Libya's Revolution Produces A New Hybrid: Pro-Western Islamists

By Abigail Hauslohner in Tripoli

Former rebel fighters pray at a checkpoint near Bani-Walid, Libya, September 12, 2011

Alexandre Meneghini / AP

The Libyan rebels chuckle when they find a child-sized T-shirt featuring a cartoon of Osama bin Laden amid the surveillance files, tapes and photos in one of the buildings abandoned by Col. Muammar Gaddafi's internal security forces. Sporting thick, bushy beards in a fresh show of religiosity they say never would have been tolerated under the old regime, they have mixed feelings about the man on the T-shirt. "Fighting in the name of Islam is something that all Muslims respect," says Mukhtar Enhaysi, carefully. "But when [Bin Laden] makes explosions and commits acts of terrorism against civilians who have nothing to do with that, no one agrees with that."

 

Enhaysi's nuanced view is commonplace in a country whose citizens are suddenly free to express themselves, although the subtle Islamist current in the rebellion has worried some of its Western backers. Rebel forces in Tripoli are commanded by a former associate of Bin Laden, who the CIA had sent to Libya for questioning and torture by Gaddafi's regime. And the leader of the rebel Transitional National Council has called for a constitution guided by Islamic values, reflecting popular sentiment in a country whose people describe themselves as conservative, and who have endured 42 years of enforced — albeit, many say, superficial — secularism under Gaddafi, even as he tried to style himself as the nemesis of the West.

Interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil told a cheering crowd in Tripoli's Martyr's Square this week that, "We seek a state of law, prosperity and one where Sharia [Islamic law] is the main source for legislation, and this requires many things and conditions," adding that "extremist ideology" would not be tolerated.

Indeed, for a citizenry that views itself as inherently more conservative than its Egyptian and Tunisian neighbors, it shouldn't be surprising that Libya's interim leaders are already emphasizing the Islamic character of their future government. But many say that Gaddafi's legacy — and NATO's recent intervention — has also paved the way for a different kind of Islamist than the type that Washington has long feared. "The fact that Gaddafi used [the West] as a common enemy, well, the saying 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' holds very true here," says one official in the National Transitional Council (NTC), speaking on condition of anonymity. "If you compound that with the fact that the Westerners were instrumental in their support [of the rebels] and in the demise of Gaddafi, you see that people are really quite friendly."

On Thursday, Britain's David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy became the first Western Heads of State to visit liberated Tripoli, where they were given a warm welcome by Libya's Transitional Authorities. "The Libyans will not forget the 19th of March, when the international community acted to protect Libya and pass a no-fly zone," Jalil said at a joint press conference. He promised a close friendship going forward. And it's kind of paradox that has become increasingly evident on Libya's streets in recent weeks. Across rebel-controlled territory, Libyans are becoming more expressively religious; holding Islamist group meetings and discussions on the management of mosque funding even as they verbalize an enthusiasm for NATO rare in the Arab world. To that end, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the former jihadist rebel commander in Tripoli, has disavowed extremism and pledged tolerance toward other religions, despite recently discovered Libyan government documents that corroborate his story of rendition by the CIA. "I'm not motivated by revenge against those who did that," he told TIME. "We are very close to our European neighbors, and we want good relations with those countries, both economically and even in security." The idea of an Islamist-led democracy may jar with post-9/11 thinking in the West, but not necessarily in the Muslim world. "It's not something we're inventing," says the NTC official, citing Turkey and Qatar — although the latter, despite its support for the rebellion, can't exactly be called a democracy.

See photos of life in Benghazi during wartime.

"Generally, in the West, they confuse Islamist with Bin Laden," says Saleh Ibrahim, a Libyan journalist, exiting one of Tripoli's largest mosques following the Friday noon prayer. "I think a moderate government will be put in place that will reflect Islamic values, but it won't be extremist."

Most Libyans are Sunni Muslim, meaning there's little risk of sectarian conflict — although tribal and regional schisms have been visible even within the rebellion. And there have been signs of a rift between "Islamists" and "secularists" in the NTC. The so-called secularists dominate its executive committee, and include the U.S.-educated acting Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril and Ali Tarhouni, the finance and oil minister who left his job as an economics professor in the U.S. to join the rebellion.

Read: "With Gaddafi Gone, Assessing the Winners and Losers from Libya's War."

