Why The Mideast Revolts Will Help Al-Qaeda

By Michael Scheuer
This commentary was published in The Washington Post on 04/03/2011

The rush in the West to proclaim the advance of democracy in the Arab world has led to the propagation of an ill-conceived and dangerous corollary: that the revolts in the Middle East and North Africa also mark the irrelevance of al-Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups.

"Al Qaeda Sees History Fly By," declared the New York Times. "Uprisings Put al Qaeda on Sidelines," asserted the Wall Street Journal. And Western politicians, academics and even intelligence specialists appear to agree that, with peaceful and pro-democratic change afoot in the Middle East, the world has moved beyond al-Qaeda, leaving Osama bin Laden writhing in the dust.

If only that were true. Since bin Laden declared war against the United States in 1996, al-Qaeda's main goals have included the destruction of the Arab world's tyrannies and of Israel. The events of recent weeks only move al-Qaeda closer to those objectives.

Today, the dictatorships of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt are gone. Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh is little more than the mayor of his capital city of Sanaa. And Col. Moammar Gaddafi may be on his way out in Libya, unless some knee-jerk U.S.-led intervention saves him by refocusing Libyan and other North African Islamists on what they consider an infidel threat greater than Gaddafi.

As for Israel, the fall of Mubarak - and the unsealing of Egypt's border with Gaza - pose a security disaster equal to the destruction of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Israel's two anti-Islamist shields to the east and to the west are now history.

All of this amounts to an enormous strategic step forward for al-Qaeda. That these victories have come with virtually no investment of manpower or money by the terrorist network, and with self-defeating applause from the Facebook-obsessed, Twitter-addled West, only makes them all the sweeter for bin Laden.

Peering into the future, the autocrats' probable successors likewise offer abundant good news for al-Qaeda and kindred groups. In Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and any other nation with a U.S.-supported tyranny that sinks in the weeks and months ahead, the role of Islamist groups will become larger - and over time perhaps dominant - if only because the populations in play are almost entirely Muslim and because Islamist groups have the most effective nationwide infrastructures to replace the old guard. And most do and will receive funding, openly or covertly, from always generous donors in Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Sunni gulf states.

Each new regime is likely to host a more open, religion-friendly environment for speech, assembly and press freedoms than did Mubarak and his ilk. So it will be easier for media-savvy Islamist groups - whether peaceful or militant - to proselytize, publish and foment without immediate threat of arrest and incarceration. Indeed, Washington and its Western allies will dogmatically urge the new governments to maintain such freedoms, even as the Islamists capitalize on them.

The Islamists will follow the formulas for gaining power and then governing that are detailed in the Koran and the Sunnah, the prophet Muhammad's sayings and traditions. Western experts have long failed to recognize these documents as Islam's equivalent to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Federalist Papers. In Egypt, for example, governance based on them would be far more familiar, comfortable and culturally appropriate than anything opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei and his followers could offer.

The blessing of the Arab revolts for al-Qaeda and its allies also can be seen in the opening of prisons across Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. In Egypt alone, the news media are reporting that at least 17,000 prisoners have been freed. Many of those released are not thieves and murderers, but Islamist firebrands that the regimes had jailed to protect their internal security - at times even at the request and with the funding of Washington and its allies. Indeed, many were incarcerated as a result of quiet cooperation between Western and Arab intelligence services; their release is a major setback for these efforts.

So al-Qaeda and like-minded groups are now being replenished by a steady flow of pious, veteran mujaheddin, each of whom will never forget that U.S. and other Western funds helped keep them jailed by Arab tyrants.

The revolts also mean that the United States and its Western allies must take on a far greater share of the counterterrorism operations that they previously conducted with the help of Arab regimes. The days of Mubarak, Saleh, Gaddafi and Ben Ali doing the dirty work for American, European and Israeli counterterrorism efforts are over. Soon it will be U.S. and Western special forces and intelligence services that will be ordered to capture or kill militants in Muslim lands - individuals that our tyrannical friends used to dispose of for us.

How tragic that in the war being waged against the United States by al-Qaeda and its allies precisely because of Washington's relentless intervention in the Islamic world, the U.S. government will now be forced to intervene even more - or sit on the sidelines and watch al-Qaeda build or expand bases from which to threaten U.S. security.

Of course, open and vociferous participation by Islamists in the demonstrations in Cairo, Tunis, Tripoli and elsewhere would have earned a lethal and Western-supported response from Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gaddafi. So al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups simply used a talent that long ago atrophied in the West - the ability to keep their mouths shut. As usual, the West wrongly concluded that silence connotes not strategy, but impotence and irrelevance.

