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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

 

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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

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Kingdom at crossroads

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Kingdom at crossroads

Speculation in Saudi Arabia is growing over who will succeed the ailing King Abdullah, writes Salah Nasrawi

For more than two weeks now Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz has been battling for his life. As the days pass, there is growing concern surrounding the inevitable power struggle between members of the Saudi royal family.

Abdullah was admitted to a military hospital in the capital Riyadh on 31 December for medical tests. A statement from the court two days later said the king was suffering from pneumonia and needed help breathing.

Though the statement described the condition of the 91-year-old monarch, whose health has been in decline for years, as being stable, international attention has focused on the expected power shift in the oil-rich kingdom.

With Abdullah hospitalised, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman bin Abdel-Aziz, who is also the first deputy prime minister and minister of defence, appears to have taken taking charge of the day-to-day running of the government.

Last week the 80-year-old prince delivered the monarch’s traditional address to the Shura Council, an advisory body whose members are appointed by the king. Salman warned that Saudi Arabia is facing unprecedented challenges resulting from several regional conflicts, but assured Saudis that their “leadership is aware of these challenges and their consequences.”

With wars raging in neighbouring Iraq and Yemen and lower oil prices casting a shadow over domestic policies, Salman sought to reassure Saudis that the government is responding to the critical position the country now finds itself in.

On 5 January, four gunmen attacked a Saudi security patrol near the Iraqi border, killing three soldiers and wounding at least three more. The daring assault was the first deadly attack on Saudi Arabia since it joined the US-led coalition against Islamic State (IS) militants.

Plummeting oil prices are the kingdom’s other major challenge. In his speech, Salman said Saudi Arabia will deal with the challenge posed by lower oil prices “with a firm will.” The collapse in the price of oil has raised the alarm about the prospect of budget cuts that could impact the kingdom’s policy of “buying loyalty.”

Abdullah’s failing health, the crown prince’s old age, as well as the unpredictable generational turnover in the leadership, have raised concerns about the future of the kingdom in the face of domestic and regional threats.

Abdullah assumed the throne in 2005 as the country’s sixth king and named his half-brother, defence minister Sultan, as crown prince.

When Sultan died in 2011, Abdullah named another half-brother, Nayef, the minister of the interior, as heir apparent.

The current crown prince, Salman, was appointed in 2012 after the death of Nayef in 2012. He is 80 years old and believed to be suffering from dementia.

According to Saudi tradition, and unlike in most other monarchies where sons usually inherit the throne, the monarchy passes down the line of sons of the founder of the modern kingdom, Abdel-Aziz ibn Saud, who died in 1953.

While age was the main qualification for succession, Abdel-Aziz’s older sons were sometimes passed over due to their low profile or a lack of the ability or willingness to take on the role.

As most of Abdel-Aziz’s 45 sons have now either died or are aging, the unstable and unprecedented conditions confronting Saudi Arabia today have come as the prolonged hold of this second generation comes to an end.

In March, Abdullah took Saudis and the world by surprise by naming his youngest half-brother, Mugrin, as deputy heir. In a royal decree, Abdullah also prevented Salman from rescinding the move. The successor is traditionally picked by the new king. Abdullah’s early appointment of a deputy heir left long-time observers of Saudi politics puzzled.

The appointment of Mugrin as second heir has prompted speculation about Abdullah’s intentions. Though there has been no public dissent, rumours on social media abound about strains within the House of Saud over Mugrin’s nomination, casting doubt on prospects for a smooth handover of power.

In addition to the generational problem and the imminent passing of the elder royal power-holders, there are other factors central to the Saudi succession.

The origin of the mother also plays a role in choosing a successor, as is the tradition in Arab tribal societies. While Abdullah’s mother belonged to a powerful Saudi clan, Salman’s mother was a member of the prominent Sudairi tribe and also gave birth to Abdullah’s predecessor, King Fahd, and former crown princes Sultan and Nayef.

While a remaining Sudairi, Ahmed bin Abdel-Aziz, a former interior minister, could still be considered a contender for the throne, Mugrin’s status could also be challenged because his mother was Yemeni.

All this has raised the question of why Abdullah chose Mugrin as deputy crown prince and sidestepped the Allegiance Council, an official body tasked with choosing the crown prince. Some rumours have suggested the move was designed to pave the way for Abdullah’s eldest son, Mitab, to become crown prince after Salman dies or abdicates.

Abdullah promoted Mitab to minister of the National Guard in 2013 and made him a member of the cabinet. The National Guard is a formidable force in Saudi Arabia and is larger and better equipped than the regular army.

