Ibn Larry

What's happening in Syria?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 03:32:00 +0000

Several people have asked me recently what the heck is going on in Syria. So I've written a brief run down of what's going on and how we got here. This is meant as a primer, and a lot of what I wrote is admittedly overly simplified. But hopefully it captures the important stuff without obfuscating too much.

This is what is happening in Syria:

Inspired by other Arab uprisings, the Syrian people began a peaceful movement in 2011 to reform and later overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad. Bashar and his father Hafez before him have ruled Syria with an iron grip for decades. It was therefore no surprise the regime responded with a violent crackdown. Assad promised that the region would burn if the international community supported the opposition.

The Syrian opposition failed to unify in the face of regime violence, as some continued to protest peacefully but others began to pick up arms to meet force with force. Neighborhood defense forces and military defectors grew into the Free Syrian Army, a loose coalition of armed groups across the country opposed to the Assad regime. Protests morphed into clashes and, soon enough, full-on battles.

The violence exacerbated pre-existing societal cleavages within the country, and sectarianism grew increasingly salient. Sunnis, who represent the majority of Syrians, became the loudest voice within the opposition. Assad, who comes from the minority Alawite community, attracted the support of other minority sects, including Shia and Christians, who feared Sunni intentions. Of course, not all Sunnis support the opposition and not all minorities support the regime – but these schisms have grown ever deeper. Kurdish Syrians have also fought both sides as they attempt to carve out their own autonomy.

Now, radicals from all communities have drowned out moderates. This process has been accelerated by the intervention of outside forces that have stirred the sectarian pot. Assad has relied increasingly on Iran and Hezbollah – both Shia who face common Sunni rivals. Meanwhile, Sunni groups inspired by and part of al-Qaeda have joined the fight on the side of the opposition and become some of its most powerful military forces. Gulf states, also Sunni, have contributed arms and financing to the rebels. As the war has become more transnational, so has the risk that it’ll spill over in neighboring Lebanon, Iraq and to a lesser extent Turkey and Jordan. Now, factions within both the regime and the opposition speak openly of ethnic cleansing and have committed countless war crimes.

And to be clear, Syria is a civil war. Over 100,000 people have died in the past two years in Syria, and there is no sign the violence will abate any time soon. One in four Syrians are now displaced from their homes. The battle has reached largely a stalemate, after a series of rebel advances were stopped and reversed earlier this year. The opposition has secured control of much of the north and the east, near the Turkish border. The regime has control of the south and the west, near the Lebanon border. The capital Damascus is controlled by the regime, but the rebels control many of the Damascus suburbs.

It is in these suburbs which the Assad regime has most recently used chemical weapons, likely sarin gas. It is not the first time the regime has used chemical weapons, but the scale of this attack (somewhere between 300 and 1200 dead) is unprecedented. It is the worst use of chemical weapons since Saddam Hussein gassed Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980's. We know the regime used chemical weapons because we intercepted regime communications talking about the attack. Still, the attack only represents a small fraction of the total people killed in the past two years, largely from small arms, shelling, and bombs.

It is not clear why Assad would use chemical weapons on this scale. The timing is also odd, because the UN had just deployed a team of chemical weapons experts to investigate previous attacks. Some experts say the attack may not have been approved from the top. Others suggest that they meant to use chemical weapons, but accidentally killed more people than they intended. What is clear, however, is Assad has been perfectly willing to kill civilians indiscriminately in a myriad of ways, and there have been little international repercussions for doing so thus far. So the fact he's willing to gas his own people is, sadly, not shocking. For what it's worth, the regime has denied responsibility and said it was the rebels who used chemical weapons.

President Obama warned Syria last year that the use of chemical weapons was a red line that would fundamentally change our approach to the conflict. From an early stage of the revolution, the US said Assad should step aside to allow a political resolution. As the revolution turned violent, the administration resisted pressure to arm the Syrian rebels, claiming that their disunity would make it impossible to prevent arms from falling into extremist hands. After Assad first used chemical weapons earlier this year, the administration decided to finally arm the rebels, even though those very extremists are even more powerful than before. No weapons have yet been delivered in any sizable amount, but we have provided training to armed opposition groups and likely have provided other logistical support.

Unlike the US, Russia has not hesitated to provide substantial military and economic support to the side it supports: Assad. Russia, along with China, has consistently stymied every move at the UN to condemn and punish the Assad regime.

The latest chemical attack will likely push the US to respond with military force. The goal will not be regime change like in Libya, but to punish Assad for crossing our red line and for violating the international norm against using chemical weapons. We will likely target a few military installations and other key infrastructure, causing enough damage to make it hurt but not so much to force Assad to retaliate. It is unlikely we will risk flying our own planes over Syria, so we will instead rely on cruise missiles.

For his part, Assad has threatened retribution against anyone who supports a military strike by the West. Fighting for his literal survival, it is unclear if any amount of cruise missiles will force him to abandon his murderous path.

Our European allies, and especially Great Britain, will stand with us politically and in a few cases militarily. Arab states seem hesitant to provide political support, especially after a July 3 coup in Egypt removed the pro-opposition president Mohamed Morsi. Unlike in Libya, the Security Council will not approve any military action, because Russia and China will veto any measure authorizing the use of force. They say it’s because they’re angry with NATO for overstepping its mandate in Libya by taking a mandate to protect civilians and using it to overthrow the Muammar Qaddafi regime. But in reality, they just care for what they perceive are their national interests. The US will instead look to build an ad hoc coalition to try to give our intervention the veneer of international legitimacy.

There is now little hope in Syria, and our bombs falling on Assad targets will be lost in the noise of violence that has engulfed the country. Even if Assad were to fall tomorrow, the violence he has unleashed will continue for years to come. Worse, there are fewer and fewer good guys to support as extremists take control across the political spectrum. We can only hope to try to curb the worst excesses of violence within the country and try and prevent it from engulfing the rest of the region.

UPDATE: I added a few lines about why Assad may have used chemical weapons.

My trip to Lebanon

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 16:41:00 +0000

I just spent the past week in Lebanon interviewing journalists covering Syria and Lebanon. I'll be writing something more formal about my findings shortly. But in the meantime, here are a few quick general observations about my trip, which was book cased by two bombings against Hezbollah targets.

There is widespread anxiety and even a sense of inevitability that the Syrian war will spill into Lebanon. There is always sufficient tinder in Lebanon, and sparks are flying all over the place from both local and international actors. Not only has the war in Syria escalated sectarian tensions in Lebanon, but Syrian rebels have a clear interest in provoking a fight in Lebanon to force Hezbollah fighters in Syria to return home to defend against local enemies. I don't want to exaggerate this anxiety. Lebanon has balanced precariously for years now, and they've somehow managed so far. But the anxiety is more pronounced now because the risk is more difficult to manage.
As tensions rise, journalists are at a significant risk of beatings and illegal detentions by non-state actors, especially Hezbollah. This has always been a problem in Lebanon, especially as journalists associated with one political camp try to report on events in territories controlled by another camp. But enhanced political tensions and the fear of violence will make it that much worse, especially as security forces grow more paranoid about infiltrators and saboteurs. International journalists will also be at risk of being accused as spies or worse. More on this later.
It will also become increasingly dangerous for those who seek independence from Lebanon's rigid political camps. The Lebanese government is both unwilling and unable to protect its citizens. Protection comes through membership in a political camp. But the Lebanese who seek to bridge divides, who seek to upend the sectarian system, who criticize all sides, will do so at their own risk.
Despite the fear of violence, Christian areas of Lebanon remain party happy as ever. It reminds me a lot of 2006, where night clubs remained open as Israeli bombs fell on Hezbollah territory. It'd be a mistake, however, to think Christians can emerge unscathed if tensions between Sunni and Shia escalate to violence. If the Syrian war does spill over, the violence will not be so isolated as 2006 and it will be hard for Christians to stay above the fray. So perhaps they have Isaiah 22:13 in mind.
Electricity outages are far more frequent than I remember from my last trip four years ago. My electricity was cut off a dozen times a day, even though I was staying in affluent areas. My friend told me he had power in his apartment for 12 hours a day. This is but one example of how the government is failing to govern.
Finally, one non sequitur from the airport. As a customs official was checking my passport, a man and his wife came behind me in line.The official looked up and started to repeatedly yell at the man, "What do you have?! Drugs?!" He then let loose a smirk and explained to me, "They're Iraqi." After passing through the metal detector, I lingered behind to make sure the couple was okay. After 10 minutes of what seemed like heated discussion and gesticulating, the man reached out and kissed the official on the cheek. The couple then passed through the metal detectors without harassment.

UPDATE: I forgot to add one more anecdote. I stayed at a largely vacant Ramada in downtown for...$65 a night. Not a good sign for tourism and business. Admittedly, my flight to Beirut was relatively full, but it seemed to be almost entirely Lebanese returning home or visiting family. Sadly, I don't think this Ministry of Tourism video will help improve things.

Looking into Bahrain's crystal ball

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:21:00 +0000

It has been a violent week in Bahrain. During clashes coinciding with the two-year anniversary of the uprising, police shot and killed a teenage boy with their shotguns. In retaliation, skirmishers killed a policeman using a homemade explosive. The violence shows no sign of abetting. Who knows who many more were and will be injured.

Ominously, the Bahraini government announced yesterday the arrest of eight members of a "terrorist cell" only a few days after defusing a 2 kg bomb on a major highway. The government has made many such claims before, most of them hard to take at face value. Yet, even the boy who cried wolf was eventually eaten by one.

In short, this week left little room for optimism - except for the extremists on all sides who oppose any compromise that could ameliorate the crisis in Bahrain. The violence has overshadowed whatever meager light of hope the new National Dialogue offers. And without a political solution, whether from this dialogue or another, the future of Bahrain looks quite grim. Recent posts on social media can give us a preview of what we might expect if current trends hold.

On one side, you have the extreme anti-opposition who despise the protesters in the street and whose support for the government extends only to the extent that the authorities crack down on the protesters. Take for example the recent tweets of Mohammed Khalid (@boammar), a Sunni known for his inflammatory rhetoric. After the foiling of the purported terror cell, Khalid tweeted a line of rhyming Arabic poetry, "Cell after cell ... Wefaq has become the final arbiter ... The state has hollowed the law into a forgotten memory ... Terrorism has become like the American state ... This is the Khalifa's Bahrain." In another tweet, he asks "Why does Bahrain tremble before human rights organizations and doesn't tremble before the Creator of Man? Where are our rights as people and as security men before the rights of terrorists who betray the nation?"

A burning tire runing over "The Dialogue." Khalid tweets a pun, calling it "The Mooing" which differs in spelling from dialogue by only one letter.

For Khalid and those like him, Bahrain faces an existential threat from "terrorists" and yet the Khalifa regime does nothing to confront that threat. The risk is that they'll take things into their own hands, as has happened before. The worst case scenario is significant violence between civilians on the streets, as opposed to the current bad case scenario of protesters clashing with police. The risk is real because Khalid et al. confuse the entire opposition for Iranian-backed terrorists. For example, the controversial anti-opposition Twitter account @7areghum blamed a recent fire bombing of a bank on "Wefaq's militias" and used the hashtag "Wefaq's terrorism."

The accusation is ridiculous. Sheikh Ali Salman, the head of al-Wefaq, has consistently urged protesters to remain peaceful because such methods strengthen the democratic movement and make it more effective. Just today, he tweeted, "The opposition's approach is peaceful. It rejects violence and believes in serious dialogue. It insists on its right to peaceful protest and to communicate with the international community, and it will not give up on the demands of the people." If it were not for his leadership among others, this week - and the past two years - would have witnessed far more violence.

Khalid would scoff at such statements as lies. But he would not be the only one scoffing. Those actually responsible for the fire bombing of the bank would also object. Not because they believe Salman is lying, but because they reject his thesis altogether. Today, the People's Resistance Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement on their Facebook page, the group warned "We are still in the beginning of avenging the martyrs" of the revolution.

