FYI, the Reason the Doha Agreement is Failing in Lebanon...

...

is because Hezbollah didn't get everything it wanted.

Yes, as was widely reported in late May, after a week of street fighting where Hezbollah routed pro-government militias: Hezbollah scored big in the cease fire talks in Doha.

Despite being a minority in the proposed governing coalition with the majority March 14 Coalition, Hezbollah won veto power over cabinet decisions and got the government to back off the demand that Hezbollah dismantle its independent telecom system.

However, something else happened after Doha: The new governing coalition re-appointed the Sunni March 14th-Coalition's pick for prime minister, Fouad Siniora. (Hezbollah boycotted the governing coalition 18 months ago when Siniora was appointed the first time by the majority March 14th Coalition. The Hezbollah boycott is what eventually what led to the street fighting.)

Hezbollah's aspirations for power are at odds with the political facts on the ground, which demands compromise and coalition.



The fighting will continue.

The Correct Afghan Analogy: 2002 not '89.

Al Qaeda wants to set up a pre-fab Afghan War in Pakistan, and the U.S. just might go in. As the NYT reports, NATO was drawn in and returned fire this afternoon.

By "Afghan War," Al Qaeda means the Soviet/Afghan War of the 1980s.

By "pre-fab," I mean that a U.S. shoot out with the Islamist fighters in the mountains of Western Pakistan might look and feel like the Soviet standoff with the Mujahideen in the 1980s, but the comparison would be dumb.

Yes, the Afghan Mujahideen was a religious army, but at its root, the movement was a nationalist fight against an illegitimate government, not a holy war without a nationalist base. Indeed, bin Laden's "Afghan" template for defeating the U.S. in Pakistan is ill-conceived for two reasons: 1) His edited version of what went down in Afghanistan in the 1980s—where he commanded what was known at the time as "The Brigade of the Ridiculous"—is off base to begin with and 2) the current situation in Pakistan doesn't line up with the situation that actually existed in Afghanistan in the '80s either.

Bin Laden made the same mistake about Afghanistan after 9/11 when he predicted—conjuring up images of the Soviet defeat— that a U.S. invasion there would destroy the U.S. rather than doing what it actually did: topple the Taliban and send Al Qaeda into retreat in Pakistan. Obviously, the U.S. has botched things since, but that has more to do with subsequent policy by the Bush Administration—shifting the fight to Iraq (?), effectively baling on Karzai— than with any equation on the ground that naturally favored Al Qaeda.

Unlike the Afghan Mujahideen of the 1980s (who defined the nationalist uprising), the radical Islamists in the Western region of Pakistan are far removed from the political action currently redefining Pakistan. The movement, which seems poised to oust the Musharaff government today, stars mainstream political parties, all with bases of popular support—the conservative PML-N, the liberal PPP, and the lawyers movement.

For example, Aitzaz Ashan, the leader of the lawyers movement —which sent hundreds of thousands to the streets in peaceful protests earlier this month— is, in fact, a member of the left-leaning PPP.

Translating the current situation into a fight against an American (or NATO) invasion of Western Pakistan seems several steps removed from the action. (Although, there is some wiggle room for smoke and mirrors by the Islamists because the blockheaded U.S. still supports Musharaff.)

If the U.S. wasn't in Iraq, I would support calling Al Qaeda on its bluff and pulling off another "Afghanistan." And by "Afghanistan," I mean the U.S. victory there in 2002 (not the Soviet fiasco in the '80s)—because that's the template that actually fits the facts on the ground.



Indeed, another thing Bin Laden's "Afghanistan" fantasy leaves out: Lots of U.S. money and missiles helped drive the Soviets out in the 1980s.

Israel's Diplomatic Pinball Game Focuses on Hezbollah More Than Iran

A McClatchy Newspapers report today about Israel's recent flurry of diplomatic efforts—the cease fire with Hamas, its talks with Syria, its overture to Lebanon—tries to make sense out of Israel's multiball play:

The nascent negotiations represent Israel's most concerted diplomatic effort so far to blunt the expanding influence of Iran by striking deals with some of Tehran's allies.

"There's a real strategic imperative to undermine the Iranian camp and build up a counter-coalition," said Mark Heller , a leading researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies.

Iran is a piece of it. But I think you have to do one more calculation to get to the real bottom line, which is Hezbollah.

First of all, Syria, a Sunni country, and Lebanon, with its secular-leaning government, are not exactly allies with Shiite Tehran.

What Syria and Lebanon have in common is Hezbollah. Certainly, Iran figures into Israel's diplomatic math, but look a little closer.

1. The main agenda item for Israel and Lebanon is the Shebba Farms territory.

2. The main agenda item for Israel and Syria is Syria's relationship with Hezbollah.

The common denominator: Hezbollah.

It's self explanatory that Hezbollah figures into the Israeli/Syrian discussion about Hezbollah. As for Shebba Farms—the disputed territory in southeast Lebanon that abuts the Israel/Golan/Syria clusterfuck? Well, it's occupied by Israel which makes Hezbollah's blood boil.

Israel's presence in Shebba is Hezbollah's number one grievance with Israel. Hezbollay cites the presence of Israeli soldiers in Shebba as the reason they remain armed in their guerrilla war against Israel. (According to UN resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Hezbollah is supposed to disarm.)

Israel would be smart to negotiate away Hezbollah's excuse for remaining armed because pressure is already mounting in Lebanon for Hezbollah to chill out and join the political mainstream. Last month's deal between Hezbollah and its rival, the dominant Future Movement party, established a compromise government in which Hezbollah has an active role. Hezbollah's affinity for violence has already made them unpopular with many Lebanese, particularly after Hezbollah's bloody stand against Sunni Lebanese in Mid May. Staying in an armed, belligerent posture will deligitemize Hezbollah further as they're supposedly trying to help the battered country stabilize under the new government—a new government whose dominant party, legendary Rafik Hariri's Future Movement, is wildly popular. Handing the Lebanese government a victory like Shebba Farms would isolate Hezbollah.

Israel's talks with Syria dovetail with this strategy. For starters, Shebba is part of the Golan Heights, the long-disputed turf that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 War. A land-for-peace swap could involve an agreement that ends Syria's patronage of Hezbollah.

Here's where it comes back to Iran, though. By isolating Hezbollah (which has always been in a relationship of convenience with Syria while actually being true BFF with its other patron, Iran) it will become clear that Iran's interest in Hezbollah is more about Shiite and Sharia expansion than it is about Israeli occupation. This move will put the Sunni Arab world even further at odds with the Shiite and Persian Iran, isolating Iran that much more.

Iran, however, is a tangent. The endgame for Israel is checking Hezbollah.

War & Peace

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Lebanon's new president, Michel Suleiman on Monday June 16 in Beirut


There are three news stories breaking in the Middle East this week.

1) Israel and Hamas have negotiated a cease fire.

2) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Lebanon's new president Michel Suleiman, figurehead head of the new unity government. Lebanon's new power-sharing government is the product of a compromise between the secular Sunni-dominated majority (mainly represented by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his Future Movement Party) and the opposition, led by the veto-wielding Shiite faction, the ascendant Hezbollah and its allies.

3) NATO and Afghani forces have begun an assault on the Argandab district in Southern Afghanistan. Taliban troops recently took over the Argandab district, located just 12-miles outside of Kandahar (where 600 Taliban staged a massive jail break last week ).

There's no connecting thread to the three stories, but obviously two of the stories—the news out of Lebanon and the news about Israel and Hamas—hint at an emerging theme in Middle East politics right now: Temperatures are lowering and enemies are talking. Hamas and Israel? The U.S. and Hezbollah?

It's weird that this line (in the second paragraph) of the NYT story on Rice's visit to Lebanon wasn't a page 1 headline:

"Ms. Rice met with government leaders from both the government majority and the Hezbollah opposition..."

It's 10 O'clock, do President Bush and John McCain know where Condoleezza Rice is? She's out appeasing!

Meanwhile, not only are Israel and Hamas signing deals, but Israel is talking about peace with Lebanon too. Israel isn't really in a stand off with Lebanon, though. I think Israel's peace talk overtures to Lebanon are code for engaging Hezbollah—nudging Hezbollah to transition into a political rather than military force. More simply put (and this is connected to the story about Secretary of State Rice in Lebanon): There's a growing recognition of Hezbollah's political legitimacy, which is causing Hezbollah's enemies (namely Israel) to think diplomatically rather than militarily. Israel is also in peace talks with Syria.

NATO's military offensive in Afghanistan isn't in synch with all the olive branch headlines, but it does represent the other dominant story in the Middle East right now: The all-out war that's on its way between the United States and the Qaeda and Taliban forces grouping in Western Pakistan. Tuesday's front-page NYT feature on unchecked Pakistani Taliban comander Mualavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, was just the latest in a run of recent stories about the brazen Taliban and Qaeda operations in the Western hinterlands of Pakistan.

Re: My Prediction that the United States is Going to Invade Pakistan

I was recently disabused of this notion by a friend with some expertise about the U.S. military.

He said the key to Pakistani unity and stability is its military. Despite all the factional turmoil in the country, the military stands in the background giving people a sense of national identity, stirring pride across ethnic and political divisions as a symbol of the country's historic battles for independence.

