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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.”

Iraq-Mosul-Militray

Mosul’s blame game

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Mosul’s blame game

An inquiry into the fall of Mosul shows total chaos and sectarianism in Iraq’s military, writes Salah Nasrawi

For three consecutive nights last week the former commander of the Iraqi security forces in Mosul appeared on a late night television show to try to clear his name after accusations that he was responsible for the fall of the strategic city to the Islamic State (IS) terror group in June.

While trying to put the blame for the stunning defeat of his troops squarely on other top officers, Lieut. Gen. Mahdi Al-Gharawi revealed that deep sectarianism and infighting within the ranks and file of the Iraqi army could be the main reason behind the disaster.

A parliamentary committee formed to investigate the circumstances surrounding the city’s fall and the subsequent rise of IS has meanwhile gone into trouble after accusations by Sunni lawmakers of a hidden political and sectarian agenda.

The revelations and the ensuing row might also have startling implications for the US efforts to help Iraq rebuild its security forces to battle IS and regain territories it had occupied.

In his 3-part interview Lieut. Gen. Al-Gharawi implicated former Defense Minister Sadoun Al-Dulaimi, Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen Aboud Gambar,  Commander of the Land Forces Maj-Gen. Ali Ghaidan and Governor of Mosul Atheel Al- Nujaifi in IS’ seizure of Mosul.

Al-Gharawi, was in charge of the Nineveh Province Operations Command which had several army and police brigades under its control and tasked to defend Mosul and surrounding towns against IS. Various estimates put the number of soldiers in Nineveh before the IS’s onslaught as 50000-70000, based on official accounts of the military units under the Nineveh Province Operations Command.

Al-Gharawi told Al-Baghdadiya Television network, however, that there were only about 7000 soldiers in Nineveh prior to the attack. He said the force was ill-equipped and he had to supply them with arms and ammunitions bought from the black-market.

“There was no one single piece of artillery or a tank in Mosul,” he said.

On 10 June the terror group seized control of Iraq’s third largest city in a blitz attack putting security forces to flight in a spectacular show of strength against the Shia-led Baghdad government.

The capture of Mosul dealt a serious blow to Baghdad’s efforts to fight IS which has regained ground and momentum in Iraq in the months following a Sunni uprising against the government of former Shia Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki.

As militants overrun the city, the remaining soldiers discarded uniforms and weapons and fled their posts and camps leaving behind huge quantities of weapons and equipment worth millions of dollars.

Thousands of families, mostly Christians, Kurds and Shia, also fled Mosul towards nearby Kurdish cities. The militants also killed thousands of religious minorities and ordered others to convert to Islam, or pay “tribute” money, or leave Mosul.

At the time soldiers interviewed by the media said they had received orders to quit Mosul after militants captured most of the city including army bases and prisons. The soldiers and the fleeing locals described Mosul as being in total chaos after IS’s seizure.

The Islamic radicals later pushed through and seized vast swathes of territories in four other provinces forcing troops and police to retreat. The Baghdad Shia-led government relied heavily on Iran-baked Shia militia to stave off the IS offensive and regain some of the lost territories.

The imbroglio stunned most Iraqis. Many of them wondered how a hundreds of thousands-strong military who costs the treasury nearly have the national budget annually was defeated by a small, worse-equipped and barely funded foe. Many Iraqis called for bringing those officers who failed to provide leadership and an example and were responsible for the heavy defeat to account.

Al-Maliki, who was also commander in chief of the armed force, refused to take any responsibility or order an investigation. Unabashed, he fought a bitter battle to stay in power after April’s election despite strong opposition to his bid for a third term.

In November, the parliament formed a 16-member committee to investigate the fall of Mosul. At the core of its task is to sort out who in the government and the military leadership were behind the strategic follies in Mosul and the subsequent operational deficiencies in the security forces.

The committee has thus far interviewed Gambar and Ghaidan but the proceedings were postponed after complaints of a sectarian agenda by the Shia head of the committee and its Shia members. Sunni-oriented media accused the panel of trying to implicate Sunni and former Baathist officers and officials in the fall of Mosul.

Last week the parliament added three more Sunni members to the committee in a bid to strike a balance in its makeup and decided to summon all civilian and military officials involved in the Mosul conflict and its aftermath to the inquiry. Some Sunni lawmakers who fear a whitewash demanded that the committee question Al-Maliki who is now vice president and may use his immunity to skip the inquiry.

In his version of the story, Al-Gharawi tried to imply that Al-Maliki was a victim in the situation and blamed top military commanders of deceiving the former prime minister. Al-Gharawi was one of the most trusted generals by Al-Maliki and his testimony would allow suspicions to accelerate.

Accusations to Al-Maliki, however, came from more important sources. Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani had repeatedly said that Al-Maliki was responsible for the quick defeat of the army in Mosul. In several statements and interviews Barzani said he had warned Al-Maliki about the risk of Nineveh province falling and IS movements to the west of the city.

Al-Maliki has denied receiving a phone call from Barzani before IS attack on the city of Mosul. He accused Barzani of complicity in IS’s takeover of Mosul and harbouring “terrorists” in Erbil, Kurdistan’s provincial capital.

However, the blame game provided a rare insight into the Iraqi military’s status and in particular its command, control and communication systems. Though reports about rampant corruption, inefficiency and sectarianism in the Iraqi army have long been rife, the exchange revealed an entirely dysfunctional and demoralized military.

Even before conclusions are drawn by the committee Al-Maliki’s successor Haider Al-Abadi has began to purge the security forces from corrupt and incompetent officers. He had fired dozens of officers and announced the discovery and removal of 50,000 ghost army soldiers from the pay rolls.

