support for bin Laden and his transnational jihadi contingent. More of a fringe phenomenon than a popular social movement, borderless jihad has never enjoyed a big constituency in Muslim societies. Although many Muslims critique U.S. foreign policies, particularly involving the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, only a small segment condones a direct war with the West, or the killing of noncombatants.

Yet even more than the killing of bin Laden, the Arab uprisings—in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain—have not only shaken the very foundation of the regional authoritarian order but unravelled the standard terrorism narrative. As the Arab revolts gathered steam, al Qaeda was notably absent. Neither jihadist slogans and rituals nor its violent tactics found a receptive audience among the millions of Arab protesters.

Al Qaeda offers no economic blueprint, no political horizon, and no vision for the future. While millions of Arabs demand effective citizenship, genuine elections, and the separation of powers, al Qaeda considers elections and democracy “heresy” and an “evil principle.” Out of touch with the aspirations of millions of Arabs who called for political emancipation, Abu Yahya al-Libi, a top al Qaeda chief, lectured them against “wasting the fruits of liberation,” and pursuing democracy because it is a “road to hell.” Al-Libi, celebrated as a rising star among al Qaeda’s dying lieutenants, called for the establishment of an Islamic emirate on Koranic laws.

While al Qaeda’s chiefs shun political participation and activism, preaching that only violence and terrorism will bring about political change, the new Arab uprisings are basically peaceful. There exists a fundamental clash between al Qaeda’s ideology and tactics and the masses. The millions of Arabs who took to the streets openly have shown that politics matters and that peaceful protests are more effective at delivering change. The ballot box and parliamentarianism, not the sword and the caliphate, are their rallying cry, an utter rejection of what al Qaeda stands for.

Trying to jump on the bandwagon of the protesters and appeal to them, Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s current emir, reminded Egyptians that before he escaped from the country he “had participated in many popular protests and demonstrations,” including one “in Tahrir Square in 1971.”  Far from it. Several of Zawahiri’s contemporary associates have told me that he never believed in political activism as a means to overthrow the secular Egyptian regime and did not even use the mosque for recruitment or mobilization.

From a very young age, growing up during a period of profound socioeconomic and political change in Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s, Zawahiri rejected the political process and waged a crusade against the Egyptian government, a crusade that took him from a high school in an upper middle-class neighborhood in Egypt to the killing fields of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mass protesters in Egypt succeeded in toppling an autocrat by peaceful means, where Zawahiri failed to do so by violent means in a lifetime.   

Religious-based activists—such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ennahda in Tunisia, and the Party of Justice and Development in Morocco—are poised to take ownership of the seats of power in the Arab heartland in the coming years. But these Islamic modernists have little in common with al Qaeda and most accept democratic values, in shaping the future political trajectory of their societies. Mainstream Islamists of all colors avoid any association with al Qaeda like a plague. There is no Ayatollah Khomeini waiting in the wings to hijack the Arab revolts and seize power.   

Despite repeated claims by Arab autocrats such as Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Qaddafi, Ali Abdullah Salah, and Bashar al-Assad, al Qaeda not only did not spearhead the Arab uprisings but is distinguished by its absence.

After recovering from the shock, al Qaeda leaders fully embraced the uprisings and welcomed the downfall of their archnemeses in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and now Syria. More importantly, they would like to ride the Arab revolts and take ownership of them.  In his posthumous message, bin Laden expressed his “happiness” and “delight” with the demonstrators, saying the umma (the global Muslim community) had been waiting for the revolution for decades. He said he hoped the “the winds of change will spread over the entire Muslim world,” and liberate it from “Western domination.”

In his eulogy of bin Laden, Zawahiri celebrated the “the fall of corrupt and corrupting agents of America in Tunisia and Egypt, and the shaking of their thrones in Libya, Yemen, and Syria.” He affirmed his support for the uprisings in Yemen and Libya and called upon the people not to be “tricked” by American and Western support for the uprisings, particularly the NATO mission in Libya.

Aware of inherent contradictions between al Qaeda’s ideology and the protesters’, al-Libi, Zawahiri’s right-hand lieutenant, described the uprisings as an extension of al Qaeda’s prolonged struggle to expel Western influence from the Muslim world, “a step of many efforts to reach the goal.”

Yet the Arab awakenings have reinforced what many of us have already known: al Qaeda’s core ideology is intrinsically incompatible with the universal aspirations of the Arabs—including human rights and dignity, social justice, free elections, peaceful transition of leadership, and separation of powers. The millions of protesters have neither burned American and Western flags nor blamed Western colonialism for their predicament.

