Category Archives: Middle East Geopolitics

Egypt’s Revolution Continues

Posted on November 22, 2011 | Comments Off

November 22, 2011- By David Schenker & Eric Trager–

New clashes between “youth protestors” and Ministry of Interior riot police in Egypt’s Tahrir Square have resulted in thirty-five dead and several hundred wounded over the past three days, jeopardizing the country’s November 28 parliamentary elections. Even before this weekend’s mayhem, the voting promised to be chaotic and, in all likelihood, marred by violence. But now, with growing public anger aimed at the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) for its undemocratic mismanagement of the transition, several secular political parties may boycott the polls. Should the elections proceed, the new crisis will benefit the Islamists, possibly widening their projected margin of victory.

Background

During the February uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, a popular Egyptian saying was “the army and the people are one hand.” Nine months on, the military’s public approval rating has dropped from an impressive 90 percent to the mid-60s. Initially, the facade of national unity was stripped away in large part because of the military’s continuance of the hated Mubarak-era emergency law and ongoing heavy-handed reliance on military courts to try civilians. Yet popular anger with the SCAF has spiked of late because the military has sought to mitigate a likely Islamist victory at the polls — and preserve its traditional status of being unaccountable to civilian authority — by changing the presumed rules of the transition.

In particular, the SCAF has sought to enshrine its status in a set of “supraconstitutional principles” that would set the military beyond the reach of legislators. And to limit the Islamists’ ability to significantly change the political system, the SCAF likewise announced that it would essentially ignore the results of the March 2011 referendum — which stipulated that whoever controlled parliament would appoint the new constitutional drafting committee — and instead select the lion’s share of the committee itself. The Islamists cried foul and threatened a mass protest on November 18 if the SCAF didn’t back down. True to their threat, they filled Tahrir Square on Friday, along with secularist protestors. At the end of the day, the Islamists departed, but the secular opposition remained.

Electoral Credibility in Question

The military is taking steps to ensure — and reassure the public — that “citizens will feel an unprecedented state of security” during next week’s scheduled elections. And the SCAF will no doubt attempt to provide tight security for the various stages of balloting slated to last until January 10. Yet between disgruntled secular protestors, former regime thugs, and routine sectarian conflicts, authorities face an uphill battle. Today, in an effort to placate the street, the military promulgated a “lustration” law banning members of the former ruling National Democratic Party from participating in the elections. In another development, the entire cabinet resigned, though the SCAF must accept the resignations in order for them to take effect.

The bloodshed and general disorder could combine to undermine the credibility of any newly elected legislature. Already, the electoral law — which combines multicandidate districts and both party-list and individual-candidate elections, with the latter divided among “farmers, laborers, and professionals” — is confusing and voter-unfriendly. Making matters worse, if non-Islamists boycott the election, a significant segment of society may view the parliament as illegitimate. Likewise, voters could stay home if security is insufficient, further eroding support for the People’s Assembly. Conversely, a heavy military presence spurred by the Tahrir clashes might also intimidate voters.

Despite Violence, Elections the Only Way Forward

Egypt’s key political players have denounced the latest violence. Secularist presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei laid the blame at the feet of the SCAF, whom he said had already “admitted they cannot run the country.” The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) likewise held the SCAF “primarily responsible,” accusing it of provoking the violence as a pretext for postponing the elections. Meanwhile, a number of key secularist political figures — including Amr Hamzawy, George Ishak, and blogger Mahmoud “Sandmonkey” Salem — have suspended their parliamentary campaigns in solidarity with the protestors.

At the same time, many of the key political parties — including those who may boycott — have echoed the SCAF’s insistence that the elections go forward. The MB’s Freedom and Justice Party, the Wafd Party, the Free Egyptians Party led by Naguib Sawiris, and the Salafist Nour Party, among others, have all released statements calling for voting to proceed as scheduled. Most important, both the MB and Free Egyptians Party have indicated that they will not participate in new Tahrir demonstrations as long as the elections are not postponed. Delaying the vote would remove their incentive to back an orderly transition and escalate a costly standoff that is already spreading to other governorates.

Both the major political parties and the Tahrir protestors appear to want the same thing: ending the SCAF’s direct involvement in politics as soon as possible and devolving power to a civilian-led executive body. Several political groups, including the Wafd, the Social Democratic Party, and the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, are now calling for the establishment of a “national salvation government” after elections. The SCAF could try to end the violence by embracing this idea and delegating responsibility for political transition to an executive body elected by the forthcoming legislature. This would require the council to relinquish its authority over the transition in April 2012, according to current proposals. Although it is difficult to imagine the SCAF agreeing to this option, the alternative — an increasingly unpopular military junta without any clear process for installing a more legitimate government — threatens further violence and severe instability.

Implications for U.S. Policy

For Washington, the current situation in Egypt is a nightmare. Contrary to popular impressions, the Obama administration did not embrace the anti-Mubarak protestors last February but rather supported the Egyptian army in facilitating a change from Mubarak’s rule to an uncertain military-led transition. Since then, Washington has vacillated on who its allies in Egypt really are. Is it the military, with whom the administration shares certain strategic understandings on key national security issues? Or the Muslim Brotherhood, which many in Washington view as both the authentic voice of the people and, given its “inevitable” electoral victory, a faction America should court? Or the secular liberals, who — despite being the most ideologically congenial to America’s democratic spirit — have shown themselves to be poor political organizers often too willing to cooperate with illiberal forces (e.g., Salafists) for short-term gain? The absence of clarity on this issue has paralyzed U.S. policymaking, and as a result, the administration now has little sway with any of these key constituencies.

In fairness, Washington’s policy options would be limited even in the best of diplomatic circumstances. The administration may feel compelled to prioritize national security issues, urging delayed elections so as to limit the likelihood of an Islamist landslide. Yet postponement may only catalyze further violence that jeopardizes the SCAF’s standing entirely, thereby threatening the very equities the administration seeks to protect. Alternatively, prioritizing the democratization process might spur the SCAF to proceed with its current election schedule despite the violence, which could increase the chances of an all-out Islamist political victory. Perhaps a wiser third option would be to urge the SCAF to speed up the presidential election process, producing a new focal point of legitimate executive leadership that would be more likely than parliament to respect the military’s prerogatives and preserve key national security interests.

Of course, none of this may work — the forces at play throughout Egypt may still be in such a revolutionary fervor that even Washington’s best ideas wind up having little impact. Therefore, although the administration should encourage the SCAF to lay out a credible path to civilian government, and in so doing protect only a limited set of the military’s interests and perquisites, it must also prepare for the possibility that chaos and uncertainty will dominate the Egyptian political scene for months to come.

David Schenker is the Aufzien fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute. Eric Trager, the Institute’s Ira Weiner fellow, is a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is writing his dissertation on Egyptian opposition parties.

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Posted in Egypt, Middle East Geopolitics, US Middle East Politics

Syria, Iran and the Balance of Power in the Middle East

Posted on November 22, 2011 | Comments Off

November 22, 2011

By George Friedman

U.S. troops are in the process of completing their withdrawal from Iraq by the end-of-2011 deadline. We are now moving toward a reckoning with the consequences. The reckoning concerns the potential for a massive shift in the balance of power in the region, with Iran moving from a fairly marginal power to potentially a dominant power. As the process unfolds, the United States and Israel are making countermoves. We have discussed all of this extensively. Questions remain whether these countermoves will stabilize the region and whether or how far Iran will go in its response.

Iran has been preparing for the U.S. withdrawal. While it is unreasonable simply to say that Iran will dominate Iraq, it is fair to say Tehran will have tremendous influence in Baghdad to the point of being able to block Iraqi initiatives Iran opposes. This influence will increase as the U.S. withdrawal concludes and it becomes clear there will be no sudden reversal in the withdrawal policy. Iraqi politicians’ calculus must account for the nearness of Iranian power and the increasing distance and irrelevance of American power.

Resisting Iran under these conditions likely would prove ineffective and dangerous. Some, like the Kurds, believe they have guarantees from the Americans and that substantial investment in Kurdish oil by American companies means those commitments will be honored. A look at the map, however, shows how difficult it would be for the United States to do so. The Baghdad regime has arrested Sunni leaders while the Shia, not all of whom are pro-Iranian by any means, know the price of overenthusiastic resistance.

Syria and Iran
The situation in Syria complicates all of this. The minority Alawite sect has dominated the Syrian government since 1970, when the current president’s father – who headed the Syrian air force – staged a coup. The Alawites are a heterodox Muslim sect related to a Shiite offshoot and make up about 7 percent of the country’s population, which is mostly Sunni. The new Alawite government was Nasserite in nature, meaning it was secular, socialist and built around the military. When Islam rose as a political force in the Arab world, the Syrians – alienated from the Sadat regime in Egypt – saw Iran as a bulwark. The Iranian Islamist regime gave the Syrian secular regime immunity against Shiite fundamentalists in Lebanon. The Iranians also gave Syria support in its external adventures in Lebanon, and more important, in its suppression of Syria’s Sunni majority.

Syria and Iran were particularly aligned in Lebanon. In the early 1980s, after the Khomeini revolution, the Iranians sought to increase their influence in the Islamic world by supporting radical Shiite forces. Hezbollah was one of these. Syria had invaded Lebanon in 1975 on behalf of the Christians and opposed the Palestine Liberation Organization, to give you a sense of the complexity. Syria regarded Lebanon as historically part of Syria, and sought to assert its influence over it. Via Iran, Hezbollah became an instrument of Syrian power in Lebanon.

Iran and Syria, therefore, entered a long-term if not altogether stable alliance that has lasted to this day. In the current unrest in Syria, the Saudis and Turks in addition to the Americans all have been hostile to the regime of President Bashar al Assad. Iran is the one country that on the whole has remained supportive of the current Syrian government.

There is good reason for this. Prior to the uprising, the precise relationship between Syria and Iran was variable. Syria was able to act autonomously in its dealings with Iran and Iran’s proxies in Lebanon. While an important backer of groups like Hezbollah, the al Assad regime in many ways checked Hezbollah’s power in Lebanon, with the Syrians playing the dominant role there. The Syrian uprising has put the al Assad regime on the defensive, however, making it more interested in a firm, stable relationship with Iran. Damascus finds itself isolated in the Sunni world, with Turkey and the Arab League against it. Iran – and intriguingly, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki – have constituted al Assad’s exterior support.

