“As the expert on this issue, may I pose a question to you? I accept the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is messing up in Egypt – that they are suffering a credibility gap between promise and performance. But could this not also be positive in that in the process political Islam itself gets discredited. You would recall the Islamist Revolution heralded by Hasan al-Turabi in Sudan. However when I [met some of them] Turabi’s own students was critical about the Islamist revolution and indeed told me there should now be a division between state and faith. Could a similar development not happen in Egypt?”

This is a clever point and it could certainly happen. Yes, by mismanaging Egypt’s affairs the Brotherhood could become unpopular and be voted out of office. To pose this as a question, Might Despair be Moderation’s Best Friend?

There are examples of such things happening right now in Egypt, An anti-Islamist media now exists to point out this discontent though the opposition’s power is sometimes over-estimated. The mistaken lesson of the 2011 Egyptian revolution at the time was that a lot of people protesting or voting  equals democracy. Yet power balances still matter. The old regime only fell because the old ruling elite wouldn’t save it due to exhaustion and factional conflict. The new Islamist ruling elite won’t make that mistake, at least for decades to come. A recent poll shows how Egyptians are becoming understandably gloomy over the situation.

Now Egypt faces a huge economic crisis. The country has only about two months’ reserves to pay for imported food. Where is it going to get around $5 billion a month to pay this bill? A proposed loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that would pay for one month or so is being held up by the Egyptian government’s refusal to sign the deal because the IMF’s conditions require cutting subsidies, and cutting subsidies on food could lead to massive riots.

Westerners generally believe that repression and suffering leads to angry responses by the masses. Yet institutions can control the situation, propaganda reshapes beliefs, repression stifles opposition. Moreover, in Third World countries, a predominantly poor people can–because they know they have no choice in economic, political, and social terms–put up with a lot more unhappiness and suffering than do middle class Americans or Europeans who have the leisure, information, freedom, and luxury of acting (albeit not necessarily effectively) on even minor complaints.

In short, dissatisfaction in Egypt doesn’t necessarily mean change. Consider these factors:

–Despair usually leads to passivity. If the last revolution failed or was disappointing are people going to want to mobilize for another one? Isn’t the message that politics don’t work or the forces making the mess are too strong? Thirty-four years after Iran’s Islamist revolution a lot of despair has only led to two peaks of moderate activity mthere. The first was coopted (the Khatami presidency which achieved nothing); the second was put down through repression (the 2009 Green Movement after the regime stole an election). The Arab nationalist regime in Egypt lasted for almost 60 years involving a lot of suffering and four lost wars (Yemen, and against Israel in 1956, 1967, and 1973).

–By the time that the Brotherhood would be discredited it will be far more entrenched in power and therefore harder to remove. Perhaps the future elections will be fixed or not even held at all. The Brotherhood will, for example, control the court system in future—doing so now is their highest priority–and thus can guarantee electoral victories.

–By then, repression will set in deeper, discouraging open dissent. Much of the time it is true that the heavier the penalty for speaking out, the fewer who will do so. Even if you have a lot of discontented people on your side it is not easy to moderate, much less, overturn an Islamist dictatorship.

–Speaking of Iran (and this is quite interesting) during the past, especially in the 1990s, it was argued that the visible failures of Iran’s revolution would discourage other countries from having Islamist revolutions, And at the time that did seem quite logical. Around the year 2000 the Islamist movement was widely considered to have failed. Yet disastrous precedents don’t necessarily discourage revolutionary Islamists who say, We can do it better! And it doesn’t mean the masses necessarily will not believe them, especially since Islam is such a passionate, powerful force.

–If the highest goal of the Middle East peoples is democracy, freedom, human rights, and material progress, the argument that these forces will triumph might be plausible. But is that in fact true? Just because people in the West think that way doesn’t make it accurate.

–Ideological enthusiasm and religious passion may carry the day rather than the everyone-wants-their-kids-to-get-a-better-life-as-their-top-priority school believes. Not every parent celebrates their kid becoming a suicide bomber, for example, but a large number do. And even though they might be angry about the children being misled by demagogues, they know well enough not to speak publicly about it. Attacking a Christian church also lets off a lot of steam as does blaming the Jews.