The U.S. needs to keep good relations with the Pakistani military. If the U.S. loses its alliance with the Pakistani military, it will lose all the leverage it has in the country. Invading western Pakistan, to get at al Qaeda and Baitullah Mehsud's Taliban—even though that clearly wouldn't be a hit on the Pakistan government—would put the Pakistani military on its heels.

Yes, Pakistan has a problem with militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), but it's their problem. The moment the U.S. struck, there'd be no hope for an alliance with Pakistan.

This morning's headlines make me think the U.S. has found away around the problem: "Karzai Threatens to Send Forces Into Pakistan."

And isn't this cute? "NATO's International Security Assistance Force said it was not going to comment."

That's a cover. A reverse-psychology cover. They want to sound disdainful and disapproving.

Quote of the Day

"Hamas is Fatah with Beards." —Fatah supporter in Gaza

Today's NYT article about Hamas rule in Gaza outlines a familiar story line in the Middle East: Orthodox Islamist group takes over, and while the public is annoyed at the crackdown on drinking, kissing, movies, political freedom, and the fits of brutality, the public also comes to appreciate the diligent and efficient governance.

Less predictable (although, it makes sense): Being in power for a year has also had an effect on a hardline Islamist group like Hamas:

While few dispute that Hamas has changed Gaza, a more complicated question is whether ruling Gaza has changed Hamas. Many in the movement and even outside it say that it is less ideological that it was at its founding or even a year ago.

Whereas Hamas says it will never recognize Israel, its leaders say that if Israel returned to the 1967 borders, granted a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem and dealt with the rights of refugees, Hamas would declare a long-term truce. This is not that different from what the rest of the Arab world says or the Fatah position in peace talks with Israel.

Jawad Tibi, a health minister under the Fatah government and a Fatah advocate in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, is angry at Hamas. Still, he said, “Hamas is talking about a 30-year truce which is no different really from what we want. Hamas is Fatah with beards.”

Profile #4: Hizbul al-Shabaab

This week's news that Somalia's Islamist opposition and Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) signed a peace agreement in Djibouti was quickly undermined by the bad news: Somalia's radical Islamists, the Islamic Courts Union, or ICU, (the ones actually fighting the U.S.-and-Ethiopian-backed government), denounced the agreement and immediately staged attacks—including an attack on the airport today as Somalia's president, TFG's Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, was getting ready to fly to Ethiopia.

None of this is a surprise. The ICU had boycotted the Djibouti meetings from the start. (Check the skeptical footnote I wrote next to the link when news broke in late May that there were peace talks in Djibouti:

"'Somalia's rivals launch peace talks,' AlJazeera, 5/31/08 (Annoying note: The article does not make it clear what parties are at the negotiating table and if, for example, the ICU is involved in the talks.)"

Indeed, it turns out, the ICU wasn't involved in the talks. They denounced them. Al Jazeera quoted one of the ICU's original leaders, Shiek Hassan Dahir Awyes ultimately condemning the deal:

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, former leader of Somalia's Islamic Courts' Union, has rejected a new peace agreement between the country's interim government and its main political rivals.

The deal faced criticism just hours after it was signed. Speaking to the Reuters news agency by phone from Eritrea, Aweys said: "We encourage the insurgents and the Somali people not to be tired of combating the enemy."

"The aim of the meeting was to derail the holy war in the country."

The ICU's other former leader, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, was actually part of the Djibouti peace talks with the TFG, yet the ICU still didn't want any part of it. (In Djibouti, Ahmed was now representing the more moderate Islamist opposition, the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia, the ARS). But without the ICU at the table, the agreement seems sort of like getting permission to stay up past bedtime from Dad, but never getting the okay from Mom. (TFG prime minister Nur Hassan Hussein agreed to make Ethiopian troops to leave the country in 120 days and the "opposition" agreed to a cease fire. We shall see.)

The proof of ICU's radical position—more than its dismissal of Ahmed and the Djibouti agreement—is the ascendance of its youth wing, Hizbul al-Shabaab (Party of the Youth). The militant Al-Shabaab, the ICU militia's special forces, have basically taken over the ICU in the last year and a half.

In December 2006, the ICU was run out of country into the bordering Kenyan hinterlands by Ethiopian and American troops—true—who were backing the TFG.

After that defeat, the ICU, renaming itself the Popular Resistance Movement in the Land of the Two Migrations (PRM for short), pledged to run a guerrilla war to retake Somalia—which the ICU had dominated for most of the decade, and outright controlled in 2006.

Operating out of Kenya and southern Somalia now during this recent guerrilla phase, the ICU's youth forces, al-Shabaab (which had gained a reputation during the ICU's command of the country in the mid-90s and 2000s as a bloody and reckless goon squad brigade that often embarrassed the more moderate ICU leadership), began to emerge as the lead fighters in the guerrilla movement. The war has killed about 6,000 civilians in Somalia in the past year.

al-Shabaab flag

Al-Shabaab surfaced in the mainstream media in spooky fashion this week in reports about the endangered Djibouti agreement.

The faction that signed the deal does not include influential leaders like Sheik Aweys or the Shabab, a separate militant group responsible for much of the current fighting. The group seems to be gaining strength, with government troops defecting to it and Shabab fighters seizing town after town. Much of south-central Somalia is now under the control of the Shabab or other Islamist groups.

Shabaab's leader is Aden Hashi Farah Eyrow, a protoge of Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys (the Islamist leader mentioned in the NYT account directly above and in the Al Jareeza accounts at the top denouncing the recent agreement). During the '90s and 2000s, Aweys was the co-leader of the ICU along with Sharif Sheikh Ahmed (the former ICU leader who signed off in Djibouti, now as a member of the more moderate ARS).

During their ICU days, Aweys was basically the ICU's prime minister and Ahmed its president. Aweys, always the more radical of the two (and formerly the head of a Somalia-based Qeada-related terrorist group, al-Itihaad al-Islamiya) resurfaced in Eritrea in 2008, the country which had armed the ICU during the ICU's heyday. Ahmed, the ICU's spiritual founder (a former high school history teacher, a Koranic scholar who studied law at a Libyan university, and something of a moderate) resigned after the military defeat in December 2006.

On the ground now in Southern Somalia, and pushing back into Mogadishu, it's Awey's follwer, Eyrow, and his militant ICU youth offshoot, Shabab. Their goal is to establish sharia in Somalia. (Despite being Sunni, they sent some 720 fighters to Lebanon in July 2006 to fight alongside Shitte Hezbollah against Israel. Hezbollah wants to bring sharia to Lebanon)

The ICU wasn't always so radical. They emerged in the early '90s as an antidote to the anarchy that plagued Somalia under feuding warlord rule. The ICU set up a loose confederation of 11 autonomous Islamic courts in 11 towns throughout Somalia to deal with rampant crime. The order they brought was welcomed by the muslim population, which wasn't necessarily as religious as the courts, but longed for some peace and quiet. Soon the courts started dealing with civil matters and routine things like car titles. They also created a higher court to bring consistency to their legal system, the Supreme Islamic Court of Banadir (headed by Ahmed). They also established an army.

Additionally, they created a governing body, the Shura Council, headed by Aweys. (Both Aweys and Ahmed had been judges in one of the original 11 regional courts, with Ahmed establishing himself as more of a moderate and Aweys aligning himself with the more orthodox courts who were issuing death sentences, cracking down on bollywood movies and "licentious music," and reportedly going after porn and soccer.)

As the ICU's power grew in the 2000s, and as they threatened the warlords, the warlords banded together and formed The Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT). The ARPCT, funded by the CIA, was the precursor to the TFG. The ICU and the ARPCT duked it out until the ICU eventually took control of the capital, Mogadishu, and most of central and Southern Somalia in the summer of '06. This led to the U.S. and Ethiopian military campaign in December '06 that toppled the ICU, sending them fleeing south to Somalia's netherland border with Kenya. Ethiopia's interest in toppling the ICU stems from their concern about having a radicalized Islamic state as their neighbor.

Defense Update and GlobalSecurity.Org have both published good primers on the ICU.

Link Think

There's an ultra-contrarian post up today on the Middle East Strategy at Harvard website.

Martin Kramer, an Olin Institute Senior Fellow at Harvard, argues that peace in the Middle East does not "run through" Jerusalem or "run through" Tehran or "run through" Baghdad. (Okay. But really, the only person who ever believed peace in the Middle East ran through Baghdad was Vice President Dick Cheney. Thanks for that magical analysis.)

Kramer's point being: "Linkage" is a red herring for political leaders and diplomats and negotiators who want peace in the Middle East. Kramer argues that "linkage"—the notion that resolving one central conflict (the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in this case) will bring peace to the entire region, like curing one malady that's responsible for a host of related maladies—is an inapplicable principle from the 1940s when diplomats brought peace to Europe. Kramer says "Linkage" theory doesn't apply to the contemporary Middle East as it did to Europe because there's no controlling theme or system in the Middle East.

He writes:

The concept of linkage requires another belief: that the Middle East is a system, like Europe, and that its conflicts are related to one another.

Europe in modern times became a complex, interlocking system in which an event in one corner could set off a chain reaction. In Europe, local conflicts could escalate very rapidly into European conflicts (and ultimately, given Europe’s world dominance, into global conflicts). And Europe had a core problem: the conflict between Germany and France. Resolving it was a precondition for bringing peace to the entire continent. Churchill put his finger on this in 1946: “The first step in the re-creation of the European Family,” he said, “must be a partnership between France and Germany.”