Bin Laden and his peers are counting on the fact that the uprisings' secular, pro-democracy Facebookers and tweeters - so beloved of reality-averse Western journalists and politicians - are a thin veneer across a deeply pious Arab world. They are confident that these revolts are not about democratic change but about who, in societies where peaceful transfers of power are rare, will fill the vacuum left by the dictators and consolidate power. These men also know that the answer to that question will ultimately come out of the barrel of a Kalashnikov, of which they have many, along with the old tyrants' weapons stockpiles, on which they are now feasting.

Michael Scheuer, chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, is an adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University.

Surviving Short-Term Shocks

Philip Stephens writes: The eventual removal of Gaddafi may not necessarily map an easy path to liberal democracy in the region

This commentary was published in The Gulf News on 06/03/2011

Anyone who imagines that the Arab uprisings herald a short or smooth transition to democracy should take a glance at the western Balkans. Two decades after the fall of communism, the wounds have yet to heal in the former Yugoslavia. This in spite of a vast panoply of economic and political incentives proffered by the US and Europe.

The crisis in Libya as Muammar Gaddafi clings to power will not be the only violent rupture as authoritarian rulers begin to fall in the Middle East. Nor will the eventual removal of the Libyan leader map an easy path to liberal democracy and economic prosperity in societies so long imprisoned by authoritarianism.

Building the infrastructure of freedom and the rule of law will be a painstaking business.

The one prediction that can be made with some certainty is that the revolutions will be punctuated by protracted periods of chaos.

This is not a reason for anyone to throw up their hands in despair; nor for those of a "realist" foreign policy inclination to bemoan the passing of the age of autocrats. It does demand recognition that there are no quick fixes. Patience and perseverance will be at a premium. Sadly, we inhabit a world in which yesterday is usually deemed too late.

The big challenge is to develop a framework of assistance that will survive short-term shocks. This requires some points of reference. The West could start with five basic signposts for the long road ahead.

Celebrate the uprisings

It will seem obvious to most people that the world should be loudly cheering this historic advance for freedom and democracy. But too many still hold on to the pernicious idea that Arabs are unready for democracy; that, alone in the world, the Middle East's choice is between autocracies and Islamist extremism.

As it happens, the extremists of Al Qaida have so far been the big strategic losers from recent events. There has been no burning of US flags on the streets of Cairo; no visible clamour in Tunisia or Libya against imperialists.

The demands instead have been from a new generation seeking freedom and human dignity — values never high among Osama Bin Laden's priorities. All the more reason for outsiders to be unshakeable in their support for the advance of political pluralism.

Interfere only in extremes

The revolutions belong to the people of the region. When figures such as Tony Blair talk about "managing" the transition, alarm bells ring. The US and Europe carry too much historical baggage in this part of the world. The line not to be crossed is that between the offer of generous support and unsolicited efforts to meddle in democratic choices. If elections sometimes yield uncomfortable outcomes, so be it.

This caution should apply to present events in Libya. Those who want to get rid of Gaddafi now have all the right instincts. If he wages war on his own people, the UN must live up to its responsibility to protect. But the US and Europe should not unilaterally extend intervention beyond humanitarian assistance.

No time for penny-pinching

Military caution should be matched by economic generosity. The US and Europe should take a lead in mobilising resources so that democracy takes root in countries that eject authoritarian rulers.

Call it a Marshall Plan if you like, but in any event the assistance must be on a scale equal to the challenge and the opportunity. For Europe to plead poverty and hide behind its public debt problems would be an unconscionable betrayal of its own as well as the Middle East's future.

There are big incentives available in addition to money. Trade and investment concessions should be given to governments ready to open up their societies. Immigration rules should be loosened for states in transition. On both counts, Europe should be out in front. The European Union should also put to use its extensive experience in democratic institution-building. Further down the track, it should hold out the offer of strategic partnerships with new democracies. Nato should do likewise.

Work with the rest

America's power and Europe's proximity bestow particular responsibilities. But if the revolutions belong to the peoples of the region, the international response must not be seen as the property of the West. The world's rising states (and yes that includes China) have a big stake in peaceful change. Turkey, the region's only Islamic democracy, has a particular role and interest.

The net should be spread widely. If the West's political response to the revolutions is to secure international legitimacy, it must win the backing of the UN Security Council. Economic and development assistance should be top agenda items for the Group of 20 nations.

Understand the stakes

Political leaders will doubtless think of endless reasons to hesitate as the uprisings unfold. They will worry about the risk of disruption to oil supplies, about the threat that extremists are regrouping, about increased migration and about the constraints imposed by their own fiscal deficits. The temptations to temporise will be enormous.

