Readers’ Questions & Answers: More Thoughts on Arab Uprisings
Posted: 27 May, 2011 Filed under: Africa, Arabs, Geopolitics, Gulf, Iran, Islamism, Libya, Maghreb, politics, Qadhafi, Turkey 6 Comments »
Last week reader sent an email asking a number of questions about the impact of the Arab uprisings on the Arab region in terms of the foreign policy of the countries in the region, from the perspective of some one who generally focuses on the Maghreb. Another reader emailed and asked for thoughts on Libya specifically. This is the response to both, not totally coherent (these are areas of generally peripheral interest/knowledge for this blogger) but here is a summary and then a very general thought dump on: Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Iran and regional Islamist movements (some of it is a bit dated, since it was written a week ago). Take it all with a grain of salt.
SUMMARY, SHORT TERM. The Arab uprisings have seriously altered the region’s geopolitical setting. The uprisings have raised the political stakes for Arab governments and publics. Arab elites will face new challenges from emergent counter-elites and political forces. More open domestic political environments in Egypt and Tunisia are very likely to lead to more diverse political scenes in general, and especially within the regional Islamist tendencies. The Gulf states will seek additional security partners to help avoid additional upheaval as seen in Bahrain and will attempt to leverage their economic, religious and cultural influence to moderate and “balance” the political outcomes of uprisings and political processes elsewhere in the region while accentuating a sectarian (Sunni-Shi’i) narrative regarding unrest in the Gulf to gain reassurance from traditional western allies regarding internal security and Iran. The outlook, posture and position of key regional stakeholders has been complicated and rearranged and actors like Turkey and Iran face significant opportunities and challenges and they will be forced to rethink and reconfigure their approaches to exerting public and official influence in the Arab region. Read the rest of this entry »
“The Day of Rejection” in Mauritania
Posted: 24 May, 2011 Filed under: Africa, Arabs, Maghreb, Mauritania, politics, Sahel 2 Comments »For pictures, flyers, video and a summary of the 24 May youth demonstrations in Mauritania (The Day of Rejection), see here and here. The youth staged a mock funeral for democracy in Mauritania, marching on the Blokate square in Nouakchott. As in previous demonstrations, there was an emphasis on reducing the military’s role in politics, corruption and commodity prices. The demonstrators were met by plain cloths police and security men, who allegedly distributed knives to thugs. The demonstrations on 24 May were smaller than in April and saw less head on violence from the authorities. But the government does appear somewhat spooked by the youth movement: aside from the use of plain clothes police and agents provocateurs, it has used misinformation campaigns to confuse and hamper the protests with false flyers (and by setting up false Facebook accounts and pages, according to activists). Here is a link to an al-Akhbar article on the demonstration [Ar.]. For background on the youth protest movement see the previous posts on this blog and this writer’s recent article in the Arab Reform Bulletin. Read the rest of this entry »
Some Thoughts: Tunisian Political Trends and Charts
Posted: 23 May, 2011 Filed under: Africa, Arabs, Imazighen, Maghreb, politics, Tunisia 5 Comments »In a recent poll (conducted on 5-11 May) asked Tunisians who they plan to vote for in that country’s (supposedly) upcoming constituent assembly elections. The results reveal the spread of ideological tendencies within the Tunisian public in general, as well as the challenges facing left-wing parties there. They also lay out how the Tunisians are relating to their country’s roughly 70 political parties, most of which have been founded and organized only since January.
