Tag Archives: ISIS

What would Bismarck drive? 2.

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Israel (and therefore the United States) is going to have to decide some things pretty soon.[1] First, would Israel rather have a whole Syria under Assad (weakened for a long time by its terrible civil war) or would it rather have a Syria partitioned between a mini-state headed by Assad and the rest of Syria run by ISIS? Second, is there anything that Israel can do to shape the outcome? I don’t know. Israeli intervention might bring down on the head of Israel all sorts of hostility from the Arabs, just because. The governments of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt probably wouldn’t object to Israel beating up on ISIS. How would Saudi Arabia view such action? Then, there is the tension in many Arab countries between “the Street” and “the Palace.” How would ordinary people respond to Israeli attacks, regardless of how sensible those attacks might seem to the rulers?

What will happen inside the Cauldron? ISIS can (but may not) tear apart the carcasses of Iraq and Syria. Then its advance slams up against both strong states (Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Israel) and hard cores of enemy peoples with their back to the wall (Kurds, Shi’ite Iraqis, Alawite and Christian Syrians). At this point, the going will get a lot tougher. Will ISIS pause to regroup or will it attempt to maintain the momentum? I don’t know. They’re a bunch of fanatics. They might try to topple a bunch of other governments. On the other hand, the original armed expansion of Islam came in stages. Maybe that analogy will authorize ISIS to pause to consolidate its base in preparation for a renewed advance. If ISIS does pause to consolidate its base, it isn’t going to have a lot with which to work. The caliphate will consist of landlocked desert without much oil. Most of the world will be hostile toward the caliphate. Still, in their own particular way, they’re “Goo-Goos.”[2] Perhaps they’ll find a way.

If ISIS can’t swamp the surrounding strong governments, does that mean it can’t do any harm? That’s hard to tell. Governments find it useful as a heuristic device to link every new outburst to some earlier example. Start listening to the newspeople on the Devil Box, count how often they refer to an “Al Qaeda-affiliated” or “ISIS affiliated” something or other. On the other hand, radical Islam has a wide appeal in certain geographic and psychological realms. (See: The Islamic Brigades I, II.) So it is hard for me to tell what ISIS or Al Qaeda really controls. What does seem clear is that Islamist uprisings will continue to occur and that “foreign fighters” will continue to flow toward where the fighting is taking place. Libya, northern Nigeria, and Mali already have their share of troubles. Cameroun, Niger, and Chad are feeling the effects. Tunisia is a small place with limited ability to defend itself. Algeria survived one bloody civil war between secularists and Islamists: it could flare up again. (If that happens, the fleets of refugees crammed on fishing boats will be headed for Marseilles instead of Sicily. See: The owl and the pussycat I, II.) Whatever the formal links between ISIS and the Islamist movements in these countries, ISIS will do whatever it can to support them. Pretty much on the principle of setting fire to a neighbor’s barn so that they themselves can sleep better at night.

[1] One of those things is NOT the creation of a Palestinian state. There isn’t going to be one. The current version of Fatah is a spent force. There is no way that Israel will agree to put a Hamas-controlled government endowed with all the trappings of national sovereignty in charge of the West Bank. No Arab government has ever shown a real concern for the fate of the Palestinians. If Egypt and Jordan, for example, had wanted a Palestinian state, they could have created one on the West Bank and Gaza when they controlled thos territories between 1948 and 1967.

[2] “Goo-Goos”: derisive late 19th Century American reference to “Good Government” reformers who preceded the Populists.

What would Bismarck drive? 1.

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Why hasn’t ISIS attacked Jordan? First, Jordan isn’t a failed state as are Syria and Iraq. It has an army and an air force and a BYK.[1] They will fight. Second, if ISIS heads too far west, then ISrael will get into it. That won’t be calibrated airstrikes and under-motivated conscripts either.[2] Third, ISIS is still busy in Syria and Iraq.

Why hasn’t ISIS attacked Turkey? First, Turkey isn’t a failed state as are Syria and Iraq. It has an army and an air force and an SPI.[3] They will fight. Second, the Turks are Sunni Muslims, and Turkey is the conduit for foreign fighters. Third, ISIS is still busy in Syria and Iraq.

Can the government of Iraq reconcile the Shi’a majority with the Sunni minority? No. The Shi’ites had their chance when the Americans left. They threw it away by persecuting the Sunnis. Now, in a moment of great danger, the Shi’ites want to make nice with the Sunnis. You can see how the Sunnis would be suspicious. What happens when the crisis passes? Back to the previous behavior? Furthermore, it isn’t clear to me that the government put in place after the United States overthrew the Maliki government last Fall are doing more than putting up window-dressing to pacify the Americans.[4] So, I suspect that the country will have to be partitioned.

