Showing posts with label U.S. policy and Islamists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. policy and Islamists. Show all posts

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Libya: Not Just a Tragedy But the Start of Another Endless War for America

This article is published on PJ Media.

[Note: Even if you aren't interested in Libya, don't miss the amazing quote at the end.]

By Barry Rubin

Yahoo highlighted two "amazing" stories shortly after the murder of five American diplomats in Libya and the attack on the U.S. embassy in Egypt that tell us a lot about the intersection between American reality and Middle East reality.

The first article insisted that American officials thought the terror attack on the U.S. embassy was planned (yeah, I don’t think the terrorists were passing by and just happened to have a rocket with them). The other asked tentatively whether maybe the “Arab Spring” hadn’t worked out so well. It’s almost the end of 2012 and these people are still in kindergarten!

Libya tells the story with a terrible irony but we should understand precisely what is going on and how the situation in Libya differs from that in Egypt. For it is proof of the bankruptcy of Obama policy but perhaps in a different way from what many people think.

So far the U.S. ambassador, four diplomats, and two U.S. soldiers trying to rescue the rest of the staff have been killed. According to a Libyan officer whose unit was helping the American rescue effort, the terrorists seemed to know precisely where the staffers were hiding. Might they have been tipped off by sources in the Libyan government or military? Probably, yes.

What happened in Libya has nothing to do with an obscure video from California, it has everything to do with the question of which side rules Libya. And the relationship between the attacks and the September 11 anniversary was meant to show that the Libyan terrorists supported September 11 and wanted to continue that battle.

In one sentence: the problem in Libya is that Obama got what he wanted and thus set off all the usual Western policy dilemmas—that he always denounced—which had existed in the region for a century. But Obama is not only ill-equipped to deal with these problems, he either cannot even recognize them or interprets them in ways disastrous for U.S. interests.  For whatever reason you would like to attribute, he wants to make nice with people who want to destroy his country. That might have been a forgivable naivete in early 2009 but by this point it is clear that Obama will never change, and that four more years in office will not improve him and his administration by one millimeter.

Obama decided, although only after what we are told was a titanic inner struggle, to kill Usama bin Ladin because bin Ladin launched a direct attack on American soil. But he sees no need to battle those trying to take over the Middle East and crush its people (including women,  Christians, homosexuals) and wipe Israel off the map. Nor does he see the need to wage effective struggle with governments that stand and deliberately do nothing while the American embassy is invaded or the American ambassador is murdered.

President Barack Obama and U.S. NATO allies got rid of a terrible dictatorship in Libya. Of course, there were dreadful murders and human rights’ abuses by the rebels—even racist murders of people because they had black skin, and were thus presumed to be supporters of the old dictator!--but Libya was too obscure a place and the mass media either didn’t care or wouldn’t hold Obama responsible for these things.

Then Obama had a second success in the election, where his client politician won over the Islamists. True, the new regime gives lip service to Sharia law but it is not a radical regime but precisely the kind of government, given the limiting conditions of Libyan society, that the West would want in Libya.

And now the problem begins. For the great “anti-imperialist” Obama has set up a classical “imperialist” situation. In Iran, for example, the Eisenhower Administration helped an existing, legitimate regime stay in power in 1953 and this supposedly led to Iranian radicalism and seizure of the U.S. embassy a quarter-century later. In Libya, the process may just take a few months.
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The Islamists of various factions, ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to al-Qaida supporters, loathe the new government and the fact that the United States is behind it. In other words, Obama has just done what he has been denouncing his whole life: interfered in another country and “bullied” it into submission to America’s will. Now he has sent two American warships to Libya's coasts. Obama's friends call this "gunboat diplomacy."

One special feature of this situation, of course, is that some of those he helped were anti-American terrorists, armed and trained by NATO. Some of these people have entered the new military, others are now trying a stage-two revolution to overthrow the regime and institute a real Islamist revolution.

Otherwise, though, it follows the usual pattern. The Islamist revolutionaries have not accepted the status quo and hope to seize state power and drive out the Americans.

Obama has fallen into precisely the trap he has denounced in all his books and speeches. True, America is not claiming Libya as its territory but Obama’s friends call this “neo-colonialism” and “post-colonialism.” He is now the patron of the Libyan government. If it is incompetent, corrupt, or oppresses the people, Obama shares responsibility.

Moreover, as it does all these things and refuses to implement serious Sharia law lots of Libyans will blame those arrogant, imperialist Americans. Why shouldn’t they want to kill the American diplomats who “supervise” the status quo and prevent them from turning Libya into Afghanistan under the Taliban; Iran; Gaza under Hamas; or, somewhat more mildly, Lebanon under a mainly Hizballah government, and maybe what will happen in Syria at some point in the future.

What are the Libyan government's options? It can try to appease the opposition by more Islam. But that won't work really. It can try to appease the opposition by distancing itself from the United States, but given its weakness that won't work. And it can try to repress the rebels but since it cannot depend on its own military forces--which are riddled with jihadists--that won't work either.

