An opening to Iran? They've sold us this rug before.

 

by Michael Rubin

  

During the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama promised to meet the leaders of Iran "without preconditions." He appears a man of his word. Within days of his election, the State Department began drafting a letter to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intended to pave the way for face-to-face talks. Then, less than a week after taking office, Obama told al-Arabiya's satellite network, "If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us." The president dispatched former Defense Secretary William Perry to engage a high-level Iranian delegation led by a senior Ahmadinejad adviser.

The pundits and journalists may applaud, but their adulation for Obama's new approach is based more on myth than reality. "Not since before the 1979 Iranian revolution are U.S. officials believed to have conducted wide-ranging direct diplomacy with Iranian officials," the Associated Press reported. But Washington and Tehran have never stopped talking; indeed, many of Obama's supposedly bold initiatives have been tried before, often with disastrous results.

In 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini's return gave an urgency to U.S.-Iran diplomacy. Many in Washington had been happy to see the shah go, and sought a new beginning with the "moderate, progressive individuals" — according to then Princeton professor (now a U.N. official) Richard Falk — surrounding Khomeini. The State Department announced that it would maintain relations with the new government. Diplomats at the U.S. embassy in Tehran worked overtime to decipher the Islamic Republic's volatile political scene.

On November 1, 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's national security adviser and now, ironically, an Obama adviser on Iranian affairs, met in Algiers with Iranian prime minister Mehdi Bazargan and foreign minister Ibrahim Yazdi to discuss normalization amidst continued uncertainty about the future of bilateral relations. Iranian students, outraged at the possibility, stormed the American embassy in Tehran, taking 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days.

But the hostage seizure did not end the dialogue. For five months, even as captors paraded blindfolded hostages on television, Carter kept Iran's embassy in Washington open, hoping for talks.

Should Obama send a letter to Iran's leaders, he would follow a path worn by Carter. Just days after the hostage seizure, Carter dispatched Ramsey Clark, a Kennedy-era attorney general who had championed Khomeini after meeting him in exile in France, and William Miller, a retired Foreign Service officer critical of U.S. policy under the shah, to deliver a letter to Khomeini. After word of their mission leaked, the Iranian leadership refused to receive them. After cooling their heels in Istanbul for a week, the two returned in failure. Shining a spotlight on private correspondence may score points in Washington, but it kills rather than creates opportunities.

Obama's inattention to timing and target replicates Carter's failure. His outreach to Ahmadinejad comes amidst Iran's most contentious election campaign since the revolution. Allowing Ahmadinejad to slap a U.S. president's outstretched hand is an Iranian populists' dream come true. Alas, this too was a lesson Obama might have learned from Carter. Three decades ago, desperate to engage, Carter grasped at any straw, believing, according to his secretary of state, that even a tenuous partner beat no partner at all. Each partner — first foreign minister Abolhassan Bani-Sadr and then his successor Sadeq Qotbzadeh — added demands to bolster his own revolutionary credentials, pushing diplomacy backward rather than forward. Thirty years later, the same pattern is back. Ahmadinejad's aides respond to every feeler Obama and his proxies at Track II talks send with new and more intrusive demands.

Once out of office, Carter aides sought to secure history's first draft with a flood of memoirs praising their own efforts. Kissinger aide Peter Rodman noted wryly in a 1981 essay, however, that pressure brought to bear by Iraq's invasion of Iran did more to break the negotiations impasse than Carter's pleading with a revolving door of Iranian officials.

Carter is not alone in his failed efforts to talk to Tehran. While the Iran-Contra affair is remembered today largely for the Reagan administration's desire to bypass a congressional prohibition on funding Nicaragua's anti-Communist insurgents, the scheme began as an attempt to engage Iran. On August 31, 1984, national security adviser Robert McFarlane ordered a review to determine what influence Washington might have in Tehran when the aging Khomeini passed away. Both the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency responded that they lacked influential contacts in Iran. Because weapons were the only incentive in which the war-weary ayatollahs had interest, McFarlane decided to ship arms both to cultivate contacts and win the goodwill necessary to free U.S. hostages held by Iranian proxies in Lebanon. He failed. Not only did the Iranian leadership stand McFarlane up during his trip to Tehran, but the incentive package also backfired: Hezbollah seized more hostages for Tehran to trade.

