mudar zahran - middle east forum

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WINTER 2012 VOLUME 19, NUMBER 1

Mudar ZahranJordan Is Palestinian Oren Kessler

The Two Faces of Al Jazeera

Aymenn Jawad Al-TamimiU.S. Strategy in Afghanistan

Lucas WinterSaudi Arabia and

Yemen’s Huthis

Ali AlfonehIran’s Revolutionary Guards

Strike Oil

Hilal KhashanThe Pragmatics

of Lebanon’s Politics

Bruce Maddy-WeitzmanMorocco’s New Constitution

Israeli Security

Yoaz HendelNuclear Iran and Israel

Efraim InbarThe Arab Uprisings and Israel

Changes in Turkey

David P. GoldmanThe “Economic Miracle”

Collapses

Svante CornellTurkish Foreign Policy

Plus . . .• Reviews by Berko,

Romirowsky, and Silay

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/ 1

WINTER 2012 VOLUME 19, NUMBER 1

03 Mudar Zahran, Jordan Is Palestinian A state of Palestine in the kingdom could offer the way to peace

CHANGES IN TURKEY

13 Svante E. Cornell, What Drives Turkish Foreign Policy? Ankara moves toward a rupture with the West

25 David P. Goldman, Ankara’s “Economic Miracle” Collapses Deficiencies in the Turkish economy could lead to a disastrous decline

ISRAELI DEFENSE

31 Yoaz Hendel, Iran’s Nukes and Israel’s Dilemma Should Jerusalem launch a preemptive strike?

39 Efraim Inbar, The Arab Uprisings’ Impact The new Middle East may prove more hazardous for Israeli security

47 Oren Kessler, The Two Faces of Al Jazeera Inflammatory in Arabic, subdued in English

57 POLICY BRIEF: Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, Rethinking U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan Obama’s plan has no chance of success

67 Lucas Winter, Riyadh Enters the Yemen-Huthi Fray Fears of Iranian influence prompted the Saudis to act

75 DATELINE: Ali Alfoneh, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Strike Oil The IRGC is handed another key ministry post

79 DATELINE: Hilal Khashan, The Pragmatics of Lebanon’s Politics The Lebanese handle deep-rooted sectarian and religious divides

87 DATELINE: Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Is Morocco Immune to Upheaval? Moroccan authorities forestall unrest with a new constitution

REVIEWS

94 Brief Reviews Palestinian terrorism ... Turkish Islamism ... Israel’s prime ministers

2 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY WINTER 2012

Board of Editors

Editorial AssistantWilliam Aquilino

EditorEfraim Karsh

Senior EditorsPatrick ClawsonDenis MacEoinMichael Rubin

Managing EditorJudy Goodrobb

Publisher and Review EditorDaniel Pipes

Assistant EditorHillel Zaremba

Fouad AjamiJohns Hopkins University

David CookRice University

Martin KramerThe Shalem Center

Timur KuranDuke University

Habib C. MalikFoundation for Human and Humanitarian Rightsin Lebanon

James PhillipsThe Heritage Foundation

Steven PlautUniversity of Haifa

Dennis RossWashington, D.C.

Barry RubinGlobal Research in International Affairs Center

James R. RussellHarvard University

Franck SalamehBoston College

Philip Carl SalzmanMcGill University

Saliba SarsarMonmouth University

Robert B. SatloffThe Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Sabri SayarøSabancø University

Kemal SilayIndiana University

Lee SmithWashington, D.C.

Steven L. SpiegelUniversity of California, Los Angeles

Kenneth W. SteinEmory University

/ 3Zahran: A Palestinian Jordan

Jordan Is Palestinianby Mudar Zahran

Thus far the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has weathered the storm that hasswept across the Middle East since the beginning of the year. But the relativecalm in Amman is an illusion. The unspoken truth is that the Palestinians, the

country’s largest ethnic group, have developed a profound hatred of the regime andview the Hashemites as occupiers of eastern Palestine—intruders rather than legitimaterulers. This, in turn, makes a regime change in Jordan more likely than ever. Such achange, however, would not only be confined to the toppling of yet another Arab despotbut would also open the door to the only viable peace solution—and one that has effec-tively existed for quite some time: a Palestinian state in Jordan.

Mudar Zahran is a Jordanian-Palestinian writerwho resides in the United Kingdom as a politicalrefugee. He served as an economic specialistand assistant to the policy coordinator at theU.S. Embassy in Amman before moving to theU.K. in 2010.

ABDULLAH’SAPARTHEID POLICIES

Despite having held a comprehensive na-tional census in 2004, the Jordanian governmentwould not divulge the exact percentage of Pal-estinians in the kingdom. Nonetheless, the se-cret that everyone seems to know but which isnever openly admitted is that Palestinians makeup the vast majority of the population.

In his 2011 book, Our Last Best Chance,King Abdullah claimed that the Palestinians makeup a mere 43 percent. The U.S. State Departmentestimates that Palestinians make up “more thanhalf” of Jordanians1 while in a 2007 report, writ-ten in cooperation with several Jordanian gov-ernment bodies, the London-based Oxford Busi-ness Group stated that at least two thirds ofJordan’s population were of Palestinian origin.2Palestinians make up the majority of the popula-tion of Jordan’s two largest cities, Amman and

Zarqa, which were small, rural towns before theinflux of Palestinians arrived in 1967 after Jordan’sdefeat in the Six-Day War.

In most countries with a record of humanrights violations, vulnerable minorities are thetypical victims. This has not been the case inJordan where a Palestinian majority has beendiscriminated against by the ruling Hashemitedynasty, propped up by a minority Bedouinpopulation, from the moment it occupied Judeaand Samaria during the 1948 war (these territo-ries were annexed to Jordan in April 1950 to be-come the kingdom’s West Bank).

As a result, the Palestinians of Jordan findthemselves discriminated against in governmentand legislative positions as the number of Pal-estinian government ministers and parliamentar-ians decreases; there is not a single Palestinianserving as governor of any of Jordan’s twelvegovernorships.3

Jordanian Palestinians are encumbered withtariffs of up to 200 percent for an average family

1 “Jordan: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2001,”Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Depart-ment of State, Mar. 4, 2002.2 “The Report: Emerging Jordan 2007,” Oxford BusinessGroup, London, Apr. 2007.3 “Jordan: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2001,”Mar. 4, 2002.


sedan, a fixed 16-percent sales tax, a high corpo-rate tax, and an inescapable income tax. Most oftheir Bedouin fellow citizens, meanwhile, do nothave to worry about most of these duties as theyare servicemen or public servants who get a freepass. Servicemen or public employees even havetheir own government-subsidized stores, whichsell food items and household goods at lowerprices than what others have to pay,4 and theMilitary Consumer Corporation, which is a mas-sive retailer restricted to Jordanian servicemen,has not increased prices despite inflation.5

Decades of such practices have left the Pal-estinians in Jordan with no political representa-tion, no access to power, no competitive educa-tion, and restrictions in the only field in whichthey can excel: business.

According to Minority Rights GroupInternational’s World Directory of Minoritiesand Indigenous Peoples of 2008, “Jordan stillconsiders them [Palestinian-Jordanians] refu-gees with a right of return to Palestine.”6 Thisby itself is confusing enough for the Palestin-

ian majority and possi-bly gives basis for state-sponsored discrimina-tion against them; indeed,since 2008, the Jordaniangovernment has adopteda policy of stripping somePalestinians of their citi-zenship.7 Thousands offamilies have borne thebrunt of this action withtens of thousands morepotentially affected. The

Jordanian government has officially justified itsposition: Deputy Prime Minister and Ministerof the Interior Nayef Qadi told the London-based al-Hayat newspaper that “Jordan should

be thanked for standing up against Israeli am-bitions of unloading the Palestinian land of itspeople,” which he described as “the secret Is-raeli aim to impose a solution of Palestinian refu-gees at the expense of Jordan.”8 According toa February 2010 Human Rights Watch (HRW)report, some 2,700 Jordanian-Palestinians havehad their citizenship revoked. As HRW obtainedthe figure from the Jordanian government, it issafe to assume that the actual figure is higher.To use the words of Sarah Leah Whitson, ex-ecutive director of the Middle East and NorthAfrica division of HRW, “Jordan is playingpolitics with the basic rights of thousands ofits citizens.”9

But Abdullah does not really want the Pal-estinians out of his kingdom. For it is the Pales-tinians who drive the country’s economy: Theypay heavy taxes; they receive close to zero statebenefits; they are almost completely shut out ofgovernment jobs, and they have very little, ifany, political representation. He is merely usingthem as pawns in his game against Israel bythreatening to make Jerusalem responsible forJordanians of Palestinian descent in the name ofthe “right of return.”

Despite systematic marginalization, Pales-tinians in Jordan seem well-settled and, indeed,do call Jordan home. Hundreds of thousandshold “yellow cards” and “green cards,” resi-dency permits allowing them to live and work inIsrael while they maintain their Jordanian citi-zenship.10 In addition, tens of thousands of Pal-estinians—some even claim hundreds of thou-sands—hold Israeli residency permits, whichallow them to live in Judea and Samaria. Manyalso hold a “Jerusalem Residency Card,” whichentitles them to state benefits from Israel.11 Yet

4 “Brief History,” Civil Service Consumer Corporation, Gov-ernment of Jordan, Amman, 2006.5 Jordan News Agency (PETRA, Amman), Jan. 10, 2011.6 “Jordan: Palestinians,” World Directory of Minorities andIndigenous Peoples, Minority Rights Group International, 2008,accessed Sept. 20, 2011.7 “Stateless Again,” Human Rights Watch, New York, Feb. 1,2010.

8 The Arab Times (Kuwait City), Jan. 13, 2011.9 “Jordan: Stop Withdrawing Nationality from Palestinian-Origin Citizens,” Human Rights Watch, Washington, D.C.,Feb. 1, 2010.10 “Jordan: Information on the right of abode of a Palestinianfrom the West Bank who holds a Jordanian passport which isvalid for five years,” Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada,Oct. 1, 1993, JOR15463.FE.11 “Jordan’s treatment of failed refugee claimants,” Immigra-tion and Refugee Board of Canada, Mar. 9, 2004, JOR42458.E.

Palestinians inJordan haveno politicalrepresentation,no access topower, and nocompetitiveeducation.

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they have remained in Jor-dan. Despite ill treatment bythe Jordanian government,they still wish to live wheremost of their relatives andfamily members live andperhaps actually considerJordan home.

PLAYINGTHE ISLAMIST

CARD

The Hashemites’ dis-criminatory policies againstthe Palestinians have beenoverlooked by the West,Washington in particular,for one main reason: the Pal-estine Liberation Organiza-tion (PLO) was the beatingheart of Palestinian politics, and thus, if the Pal-estinians were empowered, they might topplethe Hashemites and transform Jordan into aspringboard for terror attacks against Israel. Thisfear was not all that farfetched. The PalestinianNational Charter, by which the PLO lives, con-siders Palestine with its original mandate bor-ders (i.e., including the territory east of the Jor-dan River, or Transjordan) as the indivisiblehomeland of the Palestinian Arab people.12 Inthe candid admission of Abu Dawoud, YasserArafat’s strongman in the 1970s, “Abu Ammar[Arafat] was doing everything then to establishhis power and authority in Jordan despite hispublic statements” in support of King Hussein.13

This tension led to the 1970 Black Septembercivil war where the PLO was expelled from Jor-dan and thousands of Palestinians were slaugh-tered by Hussein’s Bedouin army.

With the threat of Palestinian militants re-

moved, the idea of having the Muslim Brother-hood entrenched in a Palestinian state with thelongest border with Israel would naturally be ofconcern to Israel and its allies.

The only problem with this theory is thatthe Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan is dominatedby Bedouins, not Palestinians. The prominent,hawkish Muslim Brotherhood figure, Zaki BaniRushiad, for example, is a native of Irbid innorthern Jordan—not a Palestinian. SalemFalahat, another outspoken Brotherhoodleader, and Abdul Latif Arabiat, a major tribalfigure and godfather of the Brotherhood in Jor-dan, are also non-Palestinians. Upon PresidentObama’s announcement of the death of Osamabin Laden, tribal Jordanians in the southern cityof Ma’an mourned the terror leader’s death andannounced “a celebration of martyrdom.”14

Other cities with predominantly Bedouin popu-lations, such as Salt and Kerak, did the same.The latter, a stronghold of the Majali tribe (whichhas historically held prominent positions in theHashemite state) produced Abu Qutaibah al-

Zahran: A Palestinian Jordan

King Abdullah may find himself swallowed up by the growingforce of the Muslim Brotherhood within his kingdom. In Jordan,the Brotherhood is dominated by Bedouins, not Palestinians,and although Bedouins remain the minority in the kingdom,they form the foundation on which Abdullah’s regime is built.

12 The Palestinian National Charter, Resolutions of the Pales-tine National Council, July 1-17, 1968.13 Al-Jazeera (Riyadh), Oct. 1, 2005. 14 Amman News, May 2, 2011.

Photo

will

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isplay

.


Majali, bin Laden’s personal aide between 1986and 1991, who recruited fellow Bedouin-Jorda-nian, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of al-Qaedain Iraq who was killed in a 2006 U.S. raid.15

The Hashemite regime is keenly aware ofU.S. and Israeli fears and has, therefore, strivento create a situation where the world wouldhave to choose between the Hashemites andthe Muslim Brotherhood as Jordan’s rulers. Tothis end, it has supported the Muslim Brother-hood for decades, allowing it to operate freely,to run charitable organizations and youth move-ments, and to recruit members in Jordan.16 In2008, the Jordanian government introduced anew law, retroactively banning any existingpolitical party unless it had five hundred mem-bers and branches in five governorates (coun-ties). Since such conditions could only be ful-filled by the Muslim Brotherhood, most politi-

cal parties were dis-solved de jure be-cause they did notmeet the new stan-dards, leaving the Is-lamic Action Front asthe strongest party inthe kingdom.

Both Jerusalemand Washington areaware of the Jorda-nian status quo yethave chosen to acceptthe Hashemite regimeas it is, seduced bythe conventional wis-dom of “the devil youknow is better thanthe devil you don’t.”The facts on theground, however,suggest that the devilthey think they knowis in deep trouble with

its own supposed constituency.

THE BEDOUIN THREAT

Despite their lavish privileges, JordanianBedouins seem to insist relentlessly on a biggerpiece of the cake, demanding more privilegesfrom the king, and, in doing so, they have grownfearless about defying him. Since 2009, fully-armed tribal fights have become commonplacein Jordan.17 Increasingly, the Hashemite regimehas less control than it would like over its onlyruling foundation—the Bedouin minority—which makes up the army, the police forces, allthe security agencies, and the Jordanian Gen-eral Intelligence Department. The regime is, there-fore, less likely to survive any serious confron-tations with them and has no other choice but tokeep kowtowing to their demands.

The majority Palestinian population of Jordan bridles at theadvantages and benefits bestowed on the minority Bedouins.Advancement in the civil service, as well as in the military, is almostentirely a Bedouin prerogative with the added insult that Palestinianspay the lion’s share of the country’s taxes.

15 Ibid., May 2, 2011.16 Awni Jadu al-Ubaydi, Jama‘at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin fi al-Urdunn wa-Filastin, 1945-1970 (Amman: Safahat Ta‘arikhiyya,1991), pp. 38-41.

17 Samer Libdeh, “The Hashemite Kingdom of Apartheid?”The Jerusalem Post, Apr. 26, 2010.

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What complicates the situationeven further is that Bedouin tribes inJordan do not maintain alliances onlywith the Hashemites; most shift their loy-alties according to their current interestsand the political season. Northern tribes,for example, have exhibited loyalty to theSyrian regime, and many of their mem-bers hold dual citizenship.18 In Septem-ber 1970, when Syrian forces invadedJordan in the midst of the civil warthere, the tribes of the northern city ofRamtha raised the Syrian flag and de-clared themselves “independent” fromthe Hashemite rulers.

Likewise, Bedouin tribes of thesouth have habitually traded loyalty forprivileges and handouts with whoeverpaid better, beginning with the Turks,then replacing them with the better-pay-ing Britons, and finally the Hashemites.This pattern has expanded in the lasttwenty years as tribesmen exchangedtheir loyalties for cash; in fact this ishow they got involved in the British-supported Arab revolt of World War I,in which the Bedouins demanded to be paid ingold in advance in order to participate in thefighting against the Ottomans despite theiralignment with the Ottoman Empire before join-ing the revolt.19

This in turn means that the Jordanian re-gime is now detested not only by the Palestin-ians but also by the Bedouins, who have calledfor a constitutional monarchy in which the kinghands his powers to them.20 Should the tribesfail to achieve their goals, they will most likelyexpand their demonstrations of unrest—com-plete with tribal killings, blockades, armed fights,robberies, and attacks on police officers—whichthe Jordanian state finds itself having to con-front weekly. In 2010, an average of five citizens

was killed each week just as a result of tribalunrest.21

The Hashemite regime cannot afford toconfront the tribesmen since they constitutethe regime’s own servicemen and intelligenceofficers. In 2002, the Jordanian army besiegedthe southern Bedouin city of Ma’an in orderto arrest a group of extremists, who were thenpardoned a few years later.22 Similarly, HammamBalaoui, a Jordanian intelligence double agentwas arrested in 2006 for supporting al-Qaeda,only to be released shortly thereafter, even-tually blowing himself up in Afghanistan in2009 along with seven senior CIA officers andKing Abdullah’s cousin.23


Ill feelings between the Palestinian and Bedouincitizens of Jordan took a turn for the worse in 2009when riots broke out at a soccer match between thefans of the Palestinian favored al-Wihdat soccer cluband those of the Bedouin favored al-Faisali team.Reports indicate that Jordanian police attackedPalestinian soccer fans without provocation soonthereafter.

18 CNN, Nov. 28, 2007.19 Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence ofArabia (New York: Harper, 2010), p. 19.20 Hürriyet (Istanbul), Mar. 4, 2011.

21 Libdeh, “The Hashemite Kingdom of Apartheid?”22 PETRA, Aug. 6, 2011.23 “Profile: Jordanian Triple Agent Who Killed CIA Agents,”The Telegraph (London), Jan. 2010.


PALESTINIAN PAWNS

These open displays of animosity are of apiece with the Hashemite regime’s use of its Pal-estinian citizens as pawns in its game of anti-Israel one-upmanship.

King Hussein—unlike his peace-lovingimage—made peace with Israel only becausehe could no longer afford to go to war againstit. His son has been less shy about his hostil-

ity and is not reluctantto bloody Israel in a cost-effective manner. Forexample, on August 3,2004, he went on al-Arabiya television andslandered the PalestinianAuthority for “its will-ingness to give up morePalestinian land in ex-change for peace with Is-rael.”24 He often unilat-

erally upped Palestinian demands on their be-half whenever the Palestinian Authority wasabout to make a concession, going as far as tothreaten Israel with a war “unless all settlementactivities cease.”25

This hostility toward Israel was also evidentwhen, in 2008, Abdullah started revoking the citi-zenship of Jordanian Palestinians. By turning thePalestinian majority in Jordan into “stateless refu-gees” and aggressively pushing the so-called“right of return,” the king hopes to strengthenhis anti-Israel credentials with the increasinglyIslamist Bedouins and to embarrass Jerusalem onthe world stage. It is not inconceivable to envi-sion a scenario where thousands of disenfran-chised Palestinians find themselves stranded atthe Israeli border, unable to enter or remain inJordan. The international media—no friend of theJewish state—would immediately jump into ac-tion, demonizing Israel and turning the scene intoa fiasco meant to burden Jerusalem’s con-science—and that of the West. The Hashemite

regime would thereby come out triumphant, turn-ing its own problem—being rejected and hatedby the Palestinians—into Israel’s problem.

A POT BOILING OVER

The Jordanian government’s mistreatmentof its Palestinian citizenry has taken a signifi-cant toll. Today, the Palestinians are a tickingbomb waiting to explode, especially as theywatch their fellow Arabs rebelling against auto-crats such as Egypt’s Mubarak, Libya’s Qaddafi,or Syria’s Assad.

The complex relationship between the Pal-estinian majority and the Hashemite minorityseems to have become tenser since Abdullahascended the throne in 1999 after King Hussein’sdeath. Abdullah’s thin knowledge of the Arabiclanguage, the region, and internal affairs, madehim dependent on the Bedouin-dominated Jor-danian Intelligence Department standing firmlybetween the king and his people, of which thePalestinians are the majority.26 A U.S. embassycable, dated July 2009, reported “bullying” prac-ticed by the fans of al-Faisali Soccer Club (pre-dominantly Bedouin Jordanians) against the fansof al-Wihdat Soccer Club (predominantly Pales-tinians), with al-Faisali fans chanting anti-Pales-tinian slogans and going so far as to insult QueenRania, who is of Palestinian descent.27 Two daysafter the cable was released, Jordanian policemercilessly attacked Palestinian soccer fans with-out provocation, right under the eyes of the in-ternational media.28

Palestinians in Jordan have also developedan intense hatred of the military as they are notallowed to join the army; they see Bedouin ser-vicemen getting advantages in state educationand health care, home taxes, and even tariff ex-emption on luxury vehicles.29 In recent years,

With the largestpercentage ofPalestinians inthe world, Jordanis a logicallocation for aPalestinian state.

24 Al-Arabiya TV (Dubai), Aug. 3, 2004.25 The Jerusalem Post, Sept. 24, 2010.

26 Los Angeles Times, Oct. 1, 2006.27 The Guardian (London), Dec. 6, 2010.28 Qudosi Chronicles (Long Beach, Calif.), Dec. 16, 2010.29 “Assessment for Palestinians in Jordan,” Minorities atRisk, Center for International Development and Conflict Man-agement, University of Maryland, College Park, Md., Dec. 31,2006.

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the Jordanian mili-tary has consumedup to 20.2 percent ofthe country’s grossdomestic product(GDP).30

Governmentspending does notend with the army.Jordan has one ofthe largest securityand intelligenceapparatuses in theMiddle East, per-haps the largestcompared to thesize of its popula-tion. Since intelli-gence and securityofficers are labeledas “military service-men” by the Jorda-nian Ministry of Finance, and their expense isconsidered military expenditure, Jordanian Pal-estinians see their tax dollars going to supportjob creation for posts from which they them-selves are banned. At the same time, the coun-try has not engaged in any warfare since 1970,leading some to conclude that this militaryspending is designed to protect the regime andnot the country—a conclusion underscored bythe Black September events.

A PATH TO PEACE?

The desperate and destabilizing measuresundertaken by the Hashemite regime to main-tain its hold on power point to a need to revivethe long-ignored solution to the Arab-Israeliconflict: the Jordanian option. With Jordanhome to the largest percentage of Palestiniansin the world, it is a more logical location forestablishing Palestinian statehood than on an-

other country’s soil, i.e., Israel’s.There is, in fact, almost nothing un-Pales-

tinian about Jordan except for the royal family.Despite decades of official imposition of aBedouin image on the country, and evenBedouin accents on state television, the Pales-tinian identity is still the most dominant—to thepoint where the Jordanian capital, Amman, is thelargest and most populated, Palestinian city any-where. Palestinians view it as a symbol of theireconomic success and ability to excel. More-over, empowering a Palestinian statehood forJordan has a well-founded and legally acceptedgrounding: The minute the minimum level ofdemocracy is applied to Jordan, the Palestinianmajority would, by right, take over the politicalmomentum.

For decades, however, regional players haveentertained fears about empowering the Pales-tinians of Jordan. While there may be apprehen-sion that Jordan as a Palestinian state would behostile to Israel and would support terror attacksacross their long border, such concerns, whilelegitimate, are puzzling. Israel has allowed thePalestinians to establish their own ruling enti-ties as well as their own police and paramilitaryforces on soil captured in the 1967 war, cheek by


30 “Jordan Military Expenditures—Percent of GDP,” CIAWorld Factbook, May 16, 2008.

The storm of protests that have swept through the Middle East have leftJordan’s King Abdullah on a shaky throne. Although not as violent asdemonstrations in Egypt or Yemen, protesters have taken to the streetsof Jordan calling for reforms.


jowl with major Israeli population centers. Woulda Palestinian state on the other side of the Jor-dan River pose any greater security threat toIsrael than one in Judea and Samaria?

Moreover, the Jordan Valley serves as amuch more effective, natural barrier betweenJordan and Israel than any fences or walls. Is-raeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu con-firmed the centrality of Israeli control over thewestern side of the Jordan Valley, which he saidwould never be relinquished.31 It is likely that

the area’s tough terraintogether with Israel’s mili-tary prowess have pre-vented the Hashemite re-gime from even consider-ing war with Israel formore than forty years.

It could be arguedthat should the Palestin-ians control Jordan, they

would downsize the military institutions, whichare dominated by their Bedouin rivals. A Pales-tinian-ruled Amman might also seek to cut backon the current scale of military expenditures inthe hope that the U.S. military presence in theregion would protect the country from unwel-come encroachments by Damascus or Tehran. Itcould also greatly benefit from financial and eco-nomic incentives attending good-neighbor rela-tions with Israel. Even if a Jordanian army underPalestinian commanders were to be kept at itscurrent level, it would still be well below Israel’smilitary and technological edge. After all, it isIsrael’s military superiority, rather than regionalgoodwill, that drove some Arab states to makepeace with it.

The Palestinians in Jordan already dependon Israel for water32 and have enjoyed a thriv-ing economic boom driven by the “Qualified In-dustrial Zones,” which allow for Jordanian cloth-ing factories to export apparel to the UnitedStates at preferred tariff rates if a minimum per-

centage of the raw material comes from Israel.33

Hundreds of Palestinian factory owners haveprospered because of these zones. Expandingsuch cooperation between a future Palestinianstate in Jordan and Israel would give the Pales-tinians even more reasons to maintain a goodrelationship with their neighbor.

Both the United States and Israel shouldconsider reevaluating the Jordan option. Giventhe unpopularity of the Hashemite regime amongits subjects, regime change in Amman shouldnot be that difficult to achieve though activeexternal intervention would likely yield betterresults than the wait-and-see-who-comes-to-power approach followed during the Egyptianrevolution. After twelve years on the throne, and$7 billion dollars in U.S. aid, Abdullah is still run-ning a leaky ship and creating obstacles to re-solving the Palestinian issue.

Washington’s leverage can come into playas well with the Jordanian armed forces whichare, in theory, loyal to the king. With hundredsof troops undergoing training in the UnitedStates each year and almost $350 million handedout in military aid, the U.S. establishment couldpotentially influence their choices.

Recent events in the Middle East shouldserve as guidelines for what ought to be pur-sued and avoided. U.S. diplomacy failed to nursea moderate opposition to Egypt’s Mubarak,which could have blocked Islamists and anti-Americans from coming to power. The currentturmoil in Libya has shown that the later theinternational community acts, the more compli-cated the situation can get. An intervention inJordan could be much softer than in Libya andwith no need for major action. Abdullah is anoutsider ruling a poor country with few re-sources; his only “backbone” is Washington’spolitical and financial support. In exchange for apromise of immunity, the king could be convincedto let the Palestinian majority rule and become afigurehead, like Britain’s Queen Elizabeth.

As further assurance of a future Palestinian

Abdullah’s only“backbone” isWashington’spolitical andfinancial support.

31 Ha’aretz (Tel Aviv), Mar. 2, 2010.32 Lilach Grunfeld, “Jordan River Dispute,” The Inventory ofConflict and Environment Case Studies, American University,Washington, D.C., Spring 1997.

33 Mary Jane Bolle, Alfred B. Prados, and Jeremy M. Sharp,“Qualifying Industrial Zones in Jordan and Egypt,” Congres-sional Research Service, Washington, D.C., July 5, 2006.

/ 11Zahran: A Palestinian Jordan

Jordan’s peaceful intentions, very strict antiter-rorism laws must be implemented, barring any-one who has incited violence from running foroffice, thus ruling out the Islamists even beforethey had a chance to start. Such an act shouldbe rewarded with economic aid that actually fil-ters down to the average Jordanian as opposedto the current situation, in which U.S. aid moneyseems to support mainly the Hashemites’ lavishlifestyle.

Alongside downsizing the military, a de-fense agreement with Washington could be putin place to help protect the country against po-tentially hostile neighbors. Those who argue thatJordan needs a strong military to counter threatsfrom abroad need only look again at its history:In 1970, when Syria invaded northern Jordan,King Hussein asked for U.S. and Israeli protec-tion and was eventually saved by the Israeli airforce, which managed to scare the Syrian troopsback across the border.34 Again in 2003, whenWashington toppled Saddam Hussein, Ammanasked for U.S.-operated Patriot missile batteriesand currently favors an extended U.S. presencein Iraq as a Jordanian security need.35

Should the international community see anadvantage to maintaining the military power ofthe new Palestinian state in Jordan as it is today,the inviolability of the peace treaty with Israelmust be reasserted, indeed upgraded, extendinginto more practical and tangible economic andpolitical arenas. A mutual defense andcounterterrorism agreement with Israel shouldbe struck, based on one simple concept—“goodfences make good neighbors”—with the riverJordan as the fence.

CONCLUSION

Considering the Palestinian-Jordanian op-tion for peace would not pose any discrimina-tion against Palestinians living in the West Bank,nor would it compromise their human rights:

They would be welcome to move to Jordan orstay where they are if they so wished. Free willshould be the determinant, not political pres-sure. Besides, there are indications that manywould not mind living in Jordan.36 Were the Pal-estinians to dominate Jordan, this tendency willbe significantly strengthened. This possibilityhas also recently been confirmed by a releasedcable from the U.S. embassy in Amman in whichPalestinian political and community representa-tives in Jordan made clear that they would notconsider the “right of return” should they se-cure their civil rights in Jordan.37

Empowering Palestinian control of Jordanand giving Palestiniansall over the world a placethey can call home, couldnot only defuse thepopulation and demo-graphic problem for Pal-estinians in Judea andSamaria but would alsosolve the much morecomplicated issue of the“right of return” for Pal-estinians in other Arab countries. Approximatelya million Palestinian refugees and their descen-dents live in Syria and Lebanon, with another300,000 in Jordan whom the Hashemite govern-ment still refuses to accept as citizens. How muchbetter could their future look if there were a wel-coming Palestinian Jordan?

The Jordanian option seems the best pos-sible and most viable solution to date. Decadesof peace talks and billions of dollars invested bythe international community have only broughtmore pain and suffering for both Palestiniansand Israelis—alongside prosperity and wealthfor the Hashemites and their cronies.

It is time for the international community toadopt a more logical and less costly solutionrather than to persist in long discredited mis-conceptions. It is historically perplexing that the

34 Mitchell Bard, “Modern Jordan,” Jewish Virtual Library,accessed Aug. 11, 2011.35 The Christian Science Monitor (Boston), Jan. 30, 2003.

36 The Forward (New York), Apr. 13, 2007.37 “The Right of Return: What It Means in Jordan,” U.S.Embassy, Amman, to Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, U.S. De-partment of State, Washington, D.C., Feb. 6, 2008.

There areindications thatmany West BankPalestinianswould not mindliving in Jordan.


world should be reluctant to ask the Hashemitesto leave Jordan, a country to which they are alien,while at the same time demanding that Israelifamilies be removed by force from decades-oldcommunities in their ancestral homeland. Equallyfrustrating is the world’s silence while Palestin-ians seeking refuge from fighting in Iraq arelocked in desert camps in eastern Jordan be-cause the regime refuses to settle them “unlessforeign aid is provided.”38

The question that needs to be answered atthis point is: Has the West ever attempted toestablish any contacts with a pro-peace, Pales-tinian-Jordanian opposition? Palestinians todayyearn for leaders. Washington is presented witha historical opportunity to support a potentialPalestinian leadership that believes in a peace-based, two-state solution with the River Jordanas the separating border between the two coun-tries. Such leadership does seem to exist. Last

38 “Non-Iraqi Refugees from Iraq in Jordan,” Office of theUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Feb. 20,2007.

September, for example, local leaders in Jorda-nian refugee camps stopped Palestinian youthfrom participating in mass protests against theIsraeli Embassy in Amman;39 as a result, barely200 protesters showed up instead of thousandsas in similar, previous protests.40 As for EastJerusalem, under Israel’s 44-year rule, Muslims,Christians, and members of all other religionshave been able to visit and practice their faithfreely, just as billions of people from all over theworld visit the Vatican or Muslim pilgrims flockto Mecca. Yet under the Hashemite occupationof the city, this was not done. Without claimingcitizenship, Jerusalem would remain an open cityto all who come to visit.

The Jordanian option is an overdue solu-tion: A moderate, peaceful, economically thriv-ing, Palestinian home in Jordan would allow bothIsraelis and Palestinians to see a true and last-ing peace.

39 Mudar Zahran, “A Plan B for Jordan?” Hudson Institute,Washington, D.C., Sept. 16, 2011.40 The Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2011.

Women Only onShari‘a-observant Railroad

From Railway Magazine (Aug. 2001): Women-Only Metro Opens. When King Abdul-lah of Saudi Arabia opened the Princess Nora Bint Abdul Rahman Unversity campus inRiyadh on May 15, he rode on the driverless 11.5 km light metro that runs within thecampus. A fleet of 22 two-car EMUs from Ansaldo Breda operate on the line, which has14 stations with a main loop plus two branches.

As this is a women-only university, and because Saudi Arabia does not allowwomen to work as drivers or permit female students to contact male train staff, themetro has been built as a women-only system with full automatic operation. Travel isfree, but tickets will be used to count ridership.

HaRakevet, Sept. 2011

/ 13Cornell: Turkish Foreign Policy

Changes in Turkey

Svante E. Cornell is research director of the Cen-tral Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Stud-ies Program, affiliated with Johns HopkinsUniversity’s School of Advanced InternationalStudies and the Stockholm-based Institute forSecurity and Development Policy.

AKP CHANGES FOCUSFROM WEST TO EAST

The basic tenets that guided Turkey’s for-eign policy since the founding of the republicincluded caution and pragmatism—especiallyconcerning the Middle East. An imperial hang-

curity infrastructure although more uneas-ily than before, but has a rupture with theWest already taken place, and if so, is itirreversible?

1 Hürriyet (Istanbul), June 13, 2011.

What Drives TurkishForeign Policy?

by Svante E. Cornell

T urkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkønma Partisi,AKP) was reelected to a third term in June 2011. This remarkable achievementwas mainly the result of the opposition’s weakness and the rapid economic

growth that has made Turkey the world’s sixteenth largest economy. But Ankara’sgrowing international profile also played a role in the continued public support for theconservative, Islamist party. Indeed, in a highly unusual fashion, Prime Minister RecepTayyip Erdoðan began his victory speech by saluting “friendly and brotherly nationsfrom Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Amman, Cairo, Sarajevo, Baku, and Nicosia.”1

“The Middle East, the Caucasus, and the Balkans have won as much as Turkey,” heclaimed, pledging to take on an even greater role in regional and international affairs.By 2023, the republic’s centennial, the AKP has promised Turkey will be among theworld’s ten leading powers.

At the same time, Turkey’s growing profile has been controversial. As Ankaradeveloped increasingly warm ties with rogue states such as Iran, Syria, and Sudanwhile curtailing its once cordial relations with Israel and using stronger rhetoric againstthe United States and Europe, it generated often heated debates on whether it hasdistanced itself from the West. Turkey continues to function within the European se-


over from the Ottoman era drove home the lessonthat Ankara had little to gain and much to losefrom interjecting itself into the acrimonious poli-tics of the region. Notwithstanding occasionaldifferences with the Western powers, Ankaraconcentrated on playing a role within Europe.

The AKP appeared to maintain this courseduring its first term (2002-07) as seen in its focuson EU harmonization as a means to join the union.But in its second term (2007-11) it departed sig-nificantly from this approach. Guided by the con-cept of “strategic depth” elaborated by Erdoðan’slong-term advisor-turned-foreign-minister AhmetDavutoðlu, Ankara increasingly focused on itsneighborhood with the stated goal of becoming adominant and stabilizing force, one that wouldfunction as an honest broker and project its eco-nomic clout throughout the region and beyond.2

The official slogan, which could be calledthe Davutoðlu doctrine, was “zero problems withneighbors.” Ankara rapidly developed relations

with the Syrian govern-ment to the level of a stra-tegic partnership; Turk-ish officials also begancultivating closer eco-nomic and political tieswith the Iranian and Rus-sian governments, bothlarge energy providers tothe growing Turkisheconomy. It also reached

out to the Kurdish administration of northern Iraq,a previously unthinkable move. In another boldbut ultimately failed move, the AKP leadershipsought to mend fences with Armenia; its prede-cessors had never established diplomatic rela-tions with Yerevan due to its occupation sincethe early 1990s of a sixth of Turkic Azerbaijan’sterritory, including the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh.

