The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq has no clear-cut signs of “victory.”  The administration of President Barack Obama tried to negotiate a status of forces agreement (SOFA) with the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.  When that did not work out to the satisfaction of Washington, the United States – contrary to its strong proclivity for having a long-term stay in Iraq – withdrew its forces.

The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq was an ideal development, from the vantage point of Iran’s strategic interests.  Iran’s adversary, the United States, spent billions of dollars and shed the blood of thousands of its own troops and that of the Iraqis to transform Iraq from a staunch adversary of Iran to its strong friend.  In fact, in Prime Minister al-Maliki, Iran has a powerful ally.  One of Iraq’s chief adversaries in the area, Saudi Arabia, has been a strong supporter of al-Maliki’s nemesis, Iyad Allawi, the head of the al-Iraqiya party, a secularist, and a person preferred by the Sunni Iraqis.  Thus, Iran, by ensuring the prolonged existence of the government of al-Maliki, is definitely enjoying the upper-hand in keeping the Saudis at bay.  The unstated aspect of that development is that Iraq has emerged as an arena for the power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and by proxy, the United States, which is very much in the corner of Saudi Arabia in undermining Iran’s growing power and influence, not only inside Iraq, but also in the Middle East.

This gathering storm is unique, in the sense that when the Persian Gulf states sided with the United States in 1991 to end Saddam’s occupation of Kuwait, they were not interested in destroying his regime.  In the case of Iran, there do not seem to be any red lines in the sand drawn by the Arab states that the United States should not cross in taking military action against Iran.

But the preceding is a minor subtext of the growing animosity between the United States and Iran.  The chief subtext is Iran’s continued nuclear research program, which the U.S. categorically depicts as aimed at developing nuclear weapons.  Iran’s denial to the contrary has few takers in the West.  Thus, while the United States is assiduously weaving complex webs of economic sanctions against Iran, Israel prefers military action against it – either of its own or that of the United States – to put an end to Iran’s nuclear research.

Viewing the issue from Israel’s point of view, if Iran indeed develops nuclear weapons, the Jewish state would lose its nuclear veto against any ambitious states in the Middle East – a veto that was strategically developed by the founding fathers of that country.  Even though a nuclear armed Iran would be no match against Israel’s military power, the mere fact that such a development is about to happen is alarming to the leaders in Jerusalem, and they have kept their pressure on the Obama administration for action against Iran.

Considering the fact that the Islamic regime of Iran has been under threat by the United States for the sake of regime survival, the Ayatollahs may be considering having nuclear weapons in the future.  Even though it has been serious about creating the circumstances for regime change in Iran, the United States – even though it denies it – does not think that Iran’s predilections for acquiring nuclear weapons has a legitimate or a rational basis.  Therein lies the rub: what Iran considers as a necessary requirement for regime survival, the United States regards as a threat to regional stability “justifying” waging another war.  Listening to the Republican presidential candidates casually talking about taking military action against Iran, and even the Obama officials’ frequent references to the phrase that George W. Bush and his officials used to iterate – that all options regarding Iran are on the table – it appears that the American political leadership is suffering from a collective sense of amnesia regarding the instability and destruction that resulted from the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In the rising cacophony of claims related to ‘threats’ regarding Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons, the Arab regimes’ siding with the United States, in reality, has an entirely different real reason.  Those states have long considered Iran as a threat to their own aspirations involving the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) capacity to manage regional stability.  For instance, GCC propaganda is trying to persuade the international community that political protests in Shia-dominated Bahrain are sponsored by Iran instead of being a manifestation of the Bahrainis to transform the shape of the tyranny of the Sunni regime.  Saudi Arabia – the dominant state of the GCC – has long regarded Iran as a threat to its own aspirations to dominate the larger Middle East.

Iran has deftly outmaneuvered the Sunni Arab states, but, most importantly, has outsmarted the United States in Iraq and in the Levant by creating a nexus with Syria.  That nexus, in turn, has dominated the distribution of power inside Lebanon in favor Hezbollah.  Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East in the aftermath of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq created a sense of long-term defeat among the Sunni rulers in Riyadh, Cairo, and Amman.  They did not know what countermeasures to take in order to undermine Iran’s enhanced power and influence.  America’s near obsession of “containing” Iran through the pretext of depriving it of nuclear weapons was perceived as a fantastic opportunity to outsmart Iran.

The upside of this American-Arab maneuvering is that Iran is likely to be forced to continue its nuclear research but would stop just short of developing nuclear weapons.  The downside is that political explosion in the Persian Gulf in particular – and in the Middle East in general – happens suddenly and with calamitous consequence.  And the next war, if it comes, promises to be highly explosive and equally catastrophic.

A number of students of global affairs are steadily predicting a power shift from the West to the East and the consequent emergence of a post-American era.[2]  In reality, however, the global power shift might not be from the West to the East, but a multi-directional one, as we also witness the emergence of Turkey, Brazil, and South Africa as new global centers of economic dynamism, along with the PRC and India – two spectacularly rising powers.

Perhaps recognizing that it has long been stuck in the dizzying whirlpool of the Middle East and the need to catch its breath by refocusing on its dominance in the Asia-Pacific, President Barack Obama has already withdrawn America’s forces from Iraq; and has redeployed 10,000 troops out of Afghanistan.  This is part of his promise to bring about complete withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.  However, the United States is opening a new military base in Australia.  By withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, the lone superpower might also be tacitly conceding its defeat.  The politics of Iraq remains as volatile and divisive as ever.  Except this time, along with the explosive Shia-Sunni division, it is also characterized by the growing presence of al-Qaida.  Afghanistan, on the other hand, continues to prove itself to be the graveyard of empires.  As such, the war in that country continues to underscore the mounting power of the Taliban.

The Asia-Pacific, on the contrary, is welcoming the United States’ decision to escalate its presence, with open arms.  China — whose escalating hegemony appears ominous from the perspectives of small nation-states of East Asia – is creating ample apprehension among them.  Thus, these nation-states initiated a policy of “circling the wagons,” and appear determined to balance the power of China by asking for a resurged presence of the old hegemon, the USA, which has an established record of creating a benign hegemony.[3]  Washington could not have been happier.  The East Asian nations’ welcoming of America to their region only complemented the insistence of the Obama administration that America is a “Pacific power.”  President Barack Obama reiterated that resolve during his trip to Australia by stating that “…we are here to stay.”

India and China, the poorest countries of the not-too-distant past, have long passed the label of “rising powers.”  Now, they appear to be the economic power houses, indeed superpowers, of the future.  China is way ahead of India in this race, and thus remains a focal point of America’s attention.  As the foremost rising power of our time, China has the American example of the post-World War II era to follow.  Its rise not only has to be peaceful, but it also should be eminently constructive in revamping the rules underlying the functioning of the premier global political and financial institutions, like the U.N., the World Bank, and the IMF, etc.  Thus far, however, its leaders have not impressed the world by their proactivism or imagination for playing a constructive role.  They are standing on the sidelines, while being critical of the U.S. and Europe for not being “responsible” in their respective economic policies.  In the meantime, China continues to act as a rising power most comfortable in implementing parochial and inward looking policies of currency manipulation, as well as a heavy reliance on pushing its merchandise to the West.  It behaves as if it is only interested in reaping the benefits of appearing to be a superpower of the future without paying the political or economic price for being one.