In fact, their entire Facebook page is comprised of one statement after another claiming responsibility for attacking the Khalifa regime. In one yesterday, they write "God as our witness, we have targeted the entire mercenary system defending the criminal Khalifa regime and we promise the people we have some surprised for the regime."After claiming responsibility for another attack on Friday, they warn, "If the message was not clear to the regime and its followers, wait and you will see more."

Today, the People's Resistance Brigades has only 315 likes on their Facebook page, and Ali Salman's arguments about peacefulness still hold the greatest sway in the opposition (Note some might question whether the entire Facebook page is fake, but there's no evidence of that). But the consensus is shifting in Bahrain as moderates across the spectrum lose influence. As it does, groups like the People's Resistance Brigades will gain popularity, the threat of actual terrorism will grow, and reconciliation will grow ever more distant.

For now, however, Wefaq and its allies can still mobilize massive protests that remain remarkably peaceful in the midst of violence. And there are still those across the political spectrum who seek a political compromise. So even if the future of Bahrain looks grim, we can at least take solace that there are many striving to change what they see in the crystal ball.

The Long View on Bahrain

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:41:00 +0000

This week will mark the two-year anniversary of the uprising in Bahrain. A lot has changed since those first early protests, and yet so much remains the same.

New political groups have formed, but the main cleavage remains between those who have and those who have not. Broad political movements have fragmented, but the Khalifa have always taken advantage of such schisms to maintain their rule. The contagion of sectarianism has spread, but it has always infected Bahrain to some degree. The pearl monument has fallen, but its memory remains fresh as ever.

So, much remains the same as two years ago. And in fact, much remains the same from two centuries ago. The Bahraini uprising is only the latest iteration of Bahrain's long history in uprisings that have wracked Bahrain every generation under the Khalifa regime. The problem boils down to one simple truth: a minority of have's control the economic and political order, and the majority of have-not's will continue to revolt periodically until they succeed in building a more just system.

Importantly, however, much is different from the US perspective. Previous uprisings were not our problem. It was the British who most cherished Bahrain's strategic value and became entangled with the Khalifa. Even during the 90's uprising, we were still only finding our footing in the Gulf in the aftermath of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. But now, it is the US that needs Bahrain most as our confrontation with Iran escalates. Now, we are the ones who are entangled.

We have tried to play a moderating role in the crisis, supporting those Bahrainis who seek compromise in search of middle ground. In the process, we have angered all sides and watched Anti-Americanism gain ground throughout Bahraini society. Unlike the British, we simply cannot extricate ourselves from Bahrain, for there's nobody else to maintain the regional order (some smart people would argue otherwise). So what then should we do?

Fred Wehrey addresses this exact question in his latest report for the Carnegie Endowment. The entire report is worth reading with some great analysis on how the current crisis threatens US interests. He writes:

As the crisis persists, troubling questions have arisen about the deleterious effects of America’s strategic relationship with Bahrain, which has long been a central pillar in U.S. power projection in the Gulf [...] But increasingly, the United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms [...] Ultimately, breaking through Bahrain’s impasse is not just a matter of promoting human rights but mitigating potential security challenges to U.S. assets and people and—eventually, perhaps—forestalling a violent challenge to the monarchy.

Wehrey understands that while the US should help enable a solution, we cannot be the source for that solution. That's up to the Bahrainis themselves. He therefore calls for "a degree of modesty about what the United States can and cannot accomplish." His policy recommendations reflect this call for modesty. He argues we should leverage our defense relationship by starting to plan a gradual relocation of the Fifth Fleet, engage key leaders to push for reform, and to use a mix of economic and diplomatic pressure on human rights abusers.

These policies will not solve the crisis. But their marginal effects might be enough to curb the worst of the crisis until the prospects for an actual solution improve. The sad truth is that a real and lasting political solution will not likely come anytime soon (I do hope I'm wrong). There are too many spoilers, both inside and outside of Bahrain. In fact, my main critique of Wehrey's report is he doesn't focus enough on all the external spoilers, especially Saudi Arabia. There will be no political solution in Bahrain unless Saudi acquiesces or it loses its stranglehold on Bahraini politics - both highly unlikely in the near-term.

The US therefore should focus on the medium to long term in Bahrain. Just as Bahrainis look at this conflict as generational, so must we. Part of that plan could be looking to help professionalize the Bahrani Defense Forces by cultivating the next generation of military officers, as Wehrey argues. But more importantly, that means helping Bahrain gain economic and political independence from Saudi Arabia. Reza Akbari and I had a few ideas how in our thesis. I hope Wehrey takes on that subject the next time he writes about Bahrain.

While we must take a long-term approach to Bahrain, at the same time we must not fall for the temptation of accepting the status quo. Just look at what happened in Egypt after we accepted the status quo for too long. Instead, the long-term approach requires a concerted and consistent effort to push the Khalifa regime to reform as part of a comprehensive political solution. It will require patience. And, as Wehrey concludes, it will require a "significant rethinking and recalibration" of US policy. Because even if an unreformed Khalifa regime emerges unscathed from this crisis, another uprising will be looming right around the corner.

Bahrain's PR Trap

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:09:00 +0000

New York Times journalist Nick Kristof was denied entry into Bahrain today. As he tweeted, “I’m at #Bahrain airport, and the government is denying me entry. Our ally is terrified of human rights reporting.”

His rejection should come as no surprise. He’s been on the government’s bad side ever since reporting from Pearl Roundabout during the February 14^th uprising. While I’ve been told (but was unable to confirm) he has been granted two media visas since then, he has previously been denied entry. And he’s in good company of a long list of journalists, academics, and human rights groups that has been turned away these past two years. Just this week, a member of the European Parliament was also denied entry.

In response to Kristof’s rejection, Brian Dooley of Human Rights First rhetorically asked what Bahrain has to hide. The answer is, actually, not much. The ongoing human rights violations in Bahrain are well known thanks to the hard and dangerous work of local activists. Denying Kristof a visa won’t cover up these violations – nor will it stop him from writing an article denouncing them. While admittedly not ideal, Kristof does not need to enter Bahrain to write about it – he has the help of activists and Skype.

In that sense, Kristof’s critics are right that his “story is set” whether he enters Bahrain or not. He will write something negative about the Bahraini government regardless. But is that his fault or the fault of the government for failing its responsibilities towards its citizens? As a recent POMED report concluded, the government has failed to fully implement almost 90% of the recommendations set forth by the Bassiouni commission – recommendations the King himself endorsed as necessary to reduce human rights violations.

This raises the question: if Kristof will write something negative regardless, why even bother denying him entry? By denying him entry, the government not only helps Kristof prove his case, it also causes an unnecessary media storm around his denial. In only two hours, his original tweet announcing his denial of entry has already garnered 656 retweets and 62 favorites. He has since been tweeting up a storm and all his followers along with him.

In fact, this might be what Kristof wanted all along. In response to Laura Seay’s tweet “No way @NickKristof didn’t know he’d be denied entry to Bahrain. So why waste money & effort trying?,” Dan Drezner simply replied, “#allaboutthetweets.” Getting denied a visa is not the worst thing in the world for Kristof. It’s a platform. Take for example the reaction of PedroPizano from the Human Rights Foundation: “@NickKristof was just denied entry to #Bahrain. He’s at the airport there and making a pest out of himself. Awesome!” The government walked right into the PR trap.

Since the uprising, the government has taken an aggressive three-pronged PR approach: limit access to critical voices, hire Western PR firms, and hold high profile events to make Bahrain look “normal.” Each prong has failed. Critical voices like Kristof’s are still being heard, especially with the help of local activists. The PR firms have been outed and are failing to make a dent. And major events like F1 and Kim Kardashian’s recent trip have backfired by casting unnecessary attention on an island that the media would otherwise largely ignore.

Instead of fighting negative PR tooth and nail, the government would be better off just taking its licks. Keep a low profile. The international community’s default setting is to ignore you – so don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself. Let Kristof in and don’t let him become the story. Hire PR firms, but don’t have them write articles beyond credulity. Hold major events, but let them speak for themselves instead of publicly bragging about how they prove Bahrain’s troubles have passed.

Of course, there’s only one real and lasting way the Bahraini government can improve its image. It must improve its product. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to happen for the same reason my colleague Reza and I wrote about back in May: a brutal mix of street violence, distrust, and sectarianism have combined to disempower moderates across Bahrain’s political spectrum.

In the case of the government, the moderates who are most likely to curb human rights abuses and seek necessary reform are exactly those who care most about Bahrain’s public image. Unfortunately, with each failed attempt to improve that image, the hardliners gain even more influence. And with that influence, they drag Bahrain further down the cycle of violence, distrust and sectarianism that further damages Bahrain’s image. Like a Chinese finger trap, the more the moderates in the government struggle, the worse their PR predicament becomes. Relax your fingers, and the PR trap will relax with you.

Morsi's Power Hunger

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 20:43:00 +0000

Yesterday was yet another depressing day for Egypt. With violence and anger escalating, the Egyptian president took to the podium. And like his predecessor before him, he squandered the opportunity to bridge the divides of his nation. Instead, he further exacerbated the situation with the familiar mix of meaningless concessions and meaningful threats. As Hafsa Halawa tweeted in response, “This is the worst-case scenario…This speech isn’t making me angry. It’s making me sad. So very sad.”

A slew of articles have been written these past few weeks declaring Morsi the new dictator of Egypt – or at least, the next dictator in the making. In an article entitled “Shame on Anyone Who Ever Thought Mohammad Morsi Was a Moderate,” Eric Trager argues the Muslim Brotherhood is inherently inimical to pluralism and democratic dialogue. In another article, Trager focuses specifically on “Morsi’s uncompromising demeanor.” In a similar vein, Khalil al-Anani examines Morsi’s “autocratic disposition” that has led him to take the “strongman route” to governing.

Clearly, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood generally have acted in severely troubling ways since the Egyptian revolution. They have broken promises about how many seats they would contend for in parliament, whether they would run for president, and who they would appoint in their administration. The relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood proper, their purportedly independent Freedom and Justice Party, and the presidency remains as murky as ever. They have purged many of their members who have not adhered to the official line. And they seem to have a genuine disregard for the needs of both religious and political minorities. As Jeffrey Goldberg tweeted, “Morsi has made the transition from dissident to despot at an impressive rate of speed.” However, it is not clear that their actions reveal an inherently authoritarian disposition as Trager and al-Anani contend.

In everyday life, we tend to overemphasize the importance of people’s dispositions in interpreting behavior while underemphasizing the importance of the environment. This is what social psychologists call the fundamental attribution error. Pretend you are at a red light when your car dies. As you try to restart the engine, you miss the light turning green and the car behind you begins to honk furiously. Naturally, you think the other driver is an impatient jerk. But in reality, he’s in a rush to the hospital because his wife is giving birth. Meanwhile, he unfairly thinks you’re an idiot for not accelerating fast enough. If the roles were reversed, you would be the one honking at him - and you likely don’t think of yourself as a jerk.

We can make the fundamental attribution error while analyzing politics as well. Maybe Morsi was born to be a dictator – or maybe the political environment has led him to take dictatorial actions. Marc Lynch nailed it when he likened the Egyptian political environment to one tragic game of Calvinball. He explains, “the one constant in Cairo's trainwreck of a transition seems to be the constantly changing rules and absolute institutional uncertainty.” With the rules of the game ever changing – and just as importantly being changed but multiple competing actors – for all intents and purposes there are no rules.

The Egyptian political arena is now a free for all. We might even call it anarchic. And as any international relations scholar knows, anarchic systems bring out the worst in actors. With no guarantees of survival and no frameworks to build trust, the only option is to selfishly maximize your own security in every way possible. Countries therefore build armies. Morsi instead issued a declaration granting him unprecedented powers. Morsi feared the courts would dismantle the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly, so he launched a preemptive strike against the judiciary. He outplayed the courts in Calvinball in an attempt to secure the Islamist position. But in the process he plunged Egypt further into Calvinball anarchy that exacerbates the fears of all sides. By seeking security, he made everyone less secure.