The stakes are too high for that. On the one side lies the huge prize of a democratised and prosperous Middle East sharing universal values and pushing back against violent extremism. With the right investment, the Middle East states could follow the economic path blazed a couple of decades ago by the Asian tigers.

Conversely, if things go wrong for want of sufficient help, the costs, human and economic, will be many times higher than any western investment in success. Economic decline, soaring oil prices, radicalised populations and an uncontrolled tide of migration are all high on the list.

So am I optimistic that the world will rise to this challenge? Not really. Barack Obama gives a good speech but, as far as the Middle East goes, the US presidential resolve has hitherto fallen short of the rhetoric. In Europe, one has so far seen posturing from a bunch of politicians, more comfortable in complacency. Sometimes, though, political leaders are made by the moment. Let's hope that now is one of those.

The Tunisian Whose Jihad Was For The People,Not God

By Robert Fisk
This commentary was published by The Independent on 05/03/2011

The second Arab awakening of modern history – the first was the Arab revolt against the Ottoman empire – requires some new definitions, perhaps even some new words in at least the English language.

And some new calculator that will instantly register the old age of dictators and the growing army of the young. If you survive into senility, you can enter the category of great political criminals of contemporary history.

My Maghreb colleague Béchir Ben Yahmed has pointed out that after 42 years in power, Muammar Gaddafi is up there with the worst of them. Kim Il-Sung registered 46 years, Saddam a mere 35 years. Mubarak scored 32 years in the dictatorship stakes, Sékou Touré of Guinea 26 years, Franco of Spain and Salazar of Portugal, the same number. On this scale, Tony Blair's puny 10-years-plus substantially reduces his status as a war criminal, a man who might be allowed – instead of arraignment for the illegal invasion of Iraq – a lavish villa in Sharm el-Sheikh (where, after all, Cherie used to like to stay at the Mubarak government's expense).

Ben Yahmed suggests that in the violent case of Libya, we are dealing not so much with a revolution as with "revolutionary anarchism on the basis of tribalism", since Libya may be in the process of breaking apart. I'm not sure I agree – although the people of Benghazi will want Tripolitanians to know that they were their liberators. Gaddafi, indeed, has become a kind of "recidivist" although, even if the opposition has cried victory too soon, Gaddafi is now ruling only a "half-Gaddafi" state which can only be temporary.

And we will, I feel sure, have to redefine the nature of the act which lit the proverbial – and the real – match: the immolation by fire of Mohamed Bouazizi who, crushed by both the state and its corruption and then slapped by a policewoman, chose death to the continuation of qahr – which in English might be translated as "total powerlessness". He preferred, as Tunisian psychoanalyst Fethi Benslama has remarked, "annihilation over a life of nothingness". Bouazizi, however, will not join the list of al-Qa'ida's favourite martyrs. He took no enemy lives with him; his jihad was one of despair, which is certainly not encouraged by the Koran. He provided proof that a suicider can unwittingly produce a revolution and become a martyr for an oppressed people rather than for God. His death – though I know I will be told that this decision is up to a Higher Authority – gave him no assurance of paradise; thus his act must be regarded as politically more important than that of the suicide bomber. He was, in fact, an "anti-kamikaze".

In a year in which the very last "Rue Pétain" has been deleted in rural France – Beirut replaced its own in 1941 with the downfall of the Vichy regime – it's only fair to say that an awful lot of Gaddafi's fawning tributes are going to have to be torn down in his rump state once it falls. Green Book museums – even, perhaps, the wreckage of his home pulverised by American bombs in 1986 – will eventually meet their fiery end. Staff at the Marriott Hotel in Zamalek slunk off with Mubarak's portrait before midnight on the day of his overthrow; future guests will notice the faintly disturbing square of unusually light wallpaper to the left of the reception desk.

And there are plenty of Mubarak Streets, Mubarak Stadiums and Mubarak Hospitals to be renamed. Economist Mohamed el-Dahshan has referred to the "demubarakisation" of Egypt; I suppose all the Mubarak Streets must now become "The Street of 25th January" – the start of the latest Egyptian revolution – and I fear that if the 80 per cent Shias of Bahrain one day govern their country, there will have to be quite a lot of dekhalifaisation. And in Aden, desalehisation. And in Libya, deghadaffiisation has already begun.

But while the Egyptian revolution is – barring a counter-coup by Mubarak's old apparatchiks – the happiest story I have ever covered in the Middle East, I still fear much of this will end in tears, new "democracies" ending up much like previous regimes. Saudi Arabia remains the dark knight on my chessboard. Let's see what happens next Friday...