–Many people give up, thinking (or knowing) that there is no real road immediately visible for transforming their societies into prosperous and democratic ones.

–Others benefit materially by supporting a dictatorial regime. The government better ensure that one of these groups are military officers.

It is also often true that outside observers look at every specific development in isolation, ignoring the revolutionary rulers’ ideology and blueprint. With the armed forces apparently determined to be passive, there is only one effective institution holding back the Brotherhood: the courts. Judges were appointed under the old regime, are largely secular, and many of them showed pro-democratic independence even under the Mubarak dictatorship.

One way or another, however, the Brotherhood is moving toward replacing the judges by forcing them into retirement. And then the regime will name its own judges who will interpret things the way the Brotherhood likes as well as having a very high priority on making Sharia the law on most aspects of life.

Here and here are two articles about the battles over the courts.

The same process will be happening in the schools, mass media, religious and other institutions, finally reaching the entrance and promotion of Brotherhood sympathizers in the officer corps. Here’s an editor arrested for exposing the creation of Islamist death squads to target oppositionists. Here’s a new law that would intensify government control over non-government organizations, an issue that helped inspire the revolt against the old regime. And this is a description of how Egyptians made desperate by the increase in crime are lynching criminals. And here you can read a description of how most of the new cabinet ministers are Muslim Brotherhood members. And here we see Ahmad Maher, a leader of the April 6 Youth Movement, which began the revolt and served as a Brotherhood ally then, being arrested on his return to Egypt. [Maher, by the way, accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza a while back and insisted that Egypt must intervene on behalf of the Islamist regime of Hamas. This shows the lack of moderation by many of the supposedly alternative "moderates."]

Indeed, it is very sobering to consider the Sudan, my colleague’s example of anger at an Islamist government leading to moderation. While the extreme Islamists did become discredited there eventually, the process took almost 25 years. Even today, the country is under an authoritarian dictator. And it is very significant to note that Sharia law largely continues to rule the country. The current Sudanese dictatorship, which has been credibly accused of genocide against Black Africans in the south, merely uses the pedestal provided by the Islamist predecessor. On its behalf, the Muslim clerical association has just called for jihad against anti-government rebels.

Egypt is a more advanced country than Sudan and the Islamists there are badly split. There are now four main Islamist parties in Egypt. Yet they can also work together and are all pushing in the same direction. The moderates are still weak even if you add in all the other non-Islamists (including radical nationalists and leftists). And the opposition to Islamism is more fragmented than the Islamists, lacking even an ideology or program.

Remember, too, that the governmental responses to the factors of unpopularity and economic failure are demagoguery, the scapegoating of foreigners, and international adventures.

And as one resort, the Egyptian regime–unlike Iran or radical Syria– now enjoys the assistance of wealthier Western countries and international lending institutions.

Thus, while anger and despair are going to rise in Egypt these factors are not in themselves enough to bring down a regime. Unless the army is convinced that the country is going to fall apart–and perhaps not even then–the Brotherhood is going to be in power for a long time. And that also applies to everywhere else Islamists are ruling–in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey, and perhaps soon Syria.

This article is published on PJMedia.

If you are interested in reading more about Egypt and radical Islamist movements, you’re welcome to read my book Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics online or download it for free.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His next book, Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East, written with Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, will be published by Yale University Press in January 2014. His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, also published by Yale. Thirteen of his books can be read and downloaded for free at the website of the GLORIA Center including The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East and The Truth About Syria. His blog is Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

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The Saudis define the four main enemies today as:

–Al-Qaida

–The Muslim Brotherhood

–Iran

–Shia Muslims as political forces: as ruling Iraq; Hizballah in Lebanon; and the Shia majority in Bahrain.

All four of these forces are perceived as threatening Saudi stability and even survival. Al-Qaida, of course, originated as a revolutionary movement to overthrow the Saudi monarchy.

Notably, Israel is not on that list. Whatever violent and vile rhetoric that comes from Saudi Arabia and whatever monies spent by private individuals, the Saudis are simply not much concerned about Israel or combating it. Unlike the revolutionary Islamists and especially the Shia ones, Israel does not threaten Saudi society and internal stability. And whatever lip service is given to the contrary, Israel doesn’t threaten international Saudi interests either.

