Al-Qaeda’s formation represented a radical shift from fighting the “near enemy” to fighting the “far enemy.” Zawahiri’s rationale for the shift was that “it is clear that the Jewish-Crusader alliance, led by the United States, will not allow any Islamic force to reach power in any of the Muslim countries.”
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And on 9/11, the new strategy electrified the Muslim world by successfully striking at the symbols of American military and financial power. But now the radical Muslims have realized there is a strategy that works much better. This strategy is called: democracy! And it is the current strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest radical Muslim group in the world, with followings in dozens of Muslim countries. The Muslim Brotherhood never believed that attacking the far enemy was the right strategy, but its own strategy of domestic terrorism against the near enemy had failed because of effective government reprisals. The Muslim Brotherhood needed to find a better way, and in democracy it has found one.
True, historically the radical Muslims, including the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda, have been enemies of democracy. Their general view has been that it is wrong to subordinate the voice of God to the voice of the people. But while al-Qaeda still reviles democracy, the Muslim Brotherhood switched its position in 2005, when Brotherhood-affiliated candidates ran in Egypt’s parliamentary elections. Mahdi Akef, head of the Muslim Brotherhood, surprised many by saying, “The ballot box has the final say. We don’t believe in any other means of taking power.”
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Since then, the Muslim Brotherhood’s enthusiasm for democracy has only grown stronger, and the Brotherhood is now the most powerful voice in Islamic countries demanding a transition from dictatorship to democracy. They have realized that if there are free elections, they have a good chance to win. They first saw this in 1991, when a radical Muslim group called the Islamic Salvation Front won a free election in Algeria. The Muslim Brotherhood saw that its candidates won 20 percent of the seats in the 2005 Egyptian election, which was held under harshly restrictive conditions. And democracy paid off for the radical Muslims again with the 2006 election victory of Hamas in Gaza. This is why much of the Arab Spring’s push for democracy has been promoted by radical Islamic organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood.
In assessing Obama’s strategy for North Africa and the Middle East, let’s begin with Libya, the one country where Obama was willing to use military force. At first he hesitated, but eventually he backed the efforts of the Libyan resistance with attack aircraft, refueling tankers, surveillance equipment, and other military aid, as part of a United Nations-authorized NATO military action. The campaign was billed as an effort to save lives, yet it was also clearly aimed at getting rid of Gaddafi, whose 41-year-old rule came to a violent end. Why did Obama hesitate, and why did he act? On
Hardball
, Chris Matthews said this was “a war without explanation” and added, “The Obama doctrine—can you define it? We can’t.” Actually, I believe we can. So let’s take the two elements separately. The most reasonable explanation for Obama’s hesitation is that he was reluctant to get America involved in another war; he would prefer America play a backseat role, which one Obama adviser described as “leading from behind.”
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I believe this explanation is correct, although I would interpret it in an anti-colonial way. For Obama, American intervention is generally the problem, as in Iraq and Afghanistan. So naturally Obama wanted to keep Imperial America out of Libya. But then why did he get America involved? My argument is that he got involved in order to get rid of the longtime anti-American ruler who switched sides and became, at least to a degree, pro-American. Gaddafi was once a hero of the anti-colonialists and the anti-Americans; now he had become an embarrassment. Obama’s initial hesitation and then his “leading from behind” were the result of a clash of anti-colonial goals. He hesitated because he didn’t want to lead Imperial America against a North African ruler, and he acted because ultimately he had the more important goal of toppling an anti-colonial sellout.
But this is not the standard explanation, so we have to weigh my theory against plausible rivals. The standard justification was given by Obama and then dutifully taken up by his allies in the media. “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries,” Obama said. “The United States of America is different.” This of course is pure humbug. We can test Obama’s professed unwillingness to turn a blind eye to atrocities by considering the case of Syria, where Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups have detailed the torture and execution-style killings that the government’s thugs have meted out to protesters, especially in towns like Deraa and Homs, where the civilian death toll exceeds 10,000 people, more than forty times the number of deaths that were considered a sign of incipient “genocide” in Libya.
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A United Nations peace plan had little or no effect in stopping the sieges, arrests, and street killings.
Typical of the Obama administration’s response to the violence in Syria was a statement issued on April 22, 2011: “We regret the loss of life” in Syria and “our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the victims.” In mid-August, as the killings continued and pressure for action mounted, Obama called on Assad to step down. But he didn’t actually do anything that would cause Assad to do this. Instead, the United States froze Syrian assets in America, barred U.S. citizens from having business dealings with the Syrian government, and made a few other symbolic gestures. None of this was likely to change Assad’s mind, and none of it did. In February 2012, Obama agreed to shut down the U.S. embassy in Damascus, another symbolic move. Finally, Obama agreed to supply the rebels with non-lethal aid, including medical supplies and some communications equipment. Whenever he is asked about military intervention in Syria, Obama always says it would be “premature” and could actually lead to more deaths—a thought that seems to have eluded him when it came to Libya.
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This is not to say that the case for military intervention in Syria is obvious. But Assad’s brutality has been far worse than Gaddafi’s, Syria is openly allied with America’s enemy Iran, and Syria shelters a raft of terrorist groups. Obama, of course, knows all this, so I can only smile when pundits lecture Obama about it. Here it would be difficult to top the neoconservative magazine the
Weekly Standard
. Max Boot informs Obama that he has an “historic opportunity” to “take Syria out of the Iranian camp and deny Hezbollah its main source of supply.” Boot urges Obama to “put away any lingering illusions about the desirability of maintaining Assad in power and do whatever is needed to topple him swiftly.” A few months later, Lee Smith in that magazine faults Obama with being “sadly oblivious” to the situation and therefore “dithering on Syria,” thus making him “a hapless spectator” of events there.
