Augusta Alternative -> Arab World Faces Its Uncertain Future

Arab World Faces Its Uncertain Future

Track this topic | Email this topic | Print this topic

synergy

Posted: Mar 23 2011, 09:43 AM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

Its the Popular Sovereignty, Stupid

QUOTE

Posted on 03/23/2011 by Juan Cole | Informed Comment

The logic of the Arab spring is about popular sovereignty. The people power being displayed in the streets, on twitter and Facebook, is intended to sweep away impediments to the expression of the will of the people, mainly presidents for life. The Arab crowds are investing their hopes in a new era of parliamentarism, in elections and constitutions, in term limits and referendums, in the rule of law and the principle that governmental authority must derive from the people. It is not that they are John Stuart Mill liberals. The crowds have a communitarian aspect, and demands jobs and for free formation of labor unions and the right to bargain collectively form a key part of the protest movements. But such labor organizing is also seen by movement participants and part of the expression of the popular will.

That the movements have been so powerfully informed by this Rousseauan impulse helps explain their key demands and why they keep spreading. The progression is that they begin with a demand that the strong man step down. If they get that, they want a dissolution of old corrupt ruling parties and elites. They want parliamentary elections. They want term limits for the president and reduction of presidential powers. They want new constitutions, newly hammered out, and subject to national referendums. They want an end to corruption and croneyism. They aim for future governments to be rooted in the national will.

In Yemen, strongman Ali Abdullah Salih�s offer to step down at the end of this year,was met with demands that he do so immediately, as some of his officials resigned. Salih�s troops shot down dozens of demonstrators in downtown Sanaa last Friday, provoking many defections from his government this past weekend, including among high military officers.

The demands have spread to Deraa, southern Syria. Syria is ruled by a one-party system, the Baath Party, and the reins of power had been passed dynastically from dictator Hafez al-Asad to his son Bashar. Aljazeera English has commentary on the situation.

In Morocco, King Mohammed VI has promised to allow the prime minister to be elected by parliament rather than appointed by himself. He also pledged that the PM would have more prerogatives and that there would be a separation of powers.. Thousands came into the streets of Casablanca on Sunday to put pressure on the king to follow through on his pledges. But the crowds added another demand, of a new constitution to be approved by the people.

In Libya, people were trying to hold out in Zintan as pro-regime forces bombarded the city. Likewise, Qaddafi�s military subjected the large city of Misrata to intensive bombardment.

In Algeria, President Abdel Aziz Boutefliqa and the generals that back him have been forced to lift a state of emergency that had curtailed constitutional rights, and the president is promising as yet unspecified �reforms.�

Michael Hudson surveys the wreckage in Bahrain, where the Shiite majority had demanded constitutional reforms in aid of popular sovereignty from the Sunni monarchy, but got imported Saudi Wahhabi troops instead. The Bahrain monarchy�s rigid refusal to compromise has turned the reform movement into a sectarian issue. Thus, the Bahrain Shiites are attracting support from Lebanon�s Hizbullah (which represents that country�s Shiites) and from Iraq�s Shiites. Bahrain airlines has been forced to cease flying to Beirut because of threats. Arab Shiism has often been denied political expression on the basis of its weight in the electorate, since the majority Sunni societies view that branch of Islam as a heresy, and link it to Shiite-majority Iran.

Aljazeera English has video on Tuesday�s Shiite protests in Manama:

synergy

Posted: Mar 23 2011, 10:04 AM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

QUOTE

Bahrain sends 'sectarian' shock waves to Iraq
Al-Arabiya - ‎38 minutes ago‎
The Iraqi MP advised the government to take a non-partisan approach toward the Arab uprisings taking place, and warned of reviving the sectarian sentiments in Iraq and not to go back to square one. To show solidarity with the Bahraini people, ...

Bahrain sends 'sectarian' shock waves to Iraq

QUOTE

Al Arabiya

Iraqis disagree over closure of Bahrain or Iran embassies

Bahrain shows Iraqi politicians sectarian divide

Wed 23 Mar 2011

DUBAI (Dina al-Shibeeb)

Shockwaves of the Bahraini conflict unveiled the sectarian divide among Iraqi politicians, with some slamming the Saudi-UAE intervention in Bahrain as unacceptable, while others described the GCC move in Bahrain as commensurate with GCC�s mutual defense agreement.

Wahida al-Jumaily, a member of parliament from the Sunni-backed Iraqiya Block, slammed the Iraqi government �vociferous� condemnation of the Bahraini government crackdown against protesters, while keeping a low-tone criticism over governments' violence against civilians in Libya and Yemen.

�We see an ostensible great amount of denunciation of the GCC intervention in Bahrain, but we do not see a similar criticism by the Iraqi government against Gaddafi forces targeting Libyan civilians,� al-Jumaily said.

The Iraqi MP advised the government to take a non-partisan approach toward the Arab uprisings taking place, and warned of reviving the sectarian sentiments in Iraq and not to go back to square one.
In solidarity with Bahrain

To show solidarity with the Bahraini people, the Iraqi Council of Representatives suspended its 44 session to 27th of March.

�Immoral crackdown of Bahraini protesters� and �Saudi invasion of Bahrain� were reasons cited by the head of the House of Representatives, Usama al-Nujaifi, to suspend the 44 session.

Another Iraqiya Block member of parliament, Madhhar Khathar al-Janabi showed his estrangement towards the Iraqi government pivoting for more support for the Bahraini uprising among other Arab uprisings, as the region rages with protests en masse.

Al-Janabi told Sumaria News that Iraq should stay away from GCC affairs, and defended UAE�s and Saudi�s stationing in Bahrain for what he described the GCC countries mutual defense agreement signed in 2000. The agreement has placed any threat on any GCC state as the threat on others, he added.
Either or...

Al-Janabi said that his block rejects the closing of the Iranian embassy in Iraq, emphasizing Iraq-Iran 1300 km borders, and said �cutting relations with Iran is against Iraq�s interests.�

Calls to close the Iranian embassy in Iraq was initially spurred by an Iraqiya MP Haidar al-Mulla on March 20. Al-Mulla said that the Iranian muddling into Iraq's affairs was the reason.

Al-Mulla�s call was rejected by the Shiite Sadr Front�s Ahrar Block MP Youssef al-Hajim, who argued that the Iranian Embassy did not act against Iraq, nor Iran invaded a neighboring country or interfered in the economy and politics of other nations.

Meanwhile, the Ahrar Block itself called for the closure of Bahrain's embassy in Baghdad, and its consulate in Najaf, in protest against the military action against civilians in Bahrain.

Alongside Iraqi Shiite scholars who condemned Bahrain�s government crackdown of protesters, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki criticized the Gulf countries intervening in Bahrain, and said that it will contribute toward complicating the situation in the region.

Last week, thousands of Iraqis took on the streets to protest against the 2,000 GCC force in Bahrain.

synergy

Posted: Mar 25 2011, 05:48 PM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

Iraq's Maliki says Bahrain may ignite sectarian war

QUOTE

Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:56pm GMT

* PM Maliki says foreign troops presence in Bahrain must end

* Says Bahrain puts Shi'ites against Sunnis

BAGHDAD, March 25 (Reuters) - Iraq's Shi'ite prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, said on Friday military intervention by Sunni Arab neighbours in Bahrain could spark a sectarian war in the region and must end.

Bahrain has witnessed a month of protests from mainly Shi'ite demonstrators seeking constitutional reform. Its ruling al Khalifa family, from the minority Sunni population, has cracked down on the rallies and called in troops from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

"The situation in Bahrain is different from those in Libya and Egypt. In Libya and Egypt the issue is not sectarian while in Bahrain it has become between Sunnis and Shi'ites," Maliki told the BBC Arabic television service in an interview aired on Friday.

"We did not move to support the Shi'ites in Bahrain but we called for interference in Bahraini affairs to be stopped and don't want to make it a sectarian issue. Because if it happens, it will be like a snowball, it will get bigger if it is ignored ... The region may be drawn into a sectarian war."

Maliki has previously criticised the intervention by Gulf states in Bahrain. Shi'ites in Iraq have also demonstrated in support of Bahraini demonstrators.

Like Bahrain, Iraq has a Shi'ite majority that complained about decades of oppression under a Sunni ruling class.

Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion which toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and enabled Iraq's Shi'ite majority to take power, Baghdad has had uneasy relations with its Sunni Arab neighbours.

