Today this history reaches its conclusion. This section of history will cover all of the events that have shaped history in the Middle East during my lifetime from the entry of the United States during the Gulf War up to the present conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and with the Islamic State. I hope that this survey has helped to broaden understandings about this region and it is my sincerest desire that this conclusion serves to underscore the importance of historical insight in political decision making.
ERA OF UNITED STATES DOMINANCE
THE GULF WAR
After his "victory" over Iran earned him the respect and admiration of the Arab people and Western powers, Saddam decided to spend some of his newly earned political capital by acting like a western power himself. In addition to his continued threats on Israel, Saddam was annoyed at tiny, neighboring Kuwait for not bowing to his demand of easy passage to the gulf and for over producing oil, thus diminishing Saddam's revenue available to rebuild after his long war with Iran. On August 2nd, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and quickly took control of their plentiful oil fields.
The United Nations acted quickly by imposing heavy sanctions on Iraq however Saddam's advance was not slowed. As intelligence reports showed Iraqi forces making their way towards the Saudi border, the previously supportive United States government denounced Saddam and responded by supplying the Saudi kingdom with military assistance to stop Saddam from expanding his oil empire to include half of the world's total production. After some diplomatic appeals and deal making, the United States succeeded in raising a vast sum of money as well as a huge coalition of forces to oppose Iraq. Arab countries such as Hosni Mubarak's Egypt, who had made a separate peace with Israel and viewed itself as a traditional powerbroker in the region, and Hafez al-Assad's Syria, a long-standing rival of Saddam joined the coalition. In total, the coalition included 34 countries and sought to send a message that in a post-WWII World, sovereign nations cannot be taken by force (and also that no one man should control half the world's oil)
The response to Saddam's actions within the Arab world was mixed. Some Arabs continued to view Saddam as the new Nasser who would succeed in repelling western imperialists and creating pan-Arabian unity. Many saw any type of western influence as a threat while others owed their lives and livelihoods to that very intervention. Saddam sought to compare his defiance of The West and invasion of Kuwait to Israel's occupation of previously appointed Arab lands supported by The West, however, his argument could not prevent the inevitable. Western opinion had turned against Saddam and he was no longer seen as the container of Iran but the aggressor in inter-Arab affairs and a threat to the stability of the region. President George H. W. Bush even went as far as to constantly compare Saddam to Hitler. Overwhelming bombardments and outflanking maneuvers drove Saddam from Kuwait a matter of weeks after the entrance of the coalition. Saddam's reputation was tarnished and like Nasser before him, his heavy rhetoric earned him a humiliating and debilitating defeat and would eventually cost him much more than his role as Dictator. For that moment, however, he was able to hold power.
AFTERMATH OF THE GULF WAR
Saddam's defeat abroad was not the only threat that his administration faced in the 1990's. Domestically, the northern Kurds and southern Shias, convinced of Saddam's imminent deposal rebelled but, without the support of the coalition, were once again put down. Many fled to Turkey and Iran respectively. The international community also focused their attention on Saddam, calling for him to dismantle his "weapons of mass destruction" . It was known that Saddam had access to chemical weapons (he had used them against Iran and the Kurds) but it was also suspected that he was developing biological weapons and sought to enrich uranium in order to construct nuclear weapons. UN Resolution 687 created the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) to search for these weapons in Iraq. With the end of the Gulf War and the subsequent end of The Cold War, the United States now stood as the sole superpower in the world, the Middle East region under its watchful eye in the years to come.
The military deployment to the region conducted under President George H. W. Bush in response to Saddam’s aggression (and to protect US interests) encircled the Middle East and put US troops within striking distance of any potential conflict from Palestine to the Persian Gulf. The US took the place of the British and French before them in trying to put a lid on a region that was boiling over. Middle Easterners regarded the shift from Cold War politics to unilateral US meddling to be more of the same. This encirclement continued and accelerated leading up to the 2003 war in Iraq and the present day. See below:
A 2003 map illuminating the US' encirclement policy
(15)
No-fly zones were imposed in the north and south of Iraq with the stated goal of protecting Kurds and Shias respectively, however, after in-fighting between Kurds backed on one side by Iran and on the other by Turkey and Iraq broke out, much of this "progress" was undone. The United States' foreign policy was heavily criticized when Turkey began outwardly attacking their own Kurdish population with no response by the US. A double standard was again preached by Saddam who found himself ever more in the US' crosshairs.
The sanctions imposed on Iraq in order to force Saddam to disarm did not succeed. Quality of life plummeted to near-starvation and Middle Age style sanitation. As a result of the sanctions, over one million Iraqis died while their country devolved from what was one of the most modern states in the region to that of one with worse public health than much of Africa. All of this suffering did not turn public opinion against Saddam. Instead, he was seen by many Iraqis as a staunch defender of their land and opinion instead turned against The West. In 1996, Saddam negotiated a deal with the UN dubbed "Oil for Food" in which he was able to bring food to his starving population. He was met with praise.
UNSCOM made various discoveries of weapons or evidence of weapons throughout the 90s but were also consistently challenged by Saddam's government. The regime frequently broke its promises or allegedly moved weapon material and information. At the same time, the US government gathered and released intelligence to drum up support for further intervention in Iraq. Saddam expelled UNSCOM inspectors in 1998 and said he would no longer cooperate with any US-sponsored mission of disarmament. In response, President Clinton bombarded Iraqi targets in the hopes of finally dislodging Saddam's regime. This effort again failed. The UN created a new inspection team, UNMOVIC which was initially denied entry into Iraq until November of 2002 when, perhaps due to the growing war rhetoric streaming from the US and the UK, Saddam allowed their entry and began to cooperate.
Outrage towards the United States’ ambivalence of the suffering in Iraq led the Arab nations of Saudi Arabia and Egypt to open their borders to suffering Iraqis. Oil smuggling became common and eventually the UN was forced to allow Iraq to sell its oil according to its OPEC quota. The US became its biggest buyer, ironic considering how heavy its condemnations of Saddam had become.
Although Iraq had begun to destroy many of its major missile systems, the United States government under George W. Bush viewed this new found cooperation as a game being played by Saddam and continued to lobby for war in Iraq. Documents were used as evidence whose legitimacy was heavily questioned and reports of censorship were frequent. The UN continued to view UNMOVIC as a success and urged the United States and Britain to hold off on an invasion. Continued efforts by the Bush administration to scare the public and establish fanciful links between Saddam and al-Qaeda led to the ultimate declaration of War on Iraq in March of 2003.
CONTINUED CONFLICT IN PALESTINE
While the United States fought the Gulf War and sought to strangle Saddam out of Iraq, its objectives in Palestine were just the opposite, to encourage peace and bring new leaders to the fore. The double standard that US foreign policy employed in Israel angered other Middle Eastern countries who condemned Israel as an unlawful occupier in Arab lands. Since 1967 Israel had occupied the whole of Palestine and constructed (internationally recognized as illegal) settlements throughout the UN appointed Palestinian zone. Their settlement policy earned them a political black eye with much of the international community. In 1991, a peace conference in Madrid put Israel at the table with representatives of the Palestinians and other Arab nations specifically Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. While the Talks accomplished very little, they marked an important step towards cooperation.
With Yitzhak Rabin as Prime Minister of Israel it seemed for a moment, there would be peace. The Oslo Accords of 1993, which Rabin was a signatory of, were based on the earlier Camp David Accords which brought peace and cooperation to the nations of Israel and Egypt under Anwar Sadat and returned the Sinai to Egypt. The Oslo Accords created the Palestinian Authority, a governing structure to administer the areas of the Gaza Strip and West Bank and called for the slow withdrawal of Israeli troops from those areas except for "specified military locations", the city of Jerusalem, and settlements built before the mandatory time. While the accords did not create a Palestinian state, they did give the Palestinian people political power and put both sides of the conflict on a road towards a lasting peace. What happened next was tragic.
A 2007 map of Israeli settlements.
(16)
In 1995, Rabin was assassinated by an extremist Zionist who believed that peace with Palestine would spell disaster for Israel's existence. The peace process began to unravel as Hamas, a political Islamist-militant group spawned during the Intifada in the Gaza Strip, violently opposed the peace proposals which they had not been called to participate in. Benjamin Netanyahu became Prime Minister in 1996 and drastically slowed down the process. He stood in opposition to the Oslo accords and encouraged the accelerated construction of settlements in the occupied territories. The Wye River Memorandum was drafted in response to this stalled peace, hoping to encourage an Israeli retreat. Even after being agreed to by Netanyahu, the plan was not carried out and the peace was once again stalled.