India is gradually learning to act as a rising power in its neighborhood.  It has enhanced its presence in Southeast Asia by deciding to explore for oil in the South China Sea and in its cooperation with Vietnam, which has been one of the most vocal critics of China’s assertiveness in that region.[4]  India also has escalated its military presence along its border with China by announcing “$13 billion plans to raise a new mountain strike corps and four mountain divisions.”[5]  That was a clear response to China’s reported buildup on the Sino-Indian borders.   However, the jury is still out regarding the future performance of the successors of the Sun Tzu and Kautilyan styles of Realpolitik.

Europe is facing a crisis related to the future of the Eurozone, which was recently depicted as “a crisis of apocalyptic proportion” by Radoslaw Sikorski, Foreign Minister of Poland.[6]  As Europe is standing at the edge of a precipice, Turkey is emerging as the new power center of Europe.  In that capacity, it is implementing a “truly multidimensional foreign policy” in which it secretly conducted a joint air force exercise with China last October.[7]  In economic affairs, Russia became Turkey’s number one trade partner, replacing Germany.

Turkey is playing a similarly spectacular role in the Middle East.  Its intermingling of secularism and Islam is emerging as a popular example for the next corps of Arab leaders replacing the autocrats in the aftermath of the Arab Awakening.  In view of these developments, Turkey is transforming itself from a “peripheral state of Europe” into a “central power” of that region.[8]  Its model of secular democracy is already being emulated in Tunisia; and chances are that it would also be emulated in Egypt, as Islamists are winning electoral majority in that country but promising to opt for a coalition with the secularist parties.

The Arab Awakening (aka Arab Spring) continues to capture the world’s attention.  As the aging dictators fall, Islamists are emerging as some of the most prominent leaders of the Arab world.  The question is not an imminent one, but should be asked:  What is the Arab world going to look like in the next 3-5 years?  Are there prospects for the emergence of democracies, Islamic democracies, or would some of those Arab countries slide under the rule of theocracies?  Three current models of theocracy – Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia – have not made those countries places of economic prosperity, political stability, or the focal point of enlightenment.  If anything, obscurantism is on the rise in Pakistan, and theological autocracy is the order of the day in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

If the convergence of Islam and pluralistic democracy occurs in the post-awakening Arab world, then the opportunities for people of that part of the world are enormous.  There is tremendous human potential waiting to be liberated, educated, enlightened, and to make a dash toward the globalized world from which it was more or less excluded because the autocrats feared progress related to the information age.  And they were right for fearing it, because modernity was bound to become their enemy.  The Arab Awakening arrived in the Middle East and North Africa riding on the shoulders of some of the most recent advances in social/electronic media.  It was the power of social media that the autocratic and archaic control machine could not control, fight, or stifle.

One of the secrets of the Arab Awakening is that it has been an inclusive movement.  Another shocking aspect of it is that there were no leaders who could issue commands for the masses to follow, or whose arrests or assassinations by the ruling autocrats could have seriously undermined the movement.  As liberated Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya are struggling to create a constitutional system of governance, the most important question is whether they will adhere to the principle of inclusiveness, or will they become victims of fissiparous tendencies for which their societies have been notorious?

One has every reason to be wary of the Islamists of the Arab world.  They have spent long years in the dungeons of the autocrats and the Pharaohs.  They have no experience with governance.  They have repeated the slogan, “Islam is the solution,” without having the responsibilities for spelling it out into specific policies.  As they become part of the ruling elites, it will be a test for them.  Their ultimate success may not be that they govern well, even though that would be a wonderful outcome.  Their ultimate success as participants in a democracy is their willingness to accept defeat, if or when they are voted out of office.

One “odd man out” in the rising tide of political change in the Middle East is Iran.  It has increased its influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, most ironically, because of the dismantlement of the Taliban regime and that of Saddam Hussein by its arch enemy, the United States.  However, the Green Movement’s abortive attempt to bring about regime change in Iran has left that country exposed to the covert shenanigans of the United States to overthrow the rule of the Ayatollahs.  Iran’s recent capture of the CIA’s, RQ-170 “Sentinel” drone is evidence of that reality.  The CIA’s monitoring of Iran is only the exposed aspect of its covert actions against that country.  The covert actions that are unbeknownst to the theocratic rulers of Iran are likely to hurt their regime the most.[9]  To add insult to injury, Iran’s strong ally, Syria, appears to be the next country to undergo a bloody regime change.  The loss of Syria would also seriously damage Iran’s presence and influence in Lebanon.

However, Iran is not the only country increasingly troubled by the prospects of regime change in Syria.  Israel is equally concerned, because the ouster of the Assad regime promises to bring about the rising presence and clout of the Islamists, who are not likely to loathe the Jewish state any less than the current Baathist/Alawite rulers of that country.

The emerging realignment of power should be worrisome, especially for the great powers of the West, because it is not only aimed at threatening their erstwhile privileged status in the global hierarchy of nation-states, but it also promises to bring to prominence actors and forces that have not been viewed by them as particularly friendly or cooperative.  There are likely to be many uncertainties, even the outbreak of minor or even major military conflicts, before a new hierarchy of nations is formulated.  The emergence of China and India does not promise the evolution of a Sino-Indian condominium of power.  Instead, the two rising powers might be headed toward an era of increased friction and even military conflict, especially on the issue of border dispute.  One minor example of that friction is underscored by the fact that India’s new Agni-V long-range ballistic missile is being dubbed by its defense analysts as the “China-killer.”

The lessening of the economic status of European states and the rising power of Turkey direly requires the emergence of a new set of “rules of engagement,” whereby Turkey can decide whether it is still interested in joining the EU, and, if so, on what terms?  The “sick man” of Europe toward the conclusion of the first decade of the 21^st Century is Europe, not Turkey.  The rising presence and influence of Islam requires a new rapprochement between the Islamists and the secularists for the emergence of Islamic democracy or a new model of democratic pluralism that resembles the Turkish model.  All of these are tall orders.  But they are also in need of acceptance by the powers of the past and the future.

The domestic politics of Pakistan are so rotten that it needs a social movement a la the Arab Awakening (aka the Arab Spring) to completely overhaul the political system.  However, the sad reality is that social movements cannot be created; they spring from seemingly minor events like the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, the desperate Tunisian fruit seller.  All he wanted was a decent way to earn wages so that he could buy himself a car.  His personal humiliation at the hands of the petty bureaucrats of Tunisia resulted in his decision to burn himself alive.  The flames that burned his body eventually brought down the Taghoots  (dictators) of Tunisia and Libya and the Pharaoh of Egypt.