Jibril has been harshly criticized by some rebels, including Tripoli commander Belhaj, for excluding Islamist voices from the NTC leadership even as he tries to bring rebel fighters under stricter central control. But Jibril sees competing groups playing "the political game" and staking their own claims for power. The prime minister's critics say the real line of conflict is between remnants of the old regime — whom they say remain close to Jibril — against and the revolution's fighters. "I'm not an Islamist, but I feel like I have more in common with the Islamists than I do with the secularists who are in the picture right now," says the NTC official. "Why? Because I think the Islamists have no connection with the old regime. They're more nationalist. And they have no frozen assets, that's for sure."

Some see tensions mounting, with Abdel Jalil being the key to holding the rebel coalition together. Rebel fighters chafed at the NTC leadership's orders to delay the assault on remaining Gaddafi strongholds such as Sirte and Bani Walid, to allow loyalist forces more time to surrender. NTC officials say the purpose was to demonstrate their commitment to reconciliation. But Jibril's opponents brand it a move to delay the formation of a government, while staffing interim ministries with his cronies and political allies. "At the end of the day, he [Jibril] might drive the Islamists to do things that will probably label them as extremists — like taking revenge and liquidating those who they consider obstacles," says the NTC official. "And then you've left behind the democratic option and you've taken the option borne of frustration, because they're not involved in the decision making process."

Some Western analysts fear that Belhadj and other Islamists could suddenly become more extreme amid frustration over the executive committee's attempts to rein in Libya's roving militias and a climate of rising piety, "He never allowed us to dress like this before," says Fatima Muftah, a 47-year-old, whose face and body is now entirely concealed by a black veil and gloves. "I'm a computer programmer, but I could never wear this to work." For the sake of TIME's short-sleeved correspondent, she adds, "I have no problem with what you're wearing. Women should be free to wear what they want."

The NTC official is sanguine. "Whatever is going to happen here is going to be unique to Libya," he says, sitting in a Tripoli hotel lobby on a busy weekday afternoon. "It's not going to be an Egyptian model or an Iranian model, or a Sudanese model. It's going to be closer to Turkey, but without the alcohol, without the discotheques." The lobby around him is buzzing with the chatter of Libyan youth in hipster plaid; bearded rebels cradling Kalashnikovs; members of Abdel Jalil's entourage; and a group of women seeking to form a women's rights group. "This is the only Arab country that has 100% of the same faith," he adds. "The division that people are trying to project —it doesn't exist."

This article was published in Time Magazine on 16/09/2011

Amr Mousa Envisions Vigorous And Peaceful Middle East

Amr Mousa, former Secretary General of the Arab League and Egypt's presidential frontrunner warns things could go ugly if the Palestine question is not dealt with fairly

By Patrick Seale

Amr Mousa, 74, the front-runner in the contest for the presidency of post-revolution Egypt, has called for a renegotiation of the military annexes to the Egyptian-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979.

“The Treaty will continue to exist,” he told me in an exclusive interview on September 10, “but Egypt needs forces in Sinai. The security situation requires it. Israel must understand that the restrictions imposed by the Treaty have to be reviewed.”

Mousa was speaking in Geneva a day after delivering the keynote address at the annual conference of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading London-based think tank.

Under the Peace Treaty — signed in Washington on March 26, 1979 by President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel, and witnessed by US President Jimmy Carter — the Sinai Peninsula, captured by Israel in the 1973 war, was returned to Egypt. In return, Egypt agreed to its demilitarisation.

Last January, when protests first erupted against former president Hosni Mubarak, leading to his downfall 18 days later on February 11, Israel allowed Egypt to move a few hundred troops into Sinai — for the first time since the treaty was signed 32 years ago. Egypt deployed two battalions, about 800 soldiers, in the Sharm Al Shaikh area on Sinai’s southern tip, far away from Israel. But, in calling for a revision of the military annexes, Mousa clearly has something more radical in mind.

The Egyptian revolution has led to acute tension between Egypt and Israel, and to great concern in Israel and Washington about the future of the peace treaty. By removing Egypt from the Arab line-up, the treaty gave Israel three decades of military hegemony in the region. For the Arabs it was a disaster. It exposed them to Israeli aggressions, such as the repeated invasions of Lebanon, the siege and invasion of Gaza, and the relentless seizure of Palestinian land on the West Bank.

On the night of Mousa’s address to the IISS in Geneva, protesters in Cairo stormed the Israeli embassy. The ambassador and his staff fled to Israel. Egyptian opinion was outraged by the killing on August 18 of five Egyptian policemen by Israeli forces inside Egyptian territory, north of the Egypt town of Taba and the Israeli town of Eilat. The policemen were killed when Israeli forces crossed the border in pursuit of fighters who had attacked Israeli vehicles on the road to Eilat, killing eight Israelis.

