In the fifth year of American occupation of Iraq, as more voices join the "worst-decision-ever" crowd, it is now clear that most Americans and Iraqis want US troops out of Iraq. Yet supporters of the war will not cease to pull new arguments and justifications out of their bottomless bag of stubbornness.
Conservatives do not frame the debate anymore around the benefits of victory -a democratic, stable, friendly beacon of hope in the Middle East- but around the dire consequences of defeat. The same pundits that were tragically wrong in all of their earlier predictions, affirm with unfailing confidence that they know what will happen upon premature withdrawal of US troops: a bloodbath, possibly escalating into a regional war involving Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the other usual suspects; a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda in the Sunni regions of Iraq; and a hit to US reputation added to a strategic gift for Iran, which will happily ride the wave of the Shiite crescent on the back of a Shiite government in Baghdad.
Less mentioned is the argument that, although the overwhelming majority of Iraqis would like US troops to leave, the government of Iraq -including President Talabani and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki- hope to prolong US commitment as long as they need to stabilize the country and consolidate their authority. However, just a few days ago, Maliki surprised most observers by declaring that US troops could leave whenever they wanted, because the Iraqi army was ready to take over security and pacify the country. They aren't, and Maliki knows it, but this candid statement reflects an important strategic shift: the largely Shiite government of Iraq has realized that the United States' new course is detrimental to their interests.
The much-discussed and never-met political benchmarks dictate a greater share of power and wealth for the Sunni minority of Iraq. The Administration and Congress are pushing for new provincial elections -boycotted by the Sunnis in 2005- to give the Sunnis greater representation in the north. This overlooks the fact that elections would take place in the south as well, giving Moqtada al-Sadr greater prominence, especially in Baghdad, and weakening the leading Shiite bloc in parliament, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. But most importantly, the United States is resorting to arming militias of Sunni insurgents to take on Al-Qaeda. These Sunni insurgents have been battling against the Shiite government of Iraq and do not plan to stop. Even though American troops are being killed mostly by Sunni radicals, the US has chosen to side with the Sunnis against the Shiites. A similar pattern can be seen in Lebanon -where the Administration doesn't shy away from approaching militias of Sunni fundamentalists so that they can fight against Hezbollah- and the larger Middle East, where the United States staunchly supports Saudi interests against Syria and Iran. This Faustian bargain has eerie and striking similarities with the events that precipitated the origins of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
If this is the path taken, it is likely that Nuri al-Maliki and other prominent Shiite politicians of SIIC and Dawa will join al-Sadr in his opposition to US policy. If we were to ignore the wishes of most Americans, most Iraqis, and the legitimate government of Iraq, that leaves us with the three arguments aforementioned. I cannot comment on the bloodbath argument. Will it be worse than it is now? For how long? Unlike most people, I do not have a crystal ball. A sanctuary for Al-Qaeda in Iraq is the most used but weakest argument. Foreign fighters in Iraq are few, loathed by most Sunnis, and cannot dream to topple a government supported by the largest population bloc in the country -Shiites outnumber Sunnis by three to one- and protected by Iran. Al-Qaeda is a problem, and a growing one, in the neglected front: Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Finally, the reputation argument is spelled roughly as follows: if the United States gives in to terrorists, or withdraws without getting the job done and admits defeat, the consequences would range from diplomatic embarrassment to a diminished ability to wield power in world affairs. But admitting defeat and leaving has not been catastrophic for great powers. Algeria was far more important for France, and De Gaulle's decision to let it go is considered among the wisest in French statesmanship. Leaving Saigon in 1975 did not prove to be a strategic disaster for the United States: the dominoes didn't fall in Southeast Asia, and it was the USSR that lost the Cold War after getting involved in their own Afghan quagmire. Reagan pulled out the American troops from Lebanon after Hezbollah's bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, and in 2003 Bush redeployed the US military bases in Saudi Arabia -the original reason behind Bin Laden's declaration of war against the West. Nixon, Reagan, Bush... the Democrats should take lessons from the Republicans on how to be soft on communism and terrorism.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Stop calling them Salafi Jihadists
Six years after September 11th, Bin Laden roams free and Al Qaeda training camps keep sprouting in Pakistan and Afghanistan, awash with new recruits that then spread their particular brand of violence in Iraq, Lebanon, Indonesia, the West, and so on. Another thing that hasn't changed is our sloppy wrangling over how to label them.