Focusing on internal, not external affairs, the broadly based mass protests called for restructuring Arab societies along pluralistic lines and putting an end to political authoritarianism. The key goal of the demonstrators was socio-political and economic transformation through the ballot box, as opposed to the bayonet and suicide bombing.

Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and their associates were caught off guard by the storm and have labored to understand its impact. Of all militants, Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-Yemeni militant preacher killed by a U.S. drone bomb in 2011, was candid and realistic, conceding that al Qaeda had nothing to do with the historical developments remaking the region. In an article titled “Tsunami of Change,” which appeared in his Inspire magazine in May 2011 {PDF}, Awlaki said that “…we do not know yet what the outcome would be, and we do not have to. The outcome doesn’t have to be an Islamic government for us to consider what is occurring to be a step in the right direction.”

Surely, Awlaki does not speak for al Qaeda, whose raison d’etre is the establishment of Koranic-based emirates, not parliamentary- and presidential-based governments elected by a popular will. There are few Arab buyers for al Qaeda’s sales pitch and the relatively peaceful revolutions represent a hard blow to al Qaeda ideology and violent tactics alike.

The broadly based peaceful Arab uprisings have demolished al Qaeda’s claim that the Islamist vanguard will spearhead revolutionary change in Muslim societies. On the whole, the revolts are peaceful, non-ideological, and led by the embattled middle class, including a coalition of men and women of all ages and political persuasions: liberal-leaning centrists, democrats, leftists, nationalists, and Islamists who accept the rules of the political game.

What the Arab revolts have shown is al Qaeda’s deepening crisis of legitimacy and authority, a crisis more detrimental to its future than the military defeat that it has suffered. Bin Laden and his successor, Zawahiri, neither speak for the umma nor exercise influence over Arab public opinion. More than his subordinates, in his last dying days, the documents released by American authorities show that bin Laden recognized the gravity of the loss of Muslim opinion, though he was powerless and sidelined to halt the decline.    

Nevertheless, the Arab revolts have left bin Laden’s vanguard behind. The terrorism narrative has suffered an equally hard blow. The question is not why Muslims hate America so much, as the conventional wisdom would have it after the September 11 attacks, but why Western pundits and policymakers underestimated the millions of Arabs and Muslims yearning for universal values such as human rights, the rule of law, effective citizenship, and open and pluralistic societies?

So what remains of al Qaeda? Very little. Today it is comprised of roving bands limited to the mountains and valleys of Pakistan tribal areas along the Afghan border (where bin Laden was assumed to be hiding), remote areas in Yemen along the Saudi border, and the wastes of the African Sahara and the Maghreb. Its actions show a consistent pattern of ineptitude. Its leadership relies, increasingly, on half-hearted, inexperienced freelancers or unskilled, late-bloomer recruits. Far from an asset, the seized documents show bin Laden to be very concerned that indiscriminate attacks by al Qaeda’s local branches and allies have turned Muslim opinion against his organization.

Only a miracle will resuscitate a transnational jihad of the al Qaeda variety. The question is whether a civil war, which will ensue if democratic change does not come to those who demonstrated for it since the early spring in 2011, will provide that miracle.

Al Qaeda is a parasite that feeds on social instability and turmoil. If democratic transition is aborted in Arab countries, al Qaeda local branches might exploit the ensuing turmoil and spread their tentacles near and far. In particular, Yemen, Libya (and the raging war in Syria) are vulnerable because of their fragility of their institutions, lack of an effective centralized authority, and the presence of militants who subscribe to al Qaeda’s ideology. U.S. officials are anxious that extremists who subscribe to al Qaeda’s ideology might manipulate the rocky transitions in these countries to establish a foothold and spread their influence.

The general tendency of the so-called terrorism “experts” has been to focus on al Qaeda’s violent ideology and neglect the wider context that decisively shapes how ideology operates. It is only by studying the social conditions that give rise to violent ideologies that one can shed light on the drivers behind them.

The Arab uprisings are essentially a reaction en masse to decades of authoritarianism, abuse of power, economic deprivation, as well to the absence of hope as a natural outcome of this structural crisis. Thus, the Arab Spring represents a fundamental challenge to the very conditions that fuel extremist ideologies. Time will tell if the Arab revolts will manage to fill the gap of legitimate political authority. If this happens, Arab opinion with deliver the final blow to al Qaeda and its local branches.