Manifestations of anger in Pakistan, on the contrary, have many faces of militant Islam.  There are protests supporting the phony “blasphemy” laws, which are essentially anti-Christian in their focus.  No politician or religious leader has the guts to oppose them without fear of being assassinated.  There are frequent bombings of Shiite mosques and religious gatherings, which are expressions of Sunni fanaticism.  There are suicide attacks on the military, which are also essentially Islamist in origin, but are also puzzling in the sense that Pakistan’s Army has had good-to-very-good ties with the Islamist groups.  In fact, if the Army were to adopt a militant posture toward the Islamists – which appears increasingly impossible because its rank and file also have a growing number of staunch supporters of Islamism – then it could score a bloody but decisive victory against those forces.  That would also transform Pakistan into a country of political stability and religious moderation.

As one deciphers the aforementioned statement of Rashid – that the Pakistani Army is now treating the United States as an enemy – it appears that these countries are hell-bent on taking divergent paths for reasons of their own.  From the U.S. side, there remains an overwhelming state of confusion and rising antipathy toward Pakistan for not toeing the American line.  The old adage that Pakistan is heavily influenced by Allah, the Army, and America has the last actor (America) in the process palpably fading, for better or for worse.  As long as the Pakistani Army refuses to play the role of the gendarme of American war-related goals in Afghanistan, the yawning gap of differences may turn into the outbreak of periodic hostilities in the form of skirmishes on the Pak-Afghan borders.

From the Pakistani side, the rising spiral of anti-Americanism is also showing its face in the rising popularity of Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf  (PTI or justice movement) party, led by former cricket legend Imran Khan.  Unlike the staunchly pro-American Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), the PTI is palpably anti-American.  At a time when – as reported by the Pew Research Center –  73 percent of Pakistanis hold an unfavorable view of the United States, and at a time when only 14 percent of them think it was good that Usama Bin Laden was killed, there is virtually no chance of any meaningful rapprochement between Islamabad and Washington.  Since the Pakistani Army has adopted an overall anti-American approach, it is also likely to develop a nexus with the PTI, especially if it captures 20-30 percent of the legislative seats in the next election.  However, Imran Khan is not likely to become the next president or prime minister of Pakistan, even though his personal popularity is reported by the Pew survey to be around 68 percent among the Pakistanis.

In order for a U.S.-Pak rapprochement to become a reality, the United States has to adopt significant changes in its policies toward Pakistan.  However, there is no constituency for such a development inside the American political arena, regardless of whether or not Obama wins the next presidential election.  If there are no positive overtures from Washington toward Islamabad, no civilian government in Pakistan would dare make a move for the creation of similar overtures.  The PPP is a moribund entity, in terms of its ability to govern in the aftermath of “memogate.”  The Army is convinced that the former Pakistani ambassador to United States, Hussein Haqqani, was merely carrying out the wishes of his boss (President Zardari), when he allegedly prepared that memo.  And the chances of finding the Zardari regime not guilty of that alleged crime in today’s Pakistan are zero.  As Pakistan and the United States continue to drift apart, one has to wonder whether this drift is a permanent one or whether there are likely to be some pleasant surprises in the making whereby the erstwhile partners would succeed in reviving their former ambivalent ties.  The resurgence of even ambivalent relations appears considerably better than the present day’s drift toward escalating antagonism between Islamabad and Washington.

Reviewed

I like watching these former national security officials talk after they leave their respective jobs.  More often than not, they tend to be candid about discussing the most hush-hush aspects of various hot-button issues.  And Jones was quite good about doing just that.

He looked quite baffled when describing his dealings with Pakistan’s top military brass.  His observation was that Pakistan is a country that is hell bent on destroying itself.  He also noted that there is no way General Pervez Kayani and his cohorts in the Pakistani Army did not know about Usama Bin Laden’s (UBL) stay in Abbottabad.  That was the first time I heard anyone inside or outside the U.S. government make that claim.

My sense is that he was saying what the official U.S. national security community really thinks about the knowledge and involvement of Pakistani top military officials about UBL’s long stay in Pakistan.  That might be one reason why the United States is having such a hard time smoothing over its ties with Pakistan.  What seems to frustrate U.S. officials even more is that, not only can they not talk openly about that issue, but the Pakistani Army is being audacious enough to remain angry over what it calls the violation of its territory by the U.S. Special Forces.  For the Obama administration, the real issue is that the Pakistani Army should accept its culpability related to UBL’s stay in Abbottabad.

Jones is also right in stating that Pakistan appears hell-bent on destroying itself.  But, as expected, he did not tell the whole story – he failed to point out that the United States also played a role in that reality.  Of course, I am referring to America’s proxy war in Afghanistan in the 1980s when the resurgence of the Jihad doctrine served its strategic purpose of defeating the Soviet Union.  The United States played no role in the Islamization of Pakistan, it only exploited it.  Pakistan, under General Zia, was almost an ebullient player in that war.  The United States left the region after defeating the Soviet Union, but Pakistan continued its calamitous march down the Islamization road.  An important point here is that that is only part of the story.  The whole story is much too complicated to be covered here; but the most important aspect of it is that it is still developing.  In fact, the International Conference on Afghanistan held in Bonn, Germany, on December 5, 2011, reminded me of a wake-like ceremony being held for Afghanistan.  The war going badly, the Obama administration is determined to redeploy its forces, and no country – including the lone superpower – has the capacity to throw mega-bucks into the black hole called the Karzai administration.  In that sense, Pakistan may have been smart not to attend.

Updated:  15 Dec 11

Iran and Saudi Arabia are traditional competitors, but unlike what most American “specialists” on Iran claim, the chief reason is not the religious differences between them.  The chief reason is that in the post 9/11 era, Iran has remained a major Middle Eastern power.  In that capacity, it has consistently remained opposed to the American hegemony of that region.  After the United State’s dismantlement of the regime of Saddam Hussein, Iran had the golden opportunity to assert itself in Iraq, which it has been doing to the utter chagrin of the administrations of George W. Bush and now Barack Obama.  As American forces are getting ready to leave Iraq, Iran’s political prestige in that country remains unchallenged.   On the contrary, the Saudi strategic stock in the Middle East has been dwindling at the same time, and the Iran-Saudi rivalry has remained lopsided in favor of Iran.  Thus, the government in Riyadh is in dire need of asserting itself in the region.

