Terrorism against Israelis in Kenya

The attack on the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, Kenya (which killed 9 Kenyans and two Israeli children) and the firing of shoulder-launched missiles at an Israeli airliner leaving Mombasa airport both smacked of al-Qaeda tactics. They like at least two big explosions to go off around the same time.

Because Israel is isolated from most markets in the Arab world, it has tried to develop extensive ties with East and South Africa to offset this liability. The attack in Kenya targeted the Israeli tourist economy and Israeli investments in Kenya. It is part of al-Qaeda's continued attempts to harm the economies of those it perceives as enemies and 'invaders' of the Middle East.

In an interview on al-Jazeerah tv, Omar Bakri of the Jama`at al-Muhajirin in London said that last week al-Qaeda supporters had boasted that there would be a big operation in East Africa.

East Africa is a battleground in Christian-Muslim and East-West clashes. Some 20 percent of Kenyans are Muslim, especially along the Red Sea littoral, as well as, of course, in Somalia, and from there north Muslim and Christian groups both exist in Ethiopia and the Sudan. Muslim Eritrea won its independence from Christian Ethiopia in 1991, and Ethiopia and Somalia have had bad relations. A subdued Christian East African alliance with Israel has drawn the ire of radical Muslim fundamentalists, and combatting such an alliance lay behind Thursday's operations, in part.

East Africa is also a key site for resistance to terrorism. Kenya is an ally of the US in the war on terror. There are 160 German naval personnel in Mombasa monitoring the Horn of Africa, presumably for al-Qaeda skiffs and pirate ships.

An obscure and never before heard from Palestinian organization claimed credit in Beirut. But al-Qaeda is an umbrella organization with many Palestinian members, so that really means very little.

The US had a fair amount of success in tracking down the perpetrators of the embassy bombings by al-Qaeda in this region, and there is every hope this success will be replicated in this case.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Saudi Minister Denounces Muslim Fundamentalists (!)

Saudi Interior Minister Naef bin Abdul Aziz has denied in an interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper that there are al-Qaeda sleeper cells in Saudi Arabia. He said there might be individuals under suspicion of having terrorist links. He said Islam requires social order, and lamented that some young radicals had had their brains washed such that they had appointed themselves Muslim 'jurists' and issued rulings (fatwas) to the contrary, which were not reflective of true Islam.

He complained bitterly that hardline Muslim clerics and thinkers supported Iraq in its aggression on Kuwait in 1990, including Hasan al-Turabi of Sudan, Rachid Ghanouchi of Tunisia, Abdul Rahman Khalifa, Abdul Majid Zindani (of Yemen's Islah Party), and Islamist Necmettin Erbakan of Turkey. He said they came to Riyadh for consultations, then went off to Baghdad and supported Saddam. Remarkably, he condemned the Muslim Brotherhood (of Egypt) for all its mistakes, and for producing offshoots like Excommunication and Holy Flight, which considers any Muslim less radical than itself an infidel and orders him divorced from his wife.

Since Saudi Arabia has secretly given the Muslim Brotherhood a great deal of monetary and other support over the years, and has helped radicalize Islamists through the influence of its own puritan "Wahhabi" sect, this diatribe against the major Islamist thinkers and against the Muslim Brotherhood on the part of a Saudi Interior Minister strikes me as quite remarkable.

Has the Saudi royal family finally decided that fomenting hardline Islam throughout the world is a bad idea? Are they worried for their own security in the wake of 9/11? Or does this diatribe have something to do with the pressure the neoconservatives in Washington are putting on the Saudis? Since the Saudi state began openly supporting the Palestinians, and since its leaders balked at helping in a US war against Iraq, the kingdom has been the victim of a strident smear campaign in Washington and in the press. Its enemies have even gone so far as to attempt to implicate Princess Haifa, the wife of Saudi Ambassador to the US, Bandar Bin Sultan, in having giving money that ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda (actually she just bestowed charity on a poor Jordanian woman with 6 kids, whose husband was in the San Diego circle of Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdar, 2 of the 9/11 hijackers; this is mere guilt by distant association).

Was Prince Naef's interview a response to all this? And, how sincere could it all possibly be?



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Note: "Informed Comment" has just posted a new article on the Aghajari case below, but is on hiatus until Wednesday November 27 because Cole will be busy with conferences, including the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association conference in Washington, D.C.

While I'm gone there are a number of interesting new articles at

History News Network

also check out:

Afghanistan News Net (covers more than just Afghanistan in fact)

For the Gulf see Arab News

For Iran, try The Iranian

and for Arab-Israeli things visit:

The Mideast Gateway

Enjoy, and I'll see you all shortly before Thanksgiving.