These moves were generally welcomed in theWest. Critics in Washington deplored Ankara’sovertures to Tehran and Damascus, but the in-

coming Obama administration went on to developrather similar outreach policies of its own. TheAKP argued that it could function as an inter-locutor with these regimes on Turkey’s borderwith which Brussels and Washington had onlylimited ties and that a more active Turkey wouldalso benefit the West. Ankara’s eagerness to me-diate in regional conflicts also brought goodwill.The Turkish government offered its good officesin bridging differences between Syria and Israel,Afghanistan and Pakistan, and between the rivalPalestinian factions of Fatah and Hamas. West-ern leaders generally gave the AKP the benefit ofthe doubt as it assured them that its outreachcould help moderate rogues and bring them withinthe international system.

AN AXIS SHIFT

Yet Ankara’s actual course soon began todeviate substantially from its official narrative.Three issues in particular have generated con-cern about the AKP’s foreign policy intentions:Iran, Israel, and Sudan—and more recently, re-newed belligerence on Cyprus.

Ankara’s policy of engagement with Tehranwas welcomed as long as it was influencing theIranians, rather than the other way around. ButErdoðan and his associates soon began to moveaway from the stated objective of acting as a me-diator between Iran and the West, becoming in-creasingly outspoken defenders of Tehran’snuclear program. In November 2008, Erdoðanurged nuclear weapons powers to abolish theirown arsenals before meddling with Iran.3 Soonafterwards he termed Ahmadinejad a “friend”4 andwas among the first to lend legitimacy to the Ira-nian president by congratulating him upon hisfraudulent and bloodstained election in June2009.5 Turkish leaders then began to publicly jux-tapose the issue of Israel’s nuclear weapons with

2 See, for example, Ahmet Davutoðlu, Stratejik Derinlik:Türkiye’nin Uluslararasø Konumu (Istanbul: Küre Yayønlarø,2001).

Ankarabecame thechief castigatorof Israel ininternationalforums.

3 Hürriyet, Nov. 17, 2008; The Economist (London), Nov. 27,2008.4 The Guardian (London), Oct. 26, 2009; Sofia (Bulgaria)Echo, Oct. 26, 2009.5 Svante E. Cornell, “Iranian Crisis Catches the TurkishGovernment off Guard,” Turkey Analyst, June 19, 2009; Hürriyet,Feb. 2, 2010.

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Iran’s covert program,6 andin November 2009, ab-stained from a sanctionsresolution at the Interna-tional Atomic EnergyAgency (IAEA) againstTehran that both Moscowand Beijing supported.7 InMay 2010, in a display ofdefiance, Erdoðan and Bra-zilian president Luiz InàcioLula da Silva made a well-publicized appearance inTehran on the eve of a U.N.Security Council vote ona new round of sanctionson Iran, holding handswith Ahmadinejad and an-nouncing their alternativediplomatic proposal tohandle the Iranian nuclearissue.8 In the scope of two years, Ankara hadbecome Tehran’s most valuable internationalsupporter.

The breakdown of Turkey’s alliance with Is-rael is another cause of concern. The AKP at firstsought to mediate between Syria and Israel aswell as between the two Palestinian factions, Fatahand the Islamist Hamas.9 Yet in 2007, followingHamas’s violent takeover in the Gaza Strip, An-kara broke the Western boycott of the movementwhen it invited Hamas leader Khaled Mesh’al toAnkara.10 Following Israel’s offensive againstHamas in December 2008-January 2009, Ankarabecame the chief castigator of Israel in interna-tional forums.11 In January 2009, Erdoðan fa-mously walked out of an event at the DavosWorld Economic Forum after starting a shoutingmatch with Israeli president Shimon Peres; Tur-

key subsequently disinvited Israel from plannedjoint military exercises under the NATO aegis.12

By the spring of 2010, a nongovernmental orga-nization closely connected to the AKP, the Hu-manitarian Relief Foundation, designed and imple-mented the notorious Gaza flotilla13 aimed at put-ting Israel in an untenable position regarding itsblockade of the Hamas-controlled territory. Wheneight Turkish citizens were killed in fierce clasheswith Israeli commandos boarding the ship,Davutoðlu called the event “Turkey’s 9/11,”14 anda series of Turkish leaders threatened to cut offdiplomatic relations with Israel while Erdoðanstated in no uncertain terms that he did not con-sider Hamas a terrorist organization.15 Ankara laterdowngraded diplomatic relations with Israel tothe level of second secretary.

More worrisome is Erdoðan’s military pos-turing, including threats of confrontation with Is-rael. In September 2011, he argued that Turkeywould have been justified in going to war with

Cornell: Turkish Foreign Policy

6 Middle East Online (London), Mar. 17, 2010; The WallStreet Journal, Apr. 8, 2010.7 Reuters, Nov. 27, 2009.8 The Economist, May 17, 2010.9 The New York Times, May 21, 2008; Ha’aretz (Tel Aviv),June 30, 2009; Reuters, June 10, 2010.10 Khaleej Times (Dubai), Feb. 19, 2006.11 Ha’aretz, Jan. 13, 2009; Eurasianet (New York), Feb. 4,2009; The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 13, 2009.

12 Hürriyet, Oct. 11, 2009.13 The Jerusalem Post, June 24, 2011; Michael Weiss, “Ankara’sProxy,” Standpoint, July/Aug. 2010.14 The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 6, 2010.15 Radikal (Istanbul), June 4, 2010; The Jerusalem Post, June4, 2010.

In a scene that would have been unimaginable a decade ago, thehead-scarved wife of newly reelected Turkish prime ministerErdoðan greets well-wishers with her husband. Turkey’s founderKemal Atatürk saw such public displays of religiosity as ahindrance to the creation of the new, secular Turkish Republic.


Israel following the Gaza flotilla incident.16 In ad-dition, the Turkish navy was ordered to “ensurefreedom of navigation” in the eastern Mediterra-nean, including supporting the delivery of hu-manitarian aid to Gaza—raising the danger of adirect confrontation with the Israeli navy uphold-ing the blockade on Gaza, which a U.N. inquirycommission has deemed to be legal.17 Moreover,the Turkish air force has begun installing a newidentification friend or foe (IFF) system on its F-16s, replacing the built-in system that automati-cally designated Israeli jets or ships as friendlythereby preventing armed clashes between theTurkish and Israeli forces. The new system pro-duced by the Turkish company Aselsan doesnot automatically designate Israeli ships or jetsas friendly and will supposedly be deployedacross the Turkish armed forces.18

Ankara has repeatedly referred to Sudan as

its main “partner in Africa” though it isfar from being Turkey’s largest tradepartner on the continent.19 Ignoring thegrowing international outrage overcrimes against humanity committed byKhartoum-aligned militia groups inDarfur, Erdoðan voiced support forPresident Omar Bashir during a 2006visit, stating he saw no signs of a geno-cide.20 The Sudanese president wasinvited twice to Turkey in 2008, and by2009, Erdoðan publicly argued thatIsrael’s actions in Gaza were worse thanwhatever had happened in Darfur21—a mind-boggling assertion given thatthe Gaza fighting claimed about 1,200lives, an estimated 700 of whom wereHamas terrorists22 while in Darfur over300,000 people have perished. The pro-gression of Turkish policies in all threecases suggests a move from an honestbroker and regional peacemaker towardsiding with one of the parties in-volved—the Arabs in the Arab-Israeliconflict, Hamas in the Hamas-Fatah re-

lationship, and Iran and Sudan in their confronta-tions with the West.

Early in its tenure, the AKP proved willing toagree to far-reaching concessions on the Cyprusdispute—so much so that it provoked the ire ofthe Turkish general staff. But lately, Erdoðan hasreacted harshly to the Cypriot government’s de-cision to develop natural gas fields in the easternMediterranean, threatening to send in the Turk-ish navy and air force to the area to “monitordevelopments.”23 In so doing, Erdoðan seemedoblivious to the implications that a military dis-pute with an EU member would have on Turkey’srelations with Brussels.

The distancing from the West has led An-

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan (left)consults with long-term advisor-turned-foreign-minister Ahmet Davutoðlu. Davutoðlu has writtenextensively about the conflict between Islam and theWest, encouraging the emergence of Islamic states.

16 The Telegraph (London), Sept. 13, 2011.17 The New York Times, Sept. 1, 2011; Today’s Zaman(Istanbul), Sept. 12, 2011.18 Today’s Zaman, Sept. 13, 2011.

19 Eurasia Daily Monitor (Jamestown Foundation, Washing-ton, D.C.), Jan. 15, 2008.20 Milliyet (Istanbul), Mar. 30, 2006.21 Today’s Zaman, Nov. 9, 2009.22 “The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre’s Re-sponse to the Goldstone Report,” Meir Amit Intelligence andTerrorism Information Centre, Gelilot, Israel, Apr. 4, 2011.23 The New York Times, Sept. 19, 2011.

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kara closer to both Moscow and Beijing—culmi-nating in Turkey’s joint military maneuvers withChina in October 2010, the first such with anyNATO country—in what has been described byAKP critics as an “axis shift.”

A CENTER OFWORLD POLITICS?

A number of factors have been cited to ex-plain the shift in Turkish foreign policy. WhileAnkara has undergone tremendous domesticchange in the past decade, an arguably more sig-nificant shift is Turkey’s emergence as an eco-nomic power. Since 1990, Turkey’s gross domes-tic product has quadrupled, exports have grownby a factor of five, foreign direct investment by afactor of 25, and the value of traded stocks by afactor of 40. While economists have increasinglybegun to issue warning flags regarding Turkey’scurrent accounts deficit and risks of overheating,such concerns have yet to translate into the po-litical field. It is only natural that Turkey’s newlyfound economic clout would translate into moreself-confidence on the international scene.Ankara’s “rediscovery” of the Middle East is partand parcel of this: Turkish exports are looking fornew markets, and hordes of businessmen regu-larly accompany Turkish leaders on their numer-ous visits to Middle Eastern states. Given theclose ties between politics and business in theregion, closer political ties provide Turkish busi-nessmen with preferential treatment. In Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq, the dynamic is inverted:The growing presence of Turkish businessesthere after 2003 helped open the way for a politi-cal rapprochement with the Kurdish RegionalGovernment in Erbil.

Secondly, alleged Western mistakes are of-ten viewed as an important factor in this trans-formation—including the view of former U.S.secretary of defense Robert Gates who blamedthe EU’s cold shouldering of Turkey for thecountry’s “drift.”24 While Ankara sided with

Western states in major foreign policy issuesin the past, this relationship was based on per-ceived reciprocity. However, since Turkey be-gan negotiating for EU accession in 2005, op-position to Turkish membership not only grewin Europe but became ever more clearly articu-lated in terms of Ankara’s cultural identity: WasTurkey in fact European at all? Overt calls byFrench and German politicians against Turkishaccession had a pro-found impact in Ankarawhere politicians of allstripes denounced thisstance. Most Turks nowbelieve that Ankara willnever join the EU, and in-ternal support for mem-bership has dwindled.Europe’s alienation fromTurkey has clearly hadforeign policy implications.

Meanwhile, ties with Washington sufferedprimarily as a result of differences over Iraq.Turkey’s involvement was crucial to the 1991Kuwait war, but Ankara was left dissatisfied bythe war’s outcome—chiefly due to the significantdamage to Turkey’s economy that Washingtondid little to soften, and the emergence of a defacto independent Kurdish entity in northern Iraq.The events since 2003 saw a rapid deteriorationof relations as the war in Iraq indirectly led to theresurgence of Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan(Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK) terrorism in Tur-key. Until 2007, the U.S. administration failed ei-ther to exercise sufficient influence on its Kurdishallies in northern Iraq to rein in the PKK or toallow Turkey to raid PKK bases inside Iraq.25 Thisgenerated substantial resentment across Turkey’spolitical spectrum.

To be sure, some of the differences that havearisen with the West may well be attributed toAnkara’s resurgent self-confidence, or what oneobserver termed “Turkish Gaullism”—a Turkeythat is “more nationalist, self-confident and defi-


There is agrowing tendencyin Turkey’spolicies to sidewith Islamistcauses.

24 BBC News Europe, June 9, 2010. 25 Gareth Jenkins, Turkey and Northern Iraq: An Overview(Washington: Jamestown Foundation, 2008), pp. 15-20.


ant.”26 The new self-confidence is explicit: For-eign Minister Davutoðlu often laments the trepi-dation and lack of self-confidence of previousgovernments, implying that a Turkey at ease withits identity and history can play a great role in theregion and beyond—one that is not locked intothe one-dimensional focus on Western alliancesbut rather appreciates the “strategic depth” thatTurkey had in the former Ottoman lands. In a 2009speech in Sarajevo, Davutoðlu laid out Ankara’sambition: “We will reintegrate the Balkan region,Middle East and Caucasus … together with Tur-key as the center of world politics in the future.”27

THE ROLE OF IDEOLOGY

Much as the AKP rejects any definition ofitself as “Islamist” because it rejects the term assuch,28 it equally opposes the idea that its for-eign policy is ideologically grounded, or that it isdistancing itself from the West at all. In a 2010

interview, for example,President Abdullah Gülrejected any notion thatAnkara had turned itsback on the West. Turkey“was now a big economicpower that had embraceddemocracy, human rights,and the free market.” Ithad become a “source ofinspiration” in the region,he said. “The U.S. andEurope should welcomeits growing engagementin the Middle East be-

cause it [is] promoting Western values in a re-gion largely governed by authoritarian regimes.”29

Such assertions notwithstanding, the growingtendency of Turkey’s policies to go from mediat-ing to taking sides—and to consistently side withIslamist causes—underscores the question ofwhether ideological factors are indeed at play.

The question is particularly relevant giventhe AKP’s roots in a strongly ideological milieu:the Turkish Islamism of the Milli Görüþ school,dominated by the orthodox Naqshbandiya or-der.30 The Naqshbandiya has been the hotbed ofIslamist reaction to westernizing reforms since themid-nineteenth century, thus predating the cre-ation of the republic. The Milli Görüþ movementwas its political vehicle, which mushroomed atfirst in Germany among expatriate Turks beforebecoming a force in Turkish politics in the late1960s. During a brief stint in power from 1996-97,leading figures in the Turkish Islamist movementhad called for the introduction of Shari‘a and pur-sued a foreign policy that sought to distance Tur-key from the “imperialist” West.31 The foundersof the AKP publicly broke with that movement in2001 in the aftermath of the military’s shuttingdown the main Islamist Fazilet party. The “youngreformers” led by Gül and Erdoðan openly repu-diated Islamism, emphasized their commitment todemocracy, cultivated an alliance with the Turk-ish liberal elite, and sought to have the new partyaccepted as a mainstream conservative force byperforming an 180-degree turn in embracing boththe market economy and Turkey’s EU member-ship aspirations.32

This ideological transformation was quite

26 Ömer Taspinar, “The Rise of Turkish Gaullism: GettingTurkish-American Relations Right,” Insight Turkey, Jan.-Mar.2011.27 Gökhan Saz, “The Political Implications of the EuropeanIntegration of Turkey: Political Scenarios and Major StumblingBlocks,” European Journal of Social Sciences, no. 1, 2011.28 Daniel Pipes, “Erdoðan: Turkey Is Not a Country WhereModerate Islam Prevails,” DanielPipes.org, updated Apr. 12,2009.29 The Times (London), July 3, 2010.

30 See, for example, Birol Yesilada, “The Refah Party Phe-nomenon in Turkey,” in Birol Yesilada, ed., Comparative Po-litical Parties and Party Elites (Ann Arbor: University of Michi-gan Press, 1999), pp. 123-50; Itzchak Weissmann, TheNaqshbandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism in a Worldwide SufiTradition (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 152-6; Svante E.Cornell and Ingvar Svanberg, “Turkey,” in Dawid Westerlundand Ingvar Svanberg, eds., Islam outside the Arab World (NewYork: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), pp. 125-48.31 Banu Eligur, The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), chap. 3; BirolYesilada, “The Virtue Party,” in Barry M. Rubin and MetinHeper, eds., Political Parties in Turkey (London: Frank Cass,2002); Gareth H. Jenkins, “Muslim Democrats in Turkey,”Survival, Spring 2003, pp. 45-66.32 William Hale, “Christian Democracy and the AKP: Paral-lels and Contrasts,” Turkish Studies, June 2006, pp. 293-310;Sultan Tepe, “Turkey’s AKP: A Model ‘Muslim-Democratic’Party?” Journal of Democracy, July 2005, pp. 69-82.

The AKP’sconsolidation ofpower has beenfollowed by agrowth ofauthoritariantendencies and adistancing fromthe West.

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abrupt and top-down but while theAKP largely stayed true to suchdemocratic rhetoric during its firstterm in office, it is striking to whatextent its consolidation of powersince 2007 has been followed by agrowth of authoritarian tendenciesat home and a distancing from theWest in foreign policy.

Statements suggestive ofreassertion of Islamist ideology areplentiful. Addressing a crowd of16,000 Turks in the German city ofCologne in 2008, Erdoðan equatedthe assimilation of Turks, urged byGerman politicians, to “a crimeagainst humanity.”33 In reference toSudanese leader Bashir, he statedin 2009 that “a Muslim cannot com-mit genocide.”34 At the same time,the prime minister’s statements onIsrael show not only a growing an-tipathy toward the Jewish state butare strikingly evocative of the anti-Semitic tendencies pervading Islamist movementsacross the world. Thus, in 2009 he blamed “Jew-ish-backed media” for allegedly spreading liesabout the Gaza war. Similarly, when the Econo-mist endorsed the Turkish opposition Republi-can People’s Party (CHP) in the June 2011 elec-tions, Erdoðan accused it of working on behalf ofIsraeli interests, castigated the CHP’s leader forbeing an Israeli tool, and expressed regret overthe fact that the CHP, under Turkey’s second presi-dent Ismet Inönü, had recognized the State ofIsrael,35 alluding also to a growing perception“equating the star of Zion with the swastika.”36

Many of Erdoðan’s most combative state-ments have occurred during electoral campaignsand could be interpreted as electoral populism.Nevertheless, given his dominance of the Turk-

ish political scene, these stated views should notbe dismissed out of hand. Indeed, the formula-tion and conduct of Turkish foreign policy has inthe past several years been dominated by Erdoðanand Davutoðlu, who is widely considered the ar-chitect of the AKP’s foreign policy and a majorinfluence on Erdoðan’s views. With a long aca-demic career preceding his ascent to political fame,Davutoðlu has left a substantial trail of publishedwork that provides ample insights into hisworldview.

AKP’S ALTERNATIVEWORLDVIEW

While Davutoðlu’s best-known work is his2000 book Stratejik Derinlik37 (Strategic Depth),of equal interest are his earlier works: a doctoraldissertation published in 1993 as AlternativeParadigms: The Impact of Islamic and Western


33 Der Spiegel (Hamburg), Feb. 11, 2008.34 Hürriyet, Nov. 9, 2009.35 Ha’aretz, Jan. 13, 2009; Reuters, June 6, 2011; Bugün(Istanbul), June 4, 2011.36 Sedat Ergin, “Can the Symbols of Nazism and Judaism BeConsidered Equal?” Hürriyet, June 22, 2010. 37 Istanbul: Küre Yayønlarø, 2001.

Turkish protesters burn an Israeli flag. Erdoðan’s antipathytoward the Jewish state is strongly evocative of the anti-Semitic tendencies pervading Islamist movements across theworld. In the June 2011 elections, he accused his chiefopponent of being an Israeli tool and denounced Turkey’srecognition of the State of Israel, speaking of a growingperception “equating the star of Zion with the swastika.”

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Weltanschauungs on Political Theory,38 and his1994 volume Civilizational Transformation andthe Muslim World.39 These works are dense, theo-retical treatises, as are several lengthy articlespublished in the Turkish journal Divan in the late

1990s. While heavy go-ing, the main thrust ofDavutoðlu’s work couldnot be clearer: It is domi-nated by a deep convic-tion in the incompatibil-ity of the West and theIslamic world, and by re-sentment of the West forits attempt to impose itsvalues and political sys-

tem on the rest of the world.Davutoðlu argues that the “conflicts and

contrasts between Western and Islamic politicalthought originate mainly from their philosophi-cal, methodological, and theoretical backgroundsrather than from mere institutional and historicaldifferences.”40 He focuses on the ontological dif-ference between Islam and all other civilizations—particularly the West. While most of this work isalmost two decades old, Davutoðlu has contin-ued to reiterate the same views, showing theircontinued relevance to his thinking. In a 2010 in-terview, for example, he stressed:

All religions and civilizations before Islamiccivilization had established a demigod categorybetween god and man. In fact, civilizations ex-cept the Islamic civilization always regardedgod, man, and nature on the same ontologicallevel. I named this “ontological proximity.”…Islam, on the other hand, rejects ontologicalproximity between god, nature and man andestablishes an ontological hierarchy of Allah,man, and nature.41

Davutoðlu’s problem with the Western “mod-

ernist paradigm” lies in its “peripherality of rev-elation,” that is, the distinction drawn betweenreason and experience, on the one hand, and rev-elation on the other, resulting in an “acute crisisof Western civilization.”42 By contrast, Davutoðluunderscores the Islamic concept of Tawhid, “theunity of truth and the unity of life which providesa strong internal consistency” by rejecting themisconceived secular division of matters belong-ing to church and state.43 Such a view is neithermerely theological nor theoretical, and its mainimplication is that the Western and Islamicworlds are essentially different and that Turkey’slong-standing effort to become part of the Westis both impossible and undesirable. It is impos-sible because it goes against the country’s in-trinsic nature: the “failure of the Westernization-oriented intelligentsia in the Muslim countries… demonstrates the extensive characteristic ofthis civilizational confrontation.”44

As far as Turkey is concerned, Davutoðluconcludes that Atatürk’s republican endeavorwas “an ambitious and utopian project to achievea total civilizational change which ignored the realcultural, historical, social, and political forces inthe society.” Thus, “the Turkish experience in thiscentury proved that an imposed civilizational re-fusal, adaptation, and change … cannot be suc-cessful.”45 Moreover, it is undesirable, becausethe West is in a state of crisis. As early as 1994, heargued that capitalism and socialism were “differ-ent forms of the same philosophical background”and that “the collapse of socialism is an indica-tion for a comprehensive civilizational crisis andtransformation rather than an ultimate victory ofWestern capitalism.”46 Thus, the downfall of com-munism was not a victory of the West but thefirst step to the end of European domination ofthe world to be followed by the collapse of West-ern capitalism.47

38 Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1993.39 Kuala Lumpur: Mahir Publications, 1994.40 Ahmet Davutoðlu, Alternative Paradigms: the Impact ofIslamic and Western Weltanschauungs on Political Theory(Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1993), p. 2.41 Kerim Balci, “Philosophical Depth: A Scholarly Talk withthe Turkish Foreign Minister,” Turkish Review, Nov. 1, 2010.

42 Davutoðlu, Alternative Paradigms, p. 195; idem,Civilizational Transformation (Kuala Lumpur: Mahir Publica-tions, 1994), pp. 13-4.43 Davutoðlu, Alternative Paradigms, p. 196; Michael Koplow,“Hiding in Plain Sight,” Foreign Policy, Dec. 2, 2010.44 Davutoðlu, Civilizational Transformation, p. 64.45 Ibid., pp. 107-8.46 Ibid., p. 64.

Ankara’s growingcriticism ofAssad led to adeterioration inTurkish-Iranianties.

/ 21

Davutoðlu approvingly characterizes theemergence of the Islamic state as a response tothe imposition of Western nation-states on theworld but takes the argument one step further:Viewing globalization as a challenge to the na-tion-state system, he suggests that “the core is-sue for Islamic polity seems to be to reinterpret itspolitical tradition and theory as an alternativeworld-system rather than merely as a program forthe Islamization of nation-states.”48

Indeed, Davutoðlu’s worldview has impor-tant consequences for how recent, key worldevents are interpreted in Ankara. For example, sincethe 2008 financial crisis has affected the Westmuch more severely than emerging economies, itcould easily be taken as evidence of the sup-posed “acute crisis of the West” that Davutoðluwrote about twenty years ago, vindicating hisview of Western civilization in decline.

Not only do Davutoðlu’s writings andErdoðan’s statements dovetail, they also demon-strate the power of ideology that lies behind someof Turkey’s most controversial foreign policystances. Indeed, the tendency of the AKP gov-ernment to side increasingly with Islamist causes,its growing attention to non-Western powerscombined with its increasing criticism of the West,can be fully understood only if the ideologicalbackground of Turkey’s top decision-makers istaken into account. This is not to say that theother factors previously cited are not useful ingrasping changes in Turkish foreign policy. Butit suggests that they are insufficient and that theideological component must be factored in for afull understanding of Ankara’s evolving policies.

THE CHALLENGE OFTHE ARAB UPHEAVALS

The Arab uprisings of 2011 have been chal-lenging for Turkey, which has seemed to strugglewith formulating its stance in the face of unfold-ing events.

Ankara was an early cheerleader for theEgyptian revolution: Erdoðan called on Egyptianleader Hosni Mubarak to resign on February 2,2011,49 making him the first world leader to doso. This behavior was markedly different fromTurkey’s reaction to the 2009 events in Iran, whichotherwise bore great similarity to the Egyptianprotests. In the Iranian case, far from urgingAhmadinejad to step down, Erdoðan was amongthe first to congratulate him on his fraudulentreelection.50 Likewise, Davutoðlu repeatedly re-fused to discuss the va-lidity of the Iranian presi-dential elections, promis-ing “to respect the out-come of Iran’s politicalprocess”—in markedcontrast to the decisionto take sides in Egypt’sinternal struggle.51 Thisostensible inconsistencylay to a considerable ex-tent in the ideological affinity of Turkish Islamismwith the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (and forthat matter—with the Shiite Islamist regime inTehran) and the pervasive hatred generated bythe Mubarak regime within the global Islamistmovement as a result of its repression of theBrotherhood and other Islamist groups.

If Ankara was unequivocal on Egypt, Libyaproved more complicated. When violence in Libyaescalated, the Turkish leadership refrained fromtaking a clear stance. In fact, Erdoðan andDavutoðlu initially opposed U.N. sanctions onthe Qaddafi regime and rejected calls for a NATOoperation in the developing civil war. Erdoðan,Gül, and Davutoðlu cast doubt on Western mo-tives, referring to “hidden agendas” and theWest’s thirst for oil resources.52 Ankara eventu-ally relented when some of its reservations were


The AKPgovernment mayhave grosslyoverestimated itsinfluence in theMiddle East.

47 Ibid., p. iii.48 Davutoðlu, Alternative Paradigms, p. 202.

49 Press TV (Tehran), Feb. 2, 2011.50 Halil M. Karaveli and Svante E. Cornell, “Turkey and theMiddle Eastern Revolts: Democracy or Islamism?” Turkey Ana-lyst, Feb. 7, 2011.51 Cornell, “Iranian Crisis Catches the Turkish Governmentoff Guard.”52 World Bulletin (Istanbul), Mar. 24, 2011.


taken into account and later approved the NATOoperation, calling for Qaddafi’s resignation inApril,53 formally withdrawing its ambassador fromTripoli and recognizing the Transitional Councilin early July.54 Following the collapse of Qaddafi’sregime, Turkey tried to maximize its influence inthe country, and Erdoðan was received morewarmly during his visit55 than either French presi-

dent Nicolas Sarkozy orBritish prime ministerDavid Cameron.56

However, the dete-riorating situation inSyria proved the mostdifficult for Ankara tohandle. From a countrywith which Turkey al-most went to war in 1998,Syria had become whatone expert called “themodel success story for[Turkey’s] improved for-eign policy.”57 A seem-ingly solid rapproche-

ment developed between the two countries, in-volving the lifting of visa regimes, economic inte-gration, and deepened strategic relations. In par-ticular, Erdoðan developed a close personal rela-tionship with Bashar Assad. When Assad’s vio-lence against civilian protesters escalated overthe spring and summer of 2011, Ankara took uponitself to caution the Syrian regime to exercise re-straint. Despite repeated trips by Davutoðlu toDamascus, Turkish efforts appeared to yield noresult. By June, Erdoðan was declaring that “wecan’t support Syria amidst all this,”58 and in earlyAugust, Turkish leaders spoke of being unableto “remain indifferent to the violence” and de-manded reform in Syria.59 Later that month, Presi-

dent Gül stated that Turkey had lost confidencein Assad60 but did not call for his resignationthough it seemed only a matter of time beforeAnkara would be forced to take that step.

Ankara’s response to the turmoil in theMiddle East, thus, lends itself to several conclu-sions. First, it shook the policy of “zero problemswith neighbors” to its core. The refugees pour-ing across the Turkish border, fleeing Assad’scrackdown, triggered an inevitable test of theDavutoðlu doctrine. Ankara proved unable to useits clout with the Assad regime to affect any sig-nificant change. Moreover, its growing criticismof Assad led to a deterioration in Turkish-Iranianties: Official Iranian media outlets have openlycriticized Ankara’s stance on Syria since June 2011,hinting that it was doing the West’s bidding inthe region.61 The Turkish government’s decisionin the fall of 2011 to accept the stationing of U.S.missile defense systems was very much linked tothese new tensions with Tehran while also in alllikelihood an attempt to ingratiate itself with Wash-ington and reduce the impact of its increasinglyharsh anti-Israeli policies.

Davutoðlu’s “zero problem with neighbors”policy was always predicated on the unrealisticassumption that none of Turkey’s neighbors hadany interests or intentions that ran counter tothose of Ankara while neglecting the differencebetween the regimes and peoples of Turkey’sneighbors. Likewise, the alienation of Israel wasbased on the equally unrealistic assumption thatTurkey would never need the friendship of eitherIsrael or its allies in Washington. But mostly, per-haps, these policies have been based on the no-tion that the United States and the West needTurkey more than Turkey needs the West. Thismight make sense if Ankara is growing economi-cally while the West is in the throes of crisis, butit might well prove a dangerous assumption giventhe risk that Turkey’s economy could enter a cri-sis of its own in the not too distant future.

A second conclusion is that the AKP gov-ernment had grossly overestimated its influence

Islamistmovementsacross the MiddleEast haveemulated theAKP’s approachto gaining powerthroughdemocraticmeans.

53 Al-Arabiya (Dubai), May 3, 2011.54 Al-Jazeera TV (Doha), July 3, 2011.55 Bahrain News Agency, Sept. 14, 2011.56 The Guardian, Sept. 15, 2011.57 Henri J. Barkey, “Assad Stands Alone,” The NationalInterest, June 14, 2011.58 Today’s Zaman, June 10, 2011.59 The Turkish Daily News (Ankara), Aug. 1, 2011.

60 The New York Times, Aug. 28, 2011.61 Sobh’eh Sadegh, quoted in Burak Bekdil, “Zero Problems,a Hundred Troubles,” Hürriyet, Aug. 9, 2011.

/ 23Cornell: Turkish Foreign Policy

in the Middle East. Erdoðan’s hard line on Israelhas indeed made him a darling of the Arab street,and the AKP government spent significant ef-forts building trade relations across the region.While Ankara peddled its clout in the Middle Eastas a key reason for the West to be supportive ofits decisions, the events of 2011 suggest that atleast for now its rhetoric has not been matchedby actual influence. Erdoðan’s visit to Egypt inSeptember 2011, when the Muslim Brotherhoodappeared unwilling to adopt his suggestion thatthey emulate Turkey’s political system, is a casein point.62 This is not to say that Turkey is not arising power, rather that the country’s leadershiphas been unable to realistically gauge its true levelof influence. Indeed, building regional influenceof the type to which Turkey aspires is a processthat takes place gradually and incrementally overdecades and not as an immediate result of thehyperactivity of Davutoðlu’s diplomacy.

Finally, Ankara’s policies never squared thecircle of the AKP’s rhetorical embrace of democ-racy and human rights, on the one hand, and itsfocus on developing ties with the authoritarianregimes of the region on the other.63 Indeed, apolicy of “zero problems” essentially suggeststhe absence of principles or, for that matter, con-crete and well-defined national interests. Whilesome of the missteps in regard to Libya and Syriacan be understood against the backdrop of Turk-ish overconfidence, the dramatic divergence inAnkara’s attitude to the various countries in theregion cannot be so easily explained. Indeed, theslack that Turkey’s leadership was willing to cutIran’s Ahmadinejad or Syria’s Assad, or evenLibya’s Qaddafi, stood in marked contrast to thevehemence with which it denounced Egypt’sMubarak.

In the fall of 2010, the author asked a formerAKP minister and deputy chairman why Turkeywas so much more assertive on the Gaza issuethan the Arab countries. The answer wasstraightforward: One should not misconstrue the

Turkey andthe West willcooperate whentheir interestsalign rather thanas a result ofshared values.

Arab regimes with the Arab countries. These,he argued, are all monarchies that are doomedto collapse. When that happens, democraticforces sharing the AKP’s views on these issueswould seize power.64 While the response wasindeed prescient giventhe events that wouldfollow, it betrayed a deepdisdain for the pro-West-ern regimes of the Arabworld as well as an expec-tation that Islamic move-ments would replacethem and see Turkey asa leader or model.

Indeed, this seniorofficial’s perspective ech-oes Davutoðlu’s worldview. It indicates an ex-pectation of a fundamental remake of the MiddleEast with the demise of the pro-Western regimes.Thus far, the vision might not differ much fromthat of Western supporters of the wave of popu-lar protests sweeping the Arab world. The ques-tion, of course, is what would succeed the re-gimes that had hitherto been safely ensconced inpower for decades.

While in the early 1990s, Turkey was toutedfor its secularism and democracy as a model forthe newly independent Muslim-majority states ofthe former Soviet Union, in the wake of the Egyp-tian revolution, Ankara was looked to as a modelfor a different reason: In the words of The NewYork Times, it was perceived as “a template thateffectively integrates Islam, democracy, and vi-brant economics.”65

Indeed, Islamist movements across theMiddle East—primarily in North Africa—haveemulated the AKP’s approach to gaining powerthrough democratic means. The question, how-ever, is: Do these movements see a party thattruly democratized its ideology and accepted un-derlying liberal democratic principles, or a partythat successfully used the democratic system in

62 The Huffington Post, Sept. 13, 2011.63 M. K. Kaya and Halil M. Karaveli, “Vision or Illusion?Ahmet Davutoglu’s State of Harmony in Regional Relations,”Turkey Analyst, June 5, 2009.

64 Author interview with an AKP deputy chairman who re-quested anonymity, Ankara, Aug. 2010.65 Landon Thomas, Jr., “In Turkey’s Example, Some SeeMap for Egypt,” The New York Times, Feb. 5, 2011.


order to achieve power without being commit-ted to democratic values and ideals? The jury isstill out on this question, but the developmentsin Egypt are indeed cause for concern given theMuslim Brotherhood’s growing dominance overthe country’s political scene.

As the AKP’s recent authoritarian tenden-cies have become increasingly acknowledged,its credibility as a force of true democratizationin the Middle East has suffered concomitantly.More and more it appears that the AKP—andTurkey—has adopted a rather simplistic under-standing of democracy as majority rule: In soci-eties where the overwhelming majority are con-servative Muslims, democracy will ensure thatthe political forces representing these conser-vative Muslims will be ushered into power.

CONCLUSIONS

While there is much to suggest thatTurkey’s role in the world is likely to grow, con-fidence appears to have turned into hubris. Atthe bureaucratic level, Turkey’s state appara-tus—especially the Foreign Ministry—is hardlyequipped to handle the load of initiatives com-ing from Davutoðlu’s office, and expanding theforeign policy machine can only happen gradu-ally. Thus, many Turkish initiatives have beenless than well prepared, suggesting a top-heavyapproach rather than balanced and serious plan-ning. This was true of the opening with Arme-nia, and similarly, Turkish leaders appeared trulysurprised when the Turkish-Brazilian deal on Iranfailed to prevent new sanctions against Tehranat the U.N. Security Council.