Netanyahu's hard line position, while initially popular, lost its luster with the Israeli public who in 1999 elected the Labour party leader Ehud Barak. During his premiership, Israel was pushed out of Lebanon by Hezbollah after 22 years of occupation. The second Camp David Summit was held in 2000 where Israel made more concessions than in the past but failed to reach an agreement mainly due to the weak provisions for returning Palestinian refugees to their homes and the desire of both sides to control the Dome of the Rock/Temple Mount.
During the entire "peace process", Palestinian living conditions sharply declined while Jewish settlements in the best land available doubled in construction between the time of Oslo and Camp David II. Many Palestinians believed that the entire process was little more than a public relations ploy to dismantle their chance of statehood. In 2000, the second Intifada erupted after Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam. Since Israel controlled all of Jerusalem Sharon sought to express every Israeli's right to visit the site however many Palestinians viewed the visit as highly provocative, underscoring Israeli dominance. The exercise acted as a spark to the long grinding down of Palestinian patience and led to outright violence. In response to the uprising, Israel decimated the Palestinian Authorities government both literally (via bulldozer) and figuratively (by demoralizing their leaders) and forced Arafat underground (he was underground.... in a bunker). Israel constructed a wall along much of their “ border” with the West Bank in response to violence. Palestinians and many in the international community feel that the barrier constitutes a human rights issue and some have gone as far as to say that the area has become “ The Worlds largest open-air prison”. For fear of violence, many Palestinian leaders remained in the shadows and allowed militant groups like Hamas to take control of the administration. In 2001, Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister and continued to inhibit the Palestinian's ability to govern. The Arab League Unanimously approved a peace treaty in return for a full withdrawal from the occupied territories once again. This kind of cooperation between all Arab nations had never been seen before yet it failed to yield any change in policy.
Nicholas Pelham, in a contribution to Peter Mansfield's A History Of The Middle East summed up the state of the "peace process" as it was in 2001, "Ten years after the Madrid summit, Palestinians had no land, Israelis no peace, and the United States few pickings to show for ten years of regional brokerage"(412).
ARAB WORLD STRUGGLES WITH MODERNIZATION
In the early 1990's, the US tried to encourage Middle Eastern states along the path of democracy. In all of their attempts, however, the populous favored religious leaning candidates and so the US double backed on their plan, feeling that secular autocrats were better than religious democracies. After the deaths of the rulers of Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, and Syria, their sons took their place as heads of state and were fondly greeted by the United States. Among these, Syria was the most bizarre since they were supposedly a socialist republic supported by Russia. This system quickly backfired as the sons had little government experience and had not earned their titles or their subjects approval. Iran's Republican system, while far from perfect is the only one in the region immune to hereditary autocrats. The Supreme Leader, chosen from among the religiously enlightened is appointed by a council while the parliament and president are elected by the people. Kinks in the system have given the religious right more power in recent years due to the Supreme Leader's ability to appoint the judiciary and armed forces. While the United States continued to fear Iran throughout the 90's-2000's, their system continued to match that of the USA's more than most of her allies.
The promise of "economic freedom" preached by the first President Bush came to mean even higher levels of government intervention and control of major industries. For example, in Saudi Arabia, one of the United States' most advantageous allies, the state-owned oil company, Aramco employs 60,000 people, is estimated as the worlds most valuable company and is wholly owned by the government. Many Arab states, fearing the loss of control preferred to keep business within their grasp, leading to a lack of investment into other industries. Dubai, a gulf emirate is a notable exception who encouraged investment and have grown to become a symbol of wealth and prosperity in The Middle East. In the late 90's this lack of investment began to reveal the rotting interior of the top heavy oil states. Terrorism also played a role in the failure of Middle Eastern economies. For a region with such history, beauty, and intrigue, tourism has long been an important industry, however, has been severely reduced to accommodate only the most adventurous of travelers.
Oil discoveries by Russia and the US as well as the implementation of new extraction methods led to a flood of oil on the world market and a crash in prices for the Middle Eastern countries. The direct result was a major decline in living standards for the average person. A huge birthrate in the region mixed with massive unemployment led the governments (Especially Saudi Arabia) to create comprehensive welfare systems which only furthered their spending and administrative problems plunging their nations into debt. Within Saudi Arabia, the most endowed of all the gulf nations, citizens saw their incomes drop by almost two-thirds while many lived without access to running water and power outages were commonplace. Social divisions were exacerbated by the flow of this drastically reduced wealth following sectarian lines and sectarian revolt followed. Within the Saudi state, social unrest presents an additional issue as the Shia minority who are oft-repressed inhabit the oil-rich Eastern Provence, the lifeblood of the Kingdom. As such, Saudi leadership has been forced to balance a state-sponsored ideology which laments the innovation of Shiism and keeps women sequestered while simultaneously allowing those very groups more rights than any other if working for or in some way influencing Aramco. This type of hypocrisy permeates the kingdom and had presented challenges while oil was high. Today, with the price of oil dropping, the house of Saud's complacent subjects have begun questioning the double standard which has anchored their country with seemingly insurmountable social issues.
Within the tiny island nation of Bahrain, the Sunni elites monetary dominance over the much larger Shia majority led to large-scale protests and violent government intervention and set the tone for wider-reaching issues in the years to come. What was revealed was just how tied the Middle East is to oil, not just for the wealth of their ruling elite but also for the unity of their nations.
POLITICAL ISLAM
There are many factors that led to the rise of political Islam (that is, the idea that Islamic tradition and Sharia law should rule all Muslim people) in the twentieth and twenty-first century. Much of the intent of all of the above history is to illuminate the factors that pushed the Middle East into its embrace of political Islam and out of its affair with The West. Continued military humiliations by what was, in its time, the greatest empire on planet Earth coupled with inept rulers was the first level of discord. A failure to equitably distribute wealth and power along with the continued shortcomings of the identity policies of nationalism, socialism, and democracy led Islamic leaders to challenge politicians who they supposed were nothing more than western puppets. The Islamic revolution in Iran empowered Shia's while their Sunni counterparts were left reeling, angered that their leaders had not revived a caliphate before the revisionist Shias. Finally, Middle Easterners were baffled with their secular leaders continued inability to bring sustainable prosperity to their people while simultaneously owning 2/3 of the most important resource on the planet and the driver of the entire world economy.
While today we are accustomed to hearing about Islamic fundamentalism only in regard to terror, the fact is that these "jihadis" make up only a minute percentage of the supporters of political Islam. At its genesis, the movement came at the hands of somewhat wealthy, educated people, much like the revolution in The United States, who rejected the use of violence and especially abhorred its use against fellow Muslims. The early leaders in the movement resembled the philosophical musings of Karl Marx or Benjamin Franklin much more than the violent actions of Joseph Stalin or Osama bin Laden. While philosophical and intellectual writers argued for the need to unite Muslims under the umbrella of Sharia, the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan won the first glorious victory for Muslims in generations. Osama bin Laden compared his current situation to that of the early days of Islam where Muhammad and his armies defeated the two superpowers of his time and ushered the Muslim people into a golden age. With the defeat of the USSR, the Afghan Arabs had rid the Muslim world of the influence of one superpower. Bin Laden now turned his focus towards the remaining enemy of Islam, and the only lasting superpower, The United States.
GLOBALIZATION OF ISLAMIC JIHAD
As Islamist political parties began to take shape and grow in appeal, the so-called Afghan Arabs spread their tales of victory and thirst for jihad to their homelands. The secular leaders of the region, clinging to their posts against popular demand for Sharia, expelled many jihadis. Osama bin Laden himself was expelled from his home of Saudi Arabia after his intense criticism of the regime. The Saudi’s reliance on the United States for protection angered Bin Laden whose doctrine held that the holy places of Mecca and Medina should only ever be protected by Muslims. Meanwhile, the Taliban filled the power vacuum in Afghanistan and continued their conquest, imposing Sharia law on those who they conquered.
Many jihadi exiles fled to London which in turn became a centre for global jihadi activities. The expulsion of these fighters from their homelands and their easy access to information in London expanded the jihadi movement from a local armed struggle to a world wide rebellion. No longer were the leaders of the Arab republics seen as monoliths but rather as American puppets. The only way to take control of the land of Muhammad it seemed, was war with the US.
Bin Laden traveled to Sudan when he continued to grow his network until he was forced out by the Sudanese government. Weakened, he returned to Afghanistan where he was accepted and protected by the Taliban. It was under the guidance of the Taliban that al-Qaeda grew into a powerful force. Bin Laden issued two fatwas (a legal opinion based in Islamic jurisprudence) in which he (and later his allies) declared war on America. While Osama bin Laden had no religious training and the validity of his fatwas were immediately dismissed by religious leaders all over the world, to his followers, their issuance was legitimate.
