Vanity Fair has an excellent article by David Rose about the Bush Administration almost forcing Gaza into a Civil War.  I am not positive I agree with the thesis- I tend to think that a battle would have happened eventually- but the capriciousness, stubbornness, and willingness to work with very shady people simply because they were on “our” side makes this a maddening read.   The outcome of the Gaza debacle is that the hand of the US was weakened while strengthening Iran, not to mention further hurting any chance at an Israeli/Palestinian settlement, and bringing more misery and death to people on both sides of that blighted divide.  

The article talks a bit about how this fit into Condoleeza Rice’s broader goals of an anti-Shi’ite coalition made up of cooperating Sunni states, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.  For a good background on this read David Samuels’ June 2007 Atlantic piece, “Grand Illusions.” 

Helping Lebanon free itself from the Syria/Hezbollah axis is a worthy goal.  Helping the only party in Palestine that has even a decent shot at reform, Fatah, is somewhat more ambiguous, but still a decent goal.   But the policy of gathering allies behind the scenes and aiding the enemies of our enemies is short-sighted and only helps to fuel the idea of America as a conspiracy-mongering, entirely self-interested war machine. 

(Of course, one could point to the success of arming former insurgents in al-Anbar against al-Qaeda.   And that is true- they have hurt Islamic militants.  But I still think it is a desperately short-sighted plan.  It is putting out one fire, which is good, but pouring fuel into another.)

This seems in contradiction to my post below, which states that it is impossible for Hamas or Hezbollah to modify themselves into responsible political actors.   So before I get into this post I’ll clarify- it isn’t impossible, at all, for people to reform, no matter how murderous or nihilistic or jihad-drenched they were; it is impossible for certain organizations to reform, because once their reason for being dies up, the do as well. 

OK, on to this!  A Financial Times editorial by former Bush Deputy Assistant Peter Wehner argues that “in large measure because of what is unfolding in Iraq, the tide within the Islamic world is beginning to run strongly against al-Qaeda – and this, in turn, may be the single most important ideological development in recent years.”   This seems to jive with the New York Times article discussed directly below, about how the cleric-fueled carnage in Iraq is turning youngsters away from faith.  But this blood-weary turning from religion by the people closest to its most violent extremes is not the same as a general discrediting of al-Qaeda, or militant Islam in general.

Wehner goes on to list some influential clerics, formerly some of jihad’s great supporters, who have started to publish and speak about its ills.   Again, Wehner:

In November 2007 Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (“Dr Fadl”) published his book, Rationalizations on Jihad in Egypt and the World, in serialised form. Mr Sharif, who is Egyptian, argues that the use of violence to overthrow Islamic governments is religiously unlawful and practically harmful. He also recommends the formation of a special Islamic court to try Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two and its ideological leader, and calls the attacks on September 11 2001 a “catastrophe for all Muslims”.

Mr Sharif’s words are significant because he was once a mentor to Mr Zawahiri. Mr Sharif, who wrote the book in a Cairo prison, is “a living legend within the global jihadist movement”, according to Jarret Brachman, a terrorism expert.

Another important event occurred in October 2007, when Sheikh Abd Al-‘Aziz bin Abdallah Aal Al-Sheikh, the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, issued a fatwa prohibiting Saudi youth from engaging in jihad abroad. It states: “I urge my brothers the ulama [the top class of Muslim clergy] to clarify the truth to the public . . . to warn [youth] of the consequences of being drawn to arbitrary opinions and [religious] zeal that is not based on religious knowledge.” The target of the fatwa is obvious: Mr bin Laden.

I tend to think that among the most militant of the Islamists a man infused in the Saudi power structure wouldn’t have much sway.   The House of Saud is one of bin Laden’s main demons, and it is easy in his movement to discredit anyone associated with it.  

 But al-Sharif is a different story.   He is the former Emir of the Egyptian group al-Jihad, and was a mentor to Ayman al-Zawahiri.   A legend in the jihadi community.  A new articleby Omar Ashour in the latest Perspectives on Terrorism gets into his role, who he was and what he is doing now. 

I’ll be brief, here, and let Ashour be long.   Al-Sharif is trying to convince young militants that the path of violent jihad is wrong.  Not just with morality, but with theology.  Who is he trying to convince?   Three different layers of militants.

The first layer is composed of a small core group that surrounds Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri and receives direct orders from them. This layer is the least likely to be affected. Al-Zawahiri has already criticized al-Sharif and mocked the idea of revisions, publications and “fax machines” in Egyptian prisons. In his latest audio statement, he promises to release a counterargument to al-Sharif’s Document – a pledge that shows that al-Qaeda takes the new literature seriously enough to bother issuing a counterargument. In addition, Bin Laden criticized the behavior of al-Qa‘ida in Iraq after the media announced that al-Sharif was in the process of writing the Document, but before the Document’s release. Bin Laden may have attempted to minimize the effects of the Document and send a preemptive message to his sympathizers that there would be changes in al-Qaeda’s violent behavior and terrorist tactics.