“Israel made a great mistake when the Egyptian revolution erupted,” Mousa told me. “It claimed that the revolution had nothing to do with Palestine. I said: ‘Just wait!’” Israel is playing havoc with the stability of the Middle East because it doesn’t appreciate the extent of the changes sweeping the region. It thinks it can go back to business as usual. This is impossible.

“Palestinians are right to seek recognition of their statehood at the United Nations this month. They have no other option. No other offer has been made to them. The peace process is dead. The time has come for the European powers to understand that keeping Palestine on the back burner has been a grave strategic mistake.

“All European states should support the Palestinian move. One cannot close all doors to the Palestinians and expect them to submit. They will not.”

Uprightness

Mousa’s views are important because he stands a strong chance of being elected president of Egypt next year. Other leading contenders are Mohammad Al Baradei, 70, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Abdul Muneim Abul Futuh, 60, a medical doctor, with a long history of opposition to the Mubarak regime, who is thought to be a member of the moderate wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Al Baradei is admired by educated young people, but he has spent much of the past 35 years out of Egypt and can have little first-hand knowledge of Egypt’s domestic problems. As for Dr Abul Futuh, there is some doubt whether the Muslim Brotherhood would want one of its members to assume responsibility for the awesome task of tackling Egypt’s immense economic and social problems.

Depending how they fare at the coming parliamentary elections, when it is estimated they might win 30 to 40 per cent of the vote, the Muslim Brotherhood may prefer the premiership to the presidency, or might even be content with two or three ministries.

Mousa could be a strong president, acceptable to a wide range of opinion. He is known to prefer a presidential to a multi-party parliamentary system of government, which he fears might result in weak, short-lived coalition governments. In standing for president, he has said that he will seek only a single four-year term.

He was not a member of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party, nor was he part of the corrupt elite around the former president and his son. He has a reputation for probity and for understanding Egypt’s grave domestic problems. As he told the IISS in his keynote address, 50 per cent of Egyptians live in poverty, while 30 per cent are illiterate. The country has to be rebuilt. He is confident it can be done.

He has had extensive international experience having been Egypt’s representative at the UN from 1981 to 1983 and again from 1986 to 1990, before serving as Egypt’s foreign minister for ten years from 1991 to 2001, and then as secretary-general of the Arab League for another 10 years from 2001 to 2011. He opposed the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and has been a consistent critic of Israel’s occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians. The Arab League under his direction approved Nato’s operations against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya.

Last April, Mousa called for a no-fly zone over Gaza to protect it from Israeli bombardment. Israel’s ‘Operation Cast Lead’ — its brutal assault on Gaza in December-January 2008-9, which killed some 1,500 Palestinians and caused immense material damage — did a great deal to undermine its relations with both Egypt and Turkey, the two major powers of the region with which it used to enjoy close relations. Many Egyptians are profoundly ashamed that Mubarak colluded with Israel in the prolonged siege of Gaza.

Mousa would not be a belligerent President. He wants a settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict on a win-win basis, as proposed in the Arab peace initiative. He advocates setting up a regional security system, to include both Israel and Iran on the basis of a WMD (weapons of mass destruction) free zone. His vision is of a new, vigorous, stable and peaceful Middle East. “The people cannot stand being robbed of their future any longer,” he says.

Mousa is a profoundly reasonable and moderate statesman. So is Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority, who is seeking UN recognition for a Palestinian state. If Israel wants long-term security and full acceptance into the region, it should heed their views.

As Mousa told me last weekend, there is a popular consensus in the Arab world that the Palestine question must be dealt with properly and fairly. “If this does not happen, things will turn ugly,” he said with great emphasis.

-This article was published in The GULF NEWS on 16/09/2011
-Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs

U.N. Showdown Over Palestinian Statehood Tests Limits Of U.S. Influence

By Joby Warrick and Scott Wilson

President Obama Meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House in May (AFP/Getty Images) 

One week before a United Nations showdown over Palestinian statehood, the Obama administration is confronting the stark new limits of its influence in the Middle East, including with its chief ally in the region, Israel.

U.S. officials have warned Israel’s hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Palestinian leaders, that the diplomatic clash over the creation of a Palestinian state set for the United Nations next week could further destabilize a region already in political tumult.

But those have been ignored, not only by a Palestinian leadership that feels betrayed by the Obama administration, but also by an Israeli government that receives billions of dollars a year in U.S. military and other aid.