Among the four principle Saudi enemies, U.S. policy only sees al-Qaida as a total enemy of itself. It views Iran as a big problem that might somehow be reconciled through appeal to what is thought to be its true self-interest. And it has viewed the Muslim Brotherhood—shocking but true—as an ally. In Iraq, the United States helped put Shias into power and President Obama showed a willingness–before the State Department warned him that Tehran would gain–to do the same thing in Bahrain. The United States would be better off if it had the same basic list as Saudi Arabia, with the addition of the Iraqi, Syrian, and other Sunni Muslim radical Islamists supported by the monarchy.

On Iran, the Saudis are harder-line than is the Obama Administration. The regime views Iran as a deadly adversary trying to destroy Sunni Islam (the Iranians are majority Shia Muslim) and the Arabs (the Iranians are majority ethnic Persian). The Saudis view the United States as naïve on this matter. They would like to see the United States or even Israel attack Iran to destroy its nuclear weapons’ facilities. Of course, that’s as long as the Saudis don’t have to take any risks themselves.

The same Saudi antagonism applies to the hated Muslim Brotherhood. True, there was a time when the Saudis were protectors of the Brotherhood, when it was a fugitive group persecuted by radical Arab nationalist regimes like Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. But that time is long over. While the Saudis are just as militantly “Islamic” as the Brotherhood, the Brotherhood opposes the monarchical principle and it does not accept the Saudis Wahhabi brand of Islam.

From the Saudis’ perspective, U.S. support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria is foolish. The Muslim Brotherhood reciprocates, listing the Saudis (and its ally the United Arab Emirates) as one of Egypt’s three main enemies, along with the United States and Israel.

Iraq:

The U.S. government backed a Shia majority government with autonomy. Loathing the Shia and seeing them as a cats-paw for Iran, Saudi Arabia encouraged Sunni Islamists to launch a terrorist revolt and were ultimately defeated. The irony is that the Sunni Islamists came under al-Qaida leadership, putting the two enemies–Saudi Arabia and al-Qaida–on the same side temporarily. The Saudis have now given up the subversive effort in Iraq.

But for several years, Saudi Arabia was backing America’s number-one enemy in killing Americans! At the same time, though more excusably, the United States was backing forces  influenced by Iran. In defense of the Shia, the United States had no choice because not only were the Iranians their fellow Shia but by boycotting them and backing a terrorist insurgency against them, the Shia were left no choice by the Arab world.

At any rate, the United States and Saudi Arabia, despite both acting on anti-Iran sentiment,  were on opposite sides in a war!

Syria:

Both the U.S. and the Saudis want to see the Bashar al-Assad regime overthrown, in large part because it is an ally of Tehran. But by whom? The Obama Administration’s candidate is the Muslim Brotherhood. The Saudis want anyone but the Muslim Brotherhood. Both are equally opposed to al-Qaida.

So the Saudis back a third force, the non-al-Qaida Salafists, just as extreme but not interested in making direct attacks against the United States or Saudi Arabia. The Obama Administration has been okay with this strategic difference though it is starting to get a bit nervous about Salafist terrorists running around with advanced weapons.

At any rate, both of them acting on anti-Iran and anti-al-Qaida sentiment the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were backing different Islamist factions!

Lebanon:

Here, too, the Saudis wanted to back Sunni Muslims. But since there are few Sunni Islamists and the kingdom has old ties to the Hariri faction which provides the anti-Syria, anti-Iran Sunni leadership, the Saudis are backing the pro-Western moderates.

The United States was pretty inactive, giving aid to the politically ineffective Lebanese army but not lifting a finger to help the moderate coalition. As Washington looked on with apparent indifference, Hizballah and the pro-Syria, pro-Iran politicians took over Lebanon.

Once Syria falls, which may not be too soon, the Saudis will turn toward battling its Shia enemies—which means Hizballah—and Iranian influence in Lebanon. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration may be restrained in embracing a terrorist-led government in Lebanon but will remain passive.

An any rate, the Saudis—for their own interests—have been defending Western interests in Lebanon while the West (especially France alongside the United States) are appeasing a radically anti-Western, terrorist-led regime. The Saudis are seeking more influence in Lebanon by opposing a weakened Hizballah and strengthening Sunni Muslim (often Islamist) elements to battle Iranian influence.