History News Network

11-18-02: Historians & History

The Historian Who Has Been Sentenced to Death

By Juan Cole

Mr. Cole is professor of History at the University of Michigan and author of Sacred Space and Holy War (I.B. Tauris, 2002). His web site is www.juancole.com.


The death sentence passed against a professor of history at Tehran's Tarbiyat Mudarris University has provoked justified rage and indignation throughout the world and even in Iran itself. Hashem Aghajari stands accused of advocating disrespect for religious figures.

Since the death sentence was confirmed in early November, student demonstrations have been held daily, not just in Tehran but also at provincial universities such as Hamedan. The student slogans have included, "Execution of Aghajari is execution of thought in Iran!" "Political prisoners should be released!" "Freedom of thought forever!" "Our problem is the judiciary!" Twenty of his colleagues on the faculty have tendered their resignations in solidarity with him.

Aghajari's case gathers up a number of important strands in modern Iranian history. He did not, of course, actually blaspheme against Islam. What he did was call for an end to blind obedience (taqlid) on the part of the laity.

The prevailing school of jurisprudence in Shiite Islam demands that laypersons without any formal seminary training in the law defer to experts on its meaning. They are to choose a family cleric in the same way that one might choose a family physician. They abide unquestioningly by his rulings. Is it all right for a Shiite man to wear Western cologne? The cleric will decide.

This traditional authority over the details of the law has dovetailed with a new and broader political authority since Ruhullah Khomeini's Islamic Republic was established in 1979. The whole country must now defer to the rulings of Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei. If the laity does not owe blind obedience to the clerics, the reasoning of the hardline judiciary goes, then the very foundations of the Iranian theocracy would be shaken.

Aghajari's dilemma recalls several important episodes in Iranian reformism. The great nineteenth-century Iranian thinker, Sayyid Jamal al-Din "al-Afghani" (d. 1897) gave a similarly controversial talk in Istanbul in 1870. There he praised philosophy and suggested that prophets are a kind of philosopher who employ images and emotionally laden rhetoric to convey truths to the masses. (This view had been put forward by medieval thinkers such as Avicenna and Averrroes.) Al-Afghani was summarily expelled from the Ottoman capital.

Aghajari himself edited a new Persian edition of the Travel Diary of Ibrahim Beg, a late nineteenth century imaginary account of the travels through Iran of a reformer critical of what he sees.

The speech that Aghajari gave in late June commemorated the death of the revolutionary thinker Ali Shariati, an opponent of the shah trained in France in the 1960s, who was inspired by existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, Islamics specialist Henri Massignon, and the Algerian Revolution. Shariati (d. 1977) also advocated an end to blind obedience to religious authority. He believed that every Shiite had the right to engage in his or her own independent jurisprudential reasoning about the meaning of the holy law. Shariati represented a leftist strand of thinking within reformist Shiism that was brutally suppressed after the 1979 revolution. Aghajari's speech was thus very much a tribute to Shariati.

Aghajari, a war veteran who lost a leg fighting Saddam Hussein's forces, is himself a member of the left-wing Mujahidin of the Islamic Revolution Organization. He has been critical of the right in Iran for idolizing the Chinese model of economic development that allows capitalism but retains authoritarian government. Aghajari dreams of a political opening and of social democracy. He foresees the "accumulation of small but social capital, management, expertise, innovative job creation and the workforce of the entire society. In such a model, the prospect of our economy and politics can be a democratic one or in other words democracy in economy and democracy in politics."

Many believe that the death sentence passed on Aghajari is actually an attempt to make sure that the left remains dead in Iran, and that it cannot form a social democratic party that might appeal to Iran's youth. Although Khamenei has ordered a judicial review of the case, Aghajari's health remains in danger because his leg has become infected while in prison.

The death sentence has had the opposite effect of the one intended by the hardliners. Aghajari has declined to appeal it, and has refused to be silenced. His case has brought angry students out onto the streets for the first time in two years. It has also put Iran back in the international spotlight as a repressive regime rather than as a liberalizing one. It may well be that Iranians have had their fill of heresy trials, and of the ayatollahs who prosecute them. Nor should the rest of the world let this outrage pass.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

More on the Aghajari Case

The case of the history professor at Tarbiat-Modarres University in Tehran who was sentenced to death for a talk he gave continues to roil Iran. There are daily substantial student demonstrations in support of him, and boycotts of class. He is scheduled to be executed (I would say judicially murdered) on Dec. 2, and has refused to appeal the sentence. Over the weekend 20 professors at his university tendered their resignations in support of him.