He also appointed another of his sons deputy foreign minister and two other sons provincial governors of the capital Riyadh and the holy city of Mecca, moves seen as an attempt to enable his children to consolidate their grip on power after his death.

Whether Abdullah is grooming Mitab or simply trying to arrange for an orderly transition, his appointments have suggested that it is virtually impossible to assess the dynamics of the Saudi succession struggle and the kingdom’s future political evolution without analysing the role of the third generation in politics.

Whoever becomes the next Custodian of the Two Holy Shrines is likely to name his own brothers as future heirs, thereby cutting out multiple cousins from access to the throne and the political advantages it provides.

Based on this analysis there are several possible scenarios for succession in the post-Abdullah era, during which the incoming leadership could serve as the facilitator of political, social and economic changes in Saudi Arabia.

One possibility is that the succession will go smoothly, with Salman becoming the new king and Mugrin his successor, but with Salman not appointing Mitab as second deputy, a post traditionally his in the succession line.

Another scenario is that Salman may wish to nominate his own crown prince after taking the throne. He could either name his brother, Prince Ahmed bin Abdel-Aziz, the youngest Sudairi who was removed as interior minister in 2012, or one of his own sons as heir apparent.

A third scenario is for both Abdullah and Salman to abdicate and for the Mugrin-Mitab plan to be implemented but with a powerful Sudairi, such as interior minister Mohammad bin Nayef, nominated as deputy crown prince. This scenario envisions that both Abdullah and Salman would agree to abdicate or would both be declared unfit by the Allegiance Council.

But many in Saudi Arabia anticipate an uneasy transition following the deaths of Abdullah and Salman. One main problem is that a fraught succession could lead to sharp divisions within the House of Saud and ignite a power struggle.

The next leaders of the country will also have to deal with serious challenges internally and externally. Inside the country they will face threats from Islamist Sunni militants. There is a high risk of attacks similar to the assault on the border with Iraq, or the November attack on a Shia mosque in the kingdom’s Eastern Province, which killed five people.

They will have to cope with increasing Shia resentment against exclusion and discrimination. In recent months, clashes between the members of the Saudi Shia community and security forces in the Eastern Province have left many people, including policemen and activists, dead.

Tensions rose in October when a Saudi court sentenced the Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir Al-Nimr to death for encouraging “foreign meddling” in the kingdom, “disobeying” its rulers and taking up arms against the security forces.

Significant drops in revenues due to sliding oil prices have forced the government to cut spending. The state budget for 2015 has registered a $39 billion deficit and the growth forecast for 2015 is expected to be down to 2.5 from last year’s 3.6 per cent.

Though the government has said the deficit this year will be covered by its huge foreign reserves, the financial pressures will force Saudi Arabia to cut back on salaries, wages and allowances, which contribute to about half of budgeted expenditures.

That could spark resentment among low-income families, who make up a majority of the population and are increasingly struggling to make ends meet.

Ostensibly, there is common agreement between Saudis and Saudi watchers that the succession of either Salman or Mugrin will go forward. In the long run, however, the emerging leadership faces the problem of managing the transition of power to the new generation.

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Grand bargain in Iraq?

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Grand bargain in Iraq?

The choice for Iraq now is either to continue a costly war or to embrace an historic compromise, writes Salah Nasrawi

Soon after he took office in July, Iraq’s Shia prime minister, Haider Al-Abadi, vowed that his security forces, working together with Shia militias, would beat the Islamic State (IS) group “in record time.” IS has seized large swathes of land straddling the border between Iraq and Syria.

Al-Abadi, whose predecessor Nuri Al-Maliki’s policy of excluding Sunnis gave rise to IS, promised he would end Sunni marginalisation and bring back peace to the war-torn nation through a programme of national reconciliation. He pledged to include Sunni tribes in the fight against IS and reintegrate disgruntled Sunni groups into national politics.

At first glance, Al-Ababdi’s declared way of battling the group may seem no different from US President Barack Obama’s strategy of putting Iraqi forces in the lead in the fight against IS while providing them with air cover, weapons and military advice.

Ultimately, the United States hopes that after winning the war against IS and regaining the lost territories Sunni tribes and parties will be given responsibility for policing their areas. The US plan also envisages a sort of self-rule for the Sunni provinces of the country after IS is defeated.

But the two approaches seem to sharply differ on some fundamental points, and it is hard to see if either one of them will be successful.