Tensions remain between Iraq's Shi'ites and Sunnis eight years after the invasion which unleashed a sectarian war that peaked in 2006-7. (Reporting by Waleed Ibrahim; Writing by Serena Chaudhry; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

synergy	Posted: Mar 25 2011, 06:25 PM
Advanced Member Group: Admin Posts: 96,921 Member No.: 3 Joined: 20-November 07	Husain Abdulla: U.S. Defends Bahrain Dictatorship - Posted on March 23, 2011 by dandelionsalad

synergy

Posted: Mar 26 2011, 06:59 AM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

All Hell Breaks Loose in the Middle East

QUOTE

Posted on 03/26/2011 by Juan Cole | Informed Comment

Friday saw major protests in Syria, Jordan and Yemen, along with continued fighting in Libya. The Arab Spring has not breathed its last gasp, but rather seems to be getting a second wind. Protesters are crossing red lines set by governments and risking being shot. They know that movements are watered with the blood of martyrs. One of the major protests, in Deraa, Syria, on Friday was actually a funeral procession. But the Baathist regime created dozens more martyrs in response to being challenged. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh seems to have admitted he is outgoing, though he is bargaining with the crowds about the timing and circumstances.

The Aljazeera correspondent in Ajdabiya south of Benghazi writes that liberation movement fighters were able to enter the city via the eastern gate, which they now control. They were helped by the bombardment of Qaddafi�s tank brigades by UN allies, which forced the dictator�s troops to withdraw to the western gate. The liberation movement killed 4 pro-Qaddafi troops and took a number prisoner, as well as destroying some of their weapons, including two tanks. For the first time in two weeks, the liberation movement was able to break the blockade of Ajdabiya imposed on the city by Qaddafi�s forces. Gen. Khalifa Haftar, who defected to the transitional government based in Benghazi, said that his fighters had only entered the city when negotiations with pro-Qaddafi forces aiming at allowing them to leave the city broke down.

Euronews has video from the Ajdabiya:

UN human rights experts are worried about hundreds of activists taken into custody and made to disappear by Qaddafi�s secret police.

Aljazeera Arabic is reporting a small demonstration in Cairo�s Tahrir Square in support of Libya�s liberation movement, demanding that it be protected from Qaddafi government brutality. Protesters also demanded that the Mubarak family and their associates be put on trial for corruption.

Meanwhile, UN allies bombed Libyan forces near Zintan, which they had been trying to take. On the other hand, Qaddafi�s tanks subjected Misrata�s downtown to a fierce bombardment lasting hours. Since the UN allies are reluctant to bomb tanks already inside cities for fear of civilian casualties, the armor inside Misrata seems to have felt itself out of danger.

In Syria, tens of thousands of people marched in the southern city of Deraa, in a funeral for protesters killed earlier by the government of Bashar al-Asad. Security forces are alleged to have killed 20 protesters on Friday. Protests spread to Hama and even Damascus. The crowds were not mollified by al-Asad�s pledge to lift the state of emergency and restore some civil liberties.

Aljazeera English has video:

Thousands of protesters came out in Aden and other southern Yemeni cities to demand the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In the capital of Sanaa, there were dueling demonstrations, with tens of thousands demanding that the president depart (they called Friday �the day of departure�), while another big crowd showed their support of him.

Saleh addressed his supporters, saying he would only step down after elections, such that there could be a clean transition. The speech was despised by the protest movement.

In Jordan, protesters were attacked by a pro-monarchy mob. Police intervened, mainly against the protesters, and one was killed. Nearly a hundred people were wounded. The protesters are demanding that King Abdullah II become a constitutional monarch.

Euronews has video:

synergy

Posted: Mar 26 2011, 07:20 PM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

QUOTE

News Analysis
Unrest in Syria and Jordan Poses New Test for U.S. Policy
By MARK LANDLER 8:48 pm EDT Sat 26 Mar 2011

Instability has spread to nations that the United States considers vital to its interests and to chances for peace in the Middle East

Unrest in Syria and Jordan Poses New Test for U.S. Policy

QUOTE

The New York Times

March 26, 2011
Unrest in Syria and Jordan Poses New Test for U.S. Policy
By MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON � Even as the Obama administration defends the NATO-led air war in Libya, the latest violent clashes in Syria and Jordan are raising new alarm among senior officials who view those countries, in the heartland of the Arab world, as far more vital to American interests.

Deepening chaos in Syria, in particular, could dash any remaining hopes for a Middle East peace agreement, several analysts said. It could also alter the American rivalry with Iran for influence in the region and pose challenges to the United States� greatest ally in the region, Israel.

In interviews, administration officials said the uprising appeared to be widespread, involving different religious groups in southern and coastal regions of Syria, including Sunni Muslims usually loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. The new American ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, has been quietly reaching out to Mr. Assad to urge him to stop firing on his people.

As American officials confront the upheaval in Syria, a country with which the United States has icy relations, they say they are pulled between fears that its problems could destabilize neighbors like Lebanon and Israel, and the hope that it could weaken one of Iran�s key allies.

The Syrian unrest continued on Saturday, with government troops reported to have killed more protesters.

With 61 people confirmed killed by security forces, the country�s status as an island of stability amid the Middle East storm seemed irretrievably lost.

For two years, the United States has tried to coax Damascus into negotiating a peace deal with Israel and to moving away from Iran � a fruitless effort that has left President Obama open to criticism on Capitol Hill that he is bolstering one of the most repressive regimes in the Arab world.

Officials fear the unrest there and in Jordan could leave Israel further isolated. The Israeli government was already rattled by the overthrow of Egypt�s leader, Hosni Mubarak, worrying that a new government might not be as committed to Egypt�s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

While Israel has largely managed to avoid being drawn into the region�s turmoil, last week�s bombing of a bus in Jerusalem, which killed one person and wounded 30, and a rain of rocket attacks from Gaza, have fanned fears that the militant group Hamas is trying to exploit the uncertainty.

The unrest in Jordan, which has its own peace treaty with Israel, is also extremely worrying, a senior administration official said. The United States does not believe Jordan is close to a tipping point, this official said. But the clashes, which left one person dead and more than a hundred wounded, pose the gravest challenge yet to King Abdullah II, a close American ally.

Syria, however, is the more urgent crisis � one that could pose a thorny dilemma for the administration if Mr. Assad carries out a crackdown like that of his father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad, who ordered a bombardment in 1982 that killed at least 10,000 people in the northern city of Hama. Having intervened in Libya to prevent a wholesale slaughter in Benghazi, some analysts asked, how could the administration not do the same in Syria?

Though no one is yet talking about a no-fly zone over Syria, Obama administration officials acknowledge the parallels to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. �Whatever credibility the government had, they shot it today � literally,� said a senior official about Syria, speaking on the condition that he not be named.

In the process, he said, Mr. Assad had also probably disqualified himself as a peace partner for Israel. Such a prospect had seemed a long shot in any event � Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown no inclination to talk to Mr. Assad � but the administration kept working at it, sending its special envoy, George J. Mitchell, on several visits to Damascus.

Mr. Assad has said that he wants to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel. But with his population up in arms, analysts said, he might actually have an incentive to pick a fight with its neighbor, if only to deflect attention from the festering problems at home.

�You can�t have a comprehensive peace without Syria,� the administration official said. �It�s definitely in our interest to pursue an agreement, but you can�t do it with a government that has no credibility with its population.�

Indeed, the crackdown calls into question the entire American engagement with Syria � a policy that has also been championed by Sen. John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Last June, the State Department organized a delegation from Microsoft, Dell and Cisco Systems to visit Mr. Assad with the message that he could attract more investment if he stopped censoring social networks like Facebook and Twitter. While the administration renewed economic sanctions against Syria, it approved export licenses for some civilian aircraft parts.

The Bush administration, by contrast, largely shunned Damascus, recalling its ambassador in February 2005 after the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Many Lebanese accuse Syria of involvement in the assassination, a charge it denies.

When Mr. Obama named Mr. Ford as his envoy last year, Republicans in the Senate held up the appointment for months, arguing that the United States should not reward Syria with closer ties. The administration said it would have more influence over Syria by restoring an ambassador.

But officials also concede that Mr. Assad has been an endless source of frustration � deepening ties with Iran and the Islamic militant group, Hezbollah; undermining the government of Saad Hariri in Lebanon; pursuing a nuclear program; and failing to deliver on promises of political reform.

In a glimpse of the kinds of questions the administration will face over its Syria policy, some analysts said that the United States was so eager to use Syria to break the deadlock on Middle East peace negotiations that it had failed to push Mr. Assad harder on political reforms.

�He�s given us nothing, even though we�ve engaged him on the peace process,� said Andrew J. Tabler, who lived in Syria for a decade and is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. �I�m not saying we should give up on peace talks with Israel, but we cannot base our strategy on that.�

Lacking ties to the military, the United States does not have the leverage with Syria it had with Egypt. But Mr. Tabler said the administration could stiffen sanctions to press Mr. Assad to follow through with promised reforms.

Still, other analysts point to a positive effect of the unrest: it could deprive Iran of a reliable ally in extending its influence over Lebanon, Hezbollah and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

That is not a small thing, they said, given that Iran is likely to benefit from the fall of Mr. Mubarak in Egypt, the upheaval in Bahrain, and the resulting chill between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

�There�s much more upside than downside for the U.S.,� said Martin S. Indyk, the vice president for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. �We have an interest in counterbalancing the advantages Iran has gained in the rest of the region. That makes it an unusual confluence of our values and interests.�

synergy

Posted: Mar 27 2011, 04:57 PM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

Revolutions: What went wrong in the west?