Of course, this doesn’t make the Saudis good guys as such, especially since the government and wealthy citizens of that country spend a lot of money on promoting radical views of Islam in many countries.   Yet what is necessary is for all those on the anti-Islamist side to do the most fundamental thing necessary in making foreign policy: to define properly friends and enemies.

It may be said that even while different interests promote conflicting foreign policies, the United States has been remarkably unsuccessful in coordinating with the Saudis. Except on Syria the two countries don’t work together, and in Syria’s case that cooperation isn’t a good thing. Generally, the crowning irony is that the Saudis are now thoroughly disgusted with the Obama Administration for being soft on Islamist, and especially Iranian and Shia, threats to the kingdom.

If you are interested in reading more about the Arab-Israeli conflict, current regional situation you’re welcome to read my book Tragedy of the Middle East online or download it for free.

With less than a month to go before the elections–the campaign is only three weeks long to make things harder for the opposition–it is now clear who the candidates are and all those disagreeing with the dominant faction have been vetoed by the six-member Council of Guardian. This council is controlled by the country’s real ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But the complex maneuvers leading up to the election have given him a huge political headache.

The core of the problem is that there are three factions. Khamenei doesn’t want two of the factions– the super-hardliners and the reformists—to win but only the third group, his hardliners.

The super-hardline faction’s candidate was Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, Ahmadinejad’s son-in-law and man widely seen as a puppet for him. Khamenei hates Mashaei and Mashaei was disqualified.

Also disqualified was the potential “reform” candidate, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjan. One must hesitate to call him a true reformer. Rafsanjani is an insider, indeed a former president (1989-1997), who used to be an ally of Khamenei but now is a fierce rival. Rafsanjani is pragmatic and reportedly conspicuously corrupt. He does not want to overturn the regime but change its direction, keep it more out of international trouble, and find some way to shed the sanctions imposed to stop Iran’s nuclear program. He might have tried to pull Iran back from international confrontations. The 78-year-old Rafsanjani is a dubious hero. He is not part of the reform movement yet he was the best bet they have. The Iranian ruling elite hates him, too. There are genuine differences between him and Khamenei about the country’s direction.

So who does the elite fix the election for as winner? There are eight candidates left in the election:

There is  former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati who is close to Khamenei.

Then there is  Muhammad Bagher Ghalibaf the mayor of Tehran and close to Khamenei.

Of course there is Iran’s nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. He is very close to Khamenei, perhaps his favorite though he has no administrative experience. .

Or perhaps you like former speaker of parliament Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel who is close to Khamenei.

Some might prefer Asan Rowhani, former nuclear negotiator and Khamenei’s man on the National Security Council.

But if you want someone else there is Gholam Ali Haddad Adel whose daughter is married to Khamenei’s son.

There are two candidates not from Khamenei’s faction. Muhammad Reza Aref is former vice-president and represents the reform group. Mohsen Rezaei, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard is a stand-in for the Ahmadinejad faction.

You might think that six Khamenei followers might split the hardline vote but don’t worry as that will be taken care of in the ballot-counting if necessary.

Ironically, the main impact of the Iranian election may be on the West. Articles and arguments had been already appearing claiming that a post-election Iran would be more moderate and that the next Iranian president would be willing to abandon the regime’s subversive foreign policy and  nuclear weapons’ program. Western negotiators wanted to say: Give Iran a chance. That will be much harder now.

For an explanation of the Iranian election in song see here.

If you are interested in reading more about the history of U.S.-Iran relations and the Iranian revolution you’re welcome to read my book Paved with Good Intentions: The American Experience and Iran online or download it for free..

Consider five factors that had no effect on the very warm reception given by President Barack Obama to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan:

– While the U.S. government has pressured Erdogan not to visit the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Erdogan announced in the White House Rose Garden that he would do so. An alleged U.S. ally says publicly in front of Obama, while being hosted by him, that he is going to defy the United States.

This is not some routine matter. With previous presidents, if an ally was going to do something like that he would say nothing at the time, and then months later would subvert U.S. policy. Or better yet, the foreign leader would not do so. To announce defiance in such a way is a serious sign of how little respect Middle East leaders have for Obama — and for U.S. policy nowadays — and how little Obama will do about it.