Nonetheless, Turkey is now an active andindependent player in regional affairs whoseclout is likely to continue to grow in coming

years. It is also a less predictable force than itused to be and one whose policies will occa-sionally clash with those of the West. This is, inpart, a result of Turkey’s economic growth, ofthe mistakes made by the West in alienatingAnkara, and of Turkish overextension, which isin turn related to an inflated view of its newlyfound role in the world. But the role of ideologi-cal reflexes and grand ambitions, in particularthose of Turkey’s two foremost decision-mak-ers, Prime Minister Erdoðan and Foreign Minis-ter Davutoðlu, must not be underestimated.These impulses are likely to continue to havepolicy consequences as Turkish leaders will in-terpret events from a distinctively different—and Islamically-tinged—viewpoint than theirWestern counterparts.

While a cause for concern, Ankara’s chang-ing foreign policy is not necessarily a cause foralarm. On many issues, Turkey is a power withwhich the West can work: As the Libyan opera-tion showed, suspicions of Western motivesnotwithstanding, Ankara came around to jointhe undertaking. The reaction to the Syrian cri-sis and Turkish cooperation on missile defenseare further examples of this possibility.

But significantly, whenever Turkey and theWest will cooperate, it will be because their in-terests happen to align rather than as a result ofshared values. Where the values of the Turkishleadership do not align with those of the West,most prominently concerning Cyprus and Israel,Turkish behavior will continue to diverge fromthe Ankara the West used to know. It is increas-ingly clear that the Turkish leadership does notconsider itself Western, a worldview that willinevitably have far reaching implications forTurkey’s role in the Euro-Atlantic community.

/ 25Goldman: Turkey’s Economy

Changes in TurkeyAnkara’s “EconomicMiracle” Collapses

by David P. Goldman

T urkey’s high-flying economy, which expanded at a 10 percent annual rate ofgross domestic product growth during the first half of 2011,1 will crash-land in2012. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan’s “economic miracle,” to use the

Daily Telegraph’s admiring words,2 depended on a 40 percent annual rate of bankcredit expansion, which in turn produced a balance of payments deficit as wide as thatof southern Europe’s crisis countries. Markets have already anticipated a sudden turn-around in the Turkish economy. The Turkish lira (TRY) fell by a quarter between No-vember 2010 and September 2011, making it the world’s worst performing emergingmarket currency.3 The stock market has fallen in dollar terms by 40 percent, makingTurkey the worst performer after Egypt among all the markets in the MSCI TradableIndex during 2011. (See Graph 1 for Turkey vs. emerging markets, page 26.) And mostanalysts now expect that the cyclical slowdown will uncover deep deficiencies in Turkey’slabor force and infrastructure, leading to a prolonged structural slump rather than apassing recession.

The suddenness and size of this economic setback will in most likelihood erode theruling Justice and Development Party’s (Adalet ve Kalkønma Partisi, AKP) capacity togovern on the strength of pragmatic success rather than Islamist ideology; will undercut its

David P. Goldman, president of MacrostrategyLLC, is the author of How Civilizations Die (andWhy Islam Is Dying, Too) (Regnery Publishing,Sept. 2011). He writes the “Spengler” column forAsia Times Online and blogs for Pajamas Media.Previously he was global head of fixed incomeresearch for Bank of America and head of creditstrategy for Credit Suisse.

THE CREDIT BUBBLE

Turkey’s predicament follows a well-knownpattern of Third World economic crises driven byexternal imbalances. The impetus behind thecountry’s recent economic growth has been astunning rate of credit expansion, which reached30 percent for households and 40 percent for busi-ness in 2011. By contrast, inflation-adjusted con-

ability to use economic incentives to defuseKurdish separatism and contain domesticopposition; and will weaken Ankara’s claimto a leading regional role.

1 The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 12, 2011.2 The Telegraph (London), June 12, 2011.3 The Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2011.


sumer credit growth in the United States from 1984to 2008 peaked at just 12 percent in 1995.

The banks aligned with the AKP, that isthe four Shari‘a-compliant banks (or participa-tion banks) have increased their consumerloans at a much faster rate than the conven-tional banks.4 In the year through September16, 2011, consumer loans by the Islamic banksrose by 53 percent, according to the Central

Bank’s data base, com-pared to 36 percent forcommercial banks. The Is-lamic banks have lentTRY 5 billion to consum-ers, about a quarter asmuch as the commercialbanks.

In the past twoyears, the ratio of debt todisposable income inTurkish households rosefrom 35 percent to 45 per-cent.5 This growing de-mand was far in excess ofwhat domestic outputcould satisfy. Graph 2 (seepage 27) shows that thecurrent account deficitwidened accordingly ascredit demand rose andthe marginal dollar ofconsumer demand wentto imports rather thandomestic purchases.

As Graph 3 illustrates(see page 29), this importsurge was dominated byconsumer durables, whichrose by 60 percent be-tween 2003 and the middleof 2011. Imports of capitalas well as intermediategoods for industry, bycontrast, actually fell fromthe 2008 peak. Turkey, in

short, is running a current account deficit equalto 11 percent of GDP to promote a consumer buy-ing spree while cutting imports of capital goodsthat would contribute to future productivity.

Not only are the size and content of thiscurrent account deficit problematic, but it isshakily financed as well. Only 15 percent of it isfunded by foreign direct investment. The restcomes from portfolio flows,6 which made their

4 One of these four banks, Bank Asya, is controlled by theFethullah Gülen movement.

Graph 1: Turkish Stock Market vs.Emerging Market Index, Dec. 2010-Sept. 2011

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5 Financial Times (London), Sept. 11, 2011.6 Jonathan Wheatley, “Turkey blows it,” ibid., Aug. 4, 2011.

Turkey

Emerging Market Index

/ 27

way to Turkey andother emerging mar-kets in search of higheryields when recessionhit Western economiesin 2009. Short-term lira-denominated debt heldby banks and hedgefunds finances most ofthis enormous deficit.Until the end of 2010,high-yielding foreigndeposits in the Turkishlira accounted for vir-tually all of the debt. Asthe country’s currencybegan to depreciate,though, foreign inves-tors reduced lira depos-its, forcing Turkey to fi-nance its current ac-count deficit in dol-lars. The country’soverall debt levels re-main low compared to the weaker Europeancountries, but the growth rate is alarming. Tocorrect it will require a severe retrenchment ofdomestic consumption. The market is worriedabout Italy, whose debt has an average matu-rity of seven years. Turkey’s foreign debt hasshort maturities and has doubled in the lastyear and a half.

In some respects, Erdoðan’s bubble re-calls the experiences of Argentina in 2000 andMexico in 1994 where surging external debtproduced short-lived bubbles of prosperity,followed by currency devaluations and deepslumps. Both Latin American governmentsbought popularity by providing cheap con-sumer credit as did Erdoðan in the months lead-ing up to the June 2011 national election. Ar-gentina defaulted on its $132 billion publicdebt, and its economy contracted by 10 per-cent in real terms in 2002. Mexico ran a currentaccount deficit equal to 8 percent of GDP in1993, framing the 1994 peso devaluation and asubsequent 10 percent decline in consumption.

At roughly 40 percent of GDP, Turkey’soverall external debt is comparatively low—the

external debt of Greece stands at 137 percent ofGDP while Portugal’s is 217 percent of GDP—and it will have no foreseeable problems ser-vicing it. Nevertheless, Turkey is ill preparedto recover from a major economic shock. It lacksthe natural resources that have buoyed the ex-ports of Argentina and other Latin Americancountries. It is a net importer of food.

Moreover, some of Turkey’s most impor-tant export markets are in sharp decline. Between2002 and 2010, the share of the country’s ex-ports taken by the Middle East and North Africadoubled to 26 percent from 13 percent. The eco-nomic decline associated with this year’s insta-bility in the Arab world will constrict Turkishexports. Although Turkey has reduced its tradedependence on Europe from 56 percent of totalexports in 2005 to 46 percent in 2010, Europe’seconomic problems will still weigh heavily onTurkey’s recovery. By contrast, Ankara exportsvery little to Asia or Latin America, the fastest-growing parts of the world economy.

Given its fragile export profile, Turkey’scurrent account deficit can be forcibly nar-rowed only through economic contraction.7

Goldman: Turkey’s Economy

Graph 2: Total Credit Growth vs.Current Account Deficit, 2006 to Present

Cur

rent

Acc

ount

Def

icit


A reduction of Turkey’s current account deficitfrom 11 percent of GDP to a manageable 3 percentwould require a reduction in imports equal to 8percent of GDP. This, in turn, implies severe re-trenchment of domestic consumption and, possi-bly, a deep recession. Turkey’s central bank at-tempted to staunch the bleeding in the currentaccount earlier this year by reducing interestrates.8 Lower interest rates depressed the Turk-ish lira by discouraging capital inflows. A weakerlira is intended to make Turkey’s exports morecompetitive, but with imports running at nearlytwice the level of exports, the effect is rather toforce up the price of imports and increase domes-tic inflation as well as the current account deficit.Although the central bank raised reserve require-ments with the aim of restraining credit growth,consumer credit was still expanding at a 35 per-cent annual rate during the three months throughAugust 2011.

As economist Murat Üçer of Koç Universityrecently wrote,

A serious and probably quite painful “adjust-ment” is inevitable in the short-term, in orderto bring current account deficit to more “nor-mal” levels. … This can’t happen with a weakercurrency alone; growth will also have to slowvisibly. Second, an excessive CAD level pointsto a structural weakness in the economy. Itsimply attests to our inability as a nation, toput forth enough of a presence in the globalsupply chain of goods and services. Put differ-ently, it implies that our average dollar-basedincome—per capita as well as per worker,which runs around $10,000 and $30,000, re-spectively—is simply too high, compared toour average productivity levels. By this inter-pretation, the current account deficit repre-sents nothing but a structural deficit in ourskills and institutions.9

On October 3, 2011, Goldman Sachs equityanalysts issued a sell recommendation on

Turkey’s largest bank, Garanti Bakasi, warningthat it is “exposed to deteriorating banking dy-namics should Turkish economic growth turn toa recession, an outcome that Goldman economistsare now assigning a relatively high probability.”10

A DEEPER MALAISE

Turkey faces not only a sharp reversal ofeconomic fortunes in the short term but also for-midable obstacles to recovery in the medium term.The country has no natural resources with whichto emulate Brazil or Russia and lacks the humancapital to compete with emerging Asia. Althoughits universities train some excellent engineers andmanagers, the population as a whole is poorlyeducated in comparison with other middle-upperincome countries. Only 26 percent of Turkish chil-dren graduate secondary school, compared to 44percent in Mexico, 64 percent in Portugal, and 83percent in Poland.11 Low-value added products(textiles, apparel, furniture, appliances, autos)dominate its export profile. Turkish industry hasnever succeeded in any field of high technology.

Despite Anatolian success in medium-techindustries such as textiles and food processing,the deep backwardness of the Turkish hinter-land remains a difficult hurdle. A fifth of Turkishmarriages are consanguineous (to first or sec-ond cousins), about the same level as in Egypt.Traditional prejudice still prevents most Turk-ish women from working outside the home de-spite advancements in female education and adecline in fertility. Turkish women have lostground in economic life: Only 22 percent soughtemployment in 2009, down from more than 34percent in 1988. In contrast, 54 percent of SouthKorean women work. As smallholding agricul-ture shrinks, women who no longer can work onthe family farm simply sit at home.12 The col-

7 Bloomberg Business News (New York), Sept. 20, 2011.8 The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 4, 2011.9 Murat Üçer, “How Should We Read Turkey’s Current AccountDeficit?” Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies(EDAM), Istanbul, pp. 3-4.

10 Bloomberg Business News, Oct. 7, 2011.11 “Education Attainment,” OECD Factbook 2010: Economic,Environmental and Social Statistics, Organisation for EconomicCo-operation and Development, Paris, May 25, 2010.12 “Female Labor Participation in Turkey: Trends, determi-nants and policy framework,” World Bank Report 48508-TR,2009, Washington, D.C.

/ 29

lapse in the female la-bor force participationrate is a striking gaugeof the country’s failureto modernize. Turkey’sofficial unemploymentrate stands at around 10percent; adjusted forthe underemploymentof Turkish women, theunemployment ratewould be above 25 per-cent. Roughly 43 per-cent of Turkish employ-ment is off the books,13

compared to a devel-oped-country averageof 18 percent.14

Turkey’s longer-term risks are even moredaunting. A developingcountry cannot sus-tain a fertility rate thatleads to a rapid increasein elderly dependents,yet the fertility rate ofTurks for whom Turk-ish is a first languagehas been in steady de-cline over the past fif-teen years, falling toonly 1.5—equal to thatof Europe—while itspopulation is aging al-most as fast as Iran’s,15

leaving the country’ssocial security system with a deficit of close to 5percent of GDP. “If we continue the existing [fer-tility] trend, 2038 will mark disaster for us,”Erdoðan warned in a May 2010 speech.16

Goldman: Turkey’s Economy

Erdoðan is right: Should the trend continue,the Turkish economy will collapse under the strainof caring for its dependent elderly while thecountry’s young people will be concentrated inthe Kurdish minority, fueling demands for inde-pendence from the hard hand of the Turkish state.But Erdoðan’s predicament is, of course, far moreimmediate. His government’s reluctance to en-courage greater savings at home does not bodewell for Turkey’s future. “This heavy reliance onexternal savings exposes Turkey to shocks,”notes Standard and Poor’s, “either domestic (forexample if Turkey’s recent high domestic credit

13 Today’s Zaman (Istanbul), May 25, 2010.14 Abdullah Takim, “Effectiveness of the Informal Economy inTurkey,” European Journal of Social Sciences, no. 2, 2011.15 “Constant Fertility Scenario,” World Population Prospects:The 2010 Revision, United Nations Population Prospects, NewYork, Aug. 25, 2011.16 Today’s Zaman, May 10, 2010.

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Graph 3: Unit Value of Turkish Importsof Capital Goods and Consumer Durables

(Index 2003 = 100)

Source: Central Bank of Turkey

Capital Goods Consumer Durables

Capital Goods

Consumer Durables


17 Reuters, Sept. 20, 2011.18 Joe Parkinson, “Turkey’s Recovery on Shaky Ground?” TheWall Street Journal, Sept. 22, 2011.

growth resulted in future bad loans) or external(say, if rising risk aversion were to prompt foreigninvestors and bank credit officers to reduce ex-posure to Turkish entities).”17 According to Mu-rat Üçer, the question is whether “Turkey canmanage a soft landing or whether there’ll be acorrection because of external factors, which couldbe very ugly indeed.”18

If the prime minister and the AKP respond tothe coming economic crisis by pushing Turkeyfurther in the direction of Islamism, the conse-quences for the country’s economy could begrave in the extreme. According to Bilgi Univer-sity professor Asaf Savas Akat, a Turkish televi-sion commentator and long-time official of thesecular Social Democratic Party,

It’s important to keep in mind that Turkey isa resource-poor country … We rely on theconfidence of financial markets. … If Turkeygoes in the Iranian direction, the financial mar-

kets will shut us out. The middle class willship their money overseas, and many ofthem will move overseas, like Iran’s middleclass did after Khomeini’s revolution. Thecountry will collapse.19

IMPLICATIONS

As Erdoðan’s economic miracleevaporates, his ability to govern will di-minish. On the eve of the June 2011 na-tional elections, Turks were “almostevenly divided about the current direc-tion of their country” according to a PewResearch Center survey. Views about theeconomy were split down the middle with49 percent saying that the economic situ-ation was good and 48 percent saying thatit was bad, a meager result after two quar-ters of blistering GDP growth. A sharp re-ligious divide characterizes sentimentabout the overall direction of the country:

67 percent of those who “pray rarely” are “dis-satisfied” while 64 percent of those who pray fivetimes a day are “satisfied.”20 The country’s eco-nomic performance evidently tips the balance infavor of the AKP.

AKP Islamists face entrenched and embit-tered opposition after three years of mass arrestsof political opponents, journalists, and militaryofficers on flimsy charges of coup plotting. Whilethe silent majority of Turks acquiesced in thisabuse so long as the economy was booming, thisis likely to change in the wake of a major eco-nomic reverse, which will in turn undercutErdoðan’s efforts to project Turkish power abroad.“Turkey looks to punch above its weight,” theLondon Financial Times recently commented.21

The trouble is that it is also punching above itsstrength.

The automotive sector took the largest share of Turkishexports in 2011, but some of Turkey’s most importantexport markets are in sharp decline. Instability in theArab world will constrict Turkish exports as willEurope’s lingering economic problems. By contrast,Ankara exports very little to Asia or Latin America,the fastest-growing parts of the world economy.

19 Author interview, Istanbul, Feb. 2011.20 “On Eve of Elections, a More Upbeat Mood in Turkey,” PewResearch Center, Global Attitudes Project, Washington, D.C.,June 7, 2011.21 Daniel Dombey, “Turkey looks to punch above its weight,”Financial Times, Sept. 27, 2011.

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/ 31Hendel: Iran’s Nuclear Program

Israeli DefenseIran’s Nukes andIsrael’s Dilemma

by Yoaz Hendel

W hile the Obama administration has not reconciled itself to the futility of curb-ing Tehran’s nuclear buildup through diplomatic means, most Israelis havegiven up hope that the international sanctions can dissuade the Islamic Re-

public from acquiring the means to murder by the millions. Israel’s leadership faces astark choice—either come to terms with a nuclear Iran or launch a preemptive militarystrike.

THE BEGIN DOCTRINE

When the Israeli Air Force (IAF) decimatedIraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor thirty years ago,drawing nearly universal condemnation, the gov-ernment of prime minister Menachem Begin de-clared Israel’s “determination to prevent confron-tation states ... from gaining access to nuclearweapons.” Then-defense minister Ariel Sharonexplained, “Israel cannot afford the introductionof the nuclear weapon [to the Middle East]. Forus, it is not a question of balance of terror but aquestion of survival. We shall, therefore, have toprevent such a threat at its inception”1

This preventive counter-proliferation doc-trine is rooted in both geostrategic logic and his-torical memory. A small country the size of New

Jersey, with most of its inhabitants concentratedin one central area, Israel is highly vulnerable tonuclear attack. Furthermore, the depth of hostil-ity to Israel in the Muslim Middle East is suchthat its enemies have been highly disposed tobrinksmanship and risk-taking. Given the Jewishpeople’s long history of horrific mass victimiza-tion, most Israelis find it deeply unsettling to facethe threat of annihilation again.

While the alleged 2007 bombing of Syria’sal-Kibar reactor underscored Jerusalem’s willing-ness to take military action in preventing its en-emies from developing nuclear weapons, itscounter-proliferation efforts have relied heavilyon diplomacy and covert operations. The raid onOsirak came only after the failure of Israeli effortsto dissuade or prevent France from providing thenecessary hardware. Likewise, the Israelis havereportedly been responsible for the assassina-tions of several Iranian nuclear scientists in re-cent years.2 They reportedly helped create the

1 Ariel Sharon, address, Government Press Office, Jerusalem,Dec. 15, 1981.2 The Sunday Times (London), Feb. 4, 2007; The WashingtonPost, Nov. 29, 2010; The Observer (London), Dec. 5, 2010.

Yoaz Hendel, a military historian who has lec-tured at Bar Ilan University and written on stra-tegic affairs for the newspaper Yediot Aharonot,now works in the Israeli prime minister’s office.This article was written before his governmentservice; views expressed herein are his alone.


Stuxnet computer worm, dubbed by The NewYork Times “the most sophisticated cyber weaponever deployed,” which caused major setbacks toIran’s uranium enrichment program in 2009.3 How-ever, such methods can only slow Tehran’sprogress, not halt or reverse it.

THE IRANIAN THREAT

Tehran has already reached what Brig. Gen.(res.) Shlomo Brom has called the “point of irre-versibility” at which time the proliferator “stopsbeing dependent on external assistance” to pro-duce the bomb.4 Most Israeli officials believethat no combination of likely external incentivesor disincentives can persuade the Iranians toverifiably abandon the effort. The Iranian regimehas every reason to persevere in its pursuit of the

ultimate weapon. Whilethe world condemnedNorth Korea’s develop-ment of nuclear weapons,it was unwilling to applysufficient penalties to dis-suade Pyongyang frombuilding the bomb.

The regime has animpressive ballistic mis-sile program for deliver-ing weapons of mass de-struction. The Iraniansbegan equipping them-selves with SCUD mis-

siles during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.5 After-ward, it turned to North Korea for both missilesand the technology to set up its own researchand production facilities. Tehran has producedhundreds of Shahab-3 missiles, which have arange of nearly 1,000 miles and can carry a war-head weighing from 500 kilograms to one ton.6

In 2009, Tehran successfully tested a new two-stage, solid propellant missile, the Sejil-2, whichhas a range of over 1,200 miles, placing parts ofEurope within its reach.

There is some disagreement as to how longit will take Tehran to produce a nuclear weapon.While the government of Israel has claimed thatIran is within a year or two of this goal, in January2011, outgoing Mossad director Meir Dagan al-leged that Iran will be unable to attain it before2015.7

IRANIAN INTENTIONS

Much of the debate in Israel is focused onthe question of Iranian intentions. The fact thatTehran has poured staggering amounts of money,human capital, and industrial might into nucleardevelopment—at the expense of its conventionalmilitary strength, which has many gaps, not tomention the wider Iranian economy—is by itselfa troubling indicator of its priorities. Prime Minis-ter Benjamin Netanyahu and many other leadingIsraeli political and security figures view the Is-lamic Republic as so unremittingly hostile that“everything else pales” before the threat posedby its pursuit of nuclear weapons.8

Proponents of this view draw upon repeatedthreats by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad towipe Israel off the map9 and Iranian support forradical Palestinian and Lebanese groups seekingits destruction. They also point to Ahmadinejad’sradical millenarian strand of Shiite Islamism.10

Shiites believe that the twelfth of a succession ofimams directly descendant of the Prophet Mu-hammad went into hiding in the ninth centuryand will one day return to this world after a periodof cataclysmic war to usher in an era of stabilityand peace.

Ahmadinejad appears to believe that this daywill happen in his lifetime. In 2004, as mayor of

3 The New York Times, Jan. 16, 2011.4 Shlomo Brom, “Is the Begin Doctrine Still a Viable Option forIsrael?” in Henry Sokolski and Patrick Clawson, eds., GettingReady for a Nuclear-Ready Iran (Carlisle, Pa.: U.S. Army WarCollege, Strategic Studies Institute, 2005), p. 139.5 Yiftah S. Shapir, “Iran”s Ballistic Missiles,” Strategic Assess-ment INSS, Aug. 2009.

Twenty-sevenpercent ofIsraelis said theywould considerleaving thecountry if Tehrandevelopednuclearcapabilities.

6 Ibid.7 Ha’aretz (Tel Aviv), Jan. 7, 2011.8 Ibid., Nov. 14, 2006.9 Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (Tehran), Oct. 27, 2005.10 See Mohebat Ahdiyyih, “Ahmadinejad and the Mahdi,”Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2008, pp. 27-36.

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Tehran, he ordered the construction ofa grand avenue in the city center, sup-posedly to welcome the Mahdi on theday of his reappearance. As president,he allocated $17 million for a mosqueclosely associated with the Mahdi inthe city of Jamkaran.11 Rather thanseeking to reassure the world aboutTehran’s peaceful intentions during his2007 address before the U.N. GeneralAssembly, Ahmadinejad embarked ona wide-eyed discourse about the won-ders of the Twelfth Imam: “There willcome a time when justice will prevailacross the globe ... under the rule ofthe perfect man, the last divine sourceon earth, the Mahdi.”12

The fear in Israel is that someonewho firmly believes an apocalypticshowdown between good and evil isinevitable and divinely ordained willnot be easily deterred by the threat ofa nuclear war. “There are new calls forthe extermination of the Jewish State,”Netanyahu warned during a January 2010 visit toIsrael’s Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. “This iscertainly our concern, but it is not only our con-cern.”13 For Netanyahu, a nuclear Iran is a clearand present existential threat.

Those who dissent from this view point outthat the Iranian people are not particularly hos-tile to Israelis; indeed, the two countries enjoyedclose relations before the 1979 Iranian revolu-tion. They argue that the Iranian regime’s mili-tant anti-Zionism is a vehicle for gaining influ-ence in the predominantly Sunni Arab MiddleEast but not something that would drive its lead-ers to commit suicide. “I am not underestimatingthe significance of a nuclear Iran, but we shouldnot give it Holocaust subtext like politicians tryto do,” said former Israel Defense Forces (IDF)chief of staff Dan Halutz, who commanded theIsraeli military during the war in Lebanon in 2006.14

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a widely cir-culated September 2009 interview that Iran wasnot an “existential” threat to Israel.15

The question of whether Iran is an existen-tial danger is more rhetorical than substantive.Even if Iranian nuclear weapons are never fired,their mere existence would be a profound blow tomost Israelis’ sense of security. In one poll, 27percent of Israelis said they would consider leav-ing the country if Tehran developed nuclear ca-pabilities. Loss of investor confidence woulddamage the economy. This could spell the failureof Zionism’s mission of providing a Jewish ref-uge as Jews will look to the Diaspora for safety.16

This is precisely why Israel’s enemies salivateover the possibility of an Iranian bomb.

Even if the prospect of mutually assured de-struction effectively rules out an Iranian firststrike, Tehran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons

Hendel: Iran’s Nuclear Program

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (center) kissesthe Qur’an during the inauguration of Iran’s first nuclear-fuel manufacturing plant, located near Isfahan, April 9,2009. Despite diplomatic efforts and an ever-growingsanctions regime, Iran’s leadership continues to moveforward in its nuclear arms program, working to ensurethat both the processed materials and the delivery systemsneeded are developed.

11 Charles Krauthammer, “In Iran, Arming for Armageddon,”The Washington Post, Dec. 16, 2005.12 Islamic Republic News Agency, Sept. 26, 2007.13 Benjamin Netanyahu, speech, Jerusalem, Jan. 25, 2010.

14 The Jerusalem Post, Oct. 15, 2010.15 Reuters, Sept. 17, 2009.16 Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael B. Oren, “Israel Cannot Livewith a Nuclear Iran,” The New Republic, Jan. 26, 2010.

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would still shift the balance of power greatly. Iranprojects its power throughout the Middle Eastmainly by way of allies and proxies, such asMuqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army in Iraq, Hamas inGaza, the Assad regime in Syria, and Hezbollah inLebanon. The Iranian nuclear umbrella willembolden them. The next time an Israeli soldier isabducted in a cross-border attack by Hezbollahor Hamas, Jerusalem will have to weigh the risksof a nuclear escalation before responding. Thereis also the possibility that Tehran could provide anuclear device to one of its terrorist proxies.17

A successful Iranian bid to acquire the bombwill set off an unprecedented nuclear arms racethroughout the region. Arab countries such asEgypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United ArabEmirates will want to create their own nuclear in-surance policies in the face of Tehran’s belliger-ence and regional ambitions. Turkey has passed

a bill in its parliament paving the way for theconstruction of three nuclear reactors by 2020.18

Most of Israel’s decision-makers believe thatIsrael cannot afford the risks of living with anuclear Iran. Those who publicly differ withNetanyahu on this score seem mainly concernedthat he is exploiting popular fears for politicalgain, but they are likely to fall in line with publicopinion at the end of the day. The large majorityof Israelis support a military strike on Iran’snuclear facilities as a last resort, and a small ma-jority (51 percent according to a 2009 poll) favoran immediate strike on Iran as a first resort.19

THE MILITARY OPTION

The general assessment is that the IDF hasthe ability to knock out some of Tehran’s keynuclear facilities and set back its nuclear programby a couple of years but not completely destroyit—at least not in one strike.20 Several factors makeIran’s nuclear program much more difficult to in-capacitate than that of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Whereas most of Iraq’s vital nuclear assetswere concentrated at Osirak, “Iran’s nuclear fa-cilities are spread out,” notes former IDF chief ofstaff Ya’alon,21 some of them in close proximityto population centers. The distance to targets inIran would be considerably greater than to Osirak,and its facilities are better defended. Iran has mas-tered nuclear technology much more thoroughlythan Iraq and can, therefore, repair much of thedamage without external help.

Of the known Iranian nuclear sites, five mainfacilities are almost certain to be targeted in anypreemptive strike. The first is the Bushehr light-water reactor, along the gulf coast of southwest-ern Iran. The second is the heavy-water plant

The ruins of Iraq’s Osirak reactor,destroyed by an Israeli air-raid in 1981,are visible reminders that led Iran’smullahs to develop a secretive, well-shielded, and diffused nuclear programin an attempt to avoid a repeat of SaddamHussein’s mistakes.

17 Chuck Freilich “The Armageddon Scenario: Israel and theThreat of Nuclear Terrorism,” BESA Center Perspectives Papers(Ramat Gan), Apr. 8, 2010.

18 See Yoel Guzansky, “The Saudi Nuclear Option,” INSSInsight, Institute for National Security Studies, National De-fense University, Washington, D.C., Apr. 2010; John Bolton,“Get Ready for a Nuclear Iran,” The Wall Street Journal, May2, 2010.19 YNet News (Tel Aviv), May 24, 2009.20 Whitney Raas and Austin Long, “Osirak Redux? AssessingIsraeli Capabilities to Destroy Iranian Nuclear Facilities,” Inter-national Security, Spring 2007, pp. 7-33.21 Jane’s Defence Weekly (London), Mar. 10, 2006.

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under construction near the town of Arak, whichwould be instrumental to production of plutonium.Next is the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan.Based on satellite imagery, the facility is aboveground although some reports have suggestedtunneling near the complex.22

Fourth is the uranium enrichment facility atQom, which the Iranians concealed from the In-ternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) priorto September 2009 and well after major Westernintelligence agencies knew about it. The facility,which can hold about 3,000 centrifuges, was builtinto a mountain, making it difficult to penetrate.Israeli defense minister Barak called it “immune tostandard bombs.”23

The fifth and most heavily fortified primarytarget is the main Iranian uranium enrichment fa-cility in Natanz. The complex consists of two largehalls, roughly 300,000 square feet each, dug some-where between eight and twenty-three feet be-low ground and covered by several layers of con-crete and metal. The walls of each hall are esti-mated to be approximately two feet thick. The fa-cility is also surrounded by short-range, Russian-made TOR-M surface-to-air missiles.

Military planners may also feel compelled toattack Tehran’s centrifuge fabrication sites sincetheir destruction would hamper the efforts to re-establish its nuclear program. However, it is be-lieved that the Iranians have dispersed some cen-trifuges to underground sites not declared to theIAEA. It is by no means clear that Israeli intelli-gence has a full accounting of where they are.

The Israelis may also choose to bomb Iranianradar stations and air bases in order to knock outTehran’s ability to defend its skies, particularly ifmultiple waves are required. Ya’alon estimates thatIsrael would need to attack a few dozen sites.24

THE OPERATION

The Israeli Air Force is capable of strikingthe necessary targets with two to three full squad-

rons of fighter-bombers with escorts to shootdown enemy aircraft; however, most of the es-corts will require refueling to strike the necessarytargets in Iran.25 In addition, the Israelis can makeuse of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles fromtheir Dolphin-class submarines.

The IAF has carried out long-range missionsin the past. In 1981, Israeli F-16s struck the Osirakreactor without midair refueling. Refueling tank-ers were activated for Israel’s longest-range airstrike to date, the 1985 bombing of the PalestineLiberation Organization’s (PLO) headquartersin Tunis, 1,500 miles away. The IAF’s highlypublicized 2009 flyoverover Gibraltar was widelyperceived as a dress re-hearsal for a strike againstIran.26 In 2009, the IAFinstituted a new trainingregimen that included re-fueling planes as theirengines were on and sit-ting on the runway withfuel nozzles disconnectedseconds before takeoff.

The IAF has specialized munitions designedto penetrate fortified targets, including GBU-27and GBU-28 laser-guided bunker buster bombsand various domestically produced ordnance.Israeli pilots are skilled at using successive mis-sile strikes to penetrate fortifications. “Even if onebomb would not suffice to penetrate, we couldguide other bombs directly to the hole created bythe previous ones and eventually destroy anytarget,” explains former IAF commander Maj. Gen.Eitan Ben-Eliyahu, who participated in the strikeon Osirak.27

Israel’s advanced electronic-warfare systemsare likely to be successful in suppressing Iran’sair defenses although these were significantlyupgraded by Moscow during the 2000s.28 More-over, whereas thirty years ago, Israeli pilots


The majority ofIsraelis supporta military strikeon Iran’snuclearfacilities as alast resort.

22 The New York Times, Jan. 5, 2010.23 The Jerusalem Post, Dec. 28, 2009.24 Jane’s Defence Weekly, Mar. 10, 2006.

25 Raas and Long, “Osirak Redux?” pp. 7-34.26 Ynet News, Mar. 5, 2009.27 Jane’s Defense Weekly, Mar. 4, 2005.28 Anthony H. Cordesman, “The Iran Attack Plan,” The WallStreet Journal, Sept. 25, 2009.


needed to fly directly over Osirak to drop theirbombs, today they can fly at higher altitudes andlaunch satellite or laser-guided missiles from asafer distance. Nor are Tehran’s roughly 160 op-erational combat aircraft, mostly antiquated U.S.and French planes, likely to pose a serious threatto Israeli pilots.

POSSIBLEATTACK ROUTES

The main problem Jerusalem will encounterin attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities results fromthe long distance to the main targets. Since greater

distance always meansthat more things can gowrong, Israeli losses andefficacy will likely dependon which of three pos-sible routes they take toIran.

The northern routeruns along the Turkish-Syrian border into Iran

and is estimated to be about 1,300 miles. Thisroute entails several risks and would need to takeinto account Syrian air defenses and Turkish op-position to violating its airspace. Israeli planesflew over Turkey when the IAF bombed al-Kibarin 2007 and even dropped fuel tanks in Turkishterritory. However, the recent deterioration in re-lations between Ankara and Jerusalem makes itextremely unlikely that the Turkish governmentwill allow such an intrusion.

The central route over Jordan and Iraq is themost direct, bringing the distance to Natanz fromthe IAF’s Hatzerim air base down to about 1,000miles, yet it entails serious diplomatic obstacles.Jerusalem would have to coordinate either withthe Jordanians and the Americans or fly withoutforewarning. While Israel has a peace treaty withJordan, Amman will not want to be perceived ascooperating with Israeli military action againstTehran and thus possibly face the brunt of anIranian reprisal. Washington may not want to beinvolved either, as it needs Tehran’s acquiescenceto withdraw its forces from Iraq successfully.While Jerusalem could limit the risk of hostile fire

by notifying its two allies of the impending at-tack, there would be considerable diplomatic costs.

The southern route would take Israeli planesover Saudi Arabia and then into Iran. While this islonger than the central route, there have been re-ports that the Saudis have given Jerusalem permis-sion to use their airspace for such an operation.29

The difficulties also depend on the precisegoal of the air strike. A short-term, financially costlydegradation of Iran’s nuclear program can beachieved in one wave of attacks, but Israeli de-fense analysts have estimated that a decisive blowcould require hitting as many as sixty different tar-gets with return sorties lasting up to two days.

Estimates in Israel vary regarding the lossesthe IAF might suffer in such an operation.30 Someestimates claim that with their advanced, Rus-sian-supplied air defense systems, the Iraniansmight be able to shoot down a small number ofaircraft. But even just a few pilots shot down andcaptured by Iran would be a heart-wrenching trag-edy for Israelis. To prepare for this, in 2009 theIAF began increasing mental training for its air-men with an emphasis on survival skills.

Many former, high-ranking generals and in-telligence chiefs have cast doubt on whetherJerusalem can succeed in decisively setting backTehran’s nuclear program. Addressing an audi-ence at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem inMay 2011, Meir Dagan said that the idea of at-tacking Iranian nuclear sites was “the stupidestthing” he had ever heard and that such an attemptwould have a near-zero chance of success.31

THE FALLOUT

The strategic fallout from an Israeli attackwill likely be significant. Hezbollah will probablyinitiate hostilities across the Lebanese-Israeli bor-der. During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, the ShiiteIslamist group fired more than 4,000 rockets intoIsrael, causing extensive damage and killing forty-

29 The Sunday Times, June 12, 2010.30 Brom, “Is the Begin Doctrine Still a Viable Option forIsrael?” pp. 148-9.31 Ha’aretz, May 7, 2011; The Jewish Daily Forward (NewYork), May 20, 2011.