Thus far al Assad has resisted his enemies. Though some mid- to low-ranking Sunnis have defected, his military remains largely intact; this is because the Alawites control key units. Events in Libya drove home to an embattled Syrian leadership – and even to some of its adversaries within the military – the consequences of losing. The military has held together, and an unarmed or poorly armed populace, no matter how large, cannot defeat an intact military force. The key for those who would see al Assad fall is to divide the military.

If al Assad survives – and at the moment, wishful thinking by outsiders aside, he is surviving – Iran will be the big winner. If Iraq falls under substantial Iranian influence, and the al Assad regime – isolated from most countries but supported by Tehran – survives in Syria, then Iran could emerge with a sphere of influence stretching from western Afghanistan to the Mediterranean (the latter via Hezbollah). Achieving this would not require deploying Iranian conventional forces – al Assad’s survival alone would suffice. However, the prospect of a Syrian regime beholden to Iran would open up the possibility of the westward deployment of Iranian forces, and that possibility alone would have significant repercussions.

Consider the map were this sphere of influence to exist. The northern borders of Saudi Arabia and Jordan would abut this sphere, as would Turkey’s southern border. It remains unclear, of course, just how well Iran could manage this sphere, e.g., what type of force it could project into it. Maps alone will not provide an understanding of the problem. But they do point to the problem. And the problem is the potential – not certain – creation of a block under Iranian influence that would cut through a huge swath of strategic territory.

It should be remembered that in addition to Iran’s covert network of militant proxies, Iran’s conventional forces are substantial. While they could not confront U.S. armored divisions and survive, there are no U.S. armored divisions on the ground between Iran and Lebanon. Iran’s ability to bring sufficient force to bear in such a sphere increases the risks to the Saudis in particular. Iran’s goal is to increase the risk such that Saudi Arabia would calculate that accommodation is more prudent than resistance. Changing the map can help achieve this.

It follows that those frightened by this prospect – the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – would seek to stymie it. At present, the place to block it no longer is Iraq, where Iran already has the upper hand. Instead, it is Syria. And the key move in Syria is to do everything possible to bring about al Assad’s overthrow.

In the last week, the Syrian unrest appeared to take on a new dimension. Until recently, the most significant opposition activity appeared to be outside of Syria, with much of the resistance reported in the media coming from externally based opposition groups. The degree of effective opposition was never clear. Certainly, the Sunni majority opposes and hates the al Assad regime. But opposition and emotion do not bring down a regime consisting of men fighting for their lives. And it wasn’t clear that the resistance was as strong as the outside propaganda claimed.

Last week, however, the Free Syrian Army – a group of Sunni defectors operating out of Turkey and Lebanon – claimed defectors carried out organized attacks on government facilities, ranging from an air force intelligence facility (a particularly sensitive point given the history of the regime) to Baath Party buildings in the greater Damascus area. These were not the first attacks claimed by the FSA, but they were heavily propagandized in the past week. Most significant about the attacks is that, while small-scale and likely exaggerated, they revealed that at least some defectors were willing to fight instead of defecting and staying in Turkey or Lebanon.

It is interesting that an apparent increase in activity from armed activists – or the introduction of new forces – occurred at the same time relations between Iran on one side and the United States and Israel on the other were deteriorating. The deterioration began with charges that an Iranian covert operation to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States had been uncovered, followed by allegations by the Bahraini government of Iranian operatives organizing attacks in Bahrain. It proceeded to an International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran’s progress toward a nuclear device, followed by the Nov. 19 explosion at an Iranian missile facility that the Israelis have not-so-quietly hinted was their work. Whether any of these are true, the psychological pressure on Iran is building and appears to be orchestrated.

Of all the players in this game, Israel’s position is the most complex. Israel has had a decent, albeit covert, working relationship with the Syrians going back to their mutual hostility toward Yasser Arafat. For Israel, Syria has been the devil they know. The idea of a Sunni government controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood on their northeastern frontier was frightening; they preferred al Assad. But given the shift in the regional balance of power, the Israeli view is also changing. The Sunni Islamist threat has weakened in the past decade relative to the Iranian Shiite threat. Playing things forward, the threat of a hostile Sunni force in Syria is less worrisome than an emboldened Iranian presence on Israel’s northern frontier. This explains why the architects of Israel’s foreign policy, such as Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have been saying that we are seeing an “acceleration toward the end of the regime.” Regardless of its preferred outcome, Israel cannot influence events inside Syria. Instead, Israel is adjusting to a reality where the threat of Iran reshaping the politics of the region has become paramount.

Iran is, of course, used to psychological campaigns. We continue to believe that while Iran might be close to a nuclear device that could explode underground under carefully controlled conditions, its ability to create a stable, robust nuclear weapon that could function outside a laboratory setting (which is what an underground test is) is a ways off. This includes being able to load a fragile experimental system on a delivery vehicle and expecting it to explode. It might. It might not. It might even be intercepted and create a casus belli for a counterstrike.

The main Iranian threat is not nuclear. It might become so, but even without nuclear weapons, Iran remains a threat. The current escalation originated in the American decision to withdraw from Iraq and was intensified by events in Syria. If Iran abandoned its nuclear program tomorrow, the situation would remain as complex. Iran has the upper hand, and the United States, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia all are looking at how to turn the tables.

At this point, they appear to be following a two-pronged strategy: Increase pressure on Iran to make it recalculate its vulnerability, and bring down the Syrian government to limit the consequences of Iranian influence in Iraq. Whether the Syrian regime can be brought down is problematic. Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi would have survived if NATO hadn’t intervened. NATO could intervene in Syria, but Syria is more complex than Libya. Moreover, a second NATO attack on an Arab state designed to change its government would have unintended consequences, no matter how much the Arabs fear the Iranians at the moment. Wars are unpredictable; they are not the first option.

Therefore the likely solution is covert support for the Sunni opposition funneled through Lebanon and possibly Turkey and Jordan. It will be interesting to see if the Turks participate. Far more interesting will be seeing whether this works. Syrian intelligence has penetrated its Sunni opposition effectively for decades. Mounting a secret campaign against the regime would be difficult, and its success by no means assured. Still, that is the next move.

But it is not the last move. To put Iran back into its box, something must be done about the Iraqi political situation. Given the U.S. withdrawal, Washington has little influence there. All of the relationships the United States built were predicated on American power protecting the relationships. With the Americans gone, the foundation of those relationships dissolves. And even with Syria, the balance of power is shifting.

The United States has three choices. Accept the evolution and try to live with what emerges. Attempt to make a deal with Iran – a very painful and costly one. Or go to war. The first assumes Washington can live with what emerges. The second depends on whether Iran is interested in dealing with the United States. The third depends on having enough power to wage a war and to absorb Iran’s retaliatory strikes, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz. All are dubious, so toppling al Assad is critical. It changes the game and the momentum. But even that is enormously difficult and laden with risks.

We are now in the final act of Iraq, and it is even more painful than imagined. Laying this alongside the European crisis makes the idea of a systemic crisis in the global system very real.

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Posted in Iran, Iran-Syria, Israel, Middle East Geopolitics, Syria, Syrian Opposition, Turkey-Syria, US Middle East Politics, US-Syria

Syria uprising victim of outside game

Posted on November 15, 2011 | Comments Off

By Ramzy Baroud

Mon Nov 14, 2011 8:52PM GMT

Syrians continue to be victimized, not only in violent clashes with the Syrian military, but also by regional and international players with various agendas.

Protests in Syria began on January 26, and a more inclusive uprising was set in motion on March 15. The initial demand was for serious political reforms, but this was eventually raised to a demand for full regime change, encompassing the unconditional departure of President Bashar al-Assad and his Baath Party, which has ruled Syria for decades.

Soon, there was a deadlock. The uprising failed to weaken the links between the regime, army and other security agencies. It also remained confined to areas outside the two most populated cities, Damascus, in the southwest, and Aleppo in the north. On the other hand, protests seemed extensive and prevalent enough to reflect a real sense of outrage at government practices, which grew with the reported deaths of Syrians all over the country. Despite a relentless military crackdown, and the killing of 3500 Syrians (according to a recent UN human rights office report), the government has not been able to quell the uprising, nor to provide a convincing political initiative that could spare Syria further bloodletting.

It could be argued that the impasse originated in Syria’s own political culture, espoused by the Baath Party’s legacy of shunning dialogue in times of crisis. More, those who ultimately designated themselves as Syria’s opposition remain largely divided, and often seemed to provide conflicting roadmaps for achieving democracy.

Earlier revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were spared the terrible fate of people’s priorities becoming merely another agenda item to be decided by outside powers. Both revolutions had quickly reached the critical mass required to topple their dictators, denying outsiders the chance of meddling in the outcome. The situation in Syria, however, developed at a different pace. The uprising lacked the full support of the urban middle class. The army neither broke away from the ruling party, nor remained neutral. Additionally, months of violence – in which a successful Western military intervention in Libya toppled the regime of Mummer Ghaddafi – provided outside powers with the needed time to position themselves as the caretakers of Syria’s future. In other words, a popular uprising was decidedly hijacked and is currently being managed from Western and Arab capitals.

It was as though ordinary Syrians began realizing that their vision of achieving revolution from within was futile, and they bought into the illusion that only outside intervention could bring lasting change. These voices were emboldened by members of the Syrian National Council – seen as the lead opposition to the Baath regime – whose behavior seemed to model that of the Libyan National Transitional Council. The latter had blithely welcomed NATO to Libya, initially to ‘protect civilians’ from possible Libyan army retaliation, but eventually to carry out an airstrikes campaign that largely increased the number of deaths in Libya.

Adopting a model that rationalizes foreign intervention – which is incapable of exacting change without extreme violence – will bode horrible consequences for the Syrian people and the whole region. With the Syrian government failing to win the trust of large segments of the Syrian population, the opposition’s growing dependency on outside forces, and some Arab media networks fanning the flames of sectarianism and civil war, the Syrian deadlock is morphing into something even more dangerous: a Lebanon-style civil war or a Libyan-style foreign military intervention.