Can ISIS conquer Iraq? No. Two thirds of the population are Shi’ites; twenty percent are Sunnis; and the rest are Kurds. The Kurds will fight and the United States will support them. Iraq’s Shi’ite majority would not have anywhere to run. Their backs would be against the wall. The civil war in Iraq during the American occupation showed that the Shi’ites are capable of great violence. They would fight hard—even savagely—against ISIS. Iran will commit troops to prevent the fall of the Shi’ite parts of Iraq to ISIS. The Sunnis areas? Well, that’s another story. Perhaps Iran would be content to have Kurdish and Shi’ite Arab buffer states between itself and an ISIS caliphate. How would the United States regard this outcome? “Another fine mess.”[5]

Can ISIS conquer Syria? Well, that’s yet another story. Years of very destructive civil war have ravaged the country. This has eroded the strength of the Assad government in ways that are not yet true of the government of Iraq. Recep Erdogan, the president of neighboring Turkey, wants the Assad government gone. Saudi Arabia wants the Assad government gone. The Russkies and the Iranians want Assad to stay. My suspicion is that nobody will get all of what they want. Like Iraq, the country will have to be partitioned. I believe that most of the Alawite and Christian populations live in the west of the country. Like the Shi’ites in Iraq, they will have their backs to the wall (in this case, the Mediterranean) as ISIS advances. They will fight hard to hold it, while being ready to yield the rest of the country to ISIS. A revived Medieval Principality of Antioch could emerge to abut Lebanon. (Or perhaps the two will merge.) Between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Assad in “Antioch,” Iran would have a couple of client states on the Mediterranean. On the other hand, such a retreat by Assad would bring ISIS that much closer to Israel.

[1] Brave Young King.

[2] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#/media/File:Atomic_bombing_of_Japan.jpg

[3] Semi-Psychotic Islamist, as President.

[4] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem

[5] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3qcj2MzPYc

Flip-flops on the ground in Iraq.

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Iraq’s war with Iran (1980-1988) proved longer and costlier than Saddam Hussein had ever imagined.[1] At the end of the war Saddam Hussein found himself ruling a country that had exhausted its once huge oil reserves, that had become loaded with debt, and that badly needing to reconstruct. Iraq’s debt belonged to the Sunni Arab Gulf states. To finance the war he had presented himself to the other Gulf states as their shield against radical Shi’a Iran and has asked for money. Apparently Kuwait, the Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia had seen it in the same light, because they loaned Iraq $40 billion.

The post-war negotiations with Iraq’s creditors were mismanaged on both sides. Iraq asked for too much: forgiveness of the $40 billion debt, plus $30 billion in new money to pay for reconstruction. Since the Iranian danger had been blunted over the course of the Eighties, Iraq’s creditors were not much inclined to give the country easy terms or, for that matter, anything at all. Both Saddam Hussein’s request for loan cancellation and for an additional $30 billion loan (which was just as unlikely to be repaid as the original $40 billion in loans) fell on deaf ears. If Iraq could not get loan cancellation and additional loans, then it would have to pay its own way through oil sales. The falling price for oil put a severe crimp in what Iraq could earn.   In these negotiations the Emir of Kuwait took a particularly strong stand for the sanctity of international economic agreements by insisting upon repayment of the existing debt at the same moment that he was violating his oil quota.

In July 1990 Saddam Hussein sent Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz to put his case to the Arab League. The Iraqis made the same argument to the Arab League that the French and British once had made to the Americans after the First World War: We spent blood in the common cause while you gave only money, so you should cancel the money debt in exchange for us cancelling the “blood debt.” The Americans had not bought that line in 1919 and the Gulf states didn’t buy it in 1989.

On 17 July 1990 Saddam Hussein gave a belligerent speech that seemed to threaten action. That same day he sent the Kuwaiti government a letter in which he demanded a halt to the slide in oil prices, cancellation of Iraq’s debt to Kuwait, and an Arab package of aid to Iraq. Failing this, said Saddam Hussein, “we will have no choice but to resort to effective action to get things right and ensure the restitution of our rights.”[2]

To give meaning to this communication, Saddam Hussein ordered 30,000 troops massed close to the Iraq-Kuwait border. This threat, which Kuwait shared with Saudi Arabia and—undoubtedly–with the Americans, led the Saudi government to attempt to mediate. On 25 July 1990 Saddam Hussein had an interview with the American ambassador, April Glaspie, in which he gave her an ambiguous threat and she gave him an ambiguous warning. A week later, on 2 August 1990, the Iraqi army rolled into Kuwait.