In summary: It suggests political polarization between rural and urban, southern and northern-eastern Tunisians, as well as on (and between) class lines and that the public is not familiar with newly registered political parties. The Islamist an-Nahdha party is the single most popular party but left-wing parties as a whole take a larger share of the public’s sympathies. 12.6% of respondents said they planned not to vote. The top five parties were:
- 30% for an-Nahdha
- 29.2% for PDP (Democratic Progressive Party, center-left/social democratic)
- 11.2% for FDTL (Democratic Forum for Labor and Freedom, social democratic)
- 9.2% for the PCOT (Tunisian Communist Workers Party, Marxist-Leninist)
- 4.8% for CPR (Congress for the Republic, center-left) Read the rest of this entry »
Challenging Problems in Analysis
Posted: 23 May, 2011 Filed under: Africa, Arabs, Gulf, Islamism, Levant, Maghreb 1 Comment »Via Brian Whitaker, Michael Hudson has a long reflective essay on the Arab uprisings at Jadaliyya (from 16 May). He he concludes with five challenges to “political scientists and other analysts” looking at Middle East/North Africa. His critique is important and highlights problems that affect the analysis provided by many writers, including this one. It is an excellent critique of the general tone of much western discourse on Arab politics in general. Some of these points have been made before, notably by Issandr El-Amrani at The Arabist and others (Nir Rosen published an essay on the Al Jazeera English website more aggressively critiquing western journalists’ coverage of the uprisings and the Middle East generally; this is included at the end of the post). Hudson argues:
Quite a lot of analytical attention has been devoted to the instruments of state authoritarianism, but not enough has been paid to the strength and durability of the protest movements. It would seem that a combination of factors–group-think, theoretical tunnel vision, ideological agendas, insufficient attention to the work of Arab intellectuals, and a lack of multidisciplinary approaches —help account for the difficulties. Is it not time for a rethinking of categories such as state (failed or otherwise), regime (rogue or otherwise), nation, society (civil or otherwise) and leadership. And must we not emphasize the importance of new media and information technologies in clarifying (and energizing) the Arab “imagined community?”
This post will highlight the key segments of the essay. The five points will come first, then the rest. His calls on analysts to reexamine:
(1) The “durability of authoritarianism”. How valid now is the argument that mukhabarat states can keep several steps ahead of societal opposition through better access to and use of new technologies of information and repression?
(2) Democratization is an inappropriate goal and impossible to achieve in the Arab world. Were the so-called “demo-crazy” analysts really so blinded by their presumed liberal preferences?
(3) Populations are passive—anaesthetized by the opium of the rentier state or bowed down by the burdens of daily life or cowed by fear of the mukhabarat. How then to explain the extraordinary massive popular protests?
(4) Arab nationalism is dead; people are reverting to their primordial affiliations. But how then to explain the so-called “contagion effect” of the Tunisian and Egyptian upheavals? Facebook alone did not cause them. [. . .]
(5) the Middle East regional system is essentially stable; states still are the prime units; the regional balance of power is stable; and the system is still encased in American hegemony. But how then to explain the strategic setback suffered by the United States and Washington’s apparent inability to manipulate the new situation. Read the rest of this entry »
RE: AQIM in Tunisia
Posted: 19 May, 2011 Filed under: Africa, Algeria, AQIM, Libya, Maghreb, terrorism, Tunisia 11 Comments »A reader asked for comment on AQIM and Tunisia. At the moment only limited comment is possible given the lack of extensive public information, the difficulty in assessing the validity of confessions of individuals captured and claiming to be members of AQIM and the complexity of the group’s presence in Tunisia and Libya in light of the Libyan uprising and the NFZ there. Below are very brief thoughts attempting to integrate these problems taken form notes from the last two weeks on the Algerian position on Libya and the arrests of AQIM suspects in Tunisia. Readers with more information/knowledge on the issue are encouraged to comment and correct. Read the rest of this entry »
Guest Post: Assia Boundaoui on Obama’s Speech, the Arab Spring and North Africa
Posted: 19 May, 2011 Filed under: Africa, Algeria, Arabs, Maghreb, Morocco, Obama, Sahel, US, Western Sahara 5 Comments »
Below is a guest post by the terrific Algerian-American writer and radio journalist Assia Boundaoui (@assuss) on President Obama’s speech written special to TMND. Boundaoui has covered protests in Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere from the front lines. The views expressed below are her own. Read the rest of this entry »
RE: Obama on the “Arab Spring”
Posted: 19 May, 2011 Filed under: Arabs, Gulf, Iran, Levant, Libya, Maghreb, Obama, reform, US 3 Comments »
President Obama’s Arab Spring speech was standard fare: well composed, well targeted and spread thin in its attempt to appeal to multiple audiences simultaneously. It also reframed American policy in a rhetoric that attempts to show that “America’s interests are not hostile to peoples’ hopes” in the Middle East and North Africa. Habiba Hamid, via Twitter, noted a “‘US democratisation agenda’ as distinct from democracy promotion” with the administration embracing a wider variety of political actors in region as a part of the region’s political evolution. (As the President said: “America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard, even if we disagree with them. We look forward to working with all who embrace genuine and inclusive democracy,” a tacit reference to Islamists.) The speech contains little that is new: it is primarily a reiteration of current policy initiatives presented together with a narrative recalling the 2009 speech at Cairo. Below are thoughts on interesting highlights as far as this blogger is concerned. Read the rest of this entry »
Vague thoughts on Arab uprisings (II)
Posted: 11 May, 2011 Filed under: Africa, Arabs, Gulf, Levant, Maghreb 4 Comments »This is a thought dump. It is concerned with the Arab uprisings in the same sense that similar long posts from February and March were concerned with more or less specific events in Tunisia and Algeria (Mauritania, too). The paragraphs are numbered to make reading easier (each is themed) but do not directly correspond to the topics discussed in a linear or direct way as other posts on this blog have (though in some places they do). These are [more] preliminary thoughts based on previous observations and more recent ones. The analyses here are not intended to be final judgements or assessments. Another similar post will follow shortly. Read the rest of this entry »
RE: AQIM, UBL and Retaliation; brief thoughts
Posted: 4 May, 2011 Filed under: Africa, Algeria, AQIM, Islamism, Maghreb, Mali, Niger, Sahel, terrorism 12 Comments »From Reuters, on AQIM and the UBL killing:
(Reuters) – The killing of Osama bin Laden raises the stakes for French hostages being held by al Qaeda allies in the Sahara, who may mount a retaliatory attack in the region.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is a mostly autonomous wing which sprung from the Algerian Salafist movement in 2007 and will be unaffected operationally by bin Laden’s death in a U.S. assault on his compound in Pakistan.
Aside from an attack on the United Nations in Algiers and hits on local armies, AQIM has mostly raised its profile through kidnapping dozens of foreigners across the Sahara-Sahel zone.
Most hostages have been released after reported ransom payments. But several have been killed by the group, which blends ideology and crime as it operates alongside local rebels, desert bandits and arms and drug-smuggling networks.
The immediate concern will be for four French hostages held in the Sahara since they were kidnapped in Niger last September.
“I think there is a likelihood of retaliation. Their fate has gotten decidedly worse,” Geoff Porter, a political risk and security consultant specializing in North Africa and the Sahara.
France said in March it would not negotiate on AQIM’s demands for 90 million euros ($134 million) for their release.
[. . .]
“AQIM will want to seek revenge, that is for sure … everyone in the Sahel-Sahara must remain vigilant,” a Nigerien military intelligence official told Reuters.
“We had better hope that his death does not have a negative impact on the talks to free the French.”
AQIM’s links with bin Laden have been mixed, with the group operating largely independent of al Qaeda central, though some of its members are veterans of Afghanistan and bin Laden directly backed the kidnapping in September last year.
A number of analysts say the group is under pressure to carry out a spectacular attack to boost its jihadist credentials.
[. . .]
A Malian defense official expected reprisals but did not believe the hostages would be killed as AQIM needed them as part of its strategy to remain high profile.
After initially profiting from the easy pickings of Westerners in remote, desert locations, AQIM has become more ambitious in its attacks.