Linkage, I propose—and this is my original thesis—is a projection of this memory of Europe’s re-creation onto the Middle East. The pacification of Europe was the signal achievement of the United States and its allies in the middle of the 20th century. It then became the prism through which the United States and Europe came to view the Middle East. From NATO to the European Union, from the reconstruction of Germany to Benelux, Europe’s experience has provided the template for visions of the future Middle East.

It was this mindset that led analysts and diplomats, for about three decades after the creation of Israel, to interpret Israel’s conflict with its neighbors as “the Middle East conflict.” Like the conflict between France and Germany, the Arab-Israeli conflict was understood to be the prime cause of general instability throughout the region, as evidenced by repeated Arab-Israeli wars, in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973.

The flaws in the analogy only began to appear after Egypt and Israel achieved peace in 1979. From that point onward, the Arab-Israeli conflict moved in fits and starts toward resolution. Yet other conflicts in the region intensified. Large-scale wars erupted—not between Israel and its neighbors, but in the Persian Gulf, where a revolution in Iran, and the belligerence of Iraq, exacted a horrendous toll and required repeated U.S. interventions.

By any objective reading, the reality should have been clear: the Middle East is not analogous to Europe, it has multiple sources of conflict, and even as one conflict moves to resolution, another may be inflamed. This is because the Middle East is not a single system of interlocking parts. It is made up of smaller systems and distinct pieces, that function independently of one another.

I'm not sure how Kramer's point applies practically. While he seems exacerbated by all the domino-effect emphasis that's put on securing peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, he doesn't suggest an alternative approach (nor, obviously, does he suggest abandoning negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.)

And I would argue that there is a controlling theme in the Middle East (it's what this whole blog is premised on, damn it): The running stand off between secular and religious aspirations. I don't, however, have a theory about addressing that bigger conflict to bring peace to the Middle East.

Really, Kramer's post is worth reading for the list he provides at the end, his thematic breakdown of all the conflicts in the region. (His 7th category—"the nationalist-Islamist conflicts within states"—is what I'm talking about):

Clusters of Conflict

First, the Arab-Persian conflict (with its origins in earlier Ottoman-Persian conflict). This manifested itself in our time most destructively in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, and it continues to inflame post-Saddam Iraq and other parts of the Arab/Persian Gulf (even the name of which is the subject of dispute). This is probably one of the oldest rivalries in the history of the world. It has been exacerbated by the bid of Iran, under the Shah and now under the Islamic regime, to restore lost imperial greatness and achieve hegemonic dominance over the Gulf and beyond.

Second, the Shiite-Sunni conflict, which goes back in various forms for fourteen centuries, and which the struggle for Iraq has greatly inflamed, both within that country and beyond. There is some overlap here with Arab-Persian conflict, but the Shiite-Sunni conflict also divides Arabs against each other, in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Gulf countries. The ruthless violence between the sects in Iraq suggested the savage potential of this sectarianism, which has some potential to spread to other places in the Middle East where Shiites and Sunnis contest power and privilege.

Third, the Kurdish awakening, which involves a large national group experiencing a political revival in the territory of several existing states. Over the past two decades, violent conflict generated by Kurdish aspirations has torn at the fabric of Turkey and Iraq. Kurdish groups have used terrorism, and states have used scorched-earth repression and chemical weapons against Kurds. Now that Iraqi Kurds have established a de facto state in northern Iraq, there is every prospect that the Kurdish awakening will generate more conflict, and that it will spill over borders, possibly involving Turkey, Iran, and Syria.

Fourth, the inter-Arab conflict among Arab states over primacy, influence, and borders—the result of disputes created by the post-Ottoman partition of the Arab lands by Britain and France. In some places, these disputes are exacerbated by the inequities in nature’s apportioning of oil resources. The most destructive example of such a conflict in our times was Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait—the attempted erasure of one Arab state by another. Other examples include Nasser’s invasion of Yemen and Syria’s occupation of Lebanon.

Fifth, conflicts over the political aspirations of compact Christian groups with strong historic ties to the West. Foreign Christian minorities were turned out of the region decades ago, but the Maronites of Lebanon and the Greeks of Cyprus have held their ground. In the 1970s, wars were launched to deprive them of their political standing, leading in Cyprus to de facto partition between Greek and Turkish areas, and in Lebanon to a quasi-cantonization. These conflicts have defied all attempts at final resolution.

Sixth, conflicts that arise from the quest of Arab states to preserve or restore parts of their pre-colonial African empires. The most significant conflicts in this category are the long-running war in Sudan, which has descended into genocide in Darfur, and the festering contest over Western Sahara.

Seventh, the nationalist-Islamist conflicts within states, which are the result of failed modernization and the disappointed expectations of independence. The costliest of these conflicts in our time were the Iranian revolution in the 1970s (Islamists prevailed), the Islamist uprising in Syria in the 1980s (nationalists won), and the civil war that ravaged Algeria for much of the 1990s (nationalists triumphed). Smaller-scale conflict has occurred in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and is now afflicting the Palestinian territories.

Eighth, numerous conflicts, centered in the Persian Gulf, generated by the addiction of the industrialized West to the vast oil resources of the region, and the need of the United States to maintain its hegemony over the world’s single largest reservoir of energy. The United States essentially keeps the Gulf as an American lake, using aggressive diplomacy, arms sales to clients, and its own massive force to keep oil flowing at reasonable prices. This has put the United States in direct conflict with regional opponents—Islamic Iran, Saddam’s Iraq, and a non-state actor, Al-Qaeda—who have seen its dominance as disguised imperialism. In particular, U.S.-Iranian conflict for regional hegemony has escalated over the last thirty years, and is now being exacerbated by Iran’s nuclear ambitions and pursuit of regional power status.

Ninth, there is conflict involving Israel, on three planes: Arab-Israeli (that is, Israel versus Arab states), Palestinian-Israeli, and Iranian-Israeli. The Arab-Israeli conflict produced a series of four inter-state wars in each of the four decades beginning in 1948. But since Egypt’s peace with Israel, three decades ago, there have been no general Arab-Israeli wars, and Israel has negotiated formal or de facto agreements or understandings with neighboring states. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict periodically erupts and subsides (most dramatically in two intifadas), and continues to defy resolution, but hasn’t led to a regional conflagration. The brewing Iranian-Israeli conflict isn’t about the Palestinians; it is an extension of the contest between the U.S. and Iran for regional dominance. So far, this conflict has manifested itself in short but sharp contests between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Never Mind Iran

I wrote this post yesterday afternoon, but I didn't publish it because it wasn't anything more than a flip, smart aleck one-liner about a U.S. invasion of Pakistan. It seemed pretty dumb.

Then I woke up to this NYT headline today: "Pakistan Says U.S. Airstrike Killed 11 of Its Soldiers."

Here's what I wrote yesterday:

Today's NYT editorial page is on alert about U.S. saber-rattling against Iran.

But the U.S. is not going to invade Iran. The U.S. is going to invade Pakistan.

"Last week John D. Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, used perhaps the strongest language yet against Pakistan, saying that the United States found it 'unacceptable' that extremists used the tribal areas to plan attacks against Afghanistan, the rest of the world and Pakistan itself. 'We will not be satisfied until the violent extremism emanating from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas is brought under control,' Mr. Negroponte told the National Endowment for Democracy." —"Pakistan Defies U.S. on Halting Afghanistan Raids," NYT, 5/16/08.

"Pakistan's new government yesterday agreed to pull its forces out of a restive region near the Afghan border and allow elements of Islamic Shariah law to be imposed there in return for a promise by local Islamic militants to end a wave of terror and arrest foreign terrorists operating in the area. The accord came a day after Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte expressed deep reservations about such accords, noting that a similar deal struck by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in 2006 had allowed Taliban and al Qaeda forces to recruit and rearm. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday the United States is 'reserving judgment' on the new pact, acknowledging that previous attempts to negotiate had not curbed militant activity on the border. Mr. Negroponte was more explicit in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday, saying the Bush administration 'has some skepticism about [Pakistan's] ability to enforce any such arrangement.' 'There is a lot at stake here, and we have made that point repeatedly,' he said." —"Deal Reached with Pakistan’s Militants," Washington Times, 5/22/08.

Here's some more recent coverage of the run up to the pending attack:

June 5, 2008: "Afghan Borders Concern NATO Force Leader,"

June 2, 2008:"Taliban Leader Flaunts Power Inside Pakistan,"

May 30, 2008: "NATO Chief in Afghanistan Says Pakistan’s Tack on Militants Is Not as Expected,"

May 22, 2008: "Pakistani Taliban urges sharia rule,"

May 22, 2008: "Pakistan and Taliban Agree to Army’s Gradual Pullback,"

May 21, 2008: "Pakistan troops to vacate Swat,"

May 6, 2008: "U.S. Worry Grows over Pakistan's Tribal Peace Deal,"

and

April 22, 2008: "Pakistan Taliban vows to fight on."

Profile #3: Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora

Thankfully, an emergency summit in late May in Doha, Qatar halted the violent clashes in Lebanon that had broken out earlier in the month between government opponents from Hezbollah and pro-government militias. The Doha accord, reached on May 21, set up the framework for a unity government and prevented a civil war.