First, using the term "Muslim terrorists" or "Islamic terrorists" was quickly rejected by academics for a variety of reasons: a) Islam and terrorism were deemed contradictory; b) it was unfair to add the epithet Muslim or Islamic when "Christian" was never added to terrorists of that persuasion; or c) disagreement over what's terrorism, who is a terrorist and who isn't, was enough to prolong the discussion endlessly.
Then, the term "Muslim fundamentalists," still widely used, was also objected. First, most Muslim fundamentalists reject the use of violence or the instrumentalization of Islam for political purposes. Second, the term "fundamentalism" was coined for Protestants in the US that believed in a literal reading of the Bible. When applied to the Islamic world, this term loses its meanings, because all Muslims are expected to believe that the Quran is the literal revelation of Allah to Muhammad. That doesn't imply that most of them use only the Islamic scriptures to guide their conduct, or that Wahhabi Muslims of the Hanbali school -which engage in the narrowest and most puritanical reading of the Quran- preach a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam. Instead, as it is well known, they selectively emphasize some elements and downplay others, and fuse supposedly Islamic practices with contemporary tribal mores and customs -as in the Pashtun Taliban.
Lastly, the fashionable label is that of Salafi jihadis, vaguely used to describe those Muslims who combine an ultra-conservative reading of the Scriptures with an embrace of violence in the form, often, of indiscriminate suicide attacks against civilians of all stripes, including Westerners and Muslims deemed apostates -that is, in their eyes, the overwhelming majority. Now I'm not happy with this one either, mainly because it endorses using a compliment -yes, it is a compliment- to describe an aberration. First, both salaf and jihad have positive connotations in the Muslim world. Most Wahhabi Muslims, for example, reject that label because it implies that they are simply a sect of followers of Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, and prefer to be called Salafists, which evokes their effort to imitate their "pious forefathers" (salaf). Secondly, and better known, jihad is another positive word in the Muslim world, both to refer to the greater jihad -personal and apolitical struggle- and the lesser jihad -defensive war against foreign aggression. Now this doesn't seem to endorse blowing yourself up in a wedding in Amman. And worse yet, it not only sounds like a compliment to those that engage in those acts, elevating their stature to that of holy warriors, but it co-opts words that have a positive connotation within the Muslim world in general.
What then? Many Muslim commentators propose and use the word "Qutbists." Sayyid Qutb was the intellectual revolutionary that, among other things, preached violence against the West -civilians included- as legitimate jihad. Qutbism (al-Qutbiyya) is the modern revolutionary ideology that inspires bin Laden and others, and is denounced by most Muslim, Salafi scholars included, as the main culpable of the tribulations of the Muslim world today. It's what rival Muslims call them and it's a label that Jihadis hate, because it implies that they are merely followers of a human and are members of a deviant sect. It's hardly ever used in the Western media, and only a bit more frequently on scholarly articles, but we should give it some consideration. After all, if you can't call it appropriately, how can you fight it?
First, using the term "Muslim terrorists" or "Islamic terrorists" was quickly rejected by academics for a variety of reasons: a) Islam and terrorism were deemed contradictory; b) it was unfair to add the epithet Muslim or Islamic when "Christian" was never added to terrorists of that persuasion; or c) disagreement over what's terrorism, who is a terrorist and who isn't, was enough to prolong the discussion endlessly.
Then, the term "Muslim fundamentalists," still widely used, was also objected. First, most Muslim fundamentalists reject the use of violence or the instrumentalization of Islam for political purposes. Second, the term "fundamentalism" was coined for Protestants in the US that believed in a literal reading of the Bible. When applied to the Islamic world, this term loses its meanings, because all Muslims are expected to believe that the Quran is the literal revelation of Allah to Muhammad. That doesn't imply that most of them use only the Islamic scriptures to guide their conduct, or that Wahhabi Muslims of the Hanbali school -which engage in the narrowest and most puritanical reading of the Quran- preach a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam. Instead, as it is well known, they selectively emphasize some elements and downplay others, and fuse supposedly Islamic practices with contemporary tribal mores and customs -as in the Pashtun Taliban.