The fate of Syria is no longer likely to be influenced by the Syrian people themselves, nor by their government. All eyes are now on the United States. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton tried to clarify the US position in her recent comments. In the case of Libya, NATO and Arab countries banded together “to protect civilians and help people liberate their country without a single American life lost,” she said. But in other cases, as in Syria, “to achieve that same goal, we would have to act alone, at a much greater cost, with far greater risks and perhaps even with troops on the ground.” For now, according to Clinton, US priorities in the region would have to remain focused on “our fight against al-Qaeda; defense of our allies; and a secure supply of energy” (The Washington Post, November 7).

Russia and China, worried that another US regime change venture could jeopardize their interests in the region, remain steadfast behind Damascus and critical of the factions that oppose the Assad regime. “We are concerned with news of ongoing aggression by extremist gunmen such as those which took place in Homs, Hama and Idlib in recent days with the provocative aim of forcing security agencies and the army in Syria to retaliate, and then launching a campaign via international media outlets,” said Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov in a recent statement (The Lebanese Daily Star, November 11).

The lines are thus drawn, between US-led Western camp and Russia and its own camp, which vehemently rejects a repeat of a Libyan scenario in a volatile region of unmatched geopolitical significance.

Whatever the outcome of this tussle, the Syrian uprising is increasingly being deprived of its own initiative. Currently, the issue of Syria is being entrusted to the Arab League, which lacks both credibility (since it is too divided between regional interests) and any history of successful political initiatives. On November 2, Syria announced that it had agreed to an Arab League plan which called for the withdrawal of security forces from the streets, the release of prisoners and talks with the opposition.

However, it is very probable that some Arab countries are keen to employ the league in a similar fashion to the way it was used with the war on Libya: a mere springboard that eventually allowed NATO’s war to take place. Signs of such a scenario are becoming clearer, especially following the league’s vote to suspend Syria’s membership on November 12. Indeed, In a New York Times editorial on November 8, the role of the Arabs seems to be confined to just that. The Arab League “should eject Syria and urge the United Nations Security Council to condemn Mr. Assad and impose international sanctions against the regime,” the Times counseled. “Russia and China will find it harder to block a Security Council resolution – as they did in October – if the Arab world calls for action that goes beyond the sanctions already imposed by the United States and Europe.”

And so the saga continues. If Syria doesn’t wrestle its fate from the hands of these self-serving forces, the Syrian uprising and Syria as a whole will continue to be marred by uncertainties and foreboding possibilities.

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), available on Amazon.com.

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, US Middle East Politics

Arab Spring, American winter

Posted on November 12, 2011 | Comments Off

By Aaron David Miller- November 13, 2011 –

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-miller-arabs-america-20111113,0,3217191,print.story

All Gaule was divided into three parts, Julius Caesar wrote in his “De Bello Gallico.” For America, the Arab world had been divided into two: adversarial and acquiescent Arab authoritarians.

Until now.

The last eight months have witnessed profound changes. The willing and unwilling Arab autocrats have gone or are going the way of the dodo.

What remains — Arab states without strong and authoritative leaders and caught up in lengthy, messy transitions, monarchies trying to co-opt and preempt transformational change (Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Jordan); and nonstate actors still at war with themselves (Hezbollah and the Palestinians) — guarantees a turbulent and complex environment for the United States. Few offer a hook on which to hang a set of American policies now broadly unpopular throughout the region.

The long arc of the Arab Spring may yet bring more transparency, accountability, gender equality and, yes, even some semblance of real democracy. But the short term all but guarantees a much less hospitable and forbidding place for America, whose credibility has shrunk.

For 50 years, America dealt with two kinds of Arab leaders: the adversarials (Syria, Libya and Iraq) and the acquiescents (Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan and a few key Persian Gulf states). At times, each of the adversarials also played the role of partners for brief periods: Iraq against Iran; Syria on the peace process; Libya on giving up WMD in exchange for an end to its pariah status. But leopards really do not change their spots. The violent ends of Saddam Hussein, Moammar Kadafi and perhaps at some point even the younger Bashar Assad make the case.

For the most part, these Arab authoritarians guaranteed a relatively stable and predictable region in which U.S. interests thrived: successful containment of the former Soviet Union, access to oil at fair prices, security for Israel, close relations with the acquiescents and even progress on Arab-Israeli peacemaking. This left America with a role it understood and could play rather well.

It wasn’t pretty, of course. There was that pesky Arab-Israeli conflict that drove a handful of wars, oil shocks, an Iranian revolution and Islamic extremism, and a few self-inflicted disasters such as Operation Iraqi Freedom. But by and large, the U.S. got by, its prestige high with acquiescent autocrats and low with their publics.

And why not? America had cut the devil’s bargain: In exchange for giving the friendly autocrats a pass on governance and human rights (and at times reaching out to the adversarials), it was able to enlist their cooperation on a range of issues. But Washington may now find itself in the strange position of getting neither democracy nor stability. America’s stock is lower than it’s ever been, its partners are gone, along with the familiar bad guys, and it’s not at all clear who or what will take the place of those partners. We confront not just an Arab Spring but an array of uncertainties complex enough to run many years to come.

Tunisia, where it all began, appropriately offers the best chance for a working democracy, in part because it’s small and largely irrelevant. In Egypt and Libya, where hopes have been high, you have to wonder. The former is less free, prosperous and secure than it was under Hosni Mubarak and is likely heading for a future like Turkey — but two decades ago. Libya, a country the size of Alaska with only 6 million people and a lot of oil money, should do well. But it isn’t Western Europe. Rival militias, Islamist radicals, outside meddling and just the lack of traditions and experience in self-governance guarantee that Libya will be a long slog.

Elsewhere, matters look a lot worse. In Syria, nobody has a clue: The scenarios run from more of the same to civil war to an Alawite coup against the Assads — even the possibility (now don’t shoot me) of some kind of external military intervention should the bloodletting rise exponentially. We can be pretty confident that whatever transpires, it will be long, complex and bloody. Yemen, which most people (including myself) don’t really understand, is equally opaque. But dollars to doughnuts that won’t be a polity of which Thomas Jefferson would have been proud.

Strange as it seems, the monarchies may well have the best shot at avoiding these kind of painful transitions. Where in varying degrees money, legitimacy from Islam and some enlightened leadership combine (Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, Oman), reckonings have been averted. For how long is unclear. At some point, if they’re not smart on reform — and even if they are — the bell may toll for the kings too.

I know that people say, be patient, the arc of the Arab Spring is long and potentially a happy one. And for the Arabs, that may well be true. They are seizing control of their destiny and they will be allowed — as they should be, finally — to make their own beds.

But for America, it may not be such a happy experience. Our policies, opposed from one end of this region to the other, are unlikely to change. Our capacity to succeed at war and peacemaking — the real measure of respect and admiration (Libya notwithstanding ) — has diminished along with our street cred. We can’t solve the Palestinian issue, can’t stop Iran from getting the bomb, can’t find a way to achieve victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are still caught up in the devil’s bargain with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

We resemble more a modern-day Gulliver tied up by tiny tribes and by our own illusions than a smart, tough and fair superpower.

If we could disengage and spend more time and resources on our own broken house, we should; but alas, we can’t. And therein lies the conundrum for America today: stuck in a region (with fewer friends) we can’t fix or walk away from.

Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, served as a Middle East negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations. He is the author of “Can America Have Another Great President?” to be published in 2012.

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, US Middle East Politics

The Military in Politics: The Turkish model

Posted on November 3, 2011 | Comments Off

Turkey’s Military Is a Catalyst for Reform
The Military in Politics

by David Capezza
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2009, pp. 13-23

http://www.meforum.org/2160/turkey-military-catalyst-for-reform

Analysts generally consider military influence in politics and society to be a critical impediment to the development of democratic political and civil rights and freedoms. According to Freedom House, for example, greater military involvement in government politics decreases civil liberties and political rights in any given country; this infringes on a government’s ability to develop democracy.[1]

In 1826, Sultan Mahmud II broke the power of the sultan’s guards, the Janissaries, enabling him to reform the military and begin Westernization of the empire.

Turkey may be an exception. The military has deep roots in society, and its influence predates the founding of the republic. But rather than hinder democratization, Turkey’s military remains an important component in the checks and balances that protect Turkish democracy. Herein lies an irony: European officials have made diminishment of military influence a key reform in Turkey’s European Union accession process. This may be a noble goal, but by insisting on dismantling the military role in Turkish society without advancing a new mechanism to guarantee the constitution, well-meaning reformers may actually undercut the stability of Turkey as a democracy.

From Turkey’s founding, the military assumed responsibility for guaranteeing the republic’s constitution. Article 35 of the Turkish Armed Service Internal Service Code of 1961 declared that the “duty of the armed forces is to protect and safeguard Turkish territory and the Turkish Republic as stipulated by the constitution.”[2] Indeed, such an interpretation had its roots in the constitution. Turkey’s first constitution was written in 1921, and since the formal proclamation of the republic, the country has had three additional constitutions—in 1924, 1961, and 1982. Until the constitutional amendments of 2001, each placed responsibility in the military’s hands for the protection of the Turkish state from both external and internal challenges. The constitution of 1982, for example, prohibited contestation or constitutional review of the laws or decrees passed by the military when the republic was under its rule from 1980 until 1983. This effectively provided the military with a legal exit guarantee following their coup in 1980.[3] Specifically, article 15 stated, “No allegation of unconstitutionality can be made in respect of laws, law-amending ordinances and acts and decisions taken in accordance with the law numbered 2324 on the law on the constitutional order.”[4]

The Turkish military has used this sense of constitutional authorization to justify interference in the political realm, on some occasions. It seized power in 1960 and 1980 when polarization and economic instability paralyzed the country’s political system, and it also forced the resignation of governments in 1971 and 1997. While the Turkish constitution certainly does not endorse coups, Turkish popular distrust of politicians has generally led the public to support military action.

This constitutional role began to unravel, however, in September 2001, when the Turkish parliament amended the constitution to ensure that the Constitutional Court (Anayasa Mahkemesi) review any decisions involving maintenance of freedoms and allegations of unconstitutionality.[5] Therefore, the military may not act upon allegations of unconstitutional acts until there has been prior court review. Other structural factors augment the Turkish military’s role. On July 23, 2003, the Grand National Assembly passed a reform package which called for a civilian to lead the powerful and historically military-led National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu, MGK), a body which advises—but, more realistically, directs—the president in the formation of his security policies, policies which in Turkey traditionally span internal and external threats. On August 17, 2004, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer appointed former ambassador to the U.K., Mehmet Yiğit Alpogan, to head the MGK.[6] Nevertheless, the military remains a force wielding more political power than it does in Western democracies. The commander of the Turkish General Staff, for example, answers directly to the prime minister and is not subordinate to the minister of defense, nor are the appointments to senior military posts subject to the affirmation of politicians.