QUOTE

AlJazeera.net

Revolutions: What went wrong in the west?

The recent revolutions in the Arab world rewrites Western paradigms on the "Arab" and "Muslim" narratives.

Hayrettin Yucesoy Last Modified: 27 Mar 2011 14:29

The lack of an Islamic takeover in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt has forced scholars and academics to rework their theories and acknowledge their deep-seated stereotypes on which they found their analyses [GETTY]

Many have been watching the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya with astonishment, not just because they seem to be coming out of the blue, but also because they have been amazingly civil, peaceful, unpretentious, and transformative.

There are still several other revolutions now in the making � the closest one to the finish line seems to be the Libyan uprising.

The credit, of course, goes to the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and to whoever might ultimately follow; who knows who will be the next?

If we would like to define this moment and describe the stage at which the revolutions stand, there is nothing better than the proverb attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, as preserved in the traditional pious Muslim consciousness: the time for the greater struggle of building self has come.

Having succeeded in the lesser struggle of overthrowing the dictators, the revolutionaries face now the difficult task of keeping the momentum alive after reaching the peak.

It is easy to forget the reasons why these revolutions happened in the first place. It is ultimately up to the people of the region to decide the future direction of this transformation, but one must not forget that winning a battle does not guarantee winning final victory in the overall struggle.

C'est la vie

As we have seen since the French rose up against King Louis XVI in 1789, revolutions can go disappointingly awry.

Rest assured, as we speak there are many working behind the scenes just to reach that goal. One needs not be an expert to guess that horse-trading among domestic and international actors is well underway in Tunisia, Egypt, and now Libya.

The choice for the revolutionaries, their allies, and supporters is clear but fraught with peril: the revolutionary forces can change everything only to find that everything stays the same, like what eventually happened in Iran after the revolution of 1979, or they can start a Promethean struggle for the betterment of their societies piece by piece as part of a struggle for freedom, peace, social justice, and dignity, hand-in-hand with Les damn�s de la terre.

Analysts in North America and Europe did not expect revolutions in the region, and those who did, did not expect them to come from these seemingly irrelevant and unlikely actors and to be this widespread and peaceful.

This blanket statement covers both the longstanding members of the media and academia. My question is simple: Why?

Why were the antennas of the media and academia unable to perceive that an earthquake of this magnitude was coming?

It is not that they were innocent of predicting things. Was it because social media had not been tested as a means for revolution and the pundits and analysts were not yet prepared to assess the impact of social media?

This was not the case. For everyone knows that a large part of the success of Obama's election campaign was due to its effective use of internet media to mobilise the Democratic base and the independents.

So, one cannot explain away the failure of being caught off guard via inexperience in social media's transformative power.

Furthermore, let's not jump to the conclusion about social media as the reason for or the facilitator of the revolutions.

Anti-social

The role of social media in the revolutions seems to be inflated more than it can bear.

Let's not forget that there was the Tahrir Square as a physical public space where people gathered and demonstrated.

True that social media facilitated the dissemination of information faster and better and therefore succeeded in bringing people together to organise collective action. As a facilitator it did a superb job.

However, still it did not have the means to inspire, give sense of how wide spread the uprisings were, and articulate and validate whether the protests were going to bring any result. This Al Jazeera did.

The role of social media in Tunisian and, especially, Egyptian uprisings was important, but as the Libyan uprising shows clearly, the role of Al Jazeera has been central and critical.

As a news outlet, Al Jazeera had already become the voice of the disaffected even before they protested. During the revolutions, it sympathised with the people, reported events from their perspectives, inspired them to seek better lives, encouraged them to push forward, and made them feel they had agency and power.

So hiding behind the sudden rise and novelty of social media to explain the failure to see this tectonic change is not convincing.

One needs to recognise where media and academia had preferred to focus their attention as a contributor to this failure.

The bogeymen of 9/11

Let's be honest. The spirit of the time marked by 9/11 revolved around the bogeymen of "Islamic fundamentalism" and "Osama bin Laden".

Knowledge production in Europe and North America has developed primarily in the context post-9/11 propaganda tsunami created by the Islamophobic ranting of far-right extremists, whose opinions no longer even merit a serious response.

So, many sensible analysts found it expedient to combat the anti-Muslim/Arab propaganda with debunking propaganda's arguments.

They all shuffled from class to class, campus to campus, temple to temple, and NGO to NGO to explain Islam and Muslims.

Yet, even in the back of the most-respected pundits' and academics' heads the fear was that these bogeymen might have been much more real and widespread in the "Muslim world" than they were willing to admit

This goes for those who strove to forge a common ground between Muslims, Arabs and the West in a spirit of objectivity, empathy, sympathy, experience, and scholarly honesty, and sought to strengthen the cross-cultural dialogue and understanding by debriefing the European and North American audiences after generations of misinformation.

Despite their best intentions, they all ended up being wrong about a lot of things in the process.

Even the progressive journalist Robert Fisk's initial reaction to the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings was disappointingly paradigmatic.

Let's dialogue, Muslim. I want to understand you!

As far as I can see, the recent scholarly and learned discourse on Middle Eastern societies has been shaped by two sympathetic narratives intended to inform the public and battle the far right-wingers' bigotry.

The first narrative had to do with the observed. The explanation went that Islam was not an inherently violent religion; fundamentalism and terrorism were marginal historically, demographically, intellectually, and politically.

The majority of Muslims belonged to more peaceful Muslim movements and currents of thought and despised bin Laden's type of extremism.

The second was about the observer and went along these lines: The "Westerners" ought to develop and nourish cultural and religious dialogue and understanding so that we overcome the temptation to think that all people were like "us".

Muslims had the right to be different and think differently. Secularism might not be a universally applicable experience, certainly not in Muslim societies.

So the lesson was that the "Westerners" had to learn, understand, and accept Muslims and Arabs as they are without imposing their "Western" categories on them.

Amen.

But somewhere in all of this there was a fatal flaw: the good-hearted, progressive, pro-peace activists, pundits, and academics still followed the trend du jour analyses firmly within the framework of "Muslim religiosity" and "cultural understanding".

They affirmed rather than denied the basic premise of the conventional wisdom that when it came to Muslims and Arabs, all was about "religion".

Was it because the ubiquitous and perhaps unconscious thinking that Muslims and Arabs were different? I do not know.

But the fact is that almost no one had envisioned any real alternative to those dictators except the various shades of "fundamentalism" and the nebulous category of "Islamist movements".

Mubarak and Gaddafi's overworked canards about "fundamentalism" was not simply their own, it was also that of much of our political leadership, media pundits, and scholars � wittingly or unwittingly.

Therefore, the discourse about Islam as a construct in the progressive media and academia was, by and large, similar to Marie Antoinette's oft-quoted but always mis-attributed, "qu'ils mangent de la brioche".

Good-hearted true, but it showed no understanding and solved no problems.

Inconvenient facts and the failure of the paradigm

Fortunately, a beautiful theory is being spoiled by an inconvenient fact.

The revolutions are forcing all of us to confront the nature of our own thinking. Pundits and many academics found that they had not only miscalculated the real dynamics of these societies, but also knowingly (or more disturbing, unknowingly) indulged deep-seated stereotypes as foundations for analyses, which come across as shameful reminders of the caricature we describe as "Muslim" or "Arab" society.

The inconvenient, but certainly long due and welcome, truth is that the uprisings made us see that labour organisations, students, women, professional groups, in a word the civil society, provided the shock troops for the revolutions.

Looking back at the history of the last century or so, it is hard to imagine how we missed to see these dynamic groups, which have been an integral part of political reforms in the region since the late nineteenth century. They suddenly fell below our radars in the post 9/11 world.

The fact that various components of the civil society staged the revolutions has been a matter of grief for some. Had "Islamic fundamentalism", as a scholarly as well as media construct, played a major role in these revolutions, they would have affirmed the forecast, fit the existing paradigm, and therefore validated the traditional analyses.

However, the paradigm utterly failed. Even the Islamist movements jumped on the band wagon of the popular uprisings (and belatedly at that) and came across as willing to negotiate with the other actors and embrace a pluralistic society.

In addition, the revolutions are deflating the ultimately hollow concepts of "religious dialogue" and "cultural understanding" as a framework for understanding "Muslims" and "Arabs" with the same speed that a needle would deflate a balloon.

That is a good thing � both concepts helped only highlight and emphasise Arab and Muslim exceptionalism.

They promoted mediocre and irrelevant groups with essentialist views of "Islam" and "Muslims" as partners in such undertakings at the expense of engaging more relevant actors in Middle Eastern societies.

In a sense, this has been a project to create a prophecy that would ultimately fulfil itself and affirm our pre-conceived ideas about "Muslims".