The September kidnapping, which mostly targeted staff from French nuclear firm Areva (CEPFi.PA), was the biggest blow to Western interests while there have also been raids on the capitals of Niger and Mauritania, albeit with mixed results.
A January raid on a bar in Niamey netted two French hostages, who were subsequently killed in a rescue effort by French forces. In February, suspected al Qaeda militants tried to bomb the French embassy and an army base in Nouakchott.
[. . .]
Andre Le Sage, Senior Africa Research Fellow at the Washington-based National Defense University, said AQIM should be seen as a primarily local group but they may seek to “demonstrate their anger and their ability to operate.”
“They have local roots, connections and command structures. They have always been very autonomous. This doesn’t mean his death will have no impact but it is not necessarily going to impact their operational capability in the short term,” he said.
Aside from the comments from the military/intelligence side (but only partly) most of this is probably well educated guessing. Some thoughts and things to keep in mind from this blogger’s perspective and readers are welcome to dispute/clarify their own views as well: Read the rest of this entry »
Re: Bin Laden
Posted: 2 May, 2011 Filed under: Geopolitics, Islamism, politics, terrorism, US 2 Comments »This blog tends not to deal with problems like bin Laden. But his elimination cannot go without comment. A few thoughts on the death of Usama bin Laden:
- This will have only limited impact on al-Qaeda operations and activities, given bin Laden’s limited role beyond general strategy and propaganda. Al-Qaeda affiliates receive limited funding, training and armament from from bin Laden and his core group. Al-Qaeda is deliberately decentralized so that it can function after suffering a blow such as this one.
- Bin Laden had more credibility and appeal in general than his senior lieutenants (Zawahiri especially) and affiliate leaders whose pronouncements and activities alienate their target audiences in the Muslim and especially Arab worlds. Zawahiri statements are interesting only to those already drawn into jihadi ideology whereas bin Laden had the ability to speak about al-Qaeda’s cause in terms more appealing to general audiences, drawing in multiple reference points that the average person might be able to relate to. Bin Laden could take events, key words and political ideas that appealed to the broad palette of Arab grievances with the United States, the colonial background, regime oppression, and religious militancy far more effectively than Zawahiri whose attempts at this end up more narrow and off-putting to even those with an equal amount of distaste for American foreign policy. This is a major blow for the internationalist appeal of al-Qaeda if the group is unable to produce a similarly charismatic leader from its own ranks. Bin Laden’s death will continue al-Qaeda’s marginalization.
- Bin Laden’s death will have an important psychological affect on Americans (particularly given the popular and public response) and their overall view of the War on Terrorism, which is likely to have some impact on attitudes toward the Afghanistan conflict, change the political framing of national security problems for the opposition and those concerned with the conduct of war.
- This is a good reference point for President Obama to begin scaling down the American presence in Afghanistan. One wonders whether this will end up being the case given the [of course evolving] domestic political climate and other (mainly economic) factors.
- President Obama will likely benefit from this in opinion polling and his chances at re-election are increased. In such a case point three becomes more likely during the second term. The consequences of this are of course uncertain.
- Bin Laden’s popularity and influence in Arab politics should not be overstated. Current unrest in the region has little to with bin Laden, al-Qaeda or its affiliate organizations, which have struggled for relevance as the political discourse and popular priorities zoom past them. Issandr el-Amrani puts it well:
The radical-theological option that Bin Laden represented as a solution to the state of the Arab world has long been discredited. It was discredited before it even began, in that it was a result of the failure of the violent Islamist movements of the 1970s-1990s era. Also discredited, or at least on the ropes, are the pro-US “reformist” option of the “moderate” Arab regimes. Moderate, in the way Saudi Arabia or Mubarak’s Egypt was, and reformist, because they are interested in changing to survive, not making a radical break. But the people spoke and they don’t want reform, they want rupture.
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