In mid-November a murder took place in Bosaso, the largest city and chief port of Puntland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia. Sheikh Mohamed Abdi Aware, a senior member of Puntland's judiciary, was shot dead outside a mosque. Why was the judge killed? For doing his job by sending Somali pirates and Islamist terrorists to jail. Both groups were keen to end the judge's activities. One or the other sent the assassins who killed him.
Puntland may be home to the infamous Somali pirates, but it also has a functioning regional government, which has made some efforts to curb their activities. This has been done in spite of the fact that the annual income of the Somali pirates vastly exceeds that of the Puntland adiministration. The pirates rule the Indian Ocean coastline of Puntland, but the local government has had some success in reducing their use of the region's coast along the Gulf of Aden.
West of Puntland is the self-declared independent state of Somaliland, which has enjoyed comparative peace since the collapse of Somalia's central government in 1991. Neither pirates nor Islamist terrorists have a foothold in Somaliland where the local government has achieved a remarkable level of order and stability.
Thus, contrary to the picture of war-torn Somalia usually presented in the Western media, the northern half of the country consists of two small states that enjoy a measure of stability, though more in Somaliland than in Puntland. Neither state is particularly hostile to the United States and its allies, unlike the Islamist insurgents who plague southern Somalia, and both have at various times appealed for support from the international community. Anyone hoping to restore a functioning national government embracing the whole of Somalia would want to use Somaliland and Puntland as basic building blocks to achieve that aim.
However, rather than use real governments that already exist, the United States and the rest of the international community seem determined to pursue the fantasy of re-creating a national government for Somalia from scratch. In this fairy tale, the national government, once established in the capital Mogadishu, will use its Western-trained soldiers to defeat the Islamist insurgents and reduce the regions of Puntland and Somaliland to obedience, restoring law and order throughout Somalia.
The current Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu is at least the sixteenth attempt since 1991 to re-establish a central government in Somalia. It is the only government in Somalia recognized by the United Nations and the rest of the international community. The problem is that the TFG does not even control the whole of Mogadishu let alone any significant area of Somalia outside that city. Only the support of the troops of the African Union peacekeeping force keeps the TFG in existence as its own military forces are weak and ineffective. There is no danger of a TFG judge being shot down for jailing pirates or terrorists as the TFG has no functioning judiciary inside Somalia.
Recently the European Union declared it will be sending a military mission to train the new army of the TFG which is going to restore law and order to Somalia. Of course such training will not take place in Somalia, which would be far too dangerous, but in Uganda. Similarly, when the present head of the TFG, President Sharif Ahmed, was chosen earlier this year, the process took place not in Somalia, but in Djibouti. A government which can only carry on its functions outside the country it is supposed to rule must be considered a pathetic sham, but apparently the international community wants to continue wasting money on it. There is not the slightest chance that it will take control of all the national territory of Somalia.
It is often said the Somali pirates cannot be beaten at sea, no matter how many foreign warships are cruising off the coast of Somalia. The only solution is a return to law and order on land in Somalia. The only realistic possibility of this happening is if the international community provides support for the existing governments in Somaliland and, in particular, Puntland, rather than wasting time and money on a sham government in Mogadishu that is totally ineffective. Then men like Sheikh Mohamed Abdi Aware who have stood up to pirates and Islamist terrorists will not have died in vain.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Wider Still and Wider: The Continuing Growth of the American Empire
Enemies of the United States have enjoyed the spectacle of its mismanaged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001 and its economic difficulties since 2007. They have celebrated these events as showing the fragility of American power, as being the prelude to the collapse of the worldwide American empire. However, reports of the death of the American empire are premature. Indeed some would say that American power has been growing around the world since 2001 rather than diminishing.
Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the American empire faces challenges. In some areas the natives are getting restless. Strangely these malcontents are not Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East, but Latin American nationalists in America's own backyard. To the decades-old defiance of communist Cuba has been added the populist movement of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. His anti-gringo rhetoric has inspired other South American countries, such as Bolivia and Ecuador, to defy their American masters. The recent military bases deal between the USA and Colombia, its most loyal Latin American vassal state, shows that the American empire is preparing the infrastructure from which to launch military action against those states which challenge its dominance.
Much is made of the growing influence of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) economic superpowers, so one might expect Brazil to take a leading role in opposing American military expansion in South America. Instead, crippled by its bitter internal social divisions, Brazil raised only a mild protest at the Colombia bases deal and accepted unconvincing American assurances that the bases would not pose a threat to any other country in the region. However wealthy Brazil becomes, it is very unlikely to defy the dictates coming from Washington in the near future.
If Latin America is restive, Europe seems even more securely under American control. After half a century France has finally given up its pretence that it is independent of 'les Anglo Saxons'. Despite President Sarkozy's Napoleonic gestures, he has led his country back to the subordinate position it occupied in the American empire before President Charles de Gaulle came to power and created the Fifth Republic in 1958.
All Europe up to Russia's borders, with the possible exception of the discontented Serbs, is now largely subservient to the USA. For their own administrative convenience, the Americans support the creation of a single European state with its capital at Brussels. However, if the European Union authorities in Brussels do not bend to its will, the USA is still ready to undermine their position by having direct dealings with individual European states. This is particularly true with regard to the ex-communist countries of central and eastern Europe. Those states are keenly aware that the European Union, an economic power but a military eunuch, will never protect them from a resurgent Russia, so they are happy to have direct links with their American protector.
Africa is almost as subservient to the United States as Europe, but there are some problem areas. Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia still resist American dominance in their different ways, but their resistance is not such as to demand actual American military intervention in their affairs. For a time it seemed that the sufferings of people in Darfur might serve as a pretext for American intervention in Sudan, but an American invasion of yet another Islamic country was eventually seen as a bad idea. Eritrea's current dictator is an annoyance to America, but not so much that action needs to be taken against him.
Somalia is an odd case, since at least two of the three constituent parts of that fractured state might well be ready to accept American assistance, but Washington declines to offer it. The self-declared independent state of Somaliland and the semi-autonomous region of Puntland are not inherently anti-American like the Islamist insurgents in southern Somalia, but America largely ignores them. The USA, so keen to tear Yugoslavia apart during the 1990s, is perversely determined to keep Somalia at least nominally intact.
The Middle East is the cockpit of America's struggle against its chosen enemy Islamic fundamentalism, but whatever the feelings of ordinary Muslims in the region, their national governments are almost all subservient to America. Should any of these states be tempted to stray, America's regional enforcer, Israel, will be unleashed on them. Of Israel's old Arab enemies, only Syria is still unreconciled. In geostrategic terms, Turkey is probably more important than Israel in maintaining American hegemony in the Middle East. In recent years Turkey, whether under secular or moderate Islamic governments, has taken a more independent line in its foreign policy, but the country seems unlikely to stray far from its alliance with America.
The great American enemy in the Middle East is of course the Islamic Republic of Iran, a state which has defied American power for thirty years and inflicted a number of humiliations on the country it calls the 'Great Satan', such as the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran. Whatever Iran's current nuclear ambitions and its supposed 'existential threat' to Israel, it is chiefly hated by American politicians and generals because it has successfully resisted American hegemony for so long. Powerful forces in both the USA and Israel continue to work for a military attack on Iran. The rest of the world should hope their plans never come to fruition.
Now that conflict in Iraq has been reduced to 'an acceptable level of violence', it is the resistance of the Taliban in Afghanistan which poses the greatest threat to American imperial ambitions. President Obama is now planning to increase US forces in Afghanistan and conclude the war before the end of his presidential term. Yet even if America was to be defeated in Afghanistan, such a reverse would be no more fatal to the American empire than its earlier defeat in Vietnam. A Taliban Afghanistan, like communist Vietnam after 1975, can be quarantined and left to rot.
The most important recent development in South Asia for the American empire has not involved the strife-torn countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has involved India. The recent nuclear treaty between India and the USA is, as many Indian politicians and commentators have pointed out, a first step on India's road away from national independence and towards becoming a member of America's worldwide alliance of subservient states. Thus a second BRIC country will be brought into the American orbit. Both Brazil and India may prosper economically, but the USA will never allow them to challenge its military domination of the world.
In South-East Asia most countries are long-standing allies or dependents of the USA. The principal exception is Myanmar (formerly Burma) whose military junta has ruled for decades, ignoring American hostility. The generals may continue to do so as long as they keep their country largely cut off from the rest of the world. Further north, economic powers such as South Korea and Japan are close allies of America, and whatever the bold statements of the new Japanese government, it seems most unlikely that Japan will seek any degree of military and strategic independence from the United States. Indeed Japan remains the only foreign country where a large American fleet, in this case the Seventh Fleet, is permanently based.
America's chief problem in East Asia is North Korea. Nuclear-armed, unpredictable, and potentially dangerous, North Korea engages the United States in cat-and-mouse negotiations which can swing from cordial to crisis almost overnight. Given its growing internal turmoil, North Korea may collapse before the USA is forced to take decisive action against it, but there is always the danger of some last-minute missile strike before the communist dictatorship implodes.
This short survey of the world must conclude with the last two BRIC countries: Russia and China. Although both are definitely outside the control of the American empire, they are very different states. Despite its enormous natural resources, Russia remains in a fragile condition both economically and militarily. Despite the progress made in the Putin years, Russia is still on the edge. It could advance to regain its superpower status, or it could collapse again into the chaos of the Yeltsin period. Russia and China are allies of a sort through membership of bodies like the Shanghai Co-Operation Organisation, but they still eye each other warily. Perhaps the perceived threat from America is all that keeps them together. As Russophobia is now the only acceptable racist doctrine in the Western world, an early rapprochement between Russia and America seems unlikely.
If America no longer fears Russia nor wants the country as a friend, the opposite is true with regard to China. Certain to be the world's dominant economic superpower by mid-century, China at present poses no major military threat to the USA, but its military forces will inevitably expand as its economic power grows. At present the nature of the Chinese 'threat' is deliberately exaggerated by the American military-industrial complex to get more defence funds out of Congress, but it may well be a self-fulfilling prophecy. America certainly needs China's economic support, not least in buying vast amounts of US government bonds, and, despite protectionist urges within America, the USA must avoid offending its increasingly powerful rival.
That China should continue to provide financial support for its supposed rival is not unusual. In the twentieth century the United States was the rising world power, both economically and militarily, yet it was willing to provide financial support to its fading one-time rival Britain. However, one of the conditions of providing such aid was that Britain should dismantle its worldwide empire. It is not unlikely that China will impose similar conditions on the United States at some point in the future if the American empire continues to be dependent on Chinese financial support.
Nevertheless such a scenario is probably decades away. Despite the gleeful forecasts of America's enemies, the American empire is still doing well, indeed expanding its influence around the world. The burden of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has been counter-balanced by France's return to the American imperial fold and by India's decision to move into the American orbit. Two of the four BRIC nations, Brazil and India, are now under increasing American influence. Of the other two, Russia is still a fragile outsider, while at the moment China believes it is in its interests to bankroll American power, although it is likely to impose more conditions on that assistance in the future.
Even if the American empire went financially bankrupt, it might not matter in the short term. The Spanish empire, undoubtedly the greatest military power in Europe and much of the world in the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century, defaulted on its debts a dozen times before its final collapse. Few creditors are prepared to get tough with a debtor that remains a dominant military power. Whatever its current problems, the American empire will probably survive for many decades to come.
Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the American empire faces challenges. In some areas the natives are getting restless. Strangely these malcontents are not Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East, but Latin American nationalists in America's own backyard. To the decades-old defiance of communist Cuba has been added the populist movement of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. His anti-gringo rhetoric has inspired other South American countries, such as Bolivia and Ecuador, to defy their American masters. The recent military bases deal between the USA and Colombia, its most loyal Latin American vassal state, shows that the American empire is preparing the infrastructure from which to launch military action against those states which challenge its dominance.
Much is made of the growing influence of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) economic superpowers, so one might expect Brazil to take a leading role in opposing American military expansion in South America. Instead, crippled by its bitter internal social divisions, Brazil raised only a mild protest at the Colombia bases deal and accepted unconvincing American assurances that the bases would not pose a threat to any other country in the region. However wealthy Brazil becomes, it is very unlikely to defy the dictates coming from Washington in the near future.
If Latin America is restive, Europe seems even more securely under American control. After half a century France has finally given up its pretence that it is independent of 'les Anglo Saxons'. Despite President Sarkozy's Napoleonic gestures, he has led his country back to the subordinate position it occupied in the American empire before President Charles de Gaulle came to power and created the Fifth Republic in 1958.
All Europe up to Russia's borders, with the possible exception of the discontented Serbs, is now largely subservient to the USA. For their own administrative convenience, the Americans support the creation of a single European state with its capital at Brussels. However, if the European Union authorities in Brussels do not bend to its will, the USA is still ready to undermine their position by having direct dealings with individual European states. This is particularly true with regard to the ex-communist countries of central and eastern Europe. Those states are keenly aware that the European Union, an economic power but a military eunuch, will never protect them from a resurgent Russia, so they are happy to have direct links with their American protector.