As the New York Times reported, “each side of the political battle is now convinced that it faces an imminent coup.” The Islamists have learned the lesson of Algeria that electoral victories do not guarantee political survival. They are therefore hypersensitive to any move that seeks to replace their vision for majoritarian democracy for the sake of liberalism. In turn, the non-Islamists fear the intentions of the Islamists and what they will do with the power they have accrued through the ballot box. This tension between democracy and liberalism (see Jason Brownlee) has always existed in Egypt, but this Calvinball transition has intensified it to the breaking point.

And for that, we must direct our blame towards the SCAF. They failed to establish a transparent transition with clear rules of the game. From the very start, they caused confusion by promulgating their constitutional declaration in March 2011, superseding the constitutional referendum held just weeks prior. At the time, Nathan Brown and Kristen Stilt worried about the “procedural incoherence and inconsistency” of the constitutional changes. In other words, Calvinball had begun. They then seemed do everything possible - either by design or by folly - to cultivate this environment of uncertainty, fear, and violence. Eventually, it would lead to their undoing at the hands of Morsi. But the environment still persists – and it has made all Egyptian political trends to seek power for the sake of their survival. And as the most powerful trend, the Brotherhood is winning that fight for power.

So maybe Morsi and the Brotherhood were power hungry all along. Or maybe the Calvinball environment created by the SCAF has made them more power hungry. Admittedly, this likely seems academic to Egyptians who fear what that hunger for power will do to their country. But the right policy towards Egypt changes in these two scenarios. If the Brotherhood always was and always will be dictatorial, then the US should isolate it now. If the Calvinball environment is instead bringing the worst out of all Egyptian political trends, then the US should work with the Brotherhood and all other political trends to help establish clear rules to the game.

On a personal level, my deep support goes to all Egyptians who seek a better future for their country. A future that finds the right balance between democracy and liberalism. A future that Hafsa and all Egyptians can be happy about.

What to Remember and What to Forget

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:38:00 +0000

Yesterday, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were slain in a terror attack against our consulate in Benghazi, Libya. While the attack appears to have been pre-planned, the terrorists took advantage (or potentially stoked) anti-American protests over a bigoted film denigrating Islam. Meanwhile, protests in Egypt over the film turned ugly as demonstrators scaled the walls of our embassy and tore apart the American flag.

Yesterday was also the day we vowed to never forget the attacks of 11 years ago. And there is much that we should never forget. We should never forget the heroism of firefighters climbing up stairways and diplomats serving under fire. We should never forget the common bond we share as Americans and how that bond is strengthened by our differences. We should never forget our perseverance as a nation and the image of an American flag rustling above the rubble. We should never forget our founding principles as a nation that should guide us in everything we do. We should never forget the sacrifices made by our fellow Americans serving in our military and diplomatic corps. Most of all, we should never forget the fallen and the families they left behind.

Yesterdal also proved to be the day that we should forget some things. To those who seek political advantage in the face of national tragedy, forget you. To those who spew venomous hatred against others, forget you too. And to those who feed the spiral of extremism by responding to bigotry with violence, forget you most of all. We have so many better things to remember than you.

July 4th on Trial

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 04:26:00 +0000

I want to wish everyone a very happy Fourth of July. I plan to spend my day going to the Nationals game with friends, binging on Freedom Fries, and watching the fireworks over the National Mall. But for this post, I wanted to remember two groups of people who will have an entirely different kind of Fourth of July. Their Fourth of July won’t be about friends, fries, and fireworks. But what they will go through today should remind all of us what the Fourth truly should be about: how lucky we are to live in a free nation.

In Egypt, the political trial against NGOs promoting Egyptian democracy restarts today with high profile testimony from prosecution witnesses. According to Fayza Aboulnaga, the minister who is spearheading the crackdown against the NGOs, the accused organizations were operating without a license and are therefore subject to prosecution. But Freedom House president David Kramer, refutes Aboulnaga’s accusations and argues persuasively that the trial is part of a larger crackdown against civil society by remnants of the Mubarak regime intent on aborting the revolution. Forty three defendants stand accused, but only a fraction will attend court tomorrow. After months of pressure, the US government convinced the Egyptian authorities to allow the accused Americans to leave the country. The Egyptians remain to face trial, but they won’t do so alone. Robert Becker of the National Democratic Institute refused to abandon his Egyptian colleagues. And Sherif Mansour resigned his position at Freedom House to return to Egypt to face trial in person. He was immediately arrested upon his arrival.

In Bahrain, 28 medical professionals will learn today whether they will spend the next three years in jail. During last year’s protests, the Bahraini military took control over the Salmaniya hospital complex after doctors treated injured anti-government demonstrators and the hospital itself turned into a protest site. Many hospital staff were arrested, tortured, and convicted in military trials. Last month, nine medics were declared innocent upon an appeal, while another eleven had their guilty verdicts confirmed. Today a different group of medics will learn their fate as well. According to Richard Sollom of Physicians for Human Rights, “these medical professionals were merely fulfilling their ethical duty to treat the injured, including injured protesters. Not only should their charges be dropped, but the cases themselves should be expunged from their records.” For Nada Dhaif, one of the medics who won her appeal last month, the government’s attempt to “humiliate whoever they want should they speak” has failed because she is “even more determined to bring change, for [her] voice to be heard and to fight until the end.”

Today, two of our allies will prosecute brave individuals who only seek for their country what we have for ours. As Hafsa Halawa, one of the Egyptians in court today, tweeted “I’m not American, just waiting, hoping and praying for the day Egypt gets our own 4th of July.” And of course, today’s trials in Egypt and Bahrain are but two of thousands of examples of people throughout the world who have stood courageously accused in the court room for seeking to achieve their own July Fourth. So I plan to enjoy more than my share of Freedom Fries today. But at the same time, I will remember how lucky we are. I will remember how far we have come and how much further we must go as a country. And I will remember those who need our support in bending that arc of history ever further towards justice – here in the US and beyond.

UPDATE:

I wanted to follow up on what actually happened with these two court cases. In Bahrain, the court failed to deliver a verdict despite the widespread expectation that it would. The court will not meet again until September 4th. In response, Brian Dooley of Human Rights First said, "Justice delayed is justice denied even longer for these medics who should not be on trial in the first place." In Egypt, the judge of the NGO trial adjourned the court until September 9th after only one prosecution witness gave testimony. At this rate, the trial will take years to finish. The accused - who are caged in the courtroom as is the norm in Egyptian trials - also complained about not being able to hear the proceedings (see pic below).

@Hhafoos: Everyone cramming to try to hear testimony & judge questioning ‪#ngotrial‬ pic.twitter.com/DMGsrBWl

Make no mistake about it: both cases are driven primarily by politics. Especially in the Egypt case, the delays in the proceedings support the ongoing NGO crackdown by giving even more opportunity to sully the reputations of the accused as spies and traitors. Yet another reminder of why we should remember on July Fourth and every other day how lucky we are as Americans generally and specifically how lucky we are to have the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a speedy trial.

The Triangle of Conflict in Bahrain

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:02:00 +0000

My research partner Reza Akbari and I have finally finished our thesis on "The Triangle of Conflict: How Bahrain's Internal Divisions Inhibit Reconciliation." After months of research, two trips to Bahrain and over 50 interviews conducted, we are excited to share with you our results. You can read the entire thesis here, but let me give you a brief summary of our analysis.

In the thesis, we explore the potential for political reconciliation in Bahrain in which people can learn to live non-violently with each other despite their differences. To achieve that reconciliation, moderates from across the political spectrum must gain enough influence to be able to come to the center as part of a political process. Any political settlement will obviously not solve all of Bahrain's deep-seated problems, but it would set Bahrain on a path towards reconciliation.

In the first part of the paper, we ask who are the actors that must participate in any potential dialogue working towards reconciliation. The US media tends to oversimplify the situation in Bahrain by weaving a narrative about a Shia people demanding their rights from a Sunni government. In fact, there are three main camps in Bahraini politics - the government, the opposition, and the loyalist opposition - that do not fall neatly along sectarian lines.These three camps form what we call the “triangle of conflict” in which political struggles occur both on a systemic level between the three camps and at a group level between the factions that form those camps.

In each camp, the moderates are losing influence to the hardliners as the crisis continues, making political reconciliation ever more unlikely. While everyone in the government cares first and foremost about the survival of the Al Khalifa monarchy, they disagree over how to best achieve their regime security. The anti-reform faction led by the Prime Minister, the Royal Court Minister, and the head of the Bahrain Defense Force believes that any reform will create a slippery slope that leads to the end of Al Khalifa rule. The reform faction led by the Crown Prince instead views reform as necessary to ensure the regime bends but does not break under popular pressure. In the paper, we explore the struggles between the factions before, during and after the February 14th uprising. For here, suffice it to say that the anti-reform faction gained the ascendancy with the collapse of negotiations and intervention of the Gulf Cooperation Council during last year's uprising.

Just as everyone within the government seeks regime security, everyone in the opposition seeks major reform. Yet they disagree over how much reform is practically possible and how to achieve it. The idealist faction includes illegal groups like Haq, Wafa, and the February 14th youth who launched the uprising last year. They consider the government wholly illegitimate, refuse any negotiations with the government, and call for the establishment of a republic. The pragmatist faction does not disagree with the idealist faction in principle, but instead contend that such radical changes are simply impossible given the current situation. This faction is led by the most powerful Shia opposition party, Wefaq, as well as some other minor parties including the Sunni leftist group Wa'ad. Again, much more detail about the history of the struggle between these factions is available in the paper. But for now, it's important to note that as with the reform faction in the government, the pragmatist faction suffered a major blow with the collapse of negotiations and GCC intervention. While the idealist faction has not gained ascendancy like the anti-reform government faction, they are accumulating strength as the crisis continues.

Finally, the rise of the loyalist opposition presents the biggest challenge to the government vs people media narrative. During the uprising, many Bahrainis heard the opposition chants of "The people want..." in Pearl Roundabout and said to themselves, "That's not what I want." These Bahrainis - predominantly formerly apolitical Sunnis - took to the streets themselves to have their voices heard as well. The media often dismisses these people as "pro-government," but if anything they are more "anti-opposition" in that they mobilized primarily to counter the Pearl Roundabout protests. Moreover, they have come to formulate their own demands for gradual reform as well. As such, we call them the "loyalist opposition." This camp is split between the newly established National Gathering of Unity that portrays itself as an umbrella group for all Bahrainis and Islamists parties and youth movements who, by definition, represent only a segment of the population. As the crisis has dragged on, the Islamists have gained increasing influence over the loyalist opposition (again more details in the paper).

In the two charts below, we show the completed triangle of conflict and a breakdown of each actor's goals and strategies to achieve them. The red is the government, the blue is the opposition, and the green is the loyalist opposition.

In short, each camp must participate in any political process that holds the hope of achieving real reconciliation. Yet, in every camp, the hardline voices least likely to participate in such a dialogue grow stronger every day. In the second part of the paper, we identify three dynamics that are contributing to the polarization and fragmentation of Bahrain's political landscape.

First, the distrust dynamic describes how the contested history of reform in Bahrain increases suspicions of the intentions of other camps. Every time the government launches and oversells a superficial reform project, the opposition grows ever more distrustful of the government's seriousness to ever enact real reforms. Yet every time the opposition demands reform, the government and loyalist opposition, believing reform has already happened, accuse the opposition of constantly moving the goal posts.This dynamic not only polarizes the camps, but it also weakens the moderates in each camp who are blamed by hardliners for their gullibility in giving other camps the benefit of the doubt each time they try to negotiate. Without a basic trust that the other side will hold up their end of any potential deal, there is little incentive to take the risk of entering negotiations. As a result, politics in Bahrain have moved from the negotiation table to the streets.