Saudi Arabia faced an entirely different world during the same era.  In the post-9/11 and the post-Saddam eras, Saudi-American
relations have witnessed lots of lows.  Fourteen of the nineteen hijackers of the 9/11 attacks on U.S. soil were Saudi citizens, thereby triggering the charge of the administration of George W. Bush that the Wahhabi world views and the Saudi educational institutions have been chiefly responsible for creating self-styled global “Jihadists.”  The authoritarian regimes of the Middle East, at least temporarily, came under pressure from the United States to introduce democracy starting in July 2004.  Saudi
Arabia, along with Egypt, topped America’s demands for such a transformation.  However, once the Islamist-dominated
democratic government captured power in Iraq and the occupied Palestine, the Bush administration quickly abandoned the demands for democratization.  Bush’s dream of introducing Jeffersonian democracy in the Middle East quickly turned into a pipe dream.

Iran also became one of the beneficiaries of the Hezbollah-Israeli war of July-August 2006.  Since Israel failed to achieve its declared objective of eradicating Hezbollah at the end of that war, even after unleashing the fury of its air power over Lebanon, the bruised but still-standing Hezbollah was perceived in the Middle Eastern streets as a “victor” of that conflagration.  Iran was the chief supplier of weapons and military training for Hezbollah.  It was during that era that King Abdullah of Jordan made his detestable remark about the “Shia crescent across the Middle East.”

As much as Iran became a “rising power” of the Middle East between 2004 and 2008 – when there was no Saddam regime to challenge it, and when the U.S. prestige in the world of Islam was at its lowest as an occupier of Iraq and Afghanistan – the rulers
of that country sabotaged their own regional prestige by defrauding the Iranians and stealing the election for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  The Green Movement – that wonderful precursor to the Arab Awakening – emerged as the response of the young Iranians to bring about regime change.  The Ayatollahs got lucky, in that they succeeded in viciously suppressing the Green Movement.  However, the Achilles heel of the Islamic regime was exposed, and its legitimacy experienced an unprecedented level of erosion.

The Arab Awakening started in December of 2010 in the streets of Tunisia and became a tsunami of political change, and created a precedent of unimaginable magnitude for all the countries of the Middle East, especially for Iran.  The fact that the Arab Awakening was primarily a youth-driven movement, the fact that it appeared unstoppable because it was carried on the shoulders of the social media, and because it largely remained secular and democratic in its orientation, there is little doubt that the Ayatollahs are shaking in their inner sanctums about the resurgence of the Green Movement.  The chief difference between the failure of the Green Movement in overthrowing the Ayatollahs and the spectacular success of the Arab Awakening in overthrowing the rotting dictatorships in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya is that the resolve of the Iranian youth fell short.  Otherwise, there is absolutely no difference between the substantive goals of the Green Movement and the Arab Awakening as social movements.  As such, the success of the Green Movement was only temporarily hampered, but it cannot be permanently
denied.

The Arab Awakening is as much a threat to the Saudi Arabian regime as the Green Movement has been to the regime of the Ayatollahs.  Iran was as brutal about suppressing the Green Movement as the Saudi government was when it sent is paramilitary forces to put down the protest movement in Bahrain under the auspices of the GCC.  The world watched in horror the brutality of Saudi forces in the streets of Manama in March 2011, as if the earlier videos of the violence perpetrated by the Iranian security forces against the Green Movement were being played all over again.  Thus, while those two social movements challenged the political status quo in Iran and Bahrain (and indirectly defied the iron-clad status quo orientation of Saudi Arabia), it makes little sense for Tehran and Riyadh to continue their regional rivalry.  The commonality of the challenges that are ahead of them suggests that they should be minimizing the chances of friction and antagonism.

Then why does that irrational rivalry continue?  Possible explanations for such recurring irrationalities in the Middle East are endless.  I will mention only three.  First, given the fact that the Obama administration has taken the lead in alleging the “Iranian plot,” one is tempted to think that some low-level functionaries in Iran might have been involved in their attempts to conjure up an idiotic plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador.  Secondly, and alternatively, it is possible that the Obama administration, in its desperation to win Jewish votes in the next presidential election, is overstating the significance of that allegation, but is still remaining careful not to claim that Iran’s top leaders were involved in it.  Third, there is also the possibility that, after losing its strategic dominance in the Middle East and North Africa as a result of the turbulence created by the Arab Awakening, the United States wishes to create an anti-Iranian Arab nexus as a smoke screen to recreate its dominance in those regions.  As much as the autocratic Arab regimes served as pillars supporting the U.S. hegemony of the Arab world in the post-World War II decades, the remnants of them may still be counted on to play a similar role in its recreation now.  After all, the relationship between the U.S. hegemony and the autocratic regimes in the Middle East was nothing if it was not symbiotic.

The allegation that Iran’s elite Qods force was involved in the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador is too silly to believe.  The Qods force has ample room to challenge the American hegemony in Iraq and Afghanistan for it to take the suicidal step of attempting to commit a crime inside U.S. borders.   Iran does not even consider Saudi Arabia as a country in the same league to challenge its strategic maneuvers in West Asia or the Middle East.  It is only when one considers the possibilities of U.S.-Saudi maneuvers
to create an anti-Iranian nexus in the Arab world that Saudi Arabia gains significance, and this story also starts to sound familiar.  Even then, the risks of such a potential nexus associated with the long-term prospects of peace and stability in the Middle East are just too grave.

It is India’s obsession with Pakistan that is forcing it to increase its strategic presence in Afghanistan.  India knows that, given the geographic propinquity to Afghanistan, Pakistan will always enjoy an unsurpassable strategic advantage over India.  Still, India has a number of additional advantages.  First, it is a rising economic power and can entice Afghanistan by offering huge amounts for economic development.  As a country whose economy is teetering at the edge of a calamitous precipice, Pakistan has little to offer Afghanistan in terms of developmental assistance.  Second, as a strategic partner of the United States, India is given pretty much a green light by the administration of President Barack Obama to escalate its strategic presence in its immediate
neighborhood.  As recently as only a few days ago, President Obama – who knows as much about the tortured history of South Asia as he does about the convoluted history of Afghanistan – gave Pakistan a public lecture that it should not view India as its “mortal enemy.”  Needless to say, India also believes along the same line.  However, what is more noteworthy is that Pakistan does not.  Thus, it makes a lot of sense for India to persuade Pakistan of that through its foreign policy behavior – its non-threatening posture – rather than a near-obsessive pursuit of enhancing its strategic presence in Afghanistan.

A complete picture of the reality of South Asia is that both Pakistan and India have been behaving obsessively when it comes to Afghanistan.  The darkest days of India’s foreign policy were when Pakistan succeeded in enabling the capture of power by the Taliban in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s.  After that, India, along with Russia and Iran, did its best – albeit quite unsuccessfully –
to provide military and economic assistance to the Northern Alliance of Ahmad Shah Masood in his uphill but enormously courageous military campaign to dislodge the Taliban from power.  The United States succeeded in obtaining that goal where the collective endeavors of India, Russia and Iran failed.  The Taliban regime was dismantled in November 2001 as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

Pakistan brought the Taliban to power in Afghanistan substantially in its quest for “strategic depth,” which was supposed to provide it some advantage over India in future military conflicts.  India, for its part, had every reason to be fearful of the growing power of Islamist extremism in relation to the Taliban rule of Afghanistan, which provided an enhanced strategic advantage of Pakistan.  That advantage was expressed through numerous incidents of terrorism in the Indian-administered Kashmir.