The role of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf State clients in the coming of the First Iraq War is not much discussed these days in the American media. This role included financing Iraq in its long, predatory war against revolutionary Iran. It included pursuing a foolishly selfish policy on Iraq’s war-debts. It should surprise no one that, if it will take “boots on the ground” to defeat the Sunni fanatics of ISIS in their war against the pro-Iranian governments in Baghdad and Damascus, there will not be Saudi feet in them. Nor, probably, American feet. That just leaves the Iranians. Or the partition of Iraq.

[1] John Keegan, The Iraq War (2005).

[2] Quoted in Keegan, The Iraq War, p. 75.

The Islamic Brigades II.

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In 2007, more than twenty men—most from the large Somali immigrant community in Minneapolis–went to join Al Shabab, the Somali Islamist militia. Federal authorities launched an investigation. They ended up prosecuting eight men as facilitators and recruiters.

In recent years, eight young men from the Norwegian town of Frederikstad have gone to Syria. Norwegian authorities have investigated the role of an Islamist group called Prophet’s Umma for its role in recruiting jihadis and facilitating their movement toward the battlefront.

Investigating the recruiters and facilitators is important to the fight against radical Islamism. So, too, is trying to understand why some people are open to recruitment. There aren’t any good answers here so far. Mostly, there are just some anecdotes about human beings. Can we learn anything from looking at them?

Two friends from the same neighborhood in Minneapolis; high-school drops outs; in minor trouble with the law; converts to Islam; and soldiers of jihad.[1]

Troy Kastigar (1981-2009) went from being a funny, energetic, boundary-testing kid to smoking weed, drinking, and failing his high-school classes.[2] He dropped out of high school, later got a G.E.D., and worked fitfully between bouts of unemployment. He went back to school to become an X-Ray tech, but he was told that it would be difficult for him to get a job in the field because of his criminal record. His friend, Doug McCain, also dropped out of high school, then had some run-ins with the law over drugs, moving violations, and theft.

In about 2004, both men converted to Islam. There is a large Somali community in Minneapolis, so Islam presented itself more prominently there than in many other American cities. After a while, they moved beyond Islam to Islamism. In November 2008, Kastigar went to Kenya. He said he was going to study the Koran. In fact, he soon crossed the border to join Al Shabab. He was killed fighting with the group in September 2009. In 2009, Doug McCain moved to San Diego. He had family out there, he worked in restaurants, and he took some classes at a community college. In 2014 he went to Syria. In August 2014 he was killed fighting with ISIS.

At least one other man from the same social circle also traveled to Syria. Abdirahmaan Muhumed, worked at the airport from November 2001 to May 2011. At different times he worked at refueling planes and on cleaning crews. Acquaintances had seen him as a more secular than a religious man. He worked out a lot and played basketball. Then he started to become exercised over the fighting in Gaza and in Libya. Muslim people suffering under assault from Western powers. Muslim or not, Muhumed drank—and to excess—on some occasions. Drinking just enflamed him all the more on the issues. He went to Syria and died in the same fight as did Doug McCain.

The little town of Frederickstad, Norway, is south of Oslo. It is a more diverse place than one might expect of a small town. The Muslim community is largely made up of Somali refugees, but there also are immigrants from Algeria, Pakistan, Kurdistan, and Chechnya.[3]

The Chaib family came from Algeria to Frederickstad. Their son Abdullah (1989-2012) grew into a popular figure in his school and neighborhood. His ability at soccer enhanced a general “cool guy” demeanor.   At some point and by some means, Abdullah Chaib became committed to jihad. A then-radical Norwegian Muslim who visited Frederikstad recalled Chaib as “a real fanatic…[who] talked about jihad all the time.” In November 2012 Abdullah Chaib went to Syria. In December 2012 he died fighting there.

Chaib’s death in battle set an example for some other boys in the town. Among them was Adu Edelbijev. His parents came to Norway from Chechnya in 2002. He attended the same school as Chaib and, like Chaib, was a good athlete. He didn’t feel estranged from Norway, but his hopes to join the army were foiled by bad eyesight. He began to take religion seriously. By 2013 he had begun to prepare to go to Syria. He left in August 2013. In November 2014, he died while fighting with ISIS near Kobani.