But I hope the new revolutionaries of the Arab world don't start, in their fervour, erasing the identity of whole cities. Benghazi should not become "The City of Eleven Martyrs" – as Stalingrad became the pathetic Volgograd – nor Tobruk retitled. The Tunisians adopted Carthage as the nom de plume of Tunis. Indeed, it is worth remembering the more recent history of the lands which we journalists are now racing across in our 4x4s. My colleagues travelling to Libya from the east swept past El-Alamein and on to Tobruk. Last week, I drove by night from Tunis in the west, my headlights glinting off signposts to the Kasserine Pass – where the Americans thought they would give Rommel a bloody nose but got a bloodier one themselves, courtesy of the Afrika Korps – and Mareth of "Mareth Line" fame. My own late foreign editor of The Times, Louis Heren, was "brewed up" in his tank outside Benghazi, and survived.

Oddly, everyone came to grief between Tobruk and Tunisia in the Second World War. Tobruk fell to the British in January 1941, was besieged by the Afrika Korps for 200 days, relieved by General Cunningham in November, captured by Erwin Rommel in June 1942 – "a disaster", Churchill muttered when he heard the news on a visit to the White House – but recaptured by the Allies five months later. Now it is the first city to be liberated by the anti-Gaddafi opposition. The French screenwriter Michel Audiard, who wrote the script for the Desert Fox movie Taxi for Tobruk, said that, in his opinion, "the only pleasant thing in war is the victory parade – everything before is shit!".

Who can disagree – providing, of course, the right people claim the victory? Recidivists? Anti-kamikazis? "Half-Gaddafi" states, revolutions, rebellions, insurrections, Arab awakenings; they are usually a bloody business. Yet I have to say that my favourite redefinition appeared in a wonderful cartoon in the Tunisian daily La Presse this week, after Beji Caid Essebsi was named prime minister. "In my opinion," says the cartoon Tunisian, "our real prime minister is called Facebook!"

Arabs Rise, Tehran Trembles

By Karim Sadjadpour
This commentary was published in The New York Times on 05/03/2011

IN “Garden of the Brave in War,” his classic memoir of life on a pomegranate farm in 1960s Iran, the American writer Terence O’Donnell recounts how his illiterate house servant, Mamdali, would wake him every morning with a loud knock on the door and a simple question: “Are you an Arab or an Iranian?”

“If I was naked,” O’Donnell explained, “I would answer that I’m an Arab and he would wait outside the door, whereas if I was clothed I would reply that I was an Iranian and he would come in with the coffee.” This joke went hand in hand, O’Donnell wrote, with an age-old chauvinism that depicted the Persians’ Arab neighbors as “uncivilized people who went about unclothed and ate lizards.”

The Islamist victors of the 1979 Iranian revolution intended to change things, to replace the shah’s haughty Persian nationalism with an Arab-friendly, pan-Islamic ideology. Yet Tehran’s official reaction to the 2011 Arab awakening shows that, at the heart of the Iran’s Middle East strategy, there lays a veiled contempt for Arab intelligence, autonomy and prosperity.

What many young Iranians see as a familiar struggle for justice, economic dignity and freedom from dictatorial rule, Iranian officialdom has struggled to spin as a belated Arab attempt to emulate the Islamic revolution and join Tehran in its battle against America and Israel.

The delusions of the Iranian regime are partly attributable to a generation gap. Tehran’s ruling elite continue to cling to the antiquated ideology of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose worldview was formed by decades of imperial transgressions in Iran. The demographic boom in the Middle East, however, has brought a wave of young Arabs and Iranians who associate subjugation and injustice not with colonial or imperial powers, but with their own governments.

Until now, Iran’s interests have been served by the Arab status quo: frustrated populations ruled over by emasculated regimes incapable of checking Israel, and easily dismissed as American co-dependents. A conversation I once had with a senior Iranian diplomat is instructive.

He complained, justifiably, about Washington’s excessive focus on military power to solve political problems. I posed a simple hypothetical: What if, instead of having spent several billion dollars financing Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad over the past three decades, Iran had spent that money educating tens of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites to become doctors, professors and lawyers? Wouldn’t those communities now be much better off and in a much stronger position to assert their rights vis-à-vis Israel?

“What good would that have done for Iran?” he responded candidly. (He himself had a doctorate from a British university.) “Do you think if we sent them abroad to study they would return to southern Lebanon and Gaza to fight Israel? Of course not; they would have remained doctors, lawyers and professors.”

Iran, in essence, understands that it can inspire and champion the region’s downtrodden and dispossessed, but not the upwardly mobile. Its strategy to dominate the Middle East hinges less on building nuclear weapons than on the twin pillars of oil and alienation.