The Obama administration is working to head off what would be a milestone moment for the Palestinian national movement when diplomats put forward a resolution at the United Nations next week to recognize a Palestinian state.

President Obama had hoped to convince the two sides to resume peace negotiations as an alternative to the initiative at the U.N. Israel has said “grave consequences” would follow the Palestinian bid, and U.S. and European diplomats were working late Thursday in efforts to reach a deal that could avert a U.N. vote.

Obama has promised Israel he will veto the resolution if it comes before the Security Council. The move would place the United States at odds with the spirit of the national uprisings that have unsettled the Middle East this year.

The reasons for the Israeli rebuff reflect the domestic political considerations of Netanyahu and Obama, as well as America’s fading clout in the Middle East.

Netanyahu is more afraid of a right-wing challenge at home than he is of an angry Obama, who is deeply unpopular in Israel and losing support among American Jewish voters who have been a Democratic bedrock in the past. The two leaders — an odd couple in political outlook and temperament — have had a chilly relationship for most of Obama’s tenure.

In addition, from the Israeli government’s perspective the United States is a less useful ally in the new Middle East that is emerging, analysts say.

“Why does the U.S. have less influence with Israel right now? In part because the U.S. has less influence with the Arabs,” said Robert Malley, a special assistant to President Clinton on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He now directs the Middle East program at the International Crisis Group.

U.S. officials privately lament their diminishing clout with Netanyahu’s government, which openly feuded with the White House after Obama, early in his presidency, demanded that Israel cease building Jewish settlements in the West Bank, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War.

Netanyahu agreed to a temporary freeze at great political risk. But that agreement expired soon after Obama inaugurated a new round of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks last year. The negotiations collapsed soon after.

Netanyahu also turned aside an unusually intense U.S. lobbying campaign last month for an Israeli apology for the deaths of nine Turkish civilians killed last year in the Israeli military raid of a flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip, U.S. and Israeli officials acknowledged. One of those killed was a U.S. citizen.

At issue was Israel’s management of the fallout from the raid on the ships headed to Gaza, which has been under the control of the armed Palestinian movement Hamas since 2007. Turkey has been Israel’s closest Muslim ally for years, and the administration urged Netanyahu to issue the apology in order to preserve the strategically important relationship. Turkey, a NATO member, is also a key U.S. ally.

In recent weeks, U.S. officials proposed a formula in which Israel would issue a broad apology for the Turkish deaths without conceding the legitimacy of the Gaza blockade or Israel’s right to enforce it. Israel has said the soldiers acted in self defense.

At least two senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, pressed Netanyahu personally to issue the apology, and appeared briefly to have reached a tentative deal, according to U.S. and Middle Eastern diplomats briefed about the exchange.

But Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a hard-line nationalist, campaigned publicly against any kind of apology, presenting a threat from Netanyahu’s right that he would not ignore.

“The administration wasn’t blind to the domestic configuration, but it argued to Israel that strategic concerns should trump those considerations,” said David Makovsky, a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “And a number of leading Israeli security officials shared those sentiments.”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who leads his country’s rising Islamist party, has been a frequent critic of Israeli policy since long before the flotilla raid.

“To be fair to Netanyahu, he feels that the golden era of the 1990s, when Israeli and Turkish cooperation was strong, is not coming back,” Makovsky said. “He believed that Erdogan, for his own domestic political considerations, was adamant on this issue and that an apology was not going to change the overall trajectory of the relationship.”

In the past week, Erdogan denounced Israel in a speech as “the West’s spoiled child,” and warned that Turkish naval vessels could be dispatched into the Mediterranean to protect future aid flotillas and challenge Israeli plans to exploit recently discovered natural gas deposits off its coast.

A senior Turkish official, insisting on anonymity to discuss his country’s internal assessment of the situation, said Erdogan would continue to insist on an Israeli apology.

“We have nothing against Israeli people or the Jews,” the official said. “If they apologize and offer compensation, as any friend would do, things will get better. But they will never be the same.”

Obama, too, is facing political challenges at home that make exerting pressure on Israel dangerous to his re-election prospects. The Republican candidate in a special election for a traditionally Democratic House seat in New York City won this week after a campaign in which he sharply criticized Obama’s treatment of Israel.

Obama has called Israel’s settlement project in the territories “illegitimate.” He has also called for negotiations to be based on the boundaries that existed on the eve of the 1967 war, making clear that land swaps would likely have to be made to account for Israel’s settlements.