The second layer is al-Qai‘da’s self-styled “branches” in Algeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and even Egypt. Of these, the Egyptian branch is most likely to be affected because of the weight of al-Sharif in Egypt, as well as the revisions of the IG. In the words of one of the IG’s “de-radicalized” historical leaders, al-Sharif’s Document is the final say in the “Islamic jurisprudence of violence” in Egypt. [14]

The third layer is that of the ‘Internet militants’. This group is mostly teenagers and young men inspired by al-Qaeda’s rhetoric, but have no organizational ties or contacts with its network. In other words, this is a layer of ‘self-recruited members’. Probably aware that this layer has the weakest ties with the core of al-Qaeda, al-Sharif dedicated a large part of his Document to warning young Muslim men about the ‘Internet Sheikhs.’ This layer is likely the one that will be affected the most, and its members could be discouraged from following Salafi-Jihadism in general and al-Qa‘ida in particular because of the influence of al-Sharif’s Document.

Now, we’ve seen this movie before, in Yemen.  Hamoud al-Hitar, a Yemeni cleric, ran an operation trying to persuade young militants that their jihad was un-Islamic, talking in prisons to those who weren’t charged with violent crimes.  If they could convince him they had reformed, they were free to go (though presumably with an eye on them).  For a good look at his movement, read this Worldview article by Gregory Johnsen.

The program, which was touted in the West, isn’t working as well as it once looked.  Recidivism rates are pretty high, and the program has been kind of pushed under the rug a bit. 

But I think what is happening in Egypt is different.  Al-Hitar, though a distinguished scholar, didn’t have much sway with the militant Salafi community.  He was able, with his eloquence, intellect, and knowledge of the Quran, to persuade young militants that their path was wrong.   But some of them might have just pretended to believe, and other might have believed then but fell back into old patterns the next time a charismatic cleric talked to them. 

Al-Sharif, the Egyptian, is different.  He might be labeled an apostate, but his words carry more weight, especially in the Maghreb.   He is respected and admired.   The analysis of the article- the hope, maybe- is that such a man could change the tenor of the debate, so it isn’t only Americans and secular despots and quislings telling the Islamists to cool it.  

But prison conversions aren’t always accepted by those on the outside.   And, perhaps more important, al-Qaeda itself has spread out and become a less top-down organization, and has lowered its standards.   One doesn’t exactly need to be an expert, or even someone mildly interested in, theology.   Just have some kind of anger and want to kill.  These kind of disputes can easily go over the head of a bored young man. 

That said, al-Qaeda can’t last forever.  No revolutionary group ever does, no matter how eternal they project themselves.  Things fall apart.  I don’t know how much of an impact top clerics decrying jihad will have in the short term, but if it changes the tenor of discussion in the long-term, than Islamism in any form will be weakened. 

Sabrina Tavernise has a brutal and harrowing piece in today’s New York Times about how the cleric-driven violence in Iraq has led many to question their faith, which they have seen as bringing them nothing but misery and blood.

“In the beginning, they gave their eyes and minds to the clerics; they trusted them,” said Abu Mahmoud, a moderate Sunni cleric in Baghdad, who now works deprogramming religious extremists in American detention. “It’s painful to admit, but it’s changed. People have lost too much. They say to the clerics and the parties: You cost us this.”

“When they behead someone, they say ‘Allahu akbar,’ they read Koranic verse,” said a moderate Shiite sheik from Baghdad, using the phrase for “God is great.”

“The young people, they think that is Islam,” he said. “So Islam is a failure, not only in the students’ minds, but also in the community.”

Now, Tavernese has said she interviewed forty people over five cities, which isn’t nothing, but isn’t a huge sample-size, either.   Still, her conclusions stand to reason.  In the post-Saddam vacuum, religion was a way to make sense of the chaos.  Not for everyone: tribalism and family remained strong (one would expect this to be the case after a dominant figure collapses and then the very state is called into question- people fall back into older, more secure identities). 

But those identities didn’t provide security; they unspun into chaos.   As the war got worse and worse, and became more brutal and more criminal, it seems some young Iraqis turned away from the hollow and deadly intonations of the preachers.

In large part these preachers turned out to be nothing more than criminals, barely concealing their venal motives with a translucent mask of piety.   The scared became unwashably profane, and the youth of Iraq- hardened, no one’s fools- could see through it.   This kind of fake-jihadist is not uncommon; Mark Bowden has an excellent Atlantic articleabout one in the Philippines.