In his talk of last June, he just called for a more Protestant sort of Islam where the non-clerics did not have to give blind obedience to the clerics.

Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's supreme jurisprudent, wrote a letter to the Hamedan court that issued the ruling, appearing to chastise them for forgetting the value of human life, and some take this as a sign he will intervene to stop the execution. Aghajari lost a leg fighting in Iraq, though, and it has become infected in prison, so he is not well and unless released is in danger of his life anyway.

The students are calling the death sentence for the expression of individual conscience "barbaric" and "medieval." From the mouths of babes.

(For information on how to protest the sentence to the Iranian authorities, see below.)

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Pakistani Intelligence aiding Taliban revival?

The Pakistani newspaper, Jang ("The News") says it was told by a member of the Taliban that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence is attempting to broker an alliance of the Taliban remnants with the forces of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hikmatyar. The ISI denies it and says it is cooperating with the US CIA and FBI.

The ISI is the Pakistani military intelligence division the functions like a combined FBI/ CIA for that country. It created the Taliban beginning in 1994 and supplied them with weapons, training, materiel and even adjunct troops, helping them come to power in in Afghanistan in 1996 and conquer all but 10 percent or so of the country. Former ISI chief Hamid Gul has been a big supporter of the Taliban and of al-Qaeda.

Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmed, who headed the ISI in September of 2001, had to be dismissed by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, it is rumored because he was consulting with Taliban leader Mullah Omar on how to avoid turning over Bin Laden. The ISI supplied weapons to the Taliban as late as early October, 2001, in contravention of Pakistani undertakings with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, though thereafter Pakistan did cut off the Taliban.

If rogue elements within the ISI are in fact working to get Hikmatyar and the Taliban remnants together, this is a bad sign for stability in Pakistan. The fundamentalist intelligence officers may have been emboldened by the fact that the civilian fundamentalist politicians now control the Northwest Frontier Province, with its capital of Peshawar, where any such alliance would be forged.

Neither I nor Jang can vouch for the truth of what the talib said about the ISI, but it is, at the least, interesting.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bush speaks out against Islamophobia

Since President Bush had earlier been criticized for not speaking out about the slurs being cast on Islam in the US by the Christian Right--most recently Jimmy Swaggart--(and by settler-linked extremists like Daniel Pipes), it is only right that some mention be made here of his remarks today, and those of Colin Powell. Both insisted that the slanders being uttered by some about Islam do not represent either the views of his government or those of the American people.

AP's Scott Lindlaw reported that Bush said, "Some of the comments that have been uttered about Islam do not reflect the sentiments of my government or the sentiments of most Americans," Bush told reporters as he met with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday. "Islam, as practiced by the vast majority of people, is a peaceful religion, a religion that respects others." . . . "Ours is a country based upon tolerance, Mr. Secretary-General," Bush said. "And we respect the faith and we welcome people of all faiths in America, and we're not going to let the war on terror or terrorists cause us to change our values." Lindlaw added, "Though Bush never mentioned their names, his remarks came in response to recent comments by Christian leaders Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the administration said…"

I continue to find Bush's stance on this matter (which has been consistent) extremely admirable, and shudder to think what would happen if a different view prevailed in the White House during this crisis.

In other news, Bush's niece Lauren is dating Tammer Qaddumi, a Yalie from Austin who is from a prominent Palestinian family. Her father Neil, George's youngest brother, created a stir last winter when he spoke in Saudi Arabia about how the Arab world could do better PR for its cause than it does.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/33153p-31405c.html


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Is it Bin Laden Again?

I believe the recently released Bin Ladin tape is authentic.
I could only hear snippets in the background of the CNN report, but it
certainly sounded like Bin Laden to me. He has a slightly strange
diction, with vague threats always implied, and I heard what I thought
were some characteristic idiosyncrasies.

Why audio rather than video? It is possible that Bin Ladin was disfigured at
Tora Bora. There have been rumors for some time that he was wounded
there but managed to escape. Some say he lost his voice for months as a
result of his wounds, and only regained it in September while recuperating
in Lahore, Pakistan. If he suffered facial burns, he could not now
appear on videotape without disheartening his followers. Hence the resort to
audio only.

I have for some time argued that al-Qaeda continues to be highly dangerous
to the U.S. (demonstrably moreso than Iraq), and that we should redouble our
efforts to find Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other high-level leaders of
the organization. As long as they are alive, they continue to inspire potential
followers, to devastating effect.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Now the rumors are that the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) (which is loyal to General Pervez Musharraf) along with several smaller parties, may make a coalition with the fundamentalist United Action Council to form a government. Earlier attempts to work something out with the Pakistan People's Party fell through, perhaps because Musharraf is unwilling to amnesty Benazir Bhutto and cohabit with her as prime minister.

The alternative, of bringing the Islamists into the government, seems to me far worse, and if true this development cannot be good for the U.S.

In the meantime, a tape of Bin Laden has surfaced that may indicate he is still alive and plotting further destruction against the US. It is entirely possible that he is hiding out in the Northwest Frontier Province, controlled by the United Action Council, which in the past has denied that al-Qaida is responsible for 9/11 and tried to defend the Taliban and Bin Laden.

Then, the Iraqi parliament really did reject the UN Security Council resolution requiring further weapons inspections.

Not a day full of good news.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iraqi Parliamentarians condemn UN Security Council Resolution in Opening Debate

Asharq al-Awsat says that the foreign affairs committee of the Iraqi parliament has recommended against accepting the UN Security Council resolution 1441 passed last Friday, insisting on the resumption of weapons inspections.

Yesterday, Saadoun Hammadi, the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, threw into doubt whether Iraq would accept the demands in the UN Security council resolution 1441 passed last Friday, calling many of them "impracticable." He maintained that Iraq had complied with the past UN Security Council resolutions. (This is not in fact clear to us outside observers). He added, "Every fair observer sees this resolution as contravening the terms of international law. The ill intention of this resolution is loud and clear. There are many inciteful clauses that threaten the dignity of our people." This in a report by James Drummond from Cairo for the Financial Times. Asharq al-Awsat says Hammadi charged that the resolution contained "lies" about Iraq.

The 250-seat National Assembly anyway would only make a recommendation to Saddam Hussein's 8-member Revolutionary Command Council, which would make the final decision. Drummond wonders if Hammadi's outburst signals that Iraq might reject the resolution. The report of the foreign affairs committee reinforces such a question. But this outcome seems unlikely to me, since surely the Baath high command knows that such a move would immediately embroil them in a war with the U.S. It is true that the Iraqi leadership is unpredictable.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iraq is complaining about repeated Turkish incursions into its airspace, and is taking the matter to the Arab league.

Given that there is a no-fly zone in the northern, Kurdish areas near Turkey and that Iraq does not even control its airspace up there, this particular complaint seems bizarre on the face of it. But presumably it is part of a campaign to paint the pressure being applied to Iraq to comply with international weapons inspections as a non-Arab plot against the land of an Arab nation. The implication from the Iraq side is that Turkey may be planning to invade or to claim Iraqi territory. Of course, this implication is meant to scare Iraqi Kurds into not cooperating with the US invasion plans, either.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Amnesty International Appeal for Dr. Aghajari

PUBLIC
AI Index:MDE 13/022/2002; UA 330/02 - 7 November 2002
Threat of execution/medical concern

IRAN - Dr Seyyed Hashem Aghajari (m), aged 45, writer and academic

Prisoner of conscience Dr Seyyed Hashem Aghajari, a history professor at Tehran's Tarbiat Modares University, is at threat of execution.

He was arrested on 8 August following a speech he gave on 19 June in Hamedan, western Iran. His speech, entitled "Islamic Protestantism" reportedly called for a "religious renewal" in which Muslims should not "blindly follow religious leaders".

According to media reports on 7 November, Dr Seyyed Hashem Aghajari was sentenced to 74 lashes, eight years' imprisonment - to be served in "internal exile" - and death following a closed trial in Hamedan, on 6 November. He faced vaguely worded accusations consisting of defamation and insult charges, notably of religious figures and leaders. Dr Seyyed Hashem Aghajari's lawyer has indicated that he will appeal against the death penalty; he has 21 days in which to do so.

According to his family, Dr Seyyed Hashem Aghajari is in urgent need of medical attention to his right leg, amputated at the knee during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. His leg is apparently bruised and infected and he is reportedly unable to stand up, walk or use the prison's hygiene facilities.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Vaguely worded laws, open to abuse, restrict freedom of expression and opinion and frequently do not amount to recognizably criminal offences. Prisoner of conscience, Hojjatoleslam Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari was sentenced to death in 2001 on similar charges following an unfair trial in a special court. It was reduced to two and a half years (please see Amnesty International's Annual Report 2002 and UAs MDE 13/22/00, 9 August 2000 and MDE 13/016/2001, 21 May 2001); in October 2002, a sentence of seven years' imprisonment was handed down in connection with separate charges.

To date, Amnesty International has recorded 97 executions in 2002, although the true figure may be much higher. In 2001 Amnesty International urged the authorities to urgently consider a moratorium on executions in line with UN recommendations (AI Index MDE 13/031/2001, 17 August 2001).

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 6 (4) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a state party. It states that "Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence."

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in English or your own language:
- urging the death sentence and all other penalties passed on Dr Seyyed Hashem Aghajari be suspended immediately or commuted on appeal;
- urging the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to commute the death sentence passed, in line with Article 6 of the ICCPR;
- calling on the authorities to allow Dr Seyyed Hashem Aghajari to receive medical treatment;
- urging the judicial authorities to implement a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, which is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment prohibited under Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to which Iran is a state party, with a view to its eventual abolition;
- calling for Dr Seyyed Hashem Aghajari's conviction to be overturned and that, if he is charged with recognizably criminal offences, he be tried according to internationally accepted standards for fair trial;

APPEALS TO:
Leader of the Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei,
The Presidency, Palestine Avenue,
Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Salutation: Your Excellency
Email: webmaster@wilayah.org; (on the subject line write: For the attention of the office of His Excellency, Ayatollah al Udhma Khamenei, Qom)

President
His Excellency Hojjatoleslam val Moslemin Sayed Mohammad Khatami
The Presidency, Palestine Avenue
Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
E-mail: khatami@president.ir
Salutation: Your Excellency

Head of the Judiciary
His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi
Ministry of Justice, Park-e Shahr, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Faxes: + 98 21 879 6671 (unreliable; please mark "care of Director of International Affairs, Judiciary")
Salutation: Your Excellency

COPIES TO:
Minister of Foreign Affairs,
His Excellency Kamal Kharrazi
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Abdolmajid Keshk-e Mesri Av
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Faxes: + 98 21 390 1999 (unreliable; please mark "care of the Human Rights Department, Foreign Ministry)
Salutation: Your Excellency

Influential Religious Leaders:

Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani
Fax: +98 251 772 3098
E-Mail: Fazel@Lankarani.com

Grand Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Sistani
Office of Grand Ayatollah Sistani
P.O.Box No. 3514\37185
Muallim Street, Qom
Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: +98 251 222 3239 (please try +98 511 222 3239 if that does not work)
E-mail: Sistani@Sistani.org
Grand Ayatollah Saafi Golpayegani
Email: Saafi@Saafi.net

Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei
Email: Saanei@Saanei.org

and to diplomatic representatives of Iran accredited to your country.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the International Secretariat, or your section office, if sending appeals after 19 December 2002.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Jordan declines to Join in Iraq War (Again)

Jordan's Foreign Minister Marwan al-Mu`ashir continued to maintain today that its territory could not be used in any U.S. attack on Iraq. He said that the US understands he constraints on his government.

He may have been referring to the anti-American fatwas issued at a recent gathering of Jordanian Muslim clerics in the capital of Amman, of the Islamic Action Front. This organization is a branch of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan. The clerics called for jihad or holy war against the United States, which they branded an "enemy of God."

Some splinter group of the Muslim Brotherhood is suspected in the recent assassination of Laurence Foley, a US AID diplomat in Amman.

Jordan is still extremely worried about the potential for massive disturbances throughout the Middle East that might ensue from a US Iraq campaign.

On other fronts, al-Mu`ashir called on the Palestinians to cease suicide bombings, so as to avoid strengthening the Israeli Likud party in the run-up to a new election early next year. He also expressed confidence that the Israelis would not, as some have feared, use a looming Iraq war as a cover to engage in ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, pushing them en masse into Jordan. He said American pressure was sufficient to forestall such a development.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Deal struck for Government in Pakistan?

Rumors are swirling in the Pakistani press ("informed sources say . . .") that a deal has finally been struck under U.S. pressure that will allow the formation of a national unity government including both the Pakistan People's Party and the Muslim League (QA) along with a number of smaller parties and groups. The PPP's Amin Fahim would be prime minister, while the Muslim League (QA)'s Zafaru'llah Jamali would be Speaker of the House.

This arrangement would keep the fundamentalist United Action Council (MMA) out of power at the center (it controls the Northwest Frontier Province provincial government). The PPP had earlier been threatening to make a coalition with the MMA, which might have brought pro-Taliban figure Fazlur Rahman of the Jami`at Ulama Islam in as prime minister of the country (!).

Mayed Ali and Ziaullah Niazi of Jang/ The Nation maintain that the new coalition was announced after US Under Secretary of State Christina Rocca met with PPP leader Benazir Bhutto in Washington early this week, in which she conveyed the strong displeasure of the US with her party's dalliance with the fundamentalists.

Bhutto clearly wanted a quid pro quo, and apparently part of it will be the release of her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, from prison (he has been in jail several years on corruption and other charges. When his wife was PM they used to call him 'Mr. Ten Percent' because he was alleged to take a cut of big gov't contracts).

My guess is that the quid pro quo won't stop there. All along, the PPP has wanted a political amnesty for Benazir herself (she is also facing corruption charges), and has wanted to bring her back to the country. It seems to me likely Gen. Musharraf will have to give in on this matter (he has been adamant in rejecting the idea of her return, representing himself as 'cleaning house' of the old corrupt civilian leadership).

If it is true that the US intervened, the situation reminds me of how the Italian Parliament used to go through contortions to keep the Communist Party from being in any coalition with the governing party there.

In the end, Musharraf's attempt to permanently sideline the older, powerful parties such as the PPP has failed, since they appear likely to get the prime ministership. Whether he can retain his power and prerogatives in the face of an elected prime minister from such a party remains to be seen.

I continue to maintain that Musharraf's high-handed amendments of the constitution last summer and the restrictions he put on campaigning had the effect of damaging the process of return to democracy, not to mention helping the fundamentalists take the Northwest Frontier. A national unity government will be extremely weak, could fall at any moment, and may well come into a fateful confrontation with Musharraf over issues like the fate of Benazir Bhutto.

Still, in the short term at least, the exclusion of the fundamentalists from a key role in the national government is a victory for the US and will help the war on terror continue to be prosecuted vigorously in the badlands and cities of Pakistan. The US, by the way, has also announced a billion dollars in debt relief for Pakistan.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Predator strike against al-Qaeda in Yemen

The strike on Abu `Ali al-Harithi and his companions near Marib was carried out by a Predator controlled from Langley because past attempts to use conventional forces in this regard had failed. Last December, the Yemeni government sent in its special forces to search for al-Harithi and others. The local tribesmen allied with him put up fierce resistance, killing 18 soldiers. Al-Harithi and his colleagues escaped in the confusion.

Although the government now has 80 tribal sheikhs working for it ("Sheikhs against Terrorism") against al-Qaeda, the complexities of these clans and of local politics are such that I very much doubt that they can be trusted with information about a strike against someone like al-Harithi without it leaking. But if you don't alert the sheikhs to an operation in Marib, you face the possibility of having to fight tribesmen guarding their turf. Moreover, al-Qaeda is trying to intimidate the sheikhs who are cooperating with the government. The leader of the Bakil had two of his mansions come under rocket fire last weekend.

The Yemeni government had the farm at which al-Harithi was staying under surveillance by agents on the ground, who tracked his movements in the Rub` al-Khali. They (perhaps in cooperation with US special forces personnel also on the ground) presumably called down the Predator strike on his vehicle. The Predator probably took off from Djibouti. They thus risked no Yemeni or US conventional forces, avoided possible further firefights with local tribesmen, and sent a very powerful message to the re-grouping al-Qaeda leadership that they cannot hide and could die at any moment.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Are Arabs Anti-American?

On a list I am on, we have been discussing Barry Rubin's article on the roots of Arab anti-Americanism in the current Foreign Affairs.

Several of us feel his arguments are vitiated by recent polling data that demonstrates the love Arabs and Muslims have for American values such as democracy and freedom of speech. These are the results of the recent Zogby poll and those of social science research carried out by my colleague Ron Inglehart and by Pippa Norris [pdf] as part of the world values survey.

I am surprised that Barry Rubin did not refer to this research, though perhaps he wrote before its conclusions became widely known.

All the evidence is that most Muslims strongly support core American values such a
democracy, freedom of expression, and so forth. (They have *more* faith in democracy than do Americans!) They disagree with US society mainly on lifestyle issues--the gay issue, women's state of what they see as undress, sexual promiscuity, etc. In short, Muslims have a quite a lot in common with US Baptists, from all accounts.

Just an anecdotal piece of support for all this. As far back as the late 1970s, the Egyptian government did an opinion poll among Egyptians about what sort of television programming they would like to see more of. Al-Ahram reported the results, and it was clear that there was overwhelming support for having more "American action dramas." The peasants of Upper Egypt included, they wanted the A Team and Charlie's Angels! And, we all know how wildly popular soap operas like Falcon's Crest and Dynasty were in Cairo, as well.

The resentments against US foreign policy are variable and many of the issues change over time. There was anger over US inaction in Bosnia in the early 1990s, but then the US appears to have gotten no points for finally intervening and saving the Bosnian Muslims (I think Barry Rubin makes this sort of point). The US seems to get part of the blame for the Russian actions in Chechnya, which is bewildering. The way the Gulf War saved Kuwaitis and very possibly others from Baathist oppression was only briefly and grudgingly acknowledged, and then soon the sanctions regime on Iraq was configured into a US-led plot to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraq babies (as though Saddam's policies had nothing to do with it).