As the Islamist groups inside Pakistan turned against their own government in the first decade of the current century, and as the U.S.-Pakistan ties remain under enormous stress, the shoe is on the other foot.  India is exploiting the situation to enhance its strategic presence in Afghanistan.  The recent strategic partnership between New Delhi and Kabul, which might turn out to be not worth the paper it is written on – is a persuasive example of that reality.  There is little doubt that it is aimed at undermining the strategic advantage of Pakistan, the strong denials of India and Afghanistan to the contrary.  In that sense, those ties remain the legitimate target of Pakistan’s own future endeavors to undermine them.

One wonders how much of this egregious reality of South Asian power politics President Obama knows, understands, and internalizes, when he stood atop his soap box and started lecturing Pakistan that India is not its mortal enemy.  If the United States were not embroiled in finding a political solution to the war of Afghanistan – a war that it seems to be losing at present –  it may have played a role in bringing the two South Asian arch-rivals together.  However, upon reflection, India is not at all perturbed that the United States is too busy with the war to be playing such a role.  In fact, India is of the view that its best interest will be served while the United States plays no such role, for it is afraid of losing its strategic advantage in its negotiations with Pakistan; negotiations that are not really aimed at resolving anything.

Pakistan, for its part, knows that it does not have much of a strategic advantage over economically powerful and politically resourceful India.  So Pakistan seems to be operating on a slightly different version of the old adage: “The strong do whatever they will, and the weak suffer what they must.”  Pakistan’s version of that adage involving India seems to be “weak will do unto the strong whenever they can.”  Afghanistan serves (and will continue to serve) as an ideal place for Pakistan, regardless of whether the United States stays or leaves that country.  Since it considers that country as a legitimate part of its sphere of  influence, Pakistan regards the “encroachment” of India in that country as a serious “offense,” which deserves an appropriate response.  Thus, and sadly so, the unending Indo-Pak rivalry in Afghanistan promises to be both brutal and bloody.

The best way to think about the making of a successful strategy to defeat or eradicate al-Qaida is to examine some countries where its presence and/or influence appears to be mounting: Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Yemen, countries of the Horn of Africa, Algeria (not so much in the entire North Africa at least for now), and Iraq. Some variables that are common to these states include, (but are not limited to): the absence of good governance, high unemployment, a high degree of corruption, the sustained promotion of Islamic radicalism through madrasas (religious schools), and highly ineffective and antiquated institutions of modern education.

The current global economic problems are the “best friends” of al-Qaida because they promise to keep the aforementioned countries as almost permanent victims of economic underdevelopment and the attendant political instability.  What is also likely to help AQ and other Islamist groups is that no one from the developed part of the world would come to them with any enduring rescue plans.

Even a casual reader of the newspaper knows that the phrase “nation-building” has become a four-letter word in almost all Western countries, and especially in the United States.  Since nation-building requires an enormous amount of investment of precious economic resources, with little promise of gratifying results even in the medium-term, no shrewd politician would stick his/her neck out by advocating nation-building, even for Afghanistan, which is listed in the “critical” category of the Foreign Policy Magazine’s list of failed states.  Besides, the deterioration of the economic
situation inside a number of major Western countries has been popularizing the public discussion of “nation-building, which is focused primarily inside their respective borders.  Let’s face it, when
American (or Greek, or Irish, or any other) citizens are facing mounting economic problems, high levels of unemployment, and relentless demands from the IMF and other economic institutions for belt-tightening for deficit reduction, most, if not all, in the West are in no mood to be charitable about the suffering “foreigners” from the so-called Third World countries.

Another major problem the aforementioned failing or failed states are facing is the chronic level of corruption that has consistently abused the large amount of economic assistance that has been
provided by a number of generous countries, especially the United States. Pakistan stands out as one such example.  If there were hopes that its current corps of civilian politicians would be more dedicated than their civilian or military predecessors about transparency and fighting chronic graft within the official circles, the world has been severely disappointed now.  While the institutions like the IMF insist on transparency related to the massive amount of money it releases as a debt, it cannot be sure that the money is being spent for the intended cause of raising the standard of living
of citizens of Pakistan, and that it would not go into the pockets of high politicians of that country.  The problem of corruption is probably ten-fold, or even hundred-fold, more in countries like Sudan, Algeria, and in almost all states of the Middle East and North Africa.

It is possible that the U.S. government has become utterly convinced that, since it cannot commit mega-funds for nation-building in failed or failing states, it would pursue the second best option of degrading the capabilities of the AQ and other Islamist organizations to carry out terrorist
attacks against the U.S. homeland.  The Obama administration’s current focus on killing AQ’s top leaders is that second-best option, which also provides the United States tactical victories.  No one can deny that the pursuit of such a goal is not a rational option.  Unfortunately, however, that does not solve the lasting problem related to transnational terrorism.

By tracking the current Islamist debates and activism in a number of Islamic countries, I have developed a strong sense that, despite the continuing rhetoric of attacking the United States, those groups are really focused on creating more failed states in South Asia, the Horn of Africa, North
Africa, and Central Asia.  One of the most prominent Islamist theoreticians, Musab al-Suri’s
concept of “Nizam la Tanzim” (system, not organization) has been given a new meaning.  His advice to the Islamists to create “small resistance units” seems to have emerged as a new twist in its focus on various Muslim countries.

One has to see how the presence of AQ is rising through increased number of attacks inside Iraq.  The same is true in the case of Pakistan, where the nexus between the Tehrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) and AQ is busy consistently raising the civilian toll through mindless acts of suicide bombings,
thereby strengthening the perception inside Pakistan about the growing vulnerability of the government.  Yemen is sliding steadily toward becoming the next “poster child” for regional
terrorism and a failed state.  The situation in Sudan is so complicated and hopeless that any serious global attempt to rectify the situation appears out of the question.  More to the point, no one really knows the exact meaning of “rectifying” the worsening politico-economic situation in that country.

Without belaboring the Kudzu analogy, the best way of weeding it out is to kill all the underground runners that provide sustenance to it, the most practical solution of defeating AQ and other Islamist groups is through the implementation of a nation-building strategy.  As long as it is perceived in
the West as a wasteful strategy, the Islamists’ strategy of increasing the number of failed states would enable them to not only survive but become even stronger in those failed states.  Just keep
examining what is currently transpiring in Pakistan and Yemen.  In fact, a recent government study has already proven the point that I have been making in this space for a long time.  The Horn of Africa
has already become well-nigh a lost cause.