Africa is almost as subservient to the United States as Europe, but there are some problem areas. Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia still resist American dominance in their different ways, but their resistance is not such as to demand actual American military intervention in their affairs. For a time it seemed that the sufferings of people in Darfur might serve as a pretext for American intervention in Sudan, but an American invasion of yet another Islamic country was eventually seen as a bad idea. Eritrea's current dictator is an annoyance to America, but not so much that action needs to be taken against him.
Somalia is an odd case, since at least two of the three constituent parts of that fractured state might well be ready to accept American assistance, but Washington declines to offer it. The self-declared independent state of Somaliland and the semi-autonomous region of Puntland are not inherently anti-American like the Islamist insurgents in southern Somalia, but America largely ignores them. The USA, so keen to tear Yugoslavia apart during the 1990s, is perversely determined to keep Somalia at least nominally intact.
The Middle East is the cockpit of America's struggle against its chosen enemy Islamic fundamentalism, but whatever the feelings of ordinary Muslims in the region, their national governments are almost all subservient to America. Should any of these states be tempted to stray, America's regional enforcer, Israel, will be unleashed on them. Of Israel's old Arab enemies, only Syria is still unreconciled. In geostrategic terms, Turkey is probably more important than Israel in maintaining American hegemony in the Middle East. In recent years Turkey, whether under secular or moderate Islamic governments, has taken a more independent line in its foreign policy, but the country seems unlikely to stray far from its alliance with America.
The great American enemy in the Middle East is of course the Islamic Republic of Iran, a state which has defied American power for thirty years and inflicted a number of humiliations on the country it calls the 'Great Satan', such as the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran. Whatever Iran's current nuclear ambitions and its supposed 'existential threat' to Israel, it is chiefly hated by American politicians and generals because it has successfully resisted American hegemony for so long. Powerful forces in both the USA and Israel continue to work for a military attack on Iran. The rest of the world should hope their plans never come to fruition.
Now that conflict in Iraq has been reduced to 'an acceptable level of violence', it is the resistance of the Taliban in Afghanistan which poses the greatest threat to American imperial ambitions. President Obama is now planning to increase US forces in Afghanistan and conclude the war before the end of his presidential term. Yet even if America was to be defeated in Afghanistan, such a reverse would be no more fatal to the American empire than its earlier defeat in Vietnam. A Taliban Afghanistan, like communist Vietnam after 1975, can be quarantined and left to rot.
The most important recent development in South Asia for the American empire has not involved the strife-torn countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has involved India. The recent nuclear treaty between India and the USA is, as many Indian politicians and commentators have pointed out, a first step on India's road away from national independence and towards becoming a member of America's worldwide alliance of subservient states. Thus a second BRIC country will be brought into the American orbit. Both Brazil and India may prosper economically, but the USA will never allow them to challenge its military domination of the world.
In South-East Asia most countries are long-standing allies or dependents of the USA. The principal exception is Myanmar (formerly Burma) whose military junta has ruled for decades, ignoring American hostility. The generals may continue to do so as long as they keep their country largely cut off from the rest of the world. Further north, economic powers such as South Korea and Japan are close allies of America, and whatever the bold statements of the new Japanese government, it seems most unlikely that Japan will seek any degree of military and strategic independence from the United States. Indeed Japan remains the only foreign country where a large American fleet, in this case the Seventh Fleet, is permanently based.
America's chief problem in East Asia is North Korea. Nuclear-armed, unpredictable, and potentially dangerous, North Korea engages the United States in cat-and-mouse negotiations which can swing from cordial to crisis almost overnight. Given its growing internal turmoil, North Korea may collapse before the USA is forced to take decisive action against it, but there is always the danger of some last-minute missile strike before the communist dictatorship implodes.
This short survey of the world must conclude with the last two BRIC countries: Russia and China. Although both are definitely outside the control of the American empire, they are very different states. Despite its enormous natural resources, Russia remains in a fragile condition both economically and militarily. Despite the progress made in the Putin years, Russia is still on the edge. It could advance to regain its superpower status, or it could collapse again into the chaos of the Yeltsin period. Russia and China are allies of a sort through membership of bodies like the Shanghai Co-Operation Organisation, but they still eye each other warily. Perhaps the perceived threat from America is all that keeps them together. As Russophobia is now the only acceptable racist doctrine in the Western world, an early rapprochement between Russia and America seems unlikely.
If America no longer fears Russia nor wants the country as a friend, the opposite is true with regard to China. Certain to be the world's dominant economic superpower by mid-century, China at present poses no major military threat to the USA, but its military forces will inevitably expand as its economic power grows. At present the nature of the Chinese 'threat' is deliberately exaggerated by the American military-industrial complex to get more defence funds out of Congress, but it may well be a self-fulfilling prophecy. America certainly needs China's economic support, not least in buying vast amounts of US government bonds, and, despite protectionist urges within America, the USA must avoid offending its increasingly powerful rival.
That China should continue to provide financial support for its supposed rival is not unusual. In the twentieth century the United States was the rising world power, both economically and militarily, yet it was willing to provide financial support to its fading one-time rival Britain. However, one of the conditions of providing such aid was that Britain should dismantle its worldwide empire. It is not unlikely that China will impose similar conditions on the United States at some point in the future if the American empire continues to be dependent on Chinese financial support.
Nevertheless such a scenario is probably decades away. Despite the gleeful forecasts of America's enemies, the American empire is still doing well, indeed expanding its influence around the world. The burden of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has been counter-balanced by France's return to the American imperial fold and by India's decision to move into the American orbit. Two of the four BRIC nations, Brazil and India, are now under increasing American influence. Of the other two, Russia is still a fragile outsider, while at the moment China believes it is in its interests to bankroll American power, although it is likely to impose more conditions on that assistance in the future.
Even if the American empire went financially bankrupt, it might not matter in the short term. The Spanish empire, undoubtedly the greatest military power in Europe and much of the world in the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century, defaulted on its debts a dozen times before its final collapse. Few creditors are prepared to get tough with a debtor that remains a dominant military power. Whatever its current problems, the American empire will probably survive for many decades to come.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Killing the Guards and Facing the Consequences
The recent attack at Pishin in south-east Iran by a suicide bomber has inflicted significant losses on the higher ranks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). General Nourali Shoushtari, deputy head of the IRGC's ground forces, and General Rajabali Mohammadzadeh, the IRGC commander in Sistan-Baluchistan province, were among six officers killed, along with more than thirty other people.
Responsibility for the attack has been claimed by Jundallah, a group also known as the People's Resistance Movement of Iran, which is a Sunni Muslim movement led by Abdolmalek Rigi. Based in Baluchistan, an area straddling the Iran-Pakistan border, Jundallah claims not to be a separatist organisation. Rather its aim is said to be to obtain better treatment for Baluchis, and Sunni Muslims in general, within Shia-dominated Iran. Since 2005 Jundallah's terrorist attacks within Iran have increased in both number and effectiveness.
The Iranian government has a simple explanation for the increasing impact of Jundallah's operations. This is increased foreign support for what Iran regards as a dangerous terrorist group. After the recent atrocity in Pishin, the Iranian government made the usual accusations that the USA and Britain were behind the attack. In response the Americans and the British made the usual denials of any involvement with terrorist attacks inside Iran. More directly, Iran accused Pakistan of allowing Jundallah bases to exist on its territory and demanded that Abdolmalek Rigi be handed over to the Iranian authorities. Pakistan rejected all Iran's accusations and demands.
The American, British and Pakistani denials of involvement with Jundallah are of course not to be taken seriously. For at least five years, the CIA, with full presidential and congressional backing, has been carrying out a strategy to destabilise the government in Tehran by encouraging ethnic insurgencies within Iran. The CIA has been assisted in its operations by Britain's MI6, Israel's Mossad, Pakistan's ISI, and the intelligence service of Saudi Arabia.
Nearly forty per cent of Iran's population are non-Persian and the CIA has sought to encourage terrorist activities by members of these minority ethnic groups. The principal groups involved have been the Azeri Turks in north-west Iran; the Kurds in western Iran; the Arabs in south-west Iran; and the Baluchis in south-east Iran. For several years after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the efforts of the CIA and its allies were concentrated on the Arab inhabitants of Iran's Khuzestan province, which borders southern Iraq. Bombings and other attacks took place, but eventually Iranian security forces got the upper hand. This rebuff led to renewed interest in Jundallah's operations in the Sistan-Baluchistan province of south-east Iran.
Originally suspect because of past links with the Taliban and al Qaeda, Jundallah now seemed an ideal vehicle for creating chaos in a vulnerable area of Iran. Closely connected with the existing drug smuggling trade in a region where the borders of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan meet, Jundallah had much support among the Baluchis and promised to open up a new front against the ayatollahs in Tehran.
The new importance assigned to Jundallah put Pakistan in a difficult position. Within their own borders the Pakistanis were struggling to suppress a Baluchi separatist insurrection, but now they were being asked to provide bases on their territory to support a Baluchi rising within neighbouring Iran. Such a contradictory situation was of course nothing new in the CIA's strategy against Tehran. Iraq's Kurds were encouraged to support Kurdish resistance in Iran while at the same time being discouraged from aiding the Kurdish insurgency within Turkey. As usual the Pakistanis became reconciled to the new situation thanks to suitable payments from their American and Saudi paymasters.
The efforts of Jundallah, the CIA's proxy, have now culminated in the killing of senior IRGC generals. How is Iran likely to react to this provocation? It is certainly not going to be cowed by foreign-sponsored terrorism within its borders. The IRGC, and in particular its elite Qods force, is almost certain to launch violent retaliation against those it regards as responsible.
The Taliban, whether Afghan or Pakistani, and al Qaeda are notorious for their hostility to Shia Muslims. Yet US intelligence has several times accused Shia-controlled Iran of supplying arms to the Sunni Muslim fundamentalist Taliban in Afghanistan so that they can fight the NATO occupying forces. Clearly the Iranians may be prepared to overlook past differences with the Taliban if they can use them as proxies to strike at the Americans and the British. Perhaps the Iranians might even supply the Taliban with shoulder-launched ground to air missiles, a development long feared by NATO military analysts.
Alternatively, Iran might encourage its proxies in Iraq to launch terror attacks on American forces still based in that country, or bombings might take place in Saudi Arabia's principal oil-producing area on the Gulf, where many oppressed Shia Muslims live. However, it is most likely that Iranian retaliation will be directed at Pakistan, the base for most Jundallah operations in Iran. The government of Pakistan does nothing more than utter muted protests when American UAVs attack Taliban bases on its sovereign territory. It is likely to react more strongly if Iranian land or air forces start attacking Jundallah bases on its territory. Hence Iran will probably use terrorist proxies within Pakistan to attack military and political targets.
No doubt the death of senior IRGC generals has brought satisfaction at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, but using proxies to kill supposed enemies is a two-edged sword. The IRGC has proxies of its own who will probably soon hit back at America and its allies.
Responsibility for the attack has been claimed by Jundallah, a group also known as the People's Resistance Movement of Iran, which is a Sunni Muslim movement led by Abdolmalek Rigi. Based in Baluchistan, an area straddling the Iran-Pakistan border, Jundallah claims not to be a separatist organisation. Rather its aim is said to be to obtain better treatment for Baluchis, and Sunni Muslims in general, within Shia-dominated Iran. Since 2005 Jundallah's terrorist attacks within Iran have increased in both number and effectiveness.
The Iranian government has a simple explanation for the increasing impact of Jundallah's operations. This is increased foreign support for what Iran regards as a dangerous terrorist group. After the recent atrocity in Pishin, the Iranian government made the usual accusations that the USA and Britain were behind the attack. In response the Americans and the British made the usual denials of any involvement with terrorist attacks inside Iran. More directly, Iran accused Pakistan of allowing Jundallah bases to exist on its territory and demanded that Abdolmalek Rigi be handed over to the Iranian authorities. Pakistan rejected all Iran's accusations and demands.
The American, British and Pakistani denials of involvement with Jundallah are of course not to be taken seriously. For at least five years, the CIA, with full presidential and congressional backing, has been carrying out a strategy to destabilise the government in Tehran by encouraging ethnic insurgencies within Iran. The CIA has been assisted in its operations by Britain's MI6, Israel's Mossad, Pakistan's ISI, and the intelligence service of Saudi Arabia.
Nearly forty per cent of Iran's population are non-Persian and the CIA has sought to encourage terrorist activities by members of these minority ethnic groups. The principal groups involved have been the Azeri Turks in north-west Iran; the Kurds in western Iran; the Arabs in south-west Iran; and the Baluchis in south-east Iran. For several years after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the efforts of the CIA and its allies were concentrated on the Arab inhabitants of Iran's Khuzestan province, which borders southern Iraq. Bombings and other attacks took place, but eventually Iranian security forces got the upper hand. This rebuff led to renewed interest in Jundallah's operations in the Sistan-Baluchistan province of south-east Iran.
