Middle East

Michael Isikoff, who is really one of the best reporters out there, has a brief article on what is happening in Yemen now.  The meat of it is Robert Mueller’s recent visit, about which Isikoff says “did not go well, according to two sources who were briefed on the session but asked not to be identified discussing it. Saleh gave no clear answers about the suspect, Jamal al-Badawi, leaving Mueller “angry and very frustrated,” said one source, who added that he’s rarely seen the normally taciturn FBI director so upset.”

Eagle-eyed readers will note the young, blog-centric and- dare we say?- devilishly handsome expert quoted in the last paragraph.

Fred Kaplan at Slate has a great article about the relationship between Iraq and Iran, as well as Iran and the US, especailly relating to the battle of Basra.   Here’s the money quote.

Since the start of the offensive in Basra, Sadr’s Mahdi Army has resumed shooting at American soldiers in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad—and, interestingly, in that fight, the Iranians are supporting Sadr.

In other words, we find ourselves lassoed into an armed intra-Shiite power struggle on two fronts—and the Iranians are positioned to benefit from one or both contests, no matter whether the side we’re backing wins or loses.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week.  Working on a big post on Egypt that should be up tomorrow.  Selah.

The story of Nojoud, the serial-raped 8-year-old forced bride in Yemen, has a happy ending.   Someone paid her wretched husband for a divorce, and she is now free and something of a celebrity, taken care of and showered with affection.  Unfortunately, many girls in similar situations still face the same problem.  From the Yemen Times:

Eight-year-old Nojoud is now safe after an anonymous donor paid her 30-year-old husband to divorce her. Although this chapter of her life has closed, there are many other Yemeni girls who still suffer from early marriage and its consequences. Feminist groups in Yemen are urging the Parliament to legally define a minimum marriage age. However, there is a long way to go before girls like Nojoud can be free from detrimental early marriages.

An anonymous Emirate donor gave the husband 100,000 Yemeni rials (right about 500 US dollars) to set her free.  This is frustrating, because the husband made himself a nice little deal, but it was perhaps necessary to secure her freedom.   Hopefully, this story won’t go away, and will provide an impetus to the Parliament to change an archaic practice.

Nojoud, after her divorce (Yemen Times)

Because, between the PKK, both in-country and in Northern Iraq, the constant headscarf issue, the debate over its European or Islamist future, and debates, both philosophical and legal, over its Islamic-governed present, the last thing Turkey needs is al-Qaeda activity in the country.   But there has been a lot of high-level chatter recently that such an event is in the near future of this ancient border of Europe and Asia.

Thomas Renard, writing for Jamestown, talks of a “parallel jihadi society” existing inside Turkey, information gleaned from several recent police raids.  Here is Renard:

Al-Qaeda is taking roots in Turkey, as indicated by recent police crackdowns and the discovery of a parallel jihadi society in Istanbul. In a two-day operation, Turkish police forces arrested 43 alleged members of al-Qaeda. On April 1, police forces launched four simultaneous raids in four different provinces—Istanbul, Hatay, Gaziantep and Konya. The operation resulted in the arrest of 35 individuals, including the leader of al-Qaeda in Turkey (Sabah, April 2). One day later, 300 security forces, including police forces and Special Forces, launched another raid which resulted in the arrest of 18 individuals. This latter cell had been under surveillance for eight months (Today’s Zaman, April 2). Twenty-four suspects have been indicted by a Turkish court on charges of planning bombings and belonging to a terrorist organization (Southeast European Times, April 8).

 Stefan Nicola, in the Middle East Times, seconds this, but elaborates on the challenges in identifying sources of terrorism in Turkey.

“In Turkey, terrorism comes from several different currents,” Berndt Georg Thamm, a terrorism expert in Berlin, told United Press International in a telephone interview. “For one, we have the Kurdish terrorism of the PKK; then there are Islamist groups, like the Islamic Jihad Union, which originated among the Turkic people in Central Asia, but enjoy support inside Turkey; and thirdly, and this can’t be denied — there is al-Qaida, which with small cells has gained a foothold in Turkey.”