Since I am finishing my own book on the relationship between the Islamic challenge and the great powers, I read Kull’s essay with considerable interest.  His essay is interesting and contains more than a few insights about Muslims.  I think his insights are worth considering, because he is much more informed than most of the other written work that I have read on the subject.

One of Kull’s observations that captured my interest deserves some attention.  Describing one of the “most fundamental” aspects of the Muslim perception about America, he writes: Muslims are of the view “…that America seeks to undermine Islam – a perception held by overwhelming majorities.”  The author goes on to add:

Muslims tend to view current events through the lens of a long-standing historical narrative.  According to this narrative, going back to the Middle Ages Christian forces from the West have persistently sought to break the grip of Islam on its people.  By holding fast, Muslims believe, they were able to flourish as a civilization, at times superseding the West in many dimensions.  Today, they believe, that struggle continues – except that today the challenge is greater.  Western cultural products are seen as seductively undermining Islamic culture.  More importantly, Western powers have gained extraordinary military might that is seen as threatening and coercively dominating the Muslim world and propping up secular autocrats ready to accommodate the West.”

Since I have been reflecting over the issue of why there is so much antipathy between the United States and the world of Islam, my own tentative conclusion is that it is the outcome of America’s long-held perception (which goes back to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran, which brought to power a stridently anti-American government) that Islam as a political force
is determined to challenge the United States’ global dominance.  The first phase of that challenge would come within the world of Islam (it can be argued that it is already a reality in Iran, and it is likely to become a reality if or when anti-U.S. governments are  elected as a result of political changes stemming from the Arab Awakening).  Then, in the next phase, it is likely to become a global challenge, since the followers of Islam reside all over the world.  That perception was only intensified in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.  The anti-U.S. rhetoric of al-Qaida continues to echo throughout the Muslim world, even when that entity is experiencing a palpable decline, largely as a result of the assassination of Usama Bin Laden at the hands of the U.S. Special Forces in May of this year.

The United States never understood that the chief strength of al-Qaida’s message was not related to Islam as a religion, but with Islam as a political force.  From the religious perspective, no one can create a universally accepted argument (universal in its applicability among the Muslims of the world) about the implementation of Jihad against the United States – that is when it is  legitimate to declare a Jihad or who is a legitimate authority to make such a declaration.  However, from the perspective of politics, a powerful argument can be made – and was indeed made by al-Qaida and other Islamist groups – that the United States has a fight with Islam.

The United States had to respond to attacks on its territory by invading Afghanistan, where originally planned by al-Qaida  originally planned those attacks.  However, the rhetoric and the palpable resolve of the Bush administration to remain on the offensive under the general rubric of “global war on terrorism,” perpetuated its own narrative, especially on the part of the
Muslims that America is determined to dominate the world of Islam through military attacks and occupation.  That  narrative and the decision of President George W. Bush to invade Iraq, more than anything that al-Qaida would have said or done, became the mother’s milk for anti-American feelings inside various Muslim countries.

From the American side, the perception related to Islam may not have been driven primarily by the treatment of it as a religion, but as a political force.  In fact, a lot of Western “experts” on Islam take the position that America’s problem is with “political  Islam” and not with the religion of Islam.  Sadly, a number of Muslim scholars, in parroting Western scholars, have adopted that rhetoric.  However, anyone who knows anything about Islam knows that politics is only the flip side of Islam as a religion.  For a majority of Muslims anywhere in the world, Islam is both a religion and a political force.  As such, Islam contains its notions of government, its own rules of governance (the Shariah), and its own code of conduct in terms of dealing with the West.  There is a lot of room for interpretation on all those issues and there is no one prevailing dominant perspective on them.

This is one of the most controversial  of the problem that exists between Islam and the West. While al-Qaida and other  self-styled “Jihadists” have articulated their militant rhetoric related to the West and how to deal with it (i.e., only by perpetrating terrorist attacks), there is no equally voluble or dominant narrative that came out from the side of any Muslim government countering that of the Islamists.  As a complicated political force and religion, Islam needed equally sophisticated narratives explaining the meaning of a lot of concepts like Jihad, Ijtihad, and the need of interpreting both of them in the ever-changing intricacies of a globalized world.  However, no Muslim scholar – much less a Muslim politician – could muster enough mental prowess or courage to respond to the challenge.  Thus, the best that he Western world knows about the relationship between Muslims and the West is through the notion of anger.  It is mostly an intellectual cop-out on the part of its peddlers, because they lack other multi-dimensional and sophisticated explanations.

Muslim attitudes, at the least, are a potpourri of feelings of antipathy, frustration, and even anger for being at the bottom of the barrel in the hierarchy of nations.  The Quran indentifies them as the best of the chosen people.  Yet what confuses them is why that divine statement does not include them among the most powerful and influential nations of the contemporary world.  Muslims might be angry at their inability to alter their plight as a collective entity or as individuals when it comes to their failure to bring an end to enduring autocratic rules in their polities.  They rightly blame those rules for keeping them backward and poor and for their incapability to control their destiny in the realms of politics and economics.  Perhaps they feel too strongly in blaming the West for its support of autocratic rulers; however, no one can ever state that they are wrong in holding that conviction.

Being backward, weak, and subservient to the West were motivating forces behind China’s desire to become a premier rising power of the world.  However, the most important initial step that China took in becoming a rising power was when it
succeeded in overthrowing the highly corrupt regime of Chiang Kai-shek, which was also a friend of the West.  Neither the Arabs nor the Muslims of other nations succeeded in creating governments that are even half as dedicated about becoming a world-class power as the PRC (Contemporary Turkey might be one rare exception).  Muslim autocrats seem happy to be heading the regimes that kept their peoples backward and weak.  Those rulers treat those traits as guarantees for prolonging their discreditable rule.

Still, Kull is right in noting that Muslim anger stems from the fact that the United States has been determined about imposing its own model of secularism on Muslim countries, because “most Muslims want to preserve the Islamic foundations of their society and want their public life to be infused with Islamic principles.  Most want Shariah to play a greater role.  They want a quality of piety to pervade their culture. Integrating these aspirations with liberal ideas of democracy and freedom of religion is a decidedly challenging endeavor.”  Consequently, according to Kull, “…it is particularly infuriating to Muslims when America intervenes in a way that is destabilizing, trying to root for one imagined side against another, in what Americans conceive of as an inevitable evolution toward the victory of one side.”

As much as the United States portrays itself as a champion of democracy, when it comes to the world of Islam, the lone superpower wishes to see the establishment of a “secular” democracy only.  Bush was clearly disappointed, indeed shocked, at the emergence of an Islamic democracy in the post-Saddam Iraq, which he wanted to emerge as a prototype of the Jeffersonian
democracy in the Middle East.  To add further to his dismay, the citizens of the occupied Palestine overwhelmingly voted for Hamas, a predominantly Islamist party, in the election of January 2006.  Even after entering into office, Hamas refused to either renounce violence or recognize Israel so that it could negotiate with the Jewish state the political resolution of the Palestinian
conflict.  The immediate response of the United States and the EU was the issuance of a threat that they would cut off funds for the Palestinian Authority (PA).  That decision became the basis for denying any chances of effective governance for Hamas, and thereby leaving the entire Palestinian conflict on the precipice of another disaster of a major proportion.  To be fair, however, Hamas, as well as the West, are equally responsible for this catastrophe in the making.