Iranian petrodollars are used to finance radicals — Khaled Meshaal in Syria, Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon and Moktada al-Sadr in Iraq, to name a few — who feed off popular humiliation. As an Arab Shiite friend once complained to me, “Iran wants to fight America and Israel down to the last Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi.”

At first glance, the fall of Western-oriented Arab governments may appear to be a blow to Washington and a boon for Tehran. The seeming consensus among Western analysts and pundits — that Iran will fill the Middle East power vacuum — is short-sighted.

While the relationship between Egypt and Iran — the regions two oldest and most populous nations — will likely improve, the competition between them will likely intensify.

Tehran’s ascent in the Arab world over the last decade has been partly attributable to Cairo’s decline. The potential re-emergence of a proud, assertive Egypt will undermine Shiite Persian Iran’s ambitions to be the vanguard of the largely Sunni Arab Middle East. Indeed, if Egypt can create a democratic model that combines political tolerance, economic prosperity and adept diplomacy, Iran’s model of intolerance, economic malaise and confrontation will hold little appeal in the Arab world.

Renewed Iranian influence in places like Bahrain and Yemen may also prove self-limiting. As we have seen in Iraq, familiarity with Iranian officialdom often breeds contempt. Polls have shown that even a sizable majority of Iraq’s Shiites resent the meddling in their affairs by their co-religionists from Iran. “The harder they push,” said Ryan Crocker, a former United States ambassador to Iraq, “the more resistance they get.”

Elsewhere in the Arab world, Iranian proxies like Hezbollah will increasingly find themselves in the awkward position of being a resistance group purportedly fighting injustice while simultaneously cashing checks from a patron that is brutally suppressing justice at home.

The Arab uprisings of 2011 will also, of course, have their effect on Iran internally. Iranian democracy advocates have long taken solace in the belief that they were ahead of their Arab neighbors, who would one day too have to undergo the intolerance and heartaches of Islamist rule. The largely secular nature of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia have bruised the Iranian ego: were they the only ones naïve enough to succumb to the false promise of an Islamic utopia?

It has been said about authoritarian regimes that while they rule their collapse appears inconceivable, but after they’ve fallen their demise appears to have been inevitable. In the short term Tehran’s oil largesse and religious pretensions have seemingly created for it deeper, if not wider, popular support than many Arab regimes.

But the regime’s curiously heavy-handed response to resilient pro-democracy protests — including the recent disappearance of opposition leaders Mir Hussein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi — betrays its anxiety about the 21st-century viability of an economically floundering, gender-apartheid state led by a “supreme leader” who purports to be the prophet’s representative on Earth.

Tehran publicly cheered the fall of Egyptian and Tunisian regimes undone by corruption, economic stagnation and repression. Do its rulers not know that Iran — according to Transparency International, Freedom House and the World Bank — ranks worse than Tunisia and Egypt in all three categories?

A saying often attributed to Lenin best captures the sorts of tectonic shifts taking place in today’s Middle East. “Sometimes decades pass and nothing happens; and then sometimes weeks pass and decades happen.”

The uprisings may not all end happily. As history has shown time and again — notably in Iran in 1979 — minorities that are organized and willing to use violence can establish reigns of terror over unorganized or passive majorities. Whatever ensues, however, the Arab risings have revealed that Iran’s revolutionary ideology has not only been rendered bankrupt at home, but it has also lost the war of ideas among its neighbors.

Karim Sadjadpour is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Obama's Low-Key Strategy For The Middle East

By David Ignatius 

This commentary was published in The Washington Post on 06/03/2011 

 

President Obama has been so low-key in his pronouncements about events in Egypt and Libya that it's easy to miss the extent of the shift in U.S. strategy. In supporting the wave of change sweeping the Arab world, despite the wariness of traditional allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, Obama is placing a big bet that democratic governments will be more stable and secure, and thereby enhance U.S. interests in the region.

 

My own instinct, as someone who has been visiting the Arab world for more than 30 years, is that Obama is right. But given the stakes, it's important to examine how the White House is making its judgments - and whether intelligence reporting supports these decisions. 

 

Though the White House's response to these whirlwind events has sometimes seemed erratic, the policy, which has been evolving for many months, goes to the core of Obama's worldview. This is the president as global community organizer - a man who believes that change is inevitable and desirable, and that the United States must align itself with the new forces shaping the world. 

 

An Israeli official visiting Washington last week sounded a note of caution: "We are too close to the eye of the storm to judge," he said. "We need to be more modest in our assessments and put more question marks at the end."  

 

But the Obama White House doesn't feel it has the luxury of deferring judgment; history is moving too fast. Says one official, "It's a roll of the dice, but it's also a response to reality." If Obama has seemed low-key, he explains, it has been a calculated "strategic reticence" to send the message: This is your revolution; it's not about us. 