The US plan aims to create a local Sunni force that will take charge of security in the territories regained from IS and operate in coordination with provincial authorities. The force, to be called the National Guard, will be formed from disfranchised Sunnis, including loyalists of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and other insurgents.

The Shia-led government, meanwhile, has called for the suggested units to be part of a cross-sectarian force controlled by Baghdad. It has also planned to give official recognition to the Shia militias that have joined in the fight against IS.

In essence, Iraq’s Shias are not prepared to help drive out IS from Sunni areas in order then to give them back to the Baathists and other Sunnis who have been fighting the government. Many Shias also envision the new force as being a potential Sunni army that could threaten their power.

The Iraqi Kurds, who maintain their own Peshmerga forces, are also openly hostile to any plan to allow Arab troops to share policing of the oil-rich Kirkuk province and other disputed areas captured amidst the IS-triggered chaos. On the contrary, the Kurdish Peshmergas have been occupying areas which they have taken back from IS.

Another key difference is the role of Iran in Iraq. While Washington has excluded Tehran from the US-led international coalition against IS, the Shia-led government in Baghdad relies heavily on Iran in its war against IS. Shia leaders insist that Iran’s role in fighting IS is indispensable.

Bitter as the reality may be, Iran-affiliated militias are doing the most to fight IS militants on the ground in Iraq. Iran is the most important supporter of the Baghdad security forces, providing the Shia-led government with weapons, intelligence and advisors. Propaganda pictures of the commander of Iran’s elite Al-Quds Force and a key player in Iraq, Qassem Suleimani, posing in battle against IS is clear-cut evidence of an Iranian-led coalition in Iraq.

Paradoxically, this means that there are two military alliances now fighting in Iraq, each with different goals and divergent agendas. The question now is not which one has a better chance of succeeding, but simply if the victory over IS will help the pill go down more easily in the Sunni provinces.

There is simply no getting round the fact that when the dust of this war settles, Iraq’s Sunni-dominated provinces will still have the vote.

As the past seven months have shown, the Sunni population has little motivation and many reasons to turn against IS, particularly in the absence of a viable and acceptable alternative.

Most Sunnis do not trust the Shia-led government, and they are sceptical about reaching a genuine power-sharing deal with Shia political groups. Also, the areas under the IS group’s control are predominantly tribal, and increasing social and tribal bickering and hostility is more visible than any unified enmity to IS.

Such a complicated situation also makes it much harder for any force from outside, such as the US-led international coalition, to retake areas from IS, owing to the difficulty of filling the void and forming new alliances with local communities.

On a larger level, Iraq is going through a crisis that is not simply one of a war against terrorism but also of the ethno-sectarian-based regime that the US occupation authority created after the invasion of 2003.

The Shias and Kurds are still haunted by Saddam Hussein and his brutal rule. The Sunnis, on the other hand, have developed a culture of insurgency driven by feelings of alienation in the post-invasion era that ended 80 years of Sunni rule in Iraq and led to the subsequent empowerment of the Shias.

In this political crisis, both the ends and means of the state have become objects of immediate struggle. A situation like this puts all the parties to severe tests of national identity, power and resource sharing, along with leadership and political adaptability.

Therefore, aiming solely at defeating IS, with the ultimate goal of bringing stability to the country, seems not only to be politically naïve but also counterproductive. The Sunni insurgency was of course a necessary condition for the rise of IS, but it was not only the security vacuum that allowed IS to exploit the situation.

Since the US-led invasion, Iraq’s Sunnis have felt excluded and marginalised. A lasting power-sharing agreement between the two Muslim communities has failed to materialise. This is why even if there is a military strategy that will defeat IS, the question remains whether or not Iraq can go back to being a unitary nation when there is no formula for a balanced and sustainable power-sharing.

Today, Iraq is really made up of three enclaves separated by geography and sectarian and ethnic identities. While the Kurds have taken advantage of the IS crisis to consolidate their semi-independent region, the gap between the Shias and Sunnis is growing wider, highlighting the negative trends that have served as a catalyst for the implosion of Arab-dominated Iraq.

Beating IS is unlikely to end this trend. To avoid Iraq’s collapse requires a much larger effort than the government or the outside world have so far pledged. Iraqis have to heal the wounds left by Saddam’s brutal legacy, the sectarian-based system orchestrated by the US occupation, and the blind rage and violence it has triggered.

In recent weeks the government has been talking about national reconciliation. Vice-President Ayad Allawi, entrusted by President Fouad Massoum to coordinate such efforts, announced on 21 December that he had outlined a blueprint for reconciliation, though past reconciliation attempts have failed dismally.