Rebecca Sanchez Hammer was a Filipina who came to Norway and married a Norwegian who later died. They had a son, Torlief Sanchez Hammer. A group of goofy dopers used Torlief Hammer’s basement as a place to bake their heads. For several years, the police regularly broke up their parties and confiscated their drugs and pipes.

When, before he left for Syria, Adu Edelbijev lectured Torlief Hammer about his bad habits, the boy listened. Hammer converted to Islam, took the new first name Abdul, and suddenly stopped using drugs. His run-ins with the police ended, but his satisfaction with life did not improve. “”I have no friends, no job, nothing,” he told his mother. This did not cause him to reject Islam however. It only deepened his commitment. In December 2013, the young man took the road to Syria.

The parents of Samiullah Khan (1991- ) came from Pakistan to Norway, but did not prosper. His father murdered someone, did a stretch in prison, then accidentally killed someone else while driving drunk. This background left Khan feeling marked and excluded by native Norwegians and Pakistani immigrants. He went to fight in Syria, was wounded, returned to Norway, and was arrested for belonging to a terrorist organization.

It is easy to write off these people as failures who made foolish—and fatal–decisions. But is it possible that there foolish and fatal decision reflected an aspiration for a more satisfying life than what the larger societies in which they lived could offer?

A friend of Kastigar and McLean argued that “They just wanted to be a part of something. They were just trying to find something that just accepted them for who they were.” A friend of Abdirahman said that “He always wanted to be a freedom fighter, he always wanted to be a hero,” recalled a friend.

“None of them ever even mentioned religion when we knew them,” recalled one policeman speaking about the group around Torlief Hammer. “The only thing they had in common is that they did not function in society. But they wanted to be able to do something, to be good at something.” Torlief Hammer told his mother that “he wanted to fix himself after too much disco, too many girlfriends and too much smoking.”

In March 1940, George Orwell published a review of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. In it, Orwell argued that Hitler “has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all “progressive” thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life.”[4]

As the United States lugubriously embarks on the election campaign of 2016, will any of the candidates offer voters “struggle and self-sacrifice”? Or will they promise “ease, security and avoidance of pain”? That is an easy question to answer. But what if there are a lot of people who would never consider radical Islam, yet still feel some longing for something more ennobling than the next entitlement or the next tax cut?

[1] Jack Healy, “For Jihad Recruits, a Pipeline From Minnesota to Militancy,” NYT, 7 September 2014.

[2] I wondered if these were signs of Depression. His mother describes him as having had a “sadness and a darkness” move into his life.

[3] Andrew Higgins, “A Norway Town And Its Pipeline to Jihad in Syria,” NYT, 5 April 2015.

[4] http://genius.com/George-orwell-review-of-mein-kampf-annotated

Turkey.

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After the former general Mustapha Kemal “Ataturk” established the Turkish Republic, the Army became the guardian of his secular and modernizing vision of Turkey’s future. On four occasions since 1960 the Army has overthrown civilian governments that diverged from its vision of Turkey’s proper course.

Recip Tayyip Erdogan forged an alliance between his own Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Fethullah Gulen, an imam with a wide network of supporters in the bureaucracy, business, and media. In 2002 Erdogan led the AKP to power in free elections. The position of the Army with regard to a religious party worried Erdogan.[1] Those worries increased in advance of the 2007 elections when the Army publically affirmed its role as guarantor of Turkey’s secular identity and that Islamism was incompatible with that identity.

In 2010 prosecutors charged 236 senior serving or retired Army officers with planning a coup against the government. Government prosecutors based their case largely on computer files regarding “Operation Sledgehammer,” an alleged army plot dating back to 2003 to overthrow the Erdogan government. They won convictions after the court refused to allow the defendants to introduce evidence that the computer files were fraudulent.[2] Most of the defendants got long prison terms.

By 2012 Erdogan had begun to fall out with Gulen. Erdogan and the AKP had worn out their welcome with many Turks. Having been in power for over a decade, they had lost their strict sense of right and wrong. Critics accused the government of corrupt alliances with business interests under the guise of modernizing Turkey. In Summer 2013, massive demonstrations took place in Istanbul over plans to convert a public park into a shopping mall. In December 2013 prosecutors—apparently part of Gulen’s network of supporters–charged several government ministers with graft. Erdogan lashed out at Gulen’s “parallel state,” which he accused of plotting its own coup. Thousands of members of the police and judiciary were summarily removed as Erdogan sought to purge the administration. Erdogan now found himself in an awkward position. He had allied with the Gulen network to tame the Army, but now he had fallen out with the Gulen network.