Originally suspect because of past links with the Taliban and al Qaeda, Jundallah now seemed an ideal vehicle for creating chaos in a vulnerable area of Iran. Closely connected with the existing drug smuggling trade in a region where the borders of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan meet, Jundallah had much support among the Baluchis and promised to open up a new front against the ayatollahs in Tehran.
The new importance assigned to Jundallah put Pakistan in a difficult position. Within their own borders the Pakistanis were struggling to suppress a Baluchi separatist insurrection, but now they were being asked to provide bases on their territory to support a Baluchi rising within neighbouring Iran. Such a contradictory situation was of course nothing new in the CIA's strategy against Tehran. Iraq's Kurds were encouraged to support Kurdish resistance in Iran while at the same time being discouraged from aiding the Kurdish insurgency within Turkey. As usual the Pakistanis became reconciled to the new situation thanks to suitable payments from their American and Saudi paymasters.
The efforts of Jundallah, the CIA's proxy, have now culminated in the killing of senior IRGC generals. How is Iran likely to react to this provocation? It is certainly not going to be cowed by foreign-sponsored terrorism within its borders. The IRGC, and in particular its elite Qods force, is almost certain to launch violent retaliation against those it regards as responsible.
The Taliban, whether Afghan or Pakistani, and al Qaeda are notorious for their hostility to Shia Muslims. Yet US intelligence has several times accused Shia-controlled Iran of supplying arms to the Sunni Muslim fundamentalist Taliban in Afghanistan so that they can fight the NATO occupying forces. Clearly the Iranians may be prepared to overlook past differences with the Taliban if they can use them as proxies to strike at the Americans and the British. Perhaps the Iranians might even supply the Taliban with shoulder-launched ground to air missiles, a development long feared by NATO military analysts.
Alternatively, Iran might encourage its proxies in Iraq to launch terror attacks on American forces still based in that country, or bombings might take place in Saudi Arabia's principal oil-producing area on the Gulf, where many oppressed Shia Muslims live. However, it is most likely that Iranian retaliation will be directed at Pakistan, the base for most Jundallah operations in Iran. The government of Pakistan does nothing more than utter muted protests when American UAVs attack Taliban bases on its sovereign territory. It is likely to react more strongly if Iranian land or air forces start attacking Jundallah bases on its territory. Hence Iran will probably use terrorist proxies within Pakistan to attack military and political targets.
No doubt the death of senior IRGC generals has brought satisfaction at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, but using proxies to kill supposed enemies is a two-edged sword. The IRGC has proxies of its own who will probably soon hit back at America and its allies.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
The War on Terror: Eight Years and Counting.
As the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC on September 11, 2001, approaches, it may be time to take an overview of the current state of the 'war on terror' which those attacks provoked. The war on terror, or 'the long war' as it was newly designated in a largely unsuccessful rebranding exercise, also has other names. The American neo-conservatives see it as 'the clash of civilizations', with the Christian West, aided by the Jewish state of Israel, resisting the attacks of the Muslim hordes bent on its destruction. To the extreme Islamists, the conflict is also a defensive struggle, but in their view they are resisting 'Crusader and Zionist aggression' against the Muslim world.
Whatever it is called, the war on terror began in the United States in 2001 and any overview should start there. Wide-ranging security measures now make it unlikely that something similar to the 9/11 attacks could happen again, but the possibility of lower level attacks, by residents rather than outsiders, still remains. The large security apparatus built up in the USA in the last few years may be successful in discouraging terrorists, but in a war which is potentially endless, that apparatus may pose a threat to the long-term future of American liberty.
Although Europe has seen no major Islamist terror attacks in recent years, it remains under greater threat than the United States. The Muslim population of Europe, especially Western Europe, continues its relentless growth. Even if only a tiny proportion of that population is ready to assist terrorists, attacks on the scale of those previously carried out in Madrid and London may well occur. The most likely source of such an Islamist threat is North Africa, with the terrorists exploiting the cover provided by the large expatriate North African populations in countries such as Spain and France.
Africa is in many ways the new front in the war on terror. The United States has recognized this by setting up its Africa Command (AFRICOM), a new military command covering all of Africa except Egypt. The command has so far not found a suitable African country to house its headquarters, but the United States already has a large military base on the continent at Djibouti near the Horn of Africa. The principal hotbeds of Islamist militancy in Africa are Algeria, home of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and Somalia, where Al Shabaab is currently the leading group. AQIM has tried to expand its operations southwards into sub-Saharan Africa, but with only limited success. Al Shabaab so far has little influence outside central and southern Somalia, the pirates in the north of the country being ordinary criminals rather than ideological terrorists. So far the United States has avoided any large-scale military operations in Africa, preferring to support local forces in their efforts to suppress Islamist terrorism.
The Middle East - now usually taken as including South Asian states such as Afghanistan and Pakistan - remains the main area of operations in the war on terror. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains in stalemate at the moment. Despite optimistic talk to the contrary, it seems unlikely the current hardline Netanyahu government in Israel will make any concessions that might lead to lasting peace with the Palestinians. It has no need to do so. The old 'near enemies' of Israel are now largely no threat. Egypt and Jordan are close allies of America, while the Syrians, and even Hezbollah in Lebanon, are careful to avoid any further military conflict with Israel. Instead Israel prefers to concentrate its propaganda in the United States and elsewhere on the supposed existential threat posed to it by the 'distant enemy', the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The war in Iraq has become largely a low level civil war since the United States withdrew most of its combat troops into their bases in the country. The Iraqi government shows no sign of asking for American assistance no matter what terrorist attacks take place. Similarly, the United States is reluctant to offer aid which might drag it back into major combat operations in Iraq. Despite this situation, the United States shows little urgency in removing its forces from Iraq, even though it has promised to leave by 2011. Iraq offers a valuable, centrally-situated military base in the Middle East from which large US forces can threaten neighbouring states, above all Iran. Such an advantage is not to be given up quickly.
The issue of Iran's supposed efforts to develop nuclear weapons is not directly relevant to the war on terror, but will have an impact upon it. Should further sanctions against Iran escalate into a naval blockade to cut off its supply of gasoline, then Iran may well retaliate by encouraging increased terrorist attacks in Iraq and other countries. Should a naval blockade, in itself a warlike act, be followed by attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities, then open war is likely to engulf the whole region, with the war on terror subsumed by the wider conflict.
The war against the Taliban in Afghanistan shows little sign of reaching any conclusion in the near future. Its overflow into neighbouring Pakistan has now largely been contained. However, many Muslims see America's increasingly direct involvement in Pakistan as part of a plot to gain control of that country's nuclear weapons. Pakistan, the only Muslim state with nuclear weapons, is to be disarmed, just as Iran, another leading Muslim state, is to be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons. Only American forces and Israel are to have nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
In other parts of the world, Muslim insurgencies rumble on. Russia this year declared victory in its ten year struggle against Islamist rebels in Chechnya, but armed unrest continues in that region and the neighbouring areas of Dagestan and Ingushetia. In Southern Thailand and the southern islands of the Philippines local Muslim revolts show little sign of ending, but equally they pose no overall threat to the stability of those countries. The Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang, China, continue to resist domination by the Han Chinese, but Western expressions of concern about their sufferings are quickly stilled by Chinese claims that the Uighurs are 'Islamist terrorists'.
As long as Western military forces continue to wage war within the Muslim world, the Islamist resisters will always be able to find enough support across that world to sustain low level military operations almost indefinitely. Western politicians and generals claim to be ready to take up the challenge of this 'long war', talking, for example, of remaining in Afghanistan for another twenty, thirty, even forty years. Whether voters in Western countries share this commitment is another matter. In any case, such plans for the future may soon be moot. If the United States, Israel, and certain European countries continue to escalate their hostile actions against Iran, war may break out with that country. If the whole Middle East is plunged into conflict, with dire consequences for both the region and the world, low level struggles against terrorists will quickly fade into insignificance.
Whatever it is called, the war on terror began in the United States in 2001 and any overview should start there. Wide-ranging security measures now make it unlikely that something similar to the 9/11 attacks could happen again, but the possibility of lower level attacks, by residents rather than outsiders, still remains. The large security apparatus built up in the USA in the last few years may be successful in discouraging terrorists, but in a war which is potentially endless, that apparatus may pose a threat to the long-term future of American liberty.
Although Europe has seen no major Islamist terror attacks in recent years, it remains under greater threat than the United States. The Muslim population of Europe, especially Western Europe, continues its relentless growth. Even if only a tiny proportion of that population is ready to assist terrorists, attacks on the scale of those previously carried out in Madrid and London may well occur. The most likely source of such an Islamist threat is North Africa, with the terrorists exploiting the cover provided by the large expatriate North African populations in countries such as Spain and France.
Africa is in many ways the new front in the war on terror. The United States has recognized this by setting up its Africa Command (AFRICOM), a new military command covering all of Africa except Egypt. The command has so far not found a suitable African country to house its headquarters, but the United States already has a large military base on the continent at Djibouti near the Horn of Africa. The principal hotbeds of Islamist militancy in Africa are Algeria, home of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and Somalia, where Al Shabaab is currently the leading group. AQIM has tried to expand its operations southwards into sub-Saharan Africa, but with only limited success. Al Shabaab so far has little influence outside central and southern Somalia, the pirates in the north of the country being ordinary criminals rather than ideological terrorists. So far the United States has avoided any large-scale military operations in Africa, preferring to support local forces in their efforts to suppress Islamist terrorism.
The Middle East - now usually taken as including South Asian states such as Afghanistan and Pakistan - remains the main area of operations in the war on terror. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains in stalemate at the moment. Despite optimistic talk to the contrary, it seems unlikely the current hardline Netanyahu government in Israel will make any concessions that might lead to lasting peace with the Palestinians. It has no need to do so. The old 'near enemies' of Israel are now largely no threat. Egypt and Jordan are close allies of America, while the Syrians, and even Hezbollah in Lebanon, are careful to avoid any further military conflict with Israel. Instead Israel prefers to concentrate its propaganda in the United States and elsewhere on the supposed existential threat posed to it by the 'distant enemy', the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The war in Iraq has become largely a low level civil war since the United States withdrew most of its combat troops into their bases in the country. The Iraqi government shows no sign of asking for American assistance no matter what terrorist attacks take place. Similarly, the United States is reluctant to offer aid which might drag it back into major combat operations in Iraq. Despite this situation, the United States shows little urgency in removing its forces from Iraq, even though it has promised to leave by 2011. Iraq offers a valuable, centrally-situated military base in the Middle East from which large US forces can threaten neighbouring states, above all Iran. Such an advantage is not to be given up quickly.
The issue of Iran's supposed efforts to develop nuclear weapons is not directly relevant to the war on terror, but will have an impact upon it. Should further sanctions against Iran escalate into a naval blockade to cut off its supply of gasoline, then Iran may well retaliate by encouraging increased terrorist attacks in Iraq and other countries. Should a naval blockade, in itself a warlike act, be followed by attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities, then open war is likely to engulf the whole region, with the war on terror subsumed by the wider conflict.
The war against the Taliban in Afghanistan shows little sign of reaching any conclusion in the near future. Its overflow into neighbouring Pakistan has now largely been contained. However, many Muslims see America's increasingly direct involvement in Pakistan as part of a plot to gain control of that country's nuclear weapons. Pakistan, the only Muslim state with nuclear weapons, is to be disarmed, just as Iran, another leading Muslim state, is to be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons. Only American forces and Israel are to have nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
In other parts of the world, Muslim insurgencies rumble on. Russia this year declared victory in its ten year struggle against Islamist rebels in Chechnya, but armed unrest continues in that region and the neighbouring areas of Dagestan and Ingushetia. In Southern Thailand and the southern islands of the Philippines local Muslim revolts show little sign of ending, but equally they pose no overall threat to the stability of those countries. The Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang, China, continue to resist domination by the Han Chinese, but Western expressions of concern about their sufferings are quickly stilled by Chinese claims that the Uighurs are 'Islamist terrorists'.
As long as Western military forces continue to wage war within the Muslim world, the Islamist resisters will always be able to find enough support across that world to sustain low level military operations almost indefinitely. Western politicians and generals claim to be ready to take up the challenge of this 'long war', talking, for example, of remaining in Afghanistan for another twenty, thirty, even forty years. Whether voters in Western countries share this commitment is another matter. In any case, such plans for the future may soon be moot. If the United States, Israel, and certain European countries continue to escalate their hostile actions against Iran, war may break out with that country. If the whole Middle East is plunged into conflict, with dire consequences for both the region and the world, low level struggles against terrorists will quickly fade into insignificance.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Uighurs: Exposing the Myth of Muslim Solidarity
The recent clashes in the Xinjiang region of China between Uighurs and Han Chinese have received media coverage around the world. The battle between the Muslim Uighurs and the ever-growing Han Chinese population in their home region might be expected to attract support for them from around the Islamic world. In fact this has not been the case, once again exposing the myth of international Muslim solidarity.