The Ottoman Military Tradition

The augmented role of Turkey’s military, both in politics and as a catalyst for reform, has deep historical roots. It is true to say that throughout much of Ottoman history, the military stymied reform. The Janissaries, the sultan’s household troops and bodyguard, remained a force resistant to change into the early nineteenth century, but in 1826, Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808-39) broke their power,[7] enabling him first to reform the military and then to begin Westernization of the empire. Mahmud’s reforms continued, with a few brief interruptions, throughout the remainder of the century.

While there was general recognition in Ottoman domains that the Empire had to modernize, there was also public criticism that the sultan’s reforms subordinated Ottoman tradition to European ways.[8] The reforms of Mahmud II may not have won broad public support, but they did nevertheless sow the seeds of liberty in Ottoman society. With ideas of political and social liberty beginning to permeate the Ottoman world, a number of Ottoman nationalists and government bureaucrats formed a group in 1865 called the Young Ottomans, which sought to transform the sultanate into a constitutional republic with an elected parliament. The Young Ottomans used the printing press to disseminate works on liberty, justice, and freedom.

They made halting progress. In 1877, for example, the Ottoman Empire had its first parliamentary election, but within months, Sultan Abdul Hamid II (r. 1876-1909) disbanded the parliament and shortly thereafter, in 1878, annulled the constitution itself. Assessing the failure, emeritus Princeton historian Bernard Lewis explains: “the reforming edicts had brought some changes in administrative procedures, but had done nothing to protect the subject against arbitrary rule.”[9]

The only institution that could protect the populace against arbitrary rule was the military. Although it had been able to overthrow successfully the power vested in the sultan at certain times—as when the Janissaries rose up against Sultan Selim III’s (r. 1789-1807) military reforms in 1807—it required the support of the populace, something illustrated by the failure of an 1826 revolt.[10] Conversely, the Young Ottomans, while generally supported by the populace, lacked the most crucial element to implement their ideas: the support of the military. As Ismail Kemal, a leader of the Albanian independence movement in 1912, stated, “By propaganda and publications alone a revolution cannot be made. It is therefore necessary to work to ensure the participation of the armed forces in the revolutionary movement.”[11]

Recognizing the need to have the support of both the military and the people to facilitate a successful revolution, in 1906, a group of young military officers, including Mustafa Kemal, who would later take the single name Atatürk, created a revolutionary organization called Vatan ve Hürriyet (Fatherland and Freedom) to advance political revolution and reform in the Empire. They kept their group distinct from civilian groups such as unionists and liberals who feared a concentration of power in the central government.

On July 23, 1908, Sultan Abdul Hamid acquiesced to the revolutionaries’ demands and ushered in a new era of constitutionalism. However, the İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti (Committee of Union and Progress, CUP) was able to suppress the internal military mutiny and restore order within the ranks by sending an army to the capital to end the instability. By April 27, 1909, with the accession of Abdul Hamid’s brother Mehmed V (r. 1909-1918) to the throne, the army effectively ensured that it would be involved in the establishment of a new constitution and would inevitably remain involved in politics for an extended period of time. However, the decision to return authority to civilian hands set a precedent for what would soon become the military-political symbiosis that distinguishes modern Turkey.[12]

Atatürk and After

In the wake of the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I, the Allied powers, including France and Great Britain, sought to divide Anatolia into zones of influence and to have Istanbul demilitarized under international control. From chaos and defeat, Atatürk rallied troops to take Istanbul, repel foreign forces, and crush rebellious factions. Empowered by military success and growing nationalist sentiment, Atatürk negotiated peace terms with the Allied powers and declared Turkey’s independence.[13] On October 13, 1923, the new parliament declared Ankara the capital and, shortly after, the Grand National Assembly elected Atatürk president.[14]

The military founded the Turkish Republic with the support of the people. The main reason for its success and the establishment of a new government was Atatürk’s pragmatic approach as he checked his own power with moderate decision making.[15] Kemalism evolved to become a measured approach, combining nationalism, populism, étatisme, laicism, and reformism.[16] The Constitution of 1921 reinforced social, economic, and judicial equality; support for state-owned industries; recognition of a secular political life; and the idea that reform was necessary for the state to remain relevant to the populace’s needs.[17]

Atatürk formalized a separation of the military from politics. Article 148 of the Military Penal Code prohibited serving military officers from political party membership or activities and declared that the military would be neutral in its support of the political system. Simultaneously, however, the article empowered the military to act as “the vanguard of revolution” with the right to “intervene in the political sphere if the survival of the state would otherwise be left in grave jeopardy.” Article 34 of the Army Internal Service Law of 1935 stipulated that the military was constitutionally obligated to protect and defend the Turkish homeland and the republic,[18] a clause interpreted by generations of Turkish officials to allow military leaders to intercede whenever the internal politics of Turkey destabilize the republic.

Atatürk did not foresee military involvement in day-to-day politics, and he certainly did not tolerate military interference with his agenda. Rather, having arisen from the military, he used it as a power base from which to enforce his reforms. Under Atatürk’s successor, İsmet İnönü, the question over the military’s future role in politics gained greater significance. The first question to arise was the role of the chief of staff who, under Atatürk, reported directly to the prime minister rather than the minister of defense. Given Turkey’s strong premiership, this made the military a more independent power base, one not subordinate to a civilian defense minister. İnönü chose to continue this modus operandi.[19]

After a successful election in July 1946, İnönü and the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) won majority support although the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) established itself as a serious minority party. The Democrats dominated the May 1950 elections, winning 470 seats to the CHP’s 69. İnönü stepped down, and power passed to Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and President Celal Bayar. They relaxed restrictions on Islam’s role in society, encouraged private enterprise in order to hasten economic development, and implemented social welfare programs. After winning a huge majority in the May 1954 elections, Menderes introduced more authoritarian legislation, restricting freedom of the press and limiting freedom of assembly.[20] By 1959, disgruntled opposition members boycotted the Grand National Assembly and threatened to take their protests to the streets. The Turkish political scene had grown volatile.[21]

1960, 1971, 1980: Military Coups and Intervention

In April 1960, amidst student protests and unrest between the government and the opposition parties, the military launched a coup to restore political and social order, installing a Committee on National Unity led by General Cemal Gürsel. On May 27, they arrested Bayar, Menderes, other members of the Democratic Party cabinet, deputies, and officials. Prime Minister Menderes and two members of his cabinet were executed after the coup. The following year, the Committee of National Unity created a larger constituent assembly, rewrote the constitution, and submitted it to popular referendum. After sponsoring elections, the military returned power to civilian control in November 1961. The Grand National Assembly appointed Gürsel president, but he first resigned from the military. While historians and diplomats may condemn the coup, the Turkish experience stands in sharp juxtaposition to that in Egypt, Iraq, and Syria where the military seized control and refused to relinquish power. Even neighboring Greece had to wait seven years to restore civilian control.

Turkish society, however, remained unstable through much of the 1960s as the debate about Turkey’s place in the Cold War and the spread of socialism grew more polarized. While the socialists could not consolidate control, they were still able to undermine the ability of coalition governments to operate.[22] Between 1965 and 1969, the reactionary leftist groups grew strong alongside the nationalist right. This led to an increasingly virulent left-right struggle, which often manifested itself in violent clashes. Trade Unions, which ironically gained the right to strike only in the 1961 constitution, increasingly took to the streets. The balance-of-payments deficit worsened, inflation increased, and in 1970, the government devalued the currency. In early 1971, civil violence rose sharply. There were student clashes with the police, kidnappings, murders, and bombings of government buildings. In the military’s opinion, the situation had become untenable. The deteriorating situation and Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel’s inability to maintain order convinced the military to intervene again in order to recalibrate and stabilize political life.[23]

On March 12, 1971, the Turkish military sent a memorandum to President Cevdet Sunay and Prime Minister Demirel insisting on the need to appoint a new government to calm society and to resolve continued economic problems. In the two years that followed, debate over the future of the republic raged among the political parties and between civil and military institutions. The successor government to Demirel’s collapsed after Prime Minister Nihat Erim was unable to bridge the differences between his government, the Justice Party (Adalet Partisi), and the Republican Peoples Party.[24] After the March 1973 parliamentary elections, the political parties elected retired Admiral Fahri Korutürk as president on April 6. After the precedents of Gürsel and Sunay, the rise of a retired military official to the presidency seemed natural; after all, the military was seen as above politics and, in the Turkish system, the president is traditionally a consensus figure who can rise above political party antics. Nevertheless, the legacy of the 1971 intervention is mixed. While the military did force the government to reshuffle, its goal of establishing a “powerful and credible government” did not succeed, given that four weak coalition governments rose and fell in the thirty-one months following the memorandum.[25]

Turkey remained unstable. High inflation, cuts in public expenditures, and labor disputes led to protests and strikes. Meanwhile, there were general malaise and rising political turmoil between Bülent Ecevit’s ruling CHP and its Islamist rival, Necmettin Erbakan’s National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi).[26] Between 1971 and 1980, there were eleven successive governments. Most were too greatly sidetracked by their efforts to contain rivalry within their coalition to tackle social unrest, extremism, and an economic crisis exacerbated by the 1973 oil embargo. With this increase in unrest and the political situation untenable, the military again decided to “invoke the power granted to them by the Internal Service Code to protect and look after the Turkish Republic.”[27] On September 12, 1980, the military carried out a nonviolent coup, arresting 138,000 people, of whom 42,000 received judicial sentences. Restrictive laws clamped down on political demonstrations and strikes. Unlike the 1971 coup, in which the military only took a guiding role in reestablishing the political system, in 1980, it used a heavy hand to restore order.[28]

Up to the 1983 elections, primary power rested in the military leadership and was channeled through the National Security Council under General Kenan Evren. The military dominated most aspects of society, taking strict control of universities, dismissing or transferring academics, depoliticizing the public service system, and dissolving existing political parties. In essence, the military enforced martial law to ensure public safety. [29] The military, once again, issued a new constitution. In 1983, Turgut Özal and the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP) assumed power with Evren serving as president.