Second, the street dynamic explains how the closing off of politics due to the distrust dynamic have created a dangerous environment of protest, crackdown, and counter-protest. Each camp faces a dilemma over street action. The opposition must protest to keep pressure on the government, yet every street action further angers the loyalist opposition - especially when protests turn violent. The loyalist opposition desires security in the streets, but with the government's inability to maintain that security, some groups have turned to their own, sometimes violent, street actions that undermine the very security they seek. The government could allow protests to continue and maintain its legitimacy with the opposition and international community, or it could crack down further on the protests to maintain its legitimacy with the loyalist opposition. These dilemmas widen the schisms between the moderates and hardliners of every camp while simultaneously ensuring that the cycle of protest, crackdown, and counterprotest continues. Anger begets violence which begets yet more anger.

Finally, the distrust and street dynamics create a ripe atmosphere for the spread of sectarianism. Importantly, Bahrain has always suffered from socioeconomic and political divides between Shia and Sunni, and the government has taken advantage by exacerbating these divides in a strategy of divide and rule. The government doubled down on this strategy during the February 14th uprising, unleashing what Kristin Diwan calls an "onslaught of sectarianism" to stay in power. Yet the government also found a receptive audience for their sectarian narrative. Precisely because the disenfranchised Shia would gain the most from reform in Bahrain, some Sunnis have come to view a democratic agenda as a Shia agenda. The fate of the Sunnis in Iraq have only heightened the fears of Shia intentions. Unfortunately, the opposition have failed to effectively assuage these fears. Now, there is the significant risk that the sectarianism that began as a government policy of divide and rule has spiraled out of control, with sectarian voices drowning out the moderates. As a result, not only has Bahrain grown more vulnerable to the destabilizing effects of regional sectarian tensions, but what was once a political crisis might transform into a far more pernicious conflict of identities.

All of this leaves a fairly grim picture for Bahrain's future. On any given day, there are plenty of areas in Bahrain perfectly safe and secure. Yet on that very same day, those very same areas may suddenly become inundated with tear gas and the cries of the injured. All the tinder is set, the sparks are flying, and eventually the country will catch fire. Today, the greatest potential spark is the fate of human rights activist Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja, on the brink of death from a hunger strike in prison demanding the release of all political prisoners. Yet even if al-Khawaja does not die, there will always be the next event, the next anniversary, the next protest, the next clash or the next death that could be the spark that lights the tinder. If current trends continue, the question is when and not if Bahrain suffers a major escalation.

To avoid that escalation, everyone must work towards ameliorating the distrust, street and sectarian dynamics that threaten to rip the very fabric of Bahraini society apart. While the narrative of a people demanding rights from the government is morally and rhetorically powerful, it cannot help derive effective policy beyond aspirational prescriptions that “the government should do X and the opposition should do Y.” By accounting for all the relevant actors and dynamics at play, the triangle of conflict will help us move beyond making such aspirational prescriptions to understanding what can realistically be done to further the cause of reconciliation. We discuss some steps that could be taken in the paper, and I will expand upon those in future blogs and articles.

What Carl Sagan Would Say About Bahrain

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:19:00 +0000

For the past two weeks, I was in Bahrain conducting interviews for my thesis. With my research partner Reza Akbari, I hope to be soon writing and publishing several articles on what we've learned. I chose to study Bahrain because I believe it is not very well understood here in Washington, DC. There are three reasons for that.

One, most Americans (myself definitely included) did not pay attention to Bahrain until the uprising last year. As a result, we only hear about what Bahrain is now without understanding what Bahrain was before. That lack of historical context not only makes understanding what's happening in Bahrain now difficult, but it also makes predicting what might happen next impossible.

Two, some Bahraini voices have a much stronger presence in DC than others. Obviously the government, with its embassy and PR firms, can broadcast its perspective effectively. At the same time, Bahraini and international human rights groups have also done an excellent job in pushing their own narrative. And, to a lesser extent, the main opposition party Wefaq has also found a platform to push its views internationally. Yet there are many (exactly how many who knows?) Bahrainis who neither support the government nor the traditional opposition. Some have created new, predominantly Sunni groups as a kind of anti-opposition. Others feel completely unrepresented by any group. These voices go largely unheard outside of Bahrain.

Three, precisely because we primarily hear from the government and its detractors, we tend to view the political crisis in Bahrain as a dyad of conflict. It is the government versus the people (or conversely the government versus the extremists). It is understandable why some push this binary understanding of Bahrain. Its simplicity is powerful rhetorically and morally, both essential for persuasive lobbying. But if we want to make effective foreign policy towards Bahrain - policy that supports democracy and serves our interests broadly defined - we have to complicate the picture. Otherwise, even the best intentioned policies could lead to counterproductive results.

I left Bahrain yesterday with a major headache. Two weeks of interviews with people with fundamentally opposite worldviews can do that to you. As my plane took off, I worried how I could squeeze all of Bahrain's complexity into the page limit of my thesis. But then looking out the window, the only simple thing about Bahrain became readily apparent: its tiny size.

Through my airplane window, the lights of Manama shined brightly against the night sky. The radiant spines of Budaya and Sheikh Isa bin Salman highways reached out to the west, King Hamad highway to the south. Glowing clusters of villages grew dimmer and sparser as the highways arced away from the capital. On one side, the vast coastline of Saudi Arabia loomed over the shimmering island of Bahrain. On the other, the darkness of the water extended to the east and eventually to the unseen shores of Iran somewhere beyond the horizon.

The entirety of Bahrain lay before me like a tiny, incandescent pearl laying on a vast swatch of dark velvet. From that perspective, all the tear gas and rubber bullets, all the burning tires and molotov cocktails, all the fiery speeches and angry chants, all the torture chambers and prison cells, all the independent commissions and official reports, all the sectarianism and social divisions, all the political struggles and secret negotiations - all of it - could not be seen. From that perspective, all I could see is one small island flickering in the darkness.

And that is the only simple truth about Bahrain. For all the immensity of its divides, it is too small to survive divided.

As I lowered the window visor, I remembered Carl Sagan's words about the Pale Blue Dot we call Earth: "Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves."

Mourning Pope Shenouda III

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:50:00 +0000

This weekend the Coptic Pope Shenouda III passed away after leading his flock for over forty years. My thoughts are with the Coptic Community at this time of mourning. Pope Shenouda once said that “It is not we who live in Egypt, but it is Egypt that lives in us.” I know his memory will live on in Egyptians for years to come.

The outpouring for Pope Shenouda has been massive from all Egyptians, as these excellent photographs by @mosaaberizing show.

Photo by Mosa'ab Elshamy

However, Egypt being Egypt, there have been a few sectarian snafus. The government has declared three days of mourning in memory of Pope Shenouda. However, some have criticized state media for reciting verses from the Qur’an after making that announcement. Others view the Qur’anic recitations as a measure of interfaith respect. Either way, this debate must been seen in the context of Egyptian state television’s complicity in stoking sectarian tensions, most perniciously during the Maspero massacre. The cartoon below was posted in a popular Egyptian Facebook group and reads, “Egyptian television plays the Holy Qur’an in mourning the death of Pope Shenouda.”

From Egyptian Sarcasm Society Facebook Group

There is no debating, however, the symbolism of what happened today in parliament. As parliament stood in a moment of silence to mourn Pope Shenouda, some Salafi MP’s from al-Nour party decided not to participate and left the chamber. Their behavior speaks less of their devotion to God than it does their intolerance of how others devote themselves to God. In response, Kurt Werthmuller (@KWerthmuller) of the Hudson Institute tweeted, “Reports of Nour MPs leaving parlmnt, refusing to stand in respect for Pope Shenouda are sickening. Who says politics are moderating Salafis?”

I would actually view this in the exact opposite way. The Salafi experiment with politics has just begun, and it is far too soon to determine whether their participation will lead to moderation. However, it is exactly these kinds of incidents that could potentially lead to moderation. As time goes on, Salafis will repeatedly have to reconcile their hardline beliefs with political pragmatism. Every time they choose their hardline beliefs, as they did today, they will incur political costs. If politics does in fact lead to moderation, it will be because those costs forced Salafis to make tactical compromises that, over time, solidify into strategic changes in ideology. For further reading on this topic, I suggest Carrie Wickham on how politics changed the Muslim Brotherhood and Nadav Shelef on how pragmatic politics leads to the evolution of ideology.

Certainly, the rise of Islamists and especially Salafis have many worried in Egypt – especially the Copts. As this al-Ahram article makes clear, Coptic leaders are concerned about facing the challenges of post-Mubarak Egypt without the guidance of Pope Shenouda. But there are also opportunities to be found in Egypt right now. It is not just Islamists that will gain strength after Mubarak, but al-Azhar now has the chance to assert itself once again as the premier seat of Sunni Islamic thought. If it succeeds, it will become an important counterweight to Islamist movements in Egypt and in the broader global Muslim community. Similarly, the next Coptic pope will have the opportunity to revitalize the Church in a new era of openness and renaissance. If he seizes that chance, the Coptic community and thereby all Egyptians will reap the rewards.

The Humanity of Culture

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 04:46:00 +0000

Last night, the Iranian film “A Separation” directed by Asghar Farhadi won the Oscar for best foreign film. This is a fantastic and much-needed victory for the Iranian people. They have had so little to celebrate in recent years, it’s nice that – for at least one night – they have a reason to raise their heads high. Just watch how this one Iranian family reacted to last night's news:

Farhadi’s acceptance speech was pure class:

At this time, many Iranians all over the world are watching us and I imagine them to be very happy. They are happy not just because of an important award or a film or filmmaker, but because at the time when talk of war, intimidation and aggression is exchanged between politicians, the name of their country, Iran, is spoken here through her glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics. I proudly offer this award to the people of my country, a people who respect all cultures and civilizations and despise hostility and resentment.

And in fact, it appears that A Separation has already helped remove some of the “heavy of dust of politics” in Israel. According to the Associated Press, Israelis are “flocking” to movie theaters to watch the film. The cultural and historical ties between Israel and Iran run deep, far deeper than these recent years of tension and belligerency. As Roya Hakakian recently contended in the New York Times, “No two nations have ever been so deeply shaped by each other and yet so unaware of their debt to each other.” Films like A Separation can go a long way to remind Israelis and Iranians of that debt.

That is not to say that such cultural exchanges can overcome the logic of politics. There are real substantive issues with serious implications that separate the two countries. No amount of Oscar-winning films can change that.

But what cultural exchanges can do is humanize the other. At a time when all sides are concerned with whether to go to war and how to win one, it’s important to take a step back and consider who will be the victims of war. Bombs do not kill some abstract enemy, but real people – fathers, mothers, sons and daughters – who by fate and chance sit on the other side of the battle lines. By humanizing the other, we raise the psychological costs of war and thereby, all things being equal, incrementally decrease the chance of war. Through the humanity of culture, we can build a culture of humanity.

Today, the Iranian government boasted that A Separation succeeded in “leaving behind” a film from the “Zionist regime” that was also nominated for an Oscar. This comment is pathetic for two reasons. One, the Iranian government has worked assiduously to censor its own film industry. So far from boasting, it should rather apologize for all the Iranian films that could have won Oscars but were never allowed to be made.

Two, if the Iranian government is so confident in the superiority of Iranian films, then it should have no problem allowing the screening of Israeli films in the country. It’s sad that while Israelis can flock to watch “A Separation,” Iranians do not have the same opportunity to watch Israel’s Oscar nominee, “Footnote.” Cultural exchanges only work if they flow in both directions.

This brings up my question generally for supporters of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement who seek to isolate Israel in every sector, whether political, economic, or cultural. To BDS supporters, I ask whether an uncompromising position of absolute isolation of Israel is counterproductive.

Importantly, there are significant debates within the BDS community over tactics and strategy. For example, some only boycott goods that derive from the occupation of the West Bank, while others prefer a comprehensive boycott of the entire state of Israel. Therefore my question is pointed to those who observe the maximal interpretation of BDS.

Israeli films, books, music and art are as diverse as the society that produces them. Unlike the Iranian government which seeks to censor its artists, the Israeli government (usually) understands that it derives strength from pluralism. I understand why the BDS movement would want to avoid much of what comes from Israel, even if I do not agree with them. Yet at the same time, some of the most damning critiques of Israeli society and policies come from Israelis themselves. Why boycott these as well?