Within China the Uighurs have received no support from fellow Muslims. Even if one accepts the official Chinese government figure of only twenty million Muslims in the country (others claim at least double that figure, if not more), then the Uighurs, a group of around eight million people, make up the second largest Muslim group after the Hui, who number more than nine million people. However, the Hui are barely distinguishable racially from the overwhelming majority of Han Chinese in the country and they have shown little interest in the sufferings of their fellow Muslims in Xinjiang. Race would seem to be more important to them than religion.
Outside China, only one country, Turkey, has made any real protest about the plight of the Uighurs, even describing their oppression by the Han Chinese as 'almost genocide'. The condemnation came from Turkish prime minister Erdogan, leader of the moderate Islamist government of that supposedly secular state. Yet it is unclear whether Erdogan's solidarity with the Uighurs is derived from considerations of race or religion. Turkey bases much of its influence in Central Asia on spreading the idea of pan-Turkism. Its support for the Uighurs may have more to do with their Turkic ethnicity than their Islamic religion.
The indifference shown by most of the Islamic world to the suffering of the Uighurs is not surprising. Few countries, whether is Islamic or not, wish to offend China, the world's rising economic superpower. Saudi Arabia still has pretentions to leadership of the Islamic world, or at least the Sunni Muslim part of it, but it is reluctant to anger the Chinese, whose appetite for Saudi oil is already large and can only increase further in the future.
Yet certain political groups still like to portray the Muslim world as some sort of monolithic entity whose united power can pose a challenge to the rest of the world. The chief exponents of this view are the opposing extremists who champion the idea of 'a clash of civilizations' between the Islamic world and the West.
On one side are the American neo-conservatives, who are still influential despite the end of George W. Bush's presidency. They still seem to believe that Muslim hordes pose an existential threat to Western civilization and its supposedly beleaguered Middle Eastern outpost, the state of Israel. In their view the so-called 'Islamofascists' are ever-ready to launch terrorist attacks and can rely on the support of the majority of Muslims around the world.
On the other side, the leaders of Al Qaida and similar Islamist terror groups claim that the Muslim masses are only waiting for the call to rise up against the pro-Western governments of their countries. They will overthrow them and then create a worldwide caliphate which will unite all Muslims in a superstate that can resist all Western influences.
Of these two apocalyptic visions, the neo-conservative version is the most obviously absurd. Never in history have the majority of the world's Muslim governments been so submissive to one authority, the United States of America, and a non-Muslim authority at that. Muslim governments are not united against the West; they are united in submission to it. America calls them its allies; Al Qaida and others denounce them as the lackeys of Crusader and Zionist imperialism.
Some 57 countries have full membership of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest Muslim inter-governmental body in the world. Of these 57 countries, 56 have functioning national governments. The exception is Somalia which has had no effective national government since 1991. The international community may claim to recognize the transitional regime in Mogadishu as the national government, but hardly any Somalis do and its effective power does not even encompass most of the capital city.
Of the 56 functioning national governments of the OIC, only four are considered to be hostile to the United States and its Western allies. These are Iran, Sudan, Syria and Uzbekistan. The first two countries are likely to remain hostile to the United States in the near future, but America is making efforts to win over Syria, while Uzbekistan may be ready to allow US bases in the country once more in return for large payments and a blind eye being turned to the Uzbek leader's poor human rights record.
When it comes to governments, the Muslim world is united on the side of the West not against it, as in the neo-conservative fantasy. But what about the populations these pro-Western Muslim governments rule? Are they, as Al Qaida claims, ready to rise up and overthrow their oppressive governments and then unite in worldwide struggle against the West? Barely a dozen of the 57 countries of the OIC qualify as democracies. The rest use military and police power to suppress any popular discontent. However, even if all the OIC countries were democracies, would their Muslim populations be as anti-Western as the Islamists claim?
Turkey and Indonesia are Muslim democracies which in the past had military rulers supported by the West. They certainly have Islamist political parties which enjoy wide popular support, but this has not translated into violent anti-Western feeling or a desire to join other Muslim countries in a jihad or holy war against the West. Once Western interference has been removed and democracy established, Muslims seem happy to pursue the economic advantages of association with the West, while in foreign affairs their countries follow their own national interests which may or may not include solidarity with other Muslim states or groups.
The idea of the Muslim world as some sort of monolithic bloc which poses a threat to the West is clearly a myth which is propagated by both American neo-conservatives and Islamist terrorists for their own political purposes. Given a free choice, most Muslims would wish to be friendly with the West provided it ceased all military and political interference in their countries. Similarly, most Muslims have no interest in the deranged fantasies of Al Qaida, but they do want their religion to be treated with respect worldwide. Muslim countries have religion as a common bond between them, but on many occasions their different national interests are likely to be of more importance than religious solidarity, which is probably bad news for the Uighurs.
Within China the Uighurs have received no support from fellow Muslims. Even if one accepts the official Chinese government figure of only twenty million Muslims in the country (others claim at least double that figure, if not more), then the Uighurs, a group of around eight million people, make up the second largest Muslim group after the Hui, who number more than nine million people. However, the Hui are barely distinguishable racially from the overwhelming majority of Han Chinese in the country and they have shown little interest in the sufferings of their fellow Muslims in Xinjiang. Race would seem to be more important to them than religion.
Outside China, only one country, Turkey, has made any real protest about the plight of the Uighurs, even describing their oppression by the Han Chinese as 'almost genocide'. The condemnation came from Turkish prime minister Erdogan, leader of the moderate Islamist government of that supposedly secular state. Yet it is unclear whether Erdogan's solidarity with the Uighurs is derived from considerations of race or religion. Turkey bases much of its influence in Central Asia on spreading the idea of pan-Turkism. Its support for the Uighurs may have more to do with their Turkic ethnicity than their Islamic religion.
The indifference shown by most of the Islamic world to the suffering of the Uighurs is not surprising. Few countries, whether is Islamic or not, wish to offend China, the world's rising economic superpower. Saudi Arabia still has pretentions to leadership of the Islamic world, or at least the Sunni Muslim part of it, but it is reluctant to anger the Chinese, whose appetite for Saudi oil is already large and can only increase further in the future.
Yet certain political groups still like to portray the Muslim world as some sort of monolithic entity whose united power can pose a challenge to the rest of the world. The chief exponents of this view are the opposing extremists who champion the idea of 'a clash of civilizations' between the Islamic world and the West.
On one side are the American neo-conservatives, who are still influential despite the end of George W. Bush's presidency. They still seem to believe that Muslim hordes pose an existential threat to Western civilization and its supposedly beleaguered Middle Eastern outpost, the state of Israel. In their view the so-called 'Islamofascists' are ever-ready to launch terrorist attacks and can rely on the support of the majority of Muslims around the world.
On the other side, the leaders of Al Qaida and similar Islamist terror groups claim that the Muslim masses are only waiting for the call to rise up against the pro-Western governments of their countries. They will overthrow them and then create a worldwide caliphate which will unite all Muslims in a superstate that can resist all Western influences.
Of these two apocalyptic visions, the neo-conservative version is the most obviously absurd. Never in history have the majority of the world's Muslim governments been so submissive to one authority, the United States of America, and a non-Muslim authority at that. Muslim governments are not united against the West; they are united in submission to it. America calls them its allies; Al Qaida and others denounce them as the lackeys of Crusader and Zionist imperialism.
Some 57 countries have full membership of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest Muslim inter-governmental body in the world. Of these 57 countries, 56 have functioning national governments. The exception is Somalia which has had no effective national government since 1991. The international community may claim to recognize the transitional regime in Mogadishu as the national government, but hardly any Somalis do and its effective power does not even encompass most of the capital city.
Of the 56 functioning national governments of the OIC, only four are considered to be hostile to the United States and its Western allies. These are Iran, Sudan, Syria and Uzbekistan. The first two countries are likely to remain hostile to the United States in the near future, but America is making efforts to win over Syria, while Uzbekistan may be ready to allow US bases in the country once more in return for large payments and a blind eye being turned to the Uzbek leader's poor human rights record.
When it comes to governments, the Muslim world is united on the side of the West not against it, as in the neo-conservative fantasy. But what about the populations these pro-Western Muslim governments rule? Are they, as Al Qaida claims, ready to rise up and overthrow their oppressive governments and then unite in worldwide struggle against the West? Barely a dozen of the 57 countries of the OIC qualify as democracies. The rest use military and police power to suppress any popular discontent. However, even if all the OIC countries were democracies, would their Muslim populations be as anti-Western as the Islamists claim?
Turkey and Indonesia are Muslim democracies which in the past had military rulers supported by the West. They certainly have Islamist political parties which enjoy wide popular support, but this has not translated into violent anti-Western feeling or a desire to join other Muslim countries in a jihad or holy war against the West. Once Western interference has been removed and democracy established, Muslims seem happy to pursue the economic advantages of association with the West, while in foreign affairs their countries follow their own national interests which may or may not include solidarity with other Muslim states or groups.
The idea of the Muslim world as some sort of monolithic bloc which poses a threat to the West is clearly a myth which is propagated by both American neo-conservatives and Islamist terrorists for their own political purposes. Given a free choice, most Muslims would wish to be friendly with the West provided it ceased all military and political interference in their countries. Similarly, most Muslims have no interest in the deranged fantasies of Al Qaida, but they do want their religion to be treated with respect worldwide. Muslim countries have religion as a common bond between them, but on many occasions their different national interests are likely to be of more importance than religious solidarity, which is probably bad news for the Uighurs.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb: Spreading Fire or Dying Flame?
This month has brought Algerian Islamist terrorists back into the news. The group known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) announced it had executed a British hostage, Edwin Dyer, in the depths of the Sahara Desert, while its forces in the north of Algeria carried out successful attacks on security forces. In the most recent incident twenty-four policemen were killed in an ambush a hundred miles east of the capital Algiers.
According to the Algerian government, these incidents are just the last desperate acts of an Islamist terrorist group on the verge of collapse. Yet Western anti-terrorist experts are increasingly concerned about what they see as the spread of AQIM's influence across northern and western Africa and the possibility that its cells among the North African diaspora population of western Europe may carry out terrorist attacks in that region. So is AQIM a dying flame as the Algerian authorities claim, or is it a spreading fire as Western intelligence experts fear?
AQIM has its origins in the Algerian civil war of the 1990s, which broke out after the secularist government and army cancelled national elections in 1992 when it seemed they might be won by an Islamist party. The principal Islamist insurgents came from the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), but in 1998 a faction calling itself the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) broke away from GIA in a dispute over tactics. By the year 2000 the counter-terrorist efforts of the Algerian government and its offers of amnesty to surrendering fighters had much reduced the activities of GIA. Soon the GSPC replaced it as the leading Islamist terror group in Algeria.
Although the GSPC was capable of carrying out headline-grabbing operations such as its kidnapping of thirty-two European tourists in the Algerian Sahara in February 2003 (later released in return for a large ransom), its main efforts against the Algerian government seemed to be faltering. In order to raise its profile and strengthen its wider international terrorist links, the GSPC began to negotiate with Al Qaeda for recognition, affiliation and support.
Finally, in September 2006, Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, announced its approval of a link with the GSPC, which now renamed itself Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Algerian authorities claimed the name change was just a last-ditch attempt to revitalize a declining domestic insurgency, but AQIM soon carried out some significant attacks within the country, introducing the Al Qaeda tactic of suicide bombings to Algeria for the first time. These attacks culminated in co-ordinated suicide bombings in Algiers in December 2007 which killed thirty-seven people, including seventeen United Nations employees.
As well as intensifying its struggle within Algeria, AQIM has also sought to spread Islamist terrorist operations across neighbouring countries. Efforts in Morocco, Tunisia and Libya have had little success, but the weaker states of Mauritania, Mali and Niger in the Sahara have proved more fertile ground for AQIM's operations. AQIM has forged links with local insurgent groups in those countries, so that the insurgents often kidnap Westerners and sell them on to AQIM for use as hostages.
More worrying for Western intelligence services have been AQIM's efforts to extend its terrorist cell network in western Europe and take over the remains of GIA's support organization in countries such as Spain and France. So far AQIM has failed to carry out any terrorist attacks in western Europe, with a number of its cells being identified and broken up by anti-terrorist police, but new cells seem to be forming all the time. One day they may carry out successful attacks.
The Algerian government claims terrorist activities are declining in that country, which may be true in comparison with the bloodshed of the 1990s civil war, but attacks persist. In 2008 there were an estimated 85 significant bombings in Algeria, with 639 people (409 suspected militants, 158 security personnel, and 72 civilians) killed in terrorist-related incidents. This year there have been 64 bombings from January to April alone, with 247 people (167 suspected militants, 61 security personnel, and 19 civilians) killed in terrorist-related violence in that period. The Algerian government claims AQIM only has a few hundred active fighters left. If so, they still seem able to have a significant domestic impact.