While many academics and Western diplomats view military interventions in black and white terms as always antithetical to democracy, throughout these formative years of Turkish democracy, this was not the case. Nilüfer Göle, director of studies at the école des Hautes études in the Centre d’Analyse et d’Intervention Sociologiques in Paris, writes, “the military interventions of 1960-1961, 1970-1973, and 1980-1983 can be perceived as state reactions against the ‘unhealthy’ autonomization and differentiation of economic, political and cultural groups.”[30] The military simply sought the continuance of the Kemalist ideology, which had broad popular support and was the template upon which the constitution allowed various political parties to act.[31]

Erbakan and His Legacy

Following the coup of 1980, the military stayed out of politics and, indeed, under Özal, who served as prime minister from 1983-89 and president from 1989-93, lost some of its political autonomy, even as it remained free from civilian control. Only when Prime Minister Tansu Çiller began to lose control during an economic and social crisis in 1994 (during which inflation reached 100 percent) did the military again begin to involve itself actively in politics.[32]

In 1996, after winning just 21 percent of the vote the previous year, Erbakan became prime minister as the leader of a coalition between Çiller’s True Path Party (Doğru Yol Partisi, DYP) and his own newly-formed Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP). He was an ardent Islamist, but while he was disliked by the military, the Turkish General Staff did not seek to prevent his accession, both because the Turkish military does not intervene as lightly as some of its detractors suggest and because, holding 158 of 550 seats in parliament, his party could not rule without its Kemalist coalition partners.[33]

Almost immediately, however, the Erbakan government began to support a strong pro-religious platform and a reorientation of foreign policy as Erbakan visited Iran and Libya. In February 1997, the National Security Council reported that the foundations of Turkey’s political structure were being undermined by the government’s pro-Islamist policies. Amidst growing disaffection among the populace due to the government’s religious policies, the military forced Erbakan’s resignation and, within months, the Constitutional Court banned the Refah,[34] but not before Refah officials had formed new parties to which they transferred most of their party’s assets. Recai Kutan assumed command of the spin-off Fazilet Partisi (Virtue Party) and mollified Refah’s hard-line position. It was nevertheless banned in 1998 after the Constitutional Court found that the party’s Islamist platform breached the 1982 constitution.[35] Supporters of the Virtue Party led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in turn formed the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in July 2001.

Erdoğan, a former mayor of Istanbul, was a controversial figure in Turkey. In 1998, a Diyarbakir court convicted him of inciting religious hatred after he read an Islamist poem at a political rally,[36] and even after the party swept to victory in the November 2002 elections, he remained prohibited from holding office, a ban overturned the following February.

The AKP’s rise had less to do with its Islamist agenda than with public disgust over corruption scandals among the more traditional parties amidst the November 2000 banking and February 2001 currency crises.[37] On a single day on February 22, 2001, the Turkish lira lost one-third of its value.[38] Erdoğan is a skilled politician. He moderated both his and his party’s image to ensure that the AKP would not meet the fate of Refah or Fazilet. As public confidence in Ecevit and his coalition partners waned, Erdoğan sought to appeal to a constituency beyond the AKP’s Islamist base. A July 2000 poll conducted by the Ankara Social Research Center found that 30.8 percent of those surveyed would vote for Erdoğan’s party.[39]

The Rise of Erdoğan

And so it came to be. In 2002, the AKP gained power with 34 percent of the vote. Because five other parties fell just short of the ten percent threshold necessary to enter parliament, this propelled the AKP’s grip on parliament to a clear majority with 363 seats in the Grand National Assembly, the largest majority in Turkey’s multiparty era. The CHP, Turkey’s oldest political party but one which had not been represented in the 1999 parliament, won 19 percent. A clear reflection of the popular dismay with the previous government, the Motherland Party received just over five percent of the vote.

The AKP hewed a moderate foreign policy line when it assumed office. Unlike Erbakan, Erdoğan embraced the European Union accession process. For the AKP, this was a brilliant tactical move. By blurring—rather than sharply defining—the line between pro-Western orientation and Islamism, Erdoğan provided his party with plausible deniability about its goals; it could be all things to all people. In Central Anatolia, its deputies could preach Islamism while party officials convinced Turkish businessmen in Western-oriented cities such as Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir that it was committed to orienting Turkey closer toward Europe. Simultaneously, the 1999 Copenhagen Criteria, which outlined the reforms necessary to join the European Union, would weaken military influence within the Turkish state. Not only would a civilian lead the National Security Council, but the body would meet only six times a year, cutting by half the opportunities it had to micromanage policy. As important, European Union reforms placed military expenditures under the scrutiny of the Court of Accounts, a body similar to the U.S. General Accounting Office.[40]

Turkey’s military is divided about whether European Union accession is a reflection of traditionalist Kemalist views. Perhaps two-thirds of the Turkish public supported Ankara’s bid to join the European Union upon announcement of the Copenhagen Criteria. General Hüseyin Kivrikoğlu, chief of the Turkish General Staff at the time, said that “joining the EU was a geopolitical necessity,” whereas a retired general commented that “EU membership was against Turkey’s history and contradicted the Kemalist revolution.”[41]

As Copenhagen Criteria reforms weakened the power of the military in internal Turkish affairs, Erdoğan has advanced an Islamist agenda which has altered Turkish society. The most prominent example of the AKP’s Islamism has been its argument that Turkish women should have a legal right to wear veils in schools and public institutions, a policy traditional Kemalists and the military consider a symbolic affront to the Turkish government’s secularism. Here, ironically, Erdoğan has clashed with European officials. After the European Court of Human Rights backed the ban on head scarves in public schools, the prime minister complained, “It is wrong that those who have no connection to this field [of religion] make such a decision … without consulting Islamic scholars.”[42]

However, the AKP’s attempts to roll back the separation between mosque and state involve more than the head scarf. In May 2006, the Erdoğan-appointed chief negotiator for European Union accession talks ordered state officials to cease defining Turkey’s educational system as secular.[43] Indeed, Erdoğan moved to equate Imam Hatip religious school degrees with those of public high schools, thereby enabling Islamist students to enter the university and qualify for government jobs without serious study of basic Western principles.[44] When university presidents complained about growing AKP political interference and Islamist influence in their institutions, Erdoğan ordered the police to detain the most outspoken university rector on corruption charges that later proved baseless.[45]

Distrust of the AKP and its agenda solidified after a gunman, reportedly upset with a ruling against the veil law, stormed the Council of State, equivalent to the Supreme Court, and opened fire shouting, “I am a soldier of God,” killing one justice.[46] Erdoğan declined to attend the dead man’s funeral. Both the President and Yaşar Büyükanıt, chief of the Turkish General Staff, have warned publicly of growing threats to secularism. On April 12, 2006, Sezer said, “Religious fundamentalism has reached alarming proportions. Turkey’s only guarantee against this threat is its secular order.”[47] The following day, Büyükanıt warned military cadets of growing Islamic fundamentalism and said that “every measure will be taken against it.”[48]

The military was, however, powerless to intervene, at least compared to 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997. On April 27, 2007, Büyükanıt held a press conference to stress that the military wanted the next president of Turkey to uphold the original principles of the republic. Traditionally, the Grand National Assembly and major political parties agreed on a nominee for president, as the position, unlike in the United States, was meant to be above politics and held by a consensus figure. Erdoğan, however, had a majority in parliament to choose the president without consulting political rivals and simply announced that his candidate would be Abdullah Gül, the foreign minister in the AKP government.

Hours later, the Turkish General Staff posted a statement on its website declaring, “Some circles who have been carrying out endless efforts to disturb fundamental values of the republic of Turkey, especially secularism, have escalated their efforts recently,” warning that the “fundamentalist understanding [of the government] was eroding the very foundation of the Turkish Republic and the ideas that it was founded upon.”[49] Rather than step aside with relative grace as had Erbakan, the AKP issued a rebuttal, reminding the military that in “democracies,” the military does not intervene in the political process.

Islamists and many diplomats branded the military’s statement as an “Internet coup,” casting the military as aggressors, rather than defenders of a constitutional order violated by Erdoğan. After a constitutional battle over procedures, the AKP-dominated Grand National Assembly selected Gül as president, further consolidating the party’s power and effectively eliminating any future presidential vetoes over concerns about the constitutionalism of AKP legislation.

Since winning a second term and consolidating control with 46.7 percent of the vote, Erdoğan has gone on the offensive. After surviving a judicial challenge which could have resulted in the disbandment of the AKP on questionable constitutional grounds, the AKP pushed forward with prosecutions on an alleged nationalist and Kemalist plot to cause chaos in order to provide an excuse for military intervention. AKP-led prosecutors and security forces have detained hundreds of journalists, retired military officers, political rivals, and academics. While, at its root, physical evidence exists to suggest some malfeasance on the part of radical Kemalists, there is little evidence to suggest a widespread plot.

The AKP, therefore, faces growing criticism that it is using the case as an excuse to intimidate or silence anyone who opposes its agenda.[50] The importance of the so-called Ergenekon prosecutions, though, is to show just how little influence and control the military has over Turkish society. Simultaneously, should the Ergenekon prosecutions represent an internal putsch by Erdoğan against his and the AKP’s opponents, the episode shows how unbalanced Turkish democracy can become when the military can no longer effectively act as a force for constitutionalism and reform.

The Military Exits?

Turkey remains a strategic asset to the West. Its military is the second largest in NATO, and it is the preeminent Western security force in what is considered by many Westerners to be the most volatile region in the world. With Turkey at the doorstep of the European Union, it is ever closer to realizing its movement to the West. Ironically, it may not be able to take this final step without recognition of the domestic role of its military.

Since the days of the Ottoman Empire and throughout the history of the Turkish Republic, the military has been the one institution that has repeatedly checked civilian autocratic tendencies, maintained moderation, and ensured the preservation of the state. While Western officials may view repeated coups as antithetical to democracy, the military has always returned power to the civilian sector. Indeed, the elements that complain loudest about military involvement tend to be those least committed to constitutionalism and least tolerant toward political opponents.

Moreover, the military has, since the late nineteenth century, maintained the push towards modernization while continuing the tradition of the Ottoman and republican Turkish societies. Though the external environment has changed dramatically, the military has remained an anchor for society.