Thanks to the revolutions, we now have been forced to rethink whether the categories "Muslim" and "Arab" have any meaning at all.

It is time to approach three hundred million Arabic speaking people and more than one billion people professing Islam as their faith in their own ways not as "Muslims" but as an integral part of human society � within the context of particular social experiences, needs, aspirations, worries, and grievances, which are as real, complex, and the same as that of the most other peoples around the world.

It might indeed prove disorienting for the media and academia to see Muslims as individuals from various walks of life (women, students, workers, and professionals) and as members of diverse and competing social classes, who can raise their voices demanding jobs, better wages, freedom, participation, and independence.

But those who still prefer to see nothing other than chants of religious slogans may do so on their own peril as the events of the recent revolutions are changing the way we see the region once and for all.

It is called ezber bozmak in Turkish � breaking the routine. Indeed, revolutions are teaching us a lesson, or so one would hope.

Dr. Hayrettin Y�cesoy is an Associate Professor of History at Saint Louis University and author of Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam (Columbia: South Carolina University Press, 2009) and Tatawwur al-Fikr al-Siyasi inda Ahl al-Sunna (Amman: Dar al-Bashir, 1993).

Source: Al Jazeera

synergy

Posted: Mar 27 2011, 05:44 PM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

Unrest in Syria and Jordan Poses New Test for U.S. Policy

QUOTE

The New York Times

Saturday, March 26, 2011
Unrest in Syria and Jordan Poses New Test for U.S. Policy
By MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON � Even as the Obama administration defends the NATO-led air war in Libya, the latest violent clashes in Syria and Jordan are raising new alarm among senior officials who view those countries, in the heartland of the Arab world, as far more vital to American interests.

Deepening chaos in Syria, in particular, could dash any remaining hopes for a Middle East peace agreement, several analysts said. It could also alter the American rivalry with Iran for influence in the region and pose challenges to the United States� greatest ally in the region, Israel.

In interviews, administration officials said the uprising appeared to be widespread, involving different religious groups in southern and coastal regions of Syria, including Sunni Muslims usually loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. The new American ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, has been quietly reaching out to Mr. Assad to urge him to stop firing on his people.

As American officials confront the upheaval in Syria, a country with which the United States has icy relations, they say they are pulled between fears that its problems could destabilize neighbors like Lebanon and Israel, and the hope that it could weaken one of Iran�s key allies.

The Syrian unrest continued on Saturday, with government troops reported to have killed more protesters.

With 61 people confirmed killed by security forces, the country�s status as an island of stability amid the Middle East storm seemed irretrievably lost.

For two years, the United States has tried to coax Damascus into negotiating a peace deal with Israel and to moving away from Iran � a fruitless effort that has left President Obama open to criticism on Capitol Hill that he is bolstering one of the most repressive regimes in the Arab world.

Officials fear the unrest there and in Jordan could leave Israel further isolated. The Israeli government was already rattled by the overthrow of Egypt�s leader, Hosni Mubarak, worrying that a new government might not be as committed to Egypt�s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

While Israel has largely managed to avoid being drawn into the region�s turmoil, last week�s bombing of a bus in Jerusalem, which killed one person and wounded 30, and a rain of rocket attacks from Gaza, have fanned fears that the militant group Hamas is trying to exploit the uncertainty.

The unrest in Jordan, which has its own peace treaty with Israel, is also extremely worrying, a senior administration official said. The United States does not believe Jordan is close to a tipping point, this official said. But the clashes, which left one person dead and more than a hundred wounded, pose the gravest challenge yet to King Abdullah II, a close American ally.

Syria, however, is the more urgent crisis � one that could pose a thorny dilemma for the administration if Mr. Assad carries out a crackdown like that of his father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad, who ordered a bombardment in 1982 that killed at least 10,000 people in the northern city of Hama. Having intervened in Libya to prevent a wholesale slaughter in Benghazi, some analysts asked, how could the administration not do the same in Syria?

Though no one is yet talking about a no-fly zone over Syria, Obama administration officials acknowledge the parallels to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Some analysts predicted the administration would be cautious in pressing Mr. Assad, not because of any allegiance to him but out of a fear of what could follow him � a Sunni-led government potentially more radical and Islamist than his Alawite minority regime.

Still, after the violence, administration officials said Mr. Assad�s future was unclear. �Whatever credibility the government had, they shot it today � literally,� said a senior official about Syria, speaking on the condition that he not be named.

In the process, he said, Mr. Assad had also probably disqualified himself as a peace partner for Israel. Such a prospect had seemed a long shot in any event � Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown no inclination to talk to Mr. Assad � but the administration kept working at it, sending its special envoy, George J. Mitchell, on several visits to Damascus.

Mr. Assad has said that he wants to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel. But with his population up in arms, analysts said, he might actually have an incentive to pick a fight with its neighbor, if only to deflect attention from the festering problems at home.

�You can�t have a comprehensive peace without Syria,� the administration official said. �It�s definitely in our interest to pursue an agreement, but you can�t do it with a government that has no credibility with its population.�

Indeed, the crackdown calls into question the entire American engagement with Syria. Last June, the State Department organized a delegation from Microsoft, Dell and Cisco Systems to visit Mr. Assad with the message that he could attract more investment if he stopped censoring Facebook and Twitter. While the administration renewed economic sanctions against Syria, it approved export licenses for some civilian aircraft parts.

The Bush administration, by contrast, largely shunned Damascus, recalling its ambassador in February 2005 after the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Many Lebanese accuse Syria of involvement in the assassination, a charge it denies.

When Mr. Obama named Mr. Ford as his envoy last year, Republicans in the Senate held up the appointment for months, arguing that the United States should not reward Syria with closer ties. The administration said it would have more influence by restoring an ambassador.

But officials also concede that Mr. Assad has been an endless source of frustration � deepening ties with Iran and the Islamic militant group, Hezbollah; undermining the government of Saad Hariri in Lebanon; pursuing a nuclear program; and failing to deliver on promises of reform.

Some analysts said that the United States was so eager to use Syria to break the deadlock on Middle East peace negotiations that it had failed to push Mr. Assad harder on political reforms.

�He�s given us nothing, even though we�ve engaged him on the peace process,� said Andrew J. Tabler, who lived in Syria for a decade and is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. �I�m not saying we should give up on peace talks with Israel, but we cannot base our strategy on that.�

The United States does not have the leverage with Syria it had with Egypt. But Mr. Tabler said the administration could stiffen sanctions to press Mr. Assad to make reforms.

Other analysts, however, point to a positive effect of the unrest: it could deprive Iran of a reliable ally in extending its influence over Lebanon, Hezbollah and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

That is not a small thing, they said, given that Iran is likely to benefit from the fall of Mr. Mubarak in Egypt, the upheaval in Bahrain, and the resulting chill between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

�There�s much more upside than downside for the U.S.,� said Martin S. Indyk, the vice president for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. �We have an interest in counterbalancing the advantages Iran has gained in the rest of the region. That makes it an unusual confluence of our values and interests.�

synergy

Posted: Mar 28 2011, 06:39 AM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

Scores disappear as Bahrain�s uprising continues by Finian Cunningham

QUOTE

Posted on March 28, 2011 by dandelionsalad

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted from Irish Times
March 28, 2011
Manama

The Royal College of Surgeons Ireland sent a fact-finding team to Bahrain at the weekend amid claims of attacks by state forces on hospitals and medical staff, including members of the RCSI.

At least four Bahraini senior consultants are known to have been detained by the state. The circumstances of custody are unknown, but relatives of the medics have said they fear for their lives.

Senior consultant Ali al-Ekri was arrested on March 17th while performing a surgical procedure at Salmaniya Hospital in Manama, where hundreds of injured had been admitted following attacks on pro-democracy protesters.

The military takeover of the hospital and the detention of medics and patients have been condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Commission as a �shocking violation of international law�.

Ekri�s wife said: �We are very afraid for his life. We do not know where Ali is being held, nor under what conditions.� Other medics detained include Ghassan Dhaif and Basem Dhaif. The three are believed to be members of the RCSI, having been trained in Dublin.

Ekri lived in Dublin with his family from 2000 to 2002 during his training as a paediatric surgeon. One of his three children, Hassan, was born in the city�s Rotunda hospital.

Since the popular uprising began on the Persian Gulf island on February 14th, the country�s largest public hospital at Salmaniya has served prominently as a treatment centre for injured protesters. Senior staff defied ministerial orders to close the hospital during the first week of repression, when seven people were killed by state forces and hundreds were injured.

It is believed staff at the hospital are now being subjected to reprisals for their alleged �disloyalty� to the regime.

The unlawful detention of the medics points to claims of a wider campaign of �disappearance� of opposition figures and civilians by state forces.

Seven leading political figures have been detained in unknown circumstances, including Hassan Mushaima of the Haq Movement, Ebrahim al-Sharif, leader of the left-wing National Democratic Action Society, and dissident academic and writer Abduljalil al- Singace.