In late 2008 and early 2009 local insurgents in Niger seized two Canadian diplomats on a UN mission and four European tourists. They were later sold to AQIM forces based in the desert areas of southern Algeria and northern Mali. In April the Canadian diplomats and two of the European hostages were released. Despite Canadian government claims to the contrary, ransoms were almost certainly paid to AQIM. Of the remaining European hostages, the British man is said to have been beheaded at the start of this month, allegedly because the British government refused to negotiate with the terrorists, and a Swiss person is still being held. Mali has now been forced to take action, launching attacks on a supposed AQIM base in the country, but no long-lasting damage seems to have been done to the terrorist group.
AQIM, currently led by Abdelmalek Droukdel, seems likely to continue its operations in Algeria and in the weaker Sahara states in the immediate future despite the best efforts of the Algerian government and of the Sahara states who are now getting support from the USA's new Africa Command. Whether AQIM will mount terrorist attacks in western Europe is less certain. AQIM does not seem to be a dying flame, but how far its renewed fire will spread only time will tell.
According to the Algerian government, these incidents are just the last desperate acts of an Islamist terrorist group on the verge of collapse. Yet Western anti-terrorist experts are increasingly concerned about what they see as the spread of AQIM's influence across northern and western Africa and the possibility that its cells among the North African diaspora population of western Europe may carry out terrorist attacks in that region. So is AQIM a dying flame as the Algerian authorities claim, or is it a spreading fire as Western intelligence experts fear?
AQIM has its origins in the Algerian civil war of the 1990s, which broke out after the secularist government and army cancelled national elections in 1992 when it seemed they might be won by an Islamist party. The principal Islamist insurgents came from the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), but in 1998 a faction calling itself the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) broke away from GIA in a dispute over tactics. By the year 2000 the counter-terrorist efforts of the Algerian government and its offers of amnesty to surrendering fighters had much reduced the activities of GIA. Soon the GSPC replaced it as the leading Islamist terror group in Algeria.
Although the GSPC was capable of carrying out headline-grabbing operations such as its kidnapping of thirty-two European tourists in the Algerian Sahara in February 2003 (later released in return for a large ransom), its main efforts against the Algerian government seemed to be faltering. In order to raise its profile and strengthen its wider international terrorist links, the GSPC began to negotiate with Al Qaeda for recognition, affiliation and support.
Finally, in September 2006, Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, announced its approval of a link with the GSPC, which now renamed itself Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Algerian authorities claimed the name change was just a last-ditch attempt to revitalize a declining domestic insurgency, but AQIM soon carried out some significant attacks within the country, introducing the Al Qaeda tactic of suicide bombings to Algeria for the first time. These attacks culminated in co-ordinated suicide bombings in Algiers in December 2007 which killed thirty-seven people, including seventeen United Nations employees.
As well as intensifying its struggle within Algeria, AQIM has also sought to spread Islamist terrorist operations across neighbouring countries. Efforts in Morocco, Tunisia and Libya have had little success, but the weaker states of Mauritania, Mali and Niger in the Sahara have proved more fertile ground for AQIM's operations. AQIM has forged links with local insurgent groups in those countries, so that the insurgents often kidnap Westerners and sell them on to AQIM for use as hostages.
More worrying for Western intelligence services have been AQIM's efforts to extend its terrorist cell network in western Europe and take over the remains of GIA's support organization in countries such as Spain and France. So far AQIM has failed to carry out any terrorist attacks in western Europe, with a number of its cells being identified and broken up by anti-terrorist police, but new cells seem to be forming all the time. One day they may carry out successful attacks.
The Algerian government claims terrorist activities are declining in that country, which may be true in comparison with the bloodshed of the 1990s civil war, but attacks persist. In 2008 there were an estimated 85 significant bombings in Algeria, with 639 people (409 suspected militants, 158 security personnel, and 72 civilians) killed in terrorist-related incidents. This year there have been 64 bombings from January to April alone, with 247 people (167 suspected militants, 61 security personnel, and 19 civilians) killed in terrorist-related violence in that period. The Algerian government claims AQIM only has a few hundred active fighters left. If so, they still seem able to have a significant domestic impact.
In late 2008 and early 2009 local insurgents in Niger seized two Canadian diplomats on a UN mission and four European tourists. They were later sold to AQIM forces based in the desert areas of southern Algeria and northern Mali. In April the Canadian diplomats and two of the European hostages were released. Despite Canadian government claims to the contrary, ransoms were almost certainly paid to AQIM. Of the remaining European hostages, the British man is said to have been beheaded at the start of this month, allegedly because the British government refused to negotiate with the terrorists, and a Swiss person is still being held. Mali has now been forced to take action, launching attacks on a supposed AQIM base in the country, but no long-lasting damage seems to have been done to the terrorist group.
AQIM, currently led by Abdelmalek Droukdel, seems likely to continue its operations in Algeria and in the weaker Sahara states in the immediate future despite the best efforts of the Algerian government and of the Sahara states who are now getting support from the USA's new Africa Command. Whether AQIM will mount terrorist attacks in western Europe is less certain. AQIM does not seem to be a dying flame, but how far its renewed fire will spread only time will tell.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Yemen and the Somali Pirates
The government of the autonomous region of Puntland in north-east Somalia claims to be unable to curb the activities of the Somali pirates based there. Yet when a Yemeni vessel is seized by those pirates, the Puntland government is suddenly stirred to action.
In November 2008 the Yemeni cargo ship 'Adina' was captured by Somali pirates while carrying a cargo of steel from Al Mukalla, a port on the south coast of Yemen, to the island of Socotra. The Puntland authorities, usually so indifferent to captures of the vessels of other nations, immediately rushed to take action. Ali Abdi Aware, a Puntland minister, said: 'We will release the hijacked Yemen ship forcibly if they do not release it without a ransom because we have good relations with Yemen.'
Puntland security forces were put on alert, but after negotiations and strong pressure from the Puntland government, the 'Adina' was released in early December 2008. A ransom of US $2 million had originally been demanded for the ship, but no ransom was paid.
The fact is that both the government of Puntland and the Somali pirates who are based there would find life very difficult without good relations with Yemen. Officially the government of Yemen is opposed to Somali piracy, but in ports along the south coast of Yemen many people derive substantial economic benefit from aiding and abetting the pirates as well as supplying the rest of the population of Puntland.
Yemeni fishing boats have on occasion been seized by Somali pirates for use as 'mother ships' so that their fast pirate craft can be launched in more distant waters to capture merchant ships. However, in some cases there have been doubts about whether the Yemeni fishing boats were really victims, with suggestions that their 'capture' may have been arranged in advance so that Yemenis could share in the profits of piracy.
Indeed NATO sources claim ports along the eastern section of the south coast of Yemen, specifically Al Mukalla, Al Shishr, Sayhut, Nishtun and Al Ghaydah, serve as re-supply bases for Somali pirate 'mother ships' operating in the Gulf of Aden, where they make so many of their captures.
The most recent Somali pirate attack on a Yemeni ship took place less than ten miles from the south coast of Yemen. The tanker 'Qana' was seized on April 26 while returning from Al Mukalla to Aden. On the following day Yemeni special forces retook the vessel, killing three pirates and taking others prisoner.
From one point of view this operation might be seen as striking a blow against the pirates since it is the first Yemeni military action ever taken against them. However, on the other hand, the fact that the incident took place so close to Yemen's coast would seem to indicate that the Somali pirates are treating the area as if it was their own home waters and they can count on support from local people.
The Yemen/Somalia connection is increasingly integrated. When not hunting merchant ships to seize for ransom, Somali pirate 'mother ships' often take human cargo (refugees and economic migrants) from Somalia to Yemen and then return with arms, ammunition, and other supplies to support their pirate activities or sell to the people of Puntland.
There is now increasing concern that people on the south coast of Yemen may soon graduate from assisting the Somali pirates to joining them in their activities. Yemen's declining economy makes piracy, with its low risks and high financial rewards, look increasingly attractive. Added to the economic motive may be a political one as well.
The population of South Yemen has never been particularly happy with its union with North Yemen which has existed since 1990. Its attempt to break away in 1994 was brutally suppressed. Pro-independence demonstrations in South Yemen earlier this month would seem to show that this feeling is reviving. If South Yemen was to achieve independence, or even just autonomy on a scale to match Puntland's position within Somalia, then piracy might become attractive, promising valuable income for a new political entity.
At the moment Somali piracy is largely just a criminal activity with no proven links to terrorism. Indeed those groups most likely to be associated with terrorism in Somalia, the Islamist militants in the south and centre of the country, say they are opposed to piracy. They even claim to have carried out attacks on the pirates when the latter have seized ships owned in Muslim countries. How long this separation will continue is a matter for debate. Piracy is the most lucrative economic activity in Somalia and many political groups in the country will hope to get some share in its profits. There are already reports from the body monitoring the UN arms embargo in Somalia that the pirates are bringing arms from Yemen to supply the Islamist militants. However, so far this seems to be a purely commercial transaction and does not imply any commitment to the Islamist cause.
Nevertheless a closer link between Somali pirates and Somali Islamist militants cannot be ruled out. Such a link would be of serious concern to other countries. Of even greater concern would be if Yemeni seafarers took up piracy and then established links with Islamist terror networks. The profits of piracy might finance terrorists who could spread their activities from Yemen into the neighbouring countries of Saudi Arabia and Oman.
The need for concerted international action to stamp out Somali piracy is growing. It must be curbed before piracy can spread to South Yemen, which would extend the zone of instability currently restricted to Somalia into the south of the Arabian peninsula with potentially dangerous consequences for the whole region.
In November 2008 the Yemeni cargo ship 'Adina' was captured by Somali pirates while carrying a cargo of steel from Al Mukalla, a port on the south coast of Yemen, to the island of Socotra. The Puntland authorities, usually so indifferent to captures of the vessels of other nations, immediately rushed to take action. Ali Abdi Aware, a Puntland minister, said: 'We will release the hijacked Yemen ship forcibly if they do not release it without a ransom because we have good relations with Yemen.'
Puntland security forces were put on alert, but after negotiations and strong pressure from the Puntland government, the 'Adina' was released in early December 2008. A ransom of US $2 million had originally been demanded for the ship, but no ransom was paid.
The fact is that both the government of Puntland and the Somali pirates who are based there would find life very difficult without good relations with Yemen. Officially the government of Yemen is opposed to Somali piracy, but in ports along the south coast of Yemen many people derive substantial economic benefit from aiding and abetting the pirates as well as supplying the rest of the population of Puntland.
Yemeni fishing boats have on occasion been seized by Somali pirates for use as 'mother ships' so that their fast pirate craft can be launched in more distant waters to capture merchant ships. However, in some cases there have been doubts about whether the Yemeni fishing boats were really victims, with suggestions that their 'capture' may have been arranged in advance so that Yemenis could share in the profits of piracy.
Indeed NATO sources claim ports along the eastern section of the south coast of Yemen, specifically Al Mukalla, Al Shishr, Sayhut, Nishtun and Al Ghaydah, serve as re-supply bases for Somali pirate 'mother ships' operating in the Gulf of Aden, where they make so many of their captures.
The most recent Somali pirate attack on a Yemeni ship took place less than ten miles from the south coast of Yemen. The tanker 'Qana' was seized on April 26 while returning from Al Mukalla to Aden. On the following day Yemeni special forces retook the vessel, killing three pirates and taking others prisoner.
From one point of view this operation might be seen as striking a blow against the pirates since it is the first Yemeni military action ever taken against them. However, on the other hand, the fact that the incident took place so close to Yemen's coast would seem to indicate that the Somali pirates are treating the area as if it was their own home waters and they can count on support from local people.
The Yemen/Somalia connection is increasingly integrated. When not hunting merchant ships to seize for ransom, Somali pirate 'mother ships' often take human cargo (refugees and economic migrants) from Somalia to Yemen and then return with arms, ammunition, and other supplies to support their pirate activities or sell to the people of Puntland.
There is now increasing concern that people on the south coast of Yemen may soon graduate from assisting the Somali pirates to joining them in their activities. Yemen's declining economy makes piracy, with its low risks and high financial rewards, look increasingly attractive. Added to the economic motive may be a political one as well.
The population of South Yemen has never been particularly happy with its union with North Yemen which has existed since 1990. Its attempt to break away in 1994 was brutally suppressed. Pro-independence demonstrations in South Yemen earlier this month would seem to show that this feeling is reviving. If South Yemen was to achieve independence, or even just autonomy on a scale to match Puntland's position within Somalia, then piracy might become attractive, promising valuable income for a new political entity.