The Iraqis have reached a dead end in resolving their ethnic and sectarian disputes. The only alternative left is to fight a long and costly war that will end with the break-up of their country. But partitioning Iraq is not a solution as it will create three small, weak entities which will end up being annexed by their powerful neighbours or becoming their protectorates.

In a situation like this a historic compromise has to be found in order for all the communities to subdue competing sectarian and ethnic resentments, forestall the escalation of the conflict and fend off a Balkans-like scenario for the country.

It is now up to the Shias to make an offer the Sunnis cannot refuse. The Kurds should stop exploiting the Shia-Sunni divide to advance an independence that will be resisted by Iran and Turkey. The Sunnis should also shelve unrealistic demands and accept a generous autonomy that would link them with the Shias and the Kurds in developing a national identity broad enough to give them equal power in the country.

To help secure the long-term stability of Iraq and reunite its people, such a proposal would need to go beyond the immediate communal and regional agendas. It would have to be a grand bargain for a new Iraq.

This grand bargain would need to be a genuinely historic deal that would allow the rival communities to put their egos aside, abandon their past prejudices and seize the chance not only to save Iraq from IS, but also to preserve their country, one of the oldest in human history, for themselves and future generations.

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Arab media crisis

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Arab media crisis

Four years after the region’s democratic uprisings, the Arab media are still beset by troubles, writes Salah Nasrawi