In addition to 65 cases of known detentions, the whereabouts of more than 100 persons remain unknown, according to the leading opposition party, al-Wefaq.

Most of those missing have disappeared since Gulf armed forces joined the Bahraini military onslaught on March 16th against the popular uprising, under which protesters had been demanding an elected government to replace the US-backed autocratic regime of King Hamad al-Khalifa.

Many of the missing are believed to be injured patients arrested by members of the military police when state forces commandeered hospitals.

Other reports say people have been detained by state forces after being stopped at checkpoints, or during raids by plainclothes police on outlying towns and villages.

A spokeswoman for US-based Human Rights Watch said: �We are deeply alarmed by the number of disappeared. And we are even more concerned by the number of people who had been reported missing and who are now being found dead.

�There seems to be a blatant campaign to silence people by fear,� she added.

In recent days, at least four people have been reported dead after they went missing during the military crackdown. One of them was named as Abdulrazul al-Hujiri (38), from Boori village. He worked as a cleaner at Salmaniya Hospital in Manama and was taken into custody on March 19th, according to witnesses. His body was found the next day near the remote oil fields of Awaali � he had been badly beaten, and his neck was broken.

The father of another man buried last Thursday, Hani Abdulaziz (32), from Belad al- Qadeem, west of Manama, described how he saw his badly injured son being taken away by military police while he was being treated at the International Hospital on March 19th.

Abdulaziz is believed to have been tortured after he was snatched by a police squad earlier that day. He was taken to a nearby construction site and shot in the legs and arms, witnesses said.

The bare concrete room, seen by this reporter, where he was said to have been shot four times at close range bore evidence of massive blood loss. His father said subsequent inquiries with the police failed to produce any information on his son�s whereabouts.

His body was released by the state on Thursday � the same day he was buried. Abdulaziz�s family has rejected the official death certificate claiming he was killed in a car crash.

Finian Cunningham is a journalist and musician www.myspace.com/finiancunninghammusic

see

Unrest and violence keep shaking the Arab world � interview with Finian Cunningham

Slaughter in Bahrain � Nerve Gas Used against Protesters by Finian Cunningham

Bahrain: U.S. Backs Saudi Military Intervention, Conflict With Iran by Rick Rozoff

Bahrain Protests Revolution 2011

More videos:

http://vodpod.com/dandelionsalad/tag/bahrain

synergy

Posted: Mar 30 2011, 05:15 AM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

Qaeda: Arab revolts herald "great leap forward"

QUOTE

5:23 am EDT Wed 30 Mar 2011

LONDON (Reuters) � Al Qaeda's most influential English-language preacher said revolts sweeping the Arab world would help rather than harm its cause by giving Islamists freed from tyranny greater scope to speak out.

Western and Arab officials say the example set by young Arabs seeking peaceful political change is a counterweight to al-Qaeda's push for violent militancy and weakens its argument that democracy and Islam are incompatible.

But al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, in an article published online on Tuesday, said the removal of anti-Islamist autocrats meant Islamic fighters and scholars were now freer to discuss and organize.

"Our mujahideen brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the rest of the Muslim world will get a chance to breathe again after three decades of suffocation," he wrote, using a term that refers generally to Islamic guerrilla groups or holy warriors.

"For the scholars and activists of Egypt to be able to speak again freely, it would represent a great leap forward for the mujahideen," wrote Awlaki, an American of Yemeni origin who is believed to be hiding in southern Yemen.

He said it did not matter what sort of government succeeded Arab autocrats, as these were unlikely to be as repressive. Imagining that only a Taliban-style regime would benefit al Qaeda was "a too short term way" of looking at events.

"We do not know yet what the outcome would be (in any given country), and we do not have to. The outcome doesn't have to be an Islamic government for us to consider what is occurring to be a step in the right direction," he said.

REVOLTS BREAK FEAR "BARRIERS"

"In Libya, no matter how bad the situation gets and no matter how pro-Western or oppressive the next government proves to be, we do not see it possible for the world to produce another lunatic of the same caliber of the Colonel (Gaddafi)."

Awlaki said the revolts had broken "the barriers of fear" among Muslims whose "defeatism" under tyranny had deepened after Algeria's crushing of an Islamist uprising in the 1990s.

Awlaki made his remarks in the fifth edition of "Inspire," an online al Qaeda magazine aimed at Muslims in the West.

The publication is produced by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an arm of al Qaeda responsible for the group's most spectacular attempted attacks in recent years.

Another writer, called Yahya Ibrahim, said al Qaeda was not against regime changes through protests but was against the idea that the change should be only through peaceful means to the exclusion of the use of force.

Inspire also contained an interview with AQAP military leader Qasim al-Raymi, also known as Abu Hurairah al-Sana'ani, one of the world's most wanted Islamist militants.

He called on Muslims living in the West to kill groups of "Jews and Christians" whenever they heard of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan or Israeli killings of Palestinians.

Such attacks "would stop the striking, killing, occupation, humiliation and disgrace of our holy places that America and the West perpetrates."

Yemen has been at the center of Western security concerns after AQAP launched failed plots to bomb cargo airliners in October 2010 and to destroy a U.S.-bound passenger plane in December 2009.

For more stories on al Qaeda and the Arab revolts click on

(Reporting by William Maclean, Editing by Ralph Boulton)

synergy

Posted: Mar 30 2011, 06:40 PM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

This certainly begs the question of exactly who Obama is now arming to fight against Qaddafi. It is reminscent of United States arming the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet occupation of that country. Those Mujahadeen later morphed into the Taliban. U.S. involvement in Libya justifies conspiracy theories by the governments of Syria and Iran and stiffles Arabs' legitimate democratic aspirations.

The enemies of our enemy

QUOTE

ForeignPolicy.com

Libya contributed hundreds of the fiercest foreign fighters to Iraq's al Qaeda-led insurgency. Should Washington be worried that it's now backing these guys against Qaddafi?

BY JOSEPH FELTER AND BRIAN FISHMAN | MARCH 30, 2011

In September 2007, U.S. soldiers raided a desert encampment outside the town of Sinjar in northwest Iraq, looking for insurgents. Amid the tents, they made a remarkable discovery: a trove of personnel files -- more than 700 in all -- detailing the origins of the foreign fighters al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had brought into the country to fight against coalition forces.

The Sinjar records -- which we analyzed extensively in a series of reports for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center -- revealed that at least 111 Libyans entered Iraq between August 2006 and August 2007. That was about 18 percent of AQI's incoming fighters during that period, a contribution second only to Saudi Arabia's (41 percent) and the highest number of fighters per capita than any other country noted in the records.

Three and a half years later, the Sinjar records have become a subject of renewed interest, for obvious reasons. Forty-four days into the uprising against Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya, and 11 days after NATO forces stepped in to enforce a no-fly zone over the country, we still have a fuzzy-at-best idea of who the rebels fighting against Qaddafi actually are; on March 29, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted that "we're still getting to know those who are leading the Transitional National Council" -- the rebels' putative political organization.

Qaddafi, meanwhile, insists his rebel enemies are tied to al Qaeda -- and American critics and supporters alike of the international campaign are increasingly concerned that the old dictator may have a point. In a congressional hearing in Washington on March 29, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) pointedly questioned James Stavridis, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, over "reports about the presence of al Qaeda among the rebels"; Stavridis replied that he believed the rebels were, in the main, "responsible men and women who are struggling against Qaddafi," but that the military had "seen flickers of al Qaeda and Hezbollah."

What should policymakers in Washington and elsewhere make of this ambiguity? First and foremost, they should proceed carefully in considering the presence of jihadi-affiliated social networks in Libya; but it's unwise to exaggerate the threat based on the relatively limited evidence in the Sinjar records. That said, as the international community pressures the Qaddafi regime, it should avoid policies that increase the likelihood that jihadi groups can capitalize on the chaos in Libya.

So what do we know about jihadists in Libya from the Sinjar records? Aside from the overall numbers, we know that the vast majority of Libyan fighters profiled in the documents hailed from northeastern Libya, where today's rebellion is centered. Half of them came from Darnah, a town of 80,000 people on the Mediterranean coast 150 miles east of Benghazi that has played an active role in the rebellion; another quarter were from Benghazi, the heart of the current uprising. The Libyan fighters also seem to have arrived in Iraq over a short period of time, between March and August 2007. That abrupt surge suggests that tribal or religious networks were suddenly spurred to send fighters abroad. And those fighters seem to have been extremely dedicated: Eighty-five percent of the Libyans in the Sinjar records registered as suicide bombers when they arrived in Iraq, a larger percentage than any other nationality other than Morocco.

That is good and bad news. On the one hand, it is disconcerting that social networks sympathetic to al Qaeda were able to mobilize a force of such size and determination in a matter of months; it suggests that they could do the same thing today. On the other hand, the fact that the surge was the work of a small number of distinct networks may indicate that support for al Qaeda is concentrated in particular tribal, religious, or social communities, rather than dispersed throughout a broader swath of Libyan society.