Some argue thatthe best hope forcountering thethreat of Iraniannuclear weaponsis regime change.

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four civilians.32 Today, its arsenal isconsiderably larger and includesmany more rockets capable of reach-ing Tel Aviv. Dagan estimates thatthe Iranians can fire missiles at Is-rael for a period of months, and thatHezbollah can fire tens of thou-sands of rockets.33 Hamas may alsoattack Israel with rockets from Gaza.It is not inconceivable that Syrianpresident Bashar Assad would jointhe fight, if still in power, in hope ofdiverting public anger away from hisregime.

Iran has also developed an ex-tensive overseas terrorist network,cultivated in conjunction withHezbollah. This network was re-sponsible for two car bombingsagainst the Jewish community inArgentina that left 114 people deadin the early 1990s.34

Last year, Israel distributed gasmasks to prepare for the possibilitythat Iran or Syria would deploy chemical or bio-logical weapons35 while the IDF’s Home FrontCommand received an increased budget to pre-pare bomb shelters and teach the public what todo in case of emergency.36 C4I systems were im-proved between early-warning missile detectionsystems and air sirens, including specially de-signed radars that can accurately predict the ex-act landing site of incoming missiles. Since noone is certain how accurate Iran’s Shahab andSajil missiles are, Jerusalem began strengtheningdefenses at its Dimona nuclear reactor in 2008.37

Jerusalem will not sit back and allow its citi-zens to be bombed mercilessly. Since Lebanonwill probably be the main platform of any major


Iranian attack, Israeli retaliation there is sure to beswift and expansive. Should Syria offer up anyform of direct participation in the war, it too maycome under Israeli attack. The Israelis may go sofar as to bomb Iran’s oil fields and energy infra-structure. Since oil receipts provide at least 75percent of the Iranian regime’s income and at least80 percent of export revenues, the political shockof losing this income could lead the regime torethink its nuclear stance, as well as erode its publicsupport and make it more difficult to finance therepair of damaged nuclear facilities.38

On the other hand, Tehran may double downby sending its own ground troops to Lebanon orSyria to join the fight against Israel. This coulddraw in the Persian Gulf Arab monarchies, par-ticularly if the Alawite-led Assad regime is stillfacing active opposition from its majority Sunnipopulation.

How long such a war will last is impossibleto predict. Israel’s defense doctrine calls for short

Ahmadinejad delivers his “Wipe Israel from the map”speech at Tehran’s The World without Zionism conference,October 26, 2005. Iran’s genocidal intentions have beenrepeatedly spelled out by current and former leaders inTehran, and it is wise for the Israeli leadership to take therhetoric—combined as it is with the hard facts of Iran’snuclear subterfuge—seriously.

32 Fox News, Mar. 27, 2008; The Guardian (London), Apr. 11,2011.33 Ha’aretz, May 7, 2011.34 BBC News, Mar. 27, 2011.35 Ha’aretz, May 1, 2010.36 Ha’aretz, June 17, 2009; “Israeli Civilians Prepare for Life-Threatening Scenarios,” Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’sUnit, June 22, 2011.37 Pakistan Daily (Lahore), Oct. 3, 2008.

38 Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt, “The Last Resort,”The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington,D.C., June 2008.


wars, so it will likely launch a diplomatic cam-paign with Western backing to end the war assoon as possible. However, the Iranians mayhunker down for the long haul, much as they didduring the 8-year Iran-Iraq war.39

If a military solution cannot guarantee suc-cess at an acceptable price, some in Israel arguethat the best hope for countering the threat posedby Iranian nuclear weapons is regime change.“The nuclear matter will resolve itself once thereis a regime change,” says Uri Lubrani, Israel’sformer ambassador to Iran and a senior advisorto the Israeli defense minister until last year. Ac-cording to Lubrani, the highest priority for Israeland the West should be to strengthen the Iranianmasses that rose up in protest following thefraudulent June 2009 elections.40

“A military strike will at best delay Iran’snuclear program, but what’s worse, it will rally theIranian people to the defense of the regime,” saysLubrani. He argues that it is better to let sanc-tions eat away at the regime’s legitimacy even ifthey do not lead to a stand down on its nuclearprogram.41

However, it is not clear whether Lubrani iscorrect in his assessment that war will benefit theregime. While most Iranians are generally sup-portive of their country’s nuclear ambitions, dev-astating Israeli air strikes may drive home the follyof their government’s reckless provocations justas they did during the later stages of the Iran-Iraqwar. It is unlikely that many are willing to sacrificetheir country’s well-being in pursuit of the bomb.

Whether an Israeli attack will unite the pub-lic for or against President Ahmadinejad and Su-preme Leader Ali Khamene’i is anyone’s guess.Much will depend on whether the air strikes pro-duce significant collateral damage. The Bushehr,

Isfahan, and Natanz facilities contain uraniumhexafluoride (UF6) and even some low-enricheduranium, the release of which into the environ-ment would almost certainly raise public healthconcerns.

CONCLUSION

The Israelis will ultimately have to choosebetween launching an attack likely to spark a large-scale regional conflict and allowing Iran to gonuclear with dire long-term implications. Not-withstanding some disagreement about the im-mediacy of the threat and possible repercus-sions, the large majority of Israelis favor militaryaction over living with the ubiquitous threat ofnuclear annihilation.

With a U.N. vote on Palestinian statehoodthreatening to erode Israel’s international stand-ing still further, attacking Iran could provedangerously isolating for Israel even withWashington’s blessing—to proceed without itwould be a step into the unknown. Much, there-fore, depends on whether policymakers in Wash-ington will stand by Jerusalem when push even-tually comes to shove.

The American people have increasinglycome to recognize the threat to world peaceposed by Iran. Whereas 6 percent of Americansnamed Iran as the country that poses the great-est threat to the United States in 1990, in 2006,Iran led the field with 27 percent.42 However,though Washington’s official stance is that alloptions remain on the table, Obama is unlikelyto undertake direct military action to stop Tehranfrom building the bomb and may prove reluctantto tacitly support Israeli action.

That is why the decision will ultimately beleft to Israel, or rather to its prime minister, whowill be faced with a Churchillian dilemma, unprec-edented in the Jewish state’s history.39 Moshe Vered, “Ending an Iranian-Israeli War,” Mideast Secu-

rity and Policy Studies, Sept. 2009.40 David Horovitz, “Editor’s Notes: Playing Chess againstTehran,” interview with Uri Lubrani, Mar. 11, 2011; The WallStreet Journal, Mar. 13, 2010.41 The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 13, 2010. 42 Associated Press, July 2, 2006.

/ 39Inbar: Arab Uprisings

Israeli DefenseThe Arab Uprisings’ Impactby Efraim Inbar

Although the wave of mass protests spreading through the Arabic-speaking coun-tries may have begun to recede, it has left a wide-ranging impact on the region. Three authoritarian regimes have collapsed, and the rest are experiencing varying

degrees of duress.This emerging political and strategic landscape has major implications for Israeli

national security. Regional turmoil has effectively ruled out a major advance in Arab-Israeli diplomacy, enabled Ankara and Tehran to expand their influence, continued thedecline of U.S. influence, and emboldened extremists.

Efraim Inbar is a professor of political studiesat Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. TheTikva Fund generously supported this research.

A ROUGHNEIGHBORHOOD

Though economically and militarily strongfor its size, Israel is a small state with modestresources, limited diplomatic clout, and fewfriends in its neighborhood. As such, it cannothope to influence its environment in the MiddleEast. Unable to shape the world beyond its bor-ders, Jerusalem must be prepared to meet all se-curity threats that could potentially emerge fromthe surrounding Arab-Islamic world. It, there-fore, fears political unrest, which brings a de-gree of uncertainty to the Middle East politicaland strategic landscape.

Israelis are no strangers to the fact that po-litical upheaval in the Middle East can have ma-jor strategic implications. In particular, domesticchanges led to sweeping foreign policy reorien-tation in two important regional powers that were

once Israel’s allies. The 1979 Islamic Revolutionin Iran replaced a pro-Western monarchy friendlyto Israel with a militant Shiite theocracy. In Tur-key, once a major strategic ally of Israel, succes-sive electoral victories by the Islamist Justiceand Development Party (AKP) since 2002 havemoved this pivotal state into the anti-Israel camp.

DANGEROUSOUTCOMES FOR ISRAEL

Arabic-speaking countries lag well behindthe rest of the international community in civilliberties, political rights, education, gender equal-ity, and economic productivity.1 This deplorablestate of affairs is the root cause of discontentand frustration fueling the recent wave of pro-tests. Absent a liberal-democratic political cul-ture, however, mass mobilization in pursuit ofpolitical change is unpredictable. Numerous out-comes are possible, few of which portend wellfor regional stability.

1 Arab Human Development reports, U.N. Development Pro-gram, New York, accessed Oct. 7, 2011; R. Stephen Humphreys,Between Memory and Desire. The Middle East in a TroubledAge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).


The most feared outcome is an Islamist take-over. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahuhas frequently warned of the danger that “Egyptwill go in the direction of Iran.”2 Radical Islam-ists are the most powerful and well-organized

opposition force in mostArab states (due in partto the protection af-forded by mosques) andthe most likely beneficia-ries of regime changewhether it comes peace-fully or violently. Revo-lutionary regimes every-where tend to displaywarlike behavior in theimmediate years aftertaking power;3 in the

Middle East, they are almost certain to do so.The process of democratization can also

have unpredictable effects if secular, liberal po-litical forces are weak or divided. Lebanon’s 2005Cedar Revolution, led by pro-Western politicalforces, ended just four years later when the gov-ernment was taken over by the Shiite Islamistgroup Hezbollah and its allies. The MuslimBrotherhood, whose commitment to democracyis dubious at best, is the most powerful opposi-tion force in Egypt today. Even in the event thata freely elected government comes to power, thehistorical record shows that states undergoinga democratic transition are more war-prone thanautocratic regimes.4

Political turmoil can lead to the collapse orsevere weakening of the state. In a failed state,the government is unable to control security overall its territory and has difficulty meeting thebasic needs of the population in terms of health,education, and other social services.5 The har-

bingers of such a scenario are in Libya andYemen. As states lose their grip over their terri-tory, and their borders become more porous,armed groups and terrorists have greater free-dom of action. In addition, the enormous quan-tities of conventional (and non-conventional)arms typically stockpiled by autocratic regimescan fall into the wrong hands. Following the fallof Libyan leader Mu’ammar Qaddafi, Libyan SA-7 anti-air missiles and antitank rocket-propelledgrenades have reportedly reached Hamas ter-rorists in Gaza.6

Since many Arab countries have ethno-sec-tarian minorities with strong transnational tiesto foreign powers (Lebanese Shiites and Iran,for example), the eruption of civil war can readilyinvite external intervention. Because of their di-versity, Iraq and Syria carry the greatest poten-tial for domestic conflicts in the Middle East toescalate into regional conflagrations.

Even those Arab regimes that manage tostave off serious unrest are likely to be preoccu-pied in the near future parrying domestic chal-lenges. The foreign policy decisions of weak-ened autocrats (none have emerged strongerfrom the turmoil) can be nearly as difficult topredict reliably as those of newly democraticgovernments. Faced with growing internal chal-lenges, both have strong incentives to divertpublic attention from domestic problems by con-fronting Israel.

DECLINING U.S. INFLUENCE

As pro-U.S. Arab regimes stumble and fall,Washington’s influence in the Middle East ison the decline. This is partly due to the Obamaadministration’s deliberate “multilateral re-trenchment … designed to curtail the UnitedStates’ overseas commitments, restore its stand-ing in the world, and shift burdens onto globalpartners”7 and partly to its confused, contra-2 The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 8, 2011.

3 Stephen M. Walt, “Revolution and War,” World Politics,Apr. 1992, pp. 321-68.4 Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, “Democratization andthe Danger of War,” International Security, Summer 1995, pp.5-38.5 For an analysis of this phenomenon, see Robert I. Rothberg,ed., When States Fail: Causes and Consequences (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2004).

Arab regimeshave strongincentives todivert publicattention fromdomestic problemsby confrontingIsrael.

6 Reuters, Aug. 29, 2011.7 Daniel W. Drezner, “Does Obama Have a Grand Strategy?Why We Need Doctrines in Uncertain Times,” Foreign Affairs,July/Aug. 2011, p. 58.

/ 41

dictory, and inconsistent re-sponse to unfolding events in theMiddle East. The administrationwas far quicker to call for the res-ignation of Egyptian presidentHusni Mubarak—a staunch U.S.ally for three decades—than thatof Syrian president Bashar Assad,whose role in fomenting terrorismagainst the United States and itsallies is rivaled only by the Ira-nian regime. Washington’s turnagainst Mubarak was viewedthroughout the region (approv-ingly or not) as a betrayal of a loyalfriend.8

The U.S. criticism of Riyadh’smilitary intervention in supportof the Sunni ruling al-Khalifadynasty in Bahrain in March 2011raised eyebrows in Arab capitals,which viewed the emirate’s Shiitesas Iranian proxies.9 Many in the region werealso puzzled by the U.S. abandonment ofQaddafi, who had cooperated with the West bygiving up his weapons of mass destruction(WMD) in 2003. The lesson learned by MiddleEastern regimes—the Iranian mullahs in particu-lar—is that it is better to hold on to WMD pro-grams. Qaddafi’s fate has become a cautionarytale for tyrants.

By contrast, the brutal suppression of thelocal opposition by the anti-U.S. regimes inTehran and Damascus elicited only mild and verylate expressions of criticism from the Obama ad-ministration. Washington’s July 2011 decisionto open a dialogue with Egypt’s Muslim Broth-erhood has further eroded its credibility as anastute political player and credible ally.

Alongside the U.S. retreat from Iraq andAfghanistan, the Obama administration’s pro-clivity for betraying friends and appeasing en-

emies, such as Syria and Iran, strengthens theperception of a weak and confused U.S. govern-ment. Israelis ask whether Washington is capableof exercising sound strategic judgment. The ani-mosity displayed by the Obama administrationtoward Israeli prime minister Netanyahu rein-forces a growing consensus among U.S. friendsand foes alike that “Obama does not get it.”

INCREASING IRANIANAND TURKISH INFLUENCE

The Arab upheavals have facilitated theexpanding influence of non-Arab Iran and Tur-key. The need to focus on domestic problemswill likely reduce the ability of Arab states toproject power beyond their borders and com-bat the growing Iranian and Turkish regionalinfluence.

Both Tehran and Ankara, which are alignedwith radical Islamist forces, have welcomed theArab uprisings and have openly incited Egyp-tian demonstrators to topple Mubarak. An Egyp-tian government beleaguered with domesticproblems has little energy to focus on counter-ing Iranian and Turkish aspirations and influ-

Inbar: Arab Uprisings

The Israeli public is well aware of what can happen whensweeping domestic change engulfs its neighbors. In 1979, apro-Western and Israel-friendly shah was replaced by thehard-line, anti-Israel theocrats of the Iranian IslamicRevolution.

8 Reuters, Jan. 31, 2011; Ari Shavit, “Obama’s Betrayal: AsGoes Mubarak, So Goes U.S. Might,” Ha’aretz, Aug. 10,2011.9 The New York Times, Mar. 14, 2011.


ence. Both vie for regional hegemony and areinterested in gaining popularity among the Arabstates by vocally criticizing Israel. Moreover,growing influence by the Muslim Brotherhoodin Egypt suits Tehran’s and Ankara’s ideologi-cal inclinations. Indeed, Egypt’s interim militarygovernment quickly undertook a rapprochementwith Iran.

Ankara also encourages Sunni Islamist op-position to the Alawite-dominated Assad regimein Syria,10 Tehran’s main ally. The instability inSyria has renewed to some extent the historicTurkish-Persian rivalry, signaling once more thedilution of Arab power and decreased Westerninfluence. Syria could potentially become abattleground for Turkish and Iranian proxies.

THE END OF THE“OSLO PROCESS”

Diminished U.S. influence in the regiondoes not bode well for prospects of a diplo-matic breakthrough between the Jewish state

and its neighbors, whohave only grudginglycome to accept Israel asa fait accompli that can-not be eradicated byforce. Washington hashistorically played an im-portant role in bringingArab actors to the nego-tiating table, narrowingdifferences during nego-tiations, and reducing Is-raeli anxieties in takingrisks for peace.

However, the Obama administration is de-monstrably less willing and able than its prede-cessor to pressure Arab leaders into compro-mising with the Israelis and less willing to com-pensate Jerusalem for concessions that entailsecurity risks. The U.S. financial crisis furtherlimits the administration’s capacity to provide

economic inducements to both sides.While extremists have been emboldened by

Washington’s perceived departure from the re-gion, pro-U.S. Arab leaders have come to con-clude that U.S. support is ephemeral—hardlyworth the political risks of recognizing Israel andalienating citizens who have been fed a steadydiet of anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic propagandasince grade school. Democratization will notchange this—on the contrary, newly electedleaders will prefer keeping Israel at arm’s lengthso as to curry public favor. According to an April2011 poll, 54 percent of Egyptians favor annul-ling their country’s peace treaty with Israel.11

Clearly, Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt andJordan are under great strain as the anti-Israeldomestic forces become more influential andvocal.12

Whatever the outcome of the escalatingconflict in Syria, no government in Damascus islikely to be strong enough politically to makepeace with Israel. It is equally unlikely that thePalestinian Authority (PA) will do so. The Pales-tinian leadership is divided between Hamas,which took over Gaza in June 2007, and the PAleadership in the West Bank. Additionally, thePA has not reconciled itself to the idea of Jewishstatehood as evidenced by recent statementsby its leaders, notably Mahmoud Abbas’s U.N.speech. With chances of bridging Israeli-Pales-tinian differences growing increasingly remote,13

the PA has defied U.S. calls to return to the ne-gotiating table, opting instead to press its bidfor statehood at the U.N.

As for the Israelis, many fear that theycannot necessarily rely upon the Obamaadministration’s diplomatic, economic, or mili-tary support in the event that their country isattacked or finds it necessary to preemptivelystrike at imminent threats to their security. Notsurprisingly, few are eager to make concessions

10 Ibid., May 4, 2011; The Jerusalem Post, May 8, 2011.

Nuclear weaponswill emboldenTehran and itsPalestinian andLebanese proxiescommitted toIsrael’sdestruction.

11 “Egyptians Embrace Revolt Leaders, Religious Parties, andMilitary, as Well,” Pew Global Attitudes Project, Washington,D.C., Apr. 25, 2011.12 The Washington Times, Feb. 3, 2011; The Jerusalem Post,Aug. 10, 2011.13 Efraim Inbar, “The Rise and Demise of the Two-StateParadigm,” Orbis, Spring 2009, pp. 265-83.

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that magnify those threats. As the re-gion looks less receptive to peace over-tures, Israelis must prepare for greaterregional isolation.

TEHRAN’S NUCLEARCHALLENGE

Arab political upheaval has de-flected attention away from Israel’smost daunting security threat—anuclear Iran. Despite four rounds ofmodest economic sanctions by theU.N. Security Council and frequent dip-lomatic scolding, the regime continuesto develop a nuclear weapons capabil-ity. The international community is un-willing to forcibly block the Islamic Re-public from achieving this goal, whichmost experts expect to happen in anestimated two to three years. Unlike itspredecessor, the Obama administration is un-likely to launch U.S. air strikes to destroy Ira-nian nuclear facilities and may be reluctant tosupport an Israeli military attack to eliminate thethreat.

A nuclear Iran would have far reaching stra-tegic and political implications for the region.14

Although opinions differ as to whether thecountry’s ruling mullahs can be deterred byIsrael’s nuclear arsenal, few doubt that posses-sion of nuclear weapons will embolden Tehranand its Palestinian and Lebanese proxies com-mitted to Israel’s destruction as well as Iranian-backed Shiite movements in Iraq and in the Per-sian Gulf states. Located along the oil-rich Per-sian Gulf and Caspian Basin, a nuclear Iran wouldbe ideally poised to dominate this strategic en-ergy sector,15 particularly if hitherto pro-U.S.Central Asian states gravitate toward Tehran. Inaddition, Iran’s successful pursuit of nuclear

weapons is sure to encourage similar ambitionsby its main regional rivals—Turkey, Egypt, andSaudi Arabia. A multipolar nuclear Middle Eastwould be a strategic nightmare.

MOUNTINGSECURITY THREATS

While the U.S. decline in world affairs ingeneral and in the Middle East in particular mightprove temporary, it is very real for the near fu-ture. This in turn has had a negative impact onIsrael’s deterrence, which relies not only on itsmilitary power and ability to defeat its Arabneighbors but also on the perception that Wash-ington will come to Jerusalem’s aid should theneed arise. The perceived closeness betweenJerusalem and Washington is an important com-ponent of the Jewish state’s deterrent posture,and the Obama administration has cast doubton this long-standing foundation. Jerusalem can,of course, find some comfort in the fact that theMiddle East upheavals have underscored yetagain its position as Washington’s most reliableregional ally, but the Obama administration hasconsistently courted U.S. enemies there at the

Inbar: Arab Uprisings

When states lose their grip over their territory, armedgroups have greater freedom of action. Recent eventsin Libya have reinforced this reality as enormousquantities of conventional (and non-conventional)arms stockpiled by the Qaddafi regime were foundunguarded and ripe for the picking by insurgentsand terrorists.

14 James M. Lindsay and Ray Takeyh, “After Iran Gets theBomb,” Foreign Affairs, Mar./Apr. 2010.15 Geoffrey Kemp and Robert E. Harkavy, Strategic Geographyand the Changing Middle East (Washington: Carnegie Endow-ment for International Peace, 1997), p. 113.

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expense of long-standing allies.While the military forces of neighboring

Arab states would be no match for the IsraelDefense Forces (IDF) should revolutionary up-heaval somehow unite them in war against theJewish state, political turmoil outside Israel’sborders is already beginning to produce a vari-ety of more intractable security threats.

Shortly after Mubarak’s ouster, Egypt’s in-terim military government declared its intentionto honor the country’s international commit-ments (i.e., the 1979 peace treaty with Israel),and most experts believe that an elected succes-sor will do the same if only to preserve currentlevels of U.S. military and economic aid. How-ever, the cold peace between Cairo and Jerusa-lem that existed under Mubarak is sure to be-come even chillier. In order to defuse nation-wide protests, Egypt’s military establishmentformed an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood,the only well-organized political force outsidethe ruling government. The Brotherhood’s grow-ing political power in post-Mubarak Egypt andgreater international acceptance can only be ofdeep concern to Jerusalem.

Under pressure from theBrotherhood, Egypt’s interimgovernment has reduced re-strictions on traffic to and fromGaza, circumventing the Israeliblockade of the Hamas-ruledenclave. This will strengthenHamas, an offshoot of theEgyptian Brotherhood com-mitted to Israel’s eradication,and encourage it to adopt amore aggressive posture to-ward the Jewish state.

In September 2011, theauthorities allowed an angrymob to lay siege to Israel’sembassy in Cairo, forcing theevacuation of its ambassador.Equally disturbing is the Egyp-tian reluctance to maintain se-curity in Sinai, which bordersIsrael and Gaza. Since the fallof Mubarak, the Egyptian-Is-raeli natural gas pipeline has

been sabotaged six times.16 This forced the Is-raelis to rely on more expensive diesel and fueloil to generate electricity, costing the countryan average of US$2.7 million a day during Julyand August.17 As the Eilat attacks last Augustindicate, Sinai may well emerge as a major anti-Israel terrorist base.18

The Israeli military regards Jordan, withwhich Jerusalem signed a 1994 peace treaty, asproviding strategic depth since the twocountry’s long border remains comparativelysecure.19 So far, King Abdullah has been suc-cessful in riding the regional political storm withminimal damage to his rule and without compro-mising his relations with Israel. However, if Iraqor Syria should fall victim to an Islamist take-over or a breakdown of the state, the Jordanians

While struggling to remain in power, the Assad regime inSyria sought to divert public anger against it by busingthousands of ostensibly Palestinian protesters to the Israeliborder, who then proceeded to try to cross into the Jewishstate. Jerusalem will find it necessary to station larger forcesalong its frontiers to defend against an array of security threatsarising from the turmoil in neighboring states.

16 Al-Ahram Online (Cairo), Oct. 3, 2011.17 Globes (Rishon Le-Zion), Oct. 2, 2011.18 The Jerusalem Post, Aug. 18, 2011.19 Amos Gilad, director of policy and political-military affairsat Israel’s Defense Ministry, CNN, Sept. 22, 2011.

/ 45Inbar: Arab Uprisings

may find it difficult to insulate themselves fromthe contagion. Should King Abdullah be de-posed, hostile forces would be able to straddlethe Tel Aviv-Jerusalem-Haifa triangle holdingmost of Israel’s population and economic infra-structure as Jerusalem is only twenty miles fromthe Jordanian border.

In Syria, the Alawite-dominated Assad re-gime is struggling to suppress predominantlySunni opposition forces. In May 2011, thousandsof ostensibly Palestinian protesters bused in bythe authorities on “Nakba Day”—the anniver-sary of Israel’s founding—stormed into theGolan Heights, attacking IDF soldiers withstones. Four were killed and dozens woundedby Israeli fire. The Syrians are “intentionally at-tempting to divert international attention awayfrom the brutal crackdown of their own citizens,”said an Israeli military spokesman.20 This actionsuggests that Assad is not averse to confront-ing Jerusalem as a means of redirecting publicanger away from his regime.

The West Bank and Gaza have not yet ex-perienced major domestic turmoil. While a re-newed campaign of terror against Israel wouldbe very costly for the Palestinians, the weak andillegitimate PA president Abbas (whose term ofoffice expired in January 2009) is under increas-ing pressure from Hamas to up the ante in com-bating the Jewish state. A Palestinian strategicmiscalculation leading to new round of violenceis always a possibility that Jerusalem cannotignore.

Political turmoil in the Arab world is a warn-ing bell for Israel to bolster its defenses. Israeliswill find it necessary to station larger forces alongtheir borders to defend against the array of se-curity threats that can arise from political tur-moil in neighboring countries. Jerusalem mustalso update its war-fighting scenarios and ex-pand the IDF to be able to deal with a variety ofcontingencies, including a large-scale war. Sinceforce building is a lengthy process, appropriatedecisions on force structure and budget alloca-

tions are required as soon as possible.Jerusalem must insist on defensible borders

in any future peace negotiations with the PAand Syria. Loose talk about technologies thatfavor Israel’s defensive capabilities and the de-creasing military value of territory and topo-graphical assets ignores the fact that contem-porary technological advantages are fleeting.Strategists and militaries around the world stillconfer great importance to the topographicalcharacteristics of the battlefield. The history ofwarfare shows that technological superiority andbetter weapons are not enough to win a war.21

The increased threat of rocket and missilefire from “islands of in-security” across theirborders will require theIsraelis to improve bothpassive protection andactive defense. Passiveprotection refers to con-struction of shelters inhomes, educational insti-tutions, and centers ofcommerce and entertain-ment. Active defense systems prevent incom-ing rockets and missiles from hitting or destroy-ing a target. Israel’s mobile Iron Dome batteriescan intercept short-range rockets while itsDavid’s Sling system under development canintercept longer-range rockets and missiles.22

Jerusalem is working to integrate these lower-tier missile defense systems with componentsof its upper-tier missile defense—the upgradedversions of Patriot Advanced Capability inter-ceptors and the Arrow-2 and the Arrow-3 inter-ceptors—into a single national command andcontrol center.23 Budgetary constraints andstrategic shortsightedness have slowed devel-opment of this multilayered missile defensesystem.

Political turmoilin the Arab worldis a warning bellfor Israel tobolster itsdefenses.

20 The Daily Mail (London), May 16, 2011.

21 Martin Van Creveld, Technology and War. From 2000 B.C.to the Present (New York: The Free Press, 1989), pp. 311-20;Keir A. Lieber, War and the Engineers. The Primacy of Politicsover Technology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), pp.155-8.22 The Washington Post, May 12, 2011.23 Defense News (Springfield, Va.), June 20, 2011.


and poor in Israeli society in order to maintainsocial cohesion.

Whether incumbent Arab regimes stick topower, collapse, are replaced by new dictator-ships, or democratize, Israel’s near abroad islikely to remain in political flux in the comingyears with major strategic and security ramifica-tions. With Washington’s influence in declineand two rising regional powers—Iran and Tur-key—eager to challenge Jerusalem, the newMiddle East promises to be considerably morechallenging to Israeli security than the old.

CONCLUSION

Fortunately, Israel’s flourishing economycan afford larger defense outlays to meet itsnational security challenges. The leadershipshould be courageous enough to explain to itspeople that changing circumstances requiresome austerity measures that might freeze thestandard of living for a while. Israeli society hasshown remarkable resilience and spirit in pro-tracted conflict and might respond positivelyto a well-crafted call from the political leader-ship. Such an address must be accompanied byefforts to reduce the growing gaps between rich

Just Can’t Trust the Saudis TEHRAN—The Jeddah Astronomy Society’s mistake in sighting of the new moon in Saudi Arabiahas angered many Muslim nations who followed suit and pronounced Tuesday as Eid al-Fitrwrongly. The society said that people actually saw the planet Saturn and not the crescent moon thatmarks the beginning of the Islamic month of Shawwal.

Various news agencies such as al-Arabiya and Al Jazeera have also reported that the planetSaturn has been mistaken for the Hilal (crescent moon), and this means that what was announced asthe first day of Eid al-Fitr was supposed to be a day of fasting, rather than celebrations.

Saudi government officials have reportedly apologized to their nation and said that they wouldpay kaffarah (an amount of money paid as expiation for breaking the fast during the holy month ofRamadan) for the entire Saudi nation.

While a number of Muslim countries like Iran announce the new crescent only on the basis offrequent sightings by the people, astronomy societies, and clerics inside their borders, many othersrely on the sightings done by Saudi Arabia and announcement of the Eid crescent by Riyadh.

Thus, those Muslim nations who have followed the Saudis and celebrated the last Tuesday asEid al-Fitr are now angry with the Saudis as Eid al-Fitr is the biggest eve for the worldwide Muslimcommunity.

Fourteen other countries—Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait,Palestin[ian territories], Qatar, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen—followed suit incompliance with Islamic teachings.

Fars News Agency, Sept. 3, 2011

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The Two Faces of Al Jazeeraby Oren Kessler

One of the principal beneficiaries of the Arab uprisings has been Al Jazeera television. Viewers are praising the English and Arabic channels’ comprehensive cov-erage of the revolts while the Obama administration continues to court the net-

work as part of its signature foreign policy goal of improving ties with the Arab andMuslim worlds.

On August 1, 2011, Al Jazeera English (AJE) began broadcasting to two million cablesubscribers in New York—the third major U.S. city to carry the station after Houston andWashington, D.C.1 AJE’s gutsy, driven reporting—one commentator aptly commendedits “hustle”2—has won it friends in high places: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laudedthe channel as “real news,”3 and Sen. John McCain (Republican, Ariz.) said he was “veryproud” of its handling of the so-called Arab Spring.4

Lost in the exuberance is the fact that a vast gulf still separates the channel’s Englishiteration from the original Arabic, which fifteen years after its birth continues to inflameArab resentments in its promotion of anti-Americanism, Sunni sectarianism and, in recentyears, Islamism.

As AJE debuts in New York, many viewers who do not speak Arabic will presume thestation to be a direct or approximate translation of its parent network in Qatar.5 But toappreciate what Al Jazeera English is, it is critical to remember just what it is not—even aremote likeness of its Arabic-speaking progenitor.

Oren Kessler is Middle East affairs correspon-dent for The Jerusalem Post.

FANNING THE FLAMES

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks,Fouad Ajami traveled to Qatar to write a profile onAl Jazeera Arabic (AJA) for The New York TimesMagazine. In the cover story “What the MuslimWorld Is Watching,” he wrote, “Jazeera’s report-ers see themselves as ‘anti-imperialists.’ Con-vinced that the rulers of the Arab world have givenin to American might, these are broadcasters who

play to an Arab gallery whose political bitternessthey share—and feed.”6

Virtually all of the channel’s journalists, hefound, were either leftist, pan-Arab nationalists,or Islamists. “Although Al Jazeera has sometimesbeen hailed in the West for being an autonomous,

1 The New York Times, Aug. 1, 2011.2 Robert D. Kaplan, “Why I Love Al Jazeera,” The Atlantic, Oct.2009.3 The Huffington Post, Mar. 18, 2011.4 Politico (Arlington, Va.), May 17, 2011.5 Judea Pearl, “A statement of observation concerning Al Jazeera,”USA America’s Survival News (Owings, Md.), Feb. 23, 2011.6 Fouad Ajami, “What the Muslim World Is Watching,” TheNew York Times Magazine, Nov. 18, 2001.

Kessler: Al Jazeera


Arabic news outlet, it would be a mistake to call ita fair or responsible one,” he wrote. “Day in andday out, Al Jazeera deliberately fans the flames ofMuslim outrage.”7

It was in the days after the 2001 attacks thatmost Americans first encountered Al JazeeraArabic (the English offshoot was still five yearsaway) when the channel broadcast its first Osama

bin Laden tape, an admis-sion of responsibility forthe slaughter. The clipwas the first of about tenaudio and video state-ments AJA would broad-cast of the al-Qaeda leaderover the same number ofyears.8

In the wake of thoseattacks, Ajami discov-

ered, bin Laden was Al Jazeera’s unchallengedstar: “The channel’s graphics assign him a leadrole: There is bin Laden seated on a mat, hissubmachine gun on his lap; there is bin Laden onhorseback in Afghanistan, the brave knight ofthe Arab world. A huge, glamorous poster of binLaden’s silhouette hangs in the background ofthe main studio set.”9

In Afghanistan, Al Jazeera’s narrative wasroughly analogous to the Taliban’s: ill-equipped,heroic Muslims overcoming the foreign invaderthrough sheer courage and faith. Taliban-embed-ded reporters ended their broadcasts with thesign-off “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan”—theIslamist government’s official name for the coun-try—while the U.S. war on terror was denied thesame treatment, identified instead as a campaignagainst “what it calls terror.”10

Coverage in Iraq has been similar. Words like“terror” and “insurgency” are rarely mentionedwith a straight face, usually replaced with “resis-tance” or “struggle.” Suicide bombings againstU.S. troops are “commando attacks” or sometimes

even “paradise operations” while “War in Iraq”is replaced by “War on Iraq.”11 Similarly, Israel’s2008-09 Gaza offensive was branded “War onGaza” in both Arabic and English.12

In his 2004 state of the union address, Presi-dent George W. Bush singled out Al Jazeera as asource of “hateful propaganda” in the Arab world,and then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeldblasted its war coverage as “propaganda,”13 “in-excusably biased,”14 and “vicious.”15

“REAL NEWS”

Al Jazeera’s sympathetic coverage, in bothArabic and English, of the past year’s Arab up-heavals signaled to many that Americans mayfinally let the network in from the cold.16 It wasa view the Obama administration—eager todrain the bad blood of the Bush era—readilyencouraged.

“Al Jazeera has been the leader in that theyare literally changing people’s minds and atti-tudes. And like it or hate it, it is really effec-tive,” Secretary of State Clinton told the Sen-ate Foreign Relations Committee in March. AJE,she said, is “must watch, real journalism.”17

Dana Shell Smith—the first deputy assistantsecretary of state for international media en-gagement and an Arabic speaker—describedAl Jazeera Arabic as a “really important mediaentity” with which the administration has a “re-ally great relationship.”18

The thaw has been bipartisan with Republi-cans as wary as Democrats of slighting a networkriding a worldwide wave of popularity—AJE nowreaches a quarter of a billion people in 130 coun-

In Afghanistan,Al Jazeera’snarrative wasroughlyanalogous tothe Taliban’s.

7 Ibid.8 “Timeline: Messages from bin Laden,” Aljazeera.net, May 2,2011.9 Ajami, “What the Muslim World Is Watching.”10 Ibid.