The stars seemed to align for George H.W. Bush, however. Khomeini died on June 3, 1989, and, two months later, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose pragmatism realists like Secretary of State James Baker applauded, assumed Iran's presidency. In his first address, Rafsanjani suggested an end to the Lebanon hostage crisis might be possible. Like Obama, Bush spoke of a new era of "hope." State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler described Iran as "genuinely engaged." Alas, as Rafsanjani spoke publicly of pragmatism, he privately ordered both the revival of Iran's covert nuclear program and the murder of dissidents in Europe.

In his first term, Clinton signed three executive orders limiting trade with Iran and approved the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. He and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright changed tack in their second term. Both apologized for past U.S. policies. The State Department encouraged U.S. businessmen to visit Iran, until Iranian vigilantes attacked a busload of American visitors in 1998. Not discouraged, and lest U.S. rhetoric offend, Albright even ordered U.S. officials to cease referring to Iran as a rogue regime, and instead as a "state of concern." Rather than spark rapprochement, however, it was during this time that, according to the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, Tehran sought to develop a nuclear warhead.

While the press paints George W. Bush as hostile to diplomacy and applauds the return of Bill Clinton's diplomatic team under his wife's leadership, it is ironic that the outgoing administration engaged Iran more than any U.S. presidency since Carter — directing senior diplomats to hold more than two dozen meetings with their Iranian counterparts. Yet, after 30 years, Iran remains as intractable a problem as ever. Every new U.S. president has sought a new beginning with Iran, but whenever a president assumes the fault for our poor relationship lies with his predecessor more than with authorities in Tehran, the United States gets burned.
 

Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of the Middle East Quarterly, was an Iran country director at the Pentagon between September 2002 and April 2004.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

If the US abandons Israel, will Russia 'fill the bill'?

 

  by  Ted Belman

 

On March 30th DEBKA reported

 

DEBKA file's Washington sources report that the Obama administration is on the threshold of a major rapprochement with Tehran, a reversal of US policy dramatic enough to block out international sanctions. Iran will be allowed to keep its nuclear program, including military elements and enriched uranium stocks, up to the point of actually assembling a weapon.

 

The US president is willing to ditch Israel as a friend. This will be brought home to Jerusalem when he makes his big speech on April 7 appealing for a grand US-Muslim global reconciliation. The US president is preparing to tie a Palestinian-Israeli settlement - on Washington's terms - to such unrelated issues as Afghanistan and Pakistan as the currency for purchasing Muslim and Arab backing for accommodations of these outstanding terrorist fronts.

 

Israel may decide to say "no" to a sovereign Palestine and "no" to giving up the Golan, in which case Obama's entire Muslim outreach crashes. He will have no choice but to go to the mat with Israel. In fact the more he beats up on Israel, the better his relations with Iran will be. He needs Iran to be a partner, not an enemy. He needs Iran to help in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama will have to convince Saudi Arabia and Egypt that such a rapproachment is good for them, too. That leaves Israel out in the cold.

It would not be the first time that Israel was abandoned by its patron.

 

During WWI, Britain had need of the Jews and so issued the Balfour Declaration in favour of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The San Remo conference in 1920 awarded Palestine and TransJordan to Israel. Before the League of Nations formally set up the Palestine Mandate in 1922, Britain, contrary to law, removed TransJordan from the land given to Israel. Thereafter things went from bad to worse.

 

Britain became the enemy of the Jews and friend of the Arabs. After WWII the Jews forced Britain to give up the Mandate resulting in the Partition Plan being passed by the UN.

 

Prior to the end of the Mandate, Ben Gurion started buiding an army and began the search for weapons of all sizes including heavy arms and planes. Britain and the US both imposed an arms embargo. Russia became Ben Gurion's principal supplier. This story is covered in detail in The Pledge by Leonard Slater.