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It never occurs to these pundits and their ilk that maybe Obama refuses to use force because he wants Assad to remain in power. It’s not that he misunderstands the situation; he understands the situation all too well. It is the pundits who presume that Obama shares their goals; they are the ones who misunderstand what Obama seeks to achieve. If Assad falls, it will be despite Obama, not because of him.
Now let’s compare the situation in two countries that far surpass Libya and Syria in importance: namely, Egypt and Iran. Egypt and Iran are, along with Saudi Arabia, the most important countries in the region. We are all familiar with the mass protests that erupted in Egypt’s Tahrir Square starting in January 2011. Soon the protests spread to other cities. The protesters appeared to be a coalition of disparate groups: liberals, leftists, secularists, religious traditionalists, as well as Islamists and radical Muslims. Their target was the tough but aged ruler Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled for thirty years. Mubarak was determined to defeat the protesters or at least outlast them. But to do this he needed the support of his military and also his most valuable ally, the United States of America.
Obama’s response to the Egyptian uprising must be understood as a two-step maneuver. Stage one: Obama backed the Egyptian military high command against Mubarak. America gives $1.3 billion each year to the Egyptian military, which is estimated to cover three-fourths of the cost of its arms procurements. So Obama has tremendous leverage with the Egyptian military, and he used this leverage to pressure the generals to get Mubarak out. Defense Secretary Gates and Secretary of State Clinton reminded Obama of America’s interests in the region and of Mubarak’s reliability as an ally, but that did not deter Obama.
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He called Mubarak and told him it was time to leave. At this point, Mubarak had no choice. His most powerful ally, America, and his own generals were now against him. So Mubarak gave up.
Following Mubarak’s exit, a struggle began between the military and the protesters on the street. The military was willing to have elections, but wanted to protect its traditional prerogatives and control defense and foreign policy. “The position of the armed forces will remain as it is,” insisted Hussein Tantawi, the chief military commander. He was opposed by the street protesters who demanded full democracy, including civilian control of the military. Stage two of Obama’s approach was to turn on the Egyptian military and back the street calls for democracy. As the
New York Times
put it, “The Obama administration threw its weight behind the Egyptians who flooded into Tahrir Square to demand that the generals relinquish power.”
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Obama did this in the name of supporting full self-government in Egypt. Reluctantly, the military gave in, succumbing to pressure from the Egyptian people at home and from the American aid provider abroad. Elections were held, and that’s how the radical Muslims came to power in Egypt.
The new government in Egypt is certainly more hostile to Israel and the United States than its predecessor. For decades Egypt had no diplomatic relations with Iran; one of the first acts of the new government was to resume them. Egypt also weakened Israel’s position in the West Bank and Gaza by brokering a peace deal between the two rival Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah. Egypt’s foreign minister said he would open the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, frustrating the Israeli blockade of Hamas. The Egyptian government also cancelled a natural gas deal with Israel, which Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said was a “dangerous precedent that clouds the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.” There are widespread fears in Israel that the peace agreement itself is in jeopardy, and that Egypt may join the ranks of Muslim nations who would like to see Israel cease to exist.
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So why did Obama support a process that produced an outcome hostile to the United States and its ally Israel? For anyone with even a basic knowledge of Egypt, it was apparent from the outset that the Muslim Brotherhood was by far the best organized group in the country, and could spread its message through Egypt’s mosques. It had demonstrated its popularity in the 2005 parliamentary elections. So it was hardly surprising when the radical Muslims swept the Egyptian parliamentary elections with over 70 percent of the popular vote. The largest vote getters were the candidates of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood’s creed is, “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” The al-Nour party, dominated by even more radical Salafi Muslims, was the second highest vote getter. As for the liberal and secular parties, they collectively managed a paltry 10 percent.
Obama has shown no regret whatever over the election outcome in Egypt. In fact, when the Egyptian courts and military made a last-ditch effort to thwart the rise of the radical Islamists, issuing rules that severely limited the power of the president and the parliament, the Obama administration moved quickly to block those rules. The Associated Press reported, “The Obama administration warned Egypt’s military leaders . . . to speedily hand over power or risk losing billions of dollars in U.S. military and economic aid.” The article quoted State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland saying, “We are particularly concerned by decisions that appear to prolong the military’s hold on power.”
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Essentially the Obama administration demanded that the Egyptian military submit to civilian control—in practice, to control by the Muslim Brotherhood. This became even more clear when, a few days after Obama’s threat, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, Mohamed Morsi, won the Egyptian presidential election.
Some say Obama could not oppose a popular democratic movement, even though it threatened to undermine U.S. interests. Fortunately there is a way to test this claim. In Iran, Obama had the opportunity to support a popular democratic movement just as large as the one in Egypt, and the success of this movement would unquestionably advance U.S. interests. Obama clarified what he really thinks about democracy in the Muslim world by how he reacted to the pro-reform movement in Iran.
Massive demonstrations broke out in Iran in mid-2009. At first glance this seemed to be a quarrel among the mullahs. The demonstrators supported the candidacy of Mir Hossein Mousavi over that of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad was a proven demagogue, but since Mousavi was the former prime minister under Ayatollah Khomeini, he didn’t seem like a big improvement. Yet Mousavi had become a fierce critic of the Iranian government. His candidacy symbolized a protest against rigged elections and an illegitimate Iranian political system. For the first time in three decades, there were widespread calls for the mullahs to relinquish power. This was a stunning development, comparable to Boris Yeltsin’s call for the Communist Party in Russia to abolish itself.