At the moment Somali piracy is largely just a criminal activity with no proven links to terrorism. Indeed those groups most likely to be associated with terrorism in Somalia, the Islamist militants in the south and centre of the country, say they are opposed to piracy. They even claim to have carried out attacks on the pirates when the latter have seized ships owned in Muslim countries. How long this separation will continue is a matter for debate. Piracy is the most lucrative economic activity in Somalia and many political groups in the country will hope to get some share in its profits. There are already reports from the body monitoring the UN arms embargo in Somalia that the pirates are bringing arms from Yemen to supply the Islamist militants. However, so far this seems to be a purely commercial transaction and does not imply any commitment to the Islamist cause.
Nevertheless a closer link between Somali pirates and Somali Islamist militants cannot be ruled out. Such a link would be of serious concern to other countries. Of even greater concern would be if Yemeni seafarers took up piracy and then established links with Islamist terror networks. The profits of piracy might finance terrorists who could spread their activities from Yemen into the neighbouring countries of Saudi Arabia and Oman.
The need for concerted international action to stamp out Somali piracy is growing. It must be curbed before piracy can spread to South Yemen, which would extend the zone of instability currently restricted to Somalia into the south of the Arabian peninsula with potentially dangerous consequences for the whole region.
Monday, May 4, 2009
America in Iraq: Leaving or Not?
At the end of April Britain brought to a close its military involvement in Iraq which had lasted since the US-led invasion of that country in March 2003. The 3,800 British military personnel at Basra airport hauled down their flag and prepared to depart. Yet they handed over their base not to Iraqi forces but to 5,000 American troops newly deployed to the area.
This seems a strange development. The Basra area is one of the most peaceful regions of Iraq, fully under the control of the government in Baghdad. The United States has promised to withdraw most of its combat forces from Iraq, pulling out of the cities this summer. So why is a military base in peaceful Basra being handed over to American rather than Iraqi forces?
The answer would seem to be that some Americans, especially in the higher levels of US Central Command, are having second thoughts about withdrawing from Iraq. They intend to seize every opportunity to keep substantial US forces in the country, whatever the promises of President Barack Obama or the wishes of the Iraqi people.
General Petraeus, the new head of Central Command, likes to take credit for the supposed victory his 'surge' strategy achieved in Iraq. Yet his commanders in that country are now claiming that conditions are becoming insecure once again, and they imply that US withdrawal will have to be delayed or even postponed indefinitely.
In northern Iraq al-Qaeda terrorists, so recently said to be broken and on the run, appear to be staging a come-back, especially in and around the city of Mosul. The local US commander says that American forces may have to remain on duty in the area for the foreseeable future. This will no doubt be good news for the pro-American Kurds of northern Iraq, who are already fearful of attacks by the central government in Baghdad. However, other Iraqis may find a continued American presence less palatable.
Similarly, the Sunni Arabs who deserted the anti-American insurgency to join the Awakening movement during Petraeus' 'surge' operations are now beginning to have second thoughts about their decision. The United States is actively supporting the Shia-controlled government of Nuri al-Maliki in its continuing arrests of important Sunni leaders of the Awakening councils for their alleged past crimes. American promises of amnesty now ring hollow among the Sunni Arabs of Iraq and it seems more than likely that many former insurgents will return to making attacks on American and Iraqi government forces.
Originally the Americans had their doubts about Nuri al-Maliki, but now they are warming to him. He is a potential Iraqi strong man with, unusually, solid democratic credentials for his rule. The Americans are ready to back him against al-Qaeda remnants, Sunni former insurgents, and Shia rivals such as the openly anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr. The problem is that Nuri al-Maliki enjoys popular support precisely because he is seen as the man who is getting the Americans to leave Iraq. If he is seen as being an accomplice to their continued presence, the Iraqi prime minister will soon lose popular support.
Even if the Americans cannot use renewed security problems as an excuse to stay, their withdrawal agreement with the Iraqi government still gives them ample room to keep a military presence in the country. Under the agreement, the United states can keep 'residual' armed forces in Iraq, chiefly to train the Iraqi military. Yet some estimates of these 'residual' forces have gone as high as 35-50,000 personnel in half a dozen bases. This is hardly a token presence as it would amount to almost a third of the US military force in Iraq at its peak of deployment. The retention of such a large force in Iraq would be disquieting to both the Iraqi and American peoples after all the promises of complete US withdrawal from Iraq that have been made.
Despite a rising tide of violent incidents in both Baghdad and Mosul, the Iraqi government continues to insist that US forces will leave all Iraqi cities by 30 June and will withdraw from the whole country by the end of 2011. Whether this timetable will in fact be met must be open to increasing doubt.
This seems a strange development. The Basra area is one of the most peaceful regions of Iraq, fully under the control of the government in Baghdad. The United States has promised to withdraw most of its combat forces from Iraq, pulling out of the cities this summer. So why is a military base in peaceful Basra being handed over to American rather than Iraqi forces?
The answer would seem to be that some Americans, especially in the higher levels of US Central Command, are having second thoughts about withdrawing from Iraq. They intend to seize every opportunity to keep substantial US forces in the country, whatever the promises of President Barack Obama or the wishes of the Iraqi people.
General Petraeus, the new head of Central Command, likes to take credit for the supposed victory his 'surge' strategy achieved in Iraq. Yet his commanders in that country are now claiming that conditions are becoming insecure once again, and they imply that US withdrawal will have to be delayed or even postponed indefinitely.
In northern Iraq al-Qaeda terrorists, so recently said to be broken and on the run, appear to be staging a come-back, especially in and around the city of Mosul. The local US commander says that American forces may have to remain on duty in the area for the foreseeable future. This will no doubt be good news for the pro-American Kurds of northern Iraq, who are already fearful of attacks by the central government in Baghdad. However, other Iraqis may find a continued American presence less palatable.
Similarly, the Sunni Arabs who deserted the anti-American insurgency to join the Awakening movement during Petraeus' 'surge' operations are now beginning to have second thoughts about their decision. The United States is actively supporting the Shia-controlled government of Nuri al-Maliki in its continuing arrests of important Sunni leaders of the Awakening councils for their alleged past crimes. American promises of amnesty now ring hollow among the Sunni Arabs of Iraq and it seems more than likely that many former insurgents will return to making attacks on American and Iraqi government forces.
Originally the Americans had their doubts about Nuri al-Maliki, but now they are warming to him. He is a potential Iraqi strong man with, unusually, solid democratic credentials for his rule. The Americans are ready to back him against al-Qaeda remnants, Sunni former insurgents, and Shia rivals such as the openly anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr. The problem is that Nuri al-Maliki enjoys popular support precisely because he is seen as the man who is getting the Americans to leave Iraq. If he is seen as being an accomplice to their continued presence, the Iraqi prime minister will soon lose popular support.
Even if the Americans cannot use renewed security problems as an excuse to stay, their withdrawal agreement with the Iraqi government still gives them ample room to keep a military presence in the country. Under the agreement, the United states can keep 'residual' armed forces in Iraq, chiefly to train the Iraqi military. Yet some estimates of these 'residual' forces have gone as high as 35-50,000 personnel in half a dozen bases. This is hardly a token presence as it would amount to almost a third of the US military force in Iraq at its peak of deployment. The retention of such a large force in Iraq would be disquieting to both the Iraqi and American peoples after all the promises of complete US withdrawal from Iraq that have been made.
Despite a rising tide of violent incidents in both Baghdad and Mosul, the Iraqi government continues to insist that US forces will leave all Iraqi cities by 30 June and will withdraw from the whole country by the end of 2011. Whether this timetable will in fact be met must be open to increasing doubt.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Turkey: Nobody's Tool
During his recent visit to Turkey, President Barack Obama praised that country for its role as a bridge between the West and the Islamic world. Such praise is not without an ulterior motive. Turkey was hostile to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in the years following that event Turkish-American relations became increasingly strained. Now President Obama seeks to restore Turkey to its previous position as America's most important ally in the Middle East after Israel.
But does Turkey really want to return to its position as a tool of American power politics in the region? Since the end of the Cold War in 1989-91, Turkey has steadily grown as a regional power, not just in the Middle East, but also in the Black Sea, Caucasus, and Central Asian areas. Turkey is no longer threatened by a Soviet superpower on its borders, a threat which caused it to join NATO in 1952 and become a subordinate ally of the United States for the next forty years.
The Turkish republic created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 had national independence as its foundation, resisting all attempts by foreign powers to infringe on Turkish sovereignty. Alone among the defeated nations of the First World War, Turkey was able to stand up to the victorious allies in the aftermath. The British-backed Greek invasion of Anatolia was repulsed, while French forces moving into Turkey from the south were forced back into Syria. The allies eventually decided to accept the new reality. The punitive Treaty of Sevres (1920), imposed on the last remnant of the old Ottoman government, was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) which was more favorable to Turkey.
Ataturk's success against the European imperial powers made Turkey a model for other Muslim states, such as Iran and Afghanistan, which were trying to maintain their independence from Western control. Even the Europeans came to respect the new Turkey and, long before Obama used such words, began to praise the Turkish republic for bridging the gap between the Islamic world and Western modernity.
Ataturk not only wanted to assert Turkey's independence against foreign enemies, but also to make his government the single ruling authority within the country. Islamic religious institutions were seen as a particular rival and were steadily subordinated to the power of the secular national government. Ataturk continued his policies of nationalism, secularism, and modernization up to his death in 1938, and his successors remained true to his legacy. During the Second World War Turkey maintained a firm neutrality, but after 1945 its government became increasingly alarmed by the threat posed by the Soviet superpower that had emerged from the war.
In 1952 the Turkish government decided to join NATO, thus reducing its national independence by becoming a close ally of the United States. Nevertheless this new close link to the West did have advantages other than just military security. From the 1950s democracy became a reality in Turkey, despite occasional military coups, and Turkish trade and industry began to prosper.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War, Turkey saw a chance for a more independent foreign policy. Some of the post-Soviet states emerging in the Caucasus and Central Asia had Turkic populations who might welcome Turkish assistance with modernization and nation-building. Freed from the Soviet threat, Turkey was less subservient to American hegemony and began to emerge as a regional power in its own right.
However, Turkish society was changing by the 1990s. Ataturk's secularism and ruthless subordination of Islamic institutions to the state had been most effective in Turkey's cities. Religious observance continued to be important in the rural areas of the country. From the 1950s onwards rural Turks moved to the cities in increasing numbers, bringing their religious practices with them. By the 1990s such immigrants had created a new middle class who were increasingly ready to assert their Muslim beliefs. The old urban elites and the army took alarm at this, feeling it was a threat to Ataturk's policies of secular nationalism.
Despite such fears, Turkey is now ruled by the moderate Islamist government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. While this government is certainly hostile to Ataturk's legacy of secularism, it has proved no less nationalist than previous secular governments. Although there remains much potential for clashes between Islamist and secular Turks, neither group is ready to give up the increasing national self-assertion that has been such a feature of Turkish policy since 1991.
Whether or not Turkey ever joins the European Union, it will continue to emerge as a major regional power in south-west Asia. Islamist Turks may reject much of Ataturk's legacy, but they are as attached to his policy of national independence as secular Turks. Whatever its future role in international politics, Turkey is unlikely ever again to be the tame ally of the United States it was between 1952 and 1991.
But does Turkey really want to return to its position as a tool of American power politics in the region? Since the end of the Cold War in 1989-91, Turkey has steadily grown as a regional power, not just in the Middle East, but also in the Black Sea, Caucasus, and Central Asian areas. Turkey is no longer threatened by a Soviet superpower on its borders, a threat which caused it to join NATO in 1952 and become a subordinate ally of the United States for the next forty years.
The Turkish republic created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 had national independence as its foundation, resisting all attempts by foreign powers to infringe on Turkish sovereignty. Alone among the defeated nations of the First World War, Turkey was able to stand up to the victorious allies in the aftermath. The British-backed Greek invasion of Anatolia was repulsed, while French forces moving into Turkey from the south were forced back into Syria. The allies eventually decided to accept the new reality. The punitive Treaty of Sevres (1920), imposed on the last remnant of the old Ottoman government, was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) which was more favorable to Turkey.
Ataturk's success against the European imperial powers made Turkey a model for other Muslim states, such as Iran and Afghanistan, which were trying to maintain their independence from Western control. Even the Europeans came to respect the new Turkey and, long before Obama used such words, began to praise the Turkish republic for bridging the gap between the Islamic world and Western modernity.
Ataturk not only wanted to assert Turkey's independence against foreign enemies, but also to make his government the single ruling authority within the country. Islamic religious institutions were seen as a particular rival and were steadily subordinated to the power of the secular national government. Ataturk continued his policies of nationalism, secularism, and modernization up to his death in 1938, and his successors remained true to his legacy. During the Second World War Turkey maintained a firm neutrality, but after 1945 its government became increasingly alarmed by the threat posed by the Soviet superpower that had emerged from the war.