As the countries of the Middle East and North Africa experience the Arab Awakening, the American hope is that the eventual outcome of the ouster of a number of aging autocrats is the emergence of secular democracy.  Needless to say, the chances of the emergence of such a model of governance in a number of Arab countries appear reasonably good for now.  However, the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Al-Nahda (Renaissance) party in Tunisia remain very well-established Islamist parties, one cannot rule out the emergence of a coalition in which the Islamists will also play a visible role, at least initially.  The major unknown about this issue is whether the Islamist parties will remain committed to the proposition of the evolution of a pluralistic democracy – as they appear to be for now – or the moderate elements of them would be replaced by the hardliners or the self-styled Jihadists.

From the perspectives of the Muslims of the Arab world, the Arab Awakening holds a great promise that they would take charge of their destiny, even though the high visibility of France and the UK in the immediate aftermath of the downfall (though not yet the capture of) Muammar Qaddafi is a worrisome development.  Given the reprehensible legacy of colonialism of those two countries in the Arab world, the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) has every reason to remain wary about not losing any control to the representatives of those two countries or to the United States in its eagerness to get technical assistance in governing Libya in the coming months and years.

In the final analysis, Muslims have reason to be angry at the United States; however, they must ensure that, while they remain ambivalent or unhappy toward Washington, they do not lose track of finding a rapprochement with it.  After all, the United States has an established record of coming to the rescue of Kuwait when it was invaded by Saddam Hussein.  Washington also played a
crucial role in the Yugoslavian conflict and in bringing an end to the Serbian massacre and dominance of the Bosnian Muslims.

As a starting point, Muslims need to shed their legacy of believing in conspiracies and stop looking for one-dimensional explanations related to the United States’ attitude toward Islam.  At the same time, US decision makers need to revisit their cultural prejudice of imposing secularism on the world of Islam.  This palpable feeling of condescension toward Muslim countries has to be cast aside if the United States is to have even a decent chance of playing the role of an honest broker in the Muslim regions in the future.

The post-9/11 involvement of the United States in the world of Islam should have provided its top officials a sophisticated understanding about Muslims’ feelings toward secularism, especially when proposed or imposed from the West.  Secularism might be tried as an important rule of governance in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, or Libya.  However, that experimentation has a greater chance of success if it is implemented from within; it is most likely to fail if it is imposed from abroad.  If the United States should have learned one lesson after invading Iraq, it is that externally imposed democracy is likely to be very tenable at best.  Only when it is adopted as a result of popular demand from within that it holds a high promise of success.  Indonesia is an excellent example of the correctness of that observation.

It was AQ’s obsession for violence that was one of the major reasons why it lost whatever support it had inside a number of Muslim countries, at least in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.  The best example of that fact was the entire episode of the emergence of the Sahwa (awakening) movement in Iraq in 2005 and its decision to cooperate with the U.S. occupation forces in order to defeat AQ.

It is only with the benefit of hindsight that we can now state that the major reason for AQ’s downfall was that it had no long-term strategy or plan.  It succeeded in carrying out the 9/11 attacks on the United States, and was stunned not only by its success but especially by the magnitude of the U.S. response.  Even if had the luxury of staying put in one country and continue to train its terrorist forces, it could not have come up with an effective plan of taking over any Arab regime, because all it knew during the heyday of its existence was destruction, murder, and mayhem.

AQ’s success in carrying out the 9/11 attacks had a lot to do with the fact that, as an open society, America was always vulnerable for such a possibility.  However, after the United States went on the defensive in terms of protecting its homeland from any such future attacks, it was next to impossible for AQ, or any other organization, to succeed again, at least not in terms of carrying out another attack of the scale of 9/11.  So, especially during the last two or three years of his life — when he became increasingly convinced of the irreversible nature of the diminishing popularity of AQ — Bin Laden was fixated about carrying out such an attack as the only hope of escalating the popularity, if not increasing the relevance, of his organization.  His obsession underscored not only his desperation to make his organization relevant once again, but it was also a reflection of how cut off he really was during those years about the irreversibility of the growing irrelevance of AQ.

The United States’ decision to relentlessly pursue the eradication of AQ played a major role in that organization’s inability to adjust fast enough for the changed realities of the post-9/11 world.  Even though the AQ “experts” in the West kept using their imagination to underscore the alleged growing effectiveness of a “leaderless Jihad,” in reality, AQ was only living off of its reputation stemming from its success of carrying out the 9/11 attacks on the United States.  The Bush administration might have been successful in eradicating AQ right after the Afghanistan invasion in 2001 if not for its foolish adventurism of invading Iraq.  Still, given the enormous resources that the United States invested in destroying AQ, even while it was bogged down in Iraq, that objective had to bear fruit over the long haul.  Only AQ’s mindless use of violence, even against the Sunnis in Iraq, turned out to be a major blow to it when the U.S. military leaders, quite deftly, accepted the Sahwa’s offer of fighting and defeating AQ in Iraq.

No one did more damage to the long-term effectiveness and popularity of AQ than Musab al-Zarqawi himself.  His use of mindless violence from 2004 until his death in June 2006 was so potentially damaging for AQ that even UBL and Ayman al-Zawahiri wrote letters to Zarqawi from their hiding places advising him to tone down his sectarian (anti-Shia) agenda.  It was the legacy of AQ violence against the Sunni insurgents that led to the creation of the Sahwa movement and the decision of that movement to approach the U.S. forces with a view to forming the anti-AQ nexus.  In this sense, even though AQ had an excellent opportunity to emerge as an anti-American and pro-Arab entity in Iraq, it not only blew that opportunity but also became the chief tool for its own major defeat.

There was also a special attribute of AQ as an Islamist entity that almost guaranteed its destruction in the long run.  It never was a fighting force that was driven by political objectives in the pursuit of which it was capable of using pragmatism as its major operating tool.  At least the most deadly leaders of that organization were suffering from visions of grandeur as the true heir apparent of the Salafis.  As such, they could not lose their self-styled religiosity long enough to become opportunistic in their modus operandi.  What they also did not realize — and might never realize — is that no matter how convinced they were of that “fact,” they were never accepted as Salafis by the global Muslim community at large.

Between 2003 and 2011, the operational maneuverability of AQ’s leadership was incessantly shrinking.  The spectacular role played by the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) in tracking the AQ leaders and then eradicating them through the use of drone attacks at will during the second term of the Bush administration and throughout the current term of President Barack Obama reduced AQ into a virtual non-entity, at least within the geographical boundaries of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Even though other AQ-affiliated organizations flourished in the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa, and North Africa, the main organization could never emerge as an entity that could carry out another attack on the United States on the scale of 9/11. The U.S. global campaign to dry up terrorist financing should be given a major credit for that.