Ultimately, Israeli policies towards the Palestinians will only change as a result of pressure from within. Instead of isolating voices calling for change within Israeli society, the BDS movement would be better off seeking to empower those voices - or at least listen to them once in a while. More fundamentally, all sides would be better off if they could brush away some of that “heavy dust of politics” and humanize the other. To achieve peace, Israelis and Palestinians must be able to look at each other and see, above all else, fellow humans first. Just as to avoid war, Israelis and Iranians must be able to do the same.

To any supporters of BDS, please email me (jasonstern242 at gmail dot com) or comment below. I would honestly like to hear your response.

UPDATE: A supporter of BDS suggested I check out two sources on the movement. The first is the website for The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. The second is Omar Barghouti's book, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights.

You can also read this blog in Arabic (هذه الصفحة باللغة العربية)

Should We Pay Attention to Jordan?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:01:00 +0000

I spend a lot of time reading about the Middle East. Too much time perhaps. Yet, with so much happening all across the region, I still can barely keep up. So it was a complete surprise when a Jordanian friend told me that the monarchy is in trouble right now in Amman. Here’s what she told me:

First, people are criticizing the monarchy more openly than ever before. For example, check out this interview with a well-known opposition figure, Dr. Ahmed Al-Abadi.

For those who don’t speak Arabic, he says: “A republican system of governance is coming, and it’ll happen within two years at most […] The monarchy system has become anachronistic […] We refuse a constitutional monarchy completely […] What is a constitution? Who put the King upon us? […] He is an occupier. It’s necessary to free Jordan from the Hashemite family […] We will have a revolution […] The people are what’s important. Not the army, or security, or the intelligence services. In today's world, it is a match of the brightest, not a match of the strongest […] We’re ready for a constitution of the Arab Republic of Jordan.”

Now those are some pretty powerful words. The title of the video calls them "dangerous" in fact. And, not surprisingly, Dr. Al-Abadi was arrested shortly after saying them.

Second, even though protests failed to catch on in mass numbers last year, they still continue. Here’s a video of Jordanians performing the traditional “Debka” dance in a protest against corruption. Fittingly, they’re dancing in front of the “Jordanian Anti-Corruption Commission.”

Third and finally, the government is responding to these protests in a completely inflammatory and self-defeating way. In a recent interview, former Crown Prince Hassan boasted he would put the protesters through a “sieve” to get rid of them. Many Jordanians viewed this comment as a direct threat of physical violence. One blogger who criticized the Crown Prince’s comments was stabbed by a masked man. He apparently proclaimed that “this stabbing is in the name of His Majesty the King and His Royal Highness Hassan” and threatened to “slaughter” her if she continued to criticize the royal family.

Now I’m not sure what to make of all this. The Hashemite monarchy has maintained power historically by pitting tribe against tribe and by pitting all the tribes against the significant Palestinian population in the country. This recent unrest has come primarily from the tribes, which traditionally constituted the monarchy’s primary source of support. My friend says she herself comes from one of the major tribes, and people are seething with anger.

If we’ve learned anything from the past year, such anger can materialize into widespread protests quite suddenly. As an editorial in Al-Arab al-Yawm explains (translated by Mideast Wire), “The Jordanians do not tolerate insults, neither to themselves nor to their country, regardless of their source. In the past, they used to respond to them via some of their sons who put their lives and futures at risk. Today however, they are responding to any insult to their dignity in a collective way…, the biggest proof of that being what we saw during the last three days in terms of consecutive and strong reactions carried by the news and social networking websites."

I honestly do not know enough about Jordanian politics to predict what may happen next. And frankly, even the experts probably couldn’t say either. But I do know I’m going to start paying closer attention to the Kingdom of Jordan. And I suggest you do too.

UPDATE: My friend Boaz Munro also recently blogged about the situation in Jordan, providing some background context to recent events.

Security Sector Reform

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:04:00 +0000

Andrew Exum and Dana Stuster call for a stronger emphasis on security sector reform over at the Sada blog. They argue, “the United States must bolster its relations with nascent democratic institutions like the new parliaments and start with what many of the citizens of these countries are demanding: reform of the internal security services.”

I absolutely agree.

When folks think about supporting political reform, there is a tendency to focus on the institutions that symbolize democracy (parliaments, elections, judiciaries, etc) and the people who demand democracy (activists, journalists, politicians, etc). And of course, that focus is justifiable. But we often lose sight of other less intuitive ways in which we can promote democratic transitions – like engaging with the security services.

Egyptian Central Security Forces take a break. I watched them beat protesters a few minutes later.

In many authoritarian countries, the security services can be downright brutal. The face of the dictator may be on all the posters in the streets, but it is the police who actually patrol those streets and interact with the citizens who live on them. They are the ones who wield the tools of daily oppression, and the hatred people feel towards them can therefore be quite potent. For some, the police are seen less as fellow citizens than as pigs with batons. It is not surprising then that the security services are too often viewed only as obstacles to reform instead of subjects to be reformed.

From the US perspective, it’s simply not sexy to focus on security sector reform. Both the government and NGOs need to sell their democracy promotion “product” to their constituencies and funders. And it’s much easier to sell a program that trains journalists how to write about a beat than one that trains the police how to patrol one. After all, when we think about what makes a democracy, we would rarely place the police high on the list, if they make it on the list at all. But democracy does not work without security. As Exum and Stuster contend, “if democracy is to succeed, police forces in Tunisia and Egypt need to have the competence to maintain order” without becoming the “vehicles of state repression as they have been in years past.”

There is currently a split in the DC policy community over how to push authoritarian allies towards political reform. One camp argues its best to place pressure on repressive governments by limiting or cutting our ties with them. The other camp argues that the US would lose its leverage with repressive governments if it were to cut ties, so it is better to push for reform as part of a comprehensive relationship. Both camps offer valid arguments, and much depends on the particular situation and how we actually use our leverage.

But at least for cases like Tunisia and Egypt, the critical need for security reform calls for greater US engagement. Yes, the US could also face the usual criticism of hypocrisy, and many will cite it as one more example of the US abandoning its principles to get cozy with repressive governments. So be it. If we can help these countries build an accountable, representative, and professional security sector, it will be worth it.

You can also read this blog in Arabic (هذه الصفحة باللغة العربية)

Immunity for Saleh

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:12:00 +0000

There is currently a debate over whether the US should have given Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh a visa to receive medical treatment. A lot of folks who know Yemen better than me say it was a mistake. But Dana Stuster, who also knows Yemen better than me, just published this piece arguing it was the right move.

Stuster contends that while the GCC deal is bad (it gave him immunity before he actually left power) and while the decision might anger Yemenis protesting in the streets, ultimately giving Saleh a visa makes sense because the US still needs him. Yes, he is on his way out the door, but he still has his foot stuck in the door jam. We need to convince him to kindly move it. And that means staying on his good side by allowing him medical treatment in the States.

I agree with Stuster that at this point it’s too late to lament the GCC deal. We backed it for months and now it’s too late to change it. I’m less sanguine about the potential backlash against the US. Stuster is right that Yemen will not be a democracy anytime soon, but there are other ways beyond institutional politics in which this decision can come back to bite us. After all, the Iranians did storm our embassy in Tehran after we gave the Shah medical treatment, just as we’re giving it now to Saleh. It’s not a completely analogous situation, of course, but there is widespread anti-Americanism in Yemeni society already.

Still, I am largely convinced by Stuster's arguments. There is nothing just about Saleh getting the best medical treatment in the world after what he has done to his people. But ultimately, I believe it is better to secure the justice of the future than to remedy the injustices of the past. If that means we have to give Saleh a visa, that means we pinch our noses and give him a visa.

More generally, this debate is part of a larger one over how the US can promote democracy in the region. Currently, a lot of our democracy promotion tools operate under the assumption of evolutionary change. Monitoring elections, funding parliaments, supporting journalists, and trainings activists are all important activities, but they do not carry the immediacy necessary to tip the balance during revolutionary moments.

Different tools are needed during mass upheavals. Creative diplomacy is essential. Think asking Twitter to postpone its routine maintenance during the 2009 Green Movement protests in Iran. Or think having every single US military service member calling every single Egyptian soldier they know from years of joint training to implore them to not shoot the protesters in Tahrir last year.

In the case of Yemen, revolutionary diplomacy might require us to do something much more unpleasant than calling Twitter or Egyptian soldiers on the phone. It may mean we have to give Saleh immunity and medical treatment. Heck, I’d give Saleh a mansion in the Hamptons with a million dollar monthly allowance if it meant Yemen could become a secure, democratic country.

The questions I have to leave for actual Yemen experts are how much should the US risk to help achieve a secure, democratic Yemen? And how does the US best help Yemen become that secure, democratic country given our risk threshold? If it means trying Saleh in Yemen or the ICC for crimes against humanity, then someone go get the gavel. But if it means doing whatever it takes to get Saleh out of the country, then so be it.

Lessons of January 28th

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:18:00 +0000

Today is the one year anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. Yes, the protests began on January 25th. But it was on January 28th that a minority of protesters ballooned into a majority of revolutionaries. Exactly one year ago, protesters collided with security forces all across Egypt, but one clash in particular has especially engrained itself in my mind: the battle of Qasr al-Nil Bridge.

At this time last year, waves of protesters crashed and crashed again upon the seemingly immovable security forces on Qasr al-Nil. For hours, the battle lines went back and forth, but it seemed for certain that the protesters would eventually be turned back. But then the improbable happened. The protesters actually won. And those waves that once crashed ineffectively against the security forces began to flood Tahrir Square. They would not leave until Mubarak fell.

I’ve learned so many lessons from the uprisings this year in Egypt and beyond, but two in particular stand out for me. The first comes from Yemen scholar Gregory Johnsen. Looking back at the absolute failure of US policy in Yemen, he tweeted that the effect of years of mistaken policy cannot always be fixed, that not all problems have solutions. It is a grim lesson, but it is also a true lesson.

The Arab Uprisings have brought previously unthinkable progress in some countries, but it has also brought unthinkable tragedy. Beyond the difficulties in Yemen, it may no longer be possible to stop a civil war in Syria, if one has not begun already. In Bahrain, increasingly influential radical voices drown out the moderates who would rather compromise before their country tears itself apart. In Iraq, Prime Minister Maliki has not only crushed fledgling protests there, but he has also endangered the precarious sectarian balance in Iraq by targeting the Sunni opposition.

Beyond the protest movements, more and more people are giving up on the two-state solution in Israel and Palestine. Within a few years, facts on the ground will make a two-state solution impossible. Yet the two sides apparently prefer squabbling about negotiating than actually negotiating. Meanwhile, Iran continues to act in an increasingly bellicose manner. They will not give up on their nuclear program and we will not give up on restricting it. War, whether purposeful or accidental, is no longer unimaginable.

This admittedly paints a rather dark picture of the Middle East, but the second lesson I learned is the light at the end of the tunnel. Like all the seemingly intractable problems above, the prospects for those protesters on Qasr al-Nil too were dark. Their improbable victory that day shows that, in the heat of the moment, a problem that is impossible to solve looks exactly like a problem that is extremely hard to solve. There is no distinguishing the two until ultimate success or failure. Perhaps the security forces on that bridge would never break, or perhaps the next charge would break them. There was no knowing until the protesters charged, so they did over and over again until they won.

Having been caught in a much smaller battle between protesters and security forces, I have seen firsthand the bravery of a protester who takes a step towards security forces. Many of the problems I list above may, in fact, have no solutions. But some might. And finding those solutions will substantially improve the security of the region and the lives of the people in it. To do so, we all will need to channel the bravery and persistence of those protesters in Qasr al-Nil. Our attempts may come to naught, but they just might become something so much more. We just might make it across the bridge.

Dear CSI, Tear Gas Manufacturer

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 02:46:00 +0000

The following is a letter I just sent to the manufacturer of the tear gas used by the Egyptian and other Arab governments. You can contact them yourself here. Feel free to borrow any or all of the letter below, if you like.

To the management of Combined Systems, Inc.,

I am writing to ask you to end your relationship with the Egyptian government and other authoritarian governments who have misused your products to kill their own citizens.