Bin Laden's fatwa, called "declaration of Jihad against Crusaders and Jews" attacked the United States for occupying the holy lands and killing Muslims through their occupation, destroying Iraq, continuing the sanctions which prolonged the suffering of her people, and supporting Israel and their continued occupation of Jerusalem. Bin Laden believed that the goal of western foreign policy since World War II was to destroy Islam first by fragmenting its lands, then by implementing a Jewish state and finally by outright military occupation. He called on all Muslims, regardless of their nationality to take up arms against the United States in order to reverse this trend. These fatwas were published and were known by western intelligence but were paid little heed. It is essential to understand that the attacks that followed, however unjustified, were not perpetrated because of some esoteric ideological boundary but rather because of specific, real life foreign policies carried out by the United States. Let me be clear, Osama bin Laden was a terrible man but his attacks did not come without warning.
After the issuance of his fatwas, Bin Laden began a campaign of attacks against US military targets in the Middle East and Africa. After bombings at US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Bin Laden turned his focus to Arabia. In 2000, al-Qaeda bombed the USS Cole, stationed in the port of Aden off the coast of Yemen. The vessel and later the entire fleet was forced to leave the port. This was taken as a symbolic victory for al-Qaeda who had, in a small way, forced the United States from Arabian land. Copy cat attacks inspired by al-Qaeda increased throughout the 90’s as the United States finally began to realize that their most dangerous enemies were not the states they sought to control but rather the stateless governments which were coming to power.
THE NEW ENTRY OF THE WEST
On September 11th, 2001, everything changed. The United States, in the midst of what seemed like a golden age, was suddenly forced to realize that their military superiority to every nation on Earth did not necessarily ensure the safety of its people or its hegemony over the globe. No longer would imperial interests be forgiven in the Middle East and no longer would the boundaries put in place to contain the Arabs succeed. 9/11 brought the United States to war and although President Bush said otherwise, from her enemies perspective, it was a war on Islam.
NOTE ON USA EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENT
While not essential for understanding the Middle East, it is important to note that the United States government experienced probably the largest expansion of executive authority in history after 9/11. The USA PATRIOT Act enabled law enforcement and spy agencies to conduct wiretaps and other forms of surveillance without warrants on people suspected of being connected to terror activities. The act buttressed law enforcement efforts and gave federal agencies access to information about anyone under investigation without them having been charged with a crime or acknowledged as a suspect. The act allowed the government to monitor financial transactions and even to detain or deport suspects.
The Department of Homeland security was created for the purpose of protecting the US home front but also expanded the duty of stopping terrorism to state and local law enforcement which, according to some, vastly increased racial profiling. President Bush came to describe those captured during the War on Terror as combatants rather than prisoners of war. As such, these captives could be detained indefinitely (until the end of hostilities) for any reason and more intense interrogation methods could be used to gain information from them. These detainees were held outside of US legal jurisdiction, most famously at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
In 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee released their report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) use of torture (so-called “enhanced interrogation methods”) during the war on terror. The report found that in addition to using gruesome, draconian methods, the CIA gained no actionable intelligence from the program and in the process, badly damaged the United States’ standing within the international community. In 2013, Edward Snowden’s leak of classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) revealed the scope of data collection carried out by the US to be far greater than previously thought. All and all, after 9/11, people acted in fear in order to feel secure. The laws that were passed and the operations carried out, however, have only degraded the image of the US in the face of enemies and allies alike.
NOTE ON AL-QAEDA
Al-Qaeda’s goal was not limited to frightening westerners or killing Americans. In fact, Bin Laden has stated that his main strategy at the time was to destroy the economy of the United States which he hoped would lead to its eventual collapse just as the mujahid resistance to the Soviets had overextended the financial reach of the former superpower and led to their demise. The World Trade Center then was not targeted for its status alone but in fact for its financial significance. During the war that followed, while the Taliban was easily deposed by the US, a war of economic attrition persisted in which the United States hemorrhaged cash to buff up its security systems, deploy military personnel, and wage constant war against ever-changing enemies.
Bin Laden’s plan evolved to a “war of a thousand cuts” where attacks were less severe but more frequent. The variation of schemes put enormous strain on the US as they attempted to defend against every possible plan. Attacks on oil fields greatly increased the price of gas, further limiting the United States economy. Throughout the early-mid 2000’s, huge military spending (sometimes known as the pentagon system) somewhat stabilized the economy but the 2008 financial collapse, and the mounting opposition to continued war forced the US to nominally scale back its operations in the region. With this in mind, let us discuss the US engagements in war in The Middle East being ever mindful of what the enemies sought to achieve.
WAR ON TERROR
It is widely thought that the United States government's actions in the wake of 9/11 displayed a certain deficiency of historical insight. While the “War on Terror” was met with virtually no opposition, the actual war operations were heavily criticized. After George W. Bush’s declaration of war, the Earth was split into two factions, “with us, or with the terrorists”. Suddenly, Arab leaders came to be the US' closest allies if they helped in the war. The neo-conservative right which had peaked in power after 9/11 argued that it was the leadership of these dictators which actually led to the discontent of their people. They believed that regime change from the outside and the installation of democracies across the region would please the people, make them stakeholders in government, and “liberate them from tyranny". In addition, the neocons saw the stability of oil prices as a national security concern for the US and believed that they should take an active role in reorganizing control of the region's oil fields. President Bush, once an opponent of so-called “nation-building” platform came to support the Neocon agenda.
With a lightning fast response, the US and their coalition allies (mainly Great Britain) began attacks in Afghanistan on October 7th, 2001, less than one month after the 9/11 attacks. One week after the attacks began, the Taliban offered to work with the US but the coalition refused, now bent on “ liberating” Afghanistan. In December of 2001, the Taliban was pushed out of its last major power base. The US established military bases across the country specifically surrounding major cities and began to enforce law and order while administering aid to the local populations. This strategy of nation building was not as effective as the neocons had hoped since the local people saw the US presence as just another occupation. The commanders on the ground continually referenced a lack of cohesion between the varying military outfits as a reason for the failure of their objectives. A desire to create a strong central government in a country traditional ruled as tribal territories exacerbated the problems as local leaders who promoted stability took a back seat to federal officials out of touch with their people.
Afghanistan has historically been a troubled nation, due in part to the harshness of the terrain and climate, its continual conquest by varying world powers, its diverse, multicultural population and the inability to unify under one government. Many remote regions experience high levels of autonomy which further strains the power of the government and it is precisely for this reason that the Taliban was able to come to power so quickly. The fact that the US actually believed that a strong central government would rid the country of the influence of the Taliban is baffling and illuminates more than any event thus discussed just how ill-informed the American political class had become (and remains today). A better solution would have been to federate the country and allow different provinces to operate different councils, lessening the burden on the central government in Kabul and allowing far off pastoral provinces a greater voice in government.
It is not hard to see that central rule might not work here.
(17)
Although the Taliban was forced to retreat, they continue to launch guerrilla attacks up until the present day. The Afghan National Army, whose expansion was promoted by the coalition, faces considerable challenges ranging from systemic corruption to desertion and absence of morale. Attacks from within the armed forces on coalition forces became common in the later days of the war. While semi-secret military activities continue in Afghanistan, many people question if our stated goal of bringing freedom to its people had succeeded in bringing them anything at all.
The nation-building aspect of the war is widely accepted as a failure. Pinpointed attacks on al-Qaeda targets led to the death or capture of many top leaders including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, who continues to reside in Guantanamo Bay. What The West began to realize was the extent to which al-Qaeda was a web of connected organizations. Terror attacks and insurgencies have continued since the beginning of the war.
IRAQ WAR
Motivated by the initial success in Afghanistan, the US saw an opportunity for the regime change they coveted. Initially, the Bush administration considered invading Saudi Arabia next because 15 of the 19 hijackers, Osama Bin Laden, and the violent ideology that fueled them came from this kingdom. They eventually decided against this approach and came to the agreement that the destabilization of the oil in the kingdom would be far too much for the weakened global markets or even the Pentagon system to overcome. Instead, amid growing animosity concerning the question of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam’s praise for Osama Bin Laden, the US set its sights on Iraq. The US believed that, like Afghanistan, Iraq would be a quick war. Weakened from years of sanctions, the fall of Iraq seemed imminent, their people ready to adopt democracy and inspire others in the region to do the same (see: the domino theory in South East Asia).
Opposition to the war was huge both in the US and in the rest of the World. The Arabs did not stand alone in their hostility to the idea of war, many nations, as well as the UN, believed that Iraq had finally reached a turning point and that a diplomatic solution to the problem was possible. Arabs warned that a deposal of Saddam would undo much of the containment strategy that the US had supported against Iran and many viewed the invasion as an attack on Sunni Islam. The evidence presented to the US Congress in order to justify the war has been called into question and while the Bush administration continually tried to prove links between Saddam and al-Qaeda. In the end, Bush offered an ultimatum to Saddam, leave Iraq within 48 hours or face war with the US. On Match 20, 2003, the US invaded Iraq.