-This commentary was published first in The Daily Beast on 13/05/2012
- Fawaz A. Gerges, the director of the Middle East Center, is a professor in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His most recent book is  The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda (Oxford University Press)

Israel Using Deadlocked Peace Talks To Judaise Palestine

This entails ‘transferring' Palestinians of the 1948 areas and driving out West Bank residents from ‘Eretz Israel'

By As'ad Abdul Rahman

Despite the fact that the United Nations resolutions have steadily maintained full legal support of Palestinian rights since the 1948 Catastrophe (Al Nakba), these inalienable rights remain ‘ink on paper' without any chance of being fulfilled especially by the present Israeli government.

It goes without saying that the definition of inalienable rights of any people has to meet the international legal standards adopted by all members of the United Nations which in effect created the Israeli state itself. Indeed, the fundamental inalienable human rights have become an integral part of the constitutions of democratic nations and the foundation of the charter of the United Nations. They include the right of self determination, "the right of life and liberty", the right of free worship, the right of being governed by law by which no one is above the law, the right of being secured and protected from any domestic or foreign aggressor and the right of return to the homeland after temporarily leaving during an armed conflict to save lives. And last but not least, the right of protection for private property.

Let us examine each known inalienable right which applies to all nations and all individuals regardless of race, creed, gender, colour and ethnicity and see whether they apply or not to the Palestinian people, collectively and individually.

In this regard, it is essential to start first with the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination that was supposed to allow them to establish the independent state of Palestine in 1948 after the withdrawal of the British mandate (occupation) forces and authorities from Palestine. This inalienable right was denied to the Palestinian people, mainly by the western world in 1948 in a move to compensate Europeans of Jewish faith who survived the massacre of the Holocaust for which the European countries, though in varying degrees, bear responsibility directly or indirectly.

This western European ‘generosity' came at the expense of the Palestinians' livelihoods and resources, causing them the loss of many lives and properties and later displacement and expulsion from their historical land. The full cost of the Holocaust has been exacting a heavy price on the Palestinians, the only innocent party of this heinous European crime to this very day, without a halt since the 1940s.

Things exacerbated more when the Palestinian inalienable right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" turned into imposed death, loss of every liberty coupled with utter misery in the lives of the vast majority of Palestinians wasted in refugee camps after being driven-out by force from their homes and farms. Moreover, the inalienable right to worship for Palestinian Christians and Muslims, alike, soon meant the annexation of their homes and farms and properties by the colonial Israeli regime as a fulfilment of a "Biblical Holy Scripture" which ‘promised' historical Palestine to the adherents of the Jewish faith! Robbing people in the name of religion is history's oldest con game. The bells of churches and the calls to prayer from mosques are being silenced by Israeli courts because "they disturb the peace and tranquillity" of the Israeli colonists for whom Palestinian lands were annexed to build their colonies as a "Divine Entitlement" for "the chosen people of God". It is worth noting that the inalienable right to be equally ruled by the same law does not even apply to Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship. Again, there are laws formulated for Israelis only, especially colonists, and there is no protection under the law that applies to Palestinians under the colonial/ apartheid rule of the Israeli armed forces.

Vandalising properties

Little wonder then that the inalienable right to live in peace in one's homeland and to be protected from any domestic or outside threats are also being denied to Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and to Palestinians under the Israeli military occupation. The ‘price taggers' known by Israelis of conscience as "the hoodlums of the yeshiva (religious) schools" have been vandalising Palestinian properties including churches and mosques with the official encouragement of the state of Israel to force more Palestinians to leave Palestine.

Also, the inalienable right of return of civilians to their homeland after the end of an armed conflict has been transformed into a strategy of Judaisation of what little is left of historical Palestine in order to eventually ‘transfer' the Palestinians of 1948 areas from Israel and drive out the Palestinians of the West Bank from ‘Eretz Israel', or the ‘Land of Israel', "that was exclusively promised to Jews only."!

An increasing number of Israeli and western opinion leaders register their awareness of all the above-mentioned facts concerning the consecutive Israeli governments' denial of the inalienable rights of the Palestinians. They also recognise the fact that the now-deadlocked peace negotiations with Israel (that have been held under the so-called peace process which was meant to create an independent Palestinian state) appear to be purposely used by Israel to carry out its designs to fully Judaise historical Palestine.

 -This commentary published first in The Gulf News on 13/05/2012
-Professor As'ad Abdul Rahman is the Chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopaedia