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Assault on Iraqi writers

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Assault on Iraqi writers

Fear is hanging over secular Iraqi intellectuals following a militia raid on the Writers Union building in Baghdad, writes Salah Nasrawi

Last week’s attack on the offices of the Iraqi Union of Writers has led to fears that the country is turning into a nation ruled by fundamentalist militias and vigilante groups known for their bigotry and use of violence.

The dramatic rise of the self-styled religious extremist groups has been connected to growing pressure from the government and political groups on the media to show public support for the Shia Popular Mobilisation Forces which are battling the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

On 17 June about 50 black-clad gunmen stormed the headquarters of the Writers Union in downtown Baghdad. They beat up staff and guards and destroyed the offices of an organisation that has long taken pride in its secularism and defied rising sectarian extremism and religious fundamentalism.

The rampage shocked the intelligentsia of a nation that has been living in dread of a sectarian war since IS seized large parts of Iraq last summer. The attack by gunmen dressed in military uniforms triggered an outpouring of public anger at home and expressions of solidarity from around the world.

In a statement, the Union said that dozens of armed men attacked its offices and briefly held its guards and staff hostage. The assailants, who used SUVs without licence plates, set up temporary roadblocks to divert traffic in the area during the raid, the statement said.

It said the attackers seized identity cards, money and personal mobile phones from the Union’s employees and security guards and smashed furniture in offices before leaving.

Union President Fadel Thamir described the attack as an attempt to “turn Iraq into an extremist religious state like [Taliban-controlled] Afghanistan.” Thamir, a well-known literary critic, urged the government to “bring the perpetrators to justice and stop violations against writers.”

Said Thamir, “This aggression underscores the dangers to the lives and safety of all those who work in literature and cultural organisations.” The Shia-led government had no immediate reaction to the attack, but Baghdad’s chief of security promised an investigation.

Iraqi President Fouad Masum, a Kurd whose post is ceremonial and has no executive power, said the assault “undermines both the state and the rule of law.” He called on the authorities to provide protection to the Union and other organisations.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, but from the little information available it seems clear that it was planned by an organised Shia-fundamentalist network, probably targeting a social club and bar on the premises.

The religiosity of society in Iraq has grown since the overthrow of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s secular regime in the US-led invasion in 2003. It is not unusual for hardline groups, sometimes working closely with the security forces, to raid alcohol shops, bars and nightclubs in Baghdad.

They step up their vigilante activities during Ramadan to ensure the Islamic fasting month is not tainted. Ramadan this year started on 18 June, a day before the raid on the Union building, but there were no reports of members or guests having been caught drinking alcohol during the raid.

Union member have been harassed by Shia fundamentalist vigilantes on many occasions before. In 2012, security forces stormed the social club in the building and forced all those who were there to leave under threat of violence.

Volunteer groups claiming to “promote virtue and prevent vice” on the streets have been chastising and, in some cases, physically assaulting and arresting people they consider to be sinful or behaving improperly.

In July, two dozen women and two men in an alleged brothel in Baghdad were murdered by gunmen who stormed the place. Scores of young people whose behaviour is perceived to be unconventional have been murdered in recent years.

There have been no investigations into these and other cases to determine the perpetrators, but many Iraqis believe it is clear who is responsible. They say the killings have been carried out by members of local militia or religious groups.

The attack against the Writers Union, however, raises broader questions about the Shia-led government’s policy toward culture in view of the increasing hostility to secular and moderate intellectuals in Iraq.

Following the fall of Saddam’s dictatorship, Iraqi writers, journalists and artists hoped that the country’s new rulers would make commitments to changes underpinned in the new constitution to build a participatory and inclusive democratic culture.

Unfortunately, the worst fears of the intelligentsia in the Arab part of Iraq have come true: Shia fundamentalist groups who came to power after Saddam’s fall have begun to impose their religious ideology and conservative lifestyle.

In Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region, which is under the rule of a heavy-handed political coalition government, free speech and political and intellectual dissent are hardly tolerated.

Today, Iraq lacks a national cultural policy with clear values and priorities able to promote democracy and diversity, sustain the country as a richly creative society and ultimately be the best hope for stability in what is now a dangerously unstable nation.

Post-Saddam Iraq has had no ministers of culture who were interested in their portfolio or took their jobs seriously. All the posts in the Ministry of Culture are now filled with political appointees or cronies with little or no cultural background or activities.

Under a chequebook reward system, thousands of carefully selected writers, journalists and artists receive financial support from the ministry each year.

But no philosophy or goals to affirm the centrality of culture and the arts to Iraq’s national identity and to ensure their role in strengthening national unity have been set. Individual creativity is rarely recognised or encouraged.

Threatened and frustrated, Iraqi intellectuals rarely form groups to oppose the government. Rather, individual intellectuals or groups of intellectuals ally themselves with cliques within the government to lend their support to the policies of the ruling groups.

Many Iraqi writers, artists and intellectuals have left Iraq for lives in exile out of fears of harassment, or because they have been deprived of jobs or opportunities. Those who have stayed and want to make a living in Iraq have had to cooperate with the state’s or ruling groups’ institutions, or resort to self-censorship.

Iraqi journalists have also been the targets of campaigns by the government or the ruling political class to stifle the media or buy their silence. Hundreds of media workers have been killed or murdered in violence since 2003, and independent journalists remain subject to intimidation, harassment and exclusion.

During the last 12 years, bit by bit, the Iraqi media has fallen into full compliance with the structures of power, most notably the government and those of the ruling cliques. The majority of the media outlets in Iraq are now either institutionally embedded with or submissive to the ruling groups. Almost all media owners or bosses are people who have nothing to do with journalism.

Iraqi journalists are subjected to sectarian polarisation in their daily practices. Acrimonious infighting, selective engagement in public causes and a lack of professionalism are common. As a result of cunning operations by both the government and complicit media organisations, Iraq now has a toothless mainstream media that lacks efficiency and influence, and is not trusted by the general public.

The country’s national media organisation, the Iraqi Media Network, has fallen under the total control of the state, as journalists who served in party propaganda machines or loyal bureaucrats with little or no knowledge of journalism and carefully chosen by the prime minister’s office have been appointed to key positions.

The Iraqi Journalists Syndicate is seen to be cozying up to the government and the political elite in return for protection and profits such as financial rewards, pensions and land.

The absence of objective and professional coverage has led to the widespread reporting of government propaganda, something that is sadly familiar to Iraqis from Saddam’s decades in power.

Since IS’s advances last summer, the government has increased its pressure on the media to make journalists follow the official propaganda line on the war against the terror group. Criticism or “negative reporting” are often labelled as treason or even denounced as betrayals of the Islamic creed.

Last week, local media reported that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has formed a “War Media Cell” to oversee and coordinate news reporting on the fighting with IS.

They said the main duty of the group will be to feed the media with the government’s narrative of the war and circulate news of the “successes” of the security forces and the Popular Mobilisation Force. It will also monitor local and international coverage of the war, the media said.

This article appeared first in Al Ahram Weekly on June 26, 2015

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Shia-Sunni schism deepens

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Shia Sunni schism deepens

If we have any sense of history, the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East are sectarian in essence, writes Salah Nasraw

Like the summer heat, the fear of impending sectarian clashes is weighing on the Middle East these days. Compared with previous catastrophic wars, a sectarian flare-up looks much worse and could have profound implications for our time. Even Ramadan, Islam’s most sacred month, doesn’t seem immune from the gloom.

From wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, a government crisis in Lebanon, and the bombings in Saudi Arabia, the perception that the region is sinking into deep sectarian conflicts is becoming a reality. Fierce rivalry between a Sunni camp led by Saudi Arabia and a Shia conglomerate led by Iran is heightening sectarian tensions, even in conflicts that are primarily political.

A key factor behind the tension is the rise of Shia Islam that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and fears that the newly empowered Shia will try to carve out political space for themselves in a Sunni-dominated region. The turmoil that marred the region in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions, which trigged a tectonic shift in the Middle East’s geopolitical landscape, has also increased regional sectarian tensions.

In Iraq, the rise of the Shia upset the sectarian balance in the multi-ethnic and multi-religious country and reinforced the historic conflict between Islam’s two main sects. The Shia-led government failed to build a consensus democracy following the overthrow of the Sunni-dominated regime of former president Saddam Hussein. This gave rise to Sunni radicalisation and mobilisation to fight back against what Sunnis perceived as exclusion and marginalisation.

The culmination of the Sunni insurgency in the Islamic State (IS) group’s onslaught last year and its seizure of vast chunks of territory has sharpened the sectarian divide as Shia militias moved quickly to fight for what they saw as their survival against the militants. Sectarian violence and atrocities committed by both sides have deepened the intercommunal strife and taken the region’s historic Shia-Sunni split to a potentially explosive level.

The popular uprising against the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad in Syria soon turned into another regional sectarian flashpoint when Iran and the rest of the Shia in the Middle East backed the Alawite-dominated regime, while Sunni Arabs supported the country’s Sunni majority. The war has engulfed the residents of Alawite and Sunni villages and towns in massive atrocities and in many cases revealed vengeful tendencies towards sectarian point-scoring.

In a recent interview with the Al-Jazeera television network, Abu Mohamed Al-Golani, head of the radical Al-Nusra Front, warned that his Al-Qaeda-affiliated group did not only want Syrian Alawites to disavow Al-Assad and drop their arms, but also to “correct their doctrinal mistakes and embrace Islam.” Al-Golani vowed to fight Iran, which he described as a “non-Islamic” and “Persian” state hostile to the Arabs.

EXTENSION OF THE CONFLICT: The war in Syria has spilled over into neighbouring Lebanon, with the Shia group Hizbullah siding with Al-Assad and many of the Sunni faithful in Lebanon openly supporting Syrian rebels. Over the past few weeks, clashes have roiled the borders with Syria as Hizbullah carried out its most intense operations against Sunni militants who have taken up positions in the porous mountainous region.

Hizbullah’s offensive has increased Shia-Sunni tensions in a country that has its own turbulent history of religious and sectarian struggles. Many expect that in a post-Al-Assad Syria dominated by Sunnis, their co-religionists in Lebanon will take heart and demand a greater role and more power. If Al-Assad, or the Alawite minority, stays in power, or if Syria falls apart into ethnic mini-states, Lebanon could easily follow suit, but only after another bloody war.

The crisis in Yemen, where competing forces are also fighting for control, has further galvanised the region. Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of Gulf Arab nations in the fight against Shia Houthis who now control large swathes of land in the impoverished but strategically important country. The Saudi-led intervention has turned what was mostly seen as a political and tribal power struggle into a sectarian conflict between the Houthi minority and Yemen’s Sunni majority.

In all these countries the conflicts between the Shia and Sunni communities are seen as part of the larger regional geopolitical struggle between Shia-ruled Iran and Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia. The sectarian alignment, crystallised in the war in Yemen with Saudi Arabia assembling a coalition of Sunni nations against the pro-Iranian Shia Houthi rebels, is a clear sign of how sectarianism is snowballing.

Given the intensity and scale of the Shia-Sunni conflict in the region and its dynamics, Saudi Arabia itself is not immune to the sectarian competition. Saudi Arabia’s Shia, who comprise about 15 per cent of the population, have been struggling for greater political and economic rights and especially equal treatment by the country’s dominant Wahhabi establishment, which considers them as heretics.

Last month, attacks in the Shia-dominated eastern province of the country, where dozens of Shia worshipers were killed by IS suicide bombers, were an indication of how rising tension in the region is penetrating the kingdom itself, feeding a bloody sectarian struggle. Following the deadly attacks, messages posted on social media in the kingdom were rife with anti-Shia rhetoric, with some calling for the killing of the “impure” Shia infidels and the destruction of their “temples.”

Frightened and feeling betrayed, Shia in the eastern province sought to take matters into their own hands and create self-protection committees to guard against IS attacks. That was immediately rejected by Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Nayef, also deputy premier and minister of the interior, who warned that the government “will confront those who try to undermine its security and stability with an iron fist.”

Other Middle Eastern Muslim countries where Shia are small minorities, such as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Sudan, have not been spared the spiralling sectarian tension raging in the region.

In Egypt, a report by the Cairo-based Regional Centre for Strategic Studies cautioned against the “repercussions of Shia political and religious activity” in Egypt after the 25 January Revolution in 2011. The report said the “reactions of the Egyptian Shia sect to Operation Decisive Storm have gained a lot of attention and raised questions about the extent of the presence of the Shia in Egypt.”

In April, a new Salafi group was formed to combat Shia activism in Egypt. The announced launch of the Coalition for the Defence of the Prophet’s Companions followed increased Shia-Sunni polarisation over the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen. Security crackdowns on the Shia in Egypt, including closing down their offices and questioning their leaders, have also increased.

FIRE UNDER THE ASHES: The modern Shia-Sunni struggle dates back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and its aftermath, when conservative Sunni countries in the Middle East, faced with Shia Iran’s claim to lead Muslims worldwide, responded by challenging the Islamic credentials of the Shia ayatollahs who had become Iran’s new rulers. The Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s opened a new chapter in the sectarian schism, as most of the Arab countries supported Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime against Shia Iran.

The animosity gained new impetus with the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which empowered the majority Iraqi Shia at the expense of the Arab Sunni minority that had ruled Iraq since independence in the 1920s. The prospect of a Shia-led Iraq triggered alarms bell among many Sunni regimes of the danger of a geopolitical shift in the region, one in which Shia Arabs could ally themselves with Shia Iran.

Many Sunni Arab leaders started warning of a Shia Crescent, the crescent-shaped region of the Middle East where the majority population is Shia, or where there is a strong Shia minority in the population. The idea was that a shared faith could lead to potential cooperation between Iran, Iraqi Shia, Alawite-dominated Syria, and the politically powerful Shia Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Sunni militant groups, such as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which were born in the upheaval that following, took anti-Shia zeal to new heights. The rivalry reached genocidal levels with the resurgence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL), an Al-Qaeda offshoot, after civil war erupted in Syria in 2011. The group, which later declared itself as a caliphate and came to be known as the Islamic State, refuses to recognise the Shia as Muslims and has given them a grim choice of conversion or death.

ROOTS OF DIVISION: The Sunni and the Shia are the two main sects of Islam. Followers of both sects believe Allah is God, that Mohamed was his last prophet, and that the Qur’an is the holy book of Islam.

Unlike the different denominations of Christianity, the division between Muslim Shia and Sunnis is not defined by doctrine. They share most of the same Islamic tenets, but have some differences in their interpretation of the religious texts and the Prophet Mohamed’s traditions.

However, there are also differences between the two groups in the way they govern themselves and how they view political leadership within Islam. These variations stem from a disagreement over who was the legitimate leader to succeed the Prophet Mohamed after his death in 632 CE.

Some of his companions argued that the new leader should be chosen by them, while others claimed the role should stay within the Prophet’s immediate family. Those who supported the idea of “selection” won, and Abu Bakr Al-Sidiq, a close companion of the Prophet, was installed as the caliph (successor) or chief Muslim civil and religious ruler.

Muslims who felt that the leadership should stay within Mohamed’s clan rejected Abu Bakr and his successors and instead supported Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet. This row has led to two main branches within Islam: the Sunni and the Shia. While supporters of giving rule to the Prophet’s descendants took on the name of Shiat-Ali (“the party of Ali”), commonly shortened to Shia, the others were called Sunni, meaning those who follow the traditions of the Prophet.

Today, Sunnis account for some 90 per cent of the 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide and have been the dominant branch in the Middle East for centuries. Although the Shia are spread across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, they constitute a majority only in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain. Hundreds of thousands of Shia also live in the United States and other Western nations, and they, like their Sunni counterparts, are primed for sectarian sentiments.

Despite its historic roots, however, the split within Islam has not been this deep or bloody for centuries. It is only in recent years that it has emerged as the biggest fault line in the struggle for dominance in the Middle East and beyond.

The geopolitical conflicts raging between the Sunnis and Shia are shaking the Middle East today. Sectarianism is being instrumentalised in various ways to advance geopolitical aims, including justifying extremism and employing religiously oriented propaganda in conflicts.

As if to underscore the antagonistic nature of these conflicts, the warring parties have showed no willingness for a pause during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which started last week. The United Nations has asked for a halt in the fighting in Yemen during Ramadan, a time of fasting, spiritual reflection and worship, yet the fighting has not abated neither in Yemen nor in other countries.

Consequently, with so much blood being spilled and chaos spreading, the most pressing question being asked now is whether rising sectarianism in the Middle East reflects real religious differences between Islam’s two main branches or is merely politics.

For those who believe sectarianism is the work of the colonial powers, the phenomenon was not such an issue before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and its growth is a result of the struggle for wealth, power and territory in the region.

A careful and in-depth analysis of the modern history of the Middle East shows that the rise of sectarianism is not spontaneous, though religious, sectarian and ethnic divisions after the independence of the Arab countries from the Ottomans and Western colonial powers seemed less pronounced. The recent turmoil may just have been the catalyst that exposed long-hidden sectarian prejudice and biases.

In their heyday, during the immediate post-colonial era, the focus of the region’s founding fathers was on establishing a common pan-Arab and national identity in the face of religious and ethnic identities. But sectarianism has revealed not only the fragility of the modern Arab nation-state, but also the deep religious hatred that seems to be the sole preserve of one sect group or the other.

For now, sectarianism continues to exacerbate regional conflicts. For many people, the fear is that the vicious Shia-Sunni division that has been poisoning Islam for 1,400 years may become even get worse.

This article appeared first in Al-Ahram Weekly on June 26, 2015

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The face of Iranian diplomacy

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The face of Iranian diplomacy

Much of the success in achieving a breakthrough in the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 Group may go to Iranian chief diplomat Mohamed Javad Zarif, argues Salah Nasrawi

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei might be the ultimate power in Iran, but if there is one Iranian the world will remember as being behind the breakthrough in the nuclear talks with the world’s major powers it will be Foreign Minister and chief negotiator Mohamed Javad Zarif.

As chief diplomat of a nation long considered as an international pariah, Zarif has led a diplomatic charm offensive to break his country’s international isolation since he was appointed foreign minister by President Hassan Rouhani in 2013.

In contrast to former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration, which isolated Iran over its nuclear programme and hardline foreign policy, Zarif’s diplomacy has seemed to signal Iran’s preparedness under Rouhani to move away from tough stances on its controversial nuclear programme.

Under the tentative framework agreement he and his team of negotiators reached with representatives of the world powers (the US, Britain, Russia, France and China plus Germany), Iran will keep its uranium enrichment capabilities, though there will be restrictions so that Tehran is unable to use the material in nuclear weapons.

In return, the United States and European Union will terminate all nuclear-related economic sanctions on Iran once the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirms that Iran has complied.  All UN Security Council sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear programme will be lifted immediately if a final deal is agreed.

Who is this Iranian diplomat who received a hero’s welcome from jubilant Iranians upon his return from the talks amid hopes that the pact he has reached will end years of Tehran’s international isolation?

Zarif was born in 1959 to “a traditional religious family” in Tehran, according to his biography which is posted on the Website of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He received his primary and high school education at a private institution in Tehran. According to some accounts, during this turbulent period in Iran’s history he became exposed to religious ideology, including the ideas of Ali Shariati, a famous Iranian intellectual who is sometimes dubbed the ideologue of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

At age 16, Zarif left Iran for the United States for “security reasons,” apparently to avoid harassment by the secret police of the pro-US Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi who was deposed by the revolution.

In the United States, Zarif attended Drew College Preparatory School, a private school in San Francisco, before joining San Francisco State University from which he received a Bachelors degree and then a Masters degree in International Relations.

Zarif continued his postgraduate studies at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, from which he obtained a second Masters in International Relations in 1984 and a PhD in International Law and Policy in 1988.

His doctoral dissertation was entitled “Self-Defence in International Law and Policy.”

While still studying in the US, Zarif was appointed a member of the Iranian delegation to the United Nations in May 1982, apparently because of the close ties he had built with the new Islamic regime in Tehran.

After long service as junior diplomat, Zarif was promoted to Iran’s representative at the United Nations in 2002. During his tenure in UN headquarters he participated in international gatherings, and in 2000 Zarif served as chairman of the Asian preparatory meeting of the World Conference on Racism and chairman of the United Nations Disarmament Commission.

At the UN, Zarif also held private meetings with a number of top Washington politicians, including Vice-President Joe Biden and former secretary of defence Chuck Hagel, then prominent US senators.

Zarif left office in 2007 and upon his return to Iran he joined Tehran University as a professor of international law. Later he served as vice-president of the Islamic Azad University in charge of foreign affairs from 2010 to 2012.

Zarif served on the boards of a number of academic publications, including the Iranian Journal of International Affairs and Iranian Foreign Policy, and he has written extensively on disarmament, human rights, international law and regional conflicts.

On 4 August 2013, Zarif was named minister of foreign affairs by the newly elected moderate Rouhani. He was confirmed by parliament with 232 votes.

Zarif has a son and a daughter, both of whom are married and live in Iran.

Despite criticisms by hawks, the nuclear deal which Zarif has signed has been overwhelmingly backed by Iran’s establishment, including Rouhani who pledged in a speech to the nation that Iran would abide by its commitments under the agreement.

If finalised, the agreement will cut significantly into Tehran’s bomb-capable nuclear technology while giving Iran quick access to bank accounts, oil markets and other financial assets blocked by international sanctions.

Proponents have noted that the deal, reached after 18 months of drawn-out negotiations, has proved that diplomacy is not futile and force is not inevitable.

For the negotiator of a country that has been constantly accused of embracing hidden agendas, the personal traits, international experience and professional skills of Zarif seem to have played a key part in making reaching the deal easier.

Many analysts have attributed the breakthrough in the talks to Zarif’s skills in building confidence with his counterparts, many of them maintaining scepticism about Iran’s readiness to reveal secrets about its nuclear programme.

In this regard, Zarif may have succeeded in breaking one of the persistent orientalist clichés of Iranians having a “bazaar mentality,” being expert carpet merchants of duplicity and deception.

Indeed, Zarif proved to be a shrewd politician and seasoned intellectual by brushing up on his history and religious lessons to push his arguments.

One of Zarif’s efforts during the negotiations was to counter Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign to torpedo the deal by claiming that Iran would eventually produce a nuclear weapon and try to destroy Israel.

In an interview with the US news channel NBC, Zarif said that “Iran saved the Jews three times in its history,” referring to the Persian king Cyrus who ordered the Jews of Babylon to return home from captivity after he conquered the Babylonian Empire in the 6th Century BCE.

Zarif said Netanyahu distorted both the current reality and writings in Jewish sources and the Bible.

“It is unfortunate that Netanyahu now totally distorts the realities of today,” Zarif said. “He even distorts his own scripture. If you read the Book of Esther, you will see that it was the Iranian king who saved the Jews,” Zarif said.

But Zarif’s diplomacy has also made him plenty of enemies at home, especially among hawks who have always refused to make concessions on the country’s nuclear programme.

But again Zarif has been proved to possess the skills needed to address both foreign and local detractors.

The ideals set by the late Imam Khomeini and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were embodied in the nuclear talks held in the Swiss city of Lausanne, he said.

He also came under attack from hardliners for a stroll he took with US Secretary of State John Kerry in downtown Geneva and along the Rhone River for almost 15 minutes on 14 January as part of the bilateral talks.

At least 25 Iranian MPs signed a petition to question Zarif on the issue, calling the stroll “a diplomatic mistake.”

Zarif’s deal has been overwhelmingly backed by Iran’s establishment, however. He even returned to Tehran to a hero’s welcome as thousands of people desperate for an end to international sanctions greeted him at the airport.

But it remains to be seen if the deal will be wrecked by hardliners in Iran who have always preferred their “death to America and Israel” sloganeering to skillful diplomacy and making deals with the “Great Satan.”

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War against terrorism”: The Jordanian option

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War against terrorism”: The Jordanian option
With months of airstrikes failing to dislodge Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria, the focus is shifting to Jordan in the war against terrorism by  Salah Nasrawi 
Since the seizure of key Sunni-populated cities by jihadist insurgents and their declaration of an Islamic caliphate in the region last year, much of Iraq has been in flames with dire consequences for the conflict-riven nation, its neighbours and the world.

The Iraqi military, Shia militias, Sunni tribes and Kurdish forces have been trying to drive back the Islamic State (IS) forces but with modest success as most of the territories the group has captured remain under militant control.

Though the insurgency could break the country apart, neither Iraqi nor the US-led international coalition helping in the war against IS seems eager to say when the long-awaited all-out war to eject IS will be set in motion.

Since mid-June, when IS captured Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city, and made startling advances into other Sunni cities, the areas have been the scene of intense back-and-forth fighting with the Islamic State.

At this point, the fight seems largely aimed to contain the resilient insurgency inside the Sunni-populated areas with little evidence that the liberation of Mosul as well as Tikrit and Fallujah is on the list of urgent priorities of Iraq’s Shia-led government or the Kurdish authorities and the international coalition.

Seen from this perspective, all the parties involved in the fight against IS seem either ill-prepared or unwilling to finish the job of defeating the terror group and are instead resorting to unexplained delaying tactics.

Iraq’s Shia-led government has secured Baghdad and Shia-populated areas by relying heavily on Iranian-backed Shia militias. Shia prime minister Haider al-Abadi has made it clear that he does not want “to go into a war in Mosul in which the aftermath will be unknown.”

On the other hand, Kurdish Peshmerga forces have pushed back IS fighters and are now holding their ground and digging in along a new border line drawn up after seizing large swathes of land following the chaos triggered by the rise of IS.

Kurdistan Region president Massoud Barzani, who has repeatedly pledged to seek a referendum on Kurdish independence from the rest of Iraq, has described the new frontier as being “demarcated in blood.”

As for helping in liberating Mosul, Barzani told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper that this “will depend on the degree of preparedness of the Iraqi army. Any advances by our troops from their current positions will require [our] consideration in advance,” he said.

Iraq’s Sunnis, supposed to be the main component in any strategy to defeat IS, are also divided between those loyal to the militant group and those supporting the government. Thousands of Sunni tribesmen are willing to hit back against the militants, but many are not fully on board.

The US-led coalition meanwhile continues to pound IS positions with airstrikes, but with no plans to send in combat troops to fight the group on the ground. US president Barack Obama has described his slow response in Iraq as part of his newly declared “strategic patience” strategy in the region.

In Syria, where the terror group has also occupied large chunks of territory, efforts to push IS back are foundering, and the group is reportedly making important gains despite its bitter defeat in the town of Kobani.

If any conclusion can be drawn from this messy situation, it is that there is no comprehensive strategy to wipe out IS and that even if the militants are defeated or simply degraded there are no concrete ideas on how to reintegrate Sunnis back into the old states of Iraq and Syria.

This is more evident in Iraq as attempts to take back the territories captured by IS and the Kurdish Peshmergas will test the willingness of all the parties concerned to save Iraq as a unitary state.

With the crisis in Iraq and Syria now becoming more serious and threatening the countries’ neighbours and the world at large, the debate is being redirected towards the possibility of sending in combat troops to fight IS.

One argument that is widely being used is that the Iraqi security forces are not prepared to push back IS and therefore that foreign troops may be needed to respond to the threat.

But as the United States continues to dither about how to respond, ideas about the possibility of a regional ground force have started to arise after the brutal murder of a Jordanian pilot by jihadists earlier this month.

The gruesome killing of a Jordanian pilot at the hands of Islamic State militants has unleashed a wave of speculation about an increasing military role for Jordan in the war against IS.

Following the execution of Muath al-Kassasbeh, Jordanian officials have said the kingdom will go after IS militants wherever they are and plans to “wipe them out completely.”

“The blood of martyr Ma’ath al-Kassasbeh will not be in vain and the response of Jordan and its army after what happened to our dear son will be severe,” Jordanian king Abdullah said in a statement. “We will hit them in their strongholds and centres.”

Since the immolation of the pilot, Jordan has stepped up its air force assaults on militant positions, including strikes on militant strongholds inside Iraq.

Jordan’s combative response has prompted some international law experts to speculate that the kingdom’s military actions following the murder of the pilot are probably being conducted beyond the needs of individual self-defence and with a view to a calculation of broader proportionality that in practice means moving towards playing a more robust role in the war.

Though Jordan has not confirmed it is ready to send in ground forces to fight IS, the cry for revenge and such interpretations of the kingdom’s intensified airstrikes have shifted the focus to Jordan.

Some Jordanian officials have already given signals of a possible ground engagement with IS. “We are upping the ante. We’re going after them wherever they are with everything that we have. But it’s not the beginning, and it’s certainly not the end,” Jordan’s foreign minister Nasser Judeh told CNN.

The possibility of an increasing Jordanian role in the war was also raised by US envoy John Allen, who told the official Jordanian news agency on Sunday that “there will be a major counter-offensive on the ground in Iraq in the weeks ahead.”

He said “the coalition will provide major firepower associated with that.”

However, the speculation about a greater Jordanian role comes amid talk that the crisis in Iraq and Syria may continue for some time. Some such signs are coming from western leaders, suggesting that the fight against IS could take years.

British prime minister David Cameron told MailOnline, a news Website, last week that the threat posed by the “disease” of Islamist extremism would last for a generation. Former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia Sir John Jenkins, who retired earlier this year, told the UK newspaper the Daily Telegraph that the instability caused by IS could last from 10 to 15 years.

Whispering about an expanded Jordanian role in the Iraqi and Syrian crises has been in circulation for a while. What is significant about the idea is that it comes amid the turmoil that is wracking the region and threatens many of its countries with remapping.

On 30 November, the Lebanese National News Agency quoted Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Shia Hezbollah Party, as saying that Jordan may become part of a plan to create “a Sunni region” by taking over parts of Iraq and Syria that are now populated by Sunnis.

Nasrallah warned that Jordan could later annex the territories before the new country was turned into “an alternative Palestinian state,” an old notion promoted by some radical Israeli politicians who want to transfer Palestinians in the West Bank to Jordan in a plan known as the Jordanian Option.

US senator Lindsey Graham has been quoted as saying that “Jordan is now ready to send ground forces into Iraq and Syria” to try to destroy IS. Graham made his remarks before a meeting with king Abdullah before IS announced the murder of al-Kassasbeh.

He said Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations were also on board.

On the surface, the new Jordanian angle looks like another Middle East cloak-and-dagger game, but the question remains of how far the volatile kingdom is ready to go with such a precarious policy at a time when its neighbours are threatened with Balkanisation.

It is not news that Jordan has been under pressure from the United States and other partners in the international coalition to open its borders for military activities against IS in Iraq and Syria. King Abdullah has resisted the pressure for fear that such interference could be destabilising to his kingdom.

Given Jordan’s geopolitical and demographical realities, such a gross manifestation of interference in two of Jordan’s strategic neighbours would present a complicated challenge to the regional order.

Jordan’s army is too small for such an undertaking alone.

Despite the cries for revenge that followed the pilot’s murder, a large proportion of Jordan’s population is believed to be opposed to Amman’s participation in the US-led air campaign in Iraq and Syria.

A bigger military role against the militants could ignite more voices of dissent, especially among the Islamist bloc.

Worst of all, both Iraq’s Shia-led government and the regime of president Bashar al-Assad in Syria have categorically rejected outside help in battling IS militants.

On Monday, Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem said Damascus would not accept Jordanian or other foreign ground troops crossing into Syria to fight Islamic State. Any such incursion would be considered a violation of Syrian sovereignty, he said.

*Salah Nasrawi is an Iraqi journalist based in Cairo.

*This story was first published at Al-Ahram Weekly on  Thursday 12 Feb 2015

 

ما بعد التجربة

After Abdullah

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After Abdullah

King Abdullah’s successor has pledged to make ‘continuity’ in the oil-rich kingdom a priority,  writes Salah Nasrawi

“I beg the Almighty God to help me to serve you and to bestow security and stability on our country and nation and to protect them from any harm and evil,” declared Saudi Arabia’s new monarch, King Salman bin Abdel-Aziz, in his first address to his people following his accession to the throne of the world’s largest oil exporter.

In the few hours before the new king received the crown and made his televised inauguration speech, Salman, 80, hurried to put Saudi Arabia’s royal house in order by swiftly defining the line of succession following the death of his half-brother King Abdullah, 91, on Friday.

While the move suggested that Salman was trying to show that he is in charge, it reflected the growing anxiety about the kingdom’s biggest dynastic challenge since it was established by Abdullah and Salman’s father, Abdel-Aziz Al-Saud, in 1932.

By upholding a decision by Abdullah to name his youngest half-brother Mugrin, 69, as crown prince and by appointing nephew Mohamed bin Nayef, 55, as deputy crown prince, Salman has tried to quell speculation about internal power struggles within the royal circle.

Abdullah named Mugrin as Salman’s successor in 2013, in what was an unprecedented move in Saudi leadership turnover. Under Saudi law, the Allegiance Council — a committee made up of of the most senior Al-Saud princes, set up by Abdullah in 2006 — is in charge of appointing the future king and ensuring a smooth succession.

Still, it was the designation of Mohamed as heir to the heir apparent that raised more eyebrows and shifted the focus to internal palace rifts in Riyadh’s precarious power transfer and its implications for both the kingdom and the region.

Speculation was high that the appointment of Mugrin was designed to pave the way for Abdullah’s eldest son, Prince Mitab, to become a crown prince after Mugrin. Abdullah was believed to have been grooming Mitab and his appointment to minister of the National Guard in 2013, making him a member of the cabinet, was meant to bring him closer to the succession.

Abdullah also named another one of his sons a deputy foreign minister, and two other sons as provincial governors of the capital Riyadh and the holy city of Mecca respectively, a move seen as an attempt to enable his clan to consolidate its grip on power after his death.

Abdullah’s promotion of his sons was also seen as part of a dynamic to ensure transition to suitable candidates in the next generation of Al-Saud and the kingdom’s future political evolution. Its aim, experts argue, was to avoid a succession struggle among dozens, and probably hundreds, of aspirants to the throne among Abdel-Aziz’s grandsons and great-grandsons.

But even with a smooth succession after Abdullah, Saudi Arabia’s transition remains contentious, with bloggers and commentators casting doubt over a long-term royal family accord. Most concentrated on the generational problem of succession confronting Saudi Arabia as the prolonged hold of Abdul Aziz’s sons comes to an end.

Some influential royal family members, like Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, an Abdul-Aziz grandson, have already shown signs of dissent. On 23 January, the multi-millionaire prince and business tycoon tweeted: “I have made my allegiance to father Salman bin Abdul-Aziz and father Mugrin bin Abdel-Aziz and congratulated my brother Mohamed bin Nayef.”

With all the potential discord that could follow the transition to the second generation of Al-Saud, King Abdullah’s successors are expected to face daunting challenges at home.

Among their biggest tasks, analysts say, are determining when and whether the kingdom will introduce political, economic and social reforms. For years, Saudis have been urging their government to initiate change, including opening opportunities for political participation.

Liberal-minded reformers have been demanding reform of the political system to initiate a constitutional monarchy and establish an elected parliament, instead of the consultative 120-member appointed Shura Council.

Saudis hope Abdullah’s successors will be able to solve these and other concerns, such as human rights issues and the role of the conservative religious establishment, and relinquish the long-held view that stability is the guarantor of security and peace for the kingdom.

Today, among the key challenges the kingdom faces is the fall in oil revenues that form the bulwark of its state budget. A prospected deficit of $39 billion in this year’s budget has forced the government to cut spending.

Though the government has said the deficit will be covered by its huge foreign reserves, the revenue plunge will force Saudi Arabia to cut back on salaries, wages and allowances, which make up about half of budgeted expenditures.

Externally, with the Middle East and the Arab Gulf region in turmoil, Abdullah’s successors will find their country at the centre of enormous regional conflicts. They will be challenged by a whole range of geopolitical developments.

One of Saudi Arabia’s biggest headaches is Persian-Shia Iran. With its ambitious nuclear programme, its patronage of Shia communities and spreading influence, Iran is emerging as a regional superpower in a clash with Arab-Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia.

With a substantial Shia minority in the Saudi eastern province and on the southern border with Yemen, the new leadership will remain jittery about the effect of Iran’s regional rise as an emerging Shia power on Saudi Arabia’s Shia community.

Also, fear that Washington may reach a détente with Tehran following an agreement over its nuclear programme has created a rift between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Inevitably, the new leadership in Riyadh has to deal with many Middle East crises, which have so far left the Saudi regional power off-balance, largely because of their overwhelming nature and the new regional order they have launched.

In Yemen, Abdullah’s successors are facing an escalating disaster as Shia Houthis assume control. With a civil war looming large in the country, Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbour is turning into a thorn in its side.

In Iraq and Syria, the kingdom also faces difficult dilemmas. Islamic State (IS) militants are digging their feet into both countries close to northern borders, despite the war waged by the US-led international coalition to degrade the group.

Neighbouring Bahrain, dependent on generous Saudi aid and security assistance, is facing a relentless Shia uprising. In Egypt, Saudi Arabia’s vehement support for President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi’s political and economic programme remains vital to the region’s security and peace.

Despite good relations with other partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council, Riyadh’s new rulers will face a daunting challenge from Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which are either showing independent foreign policy tendencies or increasing their regional power at Saudi Arabia’s expense.

Saudi Arabia’s political system has demonstrated a surprising resilience and stability in the past, but with many of its neighbours on fire, the country seems in need of more than simply the prayers of its new monarch to maintain its stability.

This article appeared first in Al-Ahram Weekly on Jan 29, 2015