– Equally bad: Erdogan directly promised Obama that he would conciliate with Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cooperated, because Obama asked him to do so. That’s what U.S. allies do. But immediately Erdogan showed he would pay no attention to the agreement he made.

His negotiators subverted it in several ways, including with demands for ridiculously large amounts of money, the delay in the promised return of the Turkish ambassador to Israel, and the continuation of legal action against Israeli officials involved in the Mavi Marmara affair, when Israeli soldiers were attacked by Turkish terrorists demanding to sail to Gaza to deliver equipment to Hamas.

So a second time, Erdogan betrayed Obama and make the president look foolish (that is, had anyone in the mass media pointed it out). Again, there was no U.S. criticism of the move or apparent pressure to make Erdogan keep his promise.

Three other ways that Erdogan has subverted U.S. interests with minimal costs (in fact, the Obama administration has usually furthered this behavior):

– Some small U.S. diplomatic protests were made about the growing internal repression in Turkey and human rights violations there. Increasingly, the country lives under a reign of intimidation even as the Western media mostly ignores this situation. Since the United States keeps praising him, Erdogan can demoralize his opponents, who cannot hope for foreign help even as he carries on a policy of spreading anti-Americanism in Turkey.

The political power of the Turkish armed forces — the traditional guarantor of the republic and stability in the country — was dismantled by Erdogan with U.S. approval. The Turkish media was subverted with only an occasional American squeal of complaint. Now he’s destroying the independent judicial system, the last barrier to his assault on democratic rule. The U.S. embassy in Turkey consistently warned about what has been happening; the White House ignored this information.

– With the Obama administration’s permission, the Turkish government violates the sanctions against Iran with ever-larger trade and major bilateral cooperation projects. Erdogan’s consistent defenses of Iran’s policies (though the two countries are at odds over Syria) have been forgiven and forgotten by the White House.

– In many ways, the Turkish government has been taking the lead on setting U.S. policy toward Syria. It was Erdogan who largely determined that the official opposition exile leadership would be dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, a path followed by Obama. (I can’t prove it — but I’ll bet that Turkey’s regime promised Obama that if he would declare support for the rebels verbally and let them be armed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia then Assad would easily fall. I’d also bet that Erdogan assured Obama that if the president helped the rebels a moderate government would emerge in Syria.)

Meanwhile, Obama has praised Erdogan unstintingly. Obama thinks Erdogan is the very model of a “moderate Islamist”, and since Obama’s strategy is to support such people in much of the Arab world, Erdogan has been his guide to the region, though this has meant supporting the radical Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Especially ironic: Obama believed that Erdogan’s goals were essentially the same as those of the United States, while Erdogan was in fact following a profoundly anti-American policy designed to bring hostile Islamist governments to power. Remember this is no longer the old Western-oriented Turkey of previous decades, but a radical — if concealed — Islamist regime.

In the last week, there was a car bomb and four attacks on Libyan military posts in Benghazi. The al-Qaeda affiliate that murdered four Americans controls parts of the city and is unchallenged by the central government, which has been too weak to confront those who reject its authority.

Al-Qaeda still controls part of the city’s entrances and the hospital where the U.S. ambassador’s body was taken by them last September 11. It has faced zero retaliation by the U.S. government and no pressure from Washington for the Libyan government to crack down on it.

Remember that the U.S. government’s attempt to make people forget the scandal and the insistence that the attack was caused by a demonstration against a video gone wrong have prevented the highlighting of the actual murders and any action taken against the perpetrators.

Also read: Obama Aide: ‘Irrelevant’ Where the President Was During Benghazi Attack

I would say the answer would be the Iran-led Shia bloc. But two reservations: the margin isn’t that big and it also depends on the specific place and situation.

To begin with, Iran is still the greatest strategic threat in the region. It is moving as fast as it can toward nuclear weapons and it is still the main sponsor of terrorism. At the moment, it is still, too, the most likely state that would initiate an anti-Western war, though that possibility is smaller than often believed. It has lots of money.

What has gone largely unnoticed is that it is almost the middle of 2013 and the Obama Administration has barely begun negotiations with Iran that will probably drag on without success for a year or more. In addition, after Iran’s June elections, which will presumably pick a radical who is less obviously extremist than current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the U.S. government and mass media will probably proclaim a new era of Iranian moderation.