The EU accession process has driven reforms that have weakened the military’s internal role. While many democracy experts and leaders of EU member states argue that the military should not have a role in internal politics,[51] Turkey is different. The Turkish political system is dynamic and permits a wider range of political views and philosophies to compete on the political stage than many other European states. The system has not always worked well, however; on several occasions, such as that leading to the 1960 coup, politicians consolidating disproportionate control have appeared ready to cast aside the foundational principles of Turkish democracy. In other instances, such as 1971 and 1980, parliamentary fractiousness has impeded coalition formation or effective government. Ordinary democratic processes were unable to resolve the political stalemate. When the Turkish military intervened, it did so to restore democratic stability, not supplant it. From 1923 to the present day, the military has proven its commitment to democracy and constitutionalism and, indeed, only invokes its role as a constitutional check and balance as a last resort.

In essence, the military has acted as a guide to usher Kemalist principles into full realization. This is not to say that the military should continue to have a dominant role in perpetuity. However, failure to recognize the military’s unique and traditional role as the protector of the public from any political party’s undemocratic consolidation of power and as the defender of the constitution is dangerous because it creates the possibility that the checks and balances of Turkish society might collapse without creation of a new system of supervision. As Turkey and its people move into the future, the military should move as well. Just as Atatürk modernized Turkey and initiated its drive toward the West, European officials should consider the military a reformist force without which Ankara’s movement further to the West might not occur.

David Capezza is a consultant for the Center for New American Security in Washington, DC.

[1] Freedom in the World, 2007 (New York: Freedom House, 2007), pp. 986-7.
[2] Tim Jacoby, Social Power and the Turkish State (New York: Frank Cass, 2004), p. 133.
[3] Levent Gönenc, “The 2001 Amendments to the 1982 Constitution of Turkey,” Ankara Law Review, Summer 2004, p. 93.
[4] Serap Yazici, “A Guide to Turkish Public Law and Legal Research: 10.2, The Constitutional Amendments of 2001 and 2004,” GlobaLex, Hauser Global Law School Program, Jan. 2009.
[5] Serap Yazici, “A Guide to the Turkish Public Law Order and Legal Research: The Constitutional Amendments of 2001 and 2004,” GlobaLex, Hauser Global Law School Program, Sept. 2006.
[6] Sabah (Istanbul), Aug. 18, 2004.
[7] Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 78.
[8] Ibid., 125-8.
[9] Ibid., p. 171.
[10] William Hale, Turkish Politics and the Role of the Military (New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 16.
[11] Quoted in Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, p. 202.
[12] Alexander L. Macfie, The End of the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1923 (New York: Longman’s, 1998), pp. 41-56.
[13] Metin Tamkoc, The Warrior Diplomats: Guardians of the National Security and Modernization of Turkey (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1976), pp. 10-9.
[14] Roderic H. Davidson, Turkey: A Short History (Huntingdon, U.K.: Eothen Press, 1998), pp. 121-7.
[15] Tamkoc, The Warrior Diplomats, p. 28.
[16] Donald Everett Webster, The Turkey of Ataturk: Social Process in the Turkish Reformation (Philadelphia: The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1939), pp. 162-72.
[17] Ibid., pp. 163-71.
[18] Hale, Turkish Politics and the Role of the Military, pp. 72, 80.
[19] Ibid., p. 83.
[20] Walter Weiker, The Turkish Revolution, 1960-1961 (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1963), pp. 6-11.
[21] Davidson, Turkey: A Short History, pp. 148-54.
[22] David Shankland, The Turkish Republic at Seventy-Five Years (Huntingdon, U.K.: Eothen Press, 1999), p. 94.
[23] Hale, Turkish Politics and the Role of the Military, pp. 175-9.
[24] Ibid., pp. 194-200.
[25] Ibid., pp. 207-8.
[26] Ibid., pp. 216-7; Davidson, Turkey: A Short History, p. 171.
[27] General Kenan Evren, quoted in Hale, Turkish Politics and the Role of the Military, p. 246.
[28] Erik Cornell, Turkey in the 21^st Century (Richmond, U.K.: Curzon Press, 2001), pp. 36-7.
[29] Davidson, Turkey: A Short History, p. 172.
[30] Nilüfer Göle, “Toward an Autonomization of Politics and Civil Society in Turkey,” in Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin, eds, Politics in the Third Turkish Republic (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 213-22, quoted in Sylvia Kedourie, Seventy-Five Years of the Turkish Republic (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000), p. 141.
[31] Kedourie, Seventy-Five Years of the Turkish Republic, p. 139.
[32] Ibid., pp. 136-9.
[33] Feroz Ahmad, Turkey: The Quest for Identity (Oxford: One World Publishers, 2003), pp. 168-70.
[34] Cornell, Turkey in the 21^st Century, pp. 45-9.
[35] Thomas Carroll, “Turkey Shuts down the Islamists … Again,” Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, July 2001.
[36] Turkish Daily News (Ankara), Sept. 28, 1998.
[37] Soner Cagaptay, “Turkey Goes to the Polls: A Post-Mortem,” Policywatch, no. 675, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington, D.C., Nov. 7, 2002.
[38] “Economic Survey of Turkey, 2002,” Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, Oct. 2002.
[39] Umit Cizre, Secular and Islamist Politics in Turkey (New York: Routledge Press, 2007), pp. 201-3.
[40] Soner Cagaptay, “European Union Reforms Diminish the Role of the Turkish Military: Ankara Knocking at Brussels Door,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington, D.C., Aug. 12, 2003, p. 214.
[41] Ahmad, Turkey: The Quest for Identity, pp. 175-6.
[42] Turkish Daily News, Nov. 15, 2005.
[43] Turkish Daily News, June 1, 2006.
[44] Turkish Daily News, Oct. 24, 2005.
[45] Sabah, Oct. 23, 2005.
[46] Turkish Daily News, July 14, 2006.
[47] Turkish Daily News, Apr. 14, 2006.
[48] Turkish Daily News, Oct. 3, 2006.
[49] BBC News, Apr. 27, 2007.
[50] Michael Rubin, “Erdogan, Ergenekon, and the Struggle for Turkey,” Mideast Monitor, Aug. 8, 2008.
[51] “Foreign Affairs, Sixth Report: The Military,” the Committee on Foreign Affairs, British House of Commons, Apr. 23, 2002.

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US draws down in Iraq, and Baghdad takes the reins

Posted on November 2, 2011 | Comments Off

Tony Karon—

Nov 2, 2011 –

Washington’s neocons would have you believe that the US president, Barack Obama, will serve up Iraq on a plate to a hungry Iran when he withdraws all US troops at the end of this year.

And Mr Obama’s camp seems concerned to counter this charge, with an election a year away. Officials are warning Iran against “interference” in Iraq, and The New York Times reports that to counter Iran, the US will increase its troop numbers and naval strength in the Gulf after the Iraq withdrawal.

The posturing about Iran is, of course, largely for domestic consumption. Mr Obama’s critics are misguided in believing that the US troop presence limits Iranian influence in Iraq, and they are also directing their complaint to the wrong address: It was not President Obama who decided to leave Iraq; he is required to do so under the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by his predecessor in November 2008.

But if the Republicans are really looking for one man to blame for the US withdrawal it is neither President George W Bush nor Mr Obama, but Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the leading Shiite cleric. He is the man who made sure key decisions about the country’s future were taken democratically, by Iraqis rather than by Americans.

Paul Bremer, the American viceroy best remembered for the epic blunder of summarily dissolving the Iraqi military, fell a foul of Ayatollah Sistani in 2003 when he proposed three years of government by Iraqis hand-picked by the US, who would also write the new constitution.

The cleric – who refused ever to meet US officials lest he be deemed to be sanctifying the occupation – issued a fatwa from Najaf, dismissing Mr Bremer’s plan as “fundamentally unacceptable” and insisting that Iraqis democratically elect the body that would draw up a new constitution.

Mr Bremer, seized by the heady arrogance of Bush-era empire-building, hoped to overrule Mr Sistani. But by the end of 2003, with tens of thousands of Iraqis demonstrating in support of the Ayatollah’s decree, it became clear that even Mr Bremer’s hand-picked Iraqi Governing Council would buckle to the election demand.

The US couldn’t very well take to the streets to fight the same Iraqis it claimed to have liberated, and Mr Bremer was forced to back down. The US transferred sovereignty in 2004 and the first election was held the following January. It returned a Shiite-dominated government closer to Iran than to Washington, as did the second election, a year later (although Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki retains his independence from both Tehran and Washington).

The idea that US troops somehow diminish Iranian influence in Iraq is hard to take seriously. Iran certainly had an agenda in Iraq; it was determined to see a friendly government replace Saddam Hussein, its most reviled and dangerous enemy, and so avoid any repeat of the disastrous eight-year war waged by Saddam against the Iranians in the 1980s. And given Iran’s long-standing ties with Shiite parties in Iraq, the most effective means for achieving Iran’s objective may well have been Iraqi democracy – the Shiites, on whom it could count for friendly ties, were after all an electoral majority.

So, Iran deepened political, economic and religious ties with Iraq’s Shiites. It provided financial support to its political and religious allies, and military training and supplies to Shiite militias that were fighting the US and were also engaged in vicious sectarian warfare against Iraqi Sunnis.

Iran built this influence despite the presence of up to 170,000 American troops – and it used that influence to help press for the departure of US forces.

If anything, the departure of US forces removes the key pretext for Iran backing Shiite militia groups, of which Mr Maliki would like to be rid. But the possibility of escalating proxy warfare between Iran and Saudi Arabia might see such support maintained.

In the unlikely event that Iran invaded Iraq after the American withdrawal, it would find plenty of Arab Shiites ready to fight their Persian Shiite neighbours – as they did during the 1980s war. The interests of men like Mr Maliki and Muqtada Al Sadr may coincide with those of Iran at times but these men remain, at heart, fierce Iraqi nationalists.

Mr Bremer’s plan had implied that the Iraqis weren’t quite ready for democracy, but Ayatollah Sistani turned the question on its head, asking if the Americans were ready to abide by the election results.