That is the real lesson in Libya. For once, Obama took sides against the revolutionary Islamists. We are seeing in Egypt and the Gaza Strip that appeasement doesn’t work; we are seeing in Libya that engaging in conflict has its high costs, too.  Obama claims to have "liberated" Libya but to many Libyans he has enslaved it to infidels.

So what next? American military aid to the Libyan government and U.S. military advisors? An endless war against the jihadists? And what if the government in Libya, which is pretty fragile and cannot fully depend on its own military, starts to fall? In Somalia, the local al-Qaida branch didn’t win only because Ethiopia and other African nations sent in thousands of troops. In Bahrain—a complicated situation in which there is a mistreated Shia population whose opposition has both moderates and radicals—the government was only saved by Saudi troops and against the will of the White House.

Treating what has happened in Libya as an isolated tragedy misses the point. Viewing it as generalized proof of Obama’s terrible policy doesn’t get us to the solution. There is a battle going on in the Middle East that will continue for decades. Obama has largely helped the enemy side. In Libya while he gave some help to the Islamists, his basic policy supported the moderates for once. Now the price must be paid or one more country will fall to revolutionary Islamist rule and U.S. influence and credibility will decline even further.

This is a war, not a misunderstanding. It is a battle of ideologies and a struggle for control of state power, not hurt feelings over some obscure video.

PS: I have a lot of friends in the Foreign Service, now and retired, and I was very upset about the deaths of five American diplomats and two American soldiers in Libya. I know this person was a colleague, too. But my goodness, how horrifyingly revealing is this quote:

"They got the wrong guy," said a friend of the slain Ambassador Christopher Stevens at the [notoriously anti-Israel, BR] U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, "If there was someone who cared about the Arab and Muslim world, it was Chris," who had previously served there as chief of the political section. "He spoke Arabic, he was dedicated to the cause of the Arabs."

Perhaps this diplomat should give al-Qaida a list of approved Americans they should be assassinating.  In other words, what? It would have been better to have killed a Foreign Service officer more friendly to Israel? To have murdered some Republicans or Jews? I'm afraid that this is very frankly how these people think. And what is "the cause of the Arabs?" Which Arabs? To wipe Israel off the map? To have radical nationalist dictatorships? To have Sharia states? At least define your "Arabs" as the genuine moderates, genuine democrats, genuine liberals or even--since there aren't so many of those people--those who feel their self-interests basically coincide with those of the United States.

I find this person's statement even more shocking than the apology over the mysterious little you-tube film. And yes I have heard this before in private. OK, an anecdote. I'm sitting with about a dozen U.S. military officers doing a briefing a couple of years after September 11 and my co-briefer--a medium-high State Department official in the Middle East section--starts visibly panicking as he's speaking. "Other issues might threaten you," he tells them looking really scared, "but only the Israel issue can endanger your life." I can only report that the looks of contempt on the face of the officers made me proud of the U.S. army.

Note: I don't mean this as a criticism of all Foreign Service Officers. There are many good ones. But this reaction from a Jerusalem-based American diplomat to the death of Ambassador Stevens, plus four diplomats and now two U.S. soldiers rescuing the rest of the embassy staff is all too revealing. Perhaps he's just too confused about what country's capital he's in.

 Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The Egyptian Government Did Not Protect U.S. Embassy and Obama Apologizes Instead of Protesting


By Barry Rubin

Egypt tells us everything we need to know about the horror of Obama's Middle East policy. The latest development is that a group of several Salafist and Jihadist groups--including the local affiliate of al-Qaida--announced a demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy. This was explained as a protest against some obscure film made in America by a crackpot that criticizes Islam but has never actually been shown to an audience and probably never will be!

But note well that everyone--except the Western media--understands that holding such a demonstration on September 11 means supporting the September 11 attack. The Egyptian government knew the time of the demonstration and the participants--it was all publicly announced--yet Egyptian security forces did not protect the embassy. And so the demonstrators scaled the wall, entered the compound, tore up the American flag, and put up the historic revolutionary flag of Islam (the eighth century black, not the seventh century green one) in its stead. Why didn't Egyptian security forces stop them? It was a deliberate decision no doubt taken at the highest level.

Rather than expose the phony excuse for the demonstration and condemn the Egyptian government's behavior, the U.S. government groveled. It issued statements in English apologizing for the fact that someone had exercised his right of free speech within its country. The tweets it sent out in Arabic were even worse, pitiful pleas of the we-are-on-your-side-against-this-terrible-Islamophobia variety. And will Egypt's failure to protect the embassy--because it is on the side of America's enemies--have any effect on the Obama Administration's helping the Egyptian government get two German submarines (against Israel's efforts); take $1 billion off Egypt's debt; and have a nice meeting with the visiting Egyptian president (while refusing to meet Israel's prime minister, this supposedly super-pro-Israel president)? You know the answer.

This is a policy of institutionalized cowardice unprecedented in U.S. history.