To make matters worse, in Summer 2014, ISIS suddenly exploded as a regional danger in neighboring Iraq and Syria. Like Al Shabab in Somalia, the Houthis rebels in Yeman, and Boko Haram in Nigeria, ISIS is made up of irregular fighters who cannot stand up to a real army backed by an effective government. ISIS posed no danger to Turkey so long as the Army would fight and the government could act. Aye, there’s the rub. Would the Army back Erdogan against both the Gulen network and ISIS, or would it devise its own solution?[3]

In 2014 the convictions were over-turned by the constitutional court, which ordered a re-trial. In Spring 2015, the government appointed a new prosecutor to handle the case. In March 2015, Erdogan announced to a gathering of senior Army officers that “starting with myself, the whole country was misled, tricked. We were subjected to a conspiracy, a coup attempt, to seize control of Turkey.” The prosecutor asked the court to dismiss the charges because he was shocked, shocked to discover that there was gambling going on. No, wait, he discovered that the computer files on which the conviction had been based were fraudulent.

[1] Emre Peker, “Turkish Court Acquits Officers in Coup Plot,” WSJ, 1 April 2015 (although I believe the report to be true).

[2] For example, documents dated in 2003 could be shown to have been produced using Microsoft Word 2007.

[3] The latter might involve shooting Erdogan and tossing his body on a garbage heap.

The Muslim Civil War.

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With the “Arab Spring” of 2011, the “corrupt and dysfunctional Arab autocracies that had stood for half a century in places like Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya lost credibility because they had failed to meet the needs of the citizens.”[1]

Well, no. The “Arab Spring” counted not at all compared to American interventions. The corrupt and dysfunctional autocracies of Iraq and Libya were overthrown only by American attack. The corrupt and dysfunctional autocracy in Egypt quickly reasserted itself after a moment of panic induced by an American moment of panic. The corrupt and dysfunctional autocracy in Syria has retained the loyalty of many of its citizens and the Obama administration has tacitly abandoned its intemperate demand that Bashar al-Assad leave power.

Now, “an array of local players and regional powers are fighting skirmishes across the region as they vie to shape the new order, or at least enlarge their share of it.”

Well, no. We’re witnessing the outbreak of a Muslim civil war.[2] Sunni Saudi Arabia never got around to sending air or ground forces to battle the radical Sunnis fighting against the Shi’ite-dominated government of Iraq, but it has now intervened in the fighting against the Shi’ite Houthi rebels in Yemen. Shi’ite Iran is the principal supporter of the Shi’ite governments in Baghdad and Yemen and of the Alawite government in Damascus.

The Obama administration has claimed that there are “moderate” forces with which it can work to create stable states, if only people will get with the program.

Well, no. The Shi’ite-dominated government of Iraq began persecuting the Sunnis the minute the Americans were out the door. The Syrian “moderates” were virtually non-existent and unwilling to fight. Yemen is a primitive tribal society which a thin shellac of Western government titles could not disguise. Now Iranian forces have been introduced into Iraq’s fight against ISIS.

The administration claims to discern a difference between “moderate” and “hard line” forces in Iran. It hopes to strike a deal with the moderates over Iran’s nuclear program. The American drive to get a deal with Iran has most publically angered Israel’s prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu. However, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are just as concerned as is Israel that the United States has started to tilt back toward Tehran as its chief partner in the Middle East.

Iran is trying to obtain nuclear weapons to shift the balance of power in the Persian Gulf region. Saudi Arabia doesn’t want Iran to get nuclear weapons. Israel doesn’t want Iran to get nuclear weapons. Neither country places much trust in the fair words and promises of a distant United States. Both have modern American supplied air forces and airborne control systems. Aside from American objections, the chief impediments to an Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities have been that the Israelis don’t have enough planes and they would have to over-fly Saudi Arabia. You do the math. (While you’re at it, Israel has nuclear weapons.)

If a “Muslim Civil War” does break out in flames, what course should the United States pursue? Intervene or stay neutral? Intervene against the country that already hates us (Iran)? Intervene on the side of those most likely to win in the short run (Saudi Arabia if backed by Israel)? Do a lot of off-shore drilling and tell the Middle East to solve its own problems? Head it off?  There’s no clear guide here, but there is the need to choose.