To its credit, the US has done so. In 2008, when Mr Bush began negotiating a new Status of Forces Agreement, he envisaged an open- ended stay, and wanted the Iraqis to agree to 50 permanent US bases in the country. The Iraqis walked him back, setting the December 31, 2011 withdrawal deadline and rejecting permanent bases.

US officials still hoped that the Iraqis could be pressed to accept a couple of US divisions staying behind, but the Iraqis declined.

The US will certainly retain a substantial presence, with thousands of security contractors on the staff of its 17,000-person embassy in Baghdad and hundreds of soldiers in training capacities, to say nothing of covert operations.

Many perils lie ahead. Some of the Shiite militias may escalate attacks on US troops to make it look as if their military efforts drove the Americans out. But Iraqis know it was their government – Iraqi public opinion, as expressed through the democratic process – that forced the Americans to accept their terms. And if the Iraqis could prevail over the world’s last superpower, they’re unlikely to become a cat’s paw for the lesser regional hegemon next door.

American leaders like to tell their counterparts in newly democratic societies that the iron test of democracy is whether leaders accept defeat at the polls. That’s exactly what they’ve had to do in Iraq.

Tony Karon is an analyst based in New York. Follow him on Twitter @Tony Karon

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Posted in Iran, Iraq, Middle East Geopolitics, US Middle East Politics

Why Contain Iran When Its Own Aims Will Do Just That?

Posted on November 1, 2011 | Comments Off

By Vali Nasr – Oct 31, 2011

Iran is once again in America’s cross hairs. Even before the allegations of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, concerns about Iran were high, with an impending U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq possibly leading to increased Iranian influence there. U.S. opinion and decision makers are expanding their estimate of Iran’s adventurousness and calling for new containment measures.

In both exercises, there is room for misjudgment. In fact, Iran has not become more ambitious of late; rather, its aspirations have been underestimated. As for attempting to rein in Iran, that could prove both counterproductive and unnecessary.

Until recently, the U.S. government regarded Iran as subdued, weakened and relatively isolated. There was considerable evidence for this view. Iran’s leadership is deeply divided. Its economy is reeling as a result of economic sanctions, which have reduced trade and therefore contact with the Arab world.

What’s more, Iran’s standing in the Middle East appeared to be declining after the Arab Spring. The “Arab street,” once enamored with Iran’s bluster, is now turned off by the country’s suppression of dissent at home and its support for the oppressive Syrian regime. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad put down a growing uprising. The possibility of a collapse of the Assad regime threatens to confound Iran’s plans for regional domination. Syria is Iran’s main Arab ally and its conduit for aid to Hezbollah, the militant, Islamist Lebanese group that Iran has used as a proxy to menace Israel, the U.S., Lebanon itself and others.

A Different View

From Tehran, however, the situation looks quite different. For one thing, Iran is not as worried about losing sway in a post-Assad Syria as many in the West think. Iran calculates that until Syria gets back the Golan Heights, a plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 war, any government in Damascus will need Hezbollah as a force to pressure Israel. And with Hezbollah comes Iranian influence.

Iran’s leaders are clearly preparing for the possibility of Assad’s fall. Even while claiming nefarious outsiders are fomenting the unrest in Syria, they have begun to add veiled criticisms of the regime’s brutal crackdown, an obvious means of pandering to the street.

What’s more, Iran’s leaders perceive that it is the U.S. position, not theirs, that has weakened in the region. They see U.S. troops withdrawing precipitously from both Iraq and Afghanistan; U.S. relations with Pakistan turning ever more sour; and Arab dictators who have been propped up by America for years under threat or already gone. The brazen nature of the Washington assassination plot supports the idea that Iran sees the U.S. as soft.

Given this perception, Iran is asserting itself. In the past two years, it has eschewed serious engagement with the U.S. on the Iranian nuclear program, Afghanistan or anything else. Rebuffing the U.S. idea of a hot line to avoid conflict in the Persian Gulf, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, Iran’s navy commander said, “The presence of the U.S. in the Persian Gulf is illegitimate and makes no sense.”

Fill the Void

Iran’s goals are to hasten the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq and fill the void left behind. Iran has increased its outreach to the Taliban and is pushing to complete a project to supply natural gas to Pakistan through a pipeline connecting the two countries. In Iraq, it has supported stepped-up attacks by the Iranian-backed Shiite resistance and is talking about having an expanded role after the Americans leave, for instance by volunteering to train the military. Iran is also exploring diplomatic relations with Egypt, which it has not had in years.

In this U.S. election season, presidential candidates will be tempted to propose strategies to contain Iran’s aspirations. To be seriously effective, such plans would require Arab countries as well as Russia and China, major trading partners of Iran, to sign on to a concerted policy of isolating the country. That’s unlikely to happen, given the Arab world’s preoccupation with Libya and Syria and the eagerness of Russia and China to do business with Iran.

Moreover, if the U.S. confronts Iran directly, it would probably work to the advantage of Iranian leaders, allowing them to divert attention from domestic woes such as inflation, unemployment and the embarrassing alienation between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The U.S. should not hand them that opportunity.

The alternative is to let Iran’s ambitious regional strategy play out. So far, it hasn’t gone so well. Iran has clashed over Syria with Turkey, which is hosting anti-Assad forces. And Iran’s strained relations with the other big Mideast power, Saudi Arabia, have been tested anew by the Washington plot and by the suspicious assassination in May of a Saudi diplomat in Karachi, Pakistan.

Iran expects greater influence in Iraq and Afghanistan once U.S. troops leave, but with that will come greater burdens. Once absent, America can no longer be the focus of opposition in both places. Instead, Iran may replace the U.S. as the target of popular anger, blamed for the failure of government to meet people’s needs. Iran may prove no more able to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan than the U.S. has been. Iran is adept at causing security headaches in the region but is untested when it comes to resolving them.

Failure on that front would leave Iran, rather than the U.S., in the middle of renewed civil conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan. It also would have direct implications for Iran domestically. Renewed chaos in either country would send refugees flooding into Iran and increase drug trafficking and violence in the border areas.

Iran may come to remember fondly the period when the U.S. military absorbed resentments in the region.

(Vali Nasr is a Bloomberg View columnist and a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this article: Vali Nasr at vali.nasr@tufts.edu

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-31/why-contain-iran-when-its-own-aims-will-do-just-that-vali-nasr.html

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Posted in Iran, Iran-Syria, Syria, Turkey, US Middle East Politics

Iran, the Arab intifada and the end of the ‘Middle East’

Posted on October 31, 2011 | Comments Off

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam–

Once upon a time there was a United States naval officer who invented a region he called the “Middle East”. His name was Alfred Thayer Mayhan (1840-1914) and he lived during a period when this “Middle East” was subjugated and colonized, when it was turned into a geopolitical “region” that could be defined by the office of a naval strategist whose penchant for US imperialism made him famous.Since then, there exists a place the “West” imagines as the “Middle East” as if it has an existence of its own. Yet this “Middle East” is not merely a jolly good imperial fantasy. The Euro-Americo-centric designation buttresses the West’s claim to hegemony, re-inscribing dependency into the very consciousness of the peoples and governments acting in that area. It is also distortive because it suggests that the “West” can control events there. It is indicative of this illusion that the “Middle East” is the only “region” that is still officially defined from the perspective of Europe and America.But the old (post-) “colonial” “Middle East” is withering away, at least since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The ensuing mayhem, the immense loss of life and the horrific images of torture and death that accompanied that devastating war put psychological and material boundaries on US foreign policies. The “Vietnam syndrome” has turned into an “Iraq pathology”, exactly because political elites in the US were forced to accept that there are no military solutions to the conflicts in the region and that a military victory does not necessarily yield a strategic advantage. There seems to be an emerging understanding that events cannot be controlled by the barrel of the gun, that the area we have called the “Middle East” can’t be defined from here anymore, that there is both reciprocity (them affecting us) and autonomy (them doing what they want beyond our control).

As such, the Iraq war was a major step towards a post-American order in the area exactly because it revealed the impotence of military might in the contemporary international system. It also signaled the demise of the “Middle East” as a region defined in terms of dependency on us. Today, when we look at the map we don’t see an abstraction anymore, but concrete events, memories–Abu Ghraib, Saddam Hussein, Gadaffi–and Tahrir square, civil society, democracy, calls for liberty, empowerment, revolution!

It is within this context of a non-colonial future that the Arab intifada can be interpreted. If the revolution in Iran of 1979 uprooted a pro-western dictatorship from the country, the Arab uprisings have created their own possibility for independence. After all, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak were quite comparable to the shah; kings of kings who were dependent on the United States and skeptical of democratic accountability. “King of kings” was also a preferred title of Muammar Gaddafi, who lost the last residues of ideological support from his people when he turned himself over to the Bush administration and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair during their inglorious “war on terror”. Add Turkey’s increasing distance from the US and its confrontation with Israel to the mix and what emerges is a region that has ceased to function in a colonial mode.

What we are witnessing, then, is the second coming of independence, which promises a non-colonial order. It signals the end of the “Middle East”, which would translate into the end of dependency on the “West”. This is salutary for Europe and the United States, as well, if we finally accept and appreciate that non-western societies are writing their own history. They don’t need us to dictate words to them and to pester them with our patronizing wisdom. This is what the Iraq war and the uprisings should have taught us.

And then there is Iran, of course, which in 1979, much like Castro’s Cuba two decades before, instituted a revolutionary narrative advocating radical independence for the country, the region and the “global south”. The revolutionary emphasis on independence is one of the main reasons why Iran refers to the Arab uprisings as “awakenings”. In the jargon of the revolutionaries of 1979, including Ayatollah Khomeini, being “awake” (or “bidar” in Persian) signified the prelude to revolutionary action: a society that was ready to struggle for its independence.

Of course, there are also many in Tehran who are delusional enough to assume that the Arab revolts are modeled after the Islamic revolution of 1979. Those Persian fantasies need to be ignored. But by and large the emerging post-American order is viewed with immense optimism in Iran and a good dash of anxiety, too. Optimism, because Iranian strategists assume (rightly so in my opinion) that governments that are more responsive to the preferences of their societies will yield foreign policies that are more friendly to the Palestinian cause and Iran itself, and by implication less acquiescent to the United States and Israel.