11 Judea Pearl, “Another perspective, or jihad TV?” The Inter-national Herald Tribune, Jan. 17, 2007.12 “War on Gaza,” labs.aljazeera.net/warongaza, accessed Aug.30, 2011.13 “Al Jazeera’s Global Gamble,” Pew Research Center’s Projectfor Excellence in Journalism, Washington, D.C., Aug. 22, 2006.14 Associated Press, Feb. 6, 2004.15 The Sunday Times (London), Nov. 27, 2005.16 Los Angeles Times, Feb. 7, 2011.17 The Huffington Post, Mar. 18, 2011.18 Politico, Apr. 17, 2011.

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tries19—and perceived as sidingwith freedom and democracyagainst dictatorship.20

“It’s like Rip Van Winkle—you wake up and, my God, it’s adifferent world,” said TonyBurman, at the time AJE’s chiefstrategic adviser for the Ameri-cas. “Hosni Mubarak did in eigh-teen days what I thought it wouldtake two years to do.” Walkingthrough the State Department,Burman said, he sees his stationplaying on virtually every com-puter and television screen.21

Judea Pearl is a celebratedUniversity of California computerscientist and cofounder of theDaniel Pearl Dialogue for Mus-lim-Jewish Understanding, cre-ated to honor his son, the WallStreet Journal reporter kid-napped and beheaded in 2002 byal-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan.22

Since 2007, Pearl has been alonely voice on the left warning against AlJazeera’s legitimization. “Their unconditionalsupport of Hamas’s terror in Gaza, the Hezbollahtakeover in Lebanon, and the Syrian and Iranianregimes betrays any illusion that democracy andhuman rights are on Al Jazeera’s agenda”—hewrote this year—“weakening the West is theirfirst priority.”23

March Lynch, a commentator on Arabic me-dia, accurately noted, “There has been a switchon the perception of Al Jazeera Arabic, simplybecause right now, the U.S. and Al Jazeera Ara-bic are more aligned in backing the democracymovements ... It’s not like Al Jazeera or the U.S.have changed that much. The issues havechanged.”24

READING BETWEENTHE LINES

In 2006, months before going on air, AlJazeera English hired Dave Marash, a former an-chor for NBC Nightline. But just as Marash’s ar-rival lent the yet-unborn channel an aura of cred-ibility, his departure two years later cast doubt onwhether AJE would be willing and able to dis-tance itself from its predecessor’s worst practices.

“[T]he channel that’s on now—while excel-lent, and I plan to be a lifetime viewer—is not thechannel that I signed up to do,”25 Marash said.He recalled that after he was moved from anchorto reporter, the channel’s roster included not asingle presenter with an American accent—achoice Marash viewed as deliberate: “I took itparticularly amiss ... that their standard for jour-nalism on Al Jazeera in the United States didn’t

Kessler: Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera’s coverage of U.S. involvement in Iraq betrays itsIslamist sympathies, referring to suicide bombings againstU.S. troops as “paradise operations” and replacing wordssuch as “terror” and “insurgency” with “resistance” or“struggle.” It has also served as the mouthpiece for terrorists,here displaying kidnapped American contract worker JeffreyAke for propaganda purposes. Ake has never been found.

19 Aljazeera.net, Aug. 1, 2011.20 Politico, Apr. 17, 2011.21 Ibid.22 Daniel Pearl Foundation, accessed Sept. 22, 2011.23 Pearl, “A statement of observation concerning Al Jazeera.”24 Politico, Apr. 17, 2011. 25 The New York Times, Mar. 28, 2009.


seem consistently to be as good as their stan-dards elsewhere.”26

Marash cited a series called Poverty inAmerica to illustrate what he described as AJE’sunderlying anti-Americanism. “The specifics ofthe plan were so stereotypical and shallow thatthe planning desk in Washington said that wethink this is a very bad idea and recommendagainst it and won’t do it. And so the planningdesk in Doha literally sneaked a production teaminto the United States,” he said. “This series re-ported nothing beyond the stereotype and themere fact that there were homeless people livingon the street in Baltimore ... It was enough for themto show poor people living in wretched conditionsin a prosperous American city and decry it.”27

Likewise, Marash said, an item on indigenousMexicans in Chiapas State blamed their impover-ishment solely on the North American Free TradeAgreement, papering over the knottier issues ofrace, class, and relations between state and fed-eral governments in Mexico. “So again, it wasreally shoddy reporting,” he said.28

“When you speak topresenters on CNN andBBC, you’re usuallyspeaking to very seriouspeople who know the is-sues,” an Israeli spokes-person with extensive ex-perience with the channeltold me. “When they askyou a tough question, youcan presume it’s a tough

question that’s been thought about. On Al JazeeraEnglish, they can ask some tough questions, but itoften has the level of a campus debate.”29

RIGHT HOOK TO THE JAW

Its failings notwithstanding, Al Jazeera En-glish is leagues ahead of its Arabic analog in pro-

ducing news that meets the basic criteria of thejournalistic craft. AJE representatives’ failure toconvincingly explain that discrepancy—theirclumsy attempts to simultaneously tout the twochannels’ independence and their “shared vi-sion”—is cause for concern.

“At the end of the day, we don’t share thesame editorial policies,” Ayman Mohyeldin, thenAJE’s Cairo correspondent, said in February.“What we do share is the editorial code of ethicsand the same editorial vision as the network.”30

“Anyone who works at Al Jazeera English isconvinced that if you watch Al Jazeera English,and if you watch and understand Al Jazeera Ara-bic, you will be convinced that the journalism isprofessional, that the quality of work is very high,”said Mohyeldin, who left the network this sum-mer for NBC News. “The only problem is thatvery few people in the United States understandAl Jazeera Arabic. They buy into a lot of the innu-endos. Once they have that sense of fear, theyuse that brush to paint Al Jazeera Arabic and AlJazeera English with it.”31

Abderrahim Foukara, the Arabic channel’sWashington bureau chief, told the Council on For-eign Relations,

The way the truth may be defined in the Arabworld, and associate it with Al Jazeera, is notthe way Americans, for example, would definethe truth and associate it with, say, CNN orMSNBC or Fox. … Al Jazeera Arabic, be-cause it is so connected to a turbulent part ofthe world, the tone is different … it’s muchfeistier … The broad majority of Arabs iden-tify with the channel, not only in terms ofpolitical coverage, but the nuances, the readingbetween the lines.32

In truth, the bulk of AJA’s content has all thenuance of a right hook to the jaw. The non-Ara-bic speaker is immediately struck by the station’s

26 Brent Cunningham, “Dave Marash: Why I Quit,” ColumbiaJournalism Review, Apr. 4, 2008.27 Ibid.28 Ibid.29 Author telephone interview, Sept. 7, 2011.

An Israelispokesman saidthat an Al Jazeeraappearance closelyresembles aninterrogation.

30 Nitasha Tiku, “Q&A with Ayman Mohyeldin, Al JazeeraEnglish’s Correspondent in Cairo,” New York Magazine, Feb.11, 2011.31 Ibid.32 “Al-Jazeera: The World through Arab Eyes,” Council onForeign Relations, Washington, D.C., Feb. 17, 2011.

/ 51

frenetic tone and imagery, and a viewer with evena moderate command of the language is likely tobe all the more taken aback.

THE FREEST OF SPEECH

At its birth, Al Jazeera Arabic had an immedi-ate and profound effect on Middle Eastern me-dia, ushering in a new form of antiestablishmentbroadcasting in a region long dominated by statepropaganda. But while AJA was unusual in re-porting stories some regimes did not like, it alsoreported them in a way that reinforced rather thanundermined the region’s existing system ofideas.33

The language of resistance and martyrdomremains Al Jazeera’s mother tongue. In 2001, whilethe “second intifada” raged, Fouad Ajami wrote,“The channel’s policy was firm: Palestinianswho fell to Israeli gunfire were martyrs; Israe-lis killed by Palestinians were Israelis killed byPalestinians.”34 A decade on, little seems to havechanged—civilians are generally classified as“martyrs” if killed in Iraq, Gaza, Afghanistan, orany other Arab or Muslim locale. Elsewhere,people killed are people killed.35

Where Al Jazeera differs from state-run me-dia is in its allowance for free speech. AJA mar-kets itself as a forum for the very freest of expres-sion, “inviting anybody to come on the air andsay anything, often allowing perspectives thatlacked factual basis to go unchallenged,” accord-ing to a recent profile in the American Journal-ism Review.36

Yet even at Al Jazeera, free speech has itsred lines. In 1996, it was the first Arabic stationto let Israelis appear as on-air guests, oftenspeaking in Hebrew. Many viewers were stunned,having never before heard an Israeli speak—

much less in his or her native language.37 Still,the scope given to Israeli guests to express them-selves was, and is, extraordinarily limited. An Is-raeli spokesman who appears regularly on thechannel said that a typical appearance moreclosely resembles an interrogation than an inter-view. “We’re never invited to long interviewshows but always short interviews of three and ahalf minutes,” he said. “They’re unwilling to en-gage in a real dialogue, and instead use Israelis asfig leaves.”38

American contributors often receive similartreatment. A 2007 episode of the flagship talk showThe Opposite Directionfeatured as guests AdamEreli, State Departmentspokesman, and Mishanal-Jibouri, who was iden-tified as “head of the Rec-onciliation and LiberationBloc” in the Iraqi parlia-ment. When host Faisalal-Qassem asked whetherthe United States had in-vaded Iraq to free its people or its oil, Jibouriresponded unchallenged, “It’s not just Iraqi oil;it’s all Arab oil. They want to kill off indigenouspeople and control their wealth.” When Erelibegged to differ, the host cut him off: “The U.S. isthe biggest supporter of dictatorships. Aren’t youashamed to repeat these lies? Are you againstdictatorships? The U.S. created them with the CIAand all these other people, lying to the world.”39

Qassem neglected to mention that Jibouriwas a cofounder of al-Zawraa, a now-defunct sat-ellite station that specialized in gory segments ofinsurgent attacks on U.S.-led forces, accompa-nied by melodramatic musical scores and runningcommentary by camouflage-clad anchors vow-ing resistance until death.40

Kessler: Al Jazeera

33 Barry Rubin, The Tragedy of the Middle East (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 213.34 Ajami, “What the Muslim World Is Watching.”35 See, for example, “Behind the Scenes with Al-Jazeera,”Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, New York,Apr. 15, 2002.36 Sherry Ricchiardi, “The Al Jazeera Effect,” American Jour-nalism Review, Mar./Apr. 2011.

37 Hugh Miles, Al-Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab NewsChannel that Is Challenging the West (New York: Grove Press,2005), p. 37.38 Author telephone interview, Sept. 4, 2011.39 Kristen Gillespie, “The New Face of Al Jazeera,” The Nation,Nov. 26, 2007.40 The Guardian (London), Jan. 15, 2007.

Al Jazeera’ssectarianimpulse has beenmoving closer togarden-varietySunni Islamism.


FROM SECTARIANISMTO ISLAMISM

Al Jazeera’s detractors have long dismissedthe network as a vehicle for Doha’s foreign policy,one driven by Sunni sectarianism and an overrid-ing antagonism toward Iran.41 Voices critical ofQatar’s government—the “worst in the region”in tracking terrorist financing, according to U.S.diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks42—

are nonexistent in En-glish or Arabic.43 In 2011,both channels providedonly scant coverage ofthe uprising in neighbor-ing Bahrain—where adowntrodden Shiite ma-jority demanded greaterrights in the Sunni-ledkingdom44—and were

slow to cede airtime to the rebellion in Syria—aleader of the “resistance bloc” against the UnitedStates and Israel even if it is allied with the Shiitehegemon in Tehran.45

Over the past decade, however, Al Jazeera’ssectarian impulse has been moving ever closer togarden-variety Sunni Islamism, a shift dramaticenough to catch the attention even of the liberalbulwark The Nation. In 2007, the weekly’s KristenGillespie wrote that 9/11 “brought a new anti-im-perialist and, many argue, a pro-Sunni Islamist bentto the network ... The field reports are overwhelm-ingly negative with violent footage played overand over, highlighting Arab defeat and humilia-tion. And there’s a clear underlying message: thatthe way out of this spiral is political Islam.”

“[I]t doesn’t take much viewing of the chan-nel to discern a dual message,” Gillespie wrote.“Sunni religious figures are almost always treateddeferentially as voices of authority on almost

any issue, and Arab governments as uselessstooges of the United States and Israel.”

In the words of Alberto Fernandez, then-director for press and public diplomacy in theState Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Af-fairs, “We see the unconditional support of Is-lamic movements, no matter where they are: Leba-non, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan. … How thingsare covered, the prominence of things, whatwords are used—sometimes you do see that veryclear Islamist subtext.”46

In 2002, Al Jazeera Arabic promoted WadahKhanfar—a reporter from the West Bank townof Jenin widely believed to have close MuslimBrotherhood ties47—from Iraq bureau chief tomanaging director. Three years later Khanfar waspromoted to director general of the overall AlJazeera network, overseeing both language chan-nels. On both occasions, he replaced relativelysecular-minded journalists.

Gillespie spoke with nine active and formeremployees who described Khanfar as an Islamist.“Everyone is complaining about the new trendnow—that the liberals, the secular types, the Arabnationalists are getting downsized, and the Islamicposition is dominating the newsroom,” said aformer Baghdad correspondent. “From the firstday of the Wadah Khanfar era, there was a dra-matic change, especially because of him selectingassistants who are hard-line Islamists,” addedAJA’s former Washington bureau chief Hafez al-Mirazi, who resigned a year after Khanfar’s arrivalto protest the station’s “Islamist drift.”48

For his part, Khanfar has dismissed the ideathat his perspective was in any way at oddswith those of the channel’s viewers. “Islam ismore of a factor now in the influential politicaland social spheres of the Arab world, and the

41 Ricchiardi, “The Al Jazeera Effect”; The New York Times,Jan. 30, 2005.42 Financial Times (London), Dec. 5, 2010.43 The New York Times, Jan. 30, 2005.44 Time, May 24, 2011.45 Michael Young, “The shameful Arab silence on Syria,” TheDaily Star (Beirut), Apr. 7, 2011.

46 Gillespie, “The New Face of Al Jazeera.”47 Marc Lynch, “Al-Jazeera challenges: Pass the salt,” AbuAardvark, June 29, 2007. Lynch describes Khanfar as having“always been seen as pro-Islamist.”48 Gillespie, “The New Face of Al Jazeera”; Riadh Ferjani,“Religion and Television in the Arab World,” Middle EastJournal of Culture and Communication, no. 1, 2010, pp. 82-100. For more on Khanfar’s alleged Muslim Brotherhood tiessee “Analysis: Al Jazeera General Manager and His MuslimBrotherhood/Hamas Background,” The Global Muslim Broth-erhood Daily Report, Jan. 15, 2009.

Former employeesdescribedAl Jazeera’sdirector generalas an Islamist.

/ 53

network’s coverage reflects that,” hesaid. “Maybe you have more Islamicvoices [on AJA] because of the po-litical reality on the ground.”49 JudeaPearl put the channel’s agenda moreplainly: “I have no doubt that, today,Al Jazeera is the most powerful voiceof the Muslim Brotherhood.”50

The Obama State Departmentoverturned the Bush administration’srefusal to grant Khanfar a visa, and in2009, he met with State, Pentagon, andWhite House officials before embark-ing on a speaking tour that includedthe New America Foundation, Coun-cil on Foreign Relations, and MiddleEast Institute.51

Khanfar resigned as director gen-eral in September of this year,52 follow-ing the release of WikiLeaks cablesshowing he had met with U.S. officialsand agreed to tone down Iraq war cov-erage Washington deemed inflamma-tory.53 The choice of Khanfar’s replace-ment—an oil executive who belongsto the ruling al-Thani dynasty—is yetanother sign that despite U.S. pressureto privatize,54 Qatar intends to keep AlJazeera a wholly-owned family business.

THE PALESTINIANSTREET

Given its Islamist sympathies, it isunsurprising that the network sides heavily withHamas in its rivalry with the Fatah-led Palestin-ian Authority (PA). “In Arabic, it’s unmistak-able—Al Jazeera is not just pro-Palestinian, but

pro-Hamas,” the Israeli spokesman said.55 TheNew York Times—which has pushed for AJE’sinclusion on U.S. cable56—has conceded thatthere is “little doubt” the Arabic channel por-trays Hamas more favorably than its rivals.57

Polls show a remarkable 53 percent of Pales-tinians use Al Jazeera as their primary news sourcewith Saudi-owned Al Arabiya a distant second at13 percent. The way AJA covers any prospectiveIsraeli-Palestinian agreement will fundamentallyshape how such a deal is viewed—and whether itis accepted—by the Palestinian public.58

When in 2009 Mahmoud Abbas agreed todefer a U.N. Human Rights Council discussion

Kessler: Al Jazeera

If there was any doubt about Al Jazeera’s sympathiesand lack of neutrality, it was effectively laid to rest withthe channel’s coverage of the release of Samir Kuntar.Kuntar had savagely murdered two Israelis in 1979,including a 4-year old girl, and had been jailed in Israelsince then. On his 2008 release in an Israel-Hezbollahdeal, Al Jazeera Arabic threw him a party: “BrotherSamir, we wish to celebrate your birthday with you,”crowed the station’s Beirut bureau chief, hailing Kuntaras a “pan-Arab hero.”

49 Gillespie, “The New Face of Al Jazeera.”50 Pearl, “A statement of observation concerning Al Jazeera.”51 Steve Clemons, “Wadah Khanfar: Pushing Reset onAmerica’s Relationship with Al Jazeera and the Arab World,”Washington Note, July 25, 2009.52 The New York Times, Sept. 20, 2011.53 “9/17 Meeting with Al Jazeera Managing Director,”WikiLeaks, posted Aug. 30, 2011; “PAO Meeting with Al JazeeraManaging Director,” WikiLeaks, posted Aug. 30, 2011.54 The Washington Post, Jan. 31, 2005.

55 Author telephone interview, Sept. 4, 2011.56 The New York Times, Feb. 1, 2011.57 Ibid., Jan. 28, 2011.58 Noah Bonsey and Jeb Koogler, “Does the Path to MiddleEast Peace Stop in Doha?” Columbia Journalism Review, Feb.16, 2010.


of the notorious Goldstone report on that year’sGaza offensive, Al Jazeera censured the PA presi-dent for his “capitulation” to Israeli and Westerndemands. The resulting public outcry nearly re-sulted in Abbas’s resignation.59

Early this year, thenetwork published the“Palestine Papers”—aleak of 1,700 files encom-passing a decade’s worthof Israeli-Palestinian ne-gotiations—promptingcommentators across theArab world to denouncethe PA leadership forsupposedly agreeing towide-ranging conces-

sions toward Israel. “The fact is that Al Jazeerahas never done the same against Hamas, and thatHamas has never complained about Al Jazeera’scoverage,” the Israeli spokesman said. “It’s al-ways the Palestinian Authority that complains.”60

ANTI-SEMITIC,ANTI-ISRAEL

On Al Jazeera Arabic, anti-Israel sentimenttends to bleed indistinguishably into anti-Semitism. Erik Nisbet, a scholar of Arabic media atOhio State University, said the channel’s treat-ment of extremists would be roughly akin to aU.S. network giving airtime to the Ku Klux Klan.American channels, he said, “would report onthem, but they are not going to do in-depth inter-views or invite them to be on mainstream talkshows, and let them say anything they want, butAl Jazeera does.” According to Nisbet, there is“no doubt” that anti-Semitism is woven into thevery fabric of AJA’s reporting.61

After 9/11, AJA presenters repeated, unchal-lenged, a report that Jews had been tipped off notto report to work at the World Trade Center thatmorning. Contributors running the clerical,

jihadist, and guerrilla gamut blamed Jews for theattacks and urged the United States to “get rid”of its own.62 The summer before, an episode ofThe Opposite Direction was dedicated to thequestion, “Is Zionism Worse than Nazism?” Ofthe 12,000 viewers who called in, 85 percent an-swered in the affirmative, 11 percent saw both asequally bad, and 2.7 percent ventured that Na-zism was worse.63

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, host of Al Jazeera’s mostpopular program, Shari‘a and Life, regularlyfroths about the insidious character of Shiites,Americans, and especially Jews.64 “Oh Allah, takethis oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people.Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. OhAllah, count their numbers, and kill them, downto the very last one,” he said on air in 2009.65

Elsewhere, Qaradawi praised Hitler’s treatment ofthe Jews (“even though they exaggerated the is-sue”) but stressed the führer’s regret at not fin-ishing the job.66

THE KUNTAR AFFAIR

If there was a single incident that exemplifiedthe worst of Al Jazeera, it was the Samir Kuntaraffair—an appalling low for the network in bothlanguages.

In April 1979, a 16-year-old Kuntar left hisnative Lebanon with three Palestine LiberationFront comrades for a kidnap attempt in Nahariya,northern Israel. Arriving by boat, they killed apoliceman before breaking into a randomly cho-sen home. Kuntar took 31-year-old Danny Haranand his 4-year-old daughter Einat hostage, thenbrought them to the seashore to take them to Leba-

59 Ibid.60 Ibid.61 Ricchiardi, “The Al Jazeera Effect.”

62 “Requests to add Al Jazeera to the lists of eligible satelliteservices for distribution on a digital basis,” Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, July 15, 2004.63 “Zionism and Nazism: A Discussion on the TV Channel Al-Jazeera,” Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), June7, 2001, quoted in Rubin, The Tragedy of the Middle East, p.213.64 Lee Smith, The Strong Horse: Power, Politics and the Clashof Arab Civilizations (New York: Anchor Books, 2010), p. 129.65 “Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradawi on Al-Jazeera Incites againstJews, Arab Regimes, and the U.S.,” MEMRI, Jan. 12, 2009.66 “Al-Qaradawi Praising Hitler’s Anti-Semitism,” MEMRI,on YouTube, Feb. 10, 2009.

On Al JazeeraArabic,anti-Israelsentiment bleedsindistinguishablyinto anti-Semitism.

/ 55Kessler: Al Jazeera

non. As a firefight erupted with Israeli troopsand police, Kuntar shot Haran dead before hisdaughter’s eyes (drowning him in the sea forgood measure) before ending the girl’s life bybashing her head against beach rocks, thensmashing it with his rifle butt. An Israeli courtalso found Kuntar guilty of indirectly causingthe death of Einat’s 2-year-old sister Yael, whosuffocated during the kidnap attempt as hermother, hiding in a bedroom crawlspace, des-perately covered her mouth.67

Sentenced to four life sentences, Kuntarnever expressed remorse for his deeds, insist-ing for decades that he had urged Danny Haranto leave Einat at home, and that once at thebeach, the girl died by Israeli fire (the first claimdefies credulity; the second was refuted byphotographs that later emerged and unanimouseyewitness testimony).68

When in July 2008, four days before his forty-sixth birthday, Kuntar was released in an Israel-Hezbollah deal, Al Jazeera Arabic threw him aparty. “Brother Samir, we wish to celebrate yourbirthday with you,” said Ghassan Ben Jeddo, thestation’s Beirut bureau chief, playing master ofceremonies. “You deserve even more than this,”he said, hailing Kuntar—pudgy and bemused ina mock military uniform—as a “pan-Arab hero.”69

While a live band tooted a martial medley,food servers rolled out a cake adorned with im-ages of terrorist leaders including Hezbollah’sHassan Nasrallah. Handing Kuntar a scimitar tocut a piece, Ben Jeddo gushed, “This is the swordof the Arabs, Samir.”70

Israel threatened to boycott the channel un-less it apologized, and AJA’s director generalpenned a letter admitting “elements of the pro-gram violated Al Jazeera’s code of ethics” andsaying he had ordered steps be taken to ensure asimilar incident was not repeated. AJA’s deputyeditor later clarified that the channel had not ac-tually apologized.71

“The gentleman involved was fully repri-manded, and he no longer works for us,” Al JazeeraEnglish managing director Al Anstey said thissummer. “Clearly, that was taken very seriously.That is not the channel I run. I would not haverun that … Action was taken immediately afterthe show was aired.”72

It is unclear which “gentleman” received thereprimand. Ben Jeddo stayed on as Beirut bureauchief until this year when he resigned to protestthe network’s hard-hitting if belated coverage ofthe Syrian crackdown. “The channel ended adream of objectivity and professionalism after AlJazeera stopped being a media source and be-came an operations room for incitement and mo-bilization,” he wrote in his resignation letter withapparent seriousness.73

In English, Al Jazeera’s coverage of the eventwas only marginally bet-ter. In the lead-up toKuntar’s release, AJE aireda segment from his homevillage of Abieh in whichreporter Zeina Khodr de-scribed Nahariya, a citywithin Israel’s sovereignborders, as a “settlement.”After introducing Kuntarby his full name, shenamed him seven times byhis first name and not once by his last. Nowheredid she mention the brutality with which Kuntar’svictims were murdered.74

On Kuntar’s release, Lebanon-based reporterRula Amin effused that “in his hometown, SamirKuntar is received as a freedom fighter, and hewas received with a festive ceremony. A hero, evento those who were not even born when he wentto prison.” Amin apparently found it more remark-able that Kuntar’s admirers included young

67 The Jerusalem Post, June 16, 2008.68 The New York Times, July 7, 2005.69 “Al Jazeera Throws Party for Child Killer (Samir Kuntar),”MEMRI, on YouTube, Aug. 22, 2008.70 Ibid.

71 “Al-Jazeera Deputy Editor: We Didn’t Apologize for KuntarFestivities,” MEMRI, accessed Aug. 27, 2011.72 The Jewish Week (New York), Aug. 9, 2011.73 Ghassan ben Jeddo, Facebook page, accessed Sept. 22, 2011;“Why Did Ghassan Ben Jeddo Resign from Aljazeera?” BeirutSpring blog, Apr. 23, 2011.74 “Samir Kantar’s family awaits his return,” Al Jazeera English,on YouTube, July 15, 2008.

The AJA websitefeatured a mapof the MiddleEast and NorthAfrica with everycountry markedexcept Israel.


people than that an entire village, country, andregion should lionize a child murderer.

“A display of unity in Abieh,” she concluded,“may be the start of reconciliation betweenHezbollah and Walid Jumblatt,” the LebaneseDruze leader. As Amin would have it, the crux ofthe story is not the inverted morals of Kuntar’sreception but the prospect of that reception serv-ing as a catalyst for Lebanese reconciliation.75

Only one AJE segment—by Sky News veteranDavid Chater—included an explicit account ofKuntar’s actions.76

“Al Jazeera English has hired some verygood people, but they’ve also got people who Idon’t think would be hired by other serious me-dia outlets,” said one Israeli spokesperson. “Somereally try to be professional in a journalistic senseand tell the story fairly. Others are ultimately drivenby an agenda, which is, of course, quite hostile toIsrael.”77

Perhaps as a result of the Kuntar episode, oras part of its push into America, AJE appears latelyto be showing more caution in its coverage ofIsrael. In July, its Inside Story series devoted afull half-hour episode to the country’s cost-of-living protests78 then did the same a week laterwith guests including government officials and aHa’aretz columnist.79 In August, its Playlist se-ries rebroadcast an April segment on Middle East-ern heavy metal bands featuring acts from Iran,Dubai, Lebanon—and two from Israel.80

Hours of watching AJA in July and Augustfor this article produced not a single similar hu-man-interest story on Israel in Arabic. Instead,during the months that the Arab revolutions raged,the AJA website featured a map of the Middle

East and North Africa with every country markedexcept Israel. The Green Line demarcating Israeland the West Bank appeared, but beside it wasthe single word “Palestine.”81

HOPES DASHED,WINDOWS SMASHED

Four years ago, Judea Pearl expressed hopethat Al Jazeera might “learn to harness its popu-larity in the service of humanity, progress, andmoderation.”82 At that time many analysts be-lieved the network represented democracy in itsinfancy, and “you don’t slap an infant on the wristbefore it learns to stand on its feet.”83

“In 2007, I was still hoping that Al Jazeera willbecome a force for good,” he recalled earlier thisyear. “Unfortunately, the opposite has happened.Al Jazeera’s popularity and general acceptance inthe West has emboldened its management to takean even harder anti-Western stance.”84

“Today, we have much deeper concerns withAl Jazeera—it is no longer a clash with journalis-tic standards but a clash with the norms of civi-lized society,” Pearl wrote. “Our charming infantis smashing windows now and poisoning pets inthe neighborhood—a slap on the wrist is per-haps way overdue.”85

As Al Jazeera English expands into theUnited States, it will need to choose one of threeoptions. The first is to continue its present gam-bit of declaring a common “vision” with its par-ent channel while hoping the latter’s indiscretionssomehow do not reflect poorly on itself. The sec-ond is to pressure that same out-of-control kin topull its act together, lest it once again cast doubton the character of both. Failing that, Al JazeeraEnglish will have but one alternative: to categori-cally and unequivocally cut its own cord.75 “Samir Kuntar returns home,” Al Jazeera English, on YouTube,

July 17, 2008.76 “Israel’s deal with Hezbollah,” Al Jazeera English, onYouTube, June 29, 2008.77 Author telephone interview, Sept. 7, 2011.78 “Has the Arab Spring arrived in Israel?” Al Jazeera English,Aug. 1, 2011.79 “In Israel, ‘It’s the economy, stupid,’” Al Jazeera English,Aug. 8, 2011.80 Rebroadcast of “Rocking the System,” Al Jazeera English,Apr. 20, 2009 segment.

81 Aljazeera.net, accessed Aug. and Sept. 2011.82 Pearl, “Another perspective, or jihad TV?”83 Judea Pearl, “Al-Jazeera and the Glorification of Barbarity,”The Jewish Journal, Aug. 20, 2008.84 Pearl, “A statement of observation concerning Al Jazeera.”85 Pearl, “Al-Jazeera and the Glorification of Barbarity.”

/ 57 Al-Tamimi: U.S. Afghanistan Strategy

POLICY BRIEF

Rethinking U.S. Strategyin Afghanistanby Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi

As U.S. military operations in Afghanistan drag on inconclusively, it is becoming increas-ingly apparent that the Taliban insurgency is gaining ground. In the first six months of 2010,for example, there was a 31 percent rise in civilian casualties while the Shari‘a was imple-mented in areas hitherto inaccessible to the Taliban.1 Insurgent attacks in the first quarter of2011 grew by 51 percent compared with the previous year2 while the Afghan securityforces have been increasingly penetrated by the Taliban.3

It is hardly surprising therefore that President Hamid Karzai has reportedly held sev-eral meetings with the Taliban over the past three years in an attempt to strike a deal.4 Inthe meantime, Pakistan is being destabilized still further, especially with the rise of newmilitant groups such as the Punjabi Taliban, despite increased attacks against militant hide-outs in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan.5

The emerging picture is very grim, indeed. How is it that, despite making Afghanistanthe cornerstone of its struggle against militant extremism, the Obama administration’s strat-egy is failing so miserably ? Does the president’s plan to withdraw 10,000 troops by theend of this year, and to remove all 33,000 troops originally added as part of the surge bythe end of next summer, have a realistic chance of success?6 And are there any viablealternatives to this failing strategy?

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is an intern at theMiddle East Forum.

THE “SURGE” ANDTHE AFGHAN ARMY

The clearest difference between the Bushand the Obama administrations’ Afghan strate-gies is the more recent deployment of nearly60,000 additional troops as part of a surge, mostlyin the Pashtun areas of the south and east wherethe Taliban insurgency is strongest.7 However,

according to Matthew Hoh, former senior civil-ian U.S. representative in the southeastern prov-ince of Zabul, who resigned in protest over the

1 U.N. News Center (New York), Aug. 10, 2010; The DailyTelegraph (London), Aug. 16, 2010.2 “ANSO Quarterly Data Report, Q1 2011,” The AfghanistanNGO Safety Office, London, Apr. 2011.3 The New York Times, May 22, 2011.4 See, for example, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 2, 2010.5 Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Special Dis-patch, no. 2979, May 26, 2010.6 The Huffington Post, June 22, 2011.7 The Examiner (Seattle), Aug. 24, 2010.


current strategy, the “U.S.and NATO presence andoperations in Pashtun val-leys and villages, as well asAfghan army and policeunits that are led and composed of non-Pashtunsoldiers and police, provide an occupation force”against which a Pashtun insurgency “composedof multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups” isjustified.8

Hoh’s observations should not be thatsurprising. As noted in an International CrisisGroup report, the disorganized and weak Af-ghan National Army (ANA), plagued by illit-eracy and innumeracy, comprises a dispropor-tionately large percentage of ethnic Tajiks whoare often deployed to the Pashtun areas.9 Sucha policy poses a major problem for the officialcounterinsurgency strategy objective of win-ning “the hearts and minds” of the Afghanpopulation.

The lack of Pashtun soldiers in southernand eastern Afghanistan, together with the in-crease in the number of U.S. and other non-Afghan troops, means that the coalition’s pres-ence in Pashtun lands is largely viewed as aforeign force that should be resisted, provok-ing a localized Pashtun nationalist insurgency,which, in Hoh’s words “is fed by what is per-ceived … as a continued and sustained assault,going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture,traditions, and religion by internal and externalenemies.”10 Attitudes among Afghans as a wholewere less intense, yet a January 2010 poll foundthat 31 percent opposed U.S. military presencewhile 37 percent opposed the presence of NATOforces or International Security AssistanceForces (ISAF).11 Given that the Pashtuns com-prise roughly 30 to 40 percent of Afghanistan’s

population, the intensifi-cation of a Pashtun insur-gency is bound to allowthe Taliban to make furtheradvances.

THE KARZAI REGIME

The second major problem with the presentstrategy relates to the propping up of Karzai’scentralized regime in Kabul, which has cost theU.S. taxpayer almost $300 billion in military andreconstruction (i.e., nation-building) efforts sincethe 2001 invasion.12 Nonetheless, when an al-ready corrupt regime is flooded with aid, it simplybecomes more corrupt. In 2007, Afghanistanranked 172nd of 179 countries in TransparencyInternational’s Corruption Perception Index(CPI),13 dropping to the 179th place out of 180countries in the 2009 CPI,14 and finally levelingoff at 176th of 178 countries in the 2010 CPI (jointsecond last with Myanmar).15 A report of flagrantcorruption appeared in the German daily DerSpiegel, which stated that “billions of dollars arebeing secreted out of Kabul to help well-con-nected Afghans buy luxury villas in Dubai.”16 Asimilar trend toward corruption attending the in-flux of U.S. aid can be observed in Iraq, whichranked 113th of 133 countries in the 2003 CPI but176th of 180 countries in the 2009 CPI after hav-ing received in excess of $50 billion in U.S. recon-struction money.17

Nor should the failure of the present nation-building project in Afghanistan be surprisinggiven the unhappy fate of similar efforts, notablythe Helmand Valley Project, lavishly funded withU.S. aid from 1946 to 1979. According to foreignpolicy analyst Nick Cullather, incorporating “edu-

8 Matthew Hoh to Amb. Nancy Powell, letter of resignation,Sept. 10, 2009.9 “A Force in Fragments: Restructuring the Afghan NationalArmy,” International Crisis Group, Washington, D.C., May 12,2010, p. 20.10 Hoh to Amb. Powell.11 Afghan poll, Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and OpinionResearch, Kabul, Dec. 11-23, 2009.

The coalition’s presence inPashtun lands is viewed asa foreign force that shouldbe resisted.

12 Der Spiegel (Berlin), June 5, 2010.13 Corruption Perceptions Index 2007, Transparency Interna-tional, Berlin, accessed Aug. 8, 2011.14 Corruption Perceptions Index 2009, Transparency Interna-tional, Berlin, accessed Aug. 8, 2011.15 Corruption Perceptions Index 2010, Transparency Interna-tional, Berlin, accessed Aug. 8, 2011.16 Der Spiegel, June 5, 2010.17 Corruption Perceptions Index 2009.