 

Russia also voted for the establishment of Israel and was one of he first countries to recognize her. The US would have voted against Israel's establishment but for the intervention of President Truman.

 

***********

 

In 1956, Britain and France had need for Israel's help in reversing the takeover by Nasser of the Suez Canel. They invaded the Sinai together. So Britain was once again Israel's friend. But America under Eisenhower, became the enemy of all three and forced them to retreat from the Sinai. This was Eisenhower's Arab outreach.

 

It was around this time that Russia became estranged from Israel and embraced Egypt, Syria and Iraq instead.

 

France became Israel's patron and chief arms supplier. France also was instrumental in setting up Israel's nuclear plant at Dimona. You will recall that in the '67 war, Israel used France's Mirage jets. The American embargo continued but was soon to change.

 

Shortly after this war, France withdrew its support from Israel. The US became Israel's supplier and patron with the intent of dislodging Russia from the ME. The US befriended the Arabs by restraining Israel in both the '67 War and the '73 war. This policy enabled the US to replace Russia as Egypt's patron. As a reault of the Iraq War, the US also ousted Russia from Iraq.

 

Meanwhile the US had been ousted from Iran and Russia/USSR over time filled the gap.

Now Obama is working to replace Russia in both Syria and Iran. To do this she must throw Israel under the bus.

 

Thus it becomes in Russia's interest to strengthen Israel to resist being sacrificed to the detriment of Russia. Russia does not want to lose its influence in Iran and Syria.

 

As they say, "what comes around, goes around".

 

During the cold war, the US was Pakistan's patron and USSR/Russia had a close relationship with India. Since the fall of the USSR, both Russia and India have moved closer to Israel.

Russia needs to strengthen this relationship especially while the US has to nurture Pakistan at the expense of its relationship with India.

Russia has no need for Muslim oil. But it could use Israeli technology and so could India. Israel will need a patron to exercise her veto in the Security Council. She will also need markets to replace the loss of the EU as its principal trading partner.

 

As a case in point, Israel rushes to India's defense

 

NEW DELHI - Israel emerged as India's number one defense partner last week when it was revealed that New Delhi had signed a US$1.4 billion deal with the country to purchase a 70 kilometer shore-based and sea borne anti-missile air defense system.

 

This is among the bigger defense deals between the two countries and the biggest military joint venture by India with a foreign country, overtaking the India-Russia BrahMos cruise missile project.

 

A senior defense official said the total value of the deal was over $2 billion, with one portion valued at $600 million being hived off to the state-controlled Defense Research and Development Organization.

 

This makes Israel India's biggest defense supplier, clocking over a billion dollars in new contracts in 2007 and 2008 to overtake Russia.

 

"We have a very special defense relationship with India," Israeli Major General Udi Shani, director of the Defense Ministry's Sibat export agency, was quoted as saying recently.

 

Twenty percent of Israel's population came from Russia, or their parents did, and speak Russian. And Israel's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, is a native of Russia, and speaks her language literally and figuratively.

 

The US surely doesn't want Russia to have access to Israeli millitary technology and will be reluctant to push Israel so far as to cause a rupture of their relationship.

 

Let the games begin.

 

 

Ted Belman

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Iran.

 

by Mehdi Khalaji

  

During a February trip to Iran, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal praised Iranian leaders for their support during the conflict in the Gaza Strip, a further indication of the strengthening ties between the Sunni Islamist group, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization, and the Shiite regime in Tehran. Mashal's statements come on the heels of the U.S. Treasury Department's terrorist designations of al-Qaeda leaders and operatives sheltered in Iran. These latest examples of Sunni-Shiite cooperation raise new questions about whether Iran can improve its relationship with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

While such a rapprochement appears unlikely, history suggests it is far from impossible. Iran has maintained informal ties to the Muslim Brotherhood for many years, and Shiite Islam probably has more appeal among Egyptian Sunnis than it does among Sunnis in other Arab countries. Iran's sharp criticism of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is also likely to resonate with Egyptian radicals under the thumb of the regime in Cairo. If Iran were to develop close relations with the Brotherhood, Iranian influence would grow considerably in the Arab world, giving Tehran a significant say among Arab radicals and, undoubtedly, producing dangerous developments for U.S. interests in the region.