To be clear, I do not believe you have acted criminally. To the best of my knowledge, your company has followed every single regulation regarding the sale of military hardware to foreign agents. As of yet, the US government has not applied the Leahy Law to the Egyptian security forces for the violence it has committed against its civilians. Therefore, you have every legal right to sell your products to the Egyptian government.

Nor do I believe you have acted repugnantly. When used properly, your products have the potential to save lives by allowing security forces to respond non-lethally to security disturbances. You are not pigs for selling your products to American allies – though some have called you just that. After all, it is ultimately the responsibility of the Egyptian government to use your products humanely.

Yet the Egyptian government has not used your products humanely. The Egyptian military and police have used them to brutalize and kill civilians. During the revolution, more than 800 Egyptians were killed because they dared to demand their inalienable rights. Sadly, the crimes against the Egyptian people did not end with Mubarak’s reign. This weekend alone, at least two dozen more have been slain for the “crime” of protesting peacefully in the streets.

It is impossible to pinpoint how many have died as the result of your products. But to be sure, they have played a bloody role. Your products have suffocated peaceful protesters. They have made them wheeze and gag. They have made them vomit and spit up blood. They have knocked them unconscious. And they have killed them.

Much of this brutality has been the result of the Egyptian government misusing your products. There have been many documented cases of Egyptian police and soldiers shooting tear gas canisters horizontally, creating lethal projectiles out of your purportedly non-lethal products. Moreover, the Egyptian government has consistently used expired tear gas, clearly against the safety regulations your company upholds.

This summer, I was walking through Tahrir Square when an old man approached me. Around his neck lay several of your tear gas canisters strung into a morbid necklace. He roared, “You see this? THIS is America!” Egyptians blame the United States – they blame our country – for the crimes of the Egyptian government. They see the “Made in USA” stamp on your products, and their blood boils with anger. How could they not when they have seen their friends die from American products? From your products?

As I said before, you are neither criminals nor pigs. But you are Americans. And I therefore ask you as fellow Americans to end your dealings with the Egyptian government. Not only does that relationship seriously harm our important relationship with the Egyptian people, but it undermines our shared, American belief that all people deserve freedom.

I know many of your staff have served in the military and for domestic police forces. You know what it means to serve our country and to sacrifice for it. I also recognize that ending your relationship with the Egyptian government will cause a loss of revenue. But I nonetheless ask you to sacrifice a small portion of your bottom line to serve your country and the values we hold dear.

Sincerely,

Jason Stern

Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

More on Egyptian-Americans

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:36:00 +0000

As many of you know, I just published an article at Foreign Policy's Middle East Channel on Egyptian-Americans and their right to vote in Egypt's elections. The fall of Mubarak has mobilized the community in unprecedented fashion. They have organized, protested, lobbied, fundraised, and broadcasted. In three weeks, it has been finally confirmed they will get to vote. They have done all of this to be part of the revolution which they claim belongs to them as much as every other Egyptian.

Because the article focuses on the debate over expatriate voting, its effects, and its importance, I'd like to use this blog to broaden the scope a bit to give a general sense about the Egyptian-American community post-Mubarak.

The days after the fall of Mubarak were filled with boundless optimism. Like their fellow Egyptians in Tahrir Square, Egyptian-Americans had risen up and caused the regime to crumble. Now they sought to harness the energy of the revolution to strengthen their community and thereby strengthen Egypt. But as we have seen in Egypt itself, reality has begun to encroach upon the magic of the revolution. The days of euphoria seem to have passed - the victory over voting not withstanding.

In particular, three challenges have dampened the community's optimism and hinder its effectiveness: lack of organization, sectarian tension, and a difficult political environment.

First, the community suffers from a lack of organization. I've heard that there are over 200 Egyptian-American groups from multiple sources. But no one knows exactly what these groups do or even whether they do anything at all. The revolution has inspired myriad entrepreneurial initiatives, but without some cohesion from above, there is likely significant duplication and inefficient allocation of resources. Moreover, the lack of a strong umbrella organization with broad grassroots support make it difficult to lobby the government (both US and Egyptian) for changes in policy. This failure to organize likely stems from a historical lack of purpose. Unlike other Arab-American communities (which are also weakly organized), Egyptian-Americans have had little reason to organize politically since the Camp David Accords sealed the US-Egyptian relationship.

In the revolution, the community has finally found a reason to become better organized. In fact, many Egyptian-Americans point to the example of the highly successful pro-Israel lobby as their motivation and inspiration to become more effective. Progress toward that goal is being made. At an Egyptian-American conference this October, Randa Fahmy Hudome announced the formation of a new group that will seek to strengthen the US-Egypt relationship by leveraging the community's "intimate understanding of the language, political landscape, and social nuances of Egypt." This could be an important step towards better organization. But for now, the community still speaks with many voices at once instead of many voices as one.

Second, one of the main causes for this disunity is the divide between Muslims and Coptic Christians. Despite the popular revolutionary slogan "Egypt for all Egyptians," religion continues to divide Egyptians on both sides of the Atlantic. The sectarian divide within the Egyptian-American community both exacerbates and feeds off of the sectarianism in Egypt. Each tragedy like the recent massacre at Maspero strengthens the minority of hardliner Muslims and Copts who push their sectarian narratives upon others. Part of the sectarian divide admittedly results from divergent but legitimate interests, but they are often expressed in unproductive ways. At another Egyptian-American conference this April, a shouting match erupted over the role of Islamic sharia in the future constitution. Just as tempers reached a boiling point, a well-timed joke about the Irish defused the situation.

Importantly, the majority of Egyptian-Americans are striving to overcome the sectarian challenge. According to Sherif Nasr, a doctor from New Jersey, Egyptian-Americans need to openly "confront the problem head on and set an example for Egyptians back in Egypt." The community's experience with American secularism may prove its strongest asset in combating sectarianism. Most Egyptians misconstrue secularism as anti-religion. But Egyptian-Americans can show that the American model actually promotes tolerance while preserving an important role for religion in society.

Third and finally, Egyptian-Americans face a difficult political environment both in Egypt and in the US. Like any diaspora group, Egyptian-Americans straddle both here and there, home and homeland. As one Egyptian-American student explained to me, "you're stuck in between two worlds which don't fully accept you."

I describe the unwelcoming environment in Egypt in the FP article, so here I'll focus on the States. Racial stereotyping, Islamophobia, and general anti-immigration fervor all hinder the full integration of Egyptian-Americans into the political system. Especially since September 11th, too often Muslim Americans take a position of leadership, only to find their reputation destroyed by shameful fearmongering and unfounded conspiracy. This chills the ethic of participation in Egyptian, Arab and Muslim American communities. It even hurts those who are falsely perceived as Arab Muslims, like the Sikh-American community.

Yet the revolution has helped improve the image of Egyptians, Arabs, and Muslims in the American public sphere. Amin Mahmoud of the Alliance of Egyptian Americans sees a "new opening in America" for Arabs as a result of the admiration felt for the "persistence, nonviolence and sacrifices of the Egyptian people" during the revolution. In fact, one of the ironies of the Egyptian-American community is that in their effort to overthrow Mubarak and help build a new Egypt, they have become more active and engaged American citizens as well. As a result, their desire to serve Egypt has simultaneously strengthened American democracy.

Despite these challenges of lack of organization, sectarianism, and hostile political environments, Egyptian-Americans are determined to move forward. Beyond their key demand to vote in Egypt's upcoming elections, they hope to stimulate foreign investment, push for a US-Egypt free trade agreement, and place human rights conditions on US military assistance to Egypt. Today, the outcome of Egypt's revolution is anything but certain. But if Egyptian-Americans are successful in pushing their agenda, the chances for a real Egyptian democracy will improve.

As Khaled Elgindy of the Egyptian American Rule of Law Association told me recently, "the euphoria has dissipated, but the urgency has increased" for Egyptian-Americans to rise to the occasion. To do so, the community will have to rekindle the optimism of the revolutionary days and undergo its own revolution to become a more cohesive and effective political force. Thus for Egyptians within and beyond Egypt, the revolution continues.

UNESCO After Palestinian Membership

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:53:00 +0000

I just posted a guest blog over at Al Ajnabee on the recent controversy over UNESCO admitting Palestine as a member. In short, Obama is getting a lot of heat for voting no and cutting funds to UNESCO. Such criticism is unfair because domestic law required him to do what he did. I go on to suggest a few options about how to minimize the damage to US interests and UNESCO's important mission.

America's Kefaya Moment

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:27:00 +0000

I just published this op ed in Bikya Masr about the Occupy Wall Street movement. I argue that the analogy to the Egyptian revolution - one that has been cultivated by the protesters and supported by Egyptians - doesn't make much sense. Rather, the real analogy is to the Kefaya movement's rise in Egypt in 2004. The movement failed to achieve its immediate goals but served as a warning to the regime to reform or face real upheaval in the future. Similarly, these Occupy protests should serve as a warning to American leaders - reform now or there could be major upheaval within the decade.

This morning I decided to take a trip to the Occupy DC sit-in. After flying halfway across the world to visit protests in Tahrir Square, I thought I could manage a 10-minute bus ride downtown. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn't only six guys standing around looking bored.

I was told that "90 percent" of the protesters have day jobs, so I should come back at night when the numbers swell. In addition, "hundreds" of curious people have dropped by expressing their support and even donating food. They are currently trying to reach out to the local community, especially religious groups, to gain support. However, they also expressed their concern that major organizations would swoop in and co-opt their movement.

I explained to them Egyptian protesters have faced similar difficulties. One of the biggest misconceptions about the Egyptian revolution is that it spawned out of nowhere. In fact, Egypt had witnessed ten years of protests, most of them labor driven, before January 25th. Few of them reached large numbers, the notable exception being the Kefaya movement as I discuss in my op ed. It is not uncommon, even after the revolution, to see micro-protests of 10 people hit the streets to demand change.

The guys (and they were all guys) at Occupy DC told me they were optimistic their numbers would begin to increase as awareness grew. They explained they have deliberately avoided formulating demands because "we have to first identify the problem before we talk solutions." I'm not sure that complaining about grievances will swell their ranks though. The Egyptian revolution succeeded due to the simplicity its demands: "The people want the fall of the regime." If the Occupy movement wants bigger numbers, they'll need to find a similarly unifying slogan.

But even if the movement fails - and I do think it'll peter out - it constitutes one more example of Americans saying "Kefaya!" or "Enough!" If our economy and politics don't improve, this won't be the last time Americans descend into the streets to shout kefaya!.

Violence At the Libyan Embassy in Cairo

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:36:00 +0000

For the second time this week, Libyans and Egyptians descended upon the Libyan embassy in Cairo to hoist the free Libya flag. And for the second time this week, the Egyptian army and police responded with violence. The outcome yesterday was hardly a surprise. Rather, it was completely expected.

On Monday night, Libyans learned a lesson their Egyptian compatriots have known for a long time: the security forces in Egypt are willing to use force, even when no force is necessary. About fifty protesters gathered in front of the embassy, chanting anti-Gaddafi slogans and singing songs about Egyptian-Libyan unity. Without warning, the police and army fired into the air. The demonstrators ran from swinging truncheons and zapping tasers of the security forces, pouring into a busy thoroughfare of the normally peaceful neighborhood of Zamalek.

Protesters claimed security forces had fired live rounds into the air before I arrived.

Chaos ensued. Those who did not run fast enough were caught and dragged back towards the embassy, beaten, kicked, and punched as onlookers watched stunned and confused. One police officer ran down the central July 26th Street, shooting his pistol wildly in the air. Other security forces formed battle lines and charged with batons raised, barging through the traffic and outdoor cafes that line the street.

While not untouched by the revolution, the protected island of Zamalek emerged largely unscathed by the violence elsewhere in the city. On Monday night, that bubble of security burst as Egyptian security forces attacked Libyan demonstrators protesting for the very same demands as the Egyptian revolution. In the end, two Libyans and one Egyptian were arrested. A boy lay in the street injured, waiting for an ambulance to arrive over an hour later.