Again, the US and their coalition allies (again, mostly Great Britain) easily overpowered the Iraqi military and after less than a month of bombings and ground assaults, entered Baghdad. Saddam fled capture while Bush famously declared “mission accomplished”. The occupation that followed was disjointed and unorganized. With the deposal of Saddam, the coalition tipped the tide of a fourteen-century feud between Sunnis and Shias almost overnight. Reconstruction was handed over to corrupt corporate contractors and novice politicians who, despite spending massive amounts of money, did little to improve the infrastructure or living conditions of Iraqis. Paul Bremer, a US diplomat, was put at the helm of the occupying government. A policy of de-Ba'athification was initiated to rid Iraq of Saddam’s influence. The issue with this policy was two-fold. First, basically anyone with any political power or experience in Iraq, including most of the security forces were members of the Ba’ath party (it was pretty much illegal not to be). Second, Sunni Arabs, the minority in Iraq who had held most governing power saw it as a process of de-Sunnification. Both of these issues led to chaos and animosity and effectively disbanded the Iraqi army. The United States’ stated goal in Iraq was uncompromising democracy and as such, the governing council set up in the interim before elections were representative of the population. Shias held the majority of the seats on this council but lacked the political understanding necessary to deal with the problems at hand. In addition, these new legislators carried a heavy vendetta against their Sunni oppressors. The lack of immediate elections angered Iraqis who feared that the US occupation would become the new status quo. The battle of Karbala in 680 and the death of Husayn emboldened Shia doctrine yet the deposal of Saddam Hussein finally tipped the balance in their favor.
The fragile state of Iraq
(18)
Very quickly, the void left by inept political leaders was filled by charismatic religious thinkers. The most important of the Shia clerics that came to shape Iraq was Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. A level headed and intelligent cleric of Iranian descent, Sistani encouraged absolute democracy and became the spokesperson for the phrase “one person, one vote”. In many ways, Sistani was the best thing that could have happened to Iraq. A Shia himself, he vehemently opposed any violent action taken by Shias against Sunnis even in the face of death. He became known for his urgent message of restraint. While Sistani was a strong advocate for democracy, he was in no way pro-American. His view held that a democracy set up by the US would not serve the people but rather would create an American plant in Iraq. Sistani embraced the notion first stated as a warning by King Abdullah II of Jordan that a Shia Crescent could extend from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf based on mutual understanding between Shia populations and Shia leaders to work together for Shia interests . The historically downtrodden people were being led and inspired by a man who stood in stark contrast to the more famous authoritarian and almost self-described messianic Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. Sistani did not want power, he wanted what was best for his people and sought to limit the role of Islam to purely religious practices. In short, Sistani was just the kind of hero Iraq needed and, had it not been for outside factors, his vision of a free, democratic Iraq may have become a reality.
The Shia Crescent, linking Shia leadership and populations together extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. Recall Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon have Shia majorities while Syria's leadership in Shia and Pro-Iranian.
(19)
IRAQI CIVIL WAR
Sistani’s message grew in popularity as he issued concise poignant fatwas which were easily understood by the population and stood in stark contrast to the confusing legal documents being issued by Bremer and the occupying authority. His stance on elections as an Islamic duty helped bring out massive crowds for peaceful demonstrations against the occupation. Bremer was forced out and elections were set for January 2005. Despite threats of a massacre by Sunni groups, Shias turned out by the million winning almost half the seats in parliament. The election did not yield immediate peace, quite the contrary actually. While Sistani was able to get the vote out among Shias, he was unable to unite them under a cohesive political entity. The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) backed by Sistani contained over twenty different parties but ended up falling apart due to ideological and political differences with Nouri al-Maliki who would come to be Prime Minister. At the same time, Iran sought to forge closer ties with Iraq, recognized the legitimacy of their governing council, and set up consulates in its shrine cities which are sacred to Shias.
A notable outlier to Sistani’s approach was Muqtada Sadr and his Mahdi army. Sadr opposed not only a constitutional approach but also any US involvement. He openly attacked the US and gained control of much of the country before being repelled by supporters of Sistani with the help of US forces first in 2004 and again in 2008. Sadr would make headlines once more in 2016 for pushing through the Iraqi “Green Zone” and holding massive protests against the government.
In protest of the growth of Shia power and the rise of Iranian influence, Sunni groups began to enter Iraq and fought “ballots with bullets”. This new stream of jihadis was most notably the work of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian man who had trained in Afghanistan and entered Iraq after the US invasion of Afghanistan. He went on to lead a terrifying insurgency in Iraq and employed such tactics as public executions, suicide bombings, and videotaped beheadings. His initial group became known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and in 2005, came to expand the scope of their operations to all out war against Shias and the American occupiers. Many former Iraqi security personnel, now unemployed, also joined the struggle on Zarqawi’s side, transforming the insurgency from a ragtag group of foreign fighters to a legitimate threat to stability. Zarqawi’s group opposed Shia not only because of their alleged ties to Iran but also because of the constitution they supported. The goal of al-Qaeda in Iraq was to revive the long dead caliphate and recreate a Muslim empire. No constitution would be allowed as they believed that no man-made law could or should supersede Sharia, or “Gods law”.
Sunni attacks on Shia mosques escalated the tension as Shia leaders failed to create unity and the long restraining Shias finally fought back. By the summer of 2005, as many as 40 groups were fighting in Iraq with the United States on the outs with just about everyone. It has been recorded that half of the foreign fighters in Iraq at this time were Saudis. Allegiances continually flowed through sectarian and racial lines. Iraqis made up only a fraction of the fighters as the battle for Iraq developed into a broader conflict seen as a battle for both the soul of Islam and the fate of the Middle East. Iran’s influence in Iraq panicked Sunni fighters who believed that Khomeini’s revolution would spread to the greater Middle East. Sunni Arabs began a propaganda campaign stating that there were no actual Arab Shias and that they were in fact only Iranian plants looking to undermine Arab power.
As such, the civil war in Iraq became not only a battle between Sunnis and Shias but also between Arabs and non-Arabs. Al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006 but his group went on to become the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) which took power in the Sunni regions of the country. The wars peak lasted about three years and revealed the ugly side of each sect. No side is immune to criticism as both committed horrific atrocities. Much like the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, from the outside, motivations are difficult to understand but within the Middle East, the fight for Iraq was seen as a fight for one way of life over another. By 2009, the fighting resulted in mostly Sunni losses and they stopped fighting Ballot measures. The Iraqi government was allowed a small level of authority and was able to wrest control of most of the Shia areas of the country. Barrier walls were erected in Baghdad which separated the Sunni and Shia population zones, underscoring the immense lack of unity between the groups as the Sunni population of the country fell from 20 to 12 percent. In all, Shia's were supposed the victor of the Iraqi civil war however their fight was not yet over. In 2011, the US finally completed its withdrawal from Iraq amid the belief that the country had pretty much stabilized and (a much stronger political reason) enormous domestic pressure to do so (right around an election) .
Malaki's government, while credited with taking back some semblance of authority was highly corrupt. His rule and the newly minted Iraqi army would be put to the test in their upcoming battle with ISI and it would not go well for them. At the same time, the Kurds in the north were able to maintain some level of autonomy due to the chaos. Political clashes with Turkey followed due to Kurdish attacks across the border. While this is far from the end of Iraq’s story, it is safe to say that at least from an ideological perspective, the US invasion succeeded where the 1979 revolution in Iran had failed. The fall of Saddam brought the Shia of Iran and Iraq together and further blurred the lines between the states. On the Sunni side as well borders shifted. The mostly Sunni Kurds are now the closest they have ever been to a fully independent, peaceful state due to their bravery in defending their homeland against ISI and their ability to leave in the future via referendum. The Islamic State of Iraq, however, regards borders as a man made concept and believe that there should be no border to the reign of Islam. In my view, the borders of Iraq (and by extension the entire region) at this time are unknown.
THE ARAB AWAKENING
The “success” of the Shias in Iraq also eroded much of the established political norms throughout the rest of the region. The continued failure of leaders helped to solidify identity not as national but as ethnic, religious, or tribal. Borders began to mean less and the migration of refugees in growing numbers due to the constant wars only exacerbated this. Trans-national identities formed. Ayatollahs, clerics, and tribal leaders took over where central authority had failed. The advent of social media platforms during the mid-2000’s as well as the growth of communication systems throughout the Middle East helped to connect unhappy citizens. Protests the size of which had never been seen before in the region followed. States adopted the use of mass media in much the same way as the United States, as a way to divert attention away from popular movements and use sectarian bias’ to maintain power. Sunni dictators such as Mubarak in Egypt and Qaddafi in Libya used these communication systems to praise Saddam as a martyr and freedom fighter. Anti-Shia feeling was popular on such broadcasts by Sunni leaders while for the first time Iran began broadcasting Arabic-speaking channels to counter the anti-Shia rhetoric. Iran even more so than in the past was seen as a threat to Arab leadership not through the use of force of arms, but through the exploitation of the Shia awakening allowed by the fall of Saddam.