Iran is also the main backer of Islamist revolution in Bahrain (where it has failed); Lebanon (where its Hizballah clients are the strongest force); and Syria (where its regime ally is in serious trouble).

One final point is that Tehran is having some success in drawing the Iraqi (Shia) government into its orbit. Baghdad is certainly cooperating with Iran on defending the Syrian regime, though one should not exaggerate how much Iraq is in Iran’s pocket. At any rate, nobody would want the Iraqi regime to be overthrown by the al-Qaida terrorist opposition.

So a strong case can be made that Iran is the greatest threat in the region.

On the other hand, however, a Great Wall of Sunnism has been built to prevent the extension of Iranian influence except for Lebanon. The Sunni bloc contains few Shia Muslims. The Muslim Brotherhood, the even more radical Salafists, and other Sunni Muslims (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, for example) have said that the Shias are a worse threat than Israel.

Perhaps the fear of Iran provides some common cause with the West. But this is also a scary proposition since the Obama Administration’s promotion of Sunni Islamism (Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, and even Turkey) could use this point as an excuse. Perhaps America could be said to be building a united front against Iran but at what price? Turning over much of the Arab world to repressive, anti-American, and antisemitic Sunni Islamism as Christians flee?

There is also another weakness of Sunni Islamism, however, that also makes it seem relatively less threatening. In contrast to Iran, the Sunni Islamists do not have a wealthy patron comparable to Iran. They can depend on money from Qatar and to some extent from Libya but they have fewer resources. Sometimes the Saudis will help Sunni Islamists but only if they tone down their warlike and anti-Western actions. There is no big banker for Sunni Islamist destabilization of the Middle East.

Equally, they do not have a reliable source of arms, in contrast to the Shia who have Iran and also at times Russia. True, in Syria the Sunni rebels have U.S. backing to get weaponry and arms from Libya and elsewhere paid for by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Yet Syria is an exceptional case. The Saudis are not going to finance the Muslim Brotherhood and its ambitions. Bahrain has declared Shia Hizballah to be a terrorist group even while the European Union refuses to do so.

So arguably one could say that the Shia Islamists and Iran are a bigger danger. But a second danger is a U.S. or Western policy to promote Sunni Islamism as a way to counter the Shia, a strategy that has intensified regional dangers and the suffering of Arab peoples. Then, too, there’s the fact that al-Qaida is a Sunni Islamist organization, and the al-Qaida forces are getting stronger in Syria.

One would have to be very foolish to want to see Sunni Islamism make further gains, to overthrow the monarchies in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, or Bahrain, as well as the Algerian regime. One would also have to be foolish–but here the Obama Administration is so–to want to see Muslim Brotherhood regimes succeed in Egypt, Tunisia, the Gaza Strip, and Syria.

What we are seeing, however, is that Islamism is becoming entangled at present with the power it has gained, especially in Egypt. The country is innately in economic difficulties and these are being intensified by Muslim Brotherhood misrule. Rather than raise their countries to the peak of military-economic efficiency, the Islamist regimes are wrecking them.

But there are some very significant wild cards in the deck:

–If Sunni Islamist regimes in Egypt and Syria face significant problems with instability and economics, they might adopt the time-honored, traditional tactic of Arab dictatorships by stirring up foreign quarrels and promoting anti-Americanism. This could unleash future Arab-Israeli wars.

–Sunni Islamist regimes in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, and probably Syria would give extremely radical Salafist forces a free hand in attacking Christians, moderates, women’s rights, foreign embassies, and possibly Israel. Human rights in these countries—if anybody in the West cares about that—are going to suffer severe hits.

–Hamas will probably attack Israel in future, perhaps with at least some Egyptian backing though the Egyptian regime is now trying to restrain Hamas in order to consolidate rule at home and get Western money.

–Al-Qaida is gaining strength in Syria and for the first time its possible takeover cannot be ruled out, at least in alliance with other Salafist groups.

–The stronger the Sunni Islamists the more uncooperative the Palestinian Authority (PA) will be with attempts at a “peace process.” It is possible that the PA would face a considerable challenge from Hamas on the West Bank while forces within Fatah, the PA’s ruling party, might form alliances with Hamas. Israel should be able to keep the PA in power—a situation wrought with irony—but its stability could crumble.