/ 59

cation, industry, agriculture, medicine,and marketing under a single control-ling authority,” this project ultimatelyfaltered as “the engines and dreams ofmodernization had run their full course,spooling out across the desert until theyhit limits of physics, culture, and his-tory … [Yet] proponents of a fresh na-tion-building venture in Afghanistan,unaware of the results of the last one,have resurrected its imaginings.”18

The appalling lack of transparencyaside, the Karzai regime’s standing asan unrepresentative and illegitimategovernment is illustrated by the fact thatthe 2009 presidential elections weremarked by low voter turnout, ballotstuffing, intimidation of opponents,and widespread electoral fraud. AfterKarzai’s reelection, cabinet ministerswere selected by the Afghan parliamentlargely on the basis of, in the words ofone parliament member, “ethnicity orbribery or money.”19 The parliamentaryelections in September 2010 were like-wise marked by electoral fraud.20

Other flaws of the Karzai regime include itsdisregard for the concepts of freedom and humanrights and the presence of drug lords and warcriminals in its ranks. As Freedom House’s 2010Afghanistan assessment noted, while “blas-phemy and apostasy by Muslims are consideredcapital crimes,” the Afghan supreme court is “com-posed of religious scholars who have little knowl-edge of civil jurisprudence.” Furthermore, prisonconditions are extremely poor with many detain-ees held illegally and “in a prevailing climate ofimpunity, government ministers as well as war-lords in some provinces sanction widespreadabuses by the police, military, and intelligence

forces under their command, including arbitraryarrest and detention, torture, extortion, and extra-judicial killings.”21

All these factors only distance the Afghanpeople from its government and drive them intothe arms of the Taliban, in both Pashtun and non-Pashtun areas.

IGNORINGSTRATEGIC DEPTH

Despite the widespread publicity given toleaked documents detailing support for Talibanoperations in Afghanistan by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), the problem ofthe Pakistani army and the ISI’s expansionistpolicy of “strategic depth” has yet to be ad-

Al-Tamimi: U.S. Afghanistan Strategy

POLICY BRIEF

18 Nick Cullather, “From New Deal to New Frontier in Afghani-stan: Modernization in a Buffer State,” The Cold War as GlobalConflict, International Center for Advanced Studies, New YorkUniversity, Working Paper, no. 6, Aug. 2002.19 BBC News, Jan. 2, 2010.20 “Freedom in the World 2011, Afghanistan,” Freedom House,Washington, D.C., accessed Aug. 8, 2011.

21 “Freedom in the World 2010, Afghanistan,” Freedom House,Washington, D.C., accessed Aug. 8, 2011.

Current U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is heavily relianton the whims and schemes of President Hamid Karzai(left), a feckless and inconsistent U.S. ally, seen herewith then-presidential candidate Barack Obama,Kabul, July 21, 2008. The 2009 Afghan presidentialelections were marked by low voter turnout, ballotstuffing, intimidation of opponents, and widespreadelectoral fraud.


dressed in a meaningful way.This policy, rooted primarilyin Pakistanis’ perception oftheir country’s identity as anIslamic state and pursued in Afghanistan, Kash-mir, and parts of India, has been manifested insupport for various Islamist militant groups for atleast four decades as a means of projecting Paki-stani influence abroad.

Pakistan itself is an artificial state composedof diverse ethnic groups that are united solely byreligious affiliation. Hence, fear of Pashtun andBaloch (Pakistan’s largest provinces geographi-cally) desires for autonomy or independence, to-gether with concern about India’s influence, alsoprovides a basis for pursuing Pakistani strategicdepth. For example, to suppress Baloch national-ism, the Pakistani military and intelligence haveengaged in human rights abuses including thearrest and disappearance of some 8,000 Balochactivists in secret prisons.22 They have also safe-guarded the Taliban Shura, the council respon-sible for directing operations in Afghanistan un-der the leadership of Mullah Omar, which for itspart has formed a close working relationship withthe Haqqani terrorist network and other Islamistmilitants in Afghanistan.23 At the same time, thePakistani army and ISI are dependent on Westernfinancial aid and, consequently, engage in limitedcooperation with Washington and NATO by play-ing a double game with militants based in the Af-ghan-Pakistani border regions. This involves at-tacking them on occasion but often providing earlywarnings and escape routes during security op-erations against them.24 That said, the militaryand intelligence do allow for U.S. drone attacksand are directly engaged in clashes with groupssuch as the Tehreek-e-Taliban in Waziristan,which are committed to overthrowing the Paki-stani government.25

The result has been the increasing destabili-

zation of Pakistan itself. Aclear example is the rise ofthe Punjabi Taliban, themost likely culprit for the

bombing of a Sufi shrine in Lahore in July 2010,which killed at least forty people: Pakistani armyand ISI coddling of Punjab-based Islamistgroups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba has allowed forthese organizations to provide safe havens insouthwest Punjab for Taliban militants who havethen set up Islamic seminaries to promote theirideology.26

In addition, there is increasing cooperationbetween Islamabad and Beijing in opposition towhat is viewed as a U.S.-Russian alliance in Af-ghanistan.27 Most notably, some 11,000 Chinesetroops have been stationed in the northernmostprovince of Gilgit-Baltistan, ostensibly to provideaid for flood-relief efforts,28 where they have beenreportedly “building infrastructure by investingbillions of dollars.”29 The aim is to ensure controlover a route leading to the port of Gwadar inBalochistan with relatively near access to thePersian Gulf and proximity to substantial copperreserves. This is another reason behind the Paki-stani military and intelligence’s safeguarding ofthe Taliban Shura and other Islamist militants inBalochistan; exploitation of the province’s min-eral wealth and Chinese investment have gener-ally not benefitted the indigenous population,sparking discontent and adding fuel to the Balochnationalist insurgency.30

Pakistan has also signed a number of largearms deals with China. During Pakistani prime min-ister Yousuf Gilani’s visit to Beijing on May 17-20, 2011, the Chinese agreed to provide Islamabad“immediately” with fifty new JF-17 Thunder mul-tipurpose fighter jets,31 driving the Indian defense

Pakistan has signed anumber of large armsdeals with China.

22 The Nation (Islamabad), Oct. 24, 2009.23 Tufail Ahmad and Y. Carmon, “The New U.S. Policy inAfghanistan: Evading the Root of the Problem,” Inquiry andAnalysis Series Report, no. 568, MEMRI, Dec. 2, 2009.24 Ibid.25 The Long War Journal (Washington, D.C.), Aug. 14, 2011.

26 Amjad Ayub Mirza, “The Warrior Seminaries of Punjab,”Daily Times (Lahore), July 17, 2010.27 Inquiry and Analysis Series Report, no. 691, MEMRI, May26, 2011.28 Ibid.29 Special Dispatch, no. 3772, MEMRI, Apr. 19, 2011.30 The Guardian (London), July 18, 2010.31 Inquiry and Analysis Series Report, no. 691, MEMRI, May26, 2011.

/ 61

minister to attack the deal as a“matter of serious concern” thatwould force New Delhi to upgradeits military “capability.”32

In failing to address the prob-lem of strategic depth in any mean-ingful way, U.S. strategy has alsoinadvertently swung the Indiangovernment away from its for-merly pro-Western orientation be-cause New Delhi, like Tehran, hasa vested interest in an indepen-dent Afghanistan, free of Talibanrule, so as to reduce Pakistan’s in-fluence in that country. Thus, forexample, in April 2010, ForeignMinister S. M. Krishna reiteratedNew Delhi’s official disagreementwith Washington’s opposition tothe Iranian nuclear program andwelcomed Tehran’s plan to sendlow-enriched uranium to Turkey.33

This policy shift was effectively areversal of the Indian government’sNovember 2009 vote alongsideWashington at the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency to refer the Iranian nuclearprogram to the U.N. Security Council.34

WHAT’S NEXT?

If the present flawed strategy is sustained,it is likely that the Obama administration, havingeventually realized Afghanistan’s increasing de-stabilization, will not uphold the withdrawal time-table that began in July and will instead committroops for many years to come. Indeed, seniormilitary figures such as Adm. Michael Mullen,chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, already havein mind a much greater, long-term commitmentto a large U.S. military presence.35 Though a

Taliban takeover of the country is highly un-likely, the ongoing war will prove at best a mas-sive drain on U.S. resources and lives, possiblyreaching a cost of up to $100 billion a year, all forkilling a few dozen al-Qaeda militants in a coun-try whose annual gross domestic product is amere $13 billion.36

Contrary to the official line of Western gov-ernments, the fear of Afghanistan becoming onceagain an al-Qaeda base for overseas terror attacksis not that well-grounded. Although al-Qaeda andallied groups are well established in Somalia,Yemen, and Pakistan, they have largely evolvedbeyond conventional bases with their primaryrecruiting tool being the Internet. Consequently,they are capable of devising and preparing terrorattacks on Western soil such as the Madrid train


A Chinese special forces commander gestures to a Pakistanisoldier during a joint military drill near Karachi, Pakistan,March 8, 2009. The growing alliance between the People’sRepublic of China and Pakistan further complicates U.S.policy options and exacerbates tensions in the area. Some11,000 Chinese troops have been stationed in Pakistan’snorthernmost province, and Beijing has promised Islamabadadvanced fighter jets.

POLICY BRIEF

32 Ibid.33 Inquiry and Analysis Series Report, no. 568, MEMRI, Dec.2, 2009.34 Deccan Herald (Bangalore), Nov. 27, 2009.35 Agence France-Press, June 15, 2011.

36 “The Cost of the Afghanistan War,” Afghanistan Study Group,Washington, D.C., Aug. 16, 2010.


the failure of talks with al-Qaeda over the release ofnaval officers arrested onsuspicion of links to the

terror group. At least ten people were killed andtwo U.S.-made P3-C Orion surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft worth $36 million each weredestroyed.40 How, then, can it be taken for grantedthat Pakistan’s nuclear stockpiles are so muchmore secure?

POSSIBLE STRATEGYCHANGES

In light of the failure of the current strategy,it is worthwhile to examine a number of proposedalternative approaches to the war in Afghanistanand weigh their pros and cons.

Pakistan Garrison. In his book OperationDark Heart and elsewhere,41 Col. AnthonyShaffer suggests that Washington withdraw con-ventional forces as quickly as possible, leaving20,000 special forces troops in Afghanistan andgarrisoning forces in Pakistan for operationsagainst al-Qaeda militants and their allies. Yet, asMatthew Hoh pointed out, while garrisoningtroops in Pakistan may be conducive to fightingal-Qaeda, this scenario is unlikely to materializeas the Islamabad government would not risk thepublic and military outrage attending the perma-nent deployment of these troops.42

Promote economic development in Afghani-stan. This suggestion, put forward by the authorsof the Afghanistan Study Group report, includes“giving Afghanistan preferential trading statuswith the U.S., Europe, Japan, and other leadingglobal economies,” together with “promoting‘special reconstruction zones’ for foreign and do-mestic companies to produce export goods.”43

Many Afghans view theTaliban as a force intendingto serve Pakistani interests.

37 The Nation (Islamabad), July 6, 2006.38 “2002-Kashmir Crisis,” GlobalSecurity.org, accessed Aug.8, 2011.39 BBC News, Jan. 29, 2007.

40 Asia Times (Hong Kong), May 27, 2011.41 Anthony Shaffer, Operation Dark Heart (Edinburgh: Main-stream Publishing Company Ltd., 2011), pp. 278-81.42 Hoh to Amb. Powell.43 “The Way Forward: A Five Point-Approach,” AfghanistanStudy Group, Washington, D.C., Aug. 16, 2010.

bombing in March 2004 andthe July 2005 London bomb-ing. Do proponents of thepresent strategy to prevental-Qaeda’s resurgence in Afghanistan also rec-ommend sending large forces to Somalia andYemen? Indeed, in Somalia there is an AfricanUnion peacekeeping force, deeply resented bythe local population, which is actually losingground to Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen, anal-Qaeda-allied group.

It is also likely that the Pakistani military andintelligence, after securing their interests in Af-ghanistan, will focus their policy of strategic depthon India, Kashmir, and Bangladesh, destabilizingthe whole of South Asia. Given aggravating fac-tors such as growing tension between Pakistanand India, owing to the former’s water crisis, anIndo-Pakistani regional war might well ensue.When Pakistan was able to focus its policy of“strategic depth” elsewhere, a military conflict withIndia occurred in 1999 following Pakistani incur-sions into Kashmir. This did not involve the useof nuclear weapons, but then-President Musharrafmoved nuclear warheads toward the joint border.37

One may also note the Indo-Pakistani military-standoff in 2001-02 over Kashmir that was onlyprevented from turning into an all-out war by in-tense international mediation.38

Though there is no sign of militants seizingnuclear weapon stockpiles, a Pakistani refocuson strategic depth vis-à-vis the Indian subconti-nent could well increase the chance of Pakistanior Indian nuclear weapons falling into the handsof Islamist militant groups such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban; this group is committed to attacking theUnited States and other Western countries unlessthey “accept Islam or pay jizya [a tax imposed onnon-Muslims].”39 Such a scenario should not bedismissed out of hand. After all, militants wereable to launch a hard-hitting assault on a majornaval base in Karachi on May 22, 2011, following

/ 63

Strike a deal with theIslamist militants. There isfrequent talk of the need tonegotiate a deal with theideologically-driven insur-

gents. To this end, certain U.S. officials—such asspecial envoy Marc Grossman—seem eager toestablish contact with Mullah Omar and have him“bless a political settlement on behalf of mostAfghan insurgents.”50

This approach, however, creates numerousproblems. First, there is no indication that if acertain group agreed to a deal with the Westernpowers, it would be followed by other, let aloneall, militant groups. Were a treaty of sorts to bestruck with Mullah Omar, it does not follow thatthe Haqqani network, for example, would adhereto it. Concerning the Taliban itself, the eventsthat unfolded after the “Shari‘a for peace” dealsin 2009 between the Pakistani security forces andthe Taliban in the Swat Valley51 demonstrate theways in which the Islamist militants could exploitan agreement as a prelude to expanding controlinto adjoining areas. The “Shari‘a for peace” dealswere initially struck in February 2009, but thespread of violence perpetrated by Taliban mili-tants in Swat eventually led to an offensive in thearea by the Pakistani security forces in May 2009.Further, it is unlikely that members of the variousIslamist groups accept the basic ideals of plural-ism, respect for the rule of law, and human rights.In addition, the 2010 debacle over Mullah AkhtarMuhammad Mansour illustrates the fog sur-rounding any potential reconciliation process withthe militants. Depicted as one of the most seniorTaliban leaders in direct negotiations with theKarzai government, Mullah Mansour was actu-ally a shopkeeper, based in Quetta, who concocteda web of lies about his Taliban credentials in or-der to receive hefty payments.52

Indeed, the notion that the “ideological in-


POLICY BRIEF

44 Ibid.45 Eli Berman, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Con-structive COIN,” Foreign Affairs, June 1, 2010.46 Ibid, cited in Joel Wing, “Fighting Insurgents Isn’t the Sameas Countering Terrorists,” Musings on Iraq, July 25, 2010.47 Ibid.48 The Guardian, Dec. 5, 2010.

49 Daniel Pipes, “The Causes of Terrorism: It’s Not aboutMoney,” DanielPipes.org, June 24, 2002.50 Michael Hughes, “Desperately Seeking out Mullah Omar,”The Huffington Post, May 31, 2011.51 MEMRI, Dec. 15, 2010.52 The New York Times, Nov. 22, 2010.

A U.S. strategy ofcontainment coupledwith broader regionalengagement is needed.

This proposed policyis based on the belief that“endemic poverty has madesome elements of the popu-lation susceptible to Talibanovertures. Moreover, failed and destitute statesfrequently become incubators for terrorism, drugand human trafficking, and other illicit activi-ties.”44 It represents a common belief amongcounterinsurgency theorists: namely, that creat-ing employment opportunities drives people awayfrom militant groups. However, a 2010 study basedon research in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the south-ern Philippines, showed that far from reducingviolence, providing jobs actually led to increasedviolence.45 A plausible explanation for this is thatwhile government counterinsurgency programsmay promote employment at the local level, fight-ing continues to disrupt the overall economy sothat there is no substantial change in the mili-tary situation.46 People may get jobs “cleaningstreets, picking up trash, or manning a check-point,” but their pay is “probably still low,” andthe business environment remains poor owingto instability.47

Several further points come to mind. For onething, given the U.S. domestic economic diffi-culties, one can readily doubt Washington’s abil-ity to resolve Afghanistan’s economic woes. Foranother, the study group missed the fact thatthe biggest sources of support for Islamist ter-rorism are not failed states but donors from thewealthiest Arab Persian Gulf states such as Qatar,Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emir-ates, as recently leaked diplomatic cables reveal.48

Indeed, the fact that militants tend to come fromthe more comfortable walks of society has alsobeen documented by such scholars as DanielPipes.49


surgents” enjoy a consid-erable degree of popular le-gitimacy among Afghans istotally misconceived, de-spite the Karzai regime’s lack of popularity. Asforeign policy strategist Michael Hughes notes,a focus on negotiating an agreement for powersharing and peace between the central govern-ment and the Islamist insurgents amounts to littlemore than a “deal that enables” an “elite to mo-nopolize power.”53 For if polling data provide anyindication, it would appear that many Afghansview the Taliban as a force intending to servePakistani interests and have unfavorable viewsabout Pakistan’s role in the country.54 Therefore,as Hughes points out, “many Afghans believeawarding the Taliban with any power would betantamount to gifting Islamabad undue sway inKabul.”55 Any approach toward political recon-ciliation would surely require a broader represen-tation of civil society in Afghanistan.56

Nor does Osama bin Laden’s May 2011 kill-ing by U.S. forces herald a dramatic change inthe strategic situation, despite Obama’s buoy-ant assertion that in “Afghanistan, we have bro-ken the Taliban’s momentum … and after yearsof war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, we havedealt al-Qaeda a huge blow by killing its leader—Osama bin Laden.”57 In fact, al-Qaeda has beenmoving for quite some time away from conven-tional military bases and a centralized leadershipprimarily under the direction of one man to adecentralized mode of operations. The MiddleEast Media Research Institute, for example, hasprovided an in-depth report on how al-Qaedacleric Anwar al-Awlaki made YouTube into a pri-mary recruiting tool for aspiring jihadists: Theradical cleric, recently killed by a U.S air strike,58

has more than 2,500 clips on YouTube—includ-

ing lectures, sermons, andcompilation videos sup-porting his jihadist philoso-phy—and has attracted

well over three million views.59

All this casts serious doubt on both Obama’sassessment of the implications of bin Laden’s deathfor the war on terror and his assertion that thepresent strategy has “broken the Taliban’s mo-mentum” in the face of abundant evidence to thecontrary.

THE ROAD AHEAD

The only way to salvage the decade-long U.S.intervention in Afghanistan and to prevent thecountry’s transformation into a regional and glo-bal hotbed is to adopt a new strategy of contain-ment coupled with broader regional engagement.

In terms of containment, the first change thatcan be implemented on short notice is the sub-stantial reduction of U.S. and NATO troop num-bers in the Pashtun areas and their redeploymentto anti-Taliban strongholds further north in Af-ghanistan or to bases far from populated areas.The next step would be to aim to either stick tothe withdrawal timetable with 10,000 troops outby the end of the year and another 23,000 with-drawn by summer 2012 or follow Shaffer’s plan ofcommencing an immediate withdrawal of conven-tional forces, with a view to having them all out assoon as possible.

This should entail working to remove the“surge” troops by the end of this summer, leav-ing no more than 30,000 troops—including a re-sidual force of special forces—by the end of 2012,combined with air support to contain the ideo-logically-driven Taliban militants bent on takingover Afghanistan. Meanwhile, and despiteKarzai’s fraudulent electoral victory, it will be too

The Afghan president shouldbe pressured to devolve powerfrom Kabul.

53 Hughes, “Desperately Seeking out Mullah Omar.”54 BBC News, Feb. 5, 2009.55 Hughes, “Desperately Seeking out Mullah Omar.”56 Thomas Ruttig, Afghanistan Analysts Network, cited in ibid.57 Text of President Obama’s speech, TMP LiveWire, May 19,2011; The Guardian, May 19, 2011.58 National Public Radio, Sept. 30, 2011.

59 Inquiry and Analysis Series Report, no. 632, MEMRI, Aug.28, 2010. Awlaki’s infamous “44 Ways to Jihad” (published onJan. 5, 2009) has been posted on dozens of YouTube pages andwas cited in at least two major terrorism cases in the United Statesin the summer of last year.

/ 65 Al-Tamimi: U.S. Afghanistan Strategy

difficult to end financial aid to hisregime. Instead, the Afghan presi-dent should be pressured to de-volve power from Kabul to facili-tate efforts at political reconcilia-tion, aimed at resolving the massiveproblem of resentment, particularlyamong rural Pashtuns, over what isviewed as the imposition of unrep-resentative government. Here, thepractical steps put forward by theAfghanistan Study Group makesense. For example, as an importantstart toward reconciliation, “the Af-ghan parliament should be givenconfirmation authority for majorappointments, district councilsshould be elected, budgeting au-thority decentralized, and electedprovincial representatives shouldbe included in the national levelcouncil that determines the portionof funds distributed.”60

What should decentralizationentail at the local level? Pointing to Zahir Shah’s40-year reign (1933-73), which was largely peace-ful because of the king’s approach of “co-optationof and cooperation with village society,” DavidKatz has aptly proposed a decentralized systembased on a string of local leaders endowed withcertain federal assets, powers, and obligations,who would link Pashtun village society with thecentral government through a “densely layered”web of “constantly renegotiated, local and so-cial solidarity networks.”61 Katz’s suggestion tofight the Taliban in their Pakistan sanctuariesthrough the use of semi-autonomous warlordsis less plausible, both because the warlords mightnot be talked into such operations and becausethe only forces capable of acting decisivelyagainst these Taliban sanctuaries are the Paki-stani military and intelligence, which have giventhe militants these sanctuaries in the first place.

Coupled with a reduction in foreign trooppresence in Pashtun areas, such measures can behighly instrumental in ending the Pashtun na-tionalist insurgency, which is often conflated withthe ideologically driven Taliban. At the same time,the Afghan National Army needs to become moreinclusive of Pashtuns. Encouraging the ANA tobroaden its ethnic base is much more sound thansupporting localized Pashtun militias and warlordsopposed to the Taliban, as they themselves, inthe words of Hoh, make a mockery of “our ownrule of law and counter-narcotics efforts,”62 thusincreasing the risk of driving Taliban recruitment.The latter policy would also be incredibly imprac-tical to implement as it would require working withtribes on an individual level.

There may, however, be some merit in therecent policy of the Afghan Local Police Pro-gram, implemented in a few areas wrested fromTaliban control after the departure of NATO

POLICY BRIEF

“Shari‘a for peace” deals suggested by some haveproven disastrous for all involved with the exception ofthe Islamist terrorist groups that exploit them. Attackscontinued unabated as in this bombing by the Talibanof a school van in northwestern Pakistan, September13, 2011. Pakistani troops were forced to go on theoffensive against the Taliban in May 2009 having justsigned a deal with them in February.

60 “The Way Forward: A Five Point-Approach.”61 David Katz, “Reforming the Village War: The AfghanistanConflict,” Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2011, pp. 21-2. 62 Hoh to Amb. Powell.

Photo

will

not d

isplay

.


63 Fox News, Mar. 8, 2011.64 See, for example, The Long War Journal, Aug. 6, 2010.

Encouraging the Afghan armyto broaden its ethnic base ispreferable to supportingPashtun militias and warlords.

forces.63 This entails arminglocal tribesmen rather thanwarlords and is reminiscentof what the Afghan govern-ment once denoted the Af-ghan Militia Forces (AMF). The AMF had beenlargely disarmed and demobilized by 2005 in favorof a national army, yet there is no reason why apolice program cannot coexist with and supple-ment a more ethnically representative army. Finally,it should be made clear to the Taliban that anyfuture hosting of al-Qaeda militants or anti-West-ern aggression emanating from areas under theircontrol would be met with severe counterterrorismretaliatory strikes.

On the other hand, a broader approach toregional negotiations is required, which can ad-dress the problem of the strategic depth policy ofthe Pakistani military and intelligence forces.Abandoning this policy will not only translateinto ending support for Islamist militant groupsbut also into cracking down on them, particularlyon the Taliban Shura in Quetta.

Above all, Washington should recognize thatTajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Iran, Russia, andChina—though having a vested interest in pre-venting the Taliban from returning to power—arereluctant to legitimate a large, foreign military pres-ence in Afghanistan. The Uzbeks, in particular,fear that a Taliban-dominated Afghanistan will of-fer support to their own Islamist movement. NewDelhi is concerned with a more aggressive Paki-stani pursuit of the strategic depth policy whilethe Iranian and Chinese governments are worriedabout potential Taliban support for Baloch andUighur Islamist militants. However, Tehran, pres-ently confident that the Taliban will not retakeKabul, is reportedly extending them support.64

This is not so much a means of expanding Ira-nian influence in Afghanistan as it is a ploy tokeep U.S. forces bogged down in an unwinnablecounterinsurgency campaign, diverting attentionfrom Tehran’s nuclear program and preventingthe possibility of a preemptive U.S. strike on

these facilities.A multilateral agree-

ment involving these coun-tries, the United States, andother NATO members,

aimed at militarily neutralizing Afghanistan andincorporating Pakistan into this framework,should, therefore, be devised. The signatoriesshould agree to respect Afghan independenceand military neutrality.65 This would mean, forexample, that the Indian military could not oper-ate out of Afghanistan, which could assuageIslamabad’s fears of New Delhi’s regional expan-sion that has partly fed the belief in the necessityof strategic depth. Likewise, Islamabad’s chief allyBeijing, not having to fear the possibility of per-manent U.S. bases in Afghanistan, could help pres-sure the Pakistanis to abandon strategic depth inreturn for economic cooperation on projects inAfghanistan like the Aynak copper mine, in whichBeijing has invested $3 billion.66 Such an incen-tive could entice the Islamabad government tojoin the accord if one adds negotiated compro-mises over issues such as the British-imposedDurand border between Afghanistan and Paki-stan, which the former does not accept.67 It isparamount that the consequences of strategicdepth in terms of Pakistani stability be discussedopenly in these regional negotiations. If the ISIand the Pakistani army were convinced of thesecurity threat emanating from support for vari-ous militant groups, they would be much morelikely to abandon their expansionist policy. Tothis end, Washington should also offer to enddrone strikes in Pakistani territory, placing respon-sibility for tackling the militants in Pakistan in thehands of the country’s own security forces.

Only by adopting this new approach can sta-bility be achieved for U.S. security interests atboth the Afghan and regional levels. Persistingin the present strategy, by contrast, is an assuredrecipe for disaster.

65 Selig Harrison, “How to Leave Afghanistan without Losing,”Foreign Policy, Aug. 24, 2010.66 Anatol Lieven, “China Is Key to America’s Afghan Endgame,”The New York Times, June 25, 2010.67 Harrison, “How to Leave Afghanistan without Losing.”

/ 67 Winter: Yemen/Huthis

Riyadh Entersthe Yemen-Huthi Fray

by Lucas Winter

On August 11, 2009, the Yemeni government launched “Operation ScorchedEarth,” aimed at putting an end to the Huthi uprising that had destabilized thecountry’s northern province of Sa’da for more than five years. As fighting spread

to the province’s border with Saudi Arabia, Huthi fighters attacked a Saudi border post inearly November, killing one guard and injuring eleven. The Saudi government immediatelydeclared that the rebels had crossed a red line and began bombing Huthi positions alongthe border. Yet what was apparently conceived as a quick operation to clear the region of“infiltrators” turned into a major operation involving ground troops and air power, whichlasted slightly over three months and exacted more than a hundred Saudi casualties.1

While the Yemeni government emphasized two major aspects of the conflict—theHuthis’ desire to reinstate the imamate that was overthrown in 1962, and their being anIranian proxy that had no popular legitimacy2—the most recent round of fighting leadingup to the Saudi intervention was in fact driven by local concerns: the fight between theHuthis and the Yemeni government for control over the main roads in Sa’da and Riyadh’slong-standing concern to secure its border with Yemen.

Given Riyadh’s worries about its own potentially restive Shiite population, on the onehand, and San’a’s inability to curb the influence of the Huthis’ Zaidi revivalism, on theother, the Saudi government will probably continue to amplify Tehran’s supposed involve-ment in the region as it has done on various occasions since 1979. Still, the Huthis’ subser-vience to Tehran has never been fully substantiated.

Lucas Winter is a researcher at the ForeignMilitary Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, U.S.Army. The views expressed here are those ofthe author.

THE UPRISING

The rebels have been fighting the Yemenigovernment since 2004 and are followers ofHussein al-Huthi, a sayyid (descendant of theProphet Muhammad through his grandchildren

Hussein and Hassan), who headed a network ofeducation centers initially called the BelievingYouth Club (BYC, al-Shabab al-Mumin).Founded in 1991 by a group of activists that in-

1 The Guardian (London), Nov. 23, 2009.2 While Saudi and Yemeni charges of Tehran’s material supportfor the Huthis have never been proven, there is little doubt ofIran’s political support for the Huthis. Tehran’s condemnationof Saudi policy in Yemen via its Arabic-language news networkal-Alam earned the channel a temporary suspension from theSaudi-owned satellite ArabSat, purportedly for contractual rea-sons. See, Asharq al-Awsat (London), Nov. 5, 2009.


cluded Hussein’s brother Muhammad, the BYCaimed at providing education to the youth of Sa’dawhile reviving the influence of Zaidia, a Shiitebranch endemic to Yemen, which had been in de-cline since the overthrow of the imamate.3

The group quickly expanded, opening cen-ters throughout Sa’da province and the adja-cent provinces of al-Jawf and Amran. By themiddle of the decade, ideological differences andrapid growth led to an internal split within thegroup. The branch that took control of most cen-ters fell under the influence of Hussein al-Huthi,who acquired a loyal following among groupmembers. Elected to represent his home districtof Haydan (Sa’da province) in parliament in1993, Huthi quit politics four years later and wentto Sudan to pursue a degree in Qur’anic studies.After returning to Yemen, he became more in-

volved in the BYC andled the group in an in-creasingly political di-rection. His sermons,which became the basisof the group’s ideologi-cal and political plat-form, focused amongother things on theweakness of the Arabnation and the need toconfront Israel, theUnited States, and theirregional “clients,” an in-direct indictment of theYemeni government.4

The Yemeni author-ities were accustomed tooverseeing and monitor-ing the activities of non-governmental groups,and the BYC was noexception. Only in theearly 2000s, though, didthey begin expressingserious concern withsome BYC activities,

particularly after the group adopted as its slogan“Allahu Akbar! Death to America! Death to Is-rael! Curse the Jews! Victory to Islam!” Unwillingto capitulate to government demands to stop us-ing the slogan and otherwise cease defying thestate, Huthi was declared persona non grata.When in June 2004 a large group of followerschanted the slogan outside the Great Mosque inSan’a, security forces were sent to detain him athis mountain stronghold thus triggering the“Huthi uprising.”5

The first round of fighting (June-September2004) took place mostly around the Marran Moun-tains (in the western part of Sa’da province) whereHuthi and a group of his followers evaded gov-ernment forces for months and ended when Huthi

3 Al-Eshteraki (San’a), Sept. 7, 2007.

Map 1: Border area between Sa’da province, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia

Sa’da-Saudi ArabianBorder

4 Abdullah Lux, “Yemen’s Last Zaydi Imam: The Shabab al-Mu’min, the Malazim, and hizb Allah in the Thought of HusaynBadr al-Din al-Huthi,” Contemporary Arab Affairs, Sept. 2009.5 Mareb Press (San’a), Feb. 27, 2007.

Sa’da

San’a

/ 69

was killed in September 2004.6 A second round offighting broke out the following spring (March-April 2005), this time spearheaded by Hussein’sfather Badr ad-Din al-Huthi, an elderly and highlyinfluential Zaidi scholar considered the principalreligious authority for the BYC.7 While the firstround of fighting was specifically aimed at de-taining or killing Huthi, the second focused ondecapitating the movement by going after its vari-ous leaders.8 A short, third round of fighting tookplace at the end of the same year, expanding tonew parts of Sa’da. This time the rebels were un-der the leadership of Badr al-Din’s young sonAbd al-Malik, who based himself in the remotenorthwest fringes of the province.9

Fighting escalated significantly in the fourthround (February 2007-January 2008). Much ofSa’da province became engulfed in violence, withpreviously unengaged groups drawn into thehostilities. The conflict expanded into neighbor-ing provinces, most notably Harf Sufian in Amranprovince (an early BYC stronghold), strategicallylocated along the San’a-Sa’da highway and alonga major tribal fault line. The Huthis were able toseize and hold various government installationsand military bases, allowing them to procure ad-vanced weaponry and take the fight beyond theirtraditional strongholds. The nearly yearlong fight-ing ended only through Qatari mediation.10

Soon thereafter, though, the government andthe Huthis engaged in mutual recriminations, re-sulting in a short fifth round of fighting (May-July 2008). For the first time, fighting broke out inan area near the capital San’a. Much of the vio-lence was by now unrelated to the initial conflictof 2004 and instead involved people seeking re-venge for the bloodshed of previous fighting aswell as tribes seizing the opportunity to settlelong-standing disputes and to benefit materially

from the fighting. Hostilities ended in the summerof 2008 when the government unexpectedlyclaimed a decisive victory and declared a unilat-eral ceasefire. The government’s decision to stopfighting was variously attributed to concerns thatthe situation could spiral out of control, domesticmediation efforts, or U.S. and EU concerns withthe humanitarian situation.11 Hussein al-Ahmar,a government critic with little sympathy for theHuthis, called the decision to end the fightingbefore the rebellion had been destroyed “a be-trayal of the nation.”12

THE REGION

Located in Yemen’s northwest corner, moun-tainous Sa’da province was Yemen’s political capi-tal until the seventeenth century. (See Map 1, page68) As the heartland of Zaidism—which providedthe ideological underpinnings for Yemen’s imam-ate—the province hasgenerally maintained acautious relationship withthe republican govern-ment that overthrew theimamate in 1962. The prov-ince is among Yemen’spoorest and least devel-oped with limited publicservices and infrastruc-ture. These factors, alongwith Huthi’s charisma,perceived integrity, and rhetorical power, allowedthe BYC to incorporate marginalized, disaffectedyouth and tribal leaders from various parts of theprovince into the Huthi movement. The Huthisestablished a loyal following in Huthi’s nativeMarran, as well as in Dahyan (the center of Zaidischolarship northwest of Sa’da city), Harf Sufianin Amran province, parts of Sa’da city, and vari-ous other locations.

While it may be reasonable to treat Sa’daprovince as a coherent unit due to its historical,

Winter: Yemen/Huthis

6 Katherine Zimmerman and Chris Harnisch, “Profile: al-Houthi Movement,” Critical Threats, American Enterprise In-stitute, Washington, D.C., Jan. 28, 2010.7 Ibid.8 Barak A. Salmoni, Bryce Loidolt, and Madeleine Wells,Regime and Periphery in Northern Yemen: The Huthi Phenom-enon (Santa Monica: The RAND Corp., 2010), p. 136.9 Zimmerman and Harnisch, “Profile: al-Houthi Movement.”10 Al-Jazeera English (Doha), Feb. 1, 2008.

11 “Yemen: Defusing the Saada Time Bomb,” Crisis GroupMiddle East Report, no. 86, May 27, 2009, p. 4.12 Al-Eshteraki, July 27, 2008.

Hussein al-Huthi’spolitical platformfocused on theweakness of theArab nation andthe need toconfront Israel.


geographical, and cultural particularities, theprovince exhibits a great deal of internal diver-sity. It can be divided into three main regions:the tall mountains and adjacent foothills in thewest, the arid mountains and highlands in thecenter, and the desert to the east. While thesparsely populated eastern desert is mostly in-habited by tribes belonging to the Bakil, one ofYemen’s two main tribal confederations, thewestern mountains are the main population cen-ter for the tribes of Khawlan bin Amr, Yemen’sthird and least politically influential tribal con-federation. Some tribes of the Hashid confed-eration, whose members have largely dominatedYemen’s post-imamate government, live in theSa’da highlands alongside Bakil and Khawlantribes although Hashid’s prominence is greaterin areas south of Sa’da.