At the same time, Obama has stood with Israel on the Palestinian statehood bid at some risk to U.S. diplomacy in the region. The perception of Obama as anti-Israel is not widely held, even among American Jews, who supported him overwhelmingly in the 2008 election. But his standing among the community has slipped.

In May, before he called for talks based on the 1967 borders, Obama had the support of 68 percent of American Jews, according to Gallup. That approval rating has fallen to 55 percent, Gallup reports. Even a small decline in Jewish support could hurt Obama in swing states such as Florida.

Some analysts fear that Netanyahu, who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, may interpret the results of the recent House special election as further proof that he does not need to heed the Obama administration’s appeals.

But, Makovsky said, “Netanyahu knows enough about the American political map to know that every district is not like this one in New York.”

“While he knows that in 2012 the pressures from Washington will be muted, it does not mean he is immune,” he said.

This report was published in The Washington Post on 16/09/2011

Moammar Gadhafi Survived Thanks To A Network Of Western Friends

By Arnold Cassola

                                       Muammar Gadhafi

With Colonel Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in ruins and the former Libyan leader himself on the run, it is time to ponder just how he survived in power for so long. Greed for markets and money, it seems, often trumped the West’s supposed concern for basic human rights.

Major Western countries compromised themselves over Libya for decades. After all, Gadhafi survived President Ronald Reagan’s punitive 1986 bombing raid on his compound only because former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and former Maltese Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici tipped him off.

Craxi, of course, later found refuge in the embrace of another recently fallen Arab dictator, Tunisia’s President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali, when he fled Italy to escape imprisonment in 1992. Bonnici, for his part, continued cementing his ties with the Libyan dictator until the very end, through his association with – wait for it – the Gadhafi Prize for Human Rights. Moral squalor also permeated Gadhafi’s international “rehabilitation” in the years just before the outbreak of the Arab Spring. According to many observers, British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s role in launching this process of rehabilitation in 2004 was, almost from the start, motivated by a desire to do business with the regime in Tripoli.

And more than oil was at stake. According to an Associated Press report, citing Foreign Office statistics, Libya purchased from the United Kingdom “about £40 million ($55 million) worth of military and paramilitary equipment in the year ending Sept. 30, 2010.” Gadhafi’s shopping list included “sniper rifles, bulletproof vehicles, crowd-control ammunition and tear gas.” Certainly, that military hardware came in handy during the last six months.

According to the same Associated Press report: “The Bush administration approved the sale of $3 million of materials to Libya in 2006 and $5.3 million in 2007. In 2008, Libya was allowed to import $46 million in armaments from the U.S. The approved goods included nearly 400 shipments of explosive and incendiary materials, 25,000 aircraft parts, 56,000 military electronics components and nearly 1,000 items of optical targeting and other guidance equipment.”

Nor was Germany immune to temptation. In 2004, then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder inaugurated an oil well operated by the German company Wintershall in the Libyan Maghreb. Not to be outdone, French President Nicolas Sarkozy rushed off to Libya in 2008 to sell nuclear technology to Gadhafi.

Italy imports 60 percent of its oil and 40 percent of its natural gas from Libya, and soon after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was re-elected in 2008, he pledged to pay Gadhafi’s regime the equivalent of $338 million a year for 20 years in exchange for Libya’s acceptance of all North African refugees who were seeking political asylum in Italy.

Somehow, it seems, Berlusconi’s name never fails to pop up when lucrative business transactions with Libya are discussed. Indeed, Berlusconi and Gadhafi have shared common personal business interests since 2009, when Lafitrade, a Gadhafi family company, took a 10 percent stake in Quinta Communications, a cinema production company which is 22 percent owned by Berlusconi’s company Fininvest.

The case of little Malta, a couple of hundred kilometers from Libya’s shores, could be just the tip of a much bigger iceberg of complicity. The Maltese government has just revealed that it froze Libyan government assets in euros worth the equivalent of $509 million, of which the equivalent of $116 million belonged to the Gadhafi family or to entities in which the family is a majority stakeholder.

Where has all this money been invested – only in Maltese banks, or are there any business concerns also involved? And who are the Maltese partners of the former Libyan regime? Are politicians involved?

These questions matter because Libyan institutions in Malta used to offer “aid” to Maltese politicians in exchange for promoting Gadhafi’s image. Last Aug. 28, the pro-Christian Democratic newspaper Il-Mument revealed CIA documentation of direct financing by the Gadhafi regime for activities organized by the Malta Labor Party during the 1989 George Bush-Mikhail Gorbachev summit held in Malta.