Until a few weeks ago the Qatar-based TV channel Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr was beaming anti-Egypt programmes, including labelling president Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi the leader of a military coup that toppled former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi who was supported by the gas-rich Gulf emirate.
However, on 22 December the network announced that it was closing down the service, which was launched to provide live coverage of Egypt after the uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The channel would “stop broadcasting temporarily until suitable circumstances in Cairo; that is, after obtaining the necessary permits in coordination with the Egyptian authorities,” a statement read by a newsreader said before the screen went blank.
Qatar was seemingly bowing to pressure by Saudi Arabia and Egypt’s other allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) who have demanded an end to Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Jazeera’s anti-Al-Sisi broadcasts. Most Arab media have historically been under government supervision and control, but the closure of the Al-Jazeera affiliate has showed that some can hardly be described as independent.
The democratic uprisings in 2011, which further divided the Arab world, also increased polarisation in the media. From civil wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen to transitions in the rest of the Arab countries it has been an extraordinary four years in the Arab media. Across the Arab world journalists are now paying the price for the political and social turmoil. The number of journalists who have lost their jobs or been intimidated or imprisoned has been staggering.
Dozens of anchors, newscasters and journalists have lost their jobs in the Arab media in recent years, caught up in rows over editorial interference. Souhair Al-Qaisi, an Iraqi anchor on the pan-Arab channel Al-Arabia, quit her job in November in protest over the channel’s coverage, for example. She wrote on her Facebook page that she was leaving her programme The Fourth Bulletin because the network’s editorial policy towards Iraq and its war with Islamic State (IS) terrorists was “unfair.”
“As a proud Iraqi and Arab, I have to stand with my beloved Iraq which is suffering the crimes of these merciless gangs,” she wrote.
Some journalists who have left their jobs have found work later elsewhere, or have been transferred to other posts, like Al-Qaisi who was moved to MBC, a mainly entertainment channel of the Saudi-owned network. Others have not been so lucky and have been keeping up an aggressive job search.
The Arab media, long suffering from low ratings in world standards, are now in deep crisis because of decades of state control, government interference, censorship, and weak professional standards. Private investment in recent years has not added much value to media performance due to structural problems and the absence of media independence and freedom.
The Arab Spring, which raised hopes and aspirations for democracy, underpinned the vital role of the media in political reform and social change in stagnant regimes. Although expectations were high that the series of revolutions that toppled various autocratic regimes would bring more freedom to Arab journalists, the democratic setbacks that followed have adversely impacted the media.
Pessimists are now saying that the freedom of the media in the Arab world is in retreat. They note that Arab state-owned, or controlled, media, which have for decades been tools designed to “guide” the public or “shield” them from bad news, are now back in business, abandoning their role of news gathering, reporting and analysis. Through targeting mainstream audiences many governments are finding effective ways to use the state-run media to help themselves stay in power.
Independent and privately owned media, the fruits of decades of struggle by Arab journalists and activists, are becoming so polarised around ideological, religious, sectarian or business agendas that they have been contributing to the chaos. Though expectations were once high that they would help to provide audiences with a variety of choices, the independent media have often turned into instruments depriving them of alternative points of view.
The maintenance of government hegemony and the polarisation of the private-sector media have impeded the badly needed restructuring of the media sector and hampered the transition towards liberal democracy. Various assessments of the post-uprisings Arab media indicate that there is a dire need for overhauling the constitutional and legal framework that governs the media and the access to information and media freedoms to make them more consistent with international standards.
Reforms should enshrine the principles of media pluralism and diversity, including financing and ownership transparency, critics say.
Media in crisis: The problems of the media are abundant across the Arab world. Egyptian journalists who enjoyed a short period of press freedom after the 25 January Revolution are now reverting to the self-censorship they practiced under Mubarak’s rule, for example.
While journalists in the state-owned media are facing tightening limitations, their colleagues in the privately owned media face strict editorial policies by their owners and editors. In November, hundreds of journalists objected to a pledge by newspaper editors to refrain from publishing reports critical of the government. The pledge imposes near-blind support to the state in its publications. Dismissals, banning from work and even arrests are becoming increasingly common.
In Iraq, the Iraqi Media Network, set up after the ouster of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003 to function as a public-service broadcaster modelled on the BBC, has turned into a government mouthpiece. A boom in new privately owned outlets has also failed to provide diversity, and these are instead being used to reflect sectarianism and help fuel divisions. Some 200 journalists and media workers have been killed in Iraq over the last 12 years.
In Libya, an explosion in the number of television as well as radio and print outlets has been testimony to demands for information and self-expression after decades of the rule of former Libyan leader Muammar Al-Gaddafi. Yet, the new unrestricted media landscape has often increased the political and ideological distance between communities, making them more divided.
Tunisia is a more hopeful example. The Tunisian media, once restricted to those who supported the authoritarian regime of former president Zein Al-Abdine Ben Ali, have rapidly expanded since his fall in January 2011 as restrictions on media ownership were removed and the old regime’s system of filtering disappeared. Since 2011, the country’s public media abandoned its former red lines and new vibrant print and broadcasting outlets emerged. However, Tunisia’s media must wait for the country to pass the test of the transition to democracy to see if they stand on solid ground.
Criticism also abounds of pan-Arab outlets backed or owned by government funds or wealthy Gulf families such as the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia channels for their failure to produce accurate and balanced news content. Once these channels were heralded as vehicles for a freer Arab media and instruments for political change, but today they are often seen as platforms for a tense form of rhetoric that could increase divisions among the Arabs.
A large part of the Arab media’s problems is structural. Years of state ownership and government control have crippled the media, and laws and regulatory measures, and even authoritarian tendencies in the media itself, have had a negative impact on the work of Arab journalists. While governments vary in their regulation and control of the media, the owners of most private Arab media are entrepreneurs who have political ambitions and use their outlets to promote agendas or as conduits for lucrative business.
One reason for the chaos has been that the Arab media have few democratic traditions or intuitions. While an independent media is essential to democracy in society, democracy inside the media itself is also the key to ensuring editorial independence. On all levels, from owners and managers down to editors and journalists, the Arab mainstream media are lacking in democratic traditions.
Another key problem in the Arab media has been the absence of diversity. The Arab mainstream media generally fail to reflect political and social diversity in the communities they serve and target. The majority of the mainstream media lack innovative approaches to the challenges of the region. The Arab media do not embrace the diversity of their countries’ cultures in their programming, and most of them see the Arab world as a place where non-Sunni Muslims and non-Arabs only appear rarely in the audience.
The malaise of the Arab media, however, goes beyond politics. It reflects a growing crisis of professionalism and a lack of ethical standards that media-related institutions have failed to address over many decades. Closer attention should be paid to bring about democratic changes in the media’s structure, ownership and regulations. There is a growing demand for training on the principles of professional journalism and universal ethical standards.
If anything good can be said to have come during these difficult years it has been the social networks that have kept up an elevated level of information dissemination to make up for the limits of the mainstream media. Fast-growing and aggressive new media have been opening new horizons for citizen journalism with more people now encouraged to act as whistleblowers and inform on local wrongdoing. Comments on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and by email and text are now forming a large segment of Arab public opinion.
The other piece of good news is that the Arab media still exercise influence despite all the hurdles and restrictions. They may not be the fourth estate that many would have liked to see, but neither do they seem to have lost their ability to influence politics and events.
During a visit to Egypt in October, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir lamented that Arab governments now had a limited ability to muzzle the media, for example. “People used to follow the religion of their kings,” he said, quoting from an old Arab saying. “Now they follow that of their media.”