The word after the Doha agreement was completed was that Hezbollah had become the ascendant power in Lebanon. (The agreement granted Hezbollah veto power in the new unity government.)

Hezbollah, the militant Shia group based in Southern Lebanon, is backed by Syria and Iran (and clearly more BFF with the Shiite theocrats who run Iran than with Sunni Syria, which is Hezbollah's patron only because it gives Syria a foothold in Lebanon). Hezbollah seems to have two things on its To Do list: Destroy Israel (blah blah blah) and, according to their founding manifesto, establish an Islamic state in Lebanon.

However, there's a man in Hezbollah's way on item #2; a man who's been trying to disarm Hezbollah, Fouad Siniora. Siniora was just elected prime minister of Lebanon's new unity government on May 28th.

In fact, Siniora was the previous prime minister of Lebanon, until Hezbollah and its Shiite allies—demanding Siniora's resignation—quit the unity government in late 2006, crippling Siniora's relevance and the government's authority and legitimacy. Then Hezbollah shut down Beirut by staging an 18-month sit-in, and eventaully routed government allies in armed street battles in May 2008—setting the stage for the Doha agreement which reconstituted the government largely on Hezbollah's terms.

One thing that didn't go Hezbollah's way after Doha: Once the government got set up again in late May, it reappointed Siniora.

"But despite the power sharing deal, the Hezbollah-led opposition and the ruling coalition continue to squabble over the formation of a government of national unity.

Siniora's recent reappointment as Lebanon's prime minister was met with dissatisfaction by members of the opposition."—Al Jazeera, 6/7/08

Fouad Siniora, 65, is the chairman and managing director of a major Lebanese banking group, Groupe Mediterranee. He also served under former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, as finance minister. (Groupe Mediterranne, in fact, is part of the Harari family business empire.)

Siniora's close ties to the now-legendary Hariri are central to Siniora's current position. Rafik Hariri was Lebanon's prime minister from 1992-1998 and from 2000-2004. (Siniora was a minister in all of Hariri's cabinets.)

Hariri was assassinated on February 14, 2005, shortly after resigning office in October 2004. He had resigned out of frustration with Syria's involvement in Lebanon's affairs.

Hariri's assassination led to the "Cedar Revolution"—a broad-based reformist movement. On March 14, 2005, a month after the assassination, and after weeks of escalating demonstrations, a million people took to the streets of Beirut, establishing the Cedar Revolution's March 14 Coalition of Sunnis, Socialists, secularists, Druze, and Christians. They demanded that Syria, widely believed to be responsible for Hariri's murder, withdraw it's 14,000 troops from Lebanon. (Syria had had as many as 30,000 troops in Lebanon in the 90s, meddling in Lebanon's affairs and supporting Hezbollah ever since Lebanon's civil war ended in 1990.)

The government that was in power at the time of Hariri's assassination—Prime Minister Omar Karami's government, which had replaced Hariri's government after Hariri's 2004 resignation—was staunchly pro-Syriaian. Kamari resigned in late February 2005 as the demonstrations gained steam. And then Syria withdrew all of its troops in late April, 2005.

New elections held in the Spring of '05 put the The Future Movement (Hariri's party), which now carried the banner of the March 14 Coalition, into power, with an unprecedented mandate for reform. The March 14 Coalition, its biggest member being the The Future Movement (winning 36 seats), won 72 seats total out of 128 in Parliament. Hezbollah (14 seats) combined with its allies to control 35 oppostion seats.

Siniora, with the support of the March 14 Coalition and Future Movement leader Saad Hariri, Rafik's businessman son, became the prime minister in July 2005. He quickly called for the investigation into Rafik Harari's assassination, which was likely to implicate Hezbollah sponsor, Syria.



Eventually, in November '06, Hezbollah quit the government, demanding Siniora's resignation. Without a coalition, there was no way to actually govern. The Future Movement maintained rule over a Lebanon in limbo. (The melting-pot army, under the rule of Michel Suleiman, was the de facto authority).

The shaky calm was formally shattered in mid-May 2008, when the government tried to crack down on Hezbollah's state within a state, attempting to shut down Hezbollah's independent telecommunications network. Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, described the government affront as a "declaration of war" and soon enough armed street fighting broke out between Hezbollah and government surrogates from The Future Movement and Druze Muslims aligned with the government. Hezbollah routed the the pro-government militias, taking control of Beirut.

Qatar hosted peace talks in late May 2008 to end the crisis. Hezbollah got the better end of the deal: They would rejoin the government, but only with veto authority. Another major victory for Hezbollah (and Iran and Syria) in Lebanon.

However, despite getting the veto power in the new 30-member cabinet—which will include 3 appointments by the president (the popular former head of Lebanon's army, Michel Suleiman, a Maronite Christian), 16 representatives from the Western-leaning, Sunni-ish March 14 Coalition majority, and the veto-strong 11 representatives from the opposition (Shia Hezbollah and its allies like the Shiite group, Amal)—Hezbollah's nemesis, Sunni-banker-turned-prime minister, Fouad Siniora, with the popular Future Movement backing him, is the boss. Again.

Lebanon's constitution requires that the President be Maronite Christian, the PM be Sunni, and the Speaker of Parliament be Shiite. Nabih Berri, a member of Amal, a de facto Hezbollah ally in the opposition ranks, is the Speaker.

(Religion is a touchy issue in Lebanon. This was tragically demonstrated during Lebanon's complicated 15-year civil year between 1975 and 1990. It's so touchy that the government hasn't done a census since 1932. It's estimated, though, that Lebanon has a 69/39 Muslim/Christian split with, of course, dicey subsets within those two groups.)

One final note on Siniora and Hezbollah: A major event during Siniora's first go round as PM in 2005 and 2006 was the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon in July '06. (Hezbollah was still part of the government at this point.) Siniora praised Hezbollah, condemned Israel's "criminal" attack, and led the fight for an unconditional cease fire. Afterwards, however, he accused Hezbollah of staging a coup in Lebanon, and he pressed to disarm Hezbollah. Although, he said his government would and could not do that on its own. (Disarming Hezbollah was one part of the August 2006 U.N. Security Council agreement that ended the war between Israel and Hezbollah, Resolution 1701, that never happened).

War Reporting

To get the gist of the Senate's new report on President Bush's dishonest case for invading Iraq, read today's NYT editorial about the report and this bullet-point summary from the LA Times:

The report on the Bush administration's case for war, 170 pages long, reads like a catalog of erroneous claims. The document represents the most detailed assessment to date of whether those assertions were backed by classified intelligence reports available to senior officials at the time.

The report largely exonerates Bush administration officials for some of their prewar assertions, including claims that Baghdad had stockpiles of illegal chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing a nuclear bomb. Even though those claims were subsequently proved wildly inaccurate, the report notes, they were largely consistent with U.S. intelligence at the time.

But the report says the Bush administration veered away from its own intelligence community's conclusions in two key areas: Iraq's relationship with Al Qaeda and the difficulty of pacifying Iraq after a U.S. invasion.

Statements in dozens of prewar speeches and interviews created the impression that Baghdad and Al Qaeda had forged a partnership. But the report concludes that such assertions "were not substantiated by the intelligence" being shown to senior officials at the time.

Claims that Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had met with an Iraqi agent in Prague, for example, were dubious from the beginning and subsequently discounted. The idea that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had provided chemical and biological weapons training to Al Qaeda hinged on intelligence from a source who soon was discredited.

Bush officials strayed even further from the evidence in suggesting that Hussein was prepared to provide weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaeda terrorist groups -- a linchpin in the case for war.

In October 2002, for example, Bush warned in a key speech in Cincinnati that "secretly, and without fingerprints, [Hussein] could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own." The threat was repeated frequently in the run-up to war but was "contradicted by available intelligence information," the committee says.

On post-war prospects, the report contrasts the rosy scenarios conjured by Cheney and others with more sober intelligence warnings that were being presented to senior officials.

Cheney's prediction that U.S. forces would "be greeted as liberators" was at odds with reports from the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which warned nearly a year earlier that invading U.S. forces would face serious resistance from "the Baathists, the jihadists and Arab nationalists who oppose any U.S. occupation of Iraq."

Discouraging.

There's an era-defining elegance to the Senate report and the news articles, particularly as we head into the Presidential contest between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain with 150,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq.

Here's a run down of the candidates' positions on Iraq.

Profile #2: Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan

Turkey's most powerful court ruled this week that female students cannot wear the hijab (the Islamic headscarf) on campus. The NYT reported yesterday:

The secular opposition Republican People’s Party, called the verdict a triumph of justice and said it showed that secularism and democracy were “constitutional principles that can’t be separated from one another.”

Mr. Erdogan calls the case a matter of individual rights, contending that all Turks should be able to attend universities no matter what they wear or believe.

All but lost in the debate have been the voices of the women whose futures are caught in the political cross hairs. Neslihan Akbulut, 26, a sociology graduate student, said she cried when she heard the verdict.

“There is no way for me in Turkey now,” she said.

I agree with Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamic conservative, on this one.

It seems to me that the secular Republican People's Party doesn't have a handle on secularism. Secularist governments shouldn't be in the paranoid business of banning religious expression, they should be in the business of protecting individual rights, including religious expression. Government's only role in regulating religion is to make sure that institutions charged with doing the people's business—legislatures, schools, the police, public hospitals, banks—don't endorse or promote a religion. Certainly, this involves preventing a school from making women wear the hijab, but that shouldn't be confused with stopping a woman from wearing a hijab.