The Labor Party’s former treasurer, Joe Sammut, is most often mentioned for his connection with Gadhafi. According to The New York Post daily, Sammut handled hundreds of thousands of dollars on behalf of Mutassim Gadhafi, the son of the former Libyan leader and a former security chief. Sammut, it is said, was involved in organizing parties featuring singers Snoop Dog, Nelly Furtado, and Enrique Iglesias, among others, for the entertainment of Gadhafi’s sons.

And it is not only Malta Labor Party politicians who allegedly have had connections with the Gadhafi clan. Malta’s current European Union Commissioner, John Dalli, a former Christian Democrat parliamentarian and government minister, has openly admitted that he had “established a strong network at the political and executive levels” in Libya.

Gadhafi and his family have been spreading money around Europe for years, buying influence and a blind eye from governments to the Libyan regime’s human rights transgressions. We can only hope that the International Criminal Court in The Hague will one day bring Gadhafi, his family, and his minions to justice. But one should also hope that Libya’s new government will expose the links between Western politicians and the Gadhafi regime. At that point, the court of public opinion, at the very least, can render its judgment on their actions.

-This commentary was published in The Daily Star on 16/09/2011
-Arnold Cassola was secretary-general of the European Green Party and a Member of Italy’s Parliament. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate © (www.project-syndicate.org)

Syria's Opposition Gets Organized

By Sophia Jones

                                        Ausama Monajed

Over the past six months, Syria has erupted into chaos. As protesters took to the streets to demand the removal of President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian army and police responded with deadly force: The United Nations now estimates 2,600 people have perished in the violence.

But what the protest movement has lacked so far is a unified front that could express the Syrian opposition's vision for the country's future, and press for international action against the Assad regime. While Syria's historically fractious opposition groups have been unsuccessful in overcoming their differences, a new coalition has an opportunity to establish a united front. On Thursday, a group of 140 dissidents announced the establishment of the Syrian National Council (SNC), the first organized effort to challenge the ferocity of Assad's "killing machine."

Foreign Policy exclusively obtained a document that lays out the SNC's structure, membership, and goals. It also received the SNC's "National Consensus Charter," which describes the principles that will guide the council's actions.

The first document says that the council is currently made up of 140 members. It provides the name of 71 members, but states that the rest have been kept secret "for security reasons." 60 percent of the SNC's membership resides inside Syria, while 40 percent lives abroad. A slim majority -- 52 percent -- of the council's membership is made up of representatives of the grassroots movements that have driven the recent protests, while the rest includes members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the Kurdish National Bloc, the Damascus Declaration group, and other prominent opposition figures. The SNC will be divided into eight main offices, including bureaus to undertake tasks such as media relations, policy planning, and legal affairs and human rights.

SNC's charter describes the formation of an anti-Assad umbrella coalition as "a pressing necessity and its absence is an offense against the revolution." It details three main principles: a unified effort to overthrow Assad's regime, the desire to maintain the peaceful nature of the revolution, and a national initiative to create a democratic state that respects the equality of Syria's diverse ethnic and religious groups. The council also asserted its aim to develop a roadmap for democratic change within Syria.

Ausama Monajed, a member of the newly created council and the executive director of the Strategic Research and Communication Centre, detailed what the council hopes to accomplish in a conversation with FP.

Foreign Policy: What message do you want to send the Syrian people, and the rest of the international community?

Ausama Monajed: The Syrian National Council aims to present the reality of Syria to international media outlets and policy makers, to be able to have an impact on global policies by providing governments with the right information and analysis; to draft roadmaps for a just Syria; and to boost the morale of Syrian demonstrators by presenting them with a unified body that will support their activities.

FP: Why does the council oppose military and foreign intervention in Syria?

AM: Syrians oppose military intervention because of the negative experience countries in the region have had. The council only reflects the demands of the Syrian street.

Assad's regime is built on self-interest, not on a minority, as perceived. Alawites [Assad's religious sect] are starting to peel away from the regime and many are starting to oppose it, realizing that Assad will flee, leaving them to deal with the aftermath of his sectarian actions. A coup is a possible scenario, a sudden collapse is also a possibility.

FP: What groups are represented in the council? How will the council, made up of so many voices, effectively form a united oppositional front to Assad?

AM: All Syrian groups. The differences in views of the council members are insignificant at this time, as all parties involved - or actually all Syrians -- agree on certain principles, such as that the Syrian revolution should remain peaceful, national unity is to be stressed and all sectarian or exceptionalist tendencies are to be extricated, while foreign military intervention will be rejected.