Below the surface, however, there is anxiety too, especially among the right wing, which is subduing the demands of Iran’s powerful civil society. They are aware that Iranians have been plotting their own intifada to reform the state for quite some time now and that today democracy and human rights, not only independence, are the measure of successful governance in the Arab and Islamic worlds. In the middle-to-long term, the Iranian state, which perceives itself a major player in this area, can’t be oblivious to that brave new world and its anti-authoritarian norms.-Published 27/10/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and is author of “A Metahistory of the Clash of Civilizations” (Hurst & Columbia U.

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, US Middle East Politics

From Bourguiba to Ghannouch

Posted on October 29, 2011 | Comments Off

Thursday 27 October 2011
By Adel Al Toraifi

On 27 August, 1987, the National Security Court in Tunisia began the trial of 90 defendants – affiliated to Islamist movements – on charges of attempting to overthrow the ruling regime and cooperating with a foreign state (Iran). 35 people received sentences ranging from capital punishment to life imprisonment; Rashid Ghannouchi was sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labour. These sentences failed to satisfy Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, who in a conversation with the then Tunisian Interior Minister described them as “lenient.” Andrew Borowiec recounted this incident as follows “Ben Ali as well as Justice Minister Mohammed Salah Ayari pleaded with Bourguiba that there were no legal grounds for such action [re-trial] as the case was already closed. Bourguiba left the room but, prompted by his intimate advisers, asked again for Ghannouchi’s head” (Modern Tunisia: A Democratic Apprenticeship, 1998). It perhaps failed to cross Bourguiba’s mind that the then young Sheikh [Ghannouchi] would live in exile for 25 years, only to return to Tunisia victoriously as his – banned – Islamist party finished in first place in the first free elections following the ouster of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Islamists participated in the 1989 Tunisian parliamentary elections, and claimed to have won around 40 percent of the vote before the regime overturned the election results. Today, the Al-Nahda party has regained its electoral rights. What is interesting is that this party achieved the same percentage of the vote that it claimed to have won over 25 years ago. So what has changed between 1989 and 2011?
Proponents of the “Arab Spring” argue that we are facing non-ideological popular uprisings, and that the majority of the populations in these countries have simply gotten sick and tired of the threats made by these oppressive regimes to the effect that without them the Islamists would come to power or the country would be destabilized. Therefore, we are now being promised a new era where the spirit of citizenship and political participation will prevail amongst all political and ideological currents, including the Islamists. Some have even gone so far as to predict that this year’s events will result in the Islamist organizations, in particular, undergoing ideological and organizational changes in line with the new political era. However have the Islamists truly changed over the past decades or are we just witnessing a change in their political tactics and method, rather than true ideological changes?
It is interesting that Islamists in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have resorted to issuing the same reassurances and pledges about preserving and maintaining foreign investment contracts and international agreements, in an attempt to send a message of composure and confidence to western governments to the effect that they will not repeal international treaties and contracts signed between their countries and the western world. At the time that Libya was witnessing Gaddafi’s inhumane death, National Transitional Council [NTC] Chairman Mustafa Abdul-Jalil underlined his intention to (personally) review and amend Libya’s laws to ensure that these conform with Islamic Sharia law. Abdul-Jalil also stressed that Libya would continue to honour its commitments and contracts with the outside world. As he pledged to repeal the polygamy prohibition law, NTC Deputy Chairman – Libyan Human Rights lawyer Abdul Hafiz Ghoga – reaffirmed the NTC’s commitment to respecting Libya’s contracts with foreign countries.
In Tunisia, as soon as the al-Nahda party’s victory in the parliamentary elections was announced, Abdul Hamid Jalasi – a member of the al-Nahda party’s Executive Bureau – came out to tell foreign journalists that his party will guarantee Tunisia’s “commercial and economic” partners that their contracts are safe, and that his party pledges to provide every guarantee for foreign investment. Meanwhile, his colleague Noureddine El Bhiri – also a member of the al-Nahda party’s Executive Bureau – told Agence France-Presse [AFP] that al-Nahda is committed to “rebuilding constitutional institutions based on the respect of the law, the independency of the judiciary, respecting the rights of women…and equality between Tunisians whatever their religion, their sex, or their social status.”
If the Islamists have truly changed, then why are they so keen to confirm their good intentions? One might say that this is natural after decades of defamation and malicious reports that were put forward by security apparatus in some Arab countries. But what about the long history of violence, use of arms, takfirism, and justification of extremism practiced by a large number of Islamists across the Arab world? Some might answer by saying – and they are right – that the Islamists are not one single current and that they are separated by wide differences and minute details. But doesn’t this also apply to the Arab regimes that these radical parties and groups are confronting? Is it logical that we allow these religious groups and parties to defend themselves, their history, and their right to participate in politics, and then accept their accounts of the collapsed regimes? The truth is that the Islamists, at one point in time or another, were partners of the regimes that they are now accusing of corruption and tyranny!
Didn’t the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt describe the 1952 coup [overthrowing the Egyptian monarchy] as a “blessed movement” and were partners in justifying this revolution? Didn’t the Shiite mullahs and their Islamist followers hijack the 1979 revolution in Iran? Didn’t Rashid Ghannouchi – as he himself recounted – agree with Ben Ali on starting a new era and participating in the elections after Ben Ali released thousands of Islamist prisoners in 1988? Didn’t the Islamists bring President Omar al-Bashir and the “Salvation” government to power in Sudan in 1989? Didn’t al-Zindani and his party [Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood] support President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the mid-nineties? Didn’t the Islamists reconcile with President Bouteflika in Algeria? Weren’t members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group set free following talks between the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation [GICDF] and symbols of the Islamist movement like Abdulhakim Belhadj and Ali al-Salabi? How could Rashid Ghannouchi say that his party would never ban the “bikini” or alcohol? How could he pledge not to interfere in personal liberties and even praise the “Code of Personal Status” laws issued by Bourguiba in 1956 as being a juristic achievement? Who is the true secularist in this case, the person who uses religion as a vehicle to come to power or the benevolent autocrat who wants to modernize religion?

The problem of some Islamist party members is that their discourse is based on illusions, and they portray their political dispute with current and former regimes as part of a religious conflict whereas in reality it is a worldly conflict over positions and spoils. If some Islamists are willing to make all those religious and political concessions, and even pledge to maintain all the commercial and political contracts and agreements signed by the state, then why portray the era under Bourguiba or Ben Ali as being evil and oppressive, especially if they are willing to preserve their legal heritage, economic policies and foreign relations?
The truth is that tyranny, secular or Islamist, is a problem in itself. The attempts by some Islamists to portray themselves as victims of the previous era without admitting any responsibility is a form of self-exoneration and a dishonest account of decades of participation and conflict over power. Some Islamists engaged in violence while others reconciled with dictators like Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad and became regular guests at their tables. The Islamists were offenders as much as they were victims. They came to power several times and met with failure.
In his book entitled “Bourguiba: A Leader’s Biography” (1999), former Tunisian Minister al-Taher Belkhouja reveals that former Tunisian President Bourguiba “feared religious fanaticism, and sought to spread the spirit of tolerance and consistency with the requirements of the era. We, as cabinet members and senior officials, used to gather around him every year on the occasion of the Prophet’s (pbuh) birthday at the Mosque of Companion [of the Prophet] Abu Zama el-Balaui (also known as Sidi Sahbi mosque) in Kairouan to listen to the sermon and interpretative judgments he would give where he would underline the necessity of promoting religious practices to become more tolerant.”

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics

Tagged Bourguiba, Ghannouch, islamists, tunisia

The western support for authoritarian regimes in the Middle East

Posted on October 28, 2011 | Comments Off

A blogger view about the role of Western countries in the Syrian case.

So I guess you hate Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Cheney and most of the US present Congress and practically the whole western world for the unpunished Gaza crimes on children. And what about Chirac and the other Europeans countries who stood silent when in 2006 children were killed in South of Lebanon? Forgotten?

I condemn western countries that have taken advantages of the inherent flaws and weaknesses in some personalities in the Middle east to manipulate them to reach their own selfish goal.
The Shah, Mobarak, Ben Ali, Saleh, Ataturk were for decades pushed and encouraged by Western countries to oppress their people in the name of ‘fear” either from communism or Islam.
The occupation of Palestine sponsored by western countries has created a generation of Arab and regional authoritarians regime cherished and manipulated by the Western countries.
Syria is the only country that had a leadership opposed to the manipulation by the West, the only “non-puppet” regime in the area.

Just for that, it deserves admiration.

It has been targeted relentlessly to join the cohort of pro-west leaders. While the corruption has been present, the country has had a consistent support of the Palestinian conflict at the core of the whole illness of the region.
With the cost of not developing its economy as fast as other countries fed with millions of dollars for their submission, Syria has stood slow but independent.

The latest attack , using the “arab spring” movement as a cover up is actually an attempt of a coup d’etat. That the government reacts with indiscriminated violence is not justified but understandable when it stands against powerful countries like the US, France, the UK who can manipulate people and media easily.

If you look at it this way, deaths are as much imputable to the Western countries incitations to hatred and to a change of regime that would have made Syria another puppet as to the awkward and excessive methods used by the government on the defense. The government’s aim was to stop and prevent demonstrations that could degenerate into civil war and break the resistance Syria had toward western plans in the region in support of Israel. It was also certainly to keep the power structure intact and in the same hands.

Your hatred is natural but it should also be directed to the countries behind this situation, while you probably believe they are genuinely calling for ‘freedom’ and democracy.

We all care for the lives of children, but foreign policy and greed are cynical, they don’t value human lives.

http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=12558&cp=2#comment-280533

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Posted in EU-Syria, Israel, Middle East Geopolitics, Religion, Syria, Syrian Opposition, US Middle East Politics, US-Syria

Category Archives: Middle East Geopolitics

Egypt’s Revolution Continues

Syria, Iran and the Balance of Power in the Middle East

Syria uprising victim of outside game

Arab Spring, American winter

The Military in Politics: The Turkish model

The Ottoman Military Tradition

Atatürk and After

1960, 1971, 1980: Military Coups and Intervention

Erbakan and His Legacy

The Rise of Erdoğan

The Military Exits?

US draws down in Iraq, and Baghdad takes the reins

Why Contain Iran When Its Own Aims Will Do Just That?

A Different View

Fill the Void

Iran, the Arab intifada and the end of the ‘Middle East’

From Bourguiba to Ghannouch

The western support for authoritarian regimes in the Middle East

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