 Issac Choitner in The New Republic thinks this is a hopeful article, and I agree with him to a point.   It is good that this veneer is being ripped away, but I can’t get too excited that many people had to be tortured and killed, blown-apart, for us to get here.  Still, if it shows anything, it shows what one commenter, teplukhin, succinctly described.

I think it offers hope in that it’s now very clear that the jihadist “pitch” to prospective recruits is almost totally about material or at least non-religious, apolitical incentives– the same pitch, more or less, that a drug dealer makes to prospective mules.

If there’s ever a surge that would work, it’s a massive civil effort to get money and jobs to young unemployed Iraqi men in neighborhoods where the jihad does most of its recruiting. This isn’t rocket science.

That is what the US has to do in Iraq.  The surge has helped quell some violence, but, as noted, it hasn’t helped much in the way of political progress.  But even if it did help that, it wouldn’t much change conditions on the ground for young Iraqis, especially young Iraqi men.  It is the same from Liberia to Serbia to American inner-cities: bored young men with nothing to do and no prospects for employment are easily turned to violence.  If the US doesn’t recognize that it has an opening, a way to slow down the allure of criminal activities, then its presence there will be indefinite or a complete failure.

Look: I know this is just a snapshot, and the other is an official portrait.   And I know Mahmoud Abbas might have been smiling a second beforehand.  But the calm half-smile in the photo above his head contrasted with the glum, depressed and lost look he has now is too good (read: easy) a metaphor to ignore.

(Photo: Abbas Momani, via New York Times)

Abbas came in as everything the man to the left of his photo was not: pragmatic where Arafat was impulsive, evolutionary to Arafat’s unending revolution, projecting competency where Arafat was ignorant, and- perhaps most importantly- honest where Arafat was wildly corrupt.   If not excited, war battered Palestinians had a weary relief that a new chapter might have been beginning. 

 But it hasn’t worked out; even modest expectations have been dashed.  Hamas first won control of Gaza through an election, then consolidated control by winning a hideous civil war.  Abbas has tried to negotiate with Israel, but to do so has had to ignore Hamas.  This proved to be impossible as Hamas upped the ante by goading Israel into attacking them.  

So now you have a battered and dispirited Abbas listening to a lame-duck envoy, sitting under a picture of a man whose spirit has long since left.   This conflict looks as if it has managed to chew up one of the few decent leaders produced from unrelenting violence and chaos.  

From CNN…

Iran’s president: No one likes Americans

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, heading home after a two-day visit to Iraq, again touted his country’s closer relations with Iraq and reiterated his criticism of the United States.

“No one likes them,” Ahmadinejad told reporters prior to returning to Iran, referring to the predominantly U.S. makeup of coalition forces in Iraq.

This kind of rhetoric can only be balanced out by a strategic “I’m rubber; you’re glue” counter-offensive. 

No no no- not my solution, which I am keeping close to my vest until I get a lucrative government job (or until I get smart enough to come up with one- neither option seems close to the horizon). 

 This solution comes from Thomas Pickering, William Leurs, and Jim Walsh, and it is published in The New York Review of Books.   They think that now is the time to strike.

 The NIE and the improvement in US–Iranian relations over Iraq policy are part of it. Moreover, Iran’s upcoming parliamentary elections in mid-March seem likely to show a weakening of support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his allies. This, in turn, will put intense pressure on him to raise his political status before the 2009 presidential elections. Without a noticeable improvement in the economy, Ahmadinejad can move in one of two directions. First, he can pick a fight with the United States, hoping that confrontation will boost his ratings. This has been his tendency until now, but it is a tactic that appears less effective each time it is used and has probably contributed to his declining popularity.

These strike me as true, and the lack of outcry or even sustained noise over Ahmadinejad’s trip to Iraq, even with his spouting the same boilerplate rhetoric, is a good sign.   And it seems both countries are recognizing, their own rivalries aside, that an unstable Iraq is in no one’s interest.

(Let’s not go nuts, though: the New York Times today is reporting that “For more than two hours, representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency were riveted by documents, sketches and even a video that appeared to have come from Iran’s own military laboratories. The inspector said they showed work ‘not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon,’ according to notes taken by diplomats.”  Obviously, this is a fluid and shifting relationship.)

Anyway, the article lays out a good, and I think important program (its workability is questionable, but that can be said with any plan).  The nut of it is that it is in our interests to convince Iran that working with the US on this is in theirinterests.  And they stress that choosing the second-best option (perhaps an Iranian nuclear program under strict multilateral control) is better than the worst option.  I believe this- not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and all that.  

Again, there is no perfect solution to this problem.  But we need to work on “less-bad” solutions, as morally and grammatically ugly as that sounds.    Until, of course, I reveal my perfect solution to this.