Let's rewind.

On February 9, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's governing conservative party passed legislation, getting 441 yes votes in the 550-seat parliament, allowing female university students to wear the hijab. (Wearing the hijab had been banned in public buildings since 1980.)

"Tayyip, take your headscarf and stuff it," demonstrators chanted as an estimated 200,000 people gathered in a rally for "Secularism and Independence" to protest as parliament voted.

Erdogan addresses parliament

Yesterday, Turkey's highest court, The Constitutional Court, ruled that allowing women to wear the hijab on campus violated Turkey's secularist guidelines.

More from yesterday's NYT report:

Turkey’s highest court dealt a stinging slap to the governing party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday, ruling that a legal change allowing women attending universities to wear head scarves was unconstitutional.

Turkey's top court ruled today that Islamic head scarves violate secularism and cannot be allowed at universities. The Constitutional Court said in a brief statement that the change, proposed by Mr. Erdogan’s party and passed by Parliament in February, violated principles of secularism set in Turkey’s Constitution.

The ruling sets the stage for a showdown between Turkey’s secular elite — its military, judiciary and secular political party — and Mr. Erdogan, an observant Muslim with an Islamist past.

Prime Minister Erdogan, head of the Justice & Development Party (AKP) is in his second term. He was first elected in 2003 and again in 2007—the second time by an even wider margin.

He's definitely a social conservative. As mayor of Instanbul, he outlawed alcohol in cafes. And as PM he's fought to have Islamist justices appointed to Turkey's famously secularist courts. He can also be a firebrand. He was briefly jailed in 1998 after he emerged as the charismatic spokesperson for the outlawed religious conservative Welfare Party (the party he had represented as Mayor of Istanbul, which was declared unconstitutional by the state in 1997 for its apparent Islamic agenda.) Specifically, Erdogan was charged with "religious hatred" for invoking the Islamist poem, "Prayer of the Soldier" at a rally to protest the government's decision to ban his Welfare Party:

Mosques are our barracks,
domes our helmets,
minarets our bayonets,
believers our soldiers.
This holy army guards my religion.
Almighty our journey is our destiny,
the end is martyrdom.

The Welfare Party reinvented itself as the Justice and Development Party, AKP, and Erdogan was elected PM as the AKP's leader in 2003.

The Constitutional Court, a zealous enforcer of secularism, has a history of banning religious-leaning parties, and observers believe the Court is going to use the flap over the hijab to outlaw AKP and bar Erdogan from politics.

If the secularist arbiters in Turkey aren't careful, they're going to stir up a heated backlash.

Coming from a working class background, Erdogan, 54, (here's a BBC profile), emerged as a promising political figure in the 1970s when he joined the National Salvation Party (which was outlawed in 1980), a precursor party to the Welfare Party.

Recognizing Erdogan's political skill and charisma, National Salvation Party leader Nercmettin Erbakan—who himself would become Turkey's first Islamist prime minister in 1996 as the leader of the Welfare Party, promoted the young Erdogan, a former semi-pro football player who worked at Istanbul's transit authority. Erdogan became chairman of the Welfare Party in Istanbul in 1985.

Erdogan ran (and lost) for mayor in suburban Istanbul (the Beyoglu district) in 1985; ran repeatedly for parliament, finally winning in 1991—when, for the first time, the Welfare Party passed 10 percent threshold; and, tapped by Erbakan, was elected mayor of Istanbul in 1994—a powerful and high-profile position that eventually turned him into the popular, dissident spokesman for the outlawed Welfare Party in the late 90s.

Erdogan softened his Islamist image to win election as prime minister in 2003, condemning the radical Turkish Islamist group, PKK, for example. (Although his opposition from the center-left Republican People's Party doesn't buy it).

Erdogan advocates a pro-Western economic platform (he's pushing to join the EU) and is admired—even by his secular foes—for his success running the economy.

In other news from Turkey this week: Turkey has joined forces with Iran to fight the Kurds in Northern Iraq. And as I posted (skeptically) earlier this week, religious scholars from secularist Turkey figure prominently in the news that the Islamic world has begun to reevaluate al Qaeda's orthodox ideology.

Obama Bashert (באַשערט)

Some political observers may think it's ironic that, thanks to the scheduling Gods, Sen. Barack Obama's victory lap ended up taking place, of all places, at a speech in front of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby.

Obama at AIPAC conference in DC, NYT photo

I happen to think it was appropriate. Destiny even.

Certainly, there is cause to see irony in the fact that immediately after clinching the Democratic nomination on June 3, Obama's first big speech on June 4, would take place at an AIPAC conference. Indeed, while Obama grabbed the nomination by firing up the traditional liberal coalition— minorities, youth, post-college grads, upscale urban voters, and, in this cycle, anti-war voters—he's actually had a highly-publicized problem with another standby bloc in the Democratic equation: Jewish voters.

CBS exit polling of 30 primaries confirmed Obama's "Jewish Problem" —showing that Obama trailed Clinton 45 to 53 among Jewish voters. [Note, every time I try to link the CBS poll, my computer crashes. You will find a link to the poll on this page.]

There were obvious reasons, fair or not, for Obama's troubles with the Jews: Obama's camera-happy, longtime minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, liked to channel trite anti-Semite, Louis Farrakhan; Obama's mixed messaging on Iran (he's willing to hold talks of some kind with loopy hater Mamoud Ahmadinejad) raised questions about Obama's commitment to Israel; as did that unsolicited endorsement from Hamas. And there was also his "suspect" Muslim name.

Additionally, Obama has had to contend with some bad history. American Jews and American blacks have had a chilly relationship (think Jesse Jackson, Crown Heights, and Louis Farrakhan again) ever since the Black-Jewish alliance of the Civil Rights era came unglued in the late 1960s. The logic of Black nationalism connected African Americans with Third World Liberation movements starring revolutionaries like Yasser Arafat's PLO. It also emphasized Black self reliance, which shattered a long standing relationship where Jews had been at the forefront of desegregation. Resentment replaced camaraderie.

Obama is keenly aware of his problem with Jews. Last January, he went out of his way to speak out against "the scourge of anti-Semitism" in the black community in front of a black audience during an MLK celebration at MLK's own Ebenezer Baptist.

So, is it ironic that Obama would wind up speaking at AIPAC's annual conference on the very day his campaign—despite lukewarm support from Jews—triumphed? Or did the scheduling Gods know exactly what they were up to?

I think the scheduling Gods knew exactly what they were up to. It was bashert, (Yiddish for destiny): On this, Obama's first day as the Democratic nominee-in-waiting (with the cameras of the world rolling,) Obama landed in a roomful of Jews where he got to set the record straight and set the stage for his campaign agenda.

Obama told the initially cordial, but ultimately cheering crowd, that he would "take an active role ... from the start of [his] administration" (a nice dig a Bush) and "make a personal commitment" to "a Jewish state of Israel and a Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security."

It was a bit of destiny because I think it's going to happen. Despite the mess that President Bush has made in the Middle East (or perhaps because of it), fate has set the table for a change agent like Obama.

While I've been a bitter Clinton fan, I recognized how awesome an Obama presidency would be. The one thing that's genuinely excited me about Obama all along is my belief that he'll be a miracle worker in the Middle East.

Here's why.

1) Obama is a PR disaster for Osama. If America elects a black man (and not a former Joint Chiefs of Staff black man, but a liberal Democrat who worked as a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago), Bin Laden's rhetoric about America's "imperialist and racist" policies is going to fall flat in the Arab world. Electing Obama would be a shocker to the haters. And a conundrum for their despots.

2) Obama himself, as the symbol for this revolution of equality (and of America's true values), is going to have rock star status around the world. He will be greeted in the Middle East with cheering crowds. This good will on the ground is going to allow him to press adversaries for change.

(Check it, even as the Islamic world postures about Obama's AIPAC speech, the Iranians shelved their usual bombast. According to Al Jazeera today:

"Iranians responded cautiously, but optimisticly, with officials expressing hope he can bring about change in Iran-US relations.Hamidreza Hajibabaee, member of Iranian parliament, said: 'We hope that Obama turns his words into actions, helps the Islamic Republic of Iran believe that the US has given up enmity and paves the way for fair negotiations.'"

3) Obama is a peacemaker. I'm not sure what the appropriate comparison is. It's not at the level of MLK or Ghandi, (maybe it's Andy Griffith's Sheriff character from the Andy Griffith Show?), but I'm curious to see how Obama's political foes— domestic and internationally—will navigate this dude. He challenges belligerence with that Jay-Z "Dirt off Your Shoulder" thing. Unlike Bush, who played into Ahmadinejad (and infamously now) bin Laden's hands, Obama lowers the temperature, inspiring conversation rather than shouting.

He's not a wimp or an "appeaser" though. I finally recognized that Obama's got game when McCain tried to frame Obama as a dangerous Commie symp for suggesting that the U.S. shoud talk to Iran or Hamas. (President Bush seconded McCain's trap by hinting to the Israeli Knesset that Obama was Neville Chamberlain.) Obama spun out of the full-court-press trap by expertly reframing the whole issue— with the liberals as the bad asses.