Despite the aforementioned setbacks, the worst nightmare of AQ was the Arab Awakening that arose in Tunisia in December of 2010 and caught on like wildfire in the entire Arab world.  Even though the future of Tunisia and Egypt — countries that successfully overthrew their dictators — is not known, in terms of their promise to become democratic, there is a lot of hope in that part of the world that such a reality is most likely to emerge in the next months.  As Muammar Qaddafi has become a fugitive former head of state in Libya, as Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen is recuperating in Saudi Arabia while threatening to return to Yemen to his job as president, and as Bishara Assad is likely to meet the same fate as Qaddafi, no one anywhere is thinking of AQ as a movement that holds any promise of political change in the Arab or any other Muslim country.

Even when one thinks of a new generation of AQ leaders in the coming years — assuming that AQ survives as a movement of any promise — the speculations are that they would be even deadlier than UBL or al-Zawahiri.  Such an ominous description, if anything, underscores the fact that AQ truly belongs in the dustbin of history.  It never was a true movement for change for the Arab or Muslim world.  On the contrary, most, if not all, observers of the Arab world hold high hopes in the Arab Awakening.

When the Hezbollah party was created by Iran in the early in 1980s, it was based on the ideology that carried out the Islamic revolution, which had ousted “America’s Shah.”  That ideology was brimming with Shia pride.  The establishment of an Islamic government in Iran was not only a revolutionary idea in its own right, but it also created the possibility that such a major change had also paved the way for creating Islamic governments in other Muslim countries.  As participants of the Islamic revolution, the representatives of Iran went to Lebanon in their zealotry to politicize the Shias of Lebanon, who were disenfranchised and marginalized by an anachronistic Sunni-Christian power system that was ruling Lebanon.  The Mustadafeen (the deprived or dispossessed ones in the vocabulary of Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini) of Lebanon had to be empowered through a process of militant politicization.  Hezbollah was created out of that endeavor.  Iran’s politicization of the Shias of Lebanon gave them a new self image.  They were taught that the Sunni-Christian power arrangement was highly corrupt, and that, in order to acquire what is their right, the Shias of Lebanon had to fight for it.

Consequently, the Shias of Lebanon erupted on the political scene with a vengeance. They had had enough of being pushed around by the corrupt elites of their country.  They were also getting especially tired of becoming victims of Israeli retaliations in response to the attacks launched on the Jewish state by the Palestinian refugees of Lebanon.

Around the same time, the Israeli government invaded Lebanon to “finish off” the Palestinian “terrorist” attacks.  However, in the process of invading Lebanon, the Israeli leaders also decided to become the kingmakers of that country by forging an alliance with the Christian Phalangists.  In fact, according to one source, creating a Christian state in Lebanon has been a long dream of the Israeli leadership.  Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was of the view that Israel “should prepare to go over on the offensive with the aim of smashing Lebanon, Transjordan and Syria. The weak point of the Arab coalition is Lebanon for its regime is artificial and easy to undermine. A Christian state should be established, with its southern border on the Litani River. We will make peace with it.”[1]

It was during the initial phase of the Israeli invasion and the occupation of Lebanon that Hezbollah intensified its activities.  Its shadowy predecessor was blamed for the mass assassination of the U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983.  President Ronald Reagan, as much as he was interested in cooperating with the Israelis about promoting a Christian dominant regime in Lebanon, wisely decided to pull out the American forces from that country.  And Hezbollah continued its presence and dominance of the Lebanese political scenes.

Hezbollah’s finest hour was the 2006 war against Israel.  During that short war, the Jewish state swore to eradicate it, and unleashed a campaign of intense bombing of Lebanon.  However, when the dust settled, Hezbollah was bruised but still standing.  In the Arab world, the outcome of that campaign was interpreted as a “victory” for Hezbollah over Israel.  In the aftermath of that episode, the political popularity of Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, witnessed new heights in the Arab world.  No Arab leader had the reputation of challenging the military might of Israel and surviving it.  In fact, before the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli war, Israel had the reputation of handing a crushing defeat to the Arab armed forces, thanks to its decisive victory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Along with Hezbollah, Iran’s political reputation as the chief backer of that party also grew in the aftermath of the 2006 war, as the entire Sunni Arab leadership watched with a mixture of envy and frustration. Even the United States, whose occupation forces were then fighting an uphill battle with the Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaida-related Islamists, appeared vulnerable to encountering a defeat in Iraq. While the Arab leaders were attempting to hide their envy of Iran and Hezbollah by coining highly pejorative phrases such as the threat of the rising so-called “Shia crescent,” Hezbollah proceeded to further dominate the internal
power distribution of Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s dominance of Lebanese politics might have lasted for quite awhile, except for the Arab awakening that is currently sweeping through the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. One of the current targets of that movement is the growing revolt inside Syria – one of the chief backers of Hezbollah.  As Bishara Assad has turned loose his killing machine against his citizens, his regime, instead of getting strong, is looking increasingly desperate and weak. That is bad news for Hezbollah and Iran, which had been playing a major role in Lebanon, thanks to the Syrian occupation of that country since 1976. Even though that occupation happily ended in April 2005, Syria remained an influential actor inside Lebanon because of its geographical proximity to that country, and also because of the highly proactive resolve of both Iran and Syria to influence the internal power
dynamics of Lebanon through their support of Hezbollah.

As the future of Bishara Assad’s murderous rule appears bleak in Syria, Hezbollah, and its long-standing nexus with Syria and Iran, looks increasingly anachronistic.  If or when the Assad regime falls, Iran’s influence in Lebanon will also suffer a major setback.

One option for Hezbollah is to revise its strategy of dependence on Syria and Iran.  But there is no alternate strategy for Hezbollah to fall back on.  As a Shia entity, it was heavily reliant on Shia Iran and on the Alawite-ruled regime of Syria.  Even though the Alawites (a minority Shia sect) comprise no more than 10 percent of the Syrian population, they have been ruling that country for several decades.  Hezbollah has no other friendly state supporting it.  In fact, some rare good news for the Sunni Arab leaders — who have been highly wary about Iran’s rising influence in Lebanon and Iraq, and who were also manifesting their antipathy toward Iran by airing their concern through muttering the phrase “Shia crescent” — is that the future of Hezbollah’s continued dominance of Lebanon’s  internal politics also appears shaky and highly questionable.

The Arab awakening is the revolutionary movement of today.  How it will change the political face of the Middle East is not yet known or understood. But, like the aging monarchs and dictators of the Middle East, Hezbollah has little reason to be optimistic. The march of history in the Middle East promises to throw Hezbollah — the revolutionary of yesteryear — into the dustbin of history.