 

The roots of the policy shift go back to Obama's first days in office and his feeling that America's relationship with the Arab world was broken. Though Obama seemed to be accommodating the region's authoritarian leaders, in August 2010, he issued Presidential Study Directive 11, asking agencies to prepare for change. 

 

This document cited "evidence of growing citizen discontent with the region's regimes" and warned that "the region is entering a critical period of transition." The president asked his advisers to "manage these risks by demonstrating to the people of the Middle East and North Africa the gradual but real prospect of greater political openness and improved governance." 

 

Six months later, street demonstrations were toppling autocratic leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, who looked in vain for support from Washington. Obama didn't come to the autocrats' rescue because he believed the transformations were positive developments. "We have a core interest in stability through political and economic change. The status quo is not stable," explains Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser. 

 

The democratic youth movement sweeping the Arab world offered an "alternative narrative" to the versions of Islamic revolution put forward by Iran and al-Qaeda, says Rhodes. If this change scenario can succeed, threats to America will be reduced. 

 

The White House studied past democratic transitions in Indonesia, the Philippines, Serbia, Poland and Chile for "lessons learned." Officials noted that last week national security adviser Tom Donilon was reading former secretary of state George Shultz's account of the peaceful ouster of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. 

 

This review has led U.S. officials to conclude that countries need to: bring the opposition quickly into the transition to achieve "buy-in"; make fast changes that people can see, such as freeing political prisoners; and sequence events, putting the easiest first, so that presidential elections precede parliamentary balloting and detailed rewriting of the constitution. 

 

How well does this idealistic agenda match up with ground truth? In interviews last week, intelligence analysts said that Islamic extremists don't seem to be hijacking the process of change. There are near-term tactical dangers, said one counterterrorism analyst, such as the escape of prisoners in Egypt and the potential weakening of the intelligence service there. But this official says there's no evidence that al-Qaeda has been able to take advantage of the turmoil. It took a week for Ayman al-Zawahiri, the group's No. 2 official, to publish his windy and out-of-touch analysis of events in Egypt. 

 

Change will have its downside, but a second U.S. intelligence analyst offers this estimate: "This is a world we can live with. Our relationship with Egypt may be different and rockier, but I don't think it will be inherently hostile." As for the much-feared Muslim Brotherhood, it is currently planning to run parliamentary candidates in only 150 of Egypt's 454 districts, and no candidate for president.

Between Hilary And The Supreme Guide

By Tariq Alhomayed
This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 05/03/2011
 
US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said that Iran is seeking to influence the Arab revolutions, including the Egyptian revolution, by utilizing Hezbollah which has good relations with the [Egyptian] Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Hamas organization. She also said that Tehran is in constant contact with opposition forces in Bahrain.
 
Just one day after Clinton made these remarks, the Iranian Supreme Guide told a group of his country's security cadres that the revolutions taking place in the Arab world represented an Islamic awakening inspired by the Iranian revolution. So what is more likely, that Iran is influencing the revolutions that are taking place in our region, or that Tehran is trying to exploit the situation in the Arab world?
 
The reality, as we have said before, is that it is difficult to measure everything that is happening in our region with one yardstick. This is because it is not easy to compare the problems arising in our region with each other, even if Arab states share certain features such as having a young population or the presence of an urgent need for reform; this is not to say that the situation in one country is the same as the situation in another. For example, the situation in the Gulf States cannot be compared to the situation in the rest of the Arab region, whilst the internal makeup of Gulf States also differs, and each country in our region has its own special circumstances.
 
Here somebody might ask, does this mean that Iran is influencing the revolutions in our region? Of course, the answer to this is no, and it would not be fair to the revolutionaries to say this, however Iran is not hesitating to interfere in our region and exploit the prevailing feelings today. On the other hand, what is allowing Iran to exploit the situation is that the protestors' demands are not being taken seriously, whilst protestors in some states are attempting to copy the revolutions that have taken place in others, and these are two features that are dominating the scene today. There is a huge fire raging in our region, and some people are under the impression that in order to fix all their problems all they have to do is topple their regimes; however those who believe this are not taking the situation seriously. How will the Yemenis, for example, deal with a decaying economy and a confusing tribal system should the Yemeni president suddenly decide to step down from power? Early elections, or indeed waiting for the president's term in office to end, represent the ideal solution for the situation in Yemen, rather than what happened in Egypt, because Yemen is different. The other example is Bahrain, and is it reasonable that the demonstrators there failed to announce their demands until yesterday?
 