"What are George Bush and John McCain afraid of?" Obama countered, "the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn't have a single one. When the world was on the brink of nuclear holocaust, Kennedy talked to Khrushchev and he got those missiles out of Cuba. Why shouldn't we have the same courage and the confidence to talk to our enemies? That's what strong countries do, that's what strong presidents do, that's what I'll do when I'm president of the United States of America."

He added:

"If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy, led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with Ronald Reagan, 'cause that's what he did with [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev, or Richard Nixon 'cause that's what they did with [Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung]. That’s exactly the kind of diplomacy we need to keep us safe."

Suddenly, the softy liberal position—talk instead of testosterone—became the macho one (with a macho subtext: We've got something to say to Iran.) It was an unprecedented move for a liberal, and Obama did it flawlessly.

Probably said all this much better—this idea that the stars have aligned and now's the time for Obama—in the Stranger's Obama endorsement in February with this quick line: "And no, it's not about race (although we don't underestimate the symbolism—to the rest of the world—of electing a black man after eight years of John Wayne diplomacy)."

Profile #1: Fatah al-Islam

Today's news that Fatah al-Islam took credit for a deadly bomb blast that killed a government troop in Northern Lebanon last week (Al Jazeera has the story) is a scary reminder about this newish and hot-headed militant faction. While Hezbollah, the Shiite militants backed by Iran and Syria, has everybody tweaked out, it's actually Fatah al-Islam that's willing to upset the urgent political compromise that cooled sectarian violence and political tensions in Lebanon last month. (Hezbollah, in fact, is invested in the political truce.)

Fatah al-Islam, a militant Sunni group based in the Palestinian refugee camp, Nahr el-Bared in Northern Lebanon, first grabbed my attention a few weeks ago when a spooky passage about them showed up in this NYT primer on the shaky situation in Lebanon:

Lebanese political leaders have tried hard to avoid stirring sectarian sentiment, emphasizing the religious diversity of both the governing coalition and the Hezbollah-led opposition movement. In a speech delivered the day before Hezbollah supporters seized the capital, the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, went out of his way to deny that Sunni-Shiite tensions were an issue.

But after Hezbollah supporters humiliated Lebanon’s main Sunni political leader, Saad Hariri — crushing his weak militia, forcing his party’s television station off the air and burning two of his movement’s buildings — many of Mr. Hariri’s supporters were enraged, and they said they would look to another Sunni leader who would help them fight back.

That sentiment has stirred fears that moderate, secular Sunni leaders like Mr. Hariri could lose ground to more radical figures, including the jihadists who thrive in Lebanon’s teeming Palestinian refugee camps. Fatah al Islam, the radical group that fought a bloody three-month battle with the Lebanese Army in a refugee camp in northern Lebanon last year, issued a statement Thursday condemning Hezbollah’s actions. The group also gave a warning: “He who pushes our faces in the dirt must be confronted, even if that means sacrificing our lives and shedding blood.”

Fatah al-Islam was founded in 2006 by Shakir Al-Abisi. In the 1980s and '90s, Abisi was a member of a secular Palestinian militant group with Libyan and Syrian ties called Fatah al-Intifida. Abisi went to fight in Iraq alongside al Qaeda insurgents in 2003 allying himself with Qeada leader al-Zarqawi. Fleeing murder charges, Abisi left Iraq in 2004, bringing al Qaeda's religious fervor back to the Fatah group, which was now based in Northern Lebanon. Here, around Northern Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps, Abisi organized young militants who had also fought in Iraq and created a Qaeda-inspired faction within Fatah al-Intifada.

Angry that Fatah al-Intifada had turned over two members of his militant faction to the Lebanese army, Abisi officially split off to form Fatah al-Islam in November 2006.

The armed Sunni group, about 150 strong now—mostly Syrians, Saudis, and radicalized Lebanese Sunnis—operates out of Nahr el-Bared, the Palestinian refugee camp near the Lebanese city of Tripoli, and advocates bringing Lebanon's Palestinian camps under Sharia rule. Abisi claims allegiance with al Qaeda according to this March 2007 International Herald Tribune profile on Fatah al-Islam.

"We have every legitimate right to do such acts, for isn't it America that comes to our region and kills innocents and children?" said Abssi. "It is our right to hit them in their homes the same as they hit us in our homes."

"Originally, the killing of innocents and children was forbidden," Abssi said. "However, there are situations in which the killing of such is permissible. One of these exceptions is those that kill our women and children."

"Osama bin Laden does make the Fatwas," Abssi said, using the Arabic word for Islamic legal pronouncements. "Should his Fatwas follow the Sunnah," or Islamic law, he said, "we will carry them out."

A bank robbery near Tripoli in May, 2007, led Lebanese authorities to Fatah al-Islam and ultimately drew the army into a 3-month, bloody military skirmish with the group outside Nahr el-Bared. In September, the army eventually seized control of the camp. (UN rules actually prevent the Lebanese army from entering Palestinian refugee camps.)

As militant Sunnis, Fatah al-Islam are sworn enemies of the Lebanon's dominant power broker, Hezbollah, which operates out of Southern Lebanon. Both groups reject Lebanon's secular government—although Hezbollah is actually part of the current governing coalition. And although Hezbollah is in the minority, they did secure veto power after flexing military muscle in street battles last month.

Despite Fatah al-Islam's apparent connections to al Qaeda, conspiracy theories hold that the U.S. supports the group because it represents a challenge to Hezbollah and in turn, a challenge to Iran and Syria. However, conspiracy theories also tie the group to Syria because of Fatah al-Intifada's connections to Syria.

Given Lebanon's unruly mix of competing political factions—secular Sunnis (represented by the anti-Syrian, governing majority Future Movement party), Hezbollah, Druse (a Socialistic-y secular Islamic faction), Maronite Christians, religioius Sunnis—along with outside pupeteers like Syria, Iran, and Sunni Saudi Arabia—I don't see Fatah al-Islam as a rising political power.

But given their brazen attack on the army in Northern Lebanon last week (Lebanon's mixed identity army is viewed as a stabilizing force of legitimacy in Lebanon), and given their cocky fax claiming credit, I do think Fatah al-Islam is a dangerous wild card in this al Qaeda-age Middle East.

Here's a helpful Wikipedia entry on Fatah al-Islam.

Initial Essay on All This

Here's a 2,300-word, anti-Iraq War essay I wrote for The Stranger back in October 2002, during President Bush's run up to the war. (At the time, it was overshadowed by Savage's pro-war sidebar.)

The intro wasn't my best writing. It was too dramatic with hostility toward bin Laden and al Qaeda (oh wells). But the program I eventually started laying out was on point. It begins:

There's a much more logical and honest (and urgent) way to proceed against terrorism. Let's promote democratic reforms in the real linchpins of the region: Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. And I'm not talking about Radio Free Europe broadcasts--an imprecise, hit or miss Cold War tactic waged against our enemies. I'm talking about a direct American campaign for democracy (and women's rights!) in the Middle East aimed at our suspect allies. In short, we have more than radio waves to influence the likes of Cairo and Riyadh. We've got dollars, business investments, and political relationships. Let's get tough, and demand changes from our friends; demands backed with the threat of pulling our support.

Real democratic change in the Middle East will rip the rug from under the randy demagogues with guns and websites who prey on the disenfranchised populations in undemocratic countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Fittingly, these countries are also central to the growth of bin Laden's movement in a way that Iraq is not. (The majority of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia; and al Qaeda's leap from motley crew to sophisticated force was made possible by its alliance with longtime Egyptian radicals such as mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri and his huge Egyptian underground movement.)

Securing sweeping democratic reforms in Egypt and the rest of the aforementioned list of Middle Eastern nations will produce the overdue death knell of bin Ladenism, something attacking Iraq surely won't achieve.

The first order of business in an American campaign for Middle Eastern democracy is...

The Problem With a Turkish Revolution

Newsweek picked up on the hot Middle East storyline that's been in play all week ever since The New Yorker published Lawrence Wright 's article on Sayyid Imam al-Sharif's anti-al Qaeda hit.

Newsweek reports that this apparent revolution—this reevaluation of orthodox literalism, of 7th Century fetishism—is centered in Turkey:

Important Muslim thinkers, including some on whom bin Laden depended for support, have rejected his vision of jihad. Once sympathetic publics in the Middle East and South Asia are growing disillusioned. As CIA Director Michael Hayden said last week, "Fundamentally, no one really liked Al Qaeda's vision of the future." At the same time, and potentially much more important over the long run, a new vision of Islam, neither bin Laden's nor that of the traditionalists who preceded him, is taking shape. Momentum is building within the Muslim world to re-examine what had seemed immutable tenets of the faith, to challenge what had been taken as literal truths and to open wide the doors of interpretation (ijtihad) that some schools of Islam tried to close centuries ago.


Intellectually and theologically, a lot of the most ambitious work is being done by a group of scholars based in Ankara, Turkey, who expect to publish new editions of the Hadith before the end of the year. They have collected all 170,000 known narrations of the Prophet's sayings. These are supposed to record Muhammad's words and deeds as a guide to daily life and a key to some of the mysteries of the Qur'an. But many of those anecdotes came out of a specific historical context, and those who told the stories or, much later, recorded them, were not always reliable. Sometimes they confused "universal values of Islam with geographical, cultural and religious values of their time and place," says Mehmet Gormez, a theology professor at the University of Ankara who's working on the project. "Every Hadith narration has ... a context. We want to give every narration a home again."