The charter added that all minorities and parties in Syria will have their rights guaranteed without any discrimination -- and that includes recognition of the Kurdish identity, and reaching a fair solution to Kurdish issues within the scope of national unity.

FP: Who will lead the council? Will the names of the council members still within Syria be released? Is there a formal list of the dissident members residing outside of Syria? Will more members be chosen in the near future?

AM: Leadership elections will take place in a few days. While the names of some of the members have been revealed, we did not reveal the rest of the names for security reasons.

FP: Ahmed Ramadan, a council member, has spoken of the possibility of a TV channel being launched to address the demands of the Syrian people. Is this true?

AM: Everything is possible.                                                                   

-This interview has been condensed and edited and was published in The Foreign Policy on 16/09/2011

UAE: FNC Candidates Have A Duty Towards The Nation's Youth

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) cannot afford to live in a "Me Generation" but must focus instead on developing tomorrow's leaders. Candidates for the Federal National Council (FNC) can help.

By Khalid Al Ameri

The hot topic on Emiratis' minds this month is the heavily Twitter-trending Federal National Council (FNC) elections that are right around the corner on September 24.

Candidates are campaigning now and reaching out to communities. And Emiratis, both old and young, are eager to learn more about the FNC, what it can do for them and how they can contribute.

What has grabbed my attention is the increasing role the UAE's young people are playing in this year's election.

They are assuming a role in this process which is far greater than the one they played in the previous FNC election in 2006.

This is in large part thanks to the widespread use of social media, which has been apparent since the candidates were announced.

What is more interesting is that newspapers are highlighting how younger Emiratis are attending the various FNC-election related functions to learn more about the process of campaigning. In large part, this is a process of political education. Many of them are doing this so that they will be prepared for the next cycle of voting.

I am no political expert, but I am an Emirati and a father, so my interest in the FNC is two-fold: first I am naturally interested in creating a better environment for my family and community today, and second I also want to ensure the future of my children and of future generations in the UAE.

The basic structure of the Federal National Council is like it was in 2006: the 40-member council is made up of 20 members appointed by the rulers of the seven emirates and 20 who are elected, from each emirate, by Emiratis who are eligible to vote. What has changed is that the number of eligible voters has increased greatly since the last elections.

It is also important to point out that the FNC is an advisory body and not a legislative one. The Council is mandated under the constitution to examine federal legislation, to question federal ministers on the performance of their respective ministries and to discuss annual budgets.

Most Emiratis are in a process of reading and learning about the ambitions of the candidates running for the Federal National Council. Most of them seem to be focused on a few principal issues which are obviously important, even critical, to the UAE today and tomorrow: issues such as Emiratisation, health care, education and the empowerment of women.

These issues are all of the utmost importance to ensuring a high quality of life for the people of UAE, but having said that I ask that our budding politicians focus on another critical sector, and that is youth development.

I am not simply talking about providing young people with a solid education. That is something that has been a priority of our leadership for a while, and great strides are being made.

But as a campaign issue, candidates should be talking about youth in the context of how we can provide a holistic environment for our children to prosper in society. This will involve different factors including employment opportunities, youth centres, development initiatives and more.

Our youth make up the largest portion of our population, and they are the ones who will carry forward the responsibility of leading our country in the future.

Think about it for a second. What opportunities are out there for our youth today? Where can they go to unleash their creative energy? What federal initiatives are there to harness their potential at a young age? And how have the youth participated in the national development to date? These are all critical questions that I think need immediate answers.

Any candidate who genuinely wants to improve and develop our country should have youth development issues at the top of his or her priorities.

Why do I say this? Because a candidate can promise to work towards all the improvements in the world but at the end of the day, if we don't have an upcoming generation ready to carry the torch and build on those improvements, it will have all been for nothing.

So there should be emphasis on making improvements with the goal of ensuring that as our children grow up there is a healthy environment - both socially and economically - in which they can prosper. This is where tackling pressing issues such as personal debt levels and quality of health care comes in.

When considering all the problems of policy, it is critical that candidates keep in mind that our children will be living tomorrow with the decisions they make today.

As a society, we cannot afford to live in a "Me Generation" but need to focus on contributions that can be made to the next generation. Take as an example the question of which generation will be paying for the global economic crisis and you will see the importance of our decisions.

Our late and loved Sheikh Zayed, the founding President of the UAE, is quoted as saying that the youth of the country are the real wealth of the nation.

I humbly ask the candidates to look towards their children and the children of our country to see what Sheikh Zayed saw in them - the future of the nation.

-This commentary was published in The National on 16/09/2011
-Khalid Al Ameri is an associate at an Abu Dhabi development company

Iranian Clerics About to Fall?