In short, while one can make the case for Shia Islamism being the more dangerous—at least as long as Iran might get nuclear weapons—one must very carefully examine the implications of that judgment in every specific case. Promoting Sunni Islam is no panacea but rather substitutes longer-term for shorter-term threats.

[Assimilation and its Discontents, a history of Jewish assimilation and identity debates, can be found here.  For downloading instructions see the end of this article.]

The painting shows a Jewish soldier who had fought for Prussia against Napoleon. Now the war was won, the land liberated, and he returned home to his family, presumably in 1814.

He is the center of attention for, presumably, his loving parents, two older sisters, and younger brother. The second brother is examining something else. I’m also surprised to see, in this Orthodox Jewish family, a cat emerging from under the table.

So even if they still follow the “old customs,” that is a pious Judaism, they have modernized already to some extent. Notice the clothing which is quite contemporary and the furnishings. This is a German middle class family very much attuned to the surrounding society which is also an Orthodox Jewish family.

Thus it is not quite true that Oppenheim, one of the greatest German painters, sees them as fully traditional. Of course, by saying the “old customs,” he is implying that they are outdated customs. The theme of the painting is the contrast between the two role models, the two paths that Jews could take: complete modernization, secularization, and German patriotism versus a traditional Jewish life, built around religion and keeping some distance from the surrounding society.

Yet Oppenheim thought it possible to combine the two. He was highly honored by both the existing German elite, during a time when antisemitism was at a relative low, and the intellectual leaders of Jewry.

Oppenheim was born in Hanau in 1800 and died in Frankfurt in 1882. In his own life, he balanced out the Jewish and German worlds. At the time, the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement which sought to study Judaism with scholarly methods to both preserve and modernize it. While those involved didn’t know it, by rethinking Jews as being a people with secular aspects, too, they were forerunners of Zionism.

The New York Jewish Museum’s description of the painting points out two significant factors.

First, he has been wounded in the defense of his country, thus having shed his blood for his country.  And he is wearing the Iron Cross, a German medal but also as a cross a symbol of the conflict between his Jewishness and the Christianity of the state he has served.

Second, he has just arrived home by traveling on the Sabbath, thus breaking a major tenet of Jewish law. His family, delighted to have him back alive, doesn’t seem to care about that point.

The painting was made in 1834, at a time when anti-Jewish forces were beginning to rise again and seeking to restrict Jewish rights as citizens. It was intended as a pointed reminder of Jewish services and loyalty to Germany, of attempts to assimilate without necessarily losing their distinctive characteristics. It was not making a case for Multiculturalism but rather for pluralism.

At any rate, the project of German Jewish assimilation failed, in part because it was too successful, and German Jewish sacrifices in World War One did not avail them two decades later. Indeed, Adolf Hitler’s lieutenant during the war was a Jew, who the Nazi dictator later did spare.

There are, however, two additional ironies related to the painting’s story. Napoleon was, in fact, the liberator of the Jews and Prussia was the oppressor. The soldier proved his patriotism while fighting against his real interests.  As soon as the Prussians had won, they began restoring discrimination against the Jews.

The second is a story that fascinates me and I think should be emblematic for these issues. It concerns a young man who was the real-life contemporary of the soldier in the painting, Moritz Itzig.

One day in 1811, Itzig’s aunt, Sarah Levy, a highly cultured woman with many connections among Christians, held a concert in her home. One of the guests was the wife of Ludwig Achim von Arnim, a 30-year-old Prussian writer. Von Arnim came to pick up his wife and insulted several Jewish guests with antisemitic slurs.

Itzig, then 24 years old, wrote a letter challenging von Arnim to a duel. The aristocrat rejected the challenge, responding with a bunch of signed statements from his peers that since a Jew had no honor he could not be engaged in a duel and adding additional insults.

One afternoon, Itzig came up to von Arnim and beat the larger man with his cane. Von Arnim, who whined for help rather than defending himself, turned over the matter to a court, which ruled that since Itzig had been provoked he was not guilty of any crime. Itzig’s family even persuaded some of those who had provided von Arnim with letters to retract them.