INERTIA POLITICS: ISRAEL
In 2005, Israel moved out of the Gaza Strip by evacuating the settlements there. While the nationalist parties of Israel long believed that the continued construction of these settlements would eventually lead to Israel’s annexation of the territories, the stability that they had hoped for had not come to pass and the settlement policy was a major black eye for Israel’s international standing. While the Palestinians were given control of the area within Gaza, they did not control the borders, waters, or airspace and Israel greatly limited imports and exports. Israel’s quick withdrawal did not allow for a smooth transition and this coupled with the electorate's anger at the current administration led to the Islamist group Hamas being voted into office. After the elections, Israel moved to stymie Hamas’ ability to govern and along with help from The West, contained their authority within Gaza. An “emergency government” was put in place in the West Bank effectively splitting the two Palestinian areas between two rival governments. Some believe that this partition of the occupied territories was Israel’s plan all along as it enabled them to focus their attacks on Gaza while simultaneously appearing receptive to Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel shut its border crossings with Gaza and in response, Hamas launched rockets into Israel. Hoping for a re-opening of the crossings, Hamas came to the table in 2008 to negotiate a cease-fire however they would have no such luck. Israel refused to lift the siege and Gaza became completely isolated after Egypt joined the blockade and erected their own wall along their border with Gaza. Hamas’ popularity was damaged due to this failure and the people of Gaza began to import goods through underground tunnels. In the West Bank, Israel’s policy was more lenient but the citizens paid the price with suspended rights and an unelected, artificial democracy.
Israel, like the US, came to favor unelected leaders across Arabia fearing that the public would elect Islamist, anti-Israeli leadership. When Netanyahu became Prime Minister again in 2009, his campaign promises included settlement freezes and the possibility of a two-state solution. US President Barack Obama supported the proposal of an independent Palestinian state but as of the present day, Netanyahu’s promises have not come to pass. He has instead maintained his hardline position against the Palestinian “right to return”, the partition of Jerusalem, and the complete freeze of settlement building. In recent years, the occupation has begun to be portrayed by many as a siege. With the continued construction of the Israeli border wall, the area has never been more divided. While Netanyahu has refused to accept a Palestinian state, literal lines have been drawn to divide the Palestinian people from the Israelis, the irony of which appears to elude even Bibi himself.
In late 2016, a surprise shift occurred on the floor of the United Nations. On a measure to condemn the Israeli settlement policies, The United States chose to abstain. Due to the lack of a US veto, the resolution passed 14-0-1. Official US policy regarding settlements up to this point had called them "obstacles to peace" but after accelerated construction, the Obama administration decided that a shot across the bow of their ally might finally put enough pressure on Israel to affect change. While the resolution marks Israeli settlements as illegal and calls for the immediate halt to further building, it does not force Israel to do anything.
In the wake of the vote, tensions flared as Netanyahu berated Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry while carrying on plans to construct more settlements. Such a blistering reprimand makes it seem almost as if the US had severed ties with Israel however nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Obama recently approved a military aid package of $38 billion to Israel, the largest deal ever of its kind. In effect, the Obama administration sought to maintain its alliance with Israel while checking its ally on what the UN has agreed to be a mistake. Netanyahu has publicly expressed his support for new President Donald Trump who is believed to reject the idea of a two state solution. So, while the international body of the UN Security Council has agreed for the first time on the nature of Israeli settlements, it appears that the only two men with the power to effect change, the President of The United States and the Prime Minister of Israel, will opt once again for inertia.
INERTIA POLITICS ACROSS THE REGION
During the United States’ occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq and throughout the 2000’s, Arab regimes clung to their power. Seeking continued hegemony over their subjects but under the ever more scrupulous eye of the US, these leaders were imbued with the difficult task of balancing their public image and internal security. These regimes, Assad’s Syria, in particular, began to allow Islamist activists a voice in society as a way to placate their citizens who called for such a voice. These voices, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, came to actually make matters worse for these secular leaders as they deepened the sectarian divisions which were, like Iraq, numerous.
The Gulf oil monarchies didn’t really worry about uprisings since their vast wealth allowed their citizens to live tax-free and with great welfare benefits. In Saudi Arabia, reforms to the state sponsorship of religion were made in order to make their denouncement of Osama bin Laden stick. While the reforms did little in practice, the rhetoric they displayed was important. The kingdom also spoke on democratization efforts but they were largely seen as lip service and little has actually changed within the kingdom.
South of Saudi Arabia, the failures of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the first leader of a unified Yemen, led to fractional groups all vying for control of the country. Yemen had previously been two separate countries which had unified, fought a civil war, and forcibly unified again. Tensions were high even before the Houthi rebel group from the north echoed slogans from the Iranian Revolution. In 2004, the Houthis began what has been called “the Shia insurgency in Yemen” which, after ten years of fighting earned them control of the capital of Sana’a. Saudi Arabia aided Saleh’s government in their fight against the Houthis and have since been painted as an enemy of Shia Islam. Shias in Yemen which constitute about 44% of the population were, like most Shias, long oppressed by their government however the Houthis are not always welcomed as liberators. Many Yemeni citizens fear the Houthis who have earned a reputation of killing Sunnis. Al-Qaeda also has a strong presence in Yemen and actively fight against the Houthis (remember, al-Qaeda is a fundamentalist Sunni organization). In recent years, Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen have come under intense international criticism. The kingdoms use of (US supplied) cluster bombs (a munition containing inside of it several smaller munitions) in populated urban areas has led to the death and disfigurement of men, women, and children alike. The continued alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia seems to have yielded the kingdom carte blanche and although they claim the land of Arabia as their domain, they continually make enemies out of Arabian people. Yemen is historically viewed as the birthplace of the Qahtani Arabs, viewed as the purer of the two ancient races of Arabians. It is fitting therefore that in the modern day, Yemen has come to serve as a microcosm for the entire Arab World marked with ideological conflict and despair on a remarkable level.
In 2009, 30 years after the Islamic revolution in Iran, popular opinion had turned against the supreme leader much as it had against the shah in 1979. Khamenei (Khomeini’s successor), supposed to be a religious leader but lacking the necessary qualifications, expanded his own power over the democratic process. His power in government was rejected by other clerics and especially by the new Ayatollahs of Iraq. Khamenei is a hardline conservative commonly accused of souring Iran’s image in the world. He was accused of vote rigging in order to put fellow hardliner, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, back in power and a huge protest resulted in 2009 known as "the green revolution”. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad suppressed the revolts and many came to view the current leadership as a shah-like figure acting in their own interest rather than in the interest of the people or true Shia Islam.
Ironically, although Iran’s domestic struggles and continued international isolation greatly diminished their economic and military might, outside factors including the US invasions fed perfectly into their desire to extend Shia revolution across the broader Middle East. In addition to the Houthi Movement, in Lebanon, Hezbollah gained significant political power and took seats in the Lebanese Parliament. As a direct result of all of these movements, Sunni jihadi groups continued to grow in power. The Islamic State of Iraq now saw their conquest as a way to quell both The United States’ dominance and the Shia revival. While al-Qaeda’s global reach continued to threaten the West; Iraq replaced Afghanistan as the epicenter of jihadi activities. The result of all of these jihadi movements is significant; the shift in focus of the Western World from the Arab-Israeli conflict to one more resembling a Persian-Arab or Sunni-Shia struggle for dominance.
-NOTE ON THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
One of the most hot-button issues of Barak Obama's second term was the Iran nuclear deal. The deal achieved by Iran and six nations (US, UK, France, Germany, China, and Russia) led by US Secretary of State John Kerry in July of 2014 set out to eliminate Iran's ability to build nuclear weapons. While highly criticized by President Donald Trump and others in the Republican Party, the deal has been widely accepted as one of the most important arms control pacts of all time. Basically, the deal greatly scales back Iran's stockpile of Uranium, limits the level to which they may enrich it, the centrifuges they may use to enrich it, and establishes inspecting protocols to ensure Iran's compliance. The nuclear material left in Iran will only be enough for energy and research uses and should stymie their ability to produce weapons-grade uranium for at least ten years.