BORDER DYNAMICS

Smuggling has flourished along the westernborder of Sa’da province due to various factorsincluding the socioeconomic disparities between

Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the dif-ficult terrain, minimal governmentpresence, and the limited incorpo-ration of the local population intothe national fabric. The crossingsalong the west of Sa’da province’sborder into the Saudi province ofJazan are all informal, allowing forshared grazing rights along pas-toral areas and low-level com-merce. Human trafficking of refu-gees, workers, and women and chil-dren forced into labor, principallyfrom Yemen and Somalia, is wide-spread in this area, as is the smug-gling of weapons and qat (a mildstimulant widely cultivated andconsumed in Yemen but forbiddenin Saudi Arabia). Various food prod-ucts, including sheep, milk, andproduce, also cross from Yemeninto Saudi Arabia. Flowing in theother direction are imported ge-neric medicines, various industrial

and manufactured goods, and cash.With one of their main strongholds, Marran,

located in the center of the province’s westernmountains, the Huthis were able to build allianceswith smugglers in the region who likewise resentedgovernment interference. Years of fighting andconstant roadblocks along the few routes con-necting the region to the provincial capital in-creased the prevalence of smuggling. Whileheavy fighting along the border areas did not breakout until the sixth round in 2009, intermittentclashes between the Yemeni army and smugglerswere common, and many smugglers sided withthe Huthis for practical rather than ideologicalreasons.13

The vast and largely uncontrolled border be-tween Saudi Arabia and Yemen has for some timebeen a source of tension between the two coun-tries. In 1934, they agreed to a general demarca-tion line by signing the Taif agreement.14 Al-though a survey was begun some years later, the

13 Yemen Times (San’a), Sept. 6, 2007.14 Treaty of Taif, May 20, 1934.

Abd al-Malik, pictured, has taken up the mantle of therebellion’s leadership. He is the brother of the movement’sfounder, Hussein al-Huthi, and son of Badr ad-Din al-Huthi, an elderly and highly influential Zaidi scholarconsidered to be the principal religious authority forthe rebel group.

/ 71

agreement, which was to beperiodically renewed, was leftdormant for many years. Un-certainty over its status—firstwith the overthrow of theSaudi-backed imamate in 1962and subsequently with Yemeniunification in 1990—came tothe fore when a border disputeled to armed clashes in theearly 1990s. This was resolvedin a 1995 memorandum of un-derstanding that renewed theterms of the Taif agreement. In2000, the two countries signedthe Jeddah treaty, which, intheory, demarcated the borderdefinitively. Among otherthings, the treaty called for thecreation of a demilitarized zone,with only mobile border guardstations allowed ten kilometersfrom the border on each side, while also pro-viding for shared grazing and fishing areas.15

As early as 2003, during the early stages ofthe Huthi conflict, Riyadh had begun building abarrier fence to mark the border clearly and pre-vent illegal crossings, mainly along the vaststretches of desert east of Sa’da province.16 Thebuilding of the barrier elicited strong oppositionfrom both those tribes whose territories it cutacross and from the San’a government, whichclaimed that it violated the free movement alongthe border stipulated in the 2000 Jeddah treaty. In2004, it convinced the kingdom to halt construc-tion with the two sides agreeing to increased co-ordination along the border.

With violence in Yemen increasing and manySaudi members of al-Qaeda having fled to Yemen,in the summer of 2009, Riyadh began extending ahigh-tech razor wire fence it had just built alongits northern border with Iraq to all its borders,including the region on the western mountains of

Sa’da.17 Riyadh’s prioritization of border secu-rity together with San’a’s inability to control ar-eas immediately across the border in Sa’da werein large part responsible for the Saudi willingnessto directly intervene to control its borders.

THE FIGHTING RAGES

In the fall of 2008, shortly after the Yemenigovernment declared an end to the fifth round offighting, returning Huthis killed a member of thepowerful Walid Amr tribe in Ghamr district.18 Asthe tribe sought retribution, tensions began build-ing between the two factions. In February 2009,Huthi supporters attempted to take over variousgovernment installations in the district after ac-cusing the government of supporting the WalidAmr tribe in their dispute. Around the same time,


15 Treaty of Jeddah, June 12, 2000.16 Islam Daily (Sindh Punjab Sarhad), Mar. 3, 2007.

17 In August 2009, a suicide bomber posing, as a repentantjihadist, nearly killed Saudi deputy interior minister PrinceMuhammad bin Nayif in Jeddah. The planning of the attack wastraced to Yemen. Asharq al-Awsat (London), Nov. 10, 2009.18 Much of the information provided below was taken from theHuthi website Sadahonline. As of March 2011, the website hasbeen taken offline. See, also, Yemen Times, Mar. 1, 2009.

Huthi rebels are seen inside a court cage during their trial inSan’a, October 17, 2009. Fighting has raged on and offbetween Yemeni government troops and Huthi rebels since2004. The Huthis, centered in the mountainous Sa’daprovince bordering Saudi Arabia, are Shiite and suspectedof being—or becoming—Iranian proxies.

Photo

will

not d

isplay

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clashes were also taking place in other districtswhich had been key flashpoints in previousrounds of fighting (Marran since 2004 and HarfSufyan since 2007). Ghamr district, located alonga road linking the western highlands and bordertowns to the Sa’da basin, had until then beenrelatively calm.

Huthi fighters soon took control of a moun-tain overlooking the district capital and about amonth later had seized control of various govern-ment centers in the district. They proceeded toset up blockades along the road to Sa’da city in

an attempt to isolate AliZafir, sheikh of the WalidAmr tribe, and his fight-ers, as well as governmenttroops. When reinforce-ments arrived in neigh-boring Razih district, theHuthis began attackinggovernment positionsthere as well. The sparkthat began in Ghamr soonspread to neighboring

districts and then down the foothills along theborder with Saudi Arabia.

While the villages along the western moun-tains are connected by various dirt roads and wa-dis (dry riverbeds), routes permitting militarytransport are limited and thus control of the fewpaved roads is crucial for any government cam-paign. Two intermittently paved roads connectSa’da city to this area, one through the MarranMountains (an important bastion of Huthi sup-port) and the other cutting through Ghamr andRazih (See Map 2, page 73). Both roads eventu-ally connect to the border town of al-Malahiz,home to an important Yemeni military base.

As fighting flared in Ghamr district, bothsides attempted to isolate the other by settingup roadblocks and checkpoints along the Sa’da-Razih road, which made reaching the area fromthe provincial capital nearly impossible. In re-sponse, the government sent reinforcementsalong the Harad-Malahiz road and then up themountains through Razih. With much of the west-ern mountains cut off from the provincial capital,both the Huthis and area residents relied increas-ingly on smuggled goods from Saudi Arabia—

flour and gasoline were most in demand— mak-ing the situation along the border all the morevolatile when government troops moved in.

By the end of July 2009, the fighting that be-gan in Ghamr had spread to Razih and then downthe mountains into Shada district. The Huthis hadeffectively isolated government troops and theirtribal allies in Ghamr and were close to doing so inRazih. On August 4, one week before the govern-ment officially launched its campaign, the Huthisoverran the 82nd Infantry Brigade’s base in Shadadistrict and seized large amounts of ammunition,mortars, rockets, tanks, and armored vehicles. Al-though fighting had already been going on forsome months, this event was the catalyst for thelaunching of “Operation Scorched Earth.” Unitsfrom Yemen’s 15th Infantry Brigade were mobilizedto regain Shada district, but one week later, on Au-gust 19, the Huthis announced the fall of the mili-tary base at Malahiz, forcing government troopsto retreat west into Saudi Arabia.

It was inevitable that areas across the borderwould be affected by the heavy fighting, and asearly as August, the Huthis had accused the Saudimilitary of firing on them and bombing their posi-tions.19 In October, stray rockets fired by Yemenitroops had exploded within Saudi territory. WithYemeni forces unable to fully control Malahiz andsurrounding villages, Saudi intervention—regard-less of the provocation—was only a matter of time.

According to the Huthi narrative, on Novem-ber 1, a Saudi border patrol allowed Yemeni troopsto attack rebel positions from Jabal Dukhan, amountain on the Saudi side of the border, whichprovides an important vantage point over thetowns of Manzalah and Malahiz. On November 3,Huthi fighters opened fire on Saudi border guardsstationed on the mountain, killing one and injur-ing nearly a dozen. Saudi troops returned fire, towhich the rebels responded by overrunning thestrategic area and seizing control of both sides ofthe mountain. Saudi bombing began the next day,with the Huthis claiming that Malahiz, Hussamah,lower Marran and various border villages hadbeen hit. The Saudi government maintained that

19 Middle East Online (London), Oct. 19, 2009.

The Huthisannounced theirsupport for theYemeni protestsand organizedmarches inSa’da province.

/ 73

it was only bombing Huthi-held positionswithin its own territory.

After three months of heavy fighting,in February 2010, the Huthis agreed to abideby six ceasefire conditions laid out by theYemeni government,20 allegedly to spare thepeople of Sa’da from further death and de-struction. The Saudi government declaredits intervention a success, stating that itsterritory was now clear of “infiltrators.” Yetdespite its vast military superiority, Riyadhwas only able to declare victory after monthsof fighting, significant combat casualties,and a mutual ceasefire. The Yemeni govern-ment, in turn, was unable to impose its con-trol over the province, perhaps in part dueto its focus on maintaining regime stabilityand cohesion while at the same time dealingwith the threat of a growing southern se-cessionist movement. Lacking Saudi inter-vention, the outcome for the Yemeni gov-ernment would likely have been even lessfavorable.

The sixth round of fighting saw theHuthis employ three main tactics: targetingprominent government figures or allies, pre-venting government forces from accessingareas of fighting, and attacking and occasionallyoverrunning military bases and checkpoints. Bytaking over military installations, the Huthis havebeen able to seize weapons of increasing sophis-tication, including NATO-class machine guns,mortars, and sniper rifles, as well as communica-tions gear, armored personnel carriers, and othervehicles.21

The February 2010 truce seemed on theverge of collapse the following summer afterfighting between Huthi loyalists and govern-ment-backed tribes resumed. After the Huthisoverran a military base and captured hundredsof soldiers in July, a seventh round of fightingseemed imminent. The captives, however, werereleased a few days later, and Qatari mediationhelped the two sides reach a more substantive

agreement in August. Despite lingering mistrust,a series of confidence-building measures fol-lowed in the second half of 2010, including therelease of detainees and a Huthi hand-over ofseized military equipment.

CONCLUSION

A further layer of complexity was added tothe situation in November-December 2010 whenal-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, whose ac-tivities had been largely confined to other partsof Yemen, carried out two deadly suicide bomb-ings against Huthi followers and subsequentlydeclared war on the country’s Shiites.22 Thefirst bombing occurred during Id al-Ghadir, aShiite celebration revived by the Huthis, whichhad in the past been a source of contention


20 The New York Times, Feb. 11, 2010.21 On Huthi tactics and weapons, see Salmoni, et al, Regimeand Periphery in Northern Yemen, pp. 197-215. 22 Yemen Times, Dec. 6, 2010.

Map 2: Paved roads to Sa’da city

al-Malahiz

Sa’da

Haradh


A protractedpower vacuumin Yemen willpave the way forincreased foreignmeddling.

between them and Salafists in the area.23

Toward the end of January 2011, inspired bythe success of the popular uprisings in Tunisia andEgypt, young antigovernment protesters took tothe streets of San’a calling for a change of regime.Demonstrations quickly grew and spread toYemen’s main urban centers. Shortly thereafter, theHuthis announced their full support for the protestmovement24 and helped organize peaceful marchesin various parts of Sa’da province. On March 4, atone such demonstration held in Harf Sufian, twoprotesters died from gunshots alleged to have origi-nated from a nearby military base.25

Shortly before the popular protests over-whelmed the government, northern Sa’da appearedheaded toward a new round of fighting. Echoing

the events that catalyzedthe summer 2009 fighting,Huthi followers clashed inJanuary 2011 with mem-bers of a government-backed tribe on the south-western fringes of Sa’dacity, an area that hadlargely remained undergovernment control duringthe many years of fighting.

With the regime’s resources increasingly divertedtoward maintaining control over the capital, theHuthis eventually prevailed and in late March tookcontrol of the provincial capital.26

With the Huthis in de facto control of mostof Sa’da province, a struggle broke out in theneighboring province of al-Jawf, a dry andsparsely inhabited area east of Sa’da that hadalso fallen out of government hands in March.Paradoxically, the latter clashes pitted the Huthisagainst the Sunni opposition Islah party—per-haps the strongest and best-organized among thegroups calling for the resignation of President AliAbdullah Saleh, which will likely play a promi-

nent role in a post-Saleh state. As a Sunni-ori-ented group, it is a natural repository for Saudiinfluence-buying.

Fighting in al-Jawf, apparently for control ofthe government’s military installations, intensifiedin July 2011, sparking fears that it could spill overinto Saudi Arabia.27 After a number of failed at-tempts, a truce was reached in mid-August 2011. Afew days later, a suicide bomber, apparently target-ing the Huthis, struck a provincial medical center.28

Sa’da province, meanwhile, appears to befairly stable. The new provincial governor, FaresMan’a, allegedly appointed by the Huthis, is anotorious international arms dealer and formermediator in the Sa’da conflict, who fell out withthe Saleh government after being accused ofhelping arm the Huthis in 2009. By some ac-counts, Sa’da became safer than the capital inthe early summer of 2011 as many refugees fromthe Huthi conflict returned home from San’a.29

Events in al-Jawf, however, indicate that fight-ing could resume in the area. Saudi policy is un-likely to accommodate a stable and largely au-tonomous section of northern Yemen under Huthicontrol. Unlike the short-term elements that drewthe Saudi military into Sa’da province in late 2009,the fear in this case is that Iran will in the mediumterm successfully establish a foothold in the re-gion. On the heels of events in Bahrain and theregion as a whole, Riyadh is operating under aheightened level of threat perception.

A protracted power vacuum in Yemen willpave the way for increased foreign meddling.The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and theSaudis in particular will do whatever they can toavoid a collapsed or fragmented Yemeni state.One of their main policy tools in this regard con-sists of buying the favor of various tribal andSunni groups that have clashed with the Huthisover the years. Thus the potential for a proxywar in northern Yemen will persist the longer thecountry’s political impasse remains, making itmore difficult for the state to reconstitute itselfbefore it is too late.

23 Shelagh Weir, “A Clash of Fundamentalisms: Wahhabismin Yemen,” Middle East Report, 204 (1997): 22-6.24 News Yemen (San’a), Feb. 16, 2011.25 “Yemen: Investigate Killing of Protesters,” Human RightsWatch, Washington, D.C., Mar. 10, 2011.26 National Yemen (San’a), Mar. 30, 2011.

27 Reuters, July 12, 2011.28 Yemen Post (San’a), Aug. 16, 2011.29 Yemen Times, May 3, 2011.

/ 75 Alfoneh: Rostam Qassemi

Iran’s Revolutionary GuardsStrike Oil

by Ali Alfoneh

In July 2011, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed Maj. Gen. RostamQassemi of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as oil minister,1 bringingthe number of former IRGC officers in his cabinet to twelve out of eighteen. Yet theIRGC’s seizure of the Oil Ministry could have far reaching economic, political, andstrategic implications.

In his decree, Ahmadinejad urged Qassemi to work for “the creatures of God” andthe “material and spiritual progress” of Iran2 but said little about the problems facingIran’s aging oil industry as a result of international sanctions, which have imposed crush-ing financial and technological restrictions on Tehran’s ability to boost production in oiland gas fields, particularly those shared with neighboring countries. These problems arenot only likely to affect Iran’s economy but could increase tensions between Iran and itsneighbors, which are free to extract ever greater amounts of oil and gas along theirborders with the Islamic Republic.

These problems are likely to grow worse under Qassemi for whom the interests ofthe IRGC outweigh the interests of the Iranian state. Having won lucrative energy devel-opment contracts as a direct result of diminished foreign investment, the IRGC has littleincentive to seek an escape from crippling economic sanctions by scaling back its nuclearambitions.

Ali Alfoneh is a resident fellow at the AmericanEnterprise Institute.

WHO ISROSTAM QASSEMI?

Qassemi was born in 1964 in Sargah villagein Fars province and is believed to have a degreein civil engineering.3 He joined the IRGC in KhargIsland in 1979 and was appointed logistics chiefin Bushehr province two years later.4 After Iran’s

war with Iraq (1980-88), Qassemi directed the en-gineering activities of the IRGC in Bushehr.5 In1996, he was appointed chief of the IRGC navy’sNouh base.

In 2007, Qassemi was appointed chief ofKhatam al-Anbia (seal of the prophets), the

1 “Hokm-e Reis-Jomhour Bara-ye Rostam-e Qassemi Be Onvan-e Vazir-e Naft,” Paygah-e Ettela’e-Resani-ye Dowlat (Tehran),Aug. 9, 2011.2 Ibid.3 Mashregh News (Tehran), July 27, 2011.4 Daneshjou News (Tehran), July 29, 2011.5 Ibid.

D A T E L I N E


IRGC’s main engineeringfirm and one of the country’slargest development contrac-tors.6 Khatam al-Anbia hasbuilt dams, highways, andpipelines for water, gas, and oil. Like other IRGCfirms, it has reaped a windfall of no-bid contracts asforeign oil companies have withdrawn from Iran’soil and gas sector.7 In May 2010, Khatam al-Anbiawas awarded several phases of the South Pars gasfield. According to Ahmad Qal’ebani, then NationalIranian Oil Company (NIOC) director general,Khatam al-Anbia had signed $25 billion worth ofcontracts with the NIOC as of July 2011.8 The firm’sengineers are reportedly involved in the construc-tion of intermediate-range missile launch pads inVenezuela.9

Khatam al-Anbia’s growing penetration ofthe Iranian economy and alleged involvement inTehran’s nuclear program led to Qassemi beingexplicitly named in U.S.10 and European Union11

sanctions.

MAN OF THEREVOLUTIONARY GUARDS

There is some indication that Ahmadinejad’spreferred candidate for the job was acting oil min-ister Mohammed Ali-Abadi,12 whom he appointedas caretaker in early June 2011. Having no priorexperience in the energy sector, however, Ali-Abadifaced withering parliamentary criticism. Hamid-Reza Katouzian, parliamentary Energy Committeechairman, called Ali-Abadi “the worst imaginablecandidate” for the Oil Ministry.13 Ahmadinejadwas forced to cast about for an alternative.

The IRGC lobbied hardfor the candidacy of Qassemi.Neda-ye Enqelab, a mediaoutlet close to the IRGC,disclosed that Qassemi

conditioned his acceptance of the cabinet posi-tion on a “purge of the forces close to the currentof deviation [individuals close to Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff and closeconfidante] from the oil industry.”14 This sug-gests that Qassemi was essentially imposed onthe president.

Although Qassemi was overwhelminglyapproved by parliament with a vote of 216 of the246 deputies present,15 he faced criticism fromthose who fear the IRGC’s growing involvementin Iran’s economy. At the parliamentary sessiondebating his appointment, Ali Mottahari politelyobjected:

Opposition to the appointment of RostamQassemi as oil minister is not opposition tohis person … I distinguish between his per-son and his legal position since his person iscommendable … The main issue … is thatthe IRGC as a military force should not beconnected with the political and economicpower. In other words, the IRGC should notbe [a part of the] cabinet … The IRGC is thesymbol of the unity of society, just like theclergy. The Guards belong to all classes ofsociety … Now, the IRGC is—rightly orwrongly—accused of seizing developmentprojects in unequal competition with the pri-vate sector … the great oil infrastructure be-ing added to it will not do away with suchaccusations.16

Such views were in the minority, however. Inhis defense, Qassemi said that Khatam al-Anbiahas “filled the vacuum” left by the withdrawal ofWestern companies from Iran’s oil and gas sectorsas a result of the international sanctions regime.17

6 Ibid.7 Abrar (Tehran), Mar. 16, Apr. 19, 2010; Poul (Tehran), June5, 2010.8 BBC Persian (London), July 31, 2011.9 The Jerusalem Post, May 17, 2011.10 “Alphabetical Listing of Specially Designated Nationalsand Blocked Persons,” United States Department of the Trea-sury, Washington, D.C., accessed Sept. 18, 2011.11 RTT News (Williamsville, N.Y.), Aug. 3, 2011.12 Asr-e Iran (Tehran), June 2, 2011.13 Fararu (Tehran), June 3, 2011.

The Iranian state cannotafford the necessaryinvestments for boostingoil and gas production.

14 Neda-ye Enqelab (Tehran), July 27, 2011.15 Naft News (Tehran), Aug. 3, 2011.16 Asr-e Iran, Aug. 3, 2011.17 Mehr News Agency (Tehran), Aug. 3, 2011.

/ 77

Parliamentary speaker AliLarijani, who is expected to runfor president in 2013 and needsIRGC support for his candidacy,wholeheartedly defendedQassemi:

I arranged a meeting and invitedrepresentatives of the privatesector. They all believed that theKhatam al-Anbia base is distrib-uting work among them and thatMr. Qassemi, rather than com-peting with the private sectoris supporting it.18

Larijani also said thatQassemi was appointed “as anindividual of the Guards … Itwould be wrong to interpret thisas the Guards trying to seizepolitical power.”19

DECLINING PRODUCTIONAND SHARED FIELDS

Though the sanctions have not dissuadedthe Islamic Republic from accelerating the devel-opment of its nuclear program, they have createdsevere problems for its oil industry. An August2011 report issued by the U.S. Government Ac-countability Office concluded that foreign firmshave “significantly decreased commercial activ-ity in Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors.”20

Qassemi is well aware of the dire state of theIranian oil industry. He has made it clear thatboosting production in the twenty-eight oil andgas fields Iran shares with its neighbors21 is hishighest priority.22 According to one report, 50

percent of Iran’s gas reserves are to be found inthese shared fields.23

Unencumbered by sanctions, Tehran’sneighbors extract oil and gas from shared fieldsat a far greater pace. While Iran extracts 210 mil-lion cubic meters per day from the South Parsgas field (the largest in the world) it shares withQatar, the emirate extracts 360 million cubic metersof gas from it.24

Iran’s production from shared oil fields ex-periences similar problems. Iraq extracts 295,000barrels per day (b/d) from the twelve fields itshares with Iran while Iranian production fromthe same fields is 130,000 b/d.25 In the four oilfields it shares with Saudi Arabia, Tehran pro-duces 42,000 b/d while Saudi production is tentimes that. The United Arab Emirates extracts136,000 b/d from fields shared with Iran whileIran extracts 56,000 b/d.26

At his inauguration ceremony, Qassemicalled the development of shared fields his “top

Alfoneh: Rostam Qassemi

18 Asr-e Iran, Aug. 3, 2011.19 Ibid.20 “Firms Reported in Open Sources as Having CommercialActivity in Iran’s Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical Sectors,” U.S.Government Accountability Office, Washington, D.C., Aug. 3,2011.21 Mehr News Agency, July 18, 2011.22 Asr-e Iran, July 13, 2011.

23 Ibid.24 Ibid.25 Ibid.26 Ibid.

A powerful member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary GuardsCorps, Rostam Qassemi (left, with IRGC chief MohammadAli Jafari) inherited Iran’s ailing Oil Ministry portfolio inJuly 2011. For Qassemi, the interests of the IRGC likelyoutweigh the interests of the Iranian state.

D A T E L I N E


priority.”27 According to an unnamed Oil Minis-try official, substantially boosting oil and gasproduction sharing from these fields will require$67 billion in investment.28 Qassemi maintainsthat only $50 billion is needed,29 but the Ira-nian state can afford neither amount. Qassemiis likely to find it difficult, if not impossible, toattract foreign direct investment in Iran’s oiland gas sector or persuade foreign companiesto bring in much-needed technology. He haswarned Chinese companies against further de-lays and suspensions of contracts signed withIran, threatening to replace them with IRGC con-struction firms.30 However, such attempts at at-tracting investments and technology have yetto produce results. The Oil Ministry’s efforts atreleasing “participation bonds” to attract do-mestic investment in Iran’s oil and gas fields is

27 SHANA (Tehran), Aug. 9, 2011.28 Mehr News Agency, July 18, 2011.29 Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA, Tehran), Aug. 25,2011.30 Diplomasi-ye Irani (Tehran), Aug. 14, 2011.

more a symbolic act than a seri-ous attempt at raising capital.31

CONCLUSION

The IRGC, whose aggres-sive pursuit of nuclear weaponsprovokes foreign sanctionsagainst the Islamic Republic,also benefits from the sanctions,which eliminate foreign compe-tition. Khatam al-Anbia andother IRGC firms may prove in-capable of living up to theircontractual obligations, but inthe meantime, the IRGC hasachieved its main goal: accessto Iran’s foreign exchange re-serve. Once that tap is turnedon, it is difficult for opponentsof the IRGC to turn it off.

As Iranians watch theirneighbors reap profits from shared oil and gasfields, disputes over resources and territorialboundaries can quickly escalate as was the casein 1999 when Iranian troops entered Iraqi territoryfollowing a disagreement over the shared al-Fakkah oil field.32 Should tensions rise concern-ing Iran’s shared oil and gas fields, the IRGC mayplay the nationalist card and mobilize the Iranianpublic against “Arabs” who “take Iran’s oil.”33

The Islamic Republic has yet to learn thatavoiding international sanctions and diplomaticisolation provides a more suitable pathway tobecoming a responsible regional power than reck-lessly flexing military muscle. Time is running outfor civilian leaders who seek to buy the IRGC’spolitical support by showering it with black gold.If anything, Qassemi’s appointment may indicatethat it is too late for the civilian leadership to freeitself from the IRGC’s claws.

The South Pars gas field blazes at night. Though sanctionshave not dissuaded Iran from pursuing its nuclear program,they have created problems for its oil industry. A 2011 U.S.government report concluded that foreign firms have“significantly decreased commercial activity in Iran’s oil, gas,and petrochemical sectors.”

31 Kayhan (Tehran), Aug. 23, 2011.32 The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 19, 2009.33 Mehr News Agency, July 18, 2011.

/ 79 Khashan: Lebanese Politics

The Pragmaticsof Lebanon’s Politics

by Hilal Khashan

Lebanese society has had a remarkable ability to overcome deep-rooted sectarian andreligious divides that could readily have imploded less problematic countries. This hasbeen largely due to its pragmatic political system, which avoids acting upon polarizingissues on principle, opting instead for pragmatic loopholes. Given their confessional politi-cal system, Lebanese are conditioned to think pragmatically even when the issue at hand isdivisive and does not lend itself to resolution. In Lebanon, pragmatism is a necessity andnot an option as failure to accommodate other sects might ruin the country’s delicatefabric.

Three vivid illustrations of this dynamic can be seen in the handling of the issues preoc-cupying Lebanese decision-makers these days: Hezbollah’s continued militarization, theSpecial Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), and the Syrian connection.

Hilal Khashan is a professor of political scienceat the American University of Beirut.

HEZBOLLAH’SMILITARIZATION

Most non-Shiite Lebanese find it difficult toaccept Hezbollah’s armament and have not missedan opportunity to express displeasure with thefact that, while the 1989 Ta‘if agreement called forthe demilitarization of all Lebanese militias,Hezbollah was exempted on the grounds that itwas resisting Israel’s presence in southern Leba-non. As much as they disapprove of Hezbollah’sbehavior, Lebanese find it politically correct topraise its “resistance.” The proverb “kiss the handyou cannot bite” seems to fit the way many Leba-nese view the militant Islamist group.

Against this backdrop, it is hardly surpris-

ing that Hezbollah’s military buildup and its ri-vals’ intensifying demand for its disarmament havebeen the most divisive issue since Israel’s with-drawal from its security zone in south Lebanon inMay 2000. This demand for disarmament gainedconsiderable momentum after the July 2006 Is-rael-Hezbollah war as the eviction of Hezbollahfrom its bases south of the Litani River and thedeployment of the Lebanese army in its place ledcritics to question the need for the group’s con-tinued militarization.

Thus, for example, the pro-Hariri member ofparliament (MP) Ahmad Fatfat argued thatHezbollah’s primary concern had shifted fromconfronting Israel to controlling Lebanon “andtransforming it into a forward base on the Medi-terranean for Iran.”1 His parliamentary peer SamiJemayyil compared “Hezbollah’s expansionistbehavior in Lebanon” to that of the Zionists while

1 An-Nahar (Beirut), Mar. 14, 2011.

D A T E L I N E


former Lebanese presidentAmin Jemayyil noted that“Hezbollah seems preoccu-pied these days with con-trolling the site of the Leba-nese government in Beirut and the SpecialTribunal’s location in [the] Hague.”2 Addressinghis supporters on the sixth anniversary of theMarch 14 coalition, former prime minister SaadHariri criticized “the supremacy of [Hezbollah’s]arms and the manner in which it is influencing theformation of the country’s forthcoming cabinet[of Najib Miqati].”3

Even Nabih Berri, speaker of parliament andleader of the Shiite Amal movement—who show-ered Hezbollah with praise and defended its rightto resist “the Israeli occupation” as “nonnego-tiable”4—was paraphrased by a released Wikileakscable as having privately said that “he supportedIsraeli military action against Hezbollah in 2006 aslong as it did not backfire and create more publicsupport for the party.”5

It makes eminent sense for Berri to wish thedemise of Hezbollah, whose rise to prominenceamong Lebanese Shiites came at Amal’s expense.This does not seem to be the case with Druzeleader Walid Jumblatt, who has perfected the shad-owy art of doublespeak, rejecting Hezbollah’s useof arms for domestic purposes while refusing “toexpose Lebanon to Israeli aggression.”6 Jumblattwon notoriety for continuously vacillating fromone political camp to another. His ambivalent state-ment above suggests that he does not precludethe possibility of returning to the March 14 coali-tion should Hezbollah’s fortunes wane.

But most surprising and perplexing was thechange of heart of Bishara Boutros Rai since hisappointment as Maronite patriarch in March 2011.In his previous capacity as archbishop of Byblos,he voiced deep concern over Hezbollah’s arse-

nal.7 Once appointed to thetop religious post, how-ever, he expressed under-standing of the group’s re-luctance to disarm: “The in-

ternational community has not pressured Israelto pull out of Lebanese territory. Hezbollah alsowants to help armed Palestinians in Lebanon whowant to be granted the right of return to their lands.… When this happens, we will tell Hezbollah todisarm.”8 Ibrahim Amin Said, head of Hezbollah’spolitburo, concurred: “The issue has nothing to dowith the manner in which the resistance uses itsarms as some would like to argue; the issue per-tains to the justification of the very existence ofthe resistance, and whether Lebanon should havea defense force capable of deterring the Israelienemy.”9

SPECIAL TRIBUNALFOR LEBANON

The issue of the U.N. Special Tribunal iseven more divisive than Hezbollah’s militariza-tion. While Hezbollah takes pride in its weap-ons, presented as a deterrent to Israel, its impli-cation in the 2005 assassination of former primeminister Rafiq Hariri brings shame to the organi-zation. It seems that Hezbollah is more concernedabout the moral blow to its image and prestigeattending an association with the assassinationthan the arrest of its indicted members and theirsurrender to the U.N. Special Tribunal. The tribu-nal for its part scaled down the scope of its inves-tigation, choosing to indict individuals inHezbollah rather than the organization itself.

Accommodation and pragmatism have beenextended even to the pursuit of justice where adelicate balance was struck between law enforce-ment and public peace. At least in their publicpronouncements, Hezbollah spokesmen were stilldissatisfied with the tribunal, even in its reduced

2 Ibid., Sept. 2, 2011.3 Al-Liwa (Beirut), Mar. 14, 2011.4 As-Safir (Beirut), Sept. 3, 2011.5 “No One Likes Them,” Now Lebanon (Beirut), Sept. 15,2011.6 Al-Hayat (London), Mar. 28, 2011.

Hezbollah’s implication in theassassination of Rafiq Haririis a moral blow to its imageand prestige.

7 Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (Beirut), Feb. 9, 2010.8 As-Safir, Sept. 9, 2011.9 Al-Manar TV (Beirut), Mar. 21, 2011.

/ 81

scope. In a press conferenceheld by Muhammad Raad, headof Hezbollah’s parliamentarybloc, he described the tribunalas a “creation that serves inter-national interests at the expenseof the will and interests of theLebanese people and their con-stitutional institutions” andcalled upon “all free, honorable,and nationalist Lebanese, regard-less of their affiliations and posi-tions, to boycott the tribunal’s re-quests.”10 Nabil Qawuq, deputychair of Hezbollah’s ExecutiveCouncil, derided the indictmentof Hezbollah personnel as “an ef-fort by the U.S. to compensatefor its political defeats in Leba-non and the rest of the region.”11

Hashim Safieddine, chair of the council, ridi-culed the Special Tribunal as “a political and mediafarce totally divorced from the pursuit of justice.”12

Despite the overwhelming evidence implicat-ing Hezbollah in the assassination, Secretary Gen-eral Hassan Nasrallah and his allies have neverceased to plead the group’s innocence. As soonas the tribunal indicted four Hezbollah membersin the assassination, Nasrallah described them ashonorable men who resisted Israel’s occupationand, instead, laid the blame on the Jewish state,which had allegedly plotted the indictments.13

When the tribunal revealed the names of theseoperatives shortly afterward and requested theLebanese government to turn them in within thirtydays to stand trial, Nasrallah responded disdain-fully: “They cannot find them or arrest them inthirty days, or sixty days, or in a year, two years,thirty years, or three hundred years.”14 Nasrallahadvised the leaders of the March 14 oppositionnot to expect the government of Prime Minister

Najib Miqati to do in connection with the tribunal“what the government of his predecessor SaadHariri couldn’t do.”15

For his part, Miqati emphasized Beirut’scommitment to fulfill its international commit-ments, which included “paying its share of $32million toward the cost of the STL operations,”16

yet refused to “talk about solutions now, becauseI want the government efforts to succeed.”17 Healso disregarded U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s concern about the Lebanese government’sreaction to the deepening crisis in Syria, notingthat he would not “endanger Lebanon by violat-ing the rules of the international legitimacy.”18

This did not escape Hezbollah’s eye.Though repeatedly voicing his disapproval offinancing the tribunal, Nasrallah and his col-leagues were sympathetic to Miqati’s predica-ment, claiming that the prime minister “must notbe embarrassed by the reaction of the interna-tional community and his own constituency if he

Khashan: Lebanese Politics

Demands to disarm Hezbollah have grown since its 2006 warwith Israel from Sunni as well as from some Shiite politiciansonly to be countered by other leaders in the patchwork politicsthat is Lebanon.

10 An-Nahar, Mar. 5, 2011.11 Al-Jarida (Beirut), Mar. 6, 2011.12 An-Nahar, May 15, 2011.13 BBC World News, July 3, 2011.14 Ibid., July 29, 2011.

15 As-Safir, July 4, 2011.16 As-Siyasa (Kuwait), Sept. 6, 2011.17 The Daily Star (Beirut), Sept. 12, 2011.18 An-Nahar, Sept. 3, 2011.

D A T E L I N E


reneges on Lebanon’s commitments.”19 They un-derstand all too well that there is nothing theycan do to stop the working of the tribunal. Theycan resent it and plead their innocence with theirShiite constituents—the main target audience ofHezbollah’s rhetoric. As far as Hezbollah’s lead-ership is concerned, what matters is how the Shiitecommunity perceives them; the tribunal’s activi-ties are of far lesser concern as they seem to be-lieve that its eventual impact will be minimal.

THE SYRIAN NEXUS

Lebanon’s government finds itself in an un-enviable position of having to accommodate Syr-ian interests and sensitivities, on the one hand,and the positions of its own divided communitiesvis-à-vis Syria, on the other. Ever since Lebaneseindependence, Damascus has been a constantpolitical actor in its neighbor’s affairs, forcingsuccessive Lebanese governments to play a deli-cate game of appeasing everyone. Thus, for ex-

ample the Lebanese government hasrecently stated that it cannot supporta U.N. Security Council resolution onSyria, but it will abide by internationalresolutions, irrespective of what itthought of them.20

For their part, the Syrians havenever reconciled themselves toLebanon’s creation on what they per-ceive as part of their territory. They alsoresented Beirut’s development duringthe French Mandate from a slumber-ing provincial city into a business,medical, and educational hub, and itdid not take long for relations to sourafter the French departed in 1946. In1950, the Syrian regime unilaterallydissolved the bilateral customs unionand instigated the practice of closingdown passenger and trade routes atwill. Since then, bilateral relations havebeen characterized by envy, suspicion,

resentment, and hate. It took the entry of theSyrian army into Lebanon in 1976 to finally givethe Damascus regime a sense of vindication.Damascus’s hegemony in Lebanon lasted until2005 when the Syrian army pulled out shortlyafter Hariri’s assassination.