Abbas Milani reports that the coup is coming to Syria. Assad will go. Iran’s clerics are about to go with him.

By Abbas Milani

   
   Clerics listen to,Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani (unseen) Chairman of the Assembly of Experts during opening ceremony of the assembly per annum meeting in Tehran, Iran on September 6,2011 (UPI)

Iran’s clerics are afraid.  Very very afraid.  With Syria in shambles, they rightly wonder if their alliance with Bashar al-Assad and his cronies will herald the end of their own despotic reign.

The Syrian regime has been Iran’s most reliable—indeed sole—ally in the Muslim Middle East. Tehran has handed over billions of dollars to keep Syria in its grip. In recent months there have even been allegations that units of the Iranian military—and its special forces, the Qods Brigade—have been sent to Syria and used as Assad’s personal storm troopers.

Yet as Syrian democrats continue to surprise the world with their tenacity, the long-sustained unity between Syria and Iran is beginning to fray. The Iranian regime’s public statements are discordant. And this is both tactical—intended to confuse the world, and existential, reflecting the massive fissures and warring factions in the power centers of Iran. Initially, Iran offered unmitigated support for Assad. Today they are pulling back.  The Iranian clerics want to claim both that the Arab Spring was inspired by their own Islamic model and yet Syria is meant to be the exception—nothing but a conspiracy designed and acted out by Israel and the United States. When Turkey, increasingly a rival to Iran for influence in the Muslim world, sided with the Syrian democrats, when polls in countries such as Egypt show a sharp decline in the popularity of the Iranian clerical regime among Muslims, when there were increasing signs of Sunni concern about the possible existence of an Iranian conspiracy to reestablish a “Shiite empire”—a concern specifically voiced by some members of the Syrian opposition—the Iranian regime began to gingerly but discernibly distance itself from Assad. Iran’s foreign minister declared that Syria must listen to the voice of its people, followed by another statement by Ahmadinejad reiterating much the same position. He even proposed hosting a meeting of Arab Muslim leaders to find a collective “Muslim solution” to the problem. Unless we do something now, he told them, the same thing will happen in all Arab states!

Iran and Syria are kindred spirits. Both are pseudo-totalitarian regimes that rule in the name of an ideology: in Syria, the Ba’ath ideology that is an odd amalgam of European fascism and Arab nationalism; and in Iran the theory of velayat-e fagih that is an eclectic mix of Shiite beliefs in the clerical interpretation of law and Plato’s notion of the need for the absolute rule of the philosopher king. In both countries, a small minority that considers itself the state’s ideological custodians rules over a reluctant majority with an iron fist. In both countries, the ruling minority stays in power with the help of a well-greased, oppressive intelligence, militia and military apparatus. Both regimes are distrusted Shiite minorities in the Sunni-Arab dominated Middle East. Both countries have hitherto weathered their political storms with the economic help of outside forces: in the case of Syria through substantial subsidies received from Iran, and other rich Arab states; in Iran through the sudden unexpected rise in the price of oil. In both, the absolute ruler for life—Khamenei in Iran and Assad in Syria—were anointed through virtual palace coups and certainly without a popular election. They both threaten and intimidate their neighbors and foes through support for terrorist organizations. They both consider Lebanon their turf, and use Hezbollah as their instrument of choice. As Shiites, they both believe in tagiyeh, or equivocation, a concept central to Shiism that allows the pious to lie and cheat in the service of their faith. These affinities are arguably at the heart of the 40-year dalliance of Iranian and Syrian despots.

Now there are clear signs that beneath the conservative camp’s intransigent support for Syria, Khamenei and his cohorts are concerned about the possibility of Assad’s fall, and its consequences in Iran. In a meeting of the Council of Experts (an 86-member body of clerics nominally entrusted with the task of supervising the work of the “Supreme Leader”) the most noticeable hint of change was the prominent place afforded former president Rafsanjani. Until a few weeks ago he was a virtual persona non grata in the Council and among the conservative camp because of his ostensible support for the clerical opposition.  Now, in official photos of the meeting between Khamenei and members of the Council, Rafsanjani is shown prominently, sitting right next to Khamenei. Moreover, the leaders of the Green Movement, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karubi, now in prison for more than 170 days, were granted much-publicized visits with their families. These are all clear signs the hard-line clerical rulers are in deep trouble—and they know it.

A Syrian Spring of democracy could well catalyze the end of Iran’s long cold winter of despotism.

This commentary was published in The Daily Beast on 13/09/2011