In exchange for Iran's compliance, the sanction wall will be slowly lifted by The West. Essentially, Iran is now an isolated country, cut off from foreign investment and with many of its assets frozen overseas. The myth that the US will be writing some massive check to Iran stems from the ability of their economy to grow exponentially in the wake of this deal yet the idea of one government writing a check to a rival government is a farce. Iran's drastically reduced petroleum industry will be able to kick back into high gear following the break in the sanction wall as well. This fact has put pressure on Saudi Arabia who's economy may soon be limited further with the price of oil expected to drop following Iran's full participation in the world economy. Israel has rejected the deal fearing the expansion on Iranian-funded extremist groups and Netanyahu has called the deal a "stunning historic mistake".
While the deal does nothing to curb Iran's funding of Islamist factions around the world it does, in fact, prevent the hitherto very real possibility of them developing a nuclear weapon which is good not only for the state of Israel well within its range but for the safety of the world at large.
-END NOTE
INERTIA POLITICS CONT.
While the Arab states took a nosedive in terms of popular appeal and trans-national identities were formed, Turkey under Prime Minister (now President) Erdogan made great strides in virtually all areas. Switching priorities from European inclusion to Middle Eastern supremacy, Erdogan actually made the best case for Turkey as a European State perhaps in the history of the nation. The elected, popular government of Turkey seemed to balance the interests of the people, Islamists, business leaders, and military and also has presented a model for sustainability in the Middle East. The country became arguably the superpower in the region and the ablest to defend against a Persian attack. Arab nations embraced this notion and Turkey has enjoyed great financial success as a reward. Since 2009, Erdogan has even taken steps to try and settle Turkey’s long-standing conflict with the Kurdish population in the south and while unsuccessful thus far, Europe and the rest of the world delighted to see actual negotiations occurring in the region. While far from perfect, Turkey seemed like a semi-stable fulcrum that could help to balance the region.
Turkey's world standing has since deteriorated due to the government's violation of press freedom, increasingly despotic actions taken by Erdogan, violence against the Kurds, and the recent “Purge” following an attempted coup against the government. As far as Middle Eastern nations go, Turkey is still seen as one of the most stable.
A huge theme of this history has been the decline of Middle Eastern society. Indeed in the roughly 500 years since the beginning of the decline of the Ottoman empire, little has gone right for the conflict-prone region. From the Ottomans disastrous defeat in WWI, to the partitioning under Sykes-Picot, the failures of secular nationalism, and the birth of transnational identities, the region we know today owes its condition. External powers which had long acted as the glue that held the region together had shifted to a wedge that drove them apart. At the peak of sectarian conflict in the region, however, they chose to take a backseat. The United States’ plan for a free Iraq had yielded little and their nation-building strategy in Afghanistan had not repelled the Taliban in finality. The regimes surrounding the US sphere of influence had tightened their grip and their citizens dreamed of democracy.
THE ARAB SPRING
In December of 2010 Mohammed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire as a civil protest against his unfair treatment by the government. The people of the Arab world, especially the millions of young people, faced record levels of unemployment, government corruption, police brutality, and other social factors. Bouazizi was the spark that ignited the short fuse of revolution all over the Arab world. Just the next day, the people of Tunisia rose up in protest against President Ben Ali’s government and in less than a month, drove him from power. Subsequent protests banned the former president's political party. While not the epicenter of the movement, the most important overthrows happened in Egypt and Libya.
In Egypt, President Mubarak was forced from power following huge street protests in Cairo's Tahrir square and across the country. Social media platforms were utilized to bring out protesters at record levels. Mubarak utilized the military to stop protests, but in the wake of violence and threats his people did not give up. A military tribunal took control of the country briefly until Mohammed Morsi, A longtime member of the Muslim Brotherhood was elected with 51% of the vote in 2012. All was not well in Egypt as public opinion turned sharply against Morsi following what was seen as an autocratic early tenure. Morsi was called “Egypt’s new Pharaoh” by opposition leaders. Protests again erupted and were this time joined by the military led by Abdul Fatah el-Sisi. Morsi was forced from power and in 2014, following the announcement of his candidacy, Sisi was elected president of Egypt. Today, the country continues to grapple with the same immense social problems they encountered under Mubarak but their revolution was seen as largely successful to other Arab nations who were quick to follow suit.
Massive anti-govenment protests in Tahrir square
(20)
In Libya, one of the most confusing conflicts in this entire history began to unfold in 2011.
ASIDE ON QADDAFI
Muammar Qaddafi had ruled Libya since 1969 when as a Colonel he overthrew the British-backed king in a bloodless coup. While officially ceding his power in 1977, he is widely accepted to have been the supreme leader of the country until 2011. Qaddafi is one of the most bizarre figures in modern history because of his unique statue among Arab and African leaders. He was only 27 when he came to power in Libya but he was well educated and inspired by the Egyptian leader Gamel Abdel Nasser. In 1975, Qaddafi published The Green Book, an expression of his philosophy towards people and government mixing socialism with Arab nationalism. Within the book, he states his belief in an absolutely direct democracy while viewing private enterprise as not permissible under a true democracy. He did not believe in a private “ownership” of information as he saw this as a form of slavery. Qaddafi is credited with improving many aspects of his country. Most notable is “the great manmade river”, the most extensive irrigation system in the world which supplied the whole desert country with water. Under Qaddafi, literacy rates improved from 25% to almost 90% and home ownership was seen as a human right. Medical services and education were both free in Qaddafi’s Libya and the country had one of the best medical systems in the entire region based both on access and quality of care. Electricity was also free. Banks were all owned by the government and made loans at 0% interest. Qaddafi paid for these programs using proceeds from the nationalized oil industry. He was also credited with trying to create a so-called United States of Africa and sought to move his country (and all of Africa) to a gold standard by selling oil only in return for gold.
Called a radical thinker by some, Qaddafi was also a brutal dictator. Scoring consistently low grades along all measures of human rights, he was known to brutalize his people and sponsor rebel groups abroad (including the IRA). He became one of the most feared and hated leaders by The West because of his staunch opposition to any kind of imperial agenda. Upon taking power in Libya, Col. Qaddafi famously dismissed the British and American military forces there, telling them they were no longer welcome. His criticisms of The West were most highly publicized when, after the deposal of Saddam Hussein in 2003, he asked rhetorically if Bin Laden was in Iraq and then answered his own question by saying no. He also speculated that Saddam’s decision to sell his oil in Euros rather than US Dollars contributed to the US' decision to invade. Qaddafi warned other Arab leaders that the United States would come after one of them next. Unfortunately for him, the next dictator to be overthrown with US support would be Qaddafi himself.
END ASIDE
Libya’s revolution was not peaceful. Protests began in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city which Qaddafi had ignored in the years leading up to 2011 while residing in the far-off capital of Tripoli. Qaddafi was not driven from power and reports of violence perpetrated by his regime against the rebellion stoked the fire of civil discontent. A civil war broke out between Qaddafi loyalists and rebel groups looking to oust him from control. The struggle that followed was bloody and controversial but not too long after its start international feeling once again turned decisively against Qaddafi. The UN ordered a no-fly zone and a freeze of Qaddafi’s assets. To enforce the UN resolution, US and coalition forces moved to blockade Libya and began firing cruise missiles and launching air attacks against the regime. NATO soon took over the “peacekeeping” operations of the coalition with a US commander at the helm. With bolstered strength, and NATO serving as an air force, the rebels were able to take most of the country and on October 20, 2011, killed Qaddafi. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton summed up the quick success of US intervention in Libya by saying, “ We came, we saw, he died”. As with the previously forced regime change in Iraq, anarchy followed yet as Andrew J. Bacevich eloquently stated in his military history, America’s War For The Greater Middle East, “In Iraq, the presence of US troops on the ground had made the consequences of invasion impossible to ignore. In Libya, the absence of US troops enabled Americans to avert their gaze from what intervention had wrought” (Audiobook location ch 18 26:06). Because of this aversion, the events of September 11th, 2012 which culminated in the storming of the US embassy in Benghazi and the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens by militants served not to force the US to admit their part in the chaos enveloping Libya but only to haunt Hillary Clinton as news cycles could say only the word Benghazi and experience a boost in ratings.
Also unlike the revolutions in Tunisia or Egypt, relative peace did not follow the Libyan revolution in fact, violence persists up to this day. The National Transitional Council, (NTC) which came to control Libya after Qaddafi’s death, were motivated by Islamic principles and promised to implement Sharia law as the basis for government in Libya. The countries first election since Qaddafi was held in July of 2012 and the General National Congress was formed mainly consisting of conservative, Islamist members. While there were scattered instances of violence, this election was celebrated by Libyans as the first step towards a sustainable democracy. This taste of security did not last long. After the assault on the US Embassy, international response condemned the attack while the Libyan government tried to contain it. A new Prime Minister, Ali Zeidan gained power a month after and was later kidnapped by militants in response to allegations of Zeidan's assistance in the capture of an al-Qaeda operative by the US. With his capture, the weakness of the government was put on full display.