Last week, the U.S. government asked its good buddy Egyptian President al-Mursi to inspect an Iranian ship suspected of carrying arms to Syria while it passed through the Suez Canal. Remember that to do so is arguably in Egypt’s own interest since Cairo is supporting the rebels while Tehran backs the regime. But it is also possible that the U.S. government blundered, or was badly timed, since international agreements dictate that Egypt is not supposed to inspect ships in the Canal itself. The Egyptian government despite three decades of massive U.S. aid, licensing to produce advanced American tanks and other equipment, strategic backing, and an invitation to Washington to meet Obama—refused to help out, since he possibly could have done it outside of the canal itself.  Indeed, al-Mursi headed for Tehran to attend a “non-aligned” conference, albeit admittedly one with broad international support.

Did I mention that the al-Mursi government is about to retire 70 generals? Get it? Just as the Islamist government broke the Turkish army because Obama would not back America's old allies, now the Egyptian Islamist government is going to break Egypt's army. Who will replace these generals? Two types: opportunists and Islamists. [Here's a good analysis of the army situation.] And then the army will be completely transformed. And then the state Islamic institutions, And then the courts.
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Meanwhile the Western media and U.S. government will stand by and not comprehend a fundamental transformation unfolding before their eyes. Or will they comprehend it but think that it is a good thing? The first possibility is total incompetence and ideological blindness. The second possibility approaches the equivalent of criminal conduct in the destruction of U.S. interests, not to mention democracy, human rights, and the maintenance of peace.

Did I mention that the al-Mursi government is installing several Brotherhood leaders as provincial governors, members of the media council, and--yes, they do have a sense of humor--leaders of human rights' commissions? And now al-Mursi is controlling what is going to be in Egypt's new constitution, too.

Does this mean Egypt will ally with Iran? Only if Iran surrenders to radical Sunni Islamism ruling every Arab state. Since Tehran will never agree, in the end Egypt will fight Iran for influence tooth and nail. The two anti-American countries will kill the others’ surrogates. But it means al-Mursi feels no friendlier toward America than he does toward Iran. And Cairo will not lift a finger to help Washington against Tehran unless by doing so the Egyptian Brotherhood advances its own cause of putting more Sunni Islamists (anti-Americans, of course) into power.

And right now that means Syria. Indeed, al-Mursi offered Iran a deal: give us Syria and we'll help you escape isolation over the nuclear issue. Tehran will turn him down, no credit to U.S. policy. Al-Mursi is just asking too much.
Egypt, the Arab world’s most important single country, has been turned from an ally of America against the Iranian threat into, at best, a neutral between Washington and Tehran that will do nothing to help America.

Egypt, the Arab world’s most important single country, has been turned from an ally of America—albeit an imperfect one of course—in maintaining and trying to extend Arab-Israeli peace into a leading advocate of expanding the conflict and even going to war potentially.

Egypt, the Arab world’s most important single country, has been turned from an ally of America in fighting international terrorism into an ally of most international terrorist groups except those that occasionally target Egypt itself.

But here’s one for the 600 rabbis who front for Obama: The destruction of the Egyptian natural gas pipeline and deal, as a result of the instability and revolution that the U.S. government helped promote, has done as much economic damage as all the Arab and Islamic sabotage, boycotts and Western sanctions or disinvestments in Israel’s history.

Egypt alone is a catastrophe, even without mentioning another dozen examples.

How much longer is the obvious fact that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood regime is anti-democratic, anti-American and antisemitic going to be denied?  But wait there’s more, lot’s more.

After meeting Egypt’s new president, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, "I was convinced that President Mursi is his own man," adding that the new president is committed to democratic reforms and to representing all Egyptians.
Question: How does Panetta know this?

Answer: This is what Mursi told him.

Of course, by endorsing Mursi before he does anything, the U.S. government puts its seal of approval on the Muslim Brotherhood regime. Shouldn’t it have to do something to prove itself before Obama gives up all that leverage? What next? Perhaps Mursi will get the Nobel Peace Prize after a couple of months in office.

Note the phrase “his own man.” What does that mean? Why that Mursi won’t follow the Brotherhood’s orders. He will even stand up against it, presumably to be more moderate, right? There is no reason to believe that this is true.

Panetta added: "They agreed that they would cooperate in every way possible to ensure that extremists like al Qaeda are dealt with."  Of course, they are more likely to cooperate against al-Qaeda, a group they don’t like. But will they cooperate against Egyptian Salafist terrorists, Hamas, and lots of other terrorists? Of course not.

Indeed, at the precise moment Panetta was meeting Mursi, the new president was releasing Islamist terrorists from Egyptian prisons. These include terrorists from Islamic Jihad which is part of the al-Qaeda coalition and one of the groups that organized the attack on the U.S. embassy! How do you square that one, Secretary Panetta?
And finally, Mursi pointed out to Panetta that his own son was born in California, when the future Egyptian president was studying there. His son, Mursi noted, could be the president of the United States one day.
I’ll let you, dear readers, pick up on that previous paragraph.