Lastly, the fashionable label is that of Salafi jihadis, vaguely used to describe those Muslims who combine an ultra-conservative reading of the Scriptures with an embrace of violence in the form, often, of indiscriminate suicide attacks against civilians of all stripes, including Westerners and Muslims deemed apostates -that is, in their eyes, the overwhelming majority. Now I'm not happy with this one either, mainly because it endorses using a compliment -yes, it is a compliment- to describe an aberration. First, both salaf and jihad have positive connotations in the Muslim world. Most Wahhabi Muslims, for example, reject that label because it implies that they are simply a sect of followers of Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, and prefer to be called Salafists, which evokes their effort to imitate their "pious forefathers" (salaf). Secondly, and better known, jihad is another positive word in the Muslim world, both to refer to the greater jihad -personal and apolitical struggle- and the lesser jihad -defensive war against foreign aggression. Now this doesn't seem to endorse blowing yourself up in a wedding in Amman. And worse yet, it not only sounds like a compliment to those that engage in those acts, elevating their stature to that of holy warriors, but it co-opts words that have a positive connotation within the Muslim world in general.
What then? Many Muslim commentators propose and use the word "Qutbists." Sayyid Qutb was the intellectual revolutionary that, among other things, preached violence against the West -civilians included- as legitimate jihad. Qutbism (al-Qutbiyya) is the modern revolutionary ideology that inspires bin Laden and others, and is denounced by most Muslim, Salafi scholars included, as the main culpable of the tribulations of the Muslim world today. It's what rival Muslims call them and it's a label that Jihadis hate, because it implies that they are merely followers of a human and are members of a deviant sect. It's hardly ever used in the Western media, and only a bit more frequently on scholarly articles, but we should give it some consideration. After all, if you can't call it appropriately, how can you fight it?
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Tony Blair in the Middle East: Right Man for the Job?
Just hours after Tony Blair stepped down as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Quartet -composed of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations- appointed him as its representative and envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And only a few hours after that, the debate over the wisdom or foolishness of this choice raged on.
Supporters rightly indicate that Tony Blair is perhaps the most gifted politician of his generation. On the domestic front, he leaves the UK in far better shape than it was when he arrived at 10 Downing Street in 1997. Steady economic growth, improved hospitals and schools, and impeccable skills as a performer-cum-politician, explain his victory in three consecutive national elections, a feat never accomplished by a leader of the Labour Party. He has managed to successfully navigate the always turbulent waters of devolution -higher autonomy to Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland- and make of the UK a cosmopolitan country awash with immigrants without the corresponding nativist backlash.
His popularity was not just domestic. On the international front, many European politicians -from left and right- defined themselves as Blairites, and many Americans wished he could be elected president of the United States. His efforts against global warming and extreme poverty in Africa have been laudable. And despite being a neophyte on global affairs when he became PM, Blair's assertive and interventionist foreign policy -in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan- turned out a collection of qualified successes. Yet none of these accomplishments qualifies him better for his new job as the resolution of the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland. One can only hope that he will be able to bring the same patience, perseverance, and the ability to reconcile sworn enemies, to the Middle East. For starters, he was instrumental in normalizing relations between Lybia's Gaddafi and the West, maintains a good rapport with leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and his appointment was well received by both Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas.
However, it is more than an ugly coincidence that all of Blair's shortcomings and blunders have to do precisely with the Middle East. Most of his demise in popularity -in the UK and abroad- has to do, of course, with Iraq. He is considered by many a war criminal -waging, under false pretenses, a military misadventure that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and has yet to bring any peace or stability to the region. But more than the mistake of this decision, what annoys his growing detractors is his inability to express remorse. In every chance he gets, Blair continues to affirm, with stubborn ideological zeal, that the war was justified, that the decision he took was the right one for his country and the world, and that history will soon be on his side.
Similarly, last summer, with a majority of world opinion appalled by Israel's bombing of Lebanon, Blair refused to condemn Israeli actions as disproportionate, and stayed alone with his American and Israeli counterparts in blocking UN efforts to call for a ceasefire. Both in Iraq and Lebanon, Blair appeared as uncritically doing the United States' bidding, even against the Britons' preferences. And after the 2000 Camp David negotiations, Blair joined Clinton in singling out Arafat as the main culpable of the collapse of the peace process, a judgment that remains disputed even in the West. This is hardly going to help him in Gaza and the West Bank, where every international initiative is already regarded as pro-Israel, and where Blair, like in the rest of the Arab world, is disliked almost as much as George Bush. He has failed to convince the US President to make a stronger effort to solve the Middle East crisis. Mahmoud Abbas was quick to welcome the appointment, but in a divided Palestine, his political clout and authority carry less than half of the Palestinians. The Europeans, beginning with Javier Solana, were not very happy. And Russia stalled the appointment for a while, a possible echo of the Litvinenko case and Blair's recent anti-Putin statements.