It's not surprising that this big push for reform is cooking in Turkey. Ever since Kamal Ataturk ended the Caliphate in 1924, Turkey has been a driving force for modernity in the Islamic world. ( I also hold Turkey responsible for rock and roll!)

However, there's a flip-side to this, that may jinx Turkey's current push for reform. Turkey is a suspect messenger among conservatives in the Muslim world. Ataturk's secular revolution in the 1920s forever branded Turkey as a bad guy.

Ataturk hismself sparked a reactionary-utopia backlash (starting with Hasan al-Bana and the Muslim Brotherhood) that ended up drowning the push for modernity (see: Sayyid Qutb, Zawahiri, veiled university students in cosmopolitan Cairo in the late 60s, the siege of Mecca, the Iranian revolution, the Sadat assassination, the GIA in Algeria, al-Qaeda), often in blood. This heavy right-wing backlash has defined the contemporary Middle East. Ataturk's reforms backfired on a massive scale.

Any new revolution coming from Turkey may fall flat. It's like the "Nixon in China" rule. It's better for conservatives to reform conservative ideology than it is for pushy Turkish liberals.

Background Check

Last month, I did a batch of posts on my otherwise remote personal blog that focused on news stories from the Middle East. I was obsessing over the factions.

These posts, republished below, turned out to be precursor entries for the blog I'm starting right now, Josh vs. Al Qaeda.

•••

May 27, 2008, Hex Readings #5:
Always an excellent occasion: Al-Qaeda expert Lawrence Wright has published a new article in the New Yorker.

Wright is the author of the definitive al-Qaeda history book, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. He also wrote the important Sept. 16, 2002 28-page New Yorker profile on al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

His latest article is about Egyptian political prisoner and (former?) jihadist, Sayyid Imam al-Sharif.

Sharif, more commonly know as Dr. Fadl, is a hero and revered intellectual among Islamic radicals. He's also a former Zawahiri comrade from Egypt's terrorist group Al Jihad. Dr. Fadl's influential 1994 1,000-page book, “The Compendium of the Pursuit of Divine Knowledge,” provided the basis for al-Qaeda's bloody philosophy, including justifying the notion of takfir, the dishonest excuse for Muslim-on-Muslim violence.

Wright's big news for the New Yorker: Dr. Fadl's new manifesto, November 2007's “Rationalizing Jihad in Egypt and the World," written from prison in Egypt, denounces terrorism and ridicules the merits of al Qaeda's philosophy.

The premise that opens “Rationalizing Jihad” is “There is nothing that invoke the anger of God and His wrath like the unwarranted spilling of blood an wrecking of property.” Fadl then establishes a new set of rules for jihad, which essentially define most forms of terrorism as illegal under Islamic law and restrict the possibility of holy war to extremely rare circumstances. ... “There is no such thing in Islam as ends justifying the means.”

Family members must be provided for. “There are those who strike and then escape, leaving their families, dependents, and other Muslims to suffer the consequences,” Fadl points out. “This is in no way religion or jihad. It is not manliness.” Finally, the enemy should be properly identified in order to prevent harm to innocents. “Those who have not followed these principles have committed the gravest of sins,” Fadl writes.

To wage jihad, one must first gain permission from one’s parents and creditors. The potential warrior also needs the blessing of a qualified imam or sheikh; he can’t simply respond to the summons of a charismatic leader acting in the name of Islam. “Oh, you young people, do not be deceived by the heroes of the Internet, the leaders of the microphones, who are launching statements inciting the youth while living under the protection of intelligence services, or of a tribe, or in a distant cave or under political asylum in an infidel country,” Fadl warns. “They have thrown many others before you into the infernos, graves, and prisons.”

Indiscriminate bombing—“such as blowing up of hotels, buildings, and public transportation”—is not permitted, because innocents will surely die. “If vice is mixed with virtue, all becomes sinful,” he writes. “There is no legal reason for harming people in any way.” The prohibition against killing applies even to foreigners inside Muslim countries, since many of them may be Muslims. “You cannot decide who is a Muslim or who is an unbeliever or who should be killed based on the color of his skin or hair or the language he speaks or because he wears Western fashion,” Fadl writes. “These are not proper indications for who is a Muslim and who is not.”

And as if having to get one's parents' permission to go blow up buildings isn't bad enough, Dr. Fadl has some terrible news for Jihadist wannabes looking to score with hot virgins in the afterlife. It looks like they'll be in for something else: A banner up their ass:

The most original argument in the book and the interview is Fadl’s assertion that the hijackers of 9/11 “betrayed the enemy,” because they had been given U.S. visas, which are a contract of protection. “The followers of bin Laden entered the United States with his knowledge, and on his orders double-crossed its population, killing and destroying,” Fadl continues. “The Prophet—God’s prayer and peace be upon him—said, ‘On the Day of Judgment, every double-crosser will have a banner up his anus proportionate to his treachery.’”

Wright argues that the publication of Dr. Fadl's book may be a watershed moment in Middle East consciousness, capturing a shift among radical dissidents away from violence and towards political solutions.

Fadl’s fax confirmed rumors that imprisoned leaders of Al Jihad were part of a trend in which former terrorists renounced violence. His defection posed a terrible threat to the radical Islamists, because he directly challenged their authority. “There is a form of obedience that is greater than the obedience accorded to any leader, namely, obedience to God and His Messenger,” Fadl wrote, claiming that hundreds of Egyptian jihadists from various factions had endorsed his position.

Two months after Fadl’s fax appeared, Zawahiri issued a handsomely produced video on behalf of Al Qaeda. “Do they now have fax machines in Egyptian jail cells?” he asked. “I wonder if they’re connected to the same line as the electric-shock machines.” This sarcastic dismissal was perhaps intended to dampen anxiety about Fadl’s manifesto—which was to be published serially, in newspapers in Egypt and Kuwait—among Al Qaeda insiders. Fadl’s previous work, after all, had laid the intellectual foundation for Al Qaeda’s murderous acts.

On a recent trip to Cairo, I met with Gamal Sultan, an Islamist writer and a publisher there. He said of Fadl, “Nobody can challenge the legitimacy of this person. His writings could have far-reaching effects not only in Egypt but on leaders outside it.” Usama Ayub, a former member of Egypt’s Islamist community, who is now the director of the Islamic Center in Münster, Germany, told me, “A lot of people base their work on Fadl’s writings, so he’s very important. When Dr. Fadl speaks, everyone should listen.”

Although the debate between Fadl and Zawahiri was esoteric and bitterly personal, its ramifications for the West were potentially enormous. Other Islamist organizations had gone through violent phases before deciding that such actions led to a dead end. Was this happening to Al Jihad? Could it happen even to Al Qaeda?

However, Wright isn't kidding himself. His article also offers stats and quotes ("Hani el-Sibai, a Zawahiri loyalist who now runs a political Web site in London ... said of Fadl, 'Do you think any Islamic group will listen to him? No. They are in the middle of a war'" ...) pooh-poohing the notion of any impending cool out.

According to a recent National Intelligence Estimate, Al Qaeda has been regenerating, and remains the greatest terror threat to America. Bruce Hoffman, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University, says that although Fadl’s denunciation has weakened Al Qaeda’s intellectual standing, “from the worm’s-eye view Al Qaeda fighters have on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, things are going more their way than they have in a long time.” He went on, “The Pakistani government is more accommodating. The number of suicide bombers in both countries is way up, which indicates a steady supply of fighters. Even in Iraq, the flow is slower but continues.”

Meanwhile, new Al Qaeda-inspired groups, which may be only tangentially connected to the leaders, have spread, and older, more established terrorist organizations are now flying the Al Qaeda banner, outside the control of bin Laden and Zawahiri. Hoffman thinks this is the reason that bin Laden and Zawahiri have been emphasizing Israel and Palestine in their latest statements. “I see the pressure building on Al Qaeda to do something enormous this year,” Hoffman said. “The biggest damage that Dr. Fadl has done to Al Qaeda is to bring into question its relevance.”

But you cannot read the article without realizing that the angry "Arab Street" of 2002 is now sitting down at the cafe for a serious reevaluation.

UPDATE: The New Republic published a similar article today (Tuesday, May 27), documenting both al Qaeda's waning hold on the Islamic world and quoting former Qaeda allies' condemnations of bin Laden's ideology.

UPDATE #2: Slate zooms in on Wright's al Qaeda article, mostly quoting from the stir it has caused on security and diplomacy blogs—and also quoting "Seattle blogger Martian Bracelets at Hex Message." C'est moi.

UPDATE #3: The Wall Street Journal publishes its own editorial about the buzz on al-Qaeda in decline. They credit "The Surge."


May 26, 2008, The Clerics are Right:
I've always believed the scariest thing about Ahmadinejad's presidency is this: While all of Iran's recent presidents have had to bow to the authority of the Supreme Council of Clerics (which is scary enough), Ahmadinejad's fascist populist schtik has quietly elevated him above the ruling council. After becoming the teacher's pet of the far-right clerics in the 2005 presidential elections—and beating reform-minded, liberal President Khatami—Ahmadinejad now towers over his former right wing benefactors. It's a Frankenstein story.

The NYT report, "Iranian Clerics Tell the President to Leave the Theology to Them," explains that Ahmadinejad says Imam Mahdi—a Shiite prophet who is supposed to return after 1000 years in hiding and bring peace to the world—is a secret member of his kitchen cabinet.