[1] Mark Mazzetti and David D. Kirkpatrick, “Policy Puzzle in the Middle East,” NYT, 27 March 2015.

[2] Or perhaps just a renewal of the long wars between the Shi’ite Safavid Empire of Persia and the Sunni Ottoman Empire.

Libya.

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In 2011, during the “Arab Spring,” an American-led coalition overthrew the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi. Libya under Gaddafi had been a society with several potential conflicts kept under control by the dictatorship. People of Arab descent clashed with people of Berber or Turkish descent. The American attack took the lid off this cauldron. Many tribes and towns raised “brigades” of troops to help topple the hated regime. Few of those militias disbanded once victory had been won. Instead, Libya found itself fragmented even while it sought a path to national reunification. The groups quarreled over power and shares of oil revenue.

Things got worse over the next several years. By August 2014, Libyan towns and tribes were choosing sides in a looming civil war.[1] Thus, the mountain town of Zintan recruited many former Gaddafi troops to their militia and declared against radical Islamism, while the coastal town of Misurata allied with the Islamists. As an object lesson to the rest of the country, order had broken down in the capital city of Tripoli, fighting had ravaged the city, electrical power was often interrupted, gasoline often unavailable, and municipal services had collapsed.[2]

In 2012, one Islamist group, Ansar al-Shariah, participated in the attack on the American mission in Benghazi. Two years later, the group had grown more powerful. Bombings and assassinations had demonstrated its power. Other militias forged alliances with the Islamists.

In May 2014, a former general named Khalifa Hifter managed to gather some forces. He declared war on the Islamists. General Hifter didn’t bother to distinguish between “moderates” and “radical.” His attacks around Benghazi tightened the bonds between Ansar al-Shariah and the other Islamist groups. Hifter’s attacks added to the polarization of the country between those who opposed Ansar al-Shariah and those who supported the radical Islamists. That polarization had the potential to spread the fighting in Benghazi to the rest of the country.

Among his other acts, General Hifter had closed the existing parliament and ordered new elections. The new parliament was to convene in Tobruk, an eastern city close to the Egyptian border and within Hifter’s territory. It will surprise no one that the Islamists, who had been well-represented in the old parliament, declined to go to Tobruk. Instead, they announced that the old parliament would meet in the western city of Tripoli (close to the Tunisian border and within the territory controlled by Misurata). Rival parliaments in a country full of armed men is bad.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have both grown alarmed over the Islamists-next-door in Yemen and Libya. The United Arab Emirates, an ally of Saudi Arabia, plays host to a satellite network that broadcasts anti-Islamic material to Libya. Qatar, which has supported Islamic causes elsewhere in the Middle East (See: Your Mind Is In the Qatar) runs a rival network broadcasting to the Islamists. At some point, the Egyptian Army may have to choose between intervention and just trying to seal off the almost 700 mile-long border with Libya.

Back in August 2014, things looked to be sliding out of control. Observers foresaw a likely choice between the restoration of a dictator and letting the place slide into a cauldron of Islamist extremism. Especially in the latter case, Libya’s fate would have wide repercussion in North Africa and the Middle East. The recent Islamist attack on a museum in Tunisia and the nominal adherence of the Libyan Islamists to ISIS add to the urgency.

Neither Saudi Arabia nor Egypt is likely to feel grateful to the United States for having caused this problem in the first place.

[1] David D. Kirkpatrick, “Strife in Libya Could Presage Long Civil War,” NYT, 25 August 2014.

[2] In a curiosity unexplained by the author, “bicycles, once unheard of, are increasingly common.” Un-noticed by the rest of the world, someone is importing bicycles into Libya.

CrISIS 2.

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In a review-essay in the Wall Street Journal, James Traub makes a number of important points about the Islamic State.[1]

Al Qaeda Classic misunderstood the appeal of ISIS just as much as did Western observers. Western powers at least had the excuse that they were busy with many things and on many fronts. Al Qaeda had much easier contact, but still under-estimated its rival.

Americans have debated whether “nation-building” is possible in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Billions of dollars already have been lavished on the effort in both countries, yet it would be hard to claim that the effort has been a success. However, ISIS appears to demonstrate that it is possible, and on a shoe-string budget compared to what Americans have spent. Recent reports have suggested that ISIS has begun to encounter al sorts of problems, so they may be presiding over the start of a “nation un-building.” Even that will not solve the problem of nation-building however. Can there be an effective alternative approach formulated by the West?