When war with Napoleon restarted, Itzig volunteered to fight for Prussia and was killed in 1813. Von Arnim stayed on his estate and did not fight at all. He lived until 1831.

The irony of the patriotic Jew and the cowardly poser who hypocritically impugned the former’s noble nature and love of country has been repeated many times. In fact, I can think of some good contemporary examples in another country across the seas from Germany.

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Now — not just on that one day of September 11, 2012 but for seven months thereafter (!) — the U.S. government has done zero about the murder of four American officials.

Consider the Benghazi scandal from the standpoint of Benghazi — where the militia that murdered the Americans is one of the most powerful forces in the city — and Libya itself. Suppose that from the beginning on September 11, 2012, the U.S. government announced that the U.S. facility was under attack by a militia group linked to al-Qaeda: it would have had to explain why it had hired members of that militia group to guard the facility, a scandal in itself.

We know, 100 percent, that this is true, but it hasn’t become an issue.

Next, there might have been a rescue attempt and a firefight between American forces and that militia group in which casualties would have occurred on both sides. (Note that, as far as we know, the militia took no killed or wounded, meaning that in its own eyes it achieved a total victory at no cost.) At any rate, the United States would then have been in a military conflict with that militia. It would have to demand that the Libyan government take action and cooperate with U.S. efforts to punish it. On one hand, that would have been a headache for the Libyan government; on the other hand, it might have brought welcome aid to suppress a troublesome militia and help in getting control of the anarchy in the country (see below).

Congress would have given full bipartisan support to punishing those found responsible by a quick and conclusive FBI investigation, support including putting forces on the ground in Benghazi.

Instead?

In practice, U.S. policy is still acting as if it believed the attack was due to a video creating a spontaneous riot and not a terrorist attack!

Note — and this is pivotal — the scandal is not restricted to what happened on September 11, 2012, and the Washington cover-up that followed. It extends to the result of cover-up.

As a result of the cover-up, there has been no effort made to punish those who we know have murdered four Americans.

Think about that point. You cannot punish the terrorists if you haven’t officially deemed them responsible for the attack, and when an Egyptian-American provocateur who is supposedly the real guilty party is in prison already. Meanwhile, Libya is suffering serious problems that are undoing whatever good the Obama administration’s intervention to overthrow the old regime achieved.

Even as the Benghazi scandal is growing in the United States, the situation in Libya is deteriorating further. Ignoring the actual threat of revolutionary Islamist militias and attributing problems to a video, plus the botching of the investigation of the attack due to the cover-up, led to mishandling post-attack U.S. Libya policy. As a result, the terrorists who murdered four Americans are going free and the group that carried out the attack is still enjoying popularity and even playing a role in running Benghazi.

Libya itself was the biggest donor to the Muslim Brotherhood-led, U.S.-handpicked Syrian opposition, and is a source of a massive outflow of arms to terrorists.

In other words, as a result of the policy failure and cover-up, Libya faces a much greater threat of a revolutionary Islamist takeover, anarchy, and even becoming an al-Qaeda base. (Imagine, for comparison, the situation if the U.S. government had denied al-Qaeda involvement in earlier terrorist attacks.)

But I should add that this debate is largely academic. The United States and Europe aren’t going to intervene in Syria, at least not to do more than send more weapons, spend more on refugees, and dispatch humanitarian aid.

There is no will to do so, too much can go wrong, and the Obama Administration isn’t going to risk having its own equivalent of the Iraqi intervention. It wants to keep a priority on domestic issues and knows the public doesn’t want another war-type situation. The last three (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) are still quite controversial.

Moreover, a good excuse is offered because Russia and China would veto large-scale intervention in the UN Security Council.

ncidentally, it should be kept in mind that the rebels are very far from being defeated. They control the countryside in eastern Syria and a large part of Aleppo and other places. The government is holding onto the west–especially the northwestern section where the ruling Alawites live–and most of Damascus.

The infusion of Hizballah forces–less than 5,000 compared to around 50,000 worse-organized rebels–has scarcely turned the tide but merely allowed the government forces to hold onto the Damascus-Lebanon border-northwestern corridor.

So whether or not it is a good idea to do far more to defeat the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship there is no chance of that happening.