Still, this scandalous disclosure about the military’s failure is expected to have severe consequences on efforts to rebuild a professional army and plans to retake Mosul and other areas seized by IS probably in the spring.

It could also undermine efforts to launch national reconciliation and ensure a broader participation of Sunnis in the government and security forces, a demand put by Sunni politicians to participate in Al-Abadi’s government and join in fighting IS.

As Iraqi officials squabble over responsibility for the Mosul’s fall, the pressing question for the Obama administration remains how the chaos inside the Iraqi security forces and mal-functioning of its command will impact the US engagement in Iraq.

The IS’s advances in Iraq prompted President Barack Obama to abandon his earlier policy of non interference in Iraq and reengaged in the war-torn country both militarily and politically. He immediately ordered air strikes against IS and unveiled a strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the militant group.

According to the Obama plan the US will help train, equip and advise the Iraqi security forces in order to give them a psychological boost and improve their combat skills. The plan also calls for arming a Sunni force including members of Saddam Hussein’s army to fight against IS and help stabilize the Sunni-dominated provinces. This approach also entails efforts to allow Sunnis a bigger say in the Baghdad government and a sort of provincial autonomy.

If after eleven years the Iraqi military remains fraught with sectarianism, suspicion and distrust that allowed IS to rise and seize nearly one third of the country, the question is: how can the United States help rebuild it to defeat the terrorist organization without repeating the same ritual.

Back in 2003 and under US pressure, many of the Baath’s ex-officers were allowed to join the new Iraqi army which was established following the dismantling of Saddam’s army. Among them were Al-Gharawi, Ghaidan and Ganbar along with hundreds of officers who later took command of the security forces.

 Though these former Saddam’s army officers were Shia, like the three generals in question, many Iraqis remained skeptical about their political loyalty. When the Iraqi army collapsed, it was Shia militia backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard who were called to defend the Baghdad government.

This article appeared in Al Ahram Weekly on Jan. 1, 2015

    

Arab-Politics

A new Arab disorder

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A new Arab disorder
The 2014 marked a farewell to a turbulent decade, but it could be replaced by a more chaotic one, writes Salah Nasrawi

They weren’t exactly foreseen by Nostradamus, but one can see clearly how the dramatic events unfolded in the Middle East in 2014 depict the apocalyptic prophecies of the reputed 16th century French seer.
Across the Arab world, countries, some of them as old as the world’s ancient civilizations, are unraveling and the whole region seems to be heading toward a massive geopolitical shift in its landscape that would have far reaching consequences on the international order.
A century after a series of treaties between the European colonial powers and the Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France to carve up the region after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, the Middle East is facing Balkanization.
Today, as our writers are trying to explain in their articles and reports for this special end of the year issue, it seems even difficult to imagine the magnitude of the changes that would take place in the foreseen future.
The rise of the Islamic State terrorist group, its seizure of vast swathes of territories in Syria and Iraq, and its proclamation of the Islamic Caliphate has been a turning point. The group abolished the borders drawn with the creation of the two modern states and raised their black banners over areas expanding from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean.
The damage to the national fabrics and the country’s unity caused by IS’s advances and the sectarian civil war it unleashed is immeasurable. It has deepened the confessional divide beyond repair and created ethno-sectarian enclaves that saw the seeds for geographical and political disintegration of the two countries.
The war front to the IS goes beyond the captured territories of Syria and Iraq. While civil wars raged in Libya and Yemen, several Arab countries remained wracked by sectarian divisions and political uncertainty.
In Libya, the popular uprising against the regime of Col. Muammar Gadhafi has evolved into a war that could tear the country to pieces. While a civil war is raging in many parts of the country, some parts in eastern Libya have declared autonomy. Tribes in southern Libya with Tuareg or Sahara identities are looking for closer bonds with neighboring countries.
Following the overthrow of its longtime dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen has entered a turbulent era with tribal, sectarian and provincial communities are fighting over sharing power and wealth. A federal system proposed by a UN-led national dialogue is in tatters with southern Yemen now pressing for breaking away from the north.
Lebanon which is suffering the repercussions of the war in Syria is threatened with a sectarian flare-up.
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries do not look to be immune from the ripple effects of the Middle East Balkanization. With sectarian strives escalate around them, governments and large segments of the population fear that they might be next to hit by the turmoil.
All in all, the Middle East seems to be heading toward a tectonic shift which could redefine its political landscape and its century old national borders. Changes may take time but if this momentum continues there will be no Middle East which we have known so far in few years.
In many ways, the new political map and the new regional order will be a major regression and an invitation to transform the admittedly imperfect order to a jungle in which ethno and sectarian based new countries would be pitted against each other.
Western analysts and pundits tend to blame the Arab Spring to remove dictators for the turbulence. They claim that movements for regime changes, political mobility and social disturbances have kindled the long dormant identity conflicts.
Yet the conflagration set by the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 is largely responsible for today’s Middle East troubles. The American adventure in Iraq, its ten years of occupation, dismantling Iraq’s state and society, its abysmal failure of rebuilding it and now its reoccupation by its military “experts”, all of this stand behind the disaster.
If the Middle East is to be remapped, it will be a direct result of Washington’s blueprint for imperial meddling in the region. Iraq’s invasion was not only a godsend for the terrorists who have torn down the borders and established a phony Islamic caliphate, but also the catalyst for polarization which split the region on sectarian lines and now triggering its redrawing in blood and tears.

This article appeared in Al-Ahram Weekly on Dec, 25, 2014

Analysis & views from the Middle East