That said, analyzing a complex society primarily through the lens of its most virulent elements is a dicey business. Libyans may have been disproportionately represented among Iraq's Islamist radicals, but that doesn't mean that such radicals are disproportionately represented in the anti-Qaddafi rebellion. Reporting from the front lines of the current conflict indicates that the rebels reflect a complex cross-section of Libyan society. In short, there is little reason to believe that jihadists are poised to seize broad political control of Libya should the rebels come to power -- though it is probably true that they will operate more overtly if relieved of Qaddafi's iron-fisted rule.

The more likely scenario than a clean rebel victory, however, is also more dangerous: that either military stalemate or internal divisions among rebel groups will lead to a chaotic civil war in which a small jihadi faction can flourish amid lawless conditions. History shows us that even a small band of determined extremists, if well led, armed, and equipped, can wreak havoc and challenge efforts to bring stability and order to a weakened state. Algeria suffered a decade of terribly brutal civil war at the hands of extremists such as the Armed Islamic Group and its splinter faction the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. Other examples include the Abu Sayyaf group in the southern Philippines, Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia, and Islamist extremist groups that fuel the insurgency in Chechnya. And al Qaeda in Iraq still kills on a scale that would be deemed completely unacceptable in any country where the recent past was not so tremendously violent.

Where would dangerous jihadi factions in Libya come from exactly? In our original analysis of the Sinjar records, we suggested that the Libyan rebel recruitment pattern might indicate that networks related to the largely defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a jihadi organization primarily dedicated to overthrowing the Qaddafi regime, are still functional -- a notion bolstered by recent reports that former LIFG members funneled fighters to Iraq. After all, exiled LIFG members in South Asia joined al Qaeda officially in November 2007, aligning themselves with other senior Libyan jihadists already among al Qaeda's ranks. But other scholars have questioned LIFG's role, suggesting that such recruitment patterns are more likely the result of ad hoc tribal or mosque networks. Those explanations are not mutually exclusive, but it is worth noting that many of LIFG's leaders, imprisoned in Libya by Qaddafi for years, renounced al Qaeda in 2009. Whether these individuals -- or those potentially released in the future -- will rekindle their old sympathies remains to be seen.

But though the Sinjar documents present more questions than they do answers about Libya's rebels, they do suggest some ideas for how we might best respond to the country's civil war and its aftermath. For one thing, there should be little doubt that the rebellion includes at least some jihadists sympathetic to al Qaeda -- but those networks are discrete from the broader rebellion, and they would have existed with or without a no-fly zone. The challenge now is to contain the ability of such troublemakers in the rebel coalition to capitalize on chaos -- not with platitudes, but with pragmatism.

With the facts on the ground as ambiguous as they are, this is a tall order. A key challenge now is to identify the jihadi networks inside Libya and measure their strength within the broader rebel coalition. The Sinjar records offer a strong starting point, enabling intelligence agencies to ask good questions about such networks, but they alone do not provide sufficient answers. Undervaluing knowledge of the complexity of tribal and social networks proved disastrous when the United States first entered Iraq. And though an armed intervention of that intensity would be extraordinarily counterproductive in Libya, NATO forces nevertheless ignore the imperative to understand the country's social terrain at their own peril.

In seeking to limit the threat of an Islamist insurgency, the international community can also leverage the most striking feature of its intervention in Libya: the breadth of its diplomatic support. Keeping that coalition intact -- particularly the Arab contingent --limits the resonance of al Qaeda's inevitable claim that the West is waging war on Muslims. The initial backing of the Arab League provided critical political space for the United Nations and the coalition implementing the no-fly zone; if the mission shifts toward a more aggressive effort to depose Qaddafi, getting public support from Arab states will be crucial.

A key question for the international community now is whether to arm the rebels. Doing so would offer obvious advantages, but they are outweighed by the risks -- most notably the possibility that the weapons could find their way into less-friendly hands in the future. Qaddafi's weapons caches alone pose a long-term threat not just to Libya, but to other states in North Africa, including Tunisia and Egypt. Allied forces should not contribute to the problem.

The air campaign, while unlikely to depose Qaddafi on its own, has bought time for more creative means of rebel support -- ones that do not increase the danger of unintended consequences. If improving the rebels' military capacity is necessary, the international community should provide training rather than weapons. Assisting insurgents is a classic form of unconventional warfare, and it does not necessarily mean putting Western personnel in Libya. The United States can help by facilitating rebel communications and delivering virtual instruction on such military basics as digging trenches and coordinating firepower. Training and advisory assistance to rebel leaders can be provided outside Libya's borders (in a neighboring state, ideally) with support from other countries in the region.

The enemies of our enemy in Libya may not be our friends. But the danger that they pose to U.S. interests in the future will be determined in no small part by what the United States and its allies do in Libya today. There is no doubt that the choices facing policymakers are extremely difficult -- intervention is often a lose-lose situation. But the international community better get used to that ambiguity sooner rather than later -- in Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria, the choices will not get any easier.

Joseph Felter is a U.S. Army colonel and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Brian Fishman is a counterterrorism research fellow at the New America Foundation and a fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

The views expressed here are the authors' alone.

synergy

Posted: Mar 31 2011, 07:09 PM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

QUOTE

After starting wave of revolution, Tunisia tries to preserve its own
By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers

In the new Tunisia, there's no denying the first tentative steps toward democracy. New elections are scheduled for July, while a high council of jurists and intellectuals drafts new electoral laws and determines whether to try ex-regime figures for corruption, torture and other abuses. For the first time in two decades, Tunisia's countless cafes are abuzz with open debates about the country's political future.

After starting wave of revolution, Tunisia tries to preserve its own

QUOTE

Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011

By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers

TUNIS, Tunisia � Lina Ben Mhenni's blog isn't banned in her home country anymore. Secret police no longer shadow her every move, and she doesn't fear thugs breaking into her parents' home again and making off with her laptop and camera, as they did last spring.

Still, Ben Mhenni isn't sure she's happy with how things are going, three months after a people's rebellion overthrew this small North African nation's 23-year dictatorship and sparked the historic wave of protests that are remaking the Arab world.

"I don't think that the country is on the right track," Ben Mhenni, 27, said, shaking her head as she watched a small demonstration on the steps of the municipal theater call for criminal trials for the country's deposed president and his associates. "The government is trying to say these demonstrators have personal demands, but they have political demands. The government is not really working toward real democracy."

In the new Tunisia, there's no denying the first tentative steps toward democracy.

The transitional government has dissolved former president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali's monopolistic ruling party, broken his family's mafia-like hold on the economy, forced the resignation of a prime minister who had ties to the old regime, disbanded the reviled secret police and lifted a stranglehold on free speech.

New elections are scheduled for July, while a high council of jurists and intellectuals drafts new electoral laws and determines whether to try ex-regime figures for corruption, torture and other abuses. For the first time in two decades, Tunisia's countless cafes are abuzz with open debates about the country's political future.

"Under Ben Ali we were a country of 10 million soccer coaches," said a radio host, Noureddine Ben Ticha, referring to the old national obsession. "Now we are 10 million political analysts."

But there's also a struggle to maintain the momentum for change.

More than 50 political parties have registered for the July elections, including some headed by well known former members of the ruling party and others by total unknowns.

Sporadic sit-ins demanding swifter reforms and economic progress have snarled traffic outside government buildings, leading to several arrests last week in the first significant confrontation between demonstrators and security forces since the uprising.

Even the high council has come in for criticism for meeting behind closed doors and has nearly doubled in size after Tunisians complained that it excluded women, Islamists, young people and residents from outside the capital.

Democracy, as Ben Mhenni is learning, in some ways is messier than revolution.

As the daughter of a former political prisoner, her skepticism of the country's political elite is deep and abiding. She still looks the part of the impatient young activist � perched at the edge of her chair, her eyes distracted, a jumbled necklace of silver coins cascading from her neck.

With its thinly veiled references to Ben Ali � whom she often called "the rock," dull and immovable � her blog, "A Tunisian Girl," was banned along with many other websites critical of the regime. Government goons harassed her even when she went to buy coffee, once loudly proclaiming to startled passers-by that she contracted AIDS on a trip to the U.S. (She was a Fulbright scholar at Tufts University in 2008.)

Channeling the zeal of its revolutionaries into a new political system is difficult for any country in transition. With its small, homogenous and well educated population, experts say that this former French colony may have the best chance of any Arab nation to build a representative democracy from the rubble of its toppled autocracy.

Failure, however, could also have ripple effects in the region.

"All these factors mean it probably will succeed and that it will be a positive model for other countries," said a Western diplomat in Tunis whose government wouldn't authorize him to be quoted by name.

"Conversely, if it doesn't work here, then there's a real risk that people who don't want democracy to work . . . will point to the reasons why we shouldn't go down the democratic path."