Of course, the Obama Administration can claim one success in Egypt: the regime pulled its forces out of eastern Sinai in accord with the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. The problem is that it has been reported in the Egyptian media—a good source though not confirmed—that the regime made a deal with the al-Qaida terrorists who attacked Israel. If they promised to stop fighting (for how long?) the Egyptian government would release all of their gunmen.

Meanwhile the most important (formerly) pro-Islamist moderate intellectual in the Arabic-speaking world has defected, an event of monumental importance being ignored in the West. The Egyptian sociologist Saad ed-Din Ibrahim hated the Mubarak regime so much that he joined with the Islamists as allies and insisted that they were really moderate.
Now here’s an interview he just gave, Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV: 

Interviewer: "You indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood are hijacking the country, not merely the top political posts. Is the Muslim Brotherhood indeed about to hijack the country?"

Ibrahim: "Well, this is how it seems to me, as well as to other observers, some of whom are more knowledgeable than me about the Brotherhood," long-time members, who have now helped him understand the Brotherhood’s “desire to hijack everything and to control everything." [I assume he is referring to relative moderates in the Brotherhood--and some of these individuals have also spoken publicly--who either quit the Brotherhood in disgust a few years ago or were expelled last year

I suggest Ibrahim and these people, not to mention the liberals packing their bags and the Christians piling up sandbags, know better than Panetta.

 Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.




Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Yankee Go Home! Saith the Good Guys

By Barry Rubin

"Which Side Are You On?/They say in Harlan County/There are no neutrals there./You'll either be a union man/Or a thug for J. H. Blair."  --Florence Reece, "Which Side are You On?" 1931

 The interesting news was not that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pelted with stuff while visiting Cair, the important issue was who was doing the pelting. Once upon a time, anti-American radicals threw things at U.S. leaders. But now….

Reportedly, the hurlers of objects were people from the Free Egyptians Party and other Egyptian liberals. At the same time, leading Christians, including Naguib Sawiris who is the man behind that party and perhaps the most outspoken anti-Islamist figure in Egypt today, refused to meet with Hillary. (For Sawiris' critique of Obama, see here.)

Why? Because these people see the Obama Administration as an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood. That might sound far-fetched to the mainstream media (though not to you, dear readers) but it is taken for granted in much of the Middle East. Oh and they also remember that the Obama Administration cut the financial support to liberal groups granted by its predecessor.


In the articles of liberal Arabs; the statements of Persian Gulf Arab establishment figures; the conversations of Syrian, Turkish, Iranian, and Lebanese oppositionists, the idea that the U.S. government is now helping the Islamists is taken for granted.

Let me repeat that: It is taken for granted.

So it is the liberals, the democrats, the moderates who now view America as their enemy. Yet supposedly the U.S. policy is promoting moderation and democracy, right?

These critics have a strong case. Obama’s Cairo speech was precisely about encouraging Middle Easterners to redefine their identity from a national one—principally Arab—to an Islamic one. Obama invited the Brotherhood to sit in the front row. And when the upsurge in Egypt began and the State Department wanted to support continuity along with reform, the Obama Administration demanded the end of the regime.

Next, without anyone asking him, Obama said the United States wouldn’t mind if the Brotherhood became the government of Egypt. And more recently, of course, he has supported the Brotherhood against the army, demanding that the military turn over power right away, or else.

And in Syria, the Obama Administration backed a Brotherhood-dominated leadership in the Syrian National Council. Islamist Turkey was the ideal country from the White House standpoint, with Obama lavishing praise and almost never criticizing it for becoming pro-Hizballah, pro-Hamas, pro-Iran, pro-Islamist in Syria, and fanatically anti-Israel. And in Bahrain, the Obama Administration was ready to back a revolution putting (Shia) Islamists in power until the State Department stopped it.

"I want to be clear that the United States is not in the business, in Egypt,” says Clinton, “of choosing winners and losers, even if we could, which, of course, we cannot."

Wrong! While of course Islamists won elections in Egypt and Tunisia (but maybe lost in Libya), the Obama Administration has been working to pick the winners and losers. The winners: revolutionary, antisemitic Islamists; the losers: old regimes and liberal oppositionists.

Is it really the West's duty to help push a radical Islamist government into power in Egypt as fast as possible? True, the Brotherhood won the parliamentary election but the election was invalidated. By who? Ah, one might expect a leading American newspaper to know that fact. Here's the Los Angeles Times editorial on the subject:

"To some extent, the military's power — along with economic realities — may have inclined [Egyptian President Muhammad al-] Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood to a more pluralist and moderate course. But if the generals overplay their hand, they will lose popular support and antagonize Egypt's allies, including the United States, which provides the military with $1.3 billion a year in assistance. Both Congress and the Obama administration have put the generals on notice that those funds are in jeopardy if the transition to democracy is thwarted. An attempt to shut down a reconvened parliament would be interpreted inside and outside Egypt as just such an obstruction."