In 1952 the Turkish government decided to join NATO, thus reducing its national independence by becoming a close ally of the United States. Nevertheless this new close link to the West did have advantages other than just military security. From the 1950s democracy became a reality in Turkey, despite occasional military coups, and Turkish trade and industry began to prosper.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War, Turkey saw a chance for a more independent foreign policy. Some of the post-Soviet states emerging in the Caucasus and Central Asia had Turkic populations who might welcome Turkish assistance with modernization and nation-building. Freed from the Soviet threat, Turkey was less subservient to American hegemony and began to emerge as a regional power in its own right.
However, Turkish society was changing by the 1990s. Ataturk's secularism and ruthless subordination of Islamic institutions to the state had been most effective in Turkey's cities. Religious observance continued to be important in the rural areas of the country. From the 1950s onwards rural Turks moved to the cities in increasing numbers, bringing their religious practices with them. By the 1990s such immigrants had created a new middle class who were increasingly ready to assert their Muslim beliefs. The old urban elites and the army took alarm at this, feeling it was a threat to Ataturk's policies of secular nationalism.
Despite such fears, Turkey is now ruled by the moderate Islamist government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. While this government is certainly hostile to Ataturk's legacy of secularism, it has proved no less nationalist than previous secular governments. Although there remains much potential for clashes between Islamist and secular Turks, neither group is ready to give up the increasing national self-assertion that has been such a feature of Turkish policy since 1991.
Whether or not Turkey ever joins the European Union, it will continue to emerge as a major regional power in south-west Asia. Islamist Turks may reject much of Ataturk's legacy, but they are as attached to his policy of national independence as secular Turks. Whatever its future role in international politics, Turkey is unlikely ever again to be the tame ally of the United States it was between 1952 and 1991.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Oil and Autonomy: Will US Withdrawal Endanger Iraq's Kurds?
In 1930 Britain agreed to grant independence to Iraq, which it had been ruling under a mandate from the League of Nations. In return the Iraqi government allowed the British to retain two air bases in the country and to train, equip, and support the Iraqi armed forces. The promised independence finally came in 1932, and one of the first acts of the new rulers in Baghdad was to send troops to suppress Kurdish separatists in the north of the country. The Iraqi government forces were initially repulsed, but had more success when British aircraft were deployed to support their efforts.
In late 2008, with its United Nations mandate to remain in Iraq running out, the United States agreed with the Iraqi government that all US combat troops would leave the country by the end of 2011. However, 'residual' US forces might remain to train Iraqi forces and these would need to retain some bases. The Baghdad government has now begun to reassert its authority over the Iraqi Kurds, challenging the autonomy they have achieved in the north of the country. The Kurds seem determined to resist this pressure. So far the Americans have said they will not take sides in the emerging struggle. However, America's earlier refusal to condemn Turkish military incursions into northern Iraq to attack Kurdish PKK guerrillas does not bode well for the future of the Iraqi Kurds.
Such are the similarities between 1932 and 2009. Perhaps more important are the differences. In 1932 British air attacks on the Kurds were nothing new. For the previous decade the British had been attempting to defeat Kurdish rebels in the north of Iraq, with only limited success. They were happy to support the Baghdad government in its efforts to subdue the Kurds.
The position of the United States today is very different from that of Britain more than seventy years ago. Iraqi Kurds have been America's most fervent supporters in that country. Indeed, in terms of popular support, Iraqi Kurds are perhaps the most pro-American Muslim group in the Middle East. While NATO ally Turkey refused to give passage to US forces intending to attack Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 2003, the Iraqi Kurds did everything possible to assist the American invaders. When the Sunni Arabs later revolted against the American occupiers, the Kurds were ready to join with the Shia Arabs to form an Iraqi central government that was largely supportive of the United States.
Now, with the prospect of American withdrawal from Iraq, the Iraqi Kurds are becoming increasingly alarmed. The government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad is working to reconcile Shia and Sunni Arabs, but this reconciliation seems likely to be at the expense of the Kurds. The Americans are now increasingly cool towards their Kurdish friends in Iraq. Is the autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan coming to an end?
That autonomy had its origins in the chaos that followed Saddam Hussein's defeat in the Gulf War of 1991. Within Iraq both the Shia Arabs and the Kurds rose up against the Baathist dictator. Both groups were brutally repressed, but, unlike the Shia Arabs, the Kurds found support from Britain and America. A 'no fly zone' was established over northern Iraq and 'safe havens', initially protected by Western troops, were set up in the area. Saddam Hussein could no longer harm most of Iraq's Kurds.
During the rest of the 1990s, these 'safe havens' coalesced into an autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, but it was not yet at peace, largely due to disagreements between Kurds and interference from neighbouring states. On several occasions the militias of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by the Talabani family, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by the Barzani family, clashed bloodily, while Turkey sent troops into the region on a number of occasions to attack PKK guerrillas based there.
Nevertheless, the Iraqi Kurds had achieved a measure of autonomy and this increased further after the United States, with help from Kurdish militias, overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003. The PUK and KDP came together to present a united Kurdish front at a time when Iraq's Arabs were fighting each other and the American occupiers. Autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, ruled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), came to look more and more like a semi-independent state. Jalal Talabani might become president of Iraq under the Kurdish-Shia agreement setting up a new Iraqi central government, but most Iraqi Kurds considered Arbil, home of the KRG, to be their capital not Baghdad.
Sunni Arab abstention from local elections in protest at the occupation only further increased Kurdish political power in the border areas of their region. The Kurds built up a strong position in Nineveh province, especially in the city of Mosul, while they sought to reverse the Arabization process Saddam Hussein had imposed on the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, where the Kurds had previously been the largest ethnic group.
Oil was an important issue between the rival authorities in Arbil and Baghdad. The KRG began to hand out contracts to search for oil to small and medium foreign energy firms without first getting permission from Baghdad. The central government retaliated by threatening not to share revenue from other oil regions of Iraq with the KRG.
After the recent provincial elections in Iraq, which the Sunni Arabs did not boycott, the Kurdish position in Nineveh and Mosul was considerably reduced. Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki's party did well in the elections, getting Sunni Arab as well as Shia Arab votes because of his claim to take a less sectarian approach to national politics than the Islamist religious parties. Although the prime minister has emphasized his commitment to unite all ethnic and religious groups in a new Iraq, it seems unlikely he will resist the temptation to unite the Arabs of Iraq through their common hostility to the Kurds.
In 2008 Iraqi central government forces took control of the oil-rich city of Khanaqin in Diyala province, despite Kurdish claims that they have an interest in the area. Earlier this year the Baghdad government even seemed ready to send its troops to Kirkuk, but later halted the deployment when Kurdish forces in that area threatened armed resistance.
Although oil will remain one of the reasons the Iraqi central government will wish to curb Kurdish separatism, its importance will probably be reduced as the balance changes in Iraq's energy production. The venerable but still important large oilfield at Kirkuk has been producing since the 1930s, but the oilfields of southern Iraq have become more important. Since southern Iraq now seems likely to enjoy a measure of peace and stability in the near future, major international energy companies are signing up to repair, modernize, and develop its oil and gas fields. This will provide the Baghdad government with valuable revenue to fund operations to curb Kurdish separatism.
Whether military efforts to overawe the Iraqi Kurds will be successful is of course another matter. The successive governments in Baghdad have been fighting Kurdish rebels in the north of the country on and off since 1962, with only intermittent success. Nevertheless, if the United States is ready to desert its Kurdish friends, then at least important centres such as Mosul and Kirkuk can be brought firmly under the rule of Baghdad. With the Iraqi Kurds unlikely to get support from any of the neighbouring countries, they may well be forced to agree to a settlement with the Iraqi national government which severely limits their present hard-won autonomy.
In late 2008, with its United Nations mandate to remain in Iraq running out, the United States agreed with the Iraqi government that all US combat troops would leave the country by the end of 2011. However, 'residual' US forces might remain to train Iraqi forces and these would need to retain some bases. The Baghdad government has now begun to reassert its authority over the Iraqi Kurds, challenging the autonomy they have achieved in the north of the country. The Kurds seem determined to resist this pressure. So far the Americans have said they will not take sides in the emerging struggle. However, America's earlier refusal to condemn Turkish military incursions into northern Iraq to attack Kurdish PKK guerrillas does not bode well for the future of the Iraqi Kurds.
Such are the similarities between 1932 and 2009. Perhaps more important are the differences. In 1932 British air attacks on the Kurds were nothing new. For the previous decade the British had been attempting to defeat Kurdish rebels in the north of Iraq, with only limited success. They were happy to support the Baghdad government in its efforts to subdue the Kurds.
The position of the United States today is very different from that of Britain more than seventy years ago. Iraqi Kurds have been America's most fervent supporters in that country. Indeed, in terms of popular support, Iraqi Kurds are perhaps the most pro-American Muslim group in the Middle East. While NATO ally Turkey refused to give passage to US forces intending to attack Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 2003, the Iraqi Kurds did everything possible to assist the American invaders. When the Sunni Arabs later revolted against the American occupiers, the Kurds were ready to join with the Shia Arabs to form an Iraqi central government that was largely supportive of the United States.
Now, with the prospect of American withdrawal from Iraq, the Iraqi Kurds are becoming increasingly alarmed. The government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad is working to reconcile Shia and Sunni Arabs, but this reconciliation seems likely to be at the expense of the Kurds. The Americans are now increasingly cool towards their Kurdish friends in Iraq. Is the autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan coming to an end?
That autonomy had its origins in the chaos that followed Saddam Hussein's defeat in the Gulf War of 1991. Within Iraq both the Shia Arabs and the Kurds rose up against the Baathist dictator. Both groups were brutally repressed, but, unlike the Shia Arabs, the Kurds found support from Britain and America. A 'no fly zone' was established over northern Iraq and 'safe havens', initially protected by Western troops, were set up in the area. Saddam Hussein could no longer harm most of Iraq's Kurds.
During the rest of the 1990s, these 'safe havens' coalesced into an autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, but it was not yet at peace, largely due to disagreements between Kurds and interference from neighbouring states. On several occasions the militias of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by the Talabani family, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by the Barzani family, clashed bloodily, while Turkey sent troops into the region on a number of occasions to attack PKK guerrillas based there.
Nevertheless, the Iraqi Kurds had achieved a measure of autonomy and this increased further after the United States, with help from Kurdish militias, overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003. The PUK and KDP came together to present a united Kurdish front at a time when Iraq's Arabs were fighting each other and the American occupiers. Autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, ruled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), came to look more and more like a semi-independent state. Jalal Talabani might become president of Iraq under the Kurdish-Shia agreement setting up a new Iraqi central government, but most Iraqi Kurds considered Arbil, home of the KRG, to be their capital not Baghdad.
Sunni Arab abstention from local elections in protest at the occupation only further increased Kurdish political power in the border areas of their region. The Kurds built up a strong position in Nineveh province, especially in the city of Mosul, while they sought to reverse the Arabization process Saddam Hussein had imposed on the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, where the Kurds had previously been the largest ethnic group.
Oil was an important issue between the rival authorities in Arbil and Baghdad. The KRG began to hand out contracts to search for oil to small and medium foreign energy firms without first getting permission from Baghdad. The central government retaliated by threatening not to share revenue from other oil regions of Iraq with the KRG.
After the recent provincial elections in Iraq, which the Sunni Arabs did not boycott, the Kurdish position in Nineveh and Mosul was considerably reduced. Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki's party did well in the elections, getting Sunni Arab as well as Shia Arab votes because of his claim to take a less sectarian approach to national politics than the Islamist religious parties. Although the prime minister has emphasized his commitment to unite all ethnic and religious groups in a new Iraq, it seems unlikely he will resist the temptation to unite the Arabs of Iraq through their common hostility to the Kurds.
In 2008 Iraqi central government forces took control of the oil-rich city of Khanaqin in Diyala province, despite Kurdish claims that they have an interest in the area. Earlier this year the Baghdad government even seemed ready to send its troops to Kirkuk, but later halted the deployment when Kurdish forces in that area threatened armed resistance.
Although oil will remain one of the reasons the Iraqi central government will wish to curb Kurdish separatism, its importance will probably be reduced as the balance changes in Iraq's energy production. The venerable but still important large oilfield at Kirkuk has been producing since the 1930s, but the oilfields of southern Iraq have become more important. Since southern Iraq now seems likely to enjoy a measure of peace and stability in the near future, major international energy companies are signing up to repair, modernize, and develop its oil and gas fields. This will provide the Baghdad government with valuable revenue to fund operations to curb Kurdish separatism.
Whether military efforts to overawe the Iraqi Kurds will be successful is of course another matter. The successive governments in Baghdad have been fighting Kurdish rebels in the north of the country on and off since 1962, with only intermittent success. Nevertheless, if the United States is ready to desert its Kurdish friends, then at least important centres such as Mosul and Kirkuk can be brought firmly under the rule of Baghdad. With the Iraqi Kurds unlikely to get support from any of the neighbouring countries, they may well be forced to agree to a settlement with the Iraqi national government which severely limits their present hard-won autonomy.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Afghanistan: More Troops, More Hostility
Long ago Britain's General Roberts, hero of the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-1880 observed: 'I feel sure I am right when I say the less the Afghans see of us, the less they dislike us.'