Secret State Department cables released by WikiLeaks described Tunisia under Ben Ali as "sclerotic" and corrupt to the core. His clan of extended relatives � often referred to simply as "the Family" � dominated the media and, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable from 2008, comprised "seemingly half of the Tunisian business community."

The transitional government in February seized the assets of 110 Ben Ali family members and associates, but some argue that the list needs to be expanded.

Other reforms are needed, many argue, if the old guard's lock on Tunisian politics is to be broken forever.

Omar Mestiri, a human rights activist and member of the high council, applied to start an independent radio station but was told by government officials that a one-year license to broadcast nationwide would cost about $845,000 � a sum that's "out of the question for anyone except members of the old elite," he said.

He's worried that many station managers, newspaper editors and media personalities who were in thrall to the regime remain in their posts.

"People who were for Ben Ali are now for the revolution," Mestiri said. "They behave as if nothing happened."

Away from the European-style chic of the capital, the economic grievances that launched the uprising continue to bite. In Zarzis, a sleepy southeastern port town, many complained that the new government had few concrete proposals to create jobs or improve living standards in the country's interior.

Mouflah Ajaouda, who has a college degree in engineering, said the best job he could get was as a technician for a state-owned construction company, where he earns about $180 a month. That's barely enough to cover his meals and bus fare, says Ajaouda, who's nearly 30 and lives with his parents.

"It's hard to even afford cigarettes or new clothes, and getting married is out of the question," Ajaouda said. "It is difficult because you feel you are capable and competent but you don't have the means."

One afternoon recently, he and three friends were at the port on a mission: They were searching for a jobless friend who'd suddenly disappeared from home. They feared he'd come to Zarzis to buy passage on a tiny, overcrowded fishing boat bound for Europe � a clandestine migration that's accelerated since January, after Tunisian security forces deployed to cities during the revolution.

Over the past two months, the United Nations says that more than 10,000 Tunisians have arrived by boat on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a gateway to Europe 70 miles across the Mediterranean. Italian authorities call the migration a humanitarian emergency.

Ahmed Ghoummidh, a curly-haired fisherman in Zarzis, said that his 19-year-old brother was fed up with being unemployed and borrowed several hundred dollars from relatives last month to make the crossing. He's found his way to France, where he's looking for work as a plumber.

"All men have the idea that Europe is better than here," Ghoummidh said. "For my brother, the revolution made him happy, but it didn't make him rich."

ON THE WEB:

Lina Ben Mhenni's blog: A Tunisian Girl (external site)

MORE FROM MCCLATCHY:

A day of battle shows Libyan rebels' weaknesses

'Obama doctrine'? In Libya decision, there isn't one

Brutal crackdowns chill the 'Arab Spring'

For more news from the Middle East, visit McClatchy's Middle East page.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/31/1113...l#ixzz1IE1HJfYR

synergy

Posted: Apr 1 2011, 07:33 PM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

Protests Throughout the Arab World Today as Uprising Continues

QUOTE

By: David Dayen Friday April 1, 2011 1:45 pm | Firedoglake "News Desk"

The Arab protests have typically used Friday prayers as a rallying point, and today was no different in multiple hot spots. A sampling:

� Yemen: Pro- and anti-government demonstrators held dueling protests in Sanaa. A week after it looked as if Ali Abdullah Saleh�s government would fall, the large protests on the pro-government side show at least that he will not go quietly. Anti-government protesters have lived in the streets since mid-February, and had their largest turnout yet today. And it wasn�t just the capital: other cities saw large protests as well.

WaPo writes about Saleh and the general, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who split from Saleh after decades and called on him to step down. That dynamic could determine the outcome. Hamid al-Ahmar (not sure if it�s a relation), the leader of the Islamist Islah party and a top political figure, demanded that Saleh step down today as well.

� Syria: Protesters gathered across the country today and met resistance from government forces. Tear gas, electrified batons, clubs and bullets were used, and a Syrian human rights group claimed at least seven deaths.

The most violent clashes occurred in the city of Douma, near the capital, where two activists said security forces had opened fire on more than 1,000 protesters after beating them and attacking with the electric batons. At least five people were killed and many others wounded, the Syrian human rights group, Insan, said.

�It is crazy, nonstop,� one activist, reached by telephone and who asked not to be named because of safety fears, said of the shooting in Douma. The type of ammunition used could not be immediately determined.

Another protester was killed during demonstrations in a small town outside the southern city of Dara�a, according to Ahmed Al Sayasna, a prayer leader in Dara�a.

In the capital, Damascus, witnesses said thousands had gathered at Al Rifai mosque and were met there by security forces and plain-clothed government supporters who barricaded them inside, beating those who tried to leave and killing one protester in the process, said Wissam Tarif, executive director of the rights group.

This never seems to work out well for the governments, as the dead are turned into martyrs. But it definitely seems dangerous to protest in Syria. Snipers looked out from rooftops on Friday.

� Jordan: Jordan has been on the periphery of the Arab uprising, but protests have been fairly consistent since January, and today hundreds of protesters camped in Amman. They have commandeered �Municipality Square� in the capital. Last week, police violently broke up an attempt to camp, but today the protesters met no resistance. The movement remains small, with about 2,000 coming out today.

� Bahrain: The suppression of peaceful protesters has continued in Bahrain, with checkpoints throughout the island nation, tanks in full view in the capital and night raids on the protesters� homes. The Washington Post writes that sectarian tensions bubble under the surface:

The relentless crackdown has made major new protests a virtual impossibility for the time being, analysts and Shiite residents say. But the pressure is generating new anger among protesters who had been calling for democratic reform and equal rights for Shiites. Another explosion of unrest in the home of the U.S. Navy�s 5th Fleet now seems inevitable, they say.

�We cannot stop,� said Ali Mohammed, a 33-year-old Shiite teacher fired from his job for participating in demonstrations at Manama�s Pearl Square last month. �We might go quite for a bit to mourn the dead and treat the injured and see those in jail, but then we will rise up again.�

� Tunisia: In case you thought the uprising was over in this, the first country in the region to depose a dictator, think again. Today police fired tear gas to break up a rally by Islamists protesting the country�s secular laws. It�s a sign that these uprisings are complex and not linear.
comment on this1 Comment spotlight Spotlight
Tags: protests, Yemen, repression, Arab uprising, Bahrain, Syria, Tunisia, Jordan, dictatorships

Related Posts

* More on the Pan-Arab Uprising February 3, 2011
* Arab Uprising: Snapshots from Around the Region February 14, 2011
* Administration Maintains Radio Silence on Yemeni Protests February 14, 2011
* Yemen�s Saleh in Talks to End 32-Year Rule March 25, 2011
* Egyptian Protests Reflective of a Pan-Arab Uprising February 2, 2011

synergy

Posted: Apr 2 2011, 07:02 AM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

Crackdown in Bahrain enflames Iraq's Shiites

QUOTE

Sat 02 Apr 2011

REBECCA SANTANA
Associated Press

Image
In this photo dated March 25, 2011, women work in a basement workshop in central Baghdad, Iraq, making Bahrain national flags. The sewing machines have been working hard to produce the red and white Bahraini flags which are proving to be very popular for Iraqi protesters to wave at demonstrations, unfurl from buildings and fly from car antennas. The fervor for the Bahrain national symbol is testimony to the solidarity which Iraqi Shiites feel with their religious brethren in Bahrain battling for more rights.(AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

BAGHDAD � The sewing machines have been furiously churning out red and white Bahraini flags at a basement workshop in downtown Baghdad, and Iraqi customers are snapping them up to wave at protests, unfurl from buildings and fly from car antennas.

The fervor is testimony to the solidarity Iraqi Shiites feel with their religious brethren in Bahrain battling for more rights.

It is also a sign of how the crushing of the Bahraini Shiite protests by the island nation's Sunni monarchy, with the help of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies, hikes up sectarian tensions around the region.

Hundreds of Iraqis have taken to the streets in demonstrations against Bahrain's ruling elite and Saudi Arabia. Politicians railed against Bahrain in parliament. Iraq's Shiite prime minister, who's been largely silent on most of the turmoil in the Middle East, said Bahrain's actions were threatening to inflame sectarian violence.

The Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani � revered by many Shiites both inside and outside of Iraq � has called on the Bahrain government to cease the crackdown.

And the Iraqi government is pushing the United States to get more involved, U.S. ambassador in Baghdad James F. Jeffrey said Friday. High-ranking U.S. diplomats, including Vice President Joe Biden, have urged the tiny kingdom's rulers to settle the strife without violence.

"We're concerned, of course, of anything that can trigger any sort of sectarian outbreak or disagreement, discord, diplomatic struggle or even worse throughout the region," Jeffrey told reporters. "The Iraqi government would like to see us and others do more to try to resolve the conflict, and we are continuing our contacts in Bahrain toward that end."