These are the problems, and these are the gaps that the Iranians are exploiting in order to infiltrate our region, and they are doing so for a number of reasons. Most importantly, Tehran wants to escape from its internal crisis, and anybody who believes that the Iranian crisis with our region is solely due to [Iranian president] Ahmadinejad is wrong and would be displaying their ignorance, for this crisis is represented by the entire Iranian regime. One of the objectives of the Khomeini revolution was to export this Islamic revolution to our region, and particularly the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the attempt to copy the Egyptian revolution in the Gulf States would certainly be futile, for all problems are not the same, nor are all regimes, and for example, is there a figure such as Gaddafi in the Gulf States?
 
We all want freedom, prosperity, and an end to corruption, but we cannot support pulling the roof down on the house due to glamorous slogans. The difference between us and Iran is that we want reform, whilst Iran wants to incite the region and fan the flames. Are some people, aware, for example, that there are no Friday prayer services for Sunnis in Iran?
 
I think this is something that we need to think more deeply about.

Why Israel's Occupation Is Not Coming To An End

By Omar H. Rahman
This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 04/03/2011 

Political leaders all over the world indulgently believe they can convince Israel's politicians to end the occupation of Palestinian territory with doomsday scenarios and clever arguments, despite decades of experience to the contrary. It is more prudent to reason, however, that the determination to end Israel's occupation will be based on the same factors that all politicians consider when coming to a decision. How does the status quo affect me? What will it take politically to carry out long-term change? The unfortunate reality is that Israeli leaders today have little immediate incentive to confront the challenge of bringing the occupation to an end, despite the dire long-term implications of failing to do so. Therefore, instead of waiting for the day that a visionary Israeli statesman comes along, the world must take a stand and change the current cost-benefit analysis of occupation that Israeli politicians have thus far determined to be agreeable.

It is important to understand that the occupation of Palestinian land following the war of 1967 posed an immediate and irreconcilable dilemma for Israeli leaders. More than any other territory, Israel sought to keep the West Bank; however, it did not wish to incorporate the substantial Palestinian population already living there. It was a clear case of Israel wanting the dowry but not the bride, and today's situation is a direct manifestation of that dilemma. 

During the proceeding decades, the occupation of Palestinian territory was a fairly low-cost enterprise. Israel's military directly administered all aspects of daily life for the Palestinian population and provided minimal services as part of its responsibility as an occupying power. Then, during the first Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s, the political and military cost of controlling a civilly disobedient Palestinian population proved too much for Israel. For the first time, Israel was forced to deal with the national aspirations of the Palestinian people, the ultimate outcome of which was the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 on the White House lawn.

This interim agreement was intended to gradually draw back the occupation and replace it with Palestinian institutions, culminating in Israel's recognition of the Palestinian state. The actual result, however, was nearly the opposite: The newly created Palestinian National Authority gained relative control over direct population centers while the Israeli military deepened its occupation everywhere else. In essence, Israel relinquished direct responsibility over the people while continuing to claim the benefit reaped from the land. The interim phase of Oslo gave Israeli leaders the status quo they always desired and the illusion of an answer to the long-standing dilemma of their occupation. Today, not only does Israel not pay for the occupation, but the country actually turns a profit from keeping it in place and the incentive to bring it to an end has largely faded from Israeli public consciousness.

Indeed, commercial profiteering from the Israeli settlement enterprise spans every sector of the economy and has become -- what many would term -- big business. For example, Israel maintains complete military and administrative control over the Jordan Valley, the area of land directly west of the Jordan River that comprises approximately 30 percent of the West Bank. The Jordan Valley not only has significant natural resources; it is also the agricultural breadbasket of the West Bank and includes the Dead Sea, another major source of income. Israel operates an entire agribusiness industry out of the Jordan Valley whose products make their way to markets all over the world.

Israel also maintains control over, and free access to, Palestine's natural resources, including its electromagnetic sphere and vital water aquifers, not to mention Israel's decades-long reliance on Palestinian cheap labor. In fact, of the 800 million cubic meters of water drawn annually from aquifers in the occupied West Bank, Israel takes 688 million cubic meters and sells much of it back to Palestinians for commercial profit.

Moreover, Israel currently operates several major stone quarries on occupied land that it uses to produce cut stone and cement. While denying Palestinians the right to build their own cement factories, Israel exports 2 million tons of cement annually to Palestinians. Additionally, Israel has prohibited Palestinians from building their own electric power plants, although they remain able and have been offered assistance in that endeavor from third parties for years. Consequently, Palestinians buy 97.7 percent of their electricity from the Israel Electricity Corporation. Essentially, Israel is preventing Palestinians from building capacity so that, unable to provide for themselves, they can continue to exploit their markets.