The bad press the US gets no matter what it does strikes me as analogous to almost a party spirit. We all know that pro-Republican newspapers in the US never cut the Clinton Administration any slack, and dwelled on the negatives. Human beings seem to have, as Dawkins has recently argued, an innate tendency to map their social boundaries in binary terms, with insiders you trust and are willing to give the benefit of the doubt, and outsiders you hold in greater suspicion and of whom you tend to be critical.

Much of the Muslim world seems to see the US as the "opposing party," not in the sense of disagreeing with core values (in the US Democrats and Republicans are devoted to the same constitution) but in the sense of being marked as the political "Other." This way of seeing the US is not limited to Muslims, after all. The SDP/green alliance in Germany seem to increasingly feel the same way, as does what is left of the left in Italy. (One thing Barry is wrong about is that Middle Easterners were not the only ones who expressed ambivalence about 9/11. I saw an Italian poll
where about a quarter of respondents said they could understand why it was done! Presumably these people were former Communists or maybe also on the far right. Likewise there was apparently elation over the attacks among some in China.)

I think it would be foolish not to factor in the US support for Israel into this equation, but we would need more research to determine how much of the whole it actually explains. (It would presumably explain little of the anti-Americanism in Italy or China).

Moreover, there is a remarkable amnesia in the region about episodes like the Jordanian Civil War of 1970-71 (which destroyed the PLO there and killed thousands of civilian Palestinians); the Phalangist massacres of Palestinians in 1976; the Syrian attack on the PLO in 1976 to save the rightwing Christian Phalangists (with Syrian military presence in Lebanon later funded by the Saudis); the elation of the Shi`ite Lebanese about the Israeli attack on the PLO in 1982; the Kuwaiti mass expulsion of the Palestinians after the Gulf War, and other rather Draconian actions against Palestinian interests by Arabs that are arguably far worse by an order of magnitude than anything the US ever did to them.

Perhaps the Arab-Israeli issue acts in the Middle East as a "premise" that casts the US as part of the "opposing party" in the first place, in people's minds. Once you are the "political other," you would constantly be being sniped at. I don't know. It should be possible to find out. I think we've moved in US political science beyond the point where punditry on these things is sufficient. Why not just do some sophisticated scientific polling and analysis and see?

I should also think that such social science work would be important in Charlotte Beers' current advertising campaign. Who can we know how to pitch the ads if we haven't figured out why exactly we are unpopular?


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Election Trouble for US: Turkey and Pakistan

Electoral politics in the Muslim world continue to produce results troubling to the policies of the Bush administration. On Monday it was announced in Pakistan that the Pakistan People's Party and the United Islamic Council had reached an accord allowing them to attempt to form a government. The PPP ceded the prime ministership to Fazlur Rahman, a notorious far-right fundamentalist who supports the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Other major posts would go to the PPP.

It is not clear that a PPP/MMA government will really come to be. The rival Muslim League (QA) also claims that it can form a government, and is wooing the semi-fascist party for Urdu speakers, the MQM (United National Movement) as a junior partner in government to shore up its claims. Presumably Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the military dictator, will ask the Muslim League (QA) to form a government rather than the PPP. Any such government, however, would have a razor thin parliamentary majority, would depend on the good will of a gaggle of independents, and could easily fall, requiring new elections or a return to martial law. If the PPP/MMA coalition did come to power, it would be very bad news for the US.

In Turkey, with 18% of precincts reporting as of this writing, the Islamist Justice and Development Party (Ak) was getting 35 percent of the vote. The current ruling party is doing poorly and Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit may not even be reelected to his parliamentary seat. The JDP is opposed to a US war on Iraq, though it says it will respect United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The glib rhetoric about spreading democracy in the Middle East coming out of the hawkish corners of the Bush administration has painted a world in which more Muslim democracy would equal less anti-Americanism. Such a principle has not even held in Germany, and is obviously even less valid in the Muslim world. The lesson is not that democracy is bad, or that Muslims should be denied it. It is that unilateralist American wars in the region will be unpopular, and that unpopularity will show up at the polls whenever it is allowed to. People in the Middle East know what colonialism looks like, and they recognize the Wolfowitz plan for them as neocolonialism.



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Fighting broke out again near Shindand in Afghanistan between the forces of Ismail Khan of Herat and those of his Pushtun foe Amanu'llah Khan. Five were killed and nine wounded in the battle. This struggle has flared into violence intermittently, as have similar conflicts among warlords near Mazar-i Sharif in the north and in Paktia province in the east.