Former Baath Party members have been venting their rage at the Americans for more than a decade, often in alliance with radical Islamists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and now Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. How long can this alliance between the former supporters of a secular regime and religious extremists survive? By their excesses, the jihadists once drove many Sunnis into alliance with the Americans and—tacitly—with the Shi’ites. Subsequently, the Shi’ites returned to a policy of persecuting the Sunnis. Nouri al-Maliki gets the blame for this in American media, but the reality is that he had wide support among Shi’ites. This makes it difficult to imagine that the Sunnis will readily abandon the Islamists. So long as it is directed against Shi’ites and Americans, the alliance ought to be able to paper over any other divisions. At least neither party will abandon the alliance until after victory has been won.

The Saudis and their Gulf clients see the struggle in Iraq as part of a larger confrontation between Sunnis and Shi’a Islam that has been going on for a long time. The rift has been open for centuries, but it has been particularly acute since the Iranian Revolution toppled the shah. Defeating ISIS so that the Shi’ite majority in Iraq can sleep better at night isn’t at the top of the Saudi agenda. The uncertainties about the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program will not make the Saudis more committed to opposing ISIS.

Could all this have been avoided had the self-satisfied, moralizing Baby Boomers who have run American foreign policy for the last twenty years or so been content to leave dictators in place? Saddam Hussein did not have to be overthrown. The Syrian rebels did not have to be encouraged to go on resisting after it had become clear that the Bashar Assad regime was going to hold onto power. The Gaddafi regime in Libya did not have to be bombed out of existence.

It has become a common belief that things would have gone differently had the Obama administration been willing to stay on in Iraq. Regardless of the truth of this belief, will the US be willing to stay on after the defeat of ISIS to prevent a return to stupidity? In ceding so much of the active role in opposing Iraq to Iran, is the US preparing the ground for a partition of the country. Will Saudi Arabia and Jordan absorb the Sunni parts of the country?

How serious a danger is ISIS? To the United States and other Western societies, ISIS is not very dangerous. It isn’t Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. It may be a loathsome ideology, but it does not control a powerful state. So, a sense of proportion is needed. So, too, is patience. “Keep them penned in and wait for the food riots to start,” as one character in William Gibson’s novel Pattern Recognition described America’s Cold War policy of containment.

[1] James Traub, “The Demonic Wellspring,” WSJ, 14-15 March 2015.

American Public Opinion.

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So, regardless of what the politicians say, what do Americans think about some issues?

Back in September 2014, in the wake of the Islamic State’s over-running of much of Iraq, 53 percent of Americans approved of President Obama’s strategy for dealing with ISIS.[1] However, 64 percent of Republicans and 60 percent of Democrats approved. How did those higher numbers end up with an average of 53 percent? This suggests that there is a big group of Independents who don’t like the President’s policy.

In the November 2012 elections, 68 percent of Hispanic voters supported Democrats and 33 percent supported Republicans. In the November 2014 elections, 62 percent of Hispanic voters supported Democrats and 36 percent supported Republicans.

What do Hispanic voters care about? Not immigration reform. Only 16 percent of those polled in November 2014 ranked that as their primary concern. Health care came first for 24 percent. The economy in general came first for 49 percent.[2]

Two thirds of Americans are satisfied with the current US health-care system. [That’s a blurry response. Are they satisfied with the medical care they receive or are they satisfied with how the Affordable Care Act operates or both?] A whopping 74 percent of Democrats are satisfied, but even 60 percent of Republicans are satisfied.

The “war on guns” appears to be headed in the same direction as the “war on drugs.”[3] In 2000 only 29 percent of Americans favored preserving gun-rights over gun-control. By 2013, 45 percent favored gun-rights over gun-control; in 2015, 52 percent favored gun-rights over gun-control. This included 54 percent of African-Americans, up from 29 percent in 2012.

In the immediate aftermath of the “Charlie Hebdo” massacre in Paris, 63 percent of Americans believed that it was more important to preserve free speech than to not offend religious people. Only 19 percent thought it important to avoid offending other people.[4]

In early 2015, 49 percent of Americans identified as “pro-choice,” while 47 percent identified as “pro-life.” However, 84 percent favor liming abortion to the first three months of a pregnancy. This includes 69 percent of those who identify as “pro-choice.”[5]

This is a puzzler. Does it mean that a lot of pro-life people wouldn’t have an abortion themselves, but don’t really want to proscribe abortions for other women who find themselves in a jam? Does it mean that lots of pro-choice people think that abortion is a necessary evil, rather than a categorical right to be exercised at any time?