The clerics, offended that Ahmadinejad is usurping their authority by claiming to have Imam Mahdi on speed dial, have publicly denounced his presumptuous rhetoric, adding that Ahmadinejad is using the religious bombast to cover up the fact that he's doing a lousy job with the economy. (Sounds like the clerics want a little separation of Church and State.)

Having the conflict out in the open has been a longtime coming, and I suspect it's going to reach a crisis point in the next year that will either fully consolidate Ahmadinjad's fascist-leaning rule or wind up bouncing him from office.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

Mr. Ahmadinejad said Imam Mahdi was directing his government’s policies. He said he had the imam’s hidden support when he gave a speech at Columbia University in New York last September and was insulted by the president of the university.

With Imam Mahdi’s support, he said, 500 million people watched him on television. Mr. Ahmadinejad also said the United States had attacked Iraq because it had found out that “the divine hand” — apparently a reference to Imam Mahdi — was going to emerge there.

The escalation of the dispute in recent days seemed to suggest that Mr. Ahmadinejad was challenging Shiite clerics assumed to be the sole interpreters of the faith.

Several of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s critics said that by linking his government to Imam Mahdi, he was trying to deflect criticism of his economic policies, which have led to double-digit inflation.

A senior conservative cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, warned him weeks ago not to talk about Imam Mahdi and said that even the founder of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, did not claim any links with the imam.

May 17, 2008, Re: Hex Readings #3:
NYT AP Photo from Beirut last week

Earlier this week, when I wrote about a batch of NYT reports from the Middle East (including a series of breaking news stories from Lebanon), I noted that, "In a rare lapse for the NYT, they failed to answer a few elementary questions or lay out the basics behind the news. This isn't a big deal criticism, but it's helpful to have a little more context."

Thankfully, on its website today, reporting the details of kidnappings, torture ("electrical shocks to his genitals") and funerals transformed into impromptu sectarian pogroms, the NYT—with sections like "Battling in the Streets" and "Solidifying Hatred"—filed a 1700-word primer about the situation in Lebanon. I imagine it will be on the front-page of their Sunday edition tomorrow.

The story explains the mainstage conflict between the Shiite Hezbollah movment and the Sunni-leaning government coalition, which is affiliated with secular Sunni leader Saad Hariri's Future Movement. Hezbollah's state-within-a-state status (similar to Hamas' rebel status in Gaza—although, Hamas is Sunni) is nudging the country toward a second civil war.

Here are two disquieting paragraphs from this must-read 101 on Lebanon:

After Hezbollah supporters humiliated Lebanon’s main Sunni political leader, Saad Hariri — crushing his weak militia, forcing his party’s television station off the air and burning two of his movement’s buildings — many of Mr. Hariri’s supporters were enraged, and they said they would look to another Sunni leader who would help them fight back.

That sentiment has stirred fears that moderate, secular Sunni leaders like Mr. Hariri could lose ground to more radical figures, including the jihadists who thrive in Lebanon’s teeming Palestinian refugee camps. Fatah al Islam, the radical group that fought a bloody three-month battle with the Lebanese Army in a refugee camp in northern Lebanon last year, issued a statement Thursday condemning Hezbollah’s actions. The group also gave a warning: “He who pushes our faces in the dirt must be confronted, even if that means sacrificing our lives and shedding blood.”

SUNDAY UPDATE: The NYT did, in fact, put the Lebanon primer on Sunday's front page (top right). They also continued filing news reports from Pakistan with more on Baitullah Mehsud and his militant Tehrik-e-Taliban group. MONDAY UPDATE: The story in Pakistan continued with a suicide bombing.

May 15, 2008, Hex Readings #3:




The NYT filed a batch of stories from the Islamic world on Tuesday, May 13. All the stories were breaking news items: In Pakistan, key members quit the fragile governing cabinet; in Sudan, rebel forces attack the capital; in Lebanon, the army steps in to quell factional violence in the mountains outside Beirut.

The Middle East has world history by the collar right now, and these stories are the news hooks into the action:

In Pakistan: Representatives from Nawaz Sharif's conservative Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML) abandon the fragile governing coalition cabinet after their demand that the government immediately reinstall anti-Pervez Musharraf judges fails. President Pervez Musharraf, who seized control of Pakistan in a 1999 coup when he ousted Sharif, suspended the Constitution in late 2007, declaring martial law and dismissing several judges from Pakistan's Supreme Court after the Court declared Musharraf's brazen measures unconstitutional.

The PML is the minority faction in the governing coalition cabinet with the left-leaning Pakistan People's Party (PPP). The PML/PPP coalition emerged after emergency elections were held earlier this year, taking control of the Parliament and cabinet and threatening President Musharraf's long standing military rule.

But the issue of reinstating the anti-Musharraf judges, like deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has put the coalition at risk. Ali Zadari's majority PPP, formerly Benazir Bhutto's party before she was assassinated, is more willing to compromise on the judges. Zardari, by the way, is Bhutto's widower.



In Sudan: The Justice and Equality Movmement (JEM), an anti-government rebel force heavily involved in the Darfur war in the South, attacks Sudan's capital city, Khartoum. The government thinks the flamboyant Islamic/maverick demagogue, Hassan al-Tarabi, a former colleague of Osama bin Laden and a former ally of current President Omar al-Bashir, helped coordinate the alarming assault.



In Lebanon: Days after Hassan Nasrallah's anti-government Hezbollah takes over sections of West Beirut (before voluntarily stepping off the following day), the Lebanese army moves in to stop follow-up fighting between Hezbollah and pro-government Druse fighters in the mountain outskirts.



•••

In a rare lapse for the NYT though, in their rush to report, they failed to answer a few elementary questions or lay out the basics behind the news. This isn't a big deal criticism, but it's helpful to have a little more context.

The story on Pakistan, for example, doesn't explain where the influential radical fundamentalists from North Western Pakistan, like Baitullah Mehsud and his Tehrik-e-Taliban party, fit in. Do they support Nawaz Sharif's center-right Muslim League-N party? The answer is: No. The fundamentalists, traditionally represented by the ultra-right MMA, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (United Council of Action), lost power in the 2008 elections and are not formally a relevant player in the standoff between Sharif's Muslim League-N and Asif Ali Zardari's center-left Pakistan People's Party.

The story on Sudan doesn't explain why Sunni Islamist rebels would attack the Sunni Islamist government in Khartoum nor where the notorious Janjaweed armies of Darfur fit in. The answer is unclear, but I do know that the rebels, the non-Arab Islamist Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), is fighting the Arab-Janjaweed, who are supported by Omar al-Bashir's central government in Khartoum.

The story on the factional mess in Lebanon doesn't give any details about the government (its agenda? its politics? its religion? its legitimacy?) nor about the Lebanese army. The army—the star of the story—stepped in a little late, according to nervous government supporters, to check Hezbollah, the powerful, armed Shiite dissidents. Nor does the article explain Hezbollah's fundamental grievance with the government.

Lebanese politics are unintelligible. I do know that Hezbollah, operating in Southern Lebanon, is an armed Shiite faction supported by Iran and Syria. Hezbollah originally sought an Islamist government in Lebanon, but now—as a member of the Parliament—simply seems opposed to the multi-culti government, the March 14 Alliance. The March 14 Alliance is made up of secularists, Sunnis, Druse, Christians, and Socialists (but not Shiites) and is united in its opposition to Syrian meddling. The March 14 Alliance is led by Saad Hariri. Hariri, a Georgetown-educated telecom exec, is the son of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Rafik Hariri was assassinated (many suspect Syria) in February 2005. His assassination led to Syria's expulsion from Lebanon and the "Cedar Revolution" which created the March 14 Alliance.

•••

On Wednesday, May 14, there was more news from the Middle East as the marquee conflict in the region—Israel vs. Hamas —continued to boil.



And throughout the week, the NYT continued to follow the stories in Lebanon and Pakistan: There was an article reporting on Lebanon's decision to give in to Hezbollah's demands; a second article detailing how a new round of talks in Lebanon will formalize Hezbollah's increasing power; an editorial on Lebanon faulting the Bush administration for not having the clout to get involved in the crisis; an article about the Pakistani government's pending deal with Islamic militants in North Western Pakistan that, to the chagrin of the U.S., does not address the militants' cross-border raids into Afghanistan nor the presence of foreign Arab fighters there who are using the region as an al Qaeda station; and an editorial about Pakistan urging the U.S. to help fortify the governing coalition in Pakistan rather than derelict President Musharraf.

Finally, just last month, the NYT covered breaking news from a lower profile, but equally zeitgeist conflict in Somalia where the Ethiopain-backed warlord patchwork government in Mogadishu is fighting the Sharia-fetishist Islamic Courts Union (ICU). And this week, the NYT ran a depressing article about starvation in Somalia.



I've tried to write about all this before, using the conflict in Somalia as a lens to lay out the theory that al Qaeda's popular revolution is a ruse. Their "vanguard" movements have been relegated (symbolically enough) to netherland territory like the limbo southern region between Somalia and Kenya and to the remote mountains of Western Pakistan. Their situation is in telling contrast to historic resistance movements like the Viet Cong who found popular refuge in strategic centers, successfully setting up base in South Vietnam. And I use that word "base" as a dig, given that al Qaeda means "the base."