In our own day President Barack Obama seems to be taking the opposite view. More American and NATO troops are to be poured into Afghanistan in the belief that this will improve Afghan security and end Afghan popular support for the Taliban insurgents. Apparently the more Western troops the Afghans see, the more they will like the West.
This Afghan 'surge' in troop numbers is based on false analogies with the apparent success of the 'surge' in American forces in Iraq. The principal aim of the latter effort was to end the sectarian civil war that was tearing Iraq apart, and this was largely achieved. The conflict in Afghanistan is much more a struggle by the country's largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, to drive out foreign troops, who were once liberators, but are now seen as a Western army of occupation.
The main beneficiary of America's 'surge' in Iraq has been the country's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki. With comparative peace restored, he could ask the Americans to leave. The agreement he achieved last year which promised that all American combat troops will be out of Iraq by mid-2011 has proved hugely popular with Iraqis. Maliki received his reward with the success of his party in the recent provincial elections in Iraq.
President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has little hope of such popular acclaim at the moment. The army of 'foreign infidels' in his country is to be increased, not decreased. Yet even if all the additional reinforcements requested do appear in Afghanistan, America and her NATO allies will only have as many men as the Soviet Union had at its peak deployment during the failed attempt to subdue the Afghan insurgency during the 1980s.
Increased Western forces are said to be needed to increase security for the Afghan population, especially the Pashtuns living in the southern and eastern parts of the country. Afghans are to be 'protected' from the Taliban, as if the Taliban was some malevolent outside force distinct from local people. This is clearly a false picture. Most Taliban are drawn from the local people, whose concerns they can address much better than well-meaning Westerners who arrive surrounded by heavily-armed Western troops.
Even with reinforcements, American and NATO forces are not going to enjoy more than short-term success against the Taliban, if that. By 1984 the Soviets had beaten down Afghan resistance and several insurgent commanders had agreed truces with them. Nevertheless, then as now, as long as the Afghan insurgents had safe bases in Pakistan, they could survive to regroup and fight another day.
If American and NATO commanders want to go a step further and pacify the Pakistani borderlands, which Pakistan's own army has largely failed to do, then they will need reinforcements on a scale which would make the present 'surge' look small. Clearly that is not going to happen, so the insurgent safe havens in Pakistan are likely to continue to exist and as long as they do, resistance in Afghanistan will also survive any temporary setbacks.
President Obama has said the Afghan conflict can only be finally resolved by political means, yet almost the first act of his presidency has been to increase the American military presence in Afghanistan, thus apparently giving his support to the idea that a military victory is possible. Only when Obama's actions match his words can Afghans start to have faith in the new American president.
Real efforts must be made to start a political dialogue with the Taliban movement. If its main groups can be won over, then there is a definite chance of peace in Afghanistan. In addition, just as the Awakening movement in Iraq turned Sunni Arab insurgents against al Qaeda, the Taliban may be turned against al Qaeda once their political concerns are addressed.
One of the principal Taliban concerns is the need to remove foreign troops from Afghanistan. The sooner an outline timetable for the removal of American and NATO troops can be agreed, the sooner peace and stability can be restored to Afghanistan. One may alter General Roberts' observation to say that the less the Afghans see of Western troops, the more likely they are to negotiate a political solution to their problems.
In our own day President Barack Obama seems to be taking the opposite view. More American and NATO troops are to be poured into Afghanistan in the belief that this will improve Afghan security and end Afghan popular support for the Taliban insurgents. Apparently the more Western troops the Afghans see, the more they will like the West.
This Afghan 'surge' in troop numbers is based on false analogies with the apparent success of the 'surge' in American forces in Iraq. The principal aim of the latter effort was to end the sectarian civil war that was tearing Iraq apart, and this was largely achieved. The conflict in Afghanistan is much more a struggle by the country's largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, to drive out foreign troops, who were once liberators, but are now seen as a Western army of occupation.
The main beneficiary of America's 'surge' in Iraq has been the country's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki. With comparative peace restored, he could ask the Americans to leave. The agreement he achieved last year which promised that all American combat troops will be out of Iraq by mid-2011 has proved hugely popular with Iraqis. Maliki received his reward with the success of his party in the recent provincial elections in Iraq.
President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has little hope of such popular acclaim at the moment. The army of 'foreign infidels' in his country is to be increased, not decreased. Yet even if all the additional reinforcements requested do appear in Afghanistan, America and her NATO allies will only have as many men as the Soviet Union had at its peak deployment during the failed attempt to subdue the Afghan insurgency during the 1980s.
Increased Western forces are said to be needed to increase security for the Afghan population, especially the Pashtuns living in the southern and eastern parts of the country. Afghans are to be 'protected' from the Taliban, as if the Taliban was some malevolent outside force distinct from local people. This is clearly a false picture. Most Taliban are drawn from the local people, whose concerns they can address much better than well-meaning Westerners who arrive surrounded by heavily-armed Western troops.
Even with reinforcements, American and NATO forces are not going to enjoy more than short-term success against the Taliban, if that. By 1984 the Soviets had beaten down Afghan resistance and several insurgent commanders had agreed truces with them. Nevertheless, then as now, as long as the Afghan insurgents had safe bases in Pakistan, they could survive to regroup and fight another day.
If American and NATO commanders want to go a step further and pacify the Pakistani borderlands, which Pakistan's own army has largely failed to do, then they will need reinforcements on a scale which would make the present 'surge' look small. Clearly that is not going to happen, so the insurgent safe havens in Pakistan are likely to continue to exist and as long as they do, resistance in Afghanistan will also survive any temporary setbacks.
President Obama has said the Afghan conflict can only be finally resolved by political means, yet almost the first act of his presidency has been to increase the American military presence in Afghanistan, thus apparently giving his support to the idea that a military victory is possible. Only when Obama's actions match his words can Afghans start to have faith in the new American president.
Real efforts must be made to start a political dialogue with the Taliban movement. If its main groups can be won over, then there is a definite chance of peace in Afghanistan. In addition, just as the Awakening movement in Iraq turned Sunni Arab insurgents against al Qaeda, the Taliban may be turned against al Qaeda once their political concerns are addressed.
One of the principal Taliban concerns is the need to remove foreign troops from Afghanistan. The sooner an outline timetable for the removal of American and NATO troops can be agreed, the sooner peace and stability can be restored to Afghanistan. One may alter General Roberts' observation to say that the less the Afghans see of Western troops, the more likely they are to negotiate a political solution to their problems.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Gaza: Crushed Between Two Myths
In 2006 the United States launched two proxy wars against Islamist militants. Israel was to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon, while Ethiopia was to crush the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia. Contrary to all expectations, Israel's attacks on Lebanon failed to destroy Hezbollah. However, in Somalia, the invading Ethiopians quickly defeated the Islamist militants and installed an internationally recognised Somali government in the capital Mogadishu.
Now, two years later, the Ethiopians are pulling out of Somalia, the Somali government is on the verge of collapse, and the Islamists seem likely to retake Mogadishu. Meanwhile Israel has launched a major offensive against the Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip in a determined effort to restore its reputation for military might which was undermined by its lacklustre performance in the 2006 Lebanon war.
Gaza is to be reduced to rubble because otherwise other Middle Eastern countries will think Israel is weak and they will try to destroy the Jewish state. This myth of Israeli vulnerability has a long history. It may have had some truth in the period up to 1967, but the Six Day War of that year showed Israel to be the most powerful military state in the Middle East, a position it has never since lost.
The idea that Israel suffered some sort of defeat in the 2006 Lebanon war that now needs to be redressed by a crushing victory in Gaza is also fanciful. Israel certainly failed to destroy Hezbollah in 2006 and its military operations were mismanaged. However, Hezbollah got the message. The organisation has not launched any attacks on Israel in the last two years. Israel fought for peace on its northern border and it achieved that result.
As to a wider threat which requires Israel to take tough military action, it simply does not exist. Of the Arab states which border Israel, Egypt and Jordan are totally subordinate to America and Israel; Lebanon's Hezbollah is making no attacks; and Syria has not dared to risk any direct military confrontation with Israel for more than a quarter of a century.
If the near abroad poses no threat to Israel, what of more distant countries? Iran's supposed nuclear threat to Israel has been exaggerated by American and Israeli commentators to suit their own agendas. If Iran wants nuclear weapons, the motive is self-defence, to discourage attacks by the United States and its allies, not to threaten other countries.
Thus, on one side, we have Israel attacking Gaza so it can boost its military reputation, even though the idea of Israeli vulnerability is a complete myth. On the other side, the Hamas militants are ready to provoke Israel and resist its forces because they believe in another myth, that of Muslim solidarity.
The idea of the Arab or wider Muslim 'street' rising up to overthrow their rulers if they do not suffort the oppressed Palestinians, in Gaza or the West Bank, is still aired by certain commentators despite its absurdity. As Trotsky said long ago, in the age of the machine gun, mob rule is dead. As long as the undemocratic but pro-Western rulers of countries like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia retain the support of their security forces, what their populations think about Palestinian suffering is irrelevant.
If there is no chance of support for Hamas in the wider Muslim world, what of its particular friends? We are regularly warned that the evil alliance of Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran poses a threat not just to Israel and the Middle East, but to the whole world. Can Hamas at least expect help from its companions in evil? Apparently not. As already noted, both Hezbollah and Syria have no stomach for a military clash with Israel at the moment. Nor, despite its anti-Israel rhetoric, will Iran take any actions which might give the United States an excuse to launch a military attack on it.
Hamas in Gaza will go down to inevitable defeat still hoping vainly that the rest of the Muslim world will come to its aid. Israel will have shown its toughness once again, although it faces no serious military threat to its existence from any country in the Middle East. The people of Gaza will be the innocent victims, crushed by the weight of two myths, that of Muslim solidarity on one side and of Israeli vulnerability on the other.
Now, two years later, the Ethiopians are pulling out of Somalia, the Somali government is on the verge of collapse, and the Islamists seem likely to retake Mogadishu. Meanwhile Israel has launched a major offensive against the Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip in a determined effort to restore its reputation for military might which was undermined by its lacklustre performance in the 2006 Lebanon war.
Gaza is to be reduced to rubble because otherwise other Middle Eastern countries will think Israel is weak and they will try to destroy the Jewish state. This myth of Israeli vulnerability has a long history. It may have had some truth in the period up to 1967, but the Six Day War of that year showed Israel to be the most powerful military state in the Middle East, a position it has never since lost.
The idea that Israel suffered some sort of defeat in the 2006 Lebanon war that now needs to be redressed by a crushing victory in Gaza is also fanciful. Israel certainly failed to destroy Hezbollah in 2006 and its military operations were mismanaged. However, Hezbollah got the message. The organisation has not launched any attacks on Israel in the last two years. Israel fought for peace on its northern border and it achieved that result.
As to a wider threat which requires Israel to take tough military action, it simply does not exist. Of the Arab states which border Israel, Egypt and Jordan are totally subordinate to America and Israel; Lebanon's Hezbollah is making no attacks; and Syria has not dared to risk any direct military confrontation with Israel for more than a quarter of a century.
If the near abroad poses no threat to Israel, what of more distant countries? Iran's supposed nuclear threat to Israel has been exaggerated by American and Israeli commentators to suit their own agendas. If Iran wants nuclear weapons, the motive is self-defence, to discourage attacks by the United States and its allies, not to threaten other countries.
Thus, on one side, we have Israel attacking Gaza so it can boost its military reputation, even though the idea of Israeli vulnerability is a complete myth. On the other side, the Hamas militants are ready to provoke Israel and resist its forces because they believe in another myth, that of Muslim solidarity.
The idea of the Arab or wider Muslim 'street' rising up to overthrow their rulers if they do not suffort the oppressed Palestinians, in Gaza or the West Bank, is still aired by certain commentators despite its absurdity. As Trotsky said long ago, in the age of the machine gun, mob rule is dead. As long as the undemocratic but pro-Western rulers of countries like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia retain the support of their security forces, what their populations think about Palestinian suffering is irrelevant.
If there is no chance of support for Hamas in the wider Muslim world, what of its particular friends? We are regularly warned that the evil alliance of Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran poses a threat not just to Israel and the Middle East, but to the whole world. Can Hamas at least expect help from its companions in evil? Apparently not. As already noted, both Hezbollah and Syria have no stomach for a military clash with Israel at the moment. Nor, despite its anti-Israel rhetoric, will Iran take any actions which might give the United States an excuse to launch a military attack on it.
Hamas in Gaza will go down to inevitable defeat still hoping vainly that the rest of the Muslim world will come to its aid. Israel will have shown its toughness once again, although it faces no serious military threat to its existence from any country in the Middle East. The people of Gaza will be the innocent victims, crushed by the weight of two myths, that of Muslim solidarity on one side and of Israeli vulnerability on the other.
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