I was a little surprised at first reading this expert talking about Central Asian ties, which are rarely brought up.  Because Turkey’s ties with Central Asia over-lap with the binary East/West discussion, they are often ignored.  But the former Soviet states, with their Turkish populations and religious similarities, offered secular Turkey a chance to forge ties with these resource-rich nations (here’s a good article on that).   But ties with Central Asia bring out unintended consequences, as well.  Perhaps Islamic terrorism, even with the IMU shattered, can filter its way from the Stans into Turkey proper.

But the question is always one of ties and intent?  It was well-known that the Islamist movements in the former Soviet states had ties to the Taliban- Ahmad Rashid documented this excellently.  Are these groups at all tied to a-Qaeda?  Can they make common cause with the PKK?  Or is this a little too conspiratorial? 

One could try to link these groups, draw elaborate ties- and there may be some (enemy of my enemy and all that).   But I think to do so would to fall into the same murky pattern we have held since that clear and violent September day- lumping all sorts of movements into the vague and nebulous miasma of “terrorism”.   Each country has its own histories and challenges which arise from them.  The general one-size-fits all approach this Administration has used regarding the varied Middle East has turned a bad situation into a walking disaster.   Turkey has to approach its growing problems with Turkish solutions.  It might not be possible- there are many conflicting interests in Turkey, possibly too many disparate threads to tie together- but to attempt to shoehorn them into a comfortable model for us would ensure disaster.

Gregory D Johnsen, despite his snide comment on the marriage post, has an excellent article in the new Sentinel, the journal of the Combating Terrorism Center, out of West Point.   It is on Yemen, and provides an excellent overlook of what is happening in Yemen right now, and why.  This is as good a piece as you will read on that roubled country.

Self-promotion?  No.  An educational opportunity.

Your author has a new article up on Yemen in the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Focus. 

Want a teaser?  Why not?

Yemen is running out of water. Its economy is one of the weakest in the world. Its second-most powerful and influential political figure, Shaykh Abdullah al-Ahmar, recently died, and Saleh is trying to manage the transition to his own successor. These are fragile and trying times in the country. The attacks were a message to Saleh, and to the global community, that the chaos-producing strategy of al-Qaeda in Iraq, achieved despite being only a small part of the insurgency, is now being exported to the militants’ homelands.

Enjoy!

I hate being the guy who only publishes bad stories, and I promise to try and publish some things that are more uplifting, but I came across this story last week and it has bothered me ever since.   I suppose there is a bit of inspiration in the story, but the overall arch is wildly depressing.

 And 8-year-old girl, Nojoud Mohammad Nasser, is challenging Yemeni law by seeking a divorce from her husband, 22 years her elder.  It is not that divorce is illegal in Yemen, but that Nojoud is too young to seek it.  Not too young to be forced into marriage, of course.  

According to Yemeni law, Nojoud cannot prosecute, as she is underage. However, court judge Muhammed Al-Qathi heard her complaint and subsequently ordered the arrests of both her father and husband.

“Whenever I wanted to play in the yard he beat me and asked me to go to the bedroom with him. This lasted for two months,” added Nasser. “He was too tough with me, and whenever I asked him for mercy, he beat me and slapped me and then used me. I just want to have a respectful life and divorce him.”
One instantly thinks of Lolita, only real and more horrible (”and how she cried- every night, every night- after I had pretended to fall asleep”).   It is a remarkable story, and that she even has the ability and intelligence to seek legal recourse at eight is astonishing.  

This story, and others like it, have caused a bit of an outcry in Yemen.  The Yemen Observer published an bitter editorial about another case,  decrying both the government and the civil society organizations which “only care about organizing conferences and seminars at which they spend the funds they have received from the government and from international organizations and donors.” But  ”on the ground they do nothing at all.”
Now comes news from the Timesthat the Yemeni Parliament has rejected a minimum age for marriage.

The Yemeni Parliament, through its Evaluation and Jurisprudence Committee, rejected a request to amend the personal status law presented by the Women’s National Committee (WNC). Women’s movements and civil society in Yemen along with 61 Parliament members have advocated a law that legislates a minimum marriage age of 18 for both males and females. However, the Jurisprudence Committee claims there are no legislative grounds to impose such a law based on its understanding of Islam.
I do think that 18 might be extreme for the minimum, but that is a red herring.  Clearly, girls being raped at eight or eleven is an absolute horror, and it is good that this is getting attention.  I sympathize with the Parliament, though.  Yemen has a host of other problems, and might be wary about upsetting older sensibilities. 