Let's list the points made here:

--The Muslim Brotherhood has become more pluralist and moderate. Why? Because of the military's power and economic realities. How is this logical? You mean that the military's pressure on the Brotherhood has made it more moderate? So by that argument if the military ceased its pressure and turned over government to the Brotherhood then the Brotherhood would be more radical. Yet that is precisely what the Los Angeles Times and much of the media and the Obama Administration is advocating!

How has the economic situation made the Brotherhood more moderate? Presumably because it needs to be so in order to keep Western aid and investment flowing. But both of these factors will be insufficient to help Egypt avoid a crack-up. Then comes the time for demagoguery. Moreover, the bottom line here is to claim that the Brotherhood can be bought off. Like Iran's regime, Syria's regime, Saddam Hussein, and others were bought off?

--If the generals try to limit or keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of power they will become less popular. Well, maybe that is so. But popularity isn't the most important thing in the region. That's an American obsession, not one from Arab politics.

--The United States doesn't like the military's policy and will punish the army (cutting off aid?) if it doesn't surrender. That's a terrible policy. Talk about empowering your enemies and bashing your friends! Why should the United States be the new patron of the most dangerously anti-American group in the world? I know. Because the Obama Administration believes that will make the Brotherhood more moderate. Yet even the Obama Administration has seen that this tactic didn't work with Iran, Syria, Hamas, or Hizballah. Why should it work this time?

Then there are two extremely important points the editorial doesn't tell you, and you won't see in many places:
First, let's remember that the parliamentary election was not invalidated by the army but by the Egyptian courts. Judges have been among the most courageous dissidents in Egypt. Many of them spoke out against the Mubarak regime and they are not the clients of the army but an independent force in their own right. So if you want to exalt the rule of law, you should support the military in trying to enforce a legally binding decision by two Egyptian courts.

Second, the left and liberal forces are largely boycotting the attempt to revive the parliament illegally because they fear the Muslim Brotherhood's monopoly on power. Have you noticed that moderate support for anti-army demonstrations has dwindled away now? It is the Brotherhood that is going up against the armed forces, though leaving the door open for a deal.

PS: The head of Israel's military intelligence has said that Israel's army has stopped a dozen attempted cross-border attacks in Sinai. This is of extraordinary significance since it shows a full-scale offensive is underway and not just the two attacks previously implemented.

PPS: So ridiculous is the coverage in the mainstream media that we are now told by the New York Times and by the Atlantic that Arab liberals jeered Clinton because American conservatives told them to do so! Apparently, the Egyptian reformers are too stupid to figure out for themselves that Obama is their good buddy.






Sunday, April 29, 2012

Experts Agree: Anti-American Repressive Radicals Taking Power in the Middle East Makes the World A Better Place

Let me sum up the situation regarding U.S. policy toward revolutionary Islamism like this. A man threatens, "Surrender or I'll kill you!" The victim surrenders and then boasts of how he put an end to violence by offering an alternative, peaceful "channel of expression"!

By Barry Rubin

Michael Hirsh has responded to my critique of his article. Amazingly, yet in the context of our era, he did not  engage with a single —not a single—idea that I presented. It is also rather clear that Hirsh knows nothing about the Middle East and so is merely arguing based on unsuitable analogies, a lack of knowledge about history, and a blind faith in "experts" who don't seem to be very expert at all. About their political philosophy I couldn't care less.

First, Hirsh relies on a partisan political characterization This is how things work now. You cast the person in a political category your readers will detest, signaling your readers to ignore the substance of what that person says. Thus, Hirsh begins:

“On the Web, other conservatives joined in: Barry Rubin, a zealously pro-Israel writer, addressing what he called the “great controversy” that “erupted” over my article, acknowledged that Obama had discarded the GWOT.”

Incidentally, I'm not a conservative but a foreign policy analyst of the Realist school who has dealt professionally with the Middle East for 35 years almost to the day (happy anniversary!). I also guess he didn't want to write a zealously pro-American writer, too.   Indeed, I'm the one here who represents a liberal position here, not those who are indifferent to a right-wing repressive, dictatorial, and clerical regime gaining power.

So that makes me one of those silly, strange people who think that when your worst enemies take power in key countries, through violent revolution or election, this is not a cause for celebration. I discuss the proper alternative policy here which is as "conservative" as Franklin Roosevelt's strategy in World War Two and Harry Truman's strategy for the Cold War.

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I’m also amused that he said I “acknowledged” his claim when what I actually proved that I'd scooped it by three years.  More important, however, he ignored my point that this is not a political issue:

“Still, why should someone have to be `right wing’ to oppose a group that in Marxist terminology would be called `clerical-fascist?’ Why should those on the `left wing’ (or mainstream, which often seems to amount to the same thing nowadays) back a group that wants to suppress women, kill homosexuals, wipe out Jews, crush basic freedoms taken for granted in the West, and holds an ideology that resembles fascism more than any other Western ideology? Since when does the `left wing’ love those who could be called 
reactionary religious fanatics?”