As of early 2015, 60 percent of Americans thought that middle-class people pay too much in taxes; 68 percent believe that the rich pay too little in taxes.[6]

A huge majority of Republicans—69 percent–agree with Rudy Giuliani that President Obama doesn’t love America. A huge majority of Democrats—85 percent—believe that does too love America.

One of several bizarre things here (aside from so many Republicans agreeing with that idiot Giuliani) is that apparently 15 percent of Democrats either believe that the President doesn’t love America or they’re not sure.

[1] “Poll Watch,” The Week,” 26 September 2014, p. 17.

[2] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 21 November 2014, p. 19.

[3] Timothy Williams, “Poll Finds That More Americans Back Gun Rights Than Stronger Controls,” NYT, 12 December 2014.

[4] “Poll Watch,” The Week 26 January 2015, p. 17.

[5] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 6 February 2015, p. 17.

[6] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 6 March 2015, p. 17.

The Islamic Brigades 1.

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Why do young Muslim men go to fight in foreign wars? The “Afghan Arabs” were a feature of the resistance to the Soviet Union, then of Al Qaeda’s attack on the United States. Arabs went to fight in Chechnya in small numbers, and now in Syria in larger numbers.[1] What draws or drives these young people to take up arms for a non-national cause?

There is a sensitive discussion of one case in the New York Times.[2] Islam Yaken (1993- ) grew up in a middle-class family in Cairo. Conservatism and modernity co-existed in his family. His mother and sisters wear the veil, yet his parents sent him to a French-language private school, and then on to university. Like many young American men of his age, Yaken fell in love with body-building. He got “ripped” by any standard. He imagined himself as a future fitness instructor. Yet he had not abandoned religious faith.[3]

Obstacles barred his path. For one thing, the conservative cast of contemporary Islam disparages physical pleasure.[4] Both sex and body-building are physical pleasures. Yaken Islam desired women, even talking of emigrating to find a career and a “hot” girlfriend.[5] For another thing, in Egypt or America, it is hard to turn personal training into a decent livelihood. Yaken failed to break into an established gym, and had to make-do with private lessons in smaller gyms.

Leaving Egypt for greener pastures entered his mind.[6] Go where? Make a start how? The answers seemed impossible. A return to the conservative religious values in which he had been raised also entered his mind. Like the 17th Century English Protestant writer John Bunyan, he excoriated himself for “sins” that others would hardly notice. He grew a beard. Still Shaitan tormented him—in the form of girls in Levis and ballet flats.

In early 2012, when Islam Yaken was 19 years old, the Muslim Brotherhood came out in the open as a result of the fall of the Mubarak regime. After years of repression by the Sadat and Mubarrak governments, the Brotherhood had survived. Apparently, they had triumphed over their enemies. Their intransigent defense of strict conservative religious doctrines—something to believe in when secular society offered nothing to believe in—may have seemed like an explanation. They were in full throat. Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Yacoub preached before huge crowds of followers in a Cairo mosque. Yaken Islam became a follower. Religious commitment did nothing to assuage the terrors that haunted him. If anything, they worsened.

In July 2013 the Egyptian military regime re-asserted itself. A heavy hand fell on the Muslim Brotherhood. By August 2013 Yaken Islam had decided for jihad in Syria. He went to Turkey, then crossed the border to join the ISIS fighters. For a year-and-a-half he has been a soldier, physical training instructor, media personality for ISIS. He has found “a life free of [sins].., a greater cause, an Islamic state.”

He was young, foolish, sexually frustrated, living in a puritanical society with little economic growth or political freedom. All true, but not everyone seeks the easy path. There is a lot of will-power and striving in a six-pack.

[1] For example, there are at least 600 Egyptians fighting with ISIS, probably many more than that.

[2] Mona El-Naggar, “From Cairo Private School to Syria’s Killing Fields,” NYT, 19 February 2015.

[3] He used a mat in his room both for prayer and for crunches.

[4] “Suppose a young man falls in love with a girl in college. He doesn’t touch her or talk to her or send her messages. He doesn’t even look at her. That’s still fornication!”—Sheikh Muhammad Yacoub, video imam.

[5] The attitude toward women is not so different from that of many American men of his age (regardless of generation).

[6] Apparently this is common talk among young people. If it ever starts, the tide of Egyptian boat people will vastly out-number the Libyan one.