The scenario in Bahrain in many ways mimics Iraq: a Shiite majority long dominated by a Sunni minority regime. For Iraq's Shiites, it was Saddam Hussein, whose toppling in 2003 helped bring Shiites to dominate power in the country. For Bahrain's Shiites, it is the Khalifa family that has ruled the island kingdom for more than 200 years and shows no sign of giving it up. Bahraini Shiites have long complained of discrimination and a second-class-citizen status.

"We support Bahrainis because we are of the same sect, because the majority of Bahraini people are Shiite," said Talib al-Zayadi, owner of the al-Raya store in Baghdad, which makes flags, banners and other paraphernalia. He said business is up almost 20 percent because Iraqis are buying so many Bahraini flags.

Image
In this photo dated March 25, 2011, women work in a basement workshop in central Baghdad, Iraq, making Bahrain national flags. The sewing machines have been working hard to produce red and white Bahraini flags which are very popular for Iraqi protesters to wave at demonstrations, unfurl from buildings and fly from car antennas. The fervor for the Bahrain national symbol is testimony to the solidarity which Iraqi Shiites feel with their religious brethren in Bahrain battling for more rights.(AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

The decision by Saudi Arabia to send in troops to quell the protests infuriated Iraq's Shiite population even more.

Saudi Arabia fears that any rise in power among Shiite communities in the Gulf will lead to a spread in the influence and power of its top rival, mainly Shiite Iran. That worry applies for Bahrain and for Saudi Arabia's own Shiite population who live in the eastern part of the country � where the oil is.

Saudi leaders hold the same suspicions about Iraq's empowered Shiite community, and for that reason Riyadh's relations with the post-Saddam governments in Baghdad have been consistently cold.

To many of Iraq's Shiites, the fact that the international community intervened on behalf of Libyan rebels but did not interfere when troops from Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries rolled across the causeway connecting the Saudi and Bahraini kingdoms reeks of a double standard.

Iraq's powerful top four Shiite clerics, known together as the "marjaiyah," are closely watching all the popular uprisings in the region, said Sheik Ali al-Najafi, the son and top aide to one of the clerics.

"But the Bahraini issue is different because there is Arab and international silence and a media blackout on that issue," he said.

Al-Najafi said Iraqi religious leaders aren't seeking to provoke a sectarian conflict, but he said it is obvious that the Bahraini people are being treated in a sectarian manner.

He said religious leaders in Najaf, where Shiites from around the world study, have been in close contact with their counterparts in Bahrain.

One Bahraini opposition cleric who's been studying in Iraq said Bahrainis are able to get their message out through Iraq, in part because Iraq has strong relations with the United States. Iraqis also understand the situation in Bahrain because of their own history.

Image
In this photo dated March 25, 2011, a woman works in a basement workshop in central Baghdad, Iraq, making a Bahrain national flag. The sewing machines have been working hard to produce red and white Bahraini flags which are very popular for Iraqi protesters to wave at demonstrations, unfurl from buildings and fly from car antennas. The fervor for the Bahrain national symbol is testimony to the solidarity which Iraqi Shiites feel with their religious brethren in Bahrain battling for more rights.(AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

"Iraq has lived through similar circumstances and maybe more harsh than we have lived through in Bahrain," said the cleric, Maytham Omran.

Woven throughout the narrative of what is happening in Bahrain is the specter of Iran.

To be sure, images of Iranian leaders grace some Bahraini mosques.

But when it comes to religious connections, most of Bahrain's Shiites practice a type of Shiism that does not adhere strictly to the guidance of one ayatollah, said Juan Cole, a U.S. expert on Islam. Those who do follow one ayatollah, tend to look to al-Sistani in Najaf for spiritual guidance, Cole said. Either way, they're not likely to be taking their guidance from Iran.

Inevitably the sectarian divisions playing out in Bahrain remind many Iraqis of the Sunni-Shiite divisions that only recently were tearing this country apart.

A Sunni lawmaker, Aliya Nusayif, was part of a group of prominent Iraqi political leaders who wrote an open letter to the U.S. Embassy calling on the U.S. government to hold Bahrain accountable. She said she is worried that Iranian and Saudi interference in Bahrain may fuel Sunni-Shiite tensions in Iraq, but that is all the more reason to push for the protesters' demands in Bahrain to be heard.

"Peoples in all countries have the right to ... ask for change," she said. "There are massacres being committed on the Bahraini land while the international community is paying no attention to it and directing their concern to Libya only."

��

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Hamid Ahmed contributed to this report.

synergy

Posted: Apr 2 2011, 03:47 PM

Advanced Member

Group: Admin
Posts: 96,921
Member No.: 3
Joined: 20-November 07

AP Interview: Iraqi premier says assault on Libya singles out 1 oppressive regime over others

QUOTE

By Lara Jakes,Qassim Abdul-Zahra, The Associated Press ~ 3:30 pm EDT Sat 02 Apr 2011

BAGHDAD � Iraq's prime minister on Saturday called the international crackdown on Libya's Moammar Gadhafi "selective," chastising foreign forces for singling out one oppressive Mideast regime without helping peaceful protesters in others.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, made clear he was not advocating widespread use of military force in response to the unrest sweeping the region. But the Shiite-led Iraqi government has been frustrated with the West's hands-off approach to the crackdown in Bahrain, where Shiite protesters are challenging a Sunni-led leadership closely allied with Washington.

"Whatever decision is made on Libya should be applied on any government that suppresses its people with iron and fire," al-Maliki said in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press. "The process should not be selective. ... I want the international community to be fair, just and equal about all the areas in which peoples are suppressed."

Iraq supported the Arab League's call for a no-fly zone over Libya, which led to a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing airstrikes to protect Libyan civilians at risk from Gadhafi's forces. On Saturday, al-Maliki affirmed that stance, saying nations should not interfere with others' internal disputes unless there is widespread international consensus to do so.

That was a veiled slap at Sunni-led governments in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which sent military forces to Bahrain to help shore up the government after weeks of sometimes violent confrontations.

Al-Maliki listed Bahrain among Mideast nations � including Syria and Egypt � where the demands of peaceful protesters should be heeded.

"I stand against violent confrontation against any peaceful uprising that is calling for rights whether in Bahrain, or Syria or Libya or Egypt or in any other country and in Iraq in particular," he said.

It was a reconciliatory tone aimed at his public after six weeks of protests across Iraq, some of which have turned deadly. None of the demonstrations have reached the fervour of the uprisings that toppled governments in Egypt and Tunisia and have challenged the national leadership in Yemen, Syria and Jordan.

But in the semiautonomous Kurdish region in Iraq's north, 49 demonstrators were being held Saturday after an estimated 2,000 anti-government protesters clashed with security officials in Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles (260 kilometres) northeast of Baghdad. Witnesses said security forces severely beat some protesters who were throwing rocks at riot police.

Al-Maliki's fears about Bahrain stoking regional violence also were underscored by a statement issued Saturday by a hardcore Shiite militia vowing to launch new attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq. The statement by the League of the Righteous, which is linked to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, claimed responsibility for the recent rocketing of U.S. bases in southern Iraq, and said it "will continue striking the occupation forces to gain the victory for the religion and as a revenge for the bloodshed of our people in Bahrain."

Al-Maliki has said he fears the sectarian tension in Bahrain could trigger Shiite-Sunni violence across the region. Iraq is especially vulnerable because it just managed to curb years of sectarian killings that brought the nation to the brink of civil war.

U.S. forces are set to withdraw from Iraq by the end of the year under a security agreement between both nations. Al-Maliki maintained in the interview that he sees no need to change the agreement but said he would leave that decision to parliament if lawmakers vote to keep them.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James F. Jeffrey acknowledged Iraq's frustration with the American response to Bahrain but said the protests there were an internal issue that should be settled by the kingdom's government.

"Our focus is that this is an issue that should be taken care of by the Bahrainis," Jeffrey told reporters. "And it is taken care of on the basis of dialogue, engagement, no violence on either side, and work toward a more democratic and free system."

In Iraq, al-Maliki has swiftly moved to stem unrest by promising to purge his government of corruption and dysfunction and provide more electricity and better services to the public. He predicted Saturday that his government will survive a 100-day test he imposed on his Cabinet ministers to enact reforms or be fired.

The issue is seen as a bellwether sign of whether the government will hold together in the face of protests or be scrapped like those in Iraq's neighbours.

However, al-Maliki opened several escape clauses for his ministers should they fail to meet the June 7 deadline. He said he would allow another 100 days for some officials who are moving to enact reforms but haven't yet gotten them done. Their performances will be judged by a committee that al-Maliki has appointed.

And al-Maliki sidestepped questions about whether he would also step down if his government is deemed to have fallen short of demands for change. Pressed, al-Maliki would only say that his government would cease to exist if it failed.

___

Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin and Bushra Juhi in Baghdad and Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, contributed to this report.

0 User(s) are reading this topic (0 Guests and 0 Anonymous Users)

0 Members:

« Next Oldest | From Today's Headlines | Next Newest »

DealsFor.me - The best sales, coupons, and discounts for you