 

Ties between Iran and Sunni Extremists

Egypt has long been suspicious of the connection between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Iran, based in large part on Iran's longstanding strong ties to Hamas -- an offshoot of the Brotherhood. The recent conflict in Gaza is likely to further arouse Cairo's suspicions. During the fighting, Iran was highly vocal in their support of Hamas, blasting the Egyptian government for its inaction. Hamas leader Khaled Mashal thanked Iran for its support of his organization, asserting that the "people of Gaza . . . have always appreciated the political and spiritual support of the Iranian leaders and nation." According to Iranian state television, Mashal reportedly said that "Iran has definitely played a big role in the victory of the people of Gaza and is a partner in that victory."

Iran has also forged stronger working relations with other Sunni extremists. According to the New York Times, Saudi authorities allege that the leader of "al-Qaeda in the Persian Gulf," Abdullah al-Qaraqi, lives and moves freely in Iran, along with more than a hundred Saudis working for him. The Treasury Department, in its recent enforcement action, announced that Saad bin Laden, son of Usama bin Laden, was arrested by Iranian authorities in early 2003 but that "[a]s of September 2008, it was possible that Saad bin Laden was no longer in Iranian custody." According to Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, Saad bin Laden is now most likely in Pakistan.

 

Prerevolutionary Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood

While the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Iran do not have strong organizational ties, the Brotherhood has had a major impact on Islamic revivalism in Iran, a movement that sought to promote Islam not just as a religion but as an ideology governing all aspects of political, economic, and social life. Mujtaba Mirlowhi, known as Navvab Safavi, (1924-1955) was a young Iranian cleric who created the Society of Islam Devotees (SID) in the early 1940s and played a major role in connecting Shiite fundamentalism to Islamic fundamentalist movements in other countries. Like the founding fathers of Islamic revivalism in Egypt, SID believed that in order to fight the supremacy of the West, Muslims have to combat sectarianism, put the Shiite-Sunni conflict aside, and create a united Muslim front.

In 1954, at the invitation of Sayyed Qutb, then secretary of the Islamic summit and main intellectual of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Navvad Safavi traveled to Jordan and Egypt to meet its leaders. Under their influence, he became more attracted to the Palestinian cause. Before that time, there were few references to the Palestinian problem in Iranian society among clerics or lay (leftist) intellectuals and activists. After his return to Iran, he started a Palestinian campaign and collected promises from five thousand volunteers to deploy to the Palestinian territories to fight the Jews.

Perhaps even more important, in his short autobiography, Iran's current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei describes becoming interested in political activities after he met Navvad Safavi in Mashhad, Iran. Before Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, Khamenei translated two books by Sayyed Qutb, Al-Mustaqbal li hadha al-Din (The Future of this Religion) and Al-Islam wa Mushkelat al-Hadharah (Islam and the Problems of Civilization).

 

The Islamic Revolution in the Brotherhood's Eyes

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood at first cautiously welcomed the Ayatollah Khomeini-led Islamic revolution, which may have given the Brotherhood confidence that they too would be able to overthrow their country's secular regime. But after an Islamic radical assassinated Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat in 1981, the Brotherhood was forced to take a cautious attitude toward the Islamic Republic, at least in public. In January 1982, Umar Telmesani, then leader of the Brotherhood, told the Egyptian weekly magazine al-Msuwwar, "We supported him [Khomeini] politically, because an oppressed people had managed to get rid of an oppressive ruler and to regain their freedom, but from the doctrinal point of view, Sunnism is one thing and Shiism is another."

The Muslim Brotherhood nonetheless continued to decry sectarian differences among Muslims, arguing that unity was necessary for the sake of jihad against the corrupt rulers and the West. In 1985, Telmesani wrote in the Egyptian magazine al-Dawa that "the convergence of Shiism and Sunnism is now an urgent task for the jurists." He added that "the contact between Muslim Brotherhood and [Iranian clerics] was not done in order to make Shiites convert to Sunni Islam, the main purpose was to comply with Islam's mission to converge the Islamic sects as much as possible."