However, I have no sympathy for Najoud’s husband. 

Although he is currently in custody, Nujood’s husband has rejected her demand to be divorced.

“It is not a matter of loving her, I don’t, but it’s just a challenge to her and her uncle who think that they can put me in jail and also the judge has no right to bring me here. How did she dare to complain about me?” he threatened.
We’ll track this story, and hope that through some archaic and insane law she doesn’t have to go back to him.  I am never one to advocate rough justice, but that guy…

The Los Angeles Timeshas an excellent blog on the Middle East, Babylon and Beyond, and I am not just saying that because they have added this to their blogroll.  I am reasonably sure the Times will do fine without my endorsement.   I am linking it because of an interesting article on the death of Hezbollah strategist Imad Mughnieh, as framed by Iran.

 Some Iranian newspapers, close to both President Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni are fingering Saudi Arabia in Mugnieh’s explosive death.  From the Times:

The source quoted in the report told Fars (Editor’s Note: Fars is an Iranian newspaper)that the Syrians had discovered a network connected to Israeli intelligence and Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar bin Sultan as well as a Saudi intelligence official in Damascus as partly behind the death. The source alleged that the Syrians had already arrested a Saudi official and were about to release their long-delayed report about the killing implicating the Saudis but were swayed by Kuwait to hold off.

Both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait urged their citizens to leave Lebanon after Mughniyah’s slaying.

Here are other allegations in the report:

• Israeli intelligence officials monitored Mughniyah’s comings and goings for a year before the assassination.
• Conspirators included Jordanians, Syrians and Palestinians who, along with their families, had rented or bought housing near Mughniyah’s residence in the Kafar Sosa district of Damascus.
• The Saudi official overseeing the operation fled home after the assassination but was lured back by a woman with whom he was having an affair.

So.  This, then, seems to involve Saudis, Syrians, Palestinians, Israelis (of course), Kuwaitis and adultery.  I think it stands to reason that the scheme was cooked up by a lazy studio-head. 

Who knows if any of this is true?  I am sure there are some elements of truth in there- Mugnieh’s death wasn’t a spontaneous action.  But the more important point is that, despite talk of an Iranian/Saudi rapprochement, there is still tension and difficulties in the region, handshakes and professions of friendship aside.

 If the report is true, and I doubt it, then Saudi Arabia killed one of Iran’s men in Hezbollah-run, Iran-backed Beirut, never a sign of brotherly affection.   If it is false, then for some reason Iran feels the need to discredit Saudi Arabia.  The reason is most likely connected to their struggle for regional dominance- both want to be seen as the true leaders of the Middle East’s true believers.  So there will continue to be these inter-locking conspiracies, wherein the hint of conspiracy is just as powerful a tool as action.

I’m going to quibble here with an article I really enjoyed and found useful.  I hope you don’t mind.   I don’t want to leave the impression that it was a bad article.   It is one you should read, if you have the time.

 And time is the most important thing here.   The Carnegie Endowment has a long, 40-some page report on what the authors describe as “The New Middle East”.  (link goes site with .pdf link)  If, like me, you fancy staying at home one night and reading about the Middle East, this is for you.

Basically the authors postulate that we are entering a new era in the Middle East, albeit one with most of the older pathologies still in place.  They identify three “clusters” of problems- the Iran/Iraq cluster, the Lebanon/Syria cluster, and (of course) the Israeli/Palestinian cluster.  All of these are informed by and still affect each other, of course.   They also get into issues of nuclear confrontation with Iran, and the idea of proliferation from Morocco to Riyadh.   All of these are underlined by US policy throughout the Bush years, which has tended to make things far worse with what the authors describe variously as disinterest, unmet threats, and too much force.   This to me sums things up nicely.

 What I like about this approach is how they are able to make us see clearly the new era we are entering.  It is hard to judge history while you are living in it, especially when things seem to happen so fast, and are so quickly analyzed, dissected and then discarded by news outlets, talking heads and (um) blogs.   Our attention can whiplash from Syria to Baghdad to Sana’a in an instant; it is hard to make a cohesive outlook of the region.  This article is instructive in making sense of these maddening and tumultuous times. 