There is absolutely nothing “conservative” in my article nor anything that necessarily relates to Israel. But Hirsh maintains the myth that good liberals should want to engage and foster the Brotherhood and other such groups while conservatives don’t. To understand how upside-down Hirsh's view is, think of these analogies: right-wingers explaining the Communists are moderate; left-wingers insisting the Nazis are ok.
Incidentally, that is why those on the Western left must always insist that their opponent can never be liberal: because they must conceal the anti-liberal nature of their own views.

He continues:

“But then Rubin went on to lament how misguided this approach still was. `In this context, then, all other revolutionary Islamist groups—the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas, and so on—are not enemies. They can be won over or at least neutralized as threats to U.S. interests,’ he wrote. This is dangerously naïve, Rubin concluded. The truth, he said, is that America’s “interests and allies are increasingly menaced by a growing threat [revolutionary Islamism] whose existence, meaning, and scope current U.S. policy does not even recognize yet, much less counter effectively.”

It is nice he quoted my argument. But he did not respond to it!  Hirsh goes on:

“Yet Rubin’s contention no longer appears to stand up well to the developing realities in the Arab world. Not only are bin Laden and most of his senior lieutenants (except for Ayman al Zawahiri) dead; the so-called Arab Spring has opened up new channels of expression, supplying for the first time in decades an alternative to violent jihad.”

But I’ve been describing this reality for a long time. Hirsh twists my words that were mostly written only hours before his response. My contention is designed as a response to “developing realities” not as a failed prediction that they wouldn’t happen. He simply repeats the contention that I have just critique in detail.
The fact that this supplies an alternative to “violent jihad” is not so marvelous for two reasons.

First, a violent jihad is a form of revolutionary struggle. If the revolution wins you don’t need to continue the struggle on that front. For example, in the past there was violent revolutionary Communist activity in Latin America. If Latin American countries were to become fundamentally transformed and taken over who needs guerrillas in the mountains?

Second, as I pointed out:

“At least today it should be clear that a group capable of taking over a country with millions of people and running it for decades (the Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hizballah) is a greater threat than a group that can stage a few terror attacks each year. But it still isn't even on the radar of the Western mainstream debate or the Obama Administration's strategy.”

Yet Hirsh assumes that the question of power doesn’t matter, what’s bad is violent jihad but if the jihad triumphs that’s okay.


I’m glad to add you to my Facebook and be added to yours. I hope you consider subscribing to my blog at http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/ and you might also be interested in a free subscription to our MERIA Journal and to look at the books we’ve published at http://www.gloria-center.org/ and my new book, Israel: An Introduction, can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Introduction-Barry-Rubin/dp/0300162308


Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Media Discovers What Obama’s Been Doing All Along: Al-Qaida Bad, Islamists Good

By Barry Rubin

A great controversy has erupted over a National Journal article by Michael Hirsh entitled, "The Post Al Qaida Era." I think this is an important issue there is absolutely nothing new here that couldn’t have been seen—as I’ll show in a moment—five years ago.

The Obama Administration has long thought along the following lines:

Al-Qaida is an evil and terrible organization. It attacked America on September 11, 2001. It is a sworn enemy of the United States and it uses terrorism. Consequently, to protect the American homeland, al-Qaida must be destroyed. Our “war on terror” is then a war on al-Qaida.

Oh, yes, one more thing:

Al-Qaida is the only enemy and the only threat. So once al-Qaida is destroyed there is no more problem, no more conflict.

In this context, then, all other revolutionary Islamist groups—the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizballah, Hamas, and so on—are not enemies. They can be won over or at least neutralized as threats to U.S. interests. And perhaps even they can become allies because they also oppose al-Qaida or, as they are now called, really radical Salafist groups.

So when the administration now says the “war on terror” is over because al-Qaida has been defeated, it is speaking with total consistency....


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The passage that has stirred up so much debate is this one:

"`The war on terror is over,’" one senior State Department official who works on Mideast issues told me. Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.’"

Yes, the war on terror is over but now it is the struggle against revolutionary Islamism that should begin. But it isn’t. Instead the phrase is “legitimate Islamism,” meaning in effect, good anti-American, antisemitic, totalitarianism.

And yet there is even more that’s nonsense here. Very few people ever went to join al-Qaida! We are talking about at most a few thousand in the whole world. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hizballah recruited tens of thousands in each country.

Of course, those radicals would be damn fools not to realize that it makes more sense to join groups that have taken power in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Tunisia, and Turkey than guys hanging out in caves. Who are the effective revolutionaries?

Click here to read the entire article.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.


Sunday, February 12, 2012

Why Egypt's Holding Americans Hostage and How The Obama Administration is Destroying America's Credibility

By Barry Rubin

A reader asks: Why is Egypt keeping Americans who have been working with pro-democracy NGOs from leaving the country and threatening to put them on trial as criminals?

Here's the answer:

1. The military rulers want to show they cannot be pushed around by the United States. This is, of course, also a big way to muster popularity within Egypt. The resentment of foreign intervention is very high and as I pointed out in a recent article, even a U.S. navy anti-disease program is being portrayed by a liberal party as a covert operation to spread disease, murder Egyptian children, and weaken Egypt so Israel can defeat it.