Since the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan down to Karachi is going to have to pass through the region in which the new fighting occurred, it is a bad sign for the stability of the country and its future revenues. I thought last summer was too soon to begin to reign in the warlords, who after helped overthrow the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But this faction fighting is getting old and beginning to hurt the country's prospects. President Karzai is helpless to intervene, and the US appears to think having a good talk with the warlords from time to time is enough.


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Bahrain Elections: Islamists Win

Now that the second round in the Bahrain elections has been completed, it appears that the Sunni Islamists have a bare majority in the lower house of parliament. They have 22 of the 40 seats. Of the victors in the second round, only three are liberals (one Sunni and a Shiite). Seven are Salafi Sunnis, and seven belong to the Muslim Brotherhood's National Islamic Forum. Another Sunni cleric won as an independent. Two Shiite Islamists won, though the Shiites (the country's majority) were woefully underrepresented because they boycotted the elections. The other 20 seats were won by independents, but several of them were backed by the Islamists, so that apparently they contribute to the emergent Sunni fundamentalist majority.

All the women who ran were defeated.

Although some outside observers are touting the elections as a big breakthrough for democracy in the Arab world, I fear it is difficult for me to see it that way. The majority Shiite community boycotted the elections in protest against the fact that the upper chamber of parliament will be appointed, and will be able to over-rule the lower chamber.

So, in the end, we once again have been given a Duma by an Arab ruler. Worse, this ineffectual debating society is wholly unrepresentative. Most Bahrainis are Shiites, and most are more worried about social issues than about some Islamist utopia. Having the lower house dominated by Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood in Bahrain is like having the Southern Baptists dominate the US Congress. (Most Americans are not Baptists, much less Southern Baptists, though it is a significant denomination).

Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood are the spectrum of the Gulf population from which al-Qaeda sympathizers have come, though by no means all Islamists are violent. To have them be voted the majority in a parliament that presides over the Gulf naval base for the US fleet is a little worrisome. Of course, it may not matter much since they can be over-ruled by the appointed upper house.

But then why is all this a good thing, exactly?





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Safwat al-Sharif, the Minister of Culture in Egypt, insists that a television serial that depends on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for plot elements will be shown during the fasting month of Ramadan despite Israeli protests. The "Protocols" are a forgery cooked up by the tsarist police in the early 20th century and depict Jews as engaged in a powerful conspiracy to control the world. The television serial applies this scenario to the Middle East.

Al-Sharif says the serial is not anti-semitic, but what he appears to mean to say is that it is not anti-Judaic. That is, it casts no slurs on the Jewish religion. Blasphemy against any of the "heavenly" religions is forbidden in Egypt. From all accounts the serial is in fact antisemitic, and there is a danger of it spreading European-style hatred of Jews to the Arab masses.

Muslim culture did not have the same sort of racially based antisemitism as arose in Europe. Indeed, on the whole and by and large Muslims treated Jews much better than Europeans did in the medieval period (there were unfortunate lapses of course, but Islam recognized Judaism as a legitimate religion in a way that Christendom did not). Before the 19th century the blood libel was unknown in the Middle East, and even then it mainly was introduced among Middle Eastern Christians and on a small scale.

To any extent that contemporary Muslims have a problem with Jews, it is largely driven by what they see as injustices done by Zionists to the Palestinians. Most Muslims when pressed would insist that there is a difference between criticizing Zionism and criticizing Jews per se.

But this television serial, in ascribing unsavory conspiracies aimed a regional domination to the Jewish people partakes of a new sort of antisemitism in the Arab world, which self-consciously draws on the European traditions.

Egypt is better than this, and it is a sad thing to see the government license the fostering of hatred toward a people on whom the Koran bestows much praise, whose religion is recognized in Islam as "heavenly." The demonization of any people is always wrong. Beyond the ethics of it, the Middle East is such a powder keg that it is just plain dangerous to give a mass audience the idea that Jews want to take over their governments and rule them. Someday some terrorist is going to do something truly horrible out of such motivations, and Safwat al-Sharif will bear part of the blame.

On the other hand, the increasing respectability within Israel of talking about the "transfer" (i.e. ethnic cleansing) of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is an even more alarming development on the other side. There can be no "voluntary" Palestinian exodus, only one attended with great bloodshed and violence. Israelis who contemplate such a thing, and Ariel Sharon may be among them, appear not to realize that such an action would throw the Middle East into turmoil and endanger Israeli security. Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, and the fairly good relations with Jordan, are not written in stone. Arabs are already angry about the lack of progress toward a Palestinian state. Ethnic cleansing would produce massive protests and change the face of the region permanently, and not in a way that would enhance Israeli security in the long run.








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