But, as I said, it is not without its flaws.  I am going to bring up three: two specific to the discussion,  one an aside that I think is deeply misguided.  Both are indicative of larger problems when discussing the Middle East, so I think it is important.

The first specific one is their solutions, particularly regarding Iran.   The authors do an excellent job of explaining why the nuclear issue is so difficult.

At the same time, the
United States needs to keep in mind that
Iran will never agree to anyarrangement in which it is expected to publicly retreat or admit defeat, nor can it be forcedto compromise through pressure alone. Besides the issue of saving face,
Iran’s political elite—chiefly Ayatollah Khamenei—believe that compromise as a result of pressure projects weaknessand will only encourage the
United States to demand more.But not as good a job as explaining what needs to be done. 

To be sure, engagement offers no guarantees of success. It is the Iranian government thatultimately must make a strategic decision to change its own policies. The best thing
Washingtoncan do is maintain dialogue with
Iran, simultaneously present it with two distinct pathsforward, and let it be known that when
Tehran is ready to rethink its policies and emerge fromisolation, there will be a partner in
Washington ready to welcome it.This is: true.  But- not helpful.  “Dialogue” is a great buzzword, signifying everything but containing nothing.   There is no discussion of what can and can’t be taken off the table.  There are no words about inviolable lines in the sand for either party.   I think this is kind of a cop-out, but it also might be because no one really knows what can bring Iran to the table, much less what needs to be on it. 

Another flaw also has to do with Iran- the authors dismiss the idea of a rising Shi’ite Crescent, and do so with logic, reason, facts, and a fundamental blind spot.  

But the formation of a Shi’i crescent is a far-fetched idea. Although there is a great deal of discontentamong Shi’a, particularly in the Gulf countries and, of course,
Lebanon, as already discussed,such discontent is not likely to translate into a grand regional alliance dominated by
Iran.And then they do a great and instructive job of pointing out the grievances Shi’a have in various countries.  This is often over-looked but vitally important.  Many countries, especially Saudi Arabia, have problems with oppressed Shi’ite communites.  Many think Iran is looking to exploit this. 

The authors shluff this off, but they do so in a way that is inaccurate.  The idea of the Shi’ite Crescent they conjure up is one of unstoppable unity, a turbo-charged scimitar sweeping over the sand, lopping off heads like a bearded Queen of Hearts.  In other words: a strawman.   I don’t think many see this as the case.  I doubt even Bill Kristol, in his most fervid, quinine-induced psycho-sexual military fantasies, believes that would be the case.

What Iran cando is fund, arm and train militant groups of Shi’ites inside countries opposed to its regional dominance.   Even if the groups are outside the mainstream Shi’ite community inside, say, Bahrain, they are able to cause trouble and keep Arab countries more concerned with internal affairs than with their giant neighbor to the East. Iran does not want chaos in the region, especially in Iraq, but wants to be the dominant force.  Owning militia groups throughout the area is a good way to start.   The problem with this kind of analysis is its either/or nature: either Iran wants its armies to march clear to Casablanca, or it is staying home.  The authors don’t exactly fall into this trap, but the strawman they set up helps to lead readers into this kind of thinking.

The final problem I have is one that is common to read, and isn’t even a major point in the article (though it is repeated).  It is basically one sentence.

The United States needs to recognize that terrorism is not the result of blind hatred of Western civilization, as the Bush administration insists, but rather an extreme response by a few to U.S. policies that most Arabs see as hostile.

Neither is actually the case here, and both are incredibly parochial ways to look at the issue.  Yes: there is much hatred toward US policy in the region, and much of it justified.  And yes: there is blind hatred.  But the underlying dogma behind militant Islam existed long before the US became a global power, and before anyone could hate it blindly.   Different policies, especially on the Israeli/Palestinian issues (though moreso on economic ones) would help to negate the pull that violence has on young, bored and desperate young men.   But the ideology would still exist.   It is easy, and justified, to label George Bush as a Manichean politician, but we also need to be careful not to react with the other extreme.  Understanding the New Middle East is difficult enough without letting blind hatred toward those that don’t understand it lead us to an equal level of confusion.