Given their intense involvement in Lebaneseaffairs, the Syrians could always count on Leba-nese allies. Certainly, any government in Beirut,irrespective of its relations with Damascus, un-derstands the inherent mindset of the regime,which views the Lebanese as unappreciative ofthe selfless sacrifices of the Syrians on their be-half. Because Syrian officials seem to believe thatretribution follows ingratitude, their Lebanesecounterparts have been especially careful to avoidincurring their wrath. This has been particularlythe case since the beginning of the Syrian upris-ing in mid-March 2011. The simultaneous incep-tion of the Syrian protests with the decision ofthe March 14 coalition to boycott the Miqati cabi-net gave ammunition to Damascus’s official claim

19 Ukaz (Riyadh), Sept. 7, 2011.

Lebanese protesters show their solidarity with Syriansseeking the downfall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, July8, 2011, in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon. ManyLebanese, especially Sunni Muslims, have expressedjubilation about the Syrian uprising.

20 Ar-Rai (Kuwait), Oct. 4, 2011.

Photo

will

not d

isplay

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/ 83

that “the security of the twocountries is inseparable.”21

The Bashar al-Assad regimeimmediately accused the Fu-ture Trend party of providing material supportfor anti-regime elements. The secretariat generalof the March 14 coalition responded by issuing adenouncement of the Baath regime’s “baselessaccusations of intervention in Syrian affairs, in-cluding support for saboteur networks.”22

There is no denying that many Lebanese,especially Sunni Muslims, have expressed jubi-lation about the Syrian uprising, criticizing theMiqati government’s decision to refrain from pro-viding relief for the thousands of refugees flee-ing Syrian army reprisals. Tripoli MP Muham-mad Kabbara urged the Lebanese people to takethe side of the Syrian people: “I hurt because thebrotherly Syrian people are subjected to a sys-tematic massacre, and I am ashamed because weare letting them down. We are under history’swatchful eye. We must take political, moral, andhumanitarian action to lend support to the Syr-ian people.”23 As in most protest organizing inArab countries, the mosques played a key role ingalvanizing Lebanese support for the anti-Assadmovement. One hundred Sunni clerics convenedin a Tripoli mosque to “express solidarity withthe glorious popular uprising in Syria and to con-demn the brutality of the Assad regime againstunarmed protesters.” They took issue with theregime’s “labeling of demonstrators as foreignlackeys.”24

In response to a call by the militant Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Party)25 for apro-rebel demonstration in downtown Beirut,Lebanon’s Arab Youth Party (a Syrian intelligencecreation with no active membership) organized acounter rally in support of Assad. Party head

Nadim Shimali condemnedthe anti-Assad rally as aviolation of the 1989 Ta’ifagreement, which stipu-

lated that Lebanon would not allow itself to pro-vide a base for any force, state, or organizationseeking to undermine Syria’s security. He urgedthe Lebanese authorities to crack down on anti-Syrian activities, threatening that otherwise hisparty would be forced to take matters into itsown hands.26 “The security forces complied withShimali’s warning and ensured that no activitywould take place in Beirut or Tripoli to supportthe Syrian protest movement,” lamented acommuniqué issued by Hizb al-Tahrir. “Theythreatened to prevent any show of support out-side mosques. In contrast, the [Lebanese] authori-ties allowed a handful of the Syrian regime’s gang-sters to demonstrate.”27

However, this complaint was not entirely true.The government tried to strike a middle-of-the-road approach to the Lebanese divide vis-à-visthe Syrian upheavals. Lebanon’s open politicalsystem did not interfere with the free expressionof opinion on the Syrian situation. The PhalangeParty, for example, announced that its branchesin northern Lebanon were providing humanitar-ian and social aid “to Syrian families seeking ref-uge there.”28 The Future Trend party and Islam-ist groups threw themselves into providing hu-manitarian aid to several thousand Syrian refu-gees despite protests by the Syrian governmentand Hezbollah on the grounds that the refugeesincluded subversive elements. The Lebanese mili-tary simply pulled out from the border area andallowed the Syrian army to chase defectors while,at the same time, it did not attempt to preventsympathetic Lebanese groups from providingthem with shelter. The Beirut government did allwithin its power to minimize the damage to itsrelations with Damascus as a result of the strongsupport among most Lebanese for the Syrian up-rising. Foreign Minister Adnan Mansur made it

Khashan: Lebanese Politics

21 Al-Jarida, May 28, 2011.22 An-Nahar, Apr. 21, 2011.23 Ibid., May 17, 2011.24 Al-Akhbar (Cairo), May 9, 2011.25 Committed to the reintroduction of the worldwide caliphate,this party rejects the existing order in all Arab and Islamic statesand advocates its violent overthrow.

26 The Daily Star, June 4, 2011.27 An-Nahar, June 4, 2011.28 Al-Anwar, May 27, 2011.

What matters to Hezbollah’sleadership is how the Shiitecommunity perceives them.

D A T E L I N E


clear that Beirut would not vote in favor of aSecurity Council resolution condemning Dam-ascus.29 This position was hardly defensible orconsistent given that Lebanon’s ambassadorto the U.N. had proposed that the Security Coun-cil implement a no-fly zone over Libya to pro-tect its people from the excesses of the Qaddafiregime.

The spread of protests inside Syria coin-cided with the deterioration of the security situ-ation in Lebanon, including several attacksagainst the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon(UNIFIL) in the south of the country. Accord-ing to Fares Said, coordinator of the secretariatof the March 14 coalition, the surge of violencein Lebanon appears to be tied to statementsfrom Damascus. Said was specifically alludingto the attacks on the French and Italian contin-gents in UNIFIL, the abduction of seven Esto-nians in the Bekaa Valley, and the Marun al-Rasincident where the Israelis opened fire on demon-

strators who attempted to climbthe border fence.30 Indeed,Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlufhad warned that Israelis couldnot expect to live in peace whileSyrians suffered from turmoilwhereas Syrian foreign ministerWalid Muallem threatened thatEU sanctions against Damascuswere bound to have an adverseimpact on Europe’s security.31

Small wonder that the Assadregime exhibited anger at expres-sions of solidarity with the pro-testers, especially by the Leba-nese armed forces and the Pha-lange. Phalange MP NadimJemayyil made a statement thatparticularly infuriated the Syrianregime: “We cannot but side withthe Syrian people in their confron-tation of the repressive and dicta-torial regime. We are willing to opena new chapter with the Syrian

people and join hands to build a new Middle Eastfounded on freedom and democracy.”32 Assad’speople expected nothing less than such state-ments as Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah assertedthat Washington was punishing Damascus bypromoting the Syrian protest movement “in orderto settle historical scores with the country thathas always stood on the side of the forces ofopposition to Israeli and American occupation.”33

President Assad seemed in no mood for ad-vice, certainly not from mercurial Druze chiefJumblatt who exhorted him “to think differentlyand recognize his people’s legitimate demands inorder to prevent Syria from slipping into chaos.”Speaking carefully to avoid triggering a defen-sive reaction, Jumblatt explained that “the bestadvice he could give to the Syrian president hadto be motivated by truthfulness, and not flat-

Repercussions from the car bombing that took the life offormer Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri still inflameLebanon’s political landscape. The U.N. Special Tribunal’sindictments of Hezbollah personnel continue to divide thecountry.

29 As-Siyasa, Sept. 18, 2011.

30 An-Nahar, May 29, 2011.31 Ibid.; al-Akhbar, Apr. 11, 2011.32 Al-Liwa, May 31, 2011.33 An-Nahar, May 9, 2011.

/ 85 Khashan: Lebanese Politics

tery.”34 When the Druze leader would not ceasehis repeated calls on Assad to reform, the Syrianauthorities finally informed him that he was un-welcome in Damascus.35 For Assad, his latefather’s brutally repressive practices of the 1970sand 1980s appeared fully appropriate in the sec-ond decade of the twenty-first century. He mayhave believed that his Tunisian and Egyptiancounterparts fell too soon because they did notuse sufficient force to suppress the opposition.Among his many repressive measures, Assad in-structed his Beirut ambassador Ali Abdulkarim tochase and apprehend Syrian enemies of the re-gime in Lebanon. Indeed, Abdulkarim was singledout for U.S. and EU sanctions for his role in ab-ducting opposition members in collusion withLebanese authorities.36

The Lebanese government clamped downon Syrian opposition in Lebanon because ofheavy pressure by the Assad regime to do so. Yetit showed leniency in dealing with the anti-Assad

Lebanese protesters. Members of the Syrian op-position in Lebanon are not part of the country’spolitical process and can be readily controlled.Dealing with the Lebanese groups and sects, bycontrast, is a different matter altogether as theyhave a veto power and can bring the country’spolitical system to a standstill.

RATIONAL POLEMICS

Lebanon is not a failed state. Though its self-steering capability is grossly wanting, it is per-fectly capable of making waves. Its political sys-tem may be akin to a person paralyzed below thewaist but with functioning arms and intact vocalabilities. The creation of Greater Lebanon maynot have been an entirely happy historical acci-dent, yet it appears to be quite capable of dealingwith its disabilities. It cannot make its own sover-eign decisions, but it can almost always modifythem to fit the exigencies of its unique politicalformula. For some countries, controversy can bepolitically debilitating; in Lebanon, it is a meansof survival.

34 Ibid., May 24, 2011.35 Al-Anba (Fallujah), Sept. 24, 2011.36 Ukaz, Sept. 7, 2011.

Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza? Build a Subway!Muhammad Mustafa, Palestinian investment fund director and economic advisor to PalestinianAuthority president Mahmoud Abbas, announced during a visit to Gaza that a $1 billion fundwas being established with the aim of rebuilding Gaza and building its economy as part of theeconomy of the future Palestinian state. Mustafa was heading a group of businessmen from theWest Bank.

Palestinian Contractors Association in Gaza president Osama Kahil said that he andMustafa had agreed to build a subway in the Gaza Strip between Rafah and Beit Hanoun.

HaRakevet, Sept. 2011

D A T E L I N E


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/ 87 Maddy-Weitzman: Moroccan Exceptionalism

Is MoroccoImmune to Upheaval?

by Bruce Maddy-Weitzman

The uprisings that swept across the Middle East and North Africa during 2011 havelargely bypassed Morocco. The absence of tumult and the loudly trumpeted package ofconstitutional reform measures endorsed in a July 2011 national referendum1 furtherstrengthened Morocco’s favorable image in the West as a country that has mixed tradi-tion with modernity and an openness to foreign cultures, and which is both politicallystable and steadily evolving toward greater pluralism.

Morocco’s success in having thus far dodged upheaval warrants explanation, forthe country suffers from many of the same underlying ills that have driven the protestselsewhere—corruption, poverty, and unemployment; the overwhelming concentrationof wealth in the hands of a small stratum of elite families intertwined with the authorities;2the absence of real democracy; and closed horizons for its large, youthful population,suffering from disproportionately high rates of unemployment and underemployment.But Morocco’s starting point, in terms of its political institutions and political culture, isdifferent in ways that provide some comparative advantages. Moreover, unlike otherMiddle East, autocratic regimes during this tumultuous year of popular intifadas,3 theMoroccan authorities, led by King Mohammed VI, have been sufficiently proactive intheir responses to the rumblings from below so as to render them manageable, at leastfor the time being.

Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, the Marcia Israel Princi-pal Research Fellow at the Dayan Center of TelAviv University, is author of The Berber IdentityMovement and the Challenge to North AfricanStates (University of Texas Press, 2011) and coedi-tor of Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics andSociety under Mohammed VI (Routledge, 2012).

MOROCCANEXCEPTIONALISM

A closer look at state-society dynamics inMorocco during 2011, against the backdrop of

the country’s deeper currents, reveals the extentand limits of Moroccan exceptionalism. The coun-try possesses considerable assets: a political andsocietal center within a distinct geographical corestretching back more than 1,200 years; a rulingdynasty more than 350 years old whose legiti-macy is based on claimed descent from theProphet Muhammad; religious homogeneity of

1 National Public Radio, July 1, 2011; Al-Ahram Weekly (Cairo),July 7-13, 2011.2 Aboubakr Jamai, “Morocco: After the ‘Benalization,’ the‘Tunisation?’” bitterlemons-international, Jan. 27, 2011.3 Intifada (shaking off) is the term widely used in the Arabworld for “uprising.”

D A T E L I N E


98 percent Sunni Islam; anda particular material andpopular culture, modes ofreligious practice, and lin-guistic configuration, muchof which stems from Morocco’s large Berberpopulation (approximately 40 percent of the to-tal) and heritage. Of course, these factors alonecannot be said to provide immunity to socialand political upheaval. If anything, Tunisia andEgypt both possess an even greater degree ofsocial and political cohesion, which did not pre-vent the latest revolutions there.

Is it the legitimacy provided by Morocco’smonarchical institution that explains the lack ofa massive, popular uprising thus far? To evensuggest so would have been ridiculed a genera-tion ago. Morocco in the 1960s and 1970s waswracked by political instability and attemptedcoups d’état. But by the 1990s, Middle Eastmonarchies began to be viewed in a more favor-able light as resilient institutions that often func-tioned as vital social and political anchors intimes of rapid change.4 Moreover, the last yearsof Morocco’s late King Hassan’s 38-year reign(d. 1999) were marked by what he liked to call“homeopathic democracy,” namely, measured,incremental steps toward political liberalization.However numbingly slow, it eventually resultedin the ending of some of Morocco’s most noto-rious human rights abuses, an expansion of thespace for civil society organizations, and anagreement by opposition political parties to re-enter the political game.

Liberal circles hoped that Hassan’s son andsuccessor, Mohammed VI, would move towardestablishing a Spanish-style constitutional mon-archy, à la King Juan Carlos. Although this didnot occur, the new king moved quickly to make

Morocco a significantlymore relaxed place, politi-cally, socially, and culturallyby combining economicmodernization, political lib-

eralization, expanded social welfare, and a toler-ant Islam that employed the tools of reasonsanctioned by Islamic law on behalf of the gen-eral good. These measures stood in sharp con-trast to the political stagnation and retrogres-sion that marked the Tunisian and Egyptian po-litical landscapes and, thus, set the stage fortheir 2011 revolutions.

Part of Mohammed VI’s ruling formula wasto allow a certain degree of Islamist political ac-tivity. The Party for Justice and Development,an Islamist party that was first brought onto thescene by his father in 1997, was allowed to growinto one of the leading political parties inMorocco’s fragmented political system (no partyholds more than 14 percent of the seats in parlia-ment, rendering them malleable for co-option intocoalition governments dominated by the palace).Another part of the new king’s strategy was tobalance Islamist and conservative forces bystrengthening the country’s liberal current. Thecenterpiece of his approach was the scrappingof the country’s long-standing, Islamic-basedPersonal Status Code in favor of a new familylaw in 2003-04, which brought women signifi-cantly closer to legal equality with men.5 Liber-alizing public life also included the establish-ment of a truth and reconciliation commission,an unprecedented act in the region, which en-abled public acknowledgment of the abuses com-mitted by his father’s minions.6 In addition, thepalace embraced and legitimized the increasinglyvisible Amazigh (Berber) culture movement asan integral part of the Moroccan fabric.

Real power in the kingdom, however, stayedin the hands of the palace and its affiliate circles

4 Joseph Kostiner, “Introduction,” in idem, ed., Middle East-ern Monarchies (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2000),pp. 1-12; Lisa Anderson, “Absolutism and the Resilience ofMonarchy in the Middle East,” Political Science Quarterly, no.1, 1991, pp. 1-25; Michael Herb, All in the Family: Absolut-ism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monar-chies (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999), pp. 1-18; Owen H. Kirby,“Want Democracy? Get a King,” Middle East Quarterly, Dec.2000, pp. 3-12.

Some view Middle Eastmonarchies as resilientinstitutions that function associal and political anchors.

5 The Guardian (London), Oct. 12, 2003.6 For an account and critique of the process, see Susan Slymovics,The Performance of Human Rights in Morocco (Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).

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while parliament remained emasculated andpolitical parties mainly competed for thepatronage the king was willing to bestow.Moreover, the security forces’ response tothe 2003 Casablanca suicide bombings andsubsequent smaller incidents of home-grown terror called the regime’s professedcommitment to human rights into questionas did the incarceration of Sahrawi (Saharan)activists challenging Morocco’s control ofthe Western Sahara.7 In addition, the coun-try regressed in terms of press freedomand human rights. Finally, by the end ofthe decade, a new political party, Authen-ticity and Modernity (PAM), headed byone of the king’s close associates, FouadAli Himma, appeared on the scene, appar-ently being groomed for power and thusrendering empty the promise of genuinepolitical liberalization. Alongside this, eco-nomic growth failed to reduce the high rateof unemployment while the illiteracy rateremained over 40 percent.8

THE CHALLENGE …

The events in Tunisia and Egypt at the be-ginning of 2011 were keenly watched in Morocco.Like-minded Facebook protest groups quicklysprang up among Morocco’s Internet-savvy,mostly politically unaffiliated twenty-somethinggeneration. Unlike their counterparts to the east,their target was not the “regime,” i.e., the mon-arch, but the corrupt elites who benefited fromthe existing state of affairs. A more poignant typeof emulation came in the form of a number ofself-immolations, following the lead of 26-yearold Mohamed Bouazizi, whose ultimately fatalact triggered the overthrow of Tunisia’s presi-

dent. At least two of these Moroccans died fromtheir burns. Fadwa Laroui, a poverty-stricken,single mother of two who lost her shantytownhome to builders, was unable to acquire govern-ment allocated land because as a single mothershe was not “the head” of a household. She setherself on fire after repeated complaints to localofficials proved useless and recorded her lastwords on a cell phone camera, which were lateruploaded to YouTube. Would her sacrifice, shewondered, inspire people to “take a stand againstinjustice, corruption, and tyranny?”9

By mid-February, the atmosphere becameincreasingly charged, and the Moroccan pro-test movement gained a bit more form with theestablishment of the “February 20th Movement,”a cross-section of young activists running the

Many hoped that Morocco’s King MohammedVI, here with his wife Princess Lalla Salma,would move toward establishing a Spanish-styleconstitutional monarchy. Although the ruler hasbeen open to reforms, those undertaken havebeen put into effect at a leisurely pace. Recentevents in other North African states have givenhim a more urgent impetus to address hiscountry’s many problems.

7 See, for example, “Morocco/Western Sahara,” Amnesty Inter-national, London, accessed Oct. 6, 2011.8 See Paul Rivlin, “Morocco’s Economy under MohammedVI,” in Bruce Maddy-Weitzman and Daniel Zisenwine, eds.,Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society underMohammed VI (London: Routledge, forthcoming 2011).

9 Rachel Newcomb, “One Moroccan Woman’s Fiery Protest,”The Huffington Post, Feb. 28, 2011.

Maddy-Weitzman: Moroccan Exceptionalism

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gamut from previously un-affiliated Facebook users,members of Amazigh asso-ciations and various left-ist groups, to members ofthe officially banned butreluctantly tolerated Islamist movement, al-Adlwa’l-Ihsan (Justice and Benevolence). Its inau-gural February 20 protests sent tens of thou-sands of demonstrators into the streets acrossthe country10 and were followed by smaller, on-going, weekly protests. The atmosphere on thatday was mostly festive as participants called forbringing the country’s political and moneyedelite to account: Prime Minister Abba al-Fassi,PAM’s Himma, and Mounir Majidi, the king’sprivate secretary, who oversees royal businessinterests, were particularly targeted with corrup-tion allegations.11 Amazigh activists, for theirpart, prominently displayed their movement’sflag and advocated full linguistic and culturalrecognition within a genuinely democratic state.The most delicate subject, of course, was theking’s status; slogans calling for a “parliamen-tary monarchy” indicated that the protesterssought a clearer, more limited definition of theking’s sweeping powers in favor of their electedrepresentatives.

… AND RESPONSE

While mild compared to upheavals in therest of the region, the February protests raisedthe specter of Morocco going down the sameroad as so many other Arab states and unnervedthe authorities. From the beginning, and rightthrough the first half of 2011, the governmentadopted a multi-pronged strategy: proactivemeasures designed to appease popular frus-tration with economic conditions (e.g., increas-ing state subsidies on basic goods, raising sala-ries for civil servants, promising government

jobs for recent universitygraduates); proclaiming theright of peaceful proteststo go forward while simul-taneously working to dis-credit the protesters; and

using occasional police violence to intimidatedemonstrators.12

Most importantly, though, was MohammedVI’s very public promise of sweeping reforms inan effort to quell the protests. Speaking to thenation on March 9, the king outlined what hecalled “a package of comprehensive constitu-tional amendments,” centering on the strength-ening of the powers of the government and theparliament.13 Details were to be worked out overthe following three months by a blue-ribboncommission headed by 67-year old AbdellatifMennouni, a constitutional law expert and vet-eran of Moroccan public affairs, with the changesto be submitted to the public for approval byreferendum. In so doing, the palace gained con-trol of the public discourse of reform, enabling itto manage it better and to contain the currents ofunrest. Ironically, but not surprisingly, even asthe proposed reform package trumpeted thestrengthening of political institutions and theimplied devolution of some powers by the mon-archy, the political parties themselves were, asusual, relegated to secondary status: Their as-signed role was essentially to endorse the finaltext after a brief consultation with the king’s advis-ers and then to offer revisions to the commission’srecommendations.

An analysis of the new constitution revealsthat while the powers of the prime minister andparliament were somewhat enhanced—the primeminister would henceforth be called the presi-dent of the government and chosen from theparty that won the greatest number of seats inparliament—preponderant power remained in

10 BBC News, Feb. 20, 2011.11 The Economist (London), Feb. 24, 2011.

Under the new constitution,the preponderant powerremains in the hands ofthe king.

12 Al-Arabiya News (Dubai) May 16, 2011; “A Brave Feb. 20Young Woman Featuring Selma Maarouf,” Moroccans for Change,May 16, 2011.13 The New York Times, July 20, 2011.

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the hands of the king. Whileno longer defined as “sacred,”he remained the amir al-mu’minin (commander of thefaithful), both the religiousand political head of the state,the symbol of the nation’sunity, guarantor of the state’sexistence, supreme arbiter be-tween institutions, and per-sonally beyond reproach.

A comparison betweenthe commission’s draft text14

and the final version illus-trates the thinking of thosewho want to transform Mo-rocco into a more genuine con-stitutional monarchy with lib-eral democratic underpinningsand the obstacles they face.To be sure, the final versioncontained specific languageemphasizing a commitment toan independent judiciary, theprotection of human rights,and the ensuring of equality between womenand men. Nonetheless, the commission’s draftwas considerably more explicit in emphasizingliberal, universal values as underpinnings of theMoroccan state while downplaying the state’sIslamic and Arab components.

These initial, more liberal formulations werealtered in the final version. For example, clausetwo of the draft preamble declared Morocco tobe a “unitary sovereign state”; the final version15

replaced “unitary” with “Muslim,” and thecountry’s Arab-Islamic heritage was now re-ferred to explicitly. In the same vein, the finalversion of clause three now included the goal of“deepening the sense of belonging to the Arab-Islamic umma [nation].” Article three of both the

draft and final versions declared that Islam isthe religion of the state but the draft versionincluded stronger language guaranteeing theprotection of religious freedom for all faiths.Clause two of article 25 in the draft constitutionthat guaranteed the “freedom of conscience”was dropped entirely.

Similarly, with regard to the king’s powersand prerogatives, the draft text implied certainlimitations that were removed or substantiallyaltered in the final version. For example, the finalversion added an additional article at the verybeginning of the section treating the king’s sta-tus, which restored the traditional emphasis onhis being the religious as well as the politicalhead of the community. As “commander of thefaithful,” he remained in charge of ensuring re-spect for Islam and would preside over theHigher Council of Ulema (religious jurists), re-sponsible for all religious rulings (fatwas). Theking’s explicit right to dismiss government min-isters, inserted in previous constitutions but notin the draft text of the new version, was also

These Moroccan protesters carrying the Amazigh (Berber)flag are a clear indication that Morocco has taken a newpath. Comprising approximately 40 percent of the country’spopulation, the Amazigh speak their own language, Tamazight,and have their own culture. Rabat has taken notice of at leastsome of their demands and has made Tamazight an officiallanguage.

14 The text has not been published; the author obtained a copyfrom a commission member.15 For the French-language text of the new constitution, seeSidi Slimane City.com, Morocco, June 19, 2011.


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restored. Overall, the king would continue tobe the supreme authority on just about every-thing of significance: defense, religion, gov-ernment (he is officially the chairman of theCouncil of Ministers, with the prime ministerfilling that role only in his absence), justice(chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council) andsecurity (president of a newly created NationalSecurity Council).16

Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect ofthe new Moroccan constitution was its explicitrecognition of Tamazight, the language of thecountry’s Berber-speaking populations, as anofficial language. Moreover, it required the pas-sage of an “organic law” to translate that statusinto reality in education and other spheres ofpublic life. It further emphasized that theAmazigh people and culture constituted an in-tegral component of Moroccan identity, whichhad been forged over the course of history

16 Ali Mrabat, “La nouvelle constitution octroie de nouveauxpouvoirs au roi,” Demain online, Oct. 7, 2011.

alongside the Arab-Islamic and Sa-haran-Hassanian components andenriched along the way by African,Andalusian, Hebraic, and Mediter-ranean currents.17

To be sure, some Amazigh ac-tivists failed to be excited by thenew constitution. The languageequalizing the status of Tamazightand Arabic had been more forcefulin the commission’s draft text. Thisconfirmed their deeply-ingrainedcynicism regarding the authorities’true intentions. For these activists,the constitutional upgrade was justthe latest in a series of the state’spseudo-embrace of the Amazighmovement in order to co-opt andneutralize it.18 Nonetheless, from abroader perspective, the institution-alization of Tamazight, along withthe explicit recognition of Amazighidentity as central to the Moroccan

historical and social fabric, was nothing short ofhistoric. The demand for official recognition hasbeen the central tenet of their movement for de-cades, ever since its inception.19 Morocco wouldbecome the only North African state, and the onlycore Arab League member state, in which Arabicwas not the sole official language.20

AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Having been disseminated, the adoption ofthe new constitution was now fast-tracked toadoption via a nationwide referendum on July 1,

Following the February protests, the king outlined “apackage of comprehensive constitutional amendments”to be worked out by a blue-ribbon commission. A newconstitution, containing some significant reforms, wascomposed and voted on in a national referendum on July1, 2011, only three weeks after its publication.

17 Jewish Telegraphic Agency (New York), July 6, 2011; ArabReform Bulletin, Carnegie Endowment, Washington, D.C., July6, 2011.18 Interviews with various Moroccan Amazigh activists, Rabat,al-Hoceima, Nador, Sept. 2011.19 Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, “Morocco’s Berbers and Israel,”Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2011, pp. 79-85.20 Non-Arab Somalia and ethnically-divided Sudan (which hasjust seen a part of its territory secede), Djibouti, and the ComorosIslands are excluded from the notion of “core” Arab states butare, nevertheless, Arab League members.

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2011, just three weeks afterits publication. The statemobilized considerable re-sources in its public cam-paign for a “Yes” vote andallowed almost no space,physical or in the media, for opponents of thenew constitution. Not surprisingly, 98.5 percentof Moroccan voters (73 percent of those eligible)voted “Yes” according to official figures.21 Whilethese numbers were most likely inflated, they,nonetheless, indicate that the Moroccan authori-ties had for the time being gained control overthe pace and manner of political change.

To conclude the process, nationwide par-liamentary elections, originally scheduled for fall2012, were moved up to November 25, 2011. Voterturnout in the last general election in 2007 hadbeen only 37 percent, indicating a general apa-thy with the process. Whether or not this year’selection will produce more interest remains to beseen. As for the likely results, expectations arewidespread that the elections will produce a coa-lition government led by a member of one of theparties traditionally close to the palace, such asthe National Rally of Independents (RNI). Ofcourse, under the new constitution, the RNIwould first have to win the most votes in theelection, but few observers expect the authori-ties to abjure traditional practices of influencingthe vote-counting.

Despite these apparent moves toward re-


The referendum showedthat the authoritieshad gained control overthe pace and mannerof political change.

21 Al-Arabiya News, July 2, 2011.

form, the February 20th

Movement sought to reen-ergize itself with a newround of protests begin-ning in mid-September. Ithad, however, clearly lost

steam. Internally, divisions between secular ac-tivists and the increasingly visible and asser-tive members of the Islamist al-Adl wa’l-Ihsanwere taking their toll, affecting the capacity tomobilize. More generally, Moroccan society,with an eye on the upheavals elsewhere in theregion and with the Algerian horrors of the 1990sstill fresh in its mind, appeared reluctant to rockthe boat too hard. The bombing of a popularcafé in Marrakesh in mid-April by Islamist ter-rorists22 was, for many, a chilling reminder of theconsequences of disorder and instability.

Overall, then, Morocco’s new constitutionreflects the country’s dual and often contradic-tory nature—a hereditary, Islamic-based, abso-lute monarchy, ruling over a modernizing,multicultural, and politically pluralist social andpolitical order. Mohammed VI has bought moretime with his latest measures. But staying aheadof the rising curve of demands for more mean-ingful reform, which is likely to be based on someof the more potentially innovative language ofthe new constitution, will demand much skill andwisdom from the country’s political elite, begin-ning with the king himself.

22 The Guardian, Apr. 28, 2011.

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The Making of a Human Bomb: An Ethnographyof Palestinian Resistance (The Culture andPractice of Violence). By Nasser Abufarha.Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. 277 pp.$84.95 ($23.95, paper).

The Making of a Human Bomb looks atsuicide terrorism from the perspective of theperpetrator and the society from which the phe-nomenon emerges. The intersection of cultureand violence is a significant marker of Palestin-ian society as evidenced by the brutal Fatah-Hamas rivalry, the long tradition of blood feuds,and “honor killings” of women; an analysis ofthat society would make for a compelling andvaluable contribution to the literature. As aproduct of Palestinian society, Abufarha couldhave brought a unique viewpoint to the tablewith an ability to offer an insider’s view of agroup of people so often discussed but so littlestudied.

Such hopes are misplaced: Abufarha haswasted this potential by normalizing violencein Palestinian society and repeating tired tropesabout colonialist victimization to rationalize actsof mayhem. Despite his cultural, religious, terri-torial, and social accessibility to the region ofJenin, home of many a suicide bomber, the genu-ine insight of an academic is absent from thebook. Whatever ethnographic research ispresent, it is filtered through a deeply subjec-tive and selective outlook, riddled with holesand resulting in a series of historical and scien-tific inaccuracies that conform to a politicalagenda and create problems with validity andreliability.

Thus he can write, “Killing celebrated byindividuals, groups, and communities does notrepresent a psychological pathology, but rathera cultural expression.” He refers to Israelis as“Zionists targets” or “immigrants” and to Is-rael as a “colonial” and “expansionist” stateand portrays the Palestinian fellaheen (farm-ers) as fighting against “colonialist Israel.” This,in turn, allows him to portray the indiscriminate

killing of Israeli civilians as justified behavior:“Palestinian groups developed Palestinian mar-tyrdom operations as a means of resisting stateexpansion and asserting Palestinian identityand rootedness.”

It is unfortunate that the author’s deepemotional involvement and identification withone side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hascaused him to abandon his role as a researcherof the Palestinian suicide attack phenomenonand instead present his research as a moral jus-tification of this form of terrorism. Beyond theIsraeli victims, it is the Palestinian children whoare harmed by such socialization and indoctri-nation, preparing them to become shaheeds(martyrs), leading them and their society to aliteral dead end.

Anat BerkoInterdisciplinary Center, Herzliya

and George Washington University

Brief Reviews

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R E V I E W S

The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey.By Banu Eligür. New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2010. 317 pp. $85.

In an era when an overwhelming majority ofarticles and books published on Islamism areapologetic in nature and often fall short in termsof academic and scholarly integrity, Eligür’sstudy constitutes a shift in research design, data,analytical strength, and discursive qualities.

Eligür of Brandeis University’s Crown Cen-ter for Middle East Studies utilizes a wide rangeof primary and secondary sources as well as in-terviews to write what is perhaps the most suc-cessful scholarly attempt to explain the rise ofpolitical Islam in Turkey.

The author argues that “grievance-based”cultural approaches are inherently flawed ex-planations for the Islamist mobilization in Tur-key since the 1970s. Those who “regard politi-cal Islam as a protest movement against mo-dernity and Western colonial domination” havefailed in understanding the situation in Turkey.As Eligür argues, “Turkey was never subjectedto Western colonial domination. The Turkishrevolution, which introduced a secular state,was a successful struggle to forestall Westernimperialism and domination.” Eligür’s theoreti-cal approach combines a number of crucialthemes in a powerful framework: social move-ments’ mobilization, dynamics of organizations,and the use of political opportunity structuresthereof.

It is in this triangle that she locates TurkishIslamism’s success especially after the 1980 mili-tary coup. By eradicating the “Turkish leftistdanger,” the coup leaders invested in a “Turk-ish-Islam synthesis” and planted the seeds ofradical and neo-liberal Islamism, a blend of neo-capitalism and soft Islamism, in Turkey.

The Mobilization of Political Islam in Tur-key is a remarkable book, providing the bestwork on the rise and development of Islamism inTurkey, offering significant insights into themajor political actors of the modern Turkish Is-lamist da’wa (proselytism), from Erbakan toErdoðan.

Kemal SilayIndiana University, Bloomington

The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative ofIsraeli Leadership. By Yehuda Avner. NewMilford, Conn. and Jerusalem: The Toby Press,LLC 1, 2010. 715 pp. $29.95.

Former Israeli ambassador Avner offers aliterary, distinctive, and colorful look into theinner sanctums of diplomacy and politics of theJewish state. As speech writer and secretary toprime ministers Eshkol and Meir, adviser toprime ministers Rabin, Begin, and Peres, andambassador to the court of St. James, Avner isuniquely positioned to bring to light the quali-ties and the temperaments of these leaders, soinfluential in laying the foundations of the stateof Israel.

Most significantly, Avner shows throughfirsthand accounts that Israeli prime ministerson the left and the right worked diligently to-ward peace against seemingly insurmountableodds. His distinctive contribution is to disclosethe brainstorming that took place behind closeddoors before and after difficult decisions weremade public.

The Prime Ministers illustrates how Israeli


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statesmen have dealt with and represented theJewish state to the global community, highlight-ing the quandaries in which civil servants of-ten find themselves. Israeli ambassadors to theUnited States, for example, are required to ne-gotiate the political Beltway—as well as theAmerican Jewish community at large—as rep-resentatives of the State of Israel, not as com-manders or even policymakers. Yitzhak Rabin,for example, was revered as the Israel DefenseForces chief of staff and later the prime minis-ter who dared to embark on the Oslo peace pro-cess. But although Rabin understood the needto make a case for Israel in the U.S. politicalsystem, as ambassador to the United States in1968, he was not savvy enough to know whatmethods might actually backfire. In the eyes ofpolished diplomats like Abba Eban, Rabin didnot seem suited for the role; Eban often com-plained to Begin and other members of the Is-raeli parliament about Rabin’s vocal supportfor Richard Nixon, jumping into what Eban ar-gued should be a non-issue in U.S.-Israeli rela-tions. By 1992, when Rabin was elected primeminister for the second time, it was clear he had

learned from the past. Managing to find justthe right combination of toughness and flex-ibility, he charmed Washington and specificallythen-president Bill Clinton, who considered hima seasoned diplomat and warrior.

Avner also offers valuable insight to thoseof his countrymen who would pursue a diplo-matic career: “[I]t is not enough for an Israeliambassador here to simply say ‘I’m pursuingmy country’s best interests according to thebook.’ … An Israeli ambassador who is … un-willing to maneuver his way through the com-plex American political landscape to promoteIsrael’s strategic interests would do well to packhis bags and go home.”

This historical account gives the readerspecial insights into the internal, as well as per-sonal, workings of the Jewish state and is ofparticular value for understanding the natureand complexity of the U.S.-Israeli alliance.

Asaf RomirowskyMiddle East Forum

mudar zahran - middle east forum

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