The most blatant and well-known offense, however, is the restriction regime imposed by Israel on movement for Palestinians in the occupied territory. This regime raises the cost of doing business for Palestinians, giving Israeli companies a distinct competitive advantage in the Palestinian marketplace. Go to any Palestinian grocery store, and you will find it full of Israeli products because Palestinians have little viable alternative. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. The list of commercial profiteering goes on and on; from tourism to construction to defense, Israel is making money from the occupation.

All of this distracts Israeli leaders from the reality that the occupation of Palestine is becoming a new form of apartheid. The moment Israel began transferring its civilian population to occupied territory was the moment this tragic process began. In so doing, Israel has created an entire system that facilitates the process of separation for the benefit of one people over another. Separate laws, roads, infrastructure, and the settlements are the living, breathing reality of the occupied Palestinian territory. Unless all of this can be dismantled, the two-state compromise will be an empty slogan with no future, and as many are beginning to forecast, it could help shape an uglier result to the dramatic regional shifts now in motion. But taking the initiative to prevent this outcome will not happen without incentive because the short-term costs and benefits remain in Israel's favor.

Unfortunately, the diplomatic process that was meant to achieve a permanent agreement in five years in the mid-1990s has been perpetuated for over 15, with the Palestinians being told they have no other recourse to freedom outside of negotiations. One only has to read the documents released by Al Jazeera and the Guardian to see for themselves that, even in negotiations, Israel has not been interested in reaching a final settlement that does not satisfy the aim of retaining its presence in the occupied territory. The United States has been complicit in this effort by blocking any initiative to resolve the Palestinian question outside of endless bilateral negotiations. The decision by the United States to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution reaffirming Israeli settlements as illegal is the most recent and illuminating example of this policy.

On the other hand, many Israeli leaders, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman -- who actually lives in an illegal settlement in the West Bank -- have argued that a two-state solution cannot be reached anytime in the near future. Instead, Lieberman proposes a solution of interim borders. Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing the initiative of a so-called "economic peace." Both of these are forms of maintaining the status quo that only serve to destroy the possibility of two states by allowing the settlement enterprise to further entrench itself. However, the time for half measures and interim agreements is over. The answer to political immobility lies in affecting the decision-making process by essentially altering the cost-benefit balance of continued occupation.

There are several ways to produce this desired result. First and foremost, the international community must make it clear to Israel that there will be a political and economic price tag to its continued occupation. Simply scolding the Israelis is not enough to get them to act -- the international community must respond with economic and political pressure. Third states should act on their obligations as defined by the International Court of Justice and ban Israel's settlement goods from their markets. The United Nations Security Council should reinforce these bans with practical steps to identify and prevent third parties from doing business with, or in, the settlements. The Palestinian government has already adopted this approach and has taken the initiative to differentiate and boycott products coming from settlements. This policy does not deviate from international consensus on settlements, but rather provides a practical way for states to implement their declared positions in order to increase the political and financial costs of occupation.

A golden opportunity has also presented itself to the Palestinians, and they must seize this moment or risk losing it forever. Far from hurting or limiting their abilities, the end of negotiations has freed the Palestinians to act in their own best interests. The twin pillars of Palestinian national liberation, armed struggle and bilateral negotiations, have both been discredited for a failure to produce positive results. Yet all around them change is sweeping across the region through the force of "people power" being won on the hard work and sacrifice of their Arab neighbors. Although Palestinians have not been ruled for decades under the iron fist of a homegrown dictator, they have been oppressed and continually dispossessed by the strong arm of occupation. The exercise of popular nonviolent struggle against the instruments of occupation and the settlements should become the modus operandi of a neo-Palestinian liberation movement. In the same vein as Palestinians already peacefully protesting against Israel's wall in places like Budrus and Bilin, Palestinians across the territories must confront such instruments anywhere and everywhere they exist with vast, organized, and peaceful demonstrations. This includes the borders, beyond which large communities of refugees have been waiting in vain for 62 years for a resolution to their awful predicament.

As long as Israel is benefiting from the present state of affairs, it is unreasonable to expect Israeli politicians to dramatically alter the current situation in exchange for what may likely be large-scale upheaval. Moreover, the nature of Israel's fragmented political structure, where small parties wield disproportionate leverage, does not allow change to come easy. The best way to overcome this is through exerting pressure on the Israeli center by making it politically and economically inconvenient to support the status quo. Such action will have a dramatic impact on the way Israeli politicians perceive the settlement enterprise and the future of occupation. The era when Israel's occupation pays dividends must come to an end. Only then will we see a change.

Omar H. Rahman is an at-large journalist covering sociopolitical issues in the Middle East region. He is a former advisor to the Palestinian negotiations team and is currently based in Ramallah.