The government began to clash with the militant group Ansar al-Sharia in late 2013. Widespread violence permeated the country and high-profile government ministers were killed. The General National Congress (GNC) voted to extend their time in office and were met with rage. A second election was held to re-write the Constitution of the country in 2014 but was poorly attended amid pessimism for the democratic process. General Khalifa Haftar who had called for the congress to dissolve led Operation Dignity in May of 2014 against Islamic militants he believed were supported by the government. The movement later moved to combat the GNC itself in the capital of Tripoli.
In June of 2014, elections were held in which the current Islamist establishment of the GNC was voted out and a new governing body, the Council of Deputies, was formed. The GNC, however, rejected the election results as only 18% of the population came out to vote. The GNC reasserted their power, formed a rival government and declared their capital at Tripoli. The Council of Deputies was forced to the eastern side of the country to the city of Tobruk where they sided with Haftar. In November of 2014, the supreme court of Libya (basically controlled by the GNC) ruled the election of the Council of Deputies unconstitutional and called for them to dissolve. The Council refused, believing themselves to be the legitimately elected government of the people and since January 2015, the country has been led by and fought for by two separate governments along with multiple Islamist rebel groups. Peace has yet to reach Libya and the comparison most easily made for their current situation is that of Iraq, a country that formally existed with some measure of security at the expense of liberty which now exists only in the memories of those who fight for it.
Libya as it stands on December 2nd, 2016. The red on the map indicated area controlled by The Council of Deputies while the green is controlled by the GNC
(21)
ISIL
Before we discuss the further conflicts resulting from the Arab Spring as well as current, unresolved conflicts, I must first explain the rise of The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also know as The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Recall from the discussion on Iraq the name Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the man most credited with sparking and accelerating the Iraqi Civil War between Sunnis and Shias. Zarqawi was killed in 2006 but his group went on to become the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). ISI’s intention was to revive the long dead caliphate and establish an actual Islamic state living under Sharia law. Exploiting Iraq’s fragmented governing structure following the US invasion, ISI for a short time did just that. It is imperative to understand that ISI would have probably never gained power had it not been for the deposal of Saddam at the hands of the US and their progress would have been vastly slowed had it not been for their seizure of weapons given to Iraq by the US. After intense fighting and the death of two leaders of ISI, the group was largely pacified and ceased fighting against the government while the US finished its withdrawal from the country in 2011. During the Arab Spring, the group was revived under a new leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. During this time, an opportunity for growth in Syria was observed as Baghdadi sent operatives into the country forming a new branch of al-Qaeda, the al-Nusra front.
In 2013, the situation became more complicated as Baghdadi claimed control over the al-Nusra front and claimed that they would merge under the moniker of ISIL. Al-Nusra Front's leadership dismissed this claim and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda also denied the merger. Baghdadi and his fighters freed prisoners of the Iraqi insurgency and expanded his operations into Syria. Eventually, after an extended power struggle, al-Qaeda officially split from ISIL in 2014. ISIL quickly grew in prominence in Syria where it took advantage of multi-sided conflict, mainly fighting the rebels in order to grow its territory. The Assad government did not immediately attack ISIS and viewed them as a welcome distraction for western eyes and helpful force against the rebellion. More on that later.
On June 29, 2014, the group declared itself to be a global caliphate with Baghdadi as caliph. While no Muslim country recognized the caliphate, Baghdadi called on Muslims all over the world to join the group, now simply called Islamic State (IS). Thousands of Muslims from all over the world streamed in to join IS. Bolstered with growing strength, IS launched an invasion of Iraq and quickly took over a third of the country while also expanding its reach in Syria. Rampant corruption within the US-trained Iraqi army allowed the accelerated advance. Reports of units flat out abandoning their posts for fear of what IS would do to them if captured were not uncommon. The goal of ISIS had been realized, actual territorial holdings with subjects living under (according to IS) “perfect” Muslim law. IS is internationally known to follow the brutal, puritanical Wahhabi form of Islam also preached as the state religion of Saudi Arabia. They promote violence as the way to achieve their goals and view Muslims that do not conform or support them as infidels. To date, IS has killed more Muslims than any other group and have brutalized countless more. The coverage of their atrocities is so wide reaching that virtually everyone in The West has a deep fear of the group.
The territory that IS holds is what makes them so frightening but it is also what has led to its decline since 2014. IS has no allies and many powerful enemies. Unlike al-Qaeda, IS does not operate in the shadows, it maintains a government structure over its conquered lands and is thus easy to find and attack. Since 2014, the ISIL advance has been slowed in no small part because of its attempted invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan, the self-governing region of Iraq where they have been met with strong resistance by the Kurdish Peshmerga, the military forces loyal to Iraqi Kurdistan. Videotaped executions, terror attacks around the world, and massive public pressure have led to increased US bombing campaigns against IS. The cease-fires hoping to be reached in Syria may help unite the region against IS in the future.
Unfortunately, the Islamic State is not only bound to the land of Iraq and Syria but since 2014 various groups have sworn allegiance to Baghdadi including fighters in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. It could be argued that the biggest victor of the Arab Spring is the Islamic State which has expanded from a basically unknown ideology nascent in Iraq to a household name and a global network.
SYRIAN CIVIL WAR
Another ongoing conflict which has, more than Libya, dominated news cycles is the civil war in Syria. Following the larger Arab Spring protests in 2011, Syrian citizens began to demonstrate against the government of Bashar al-Assad. Hafez al-Assad, his father who had ruled Syria for 30 years represented the Alawite faction of Shia Islam, a tiny minority of the mostly Sunni nation and had long been thought of both home and abroad as a despot. When Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000, his regime was regarded as an undemocratic dynasty. The one party (Ba'ath) system employed by Assad prohibited anyone from running against him in elections. The country was essentially a security state with little to no human rights yet with relative prosperity. Under so-called “emergency rule”, citizens were not allowed to gather in groups in public. Prisoners were taken for speaking out or demonstrating against the government. The economy of Syria also unfairly favored those connected to Assad. Foreign pressures and transnational identities pitted civilians against one another. For all of these reasons, along with inspiration from other Arab nations, protests grew in strength.
Like Qaddafi in Libya, Assad did not take kindly to these protests and launched a series of military attacks on civilians, killing hundreds. Many Syrians defected from the army and founded an armed resistance movement, the Free Syrian Army. The conflict developed from here into a full-fledged civil war.
The war has raged for nearly six years and gone through many phases. At the onset, unorganized rebel groups had little success against Assad, however this quickly changed as the rebellion grew in size. More and more groups came to defy the government but they lacked unity and were often at ideological odds with each other. Cohesion within the rebel ranks was further strained upon the entrance of foreign jihadi fighters (including the aforementioned al-Nusra Front) much like the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts before.
Eventually, after a year of fighting, The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was formed in Doha, Qatar in 2012. This body has essentially served as the governing structure of the Syrian rebellion and has been recognized as either "the sole legitimate representative of Syria” or “the legitimate representative of the Syrian people” by most of the world. In addition, the coalition has been given Syria’s seat in the Arab League. This body has helped to legitimize the rebellion and to give a diplomatic face to the forces. In 2014, the Revolutionary Command Council was formed in order to encourage greater cohesion between the several different rebel factions fighting against Assad including members of the US (and Muslim Brotherhood) backed Free Syrian Army and the Saudi-supported Islamic Front. While attempts at unity have helped commentators to understand the conflict, they have done little to actually bring the rebels together. Many hardline Islamist groups clash ideologically with the more liberal, secular groups usually associated with the FSA. These attempts at unity were further undermined upon the entrance of foreign powers who sought to support the rebel faction best aligned with their own interests.
The long suppressed Kurdish people in the north of the country understood the revolution to be a perfect time to clinch their freedom. While both Assad regimes were harsh towards their Syrian Arab subjects, they were significantly worse to the Kurdish people, not even recognizing them as citizens. In 2012, after the creation of the Kurdish Supreme Committee, a governing structure for Kurdish-held lands, the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), the committee's armed wing, began to take territory in the north. Success was quick as the Syrian government had left many of these areas sparsely defended. After some minor clashes, the Kurdish-majority areas of the country came under control by the YPG. A period of consolidation followed and in November of 2013 the leading political party, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party declared an interim government in the Kurdish areas of Syria (called Rojava by its Kurdish populous). The decisive victory of the Kurds stood in stark contrast to the disjointed rebel offensive.
Assad was not alone in his opposition to the rebellion. Almost from the beginning of the conflict Assad's largest and most important ally in the Middle East, Iran, took steps to bolster his fighting capacity with monetary assistance. While Tehran continues to deny any military involvement, it is widely suspected that Iran has troops, including special operators on the ground in Syria. Recent deaths of high-ranking Iranian military officers in Syria seem to suggest that the scope of the Iranian intervention is much larger than the government lets on. Iran’s defense of Syria is an imperative foreign policy position as Assad’s Syria acts as a link in the chain of Shia unity extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Syria had previously sided with Iran in their war with Iraq in the 1980’s and has allowed Iran to funnel money and supplies through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah has also entered the war on the side of Assad.