2. The armed forces want to weaken the "moderate" parties by blocking foreign aid to them.  These forces are the junta's main critics and are organizing demonstrations against the government.


Thursday, January 19, 2012

Who’s Winning in the Middle East? Everyone Outside the West Knows It’s The Islamists



A different version of this article is appearing in the Jerusalem Post. I own the rights and prefer if you read and link to this version. 


By Barry Rubin

Nawal al-Saadawi, now 80 years old, is a unique figure in Egypt.  She is a pioneer feminist and a radical Arab nationalist. Al-Saadawi has lived in the United States but hates America and, of course, Israel. You can imagine that she also loathes the Islamists. So how does someone like al-Saadawi react to the Egyptian elections won by the Islamists?

She brands it an American conspiracy. "Democracy is not elections and America uses religion to divide Egypt," she said in a recent television interview. You are going to be hearing--or not hearing, if you depend on the Western mass media--a lot more of this kind of thing.


Meanwhile, the Egyptian moderates know they are unpopular but can only blame the local media and the military. Only in private do they acknowledge with despair the overwhelming strength of the Islamists. No doubt many of them will also soon be blaming American policy for their defeats.

How often have I heard Iranian exiles complaining that the United States deliberately didn't help the shah in order to bring Ayatollah Khomeini to power? The Turkish opposition has been talking this way for years. In Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and probably soon in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, people will be saying: Why do we live under Islamist oppressive dictatorships? Answer: The Americans brought them to power.

It's an irony of history. Why do the Iranians hate us? The left tends to say that this is because the United States backed a coup in 1953 against the democratic regime of Muhammad Mossadegh (a regime that was already collapsing, in which the Communists were getting stronger, and the Islamic clerics supported the coup) and then backed the Shah thereafter. Now we are being told that America has been bad to back the dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia, though the United States opposed the far bloodier dictatorships in Iraq and Syria.

Yet now the Obama Administration is backing new regimes that are also going to be rather nasty (though there's hope for Tunisia) and is failing to help democratic oppositions. It is pursuing a pro-Muslim Brotherhood policy.  One day some future American president may be apologizing for that.

In contrast, the real Middle East isn't full of revolutionary Islamists who only want an American apology or a boost into power in order to be friends of the United States. It is full of a lot of people, maybe a majority in a number of countries, that would like not to live under radical and repressive dictatorships. It also has a number of governments that want Western help against what they see as their real enemies--Iran and revolutionary Islamists.

There are a hundred anecdotes I could tell but here are some from the last few hours, through personal sources. A Gulf Arab was asked about his country's strategic priorities. He replied that the Iranian regime, "hates everyone. We need more guns" to defend ourselves from Tehran.  A close observer in another Arab country writes me that in contrast to the West, "Everyone inside the region seems to "get it,"   regarding the threat from Iran's government.

Funny how clear actual Middle Easterners are about what's going on--at least when they are talking to each other--compared to those across the seas whose interpretations are merely wrong-headed, bizarre, and soon proven to be wrong.

On the other side of the battle, the Islamists are very happy. In an interview with a British newspaper, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh spoke frankly about his analysis of the situation. What he has to say tells more than all the analysis from all the Western talking heads, journalists, and politicians.

"The Palestinian cause is winning. With the Muslim Brotherhood part of the government [in Egypt], they [the Egyptians] will not besiege Gaza. They will not arrest Palestinians. They will not give cover to Israel to launch a war....Israel is disturbed by this. It knows the strategic environment is changing. Iran is an enemy. Relations are deteriorating with Turkey. With Egypt, they are really cold. Israel is in a security situation they have never been in before."

I don't agree with him that Palestinians are "winning" now and are those who gained most from the "Arab Spring." But there is much truth in what he says. Egypt will now let Hamas do pretty much as it pleases, including smuggling terrorists, money, and weapons across the border into the Gaza Strip or setting up bases in Sinai.  The Brotherhood in Egypt will use the country's resources to help Hamas.

Why would anyone even think of making peace with Israel when they believe God is going to bring them total victory and Israel's extinction? Everyone in the Middle East understands these attitudes are triumphing, no matter which side they are on. Few in positions of power in Europe or America do.

It is not true, though, that Israel has never faced such a situation before. That's precisely the way things were in the first three decades of Israel's existence and many elements of the contemporary situation are better than they were for Israel in the last three decades, 
following peace with Egypt. Still, this is quite different from the rosy picture of moderation breaking out all over that prevails in Western governing circles.

Haniyeh and the kind of people ruling Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya are not rolling over in the flower field of democracy and peace but rather exulting about how they are on the road to bloody victory over Israel and the West. If you actually listen to what they say most of the time it couldn't be more obvious.

Barry Rubin is director of the GLORIA Center at the IDC Herzliya, and is editor of MERIA Journal. His new book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press.