Does any of this matter? Hardly. Blair's appointment, right or wrong, is unlikely to be of much impact. Peace in Israel and Palestine, even though nearly everyone agrees on principle to a two-state solution, seems farther than ever. Dozens of international mediators came and left, to no avail -starting with the UN mediator Folke Bernadotte, who was murdered by the Jewish terrorist group Lehi in 1948. Before Blair, the Quartet's last envoy was James Wolfensohn, another high-profile figure much praised for his leadership at the World Bank. Wolfensohn resigned after a year, criticizing Israel for its refusal to engage seriously in the peace process. And Hamas and Fatah are too busy fighting each other to worry about the plight of the Palestinians, reset the peace talks, or listen to Bush's poodle.
Supporters rightly indicate that Tony Blair is perhaps the most gifted politician of his generation. On the domestic front, he leaves the UK in far better shape than it was when he arrived at 10 Downing Street in 1997. Steady economic growth, improved hospitals and schools, and impeccable skills as a performer-cum-politician, explain his victory in three consecutive national elections, a feat never accomplished by a leader of the Labour Party. He has managed to successfully navigate the always turbulent waters of devolution -higher autonomy to Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland- and make of the UK a cosmopolitan country awash with immigrants without the corresponding nativist backlash.
His popularity was not just domestic. On the international front, many European politicians -from left and right- defined themselves as Blairites, and many Americans wished he could be elected president of the United States. His efforts against global warming and extreme poverty in Africa have been laudable. And despite being a neophyte on global affairs when he became PM, Blair's assertive and interventionist foreign policy -in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan- turned out a collection of qualified successes. Yet none of these accomplishments qualifies him better for his new job as the resolution of the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland. One can only hope that he will be able to bring the same patience, perseverance, and the ability to reconcile sworn enemies, to the Middle East. For starters, he was instrumental in normalizing relations between Lybia's Gaddafi and the West, maintains a good rapport with leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and his appointment was well received by both Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas.
However, it is more than an ugly coincidence that all of Blair's shortcomings and blunders have to do precisely with the Middle East. Most of his demise in popularity -in the UK and abroad- has to do, of course, with Iraq. He is considered by many a war criminal -waging, under false pretenses, a military misadventure that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and has yet to bring any peace or stability to the region. But more than the mistake of this decision, what annoys his growing detractors is his inability to express remorse. In every chance he gets, Blair continues to affirm, with stubborn ideological zeal, that the war was justified, that the decision he took was the right one for his country and the world, and that history will soon be on his side.
Similarly, last summer, with a majority of world opinion appalled by Israel's bombing of Lebanon, Blair refused to condemn Israeli actions as disproportionate, and stayed alone with his American and Israeli counterparts in blocking UN efforts to call for a ceasefire. Both in Iraq and Lebanon, Blair appeared as uncritically doing the United States' bidding, even against the Britons' preferences. And after the 2000 Camp David negotiations, Blair joined Clinton in singling out Arafat as the main culpable of the collapse of the peace process, a judgment that remains disputed even in the West. This is hardly going to help him in Gaza and the West Bank, where every international initiative is already regarded as pro-Israel, and where Blair, like in the rest of the Arab world, is disliked almost as much as George Bush. He has failed to convince the US President to make a stronger effort to solve the Middle East crisis. Mahmoud Abbas was quick to welcome the appointment, but in a divided Palestine, his political clout and authority carry less than half of the Palestinians. The Europeans, beginning with Javier Solana, were not very happy. And Russia stalled the appointment for a while, a possible echo of the Litvinenko case and Blair's recent anti-Putin statements.
Does any of this matter? Hardly. Blair's appointment, right or wrong, is unlikely to be of much impact. Peace in Israel and Palestine, even though nearly everyone agrees on principle to a two-state solution, seems farther than ever. Dozens of international mediators came and left, to no avail -starting with the UN mediator Folke Bernadotte, who was murdered by the Jewish terrorist group Lehi in 1948. Before Blair, the Quartet's last envoy was James Wolfensohn, another high-profile figure much praised for his leadership at the World Bank. Wolfensohn resigned after a year, criticizing Israel for its refusal to engage seriously in the peace process. And Hamas and Fatah are too busy fighting each other to worry about the plight of the Palestinians, reset the peace talks, or listen to Bush's poodle.
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