With Iraq as a precedent, the gulf states of Arabia, led by the Saudis, cast their support in favor of the (mostly Sunni) rebels specifically, Saudi Arabia backed Islamist groups. Turkey and later Jordan allowed aid to flow from Saudi Arabia through to Syria. The house of Saud has been criticized internationally for allowing a steady stream of jihadis to enter Syria, further complicating the situation. The United State began a secret program of training the “moderate rebels” most closely associated with the FSA whom Washington viewed as a good alternative to the stronger Islamist factions. The problem with this policy should be fairly obvious, there is no such thing as a "moderate rebel". After the rise of IS in Syria, this policy shifted to a bombing campaign of IS targets in Syria and Iraq, the war against Assad taking a backseat. While the US and Saudi Arabia are technically on the same side of the conflict, their hopeful outcomes are drastically different.
What developed from the Middle Eastern countries throwing their hats into the ring was another proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran for hegemony over the region. Because of this distinction, these nations are observed to be more concerned with Assad’s status as ruler and less occupied with fighting the Islamic State in Syria. Rhetoric from both sides of the aisle in the United States has called for a coalition of Arab leaders to unite against IS, however, this possibility will only really be explored after resolution of the Syrian power struggle.
In 2014, the newly established Islamic State threw a wrench in everyone's plans for Syria. They were able to rapidly gain territory from the fragmented rebel groups and attacked the Kurdish north. Growing quickly in prestige, they became the most powerful group fighting for control of Syria and has even attracted former members of US-backed rebel forces to join their ranks. This development forced the rebel groups to fight on two fronts and energized the Kurds to defend their newly established government. The US' opposition to the Islamic State has greatly weakened their foothold, contrary to what many people believe. IS has indirectly aided Assad in his quest to retain power by distracting his enemies who were forced to reassess who their true adversary was.
In September of 2015, Russia came to the aid of the beleaguered Assad government. Russia is a long-time ally of Syria with whom they signed a “Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation” in 1980 before the fall of the Soviet Union. The two nations have remained close and Russia continues to regard its relationship with Syria as vitally important since it is at port of Tartus that Russia’s only Mediterranean naval base lies. Before their direct military involvement, Russia had aided Assad by supplying him troops but after the entrance of ISIL in 2014, Assad formally asked for Russia’s help in defeating the terror groups within Syria. While Russia continues to claim that they share an enemy with the US, it is widely known that Russia has attacked rebel forces in addition to Islamic State militants. This has put Russia on the opposite side of a military conflict with the US. The increasingly bullish actions of Russia have prompted international fear that a global conflict could erupt, a fear that came dangerously close to reality when in November of 2015, a Russian plane was shot down by Turkey (a member of NATO) who claimed the craft was violating her airspace.
The United States' action and inaction in Syria have set a new precedent for US Middle Eastern policy. In general, the US has taken a backseat role. President Obama famously drew a "red line" in Syria saying that if Assad were to use chemical weapons on the rebel factions, the US would have no choice but to intervene forcefully. When Assad used these very weapons to gas his own people in 2013 however, Obama did not act. Covet training efforts succeeded about as well as they had in Iraq which is to say, barely, if at all. Thus the conflict was defined by the entrance of the aforementioned Middle Eastern countries and their proxies. With Russia increasingly acting as an ally to the Assad regime, continual human rights abuses were observed only with ambivalence by the US; now all too concerned with being at odds with Russia to regard themselves as the "moral compass" of the region any longer.
In late 2016, Russian support for Assad reached its apex. Air strikes by Russian crafts bolstered Assad's siege of the rebel-held area of East Aleppo. Aleppo, Syria's largest city, and economic hub was vital for Assad to retake in his quest to maintain his legitimacy as a ruler and power over his perceived domain. Under siege for months, and without access to critical anti-aircraft weapons which had been denied by the US; rebel forces finally caved in the face of insurmountable odds. What followed was an all-out slaughter by Assad's government forces and outrage by the international community.
Turkish and Russian efforts to negotiate a cease-fire were stalled when a Russian ambassador was gunned down in Ankara while on his way to meet his Turkish counterpart. This one killing may serve as a microcosm for the larger conflict which peace has seemed to elude at all turns. After several attempts, an evacuation of civilians under a general cease-fire was carried out and the world was able to see in detail for the first time the scale and scope of the destruction in the historic city of Aleppo.
This conflict is difficult to understand and in the coming days, it will not become any easier. Assad now controls most of the population centers in the war-torn country yet calling the ruins of Aleppo a governable city is a far cry from reality. His domination is less impressive when considering that some estimates believe that as much as half of the population has departed either through fight or, more likely, flight. Soon, Syrian refugees may outnumber domestic Syrians. Assad and his allies have proven to be the stronger fighting force but most of the international community rejects his right to rule. Syria's future is further complicated when questions of Kurdish sovereignty or the strategy for repelling IS militants is considered.
Here, we come to the present day. An outgoing administration in the US has shifted policy away from interventionism while the new President has both expressed his desire to leave the Middle East to Middle Easterners, while making crushing ISIS a platform in itself. Perhaps, as crazy as it sounds, The West matters less today. Consider this, Syria and Iraq have had drastically different paths, and interactions with The West but have, at least on the surface, suffered remarkably similar outcomes. Perhaps the forces at play have finally proven too great to be contained.
The situation in Iraq and Syria (and the Islamic State) as of 11/28/16
(22)
KURDISH CONFLICT
The rise of the Kurds in Syria was recognized by many in the international community as a victory for democracy. Presidential hopefuls in the US called arming the Kurds a foreign policy priority due to their continued success in fighting the Islamic State. Yet as of now, the US is neither officially allied with or hostile towards the newly autonomous Rojava.
The Kurds occupy a difficult position in the international community mostly because of their relationship with Turkey. Since the 1980’s, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey have been fighting for a level of autonomy. These revolts have been crushed by the government and the PKK has been recognized as a terror group by the United States and the European Union. A cease-fire between government forces and PKK militants ended in 2015 when renewed border skirmishes broke out across the Kurdish population zones.
While the PKK is seen as a terror group, the YPG in Syria has earned the respect of the US for its fight against ISIL. The Kurdish population in Iraq, in particular, the Peshmerga militias have also been effective in repelling Islamic State militants from their lands. The PKK and PYD (recall:political arm of Rojava, YPG is its military) are officially allied. This has prompted Turkey to extend their attacks on the PKK to encompass YPG fighters in Syria. The US and EU have both called for a cessation of Turkish hostilities towards the YPG. These actions have also led the Kurds to claim that Turkey is actually allied with the Islamic State and Turkey has thus entered into a tense position with the global power brokers. While formally seen as an important ally in the Middle East, Turkey's increasing deviance from the US and EU agenda has begun to cast it once again as a security state rather than a democratic republic. The US' hands off approach in Syria has provided Turkey an avenue to greater power in the Middle East. Tension has increased following Turkish calls for the US to return Fethullah Gulan, the suspected organizer of the 2016 Coup attempt and the US’ refusal due to the lack of evidence against him.
Turkey’s President Erdogan has been accused of becoming increasingly authoritarian and has targeted news media outlets critical to his presidency. In March of 2016, the Turkish government took control of the largest antigovernment newspaper, Zaman. The first edition since the takeover focused on fluff, pro-government stories. This level of press censorship has never been seen before in an EU candidate country and tensions between Turkey, the US, and the EU will undoubtedly increase with the combination of Erdogan’s anti-dissident posture, and his continued attacks on Kurdish troops in Syria.
Many peace proposals have come forth to end the fighting in Syria however none have fully succeeded. Eventually the fighting will stop and at that point, the US will face a choice. The PYD will naturally seek to maintain their autonomy in Syria while Turkey maintains that attacks will continue for as long as necessary. Will the US stand by its NATO ally and condemn the PYD and the YPG? Will it recognize the nascent democracy and fight for its right to exist or will it step back and do nothing? The US and her European allies have long held power in the Middle East. Since WWI, they have dictated the winners and losers and fought for their strategic interests. In the wake of the Arab Spring, foreign policy priorities will be tested as will the new identities linking the people of this most tumultuous region. Countries may fall and new ones may rise but if anything can be learned from history it is that attempts to pacify or seek to control these diverse people will be met with failure. Many in the media classify the Middle East as a collection of failed states but I believe that this era should really be known as a time of popular freedom movements. However disjointed or scary it may seem to The West, the people have spoken. Now our leaders must decide if they will listen.