This boy was one of several protesters beaten by security forces.

Thus as protesters gathered once more on Thursday, they fully knew the risks involved. Most expected the same violent result but descended to the streets nonetheless. One protester told me, “Yes, we will be attacked. The Egyptian army is a big problem.” But they were willing to sacrifice nonetheless. Another protester calmly explained his nephew died in a firefight in Brega. When I offered my condolences, he said they were unnecessary: “Everyone here has lost someone fighting Gaddafi.” With their friends and family dodging bullets in Libya, dodging tasers and batons in Cairo seemed not only trivial, but a responsibility owed to their loved ones.

So they protested. For a while, their fears of a violent response by the Egyptian police and army seemed overblown. Men chanted “Egypt and Libya are one hand” right in the faces of the shielded riot police as women stood behind for safety chanting “Peaceful! Peaceful!” An army officer tried to address the crowd to urge them to go home, but his pleas were drowned out by chants calling for the fall of Gaddafi’s ambassador.

This officer failed to convince the crowd to leave.

As the afternoon call to prayer rang out, both the protesters and the security forces took a break. The police loosened the barricade around the embassy, as protesters milled both in front and behind the security lines. Demonstrators and security forces joked with each other and even posed for pictures together. But after the prayer ended, several hundred security reinforcements arrived, the security lines tightened, the chants began once more, and the tension rose.

Policemen take a break during the call to prayer

A protester takes a picture with police. The attack began shortly after.

Within thirty minutes, the attack began. Without warning, batons and truncheons began to swing wildly as protesters ran towards July 26th, just as they had done on Monday night. This time, however, their numbers were larger and they were not so easily moved. Women moved to the protection of the back as men surged forward. Some protest leaders tried to steel the nerves of their comrades (and likely themselves), urging everyone to stand strong. But step by step, the shields of the police inched forward. After several police surges and protester countersurges, the protester lines finally broke.

Chaos once again ensued. Hundreds of protesters and security forces once again poured into July 26th Street, this time in broad daylight. The thwacks of batons and zaps of tasers were unmistakable. Police screamed to intimidate and women just simply screamed. One Egyptian soldier swung violently at one protester, whose body crumpled to the ground. Some youth began to throw rocks and bottles at the security forces to the dismay of other protesters. A debate over whether to resist violence with violence was cut short as yet another line of police charged. Within an hour, the protesters had completely withdrawn and calm once again returned to the island of Zamalek.

Below is some of the footage I took of the protest before and during the clash.

The question remains why the Egyptian government would use force against a peaceful protest in the heart of Zamalek. Admittedly, Egypt must uphold the international legal obligation of protecting the Libyan embassy. However, when security forces attacked Monday night and Thursday afternoon, protesters posed no direct threat to the security of the embassy. In fact, they were forced to protest on the other side of the street. Nor were the attacks carried out in self-defense. While some protesters resisted violently, such acts were the exception and only occurred after the initial attack by the security forces.

Rather, the security forces attacked for four reasons. One, the protesters were mainly Libyans and not Egyptian citizens. If the police and army are willing to use force against their own citizens, there is no reason to think they would hesitate to do so against foreigners.

Two, even if Egyptians largely sympathize with protest movements elsewhere in the region, they also have become incredibly skeptical of protests within Egypt itself and tire of the general state of insecurity that has plagued Egypt since the revolution. It’s not clear how many Egyptians know about the Libya embassy protests or would respond with anything more than a sympathetic shrug. The security forces may therefore have felt they had a free hand to dispatch these protests, just as they did the Tahrir sit-in earlier this month.

Third, the military council ruling Egypt is likely concerned that any seemingly mundane protest could escalate into something far more threatening and disruptive. Better to disperse a crowd of 300 now than one of 3,000 later. All the military council wants to do is keep people off the streets for a few more months while they transition to a minimally acceptable civilian government so they can return to running their shadow economy. That is why they dispatched of the Tahrir sit-in and that is why they broke up the Libyan embassy protests.

Finally, they broke up the protests because they could. For decades, Egypt’s security forces have acted with absolute impunity. They have defended their corrupt interests vengefully and removed anyone who got in their way. The police state built by Mubarak and his predecessors persists, even if the leadership has changed. For the revolution to succeed, Egyptians must not only change their politics, but they must also overcome the culture of violent impunity that pervades the entire governmental bureaucracy. Until they do, security forces will not hesitate to beat, electrocute, and imprison any voice who dares cry freedom.

While the protesters were forced off the street this week, they may yet enjoy victory soon enough. With Gaddafi's military, economic, and political standing weakening by the day, the Egyptian government may yet decide that recognizing his government is no longer worth the hassle. Or events on the ground in Libya may simply outpace the protests here in Egypt, and Gaddafi's likely imminent fall will turn this week's protests into celebrations.

Romance of the Online Barricades

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 19:21:00 +0000

This past month, the group Anonymous announced their next two targets for their (in)famous hacktivism: the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and Facebook. For those not familiar with Anonymous, they are a major player in the online freedom of information movement. Previous targets have ranged from everything from the church of Scientology to the Syrian Defense Ministry. Anyone who threatens free speech anywhere risks the ire of Anonymous.

As with Wikileaks, Anonymous pursues a righteous cause to an unrighteous extreme. And in the process, they can do as much harm as they do good. Take for example their threat against the Egyptian SCAF.

Addressing the SCAF directly, Anonymous declares “war on you as you have declared war on to us and the April 6th Movement.” For context, the April 6th movement has been one of the most prominent revolutionary groups in Egypt, their activities dating back to labor strikes in April 2008. The movement has been unfairly painted as a foreign traitor by both the SCAF and other counterrevolutionaries in Egypt. Such propaganda has done tremendous damage, as the (vulgar) graffiti shows below.

I have no doubt Anonymous released the video with good intentions. They clearly want to see a democratic Egypt. But sometimes even well-intentioned foreign intervention can hurt the cause more than it helps (as I write here). With the majority of Egyptians already skeptical of April 6th’s authenticity and tired of the revolutionary upheaval more generally, Anonymous could taint April 6th even further. As Egyptian blogger Zeinobia worries, “Anonymous does not understand how popular the Egyptian army [is] among the people […] Thank you dear Anonymous but this can harm the movement in the public eyes more than it is already harmed.”

There is a certain arrogance in Anonymous’ threats against the SCAF. For them, there are no shades of gray, no complexities or contingencies to consider. Just simply: the SCAF has threatened April 6th and they are therefore an enemy of Anonymous and Freedom itself. So they barge into Egypt’s revolution condescendingly certain of both their goals and their methods.

It is that exact dangerous mixture of arrogance and condescension that underpins their threat on Facebook. There is no question Facebook suffers from a number of deficiencies in protecting the identity and information of its users. Jillian York has done a particularly good job of holding Facebook accountable on her blog, particularly when it comes to the safety of online activists. With those flaws in their crosshairs, Anonymous has deemed “your medium of communication you all so dearly adore [i.e.Facebook] will be destroyed.”

Just as with their Egyptian announcement, Anonymous finds the righteousness of their cause self-evident. The video boasts, “one day you will look back on this and realize what we have done here is right.” In the description of the video but not in the video itself, they continue, “you will thank the rulers of the internet, we are not harming you but saving you.” Just as the Egyptians need saving from the SCAF, so do Facebook’s nearly 750 million users need saving from themselves.

I joined Facebook when it was still http://www.thefacebook.com/, and only students from a handful of schools could join. Seven years later, I use the site to keep in touch with my friends and family literally across the globe. I know the risks involved, and I accept them. It’s my choice. And Anonymous has no right to make that choice for me.

In one of their many affiliated sites, Anonymous asserts, “The open sharing and expression of ideas and opinions, however controversial or divergent, is the cornerstone of all free societies. This ability empowers individuals to determine their own destinies.” In other words, freedom of information is instrumentally, not intrinsically, valuable. Information is valuable only to the extent it allows individuals and societies to make informed choices, to “determine their own destinies.”

In these latest videos, Anonymous seems to have mistaken their means for their ends. Instead of protecting our right to determine our destinies, they have deemed themselves responsible to determine our destinies for us. What use is free information if Anonymous is making our decisions for us? Information itself, not freedom of choice, has become their religion.

Tom Gara recently likened Anonymous to the rioters in the UK because both share an “incoherent narrative of an ambiguous ‘uprising.’” I think the analogy is rather apt. Beyond the arrogance, condescension and self-righteousness, it seems Anonymous has become enraptured with the romance of the online barricades. As a result, Anonymous seems so occupied by epic soundtracks, overblown rhetoric and Guy Fawkes masks to fully consider the consequences of their actions. So caught up in the fight against (what they deem) online tyranny, they are either unaware or indifferent to the damage left behind in their wake.

UPDATE: It appears some members of Anonymous have renounced the proposed attacks on Facebook. The group is not so much a group but a movement of like-minded individuals. It is therefore very hard to determine what the 'group' believes and plans to do.

Islamists in Tahrir Square

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 06:59:00 +0000

This Friday Tahrir Square was turned upside down. In what were likely the largest protests since the fall of Mubarak, hundreds of thousands of Islamists descended upon the square and completely overwhelmed the secular sit-in that has camped there since July 8th.

The Tahrir I had gotten to know changed overnight. As I write about here, Tahrir had become an exciting and even fun affair. Parents enjoying roasted nuts as their children get their faces painted. Animated political discussions sprouting up and dispersing. Revolutionary concerts and films to entertain and educate the crowds in the evenings. A small school for the children. A barber for those who have stayed since the beginning or for those who just wanted to talk shop. And underlying it all: a shared passion to complete the revolution that transcended political, religious, age and gender lines – even as they passionately debated what exactly such a revolution should bring.

That Tahrir was gone when I went to the protests on Friday. Bearded men and the occasional niqabi woman flooded the square. The average age of the protesters seemed to increase by at least a decade. Unity was dismantled one sectarian chant and one provocative sign at a time. The day before, all revolutionary groups whether secular or Islamist had agreed to a shared list of demands. The Islamists, and especially Salafists, did not uphold the end of their deal. In what was a surely coordinated effort from their leadership given the number and professionalism of their signs and banners and the fiery preaching of their stages, they completely ignored the deal they had just agreed to only 24 hours prior. The outnumbered secular protesters had no choice but to withdraw from the square entirely.

Much of the reporting has focused on the extremism of the Islamists and especially Salafists, but some of it has been sensationalized. For example, some outlets mentioned vendors selling pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. This is true, but they were also selling pictures of Sadat, Gaddafi, Che, Nasser, and pretty much every other political leader. These vendors weren’t trying to make a political statement; they were trying to make a living. Moreover, as this picture I took on July 11th shows, they’ve been there for a while. But to be clear, many of the Islamist demands were anything but reasonable. Dozens of signs demanded the release of “political prisoners” like convicted terrorist Omar Abd al-Rahman and organizers were collecting signatures on a petition to achieve that release. My friend was yelled at a few times for not covering her hair.

There is no doubt Tahrir became a more sectarian, conservative, and volatile place Friday. Popular chants from the revolution like “Raise your head high, you’re Egyptian” became “Raise your head high, you’re Muslim.” The people no longer demanded the fall of the regime, but the “implementation of God’s Sharia.” There was an odd moment as I listened to anti-Western, anti-American, anti-liberal, anti-secular, and anti-Jewish chants and realized I was all five of those things. Yet despite the anger and prejudice of the chants, I was always greeted by the protesters warmly – hearty assalaamu aleikum greetings with kisses on the cheek were the norm.

Legitimate concerns that Tahrir would devolve into chaos and violence did not bear out – perhaps simply because there were so few seculars for the Islamists to confront. As the sun began to set and the evening call to prayer began to rise, the Islamists started to file out of the square. Buses were waiting to take them home, unknown numbers destined for locations far outside Cairo. Seculars began to regain their strength. Chants for Islamic rule were increasingly met with counter-chants for a civil state. By nightfall, the concert stage and cinema were once again up and running, as if the Islamists had never come at all. As one Egyptian told me: “Don’t be discouraged by the loud voices today in Tahrir. The vast majority want a civil state.”