Sunday, March 20, 2011

ElBaradei Stoned and Shoed: The Truth in Egypt Starts Coming Out

By Barry Rubin

I want to call your attention to the event, discussed in the previous article, in which hundreds of Brotherhood supporters attacked presidential candidate Muhammad ElBaradei and prevented him from voting against the referendum that they supported.  

Reportedly, security forces stood by and did nothing. As I've warned, the pro-Islamist views of many officers are now also becoming apparent. Christians report that those killed during a peaceful demonstration on behalf of a church destroyed by the army were shot by soldiers. 

This latest scene is a fitting symbol of reality as compared to the fantasies of so much of the Western political leaders, mass media, and "experts." Picture ElBaradei greatly outnumbered by insult-screaming Islamists. They attack him, he runs away.

At this point--to show how bad the situation is in practice--Amr Moussa, veteran radical Arab nationalist, Israel-baiter, and anti-American is quickly becoming the best one can hope for in terms of the new regime.

The only thing surprising to me is that the Islamists have been emboldened so fast. I thought they would be cautious a while longer in their pretense at being moderate and pro-democracy.  But revolutionary Islamists quickly become arrogant when people make concessions to them and they conclude that they are strong and victorious.

After all, they believe that they are 100 percent right and everything they say is divinely ordained. So why should they tolerate anything else? After all, in their eyes their rivals aren't just disagreeing with them but defying God, not to mention being a lackies of athiestic/Crusader/Zionist imperialism. And that's what they called ElBaradei.

For ElBaradei the turnaround happened almost overnight. He was the Brotherhood's front man but broke with them over the referendum. And now they want to break him.

So is the mass media going to start saying: Hey, we were wrong! These people are strong, organized, and radical? Or, rather, is the Obama Administration going to sink deeper into the al-Qaida bad; all other Islamists good mantra? To put it another way, are they willing to lose face for exaggerating the power of Facebook?

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

What Should U.S. Policy be Toward the Current Middle East Situation?

By Barry Rubin

People ask me what the United States should be doing toward the upheavals in the Middle East. Here's a short, quick list of themes:

1. Understanding that there are some people who want real democracy and others who don't, U.S. policy should be focused on battling the latter, especially the revolutionary Islamists, just as much as it might help the former.

2. The United States has a right to look after its national interests. If a few of its remaining allies in the world are dictatorships--and it is amazing how few there are, only about a half-dozen compared to something like 70 just 30 years ago--then those alliances are still necessary.

3. President Obama should never have said he has no problem with the Muslim Brotherhood being in Egypt's government. The way people in the Middle East think is that now Obama wants the Brotherhood in government! He should have said nothing.

4. Do not promote Muhammad ElBaradei who is a front man for the Brotherhood. If there is no presidential candidate good for U.S. interests just stay neutral. Admit that things can go wrong and make plans on what to do if an Islamist or anti-American Egypt were to emerge.

5. In every way possible (whether publicly or otherwise) help real democracy advocates, who have little money or organization, and not Islamists, who are well-funded and highly organized already.

6. Never make statements that the Muslim Brotherhood is harmless, moderate, and against violence. It is ridiculously untrue and does nothing for U.S. interests.

7. Let the American media publicize the extremism, antisemitism, anti-Christianism, and pro-terrorist activities of the Brotherhood. The American people should know who their enemies are.

8. Make sure the current regimes in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Morocco survive, with whatever reforms they are willing to make and that don't endanger them.

9. Know that no matter how much you distance yourself from Israel or fail to support that country your enemies will like you no better. Indeed, they will take that as a signal to increase their aggressiveness since they will assume that Israel doesn't have your backing. Maybe you could even recognize that the main barrier to peace is the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

10. Do everything possible to subvert the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. You've already made three big mistakes--pressing Israel into elimating most sanctions on Gaza, giving money to the PA to pass onto Gaza, and encouraging a revolution in Egypt that might align with Hamas even without an Islamist government in Cairo. It's time to stop empowering your enemies.

10. Assemble a broad alignment of anti-Islamist forces to combat the spread of revolutionary Islamism--whether from the Iran-led alliance or the Muslim Brotherhoods--which is the main threat to peace, stability, democracy, and Western interests in the Middle East.

11. Here's a good idea for a start: Assemble a multinational fleet and crush the Somali pirates, sink all their ships, and bring them--those still alive--to some form of justice. Don't accept the world sinking into anarchy. This is an achievable objective.

11. Direct your efforts against the most horrible and anti-American regimes to weaken them in whatever way is appropriate: Iran, Syria, Hizballah's domination of Lebanon, the current Turkish regime, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran is now supplying advanced rockets to the Taliban in order to kill Americans in Afghanistan and helping Iraqi insurgents to kill Americans in Iraq. Isn't that warfare?

It really isn't so hard to come up with a good and sensible U.S. policy. Yet over and over again in recent years I've been as frustrated as the great baseball manager Casey Stengel said when his team kept losing: "Can't anybody here play this game?"