After some reflection about the day’s events, I’ve come away with the following take-away points:

1. Islamism deserves a voice – Any political or religious trend that can mobilize tens and hundreds of thousands of people to descend upon Tahrir Square deserves a voice in molding the future of Egypt. In fact, any political or religious trend that can mobilize only tens or hundreds of people deserve that same right. Whether we like it or not, Islamism represents a significant portion of the population. A truly democratic Egypt will have to find a way to accommodate them, so long as they agree to play by the rules of the game. In the long-term, I have an admittedly hard to prove hunch that the most unsavory Islamists will fail to thrive in a prosperous and free Egypt.

2. Islamists need honesty to build trust – Islamists currently suffer from a deficit of trust in greater Egyptian society and especially the political elite. After all, some of the groups on the square were unabashed terrorists only a few years ago. Moreover, the goals of the Islamist project and their potential ramifications on Egyptian society raise legitimate concerns about Islamist intentions. Of course, the secular protesters face their own deficit of trust for different reasons. To quell such anxiety, Islamists will not only have to carefully calibrate their public messaging, but they must also change the way they interact with the rest of Egyptian society. By reneging on the unity deal, the Salafists have only confirmed widespread fears that they cannot be trusted. And if they cannot be trusted for something as simple as sticking to a list of agreed-upon chants, how can they ever be trusted with the reins of government? Political effectiveness is part grandstanding for sure, but it’s also about deal-making and keeping one’s word. Only the Islamist political parties who can balance the desires of their constituency while also projecting a trustworthy voice to the rest of Egyptian society will succeed during and after Egypt’s transition to democracy.

3. The Muslim Brotherhood is under pressure -As much as yesterday was about Islamists projecting their strength to others, it was also about an internal struggle over who best represents the voice Islamists deserve. The Muslim Brotherhood proved the most trustworthy yesterday, and therefore they proved the most effective representative of the Islamist voice. For example, a leader of their political party criticized his Islamist brothers for breaking their pledge to stick to a unity script. Yet at the same time, many of their chant leaders also broke the agreed upon script, and their image outside the Islamist camp may be tarnished along with the Salafists as a result. Yesterday was not the first or last time competing political forces will pull the Brotherhood in competing directions. Their ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic state naturally aligns them with the other Islamists that took over Tahrir Square yesterday. Yet their wealth of political experience and flexible pragmatism pulls them towards cooperation with secular partners. As Egypt democratizes, the Brotherhood will continue to be pulled in divergent directions, and such stress on the organization will exacerbate pre-existing fractures within the group that have already begun to widen. With their most skilled political operators and youth leaders already striking out on their own, the Brotherhood may be forced to rely increasingly on their Islamist allies, further alienating some of their own members and creating an opportunity for other groups to fulfill the role of, for lack of a better term, “Moderate Islamist.”

4. Nothing has changed – Not surprisingly, many secular Egyptians and especially those encamped in the square have expressed their dismay and even fear of yesterday’s events. But nothing about yesterday should come as a surprise. The protests proved that the Islamists are well-organized, loud, and sometimes a little scary. We knew all of this before yesterday. We’re just not used to seeing the truth so up close and personal. The biggest mistake the secular Egyptians (and international actors for that matter) could make is to overreact to yesterday’s events. The Islamists came, made their voice heard, and left. Business has now returned to usual and it’s time to refocus on the tasks at hand.

5. Tahrir is overrated – Regardless of what happened yesterday, the real battle between and within the secular and Islamist camps are outside Tahrir Square. Protests are about symbols. Elections are about results. The secular camp should take yesterday’s events as a wake-up call. As they discuss politics in Tahrir, Islamists are actually doing politics outside Tahrir. That is why Islamists can fill the square when they want to and that is why they will do well in the November elections. They have done the painstaking but essential work at the grassroots level. Secular groups – and especially the liberals – have so far failed to do the same.

You can see my pictures from the protest here. Below, I've embedded some video I took during the day.

UPDATE: Today has been a weird day. The protesters have announced the sit-in will end, but not everyone agrees so it's not clear how many will remain if any. Meanwhile, the military used sticks to disperse a protest outside the parliament. And finally, a group of merchants and vendors threatened to open traffic in the square by force before being talked off the ledge. Check out this post by Amr Bassiouny about why the protesters need to change strategy and this post by The Big Pharaoh about why the Muslim Brotherhood played Friday's protests perfectly.

July 23rd Clashes

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 21:10:00 +0000

My friend and I were doing Arabic homework in a café in Zamalek – an upper class haven in Cairo - when the news came in. Violent clashes had broken out between Tahrir protesters and supporters of the ruling military council (SCAF). Protesters had marched from Tahrir to the SCAF headquarters to demonstrate peacefully , and they were met with violent resistance from stone-wielding civilians. We watched on TV as rocks and Molotov cocktails began to fly through the air, intermingled with the army’s live ammunition cracking over the heads of the demonstrators.

At the time of writing, reports are coming in that over 100 people have been injured, including the female presidential candidate Bothaina Kamel. I’m very worried the violence will escalate through the night. The last time there were clashes like this, over 1000 people were injured before the violence subsided. Some even are worrying that Tahrir Square itself may be in danger.

So how did we get here? Several developments in the past few weeks have made violence increasingly likely, if not inevitable.

First, the decreasing numbers of protesters present in Tahrir Square have made an attack more probable. When the sit-in began on July 8th, at least one hundred thousand people flooded into Tahrir. With the exception of the Salafists, every single political group and movement participated. But the unity and enthusiasm of July 8th have faded since then.

From the beginning, the Muslim Brotherhood refused to stay for the sit-in, though some of its youth members, nonetheless participated unofficially. More recently, the opposition party al-Wafd withdrew from the sit-in as well, its leader oddly claiming the Tahrir protesters played no role in the revolution. As the sit-in dragged on ever longer, the excitement of the square faded and only a vanguard of revolutionaries remained. Protests of over 100,000 had diminished to a sit-in of 1000, if that.

With such a small showing, it would no longer be hard for the military council to portray the protesters as fringe radicals bent on chaos and clamp down on the protests without angering the general public.

Second, protesters in Tahrir have grown increasingly frustrated and angry. As I wrote before, the festival atmosphere on July 8th belied the day’s foundation of anger towards the regime and, for many, the SCAF. While the sit-in has achieved some of its objectives, it has not realized its most important demands. Nor does the SCAF seem prepared to bend much further anytime soon. Rather, the SCAF has escalated its rhetoric against the protests in recent days, with finger-pointing generals attacking key revolutionary groups. Such provocation raised the political temperature even higher. Running out of time as the fasting month of Ramadan approached, many protesters felt the time had come raise the stakes. In such an environment, even a minor provocation from the SCAF could lead to a quick, unwanted, and avoidable escalation. On both sides, there was plenty of tinder ready to ignite.

Finally, many Egyptians have become increasingly ambivalent to, and even hostile towards, the Tahrir sit-in. Some Egyptians have admittedly been mislead about the Tahrir sit-in, especially as Salafists painted the square as a den of sex and drugs – a description that regime remnants surely were happy to proliferate. But even those who support the revolution and its cause have started to feel greater ambivalence. As I wrote last week, many Egyptians who participated in the revolution now worry about the economy, security, and the fragmentation of society. Meanwhile, overzealous protesters made unnecessary enemies with some of the vendors in Tahrir Square in a misguided and short-lived attempt to remove them from the square. Without the clear support of the people, the Tahrir sit-in grew increasingly isolated and thereby vulnerable.

In the end, the SCAF’s military psychology took over tonight. They looked at the Tahrir protesters and saw a weakened and aggravated adversary. With their numbers diminished, their tempers flaring, and their support ebbing, the time was ripe for an attack. By marching on the SCAF headquarters, the protesters stumbled into a trap. The SCAF only had to rile up the locals with rumors of incoming marauders and watch the mayhem unfold. So they did.

The key question now is whether the violence will spur the silent majority back into action. During the first revolution, small bands of demonstrators suddenly ballooned into million-strong protests largely out of disgust at the violence unleashed by Mubarak’s security forces and thugs. Perhaps the SCAF has just made the same mistake.

But that seems unlikely. The waiters at my Zamalek café watched al-Arabiya intently for a minute as news of the battle trickled in. Then with a shrug one of them changed the channel to watch music videos. Collecting my things, I made my way back to my apartment to turn on the news and follow the clashes on Twitter. Passing my doorman, I asked him about the violence. He replied, “What clashes? There can’t be any clashes. The people and the army are one hand.”

UPDATE: If you want to read more about what happened last night, you should check out the Egyptian blogger Zeinobia's blog.

July 15th Protests in Tahrir

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 22:05:00 +0000

Parachute pundits like talking to taxi drivers. They’re a one-stop shop to get the view from the street. The problem is taxi drivers – no matter how emphatically they claim to speak for their society – only speak for themselves. Extrapolate at your own risk.

This morning I jumped into a cab and told the driver to take me to Tahrir Square. Today massive protests were planned throughout Egypt, and I wanted to see whether the revolutionaries could build on the momentum from last week. My driver beamed with excitement when he heard our destination. He exclaimed, “As soon as I earn enough today to feed my kids, I’m going straight to Tahrir!”

I could’ve very easily written a taxi driver journalism piece on that quote alone: “Concerns that the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square have lost touch with the Egyptian street are overblown. Yes, the sit-in has caused some daily inconveniences for the average Egyptian, but as this taxi driver explained, the people still support the protests.”

But then I got into another cab and the story changed. Leaving the protests this afternoon, I asked the driver what he thought of the protests. He sighed before explaining, “Once, the protests were a beautiful thing, but today…no longer.” He went on to explain that the protests are fragmenting Egyptian society, damaging the economy, causing congestion, and could lead to chaos.

So which taxi driver is right? Do Egyptians generally support the Tahrir sit-in and protests? Or are they growing fatigued? For me, it’s an academic question. For the revolutionaries, it’s an essential one. The future of Egypt will be determined not by the 1% who chant in Tahrir, but by the 99% who hear those chants on TV. If the revolutionaries lose that 99%, then they will lose the revolution as well.

From my outsider perspective, I am increasingly worried that the revolutionaries are in danger of doing just that. Tahrir is a magical and exciting place, addicting even. It is also a bubble. So determined to achieve the demands of the revolution, the protesters in Tahrir may not fully perceive the shifting mood beyond the square.

Today’s protests were significantly smaller than last week. Some of this decrease is certainly because the Muslim Brotherhood refused to participate again (though some of its members unofficially joined). The hot weather also probably deterred some Egyptians from attending. But the question remains to what extent has support for the protests dissipated.

Earlier this week, Ramy Raoof wrote a blog post in Arabic on why he participates in the sit-in in which he lists a set of clearly demarcated and justified demands from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Yet Ramy’s post fails to answer the primary question he sets out to answer: why is a sit-in the best method of achieving those demands?

The revolutionaries should be asking that question among others. Besides protests, how else can they achieve their goals? Are some demands more essential than others? Can some goals be put off for later? Are their fellow Egyptians growing tired of protests? If so, how can they reinvigorate the spirit of the revolution? Do most Egyptians agree with the outlined goals, and if not, how can they be brought around?

When I recently voiced these concerns to my friend, he shrugged them off. He explained that at every stage, people have urged the revolutionaries to cash in on what they have earned and go home content. And at every stage, the revolutionaries have been right to keep pushing the envelope further. He suggested there’s no reason to think the revolutionaries have gone astray now.

Moreover, I know the people in Tahrir are debating these issues – in tents, on blogs, at tweet-ups, and on the streets. They are motivated, skilled, organized, and dedicated. And unlike me, they don’t need to rely on one-off taxi rides to gauge the public mood.

At the protest, I talked with a young teenager. When I asked him why he chose to go to Tahrir today, he boasted that he hasn’t left the square for a week. Echoing a popular protest chant, he vowed to stay until victory.

*You can see all my pictures from today's protest here.