There were points where the Brotherhood and Iran cooperated more openly. In 1988, for example, at the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq war, at the request of Muslim Brotherhood leader Shaikh Muhammad Ghazzali, the Iranians agreed to unilaterally release the Egyptian prisoners of war who had fought alongside the Iraqi army against Iran.

More recently, on January 28, Muhammad Mahdi Akef, the current leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, said in an interview with Mehr News Agency: "The Muslim Brotherhood supports the ideas and thoughts of the founder of Islamic Republic." He added "[Ayatollah] Khomeini's idea, especially with regard to the Palestinian issue, is the continuation of the Muslim Brotherhood's attitude toward fighting occupation."

 

Egypt under Shiites: Distant Past but Popular Memory

Egyptians are more receptive and positively disposed toward Shiism than other Sunni Arabs. One reason is the Fatimid Dynasty that was established in Egypt in the tenth century as an offshoot of the Shiite Ismaelite movement. The dynasty played an important role in the cross-fertilization between Iran and Egypt. The two centuries of Fatimid rule in Egypt marks a high point in the history of Islamic civilization in terms of economic development and cultural prosperity. Even the art in Fatimid Egypt was influenced by Iranian styles.

The Fatimid period left a lasting impression on Egyptians, and vestiges of the country's long-ago Shiite rulers are still seen in Egyptian openness to Shiite practices and traditions, a receptiveness not found anywhere else in the Sunni world. Egyptians still respect the symbols, icons, and sacred places of that period; for example, Egyptians believe that Hussain, the third Shiite Imam, and his family are buried in Cairo, not in Karbala, Iraq. For Sunni Egyptians the tombs of Hussain, Sayyeda Zainab (his sister), and Assayeda Sakina (his daughter) are the most sacred places in the world after Mecca and Medina. Also like their Shiite coreligionists, Sunnis in Cairo perform Ashura (the Shiite commemoration of the death of Hussain) each year. Furthermore, in nineteenth-century Egypt, the Persian language was accepted as a language of literature and science, reflected in the Persian-language newspapers available at the time.

Moreover, in addition to the influence of Egyptian political Islamists on Iranian clerics noted earlier, Iranian clerics in turn helped to shape Islamist revivalism in Egypt. One notable example is the nineteenth-century Islamist Sayyed Jamal al-Din Asadabadi, also known as al-Afghani. When he arrived in Egypt from his native Iran, he claimed to be an Afghan so he could pass himself off as a Sunni. His new ideology advocated the unity of Muslims and sought in "authentic Islam" answers to the ills of Muslim societies.

As a result of this history, for many years Shiism held some appeal in Egypt, despite the fact that Egyptians at the time of the Fatimids, and still today, are predominantly Sunnis.

 

Shiism in Contemporary Egypt

The appeal of Shiism has been dampened somewhat in recent years as the Egyptian government has grown increasingly nervous about what it perceives as a rising Shiite tide in the region. In response, the Egyptian government and the state media began waging a campaign against Shiism and Shiite symbols. In November 2005, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stated that "most Shiites are faithful to Iran, not to their own government." His comment provoked several Shiite demonstrations, including thousands of people in Najaf, a Shiite holy city in Iraq. Afterward, he explained that he meant that Shiites sympathize with Iran in terms of their religious, not political, viewpoint.

On several occasions, prominent Egyptian cleric Shaikh Yousef Qarzawi, a former member of the Brotherhood, warned about the "Shiite tide" and the missionary activities of Shiites and the Iranian government, especially in Egypt. He said that "the increasing infiltration of Shiism in Egypt may lead to a civil war like the one in Iraq." The Egyptian government has made efforts to mobilize powerful clerics and faculty associated with al-Azhar University against the Muslim Brotherhood in order to fight the tide of Shiism.

There are no reliable statistics about the number of Shiites in Egypt. Since Shiites are under pressure from the Egyptian government, most of them avoid publically admitting their faith. Some Western and Egyptian sources (like the Ibn Khaldun Research Center) indicate that Shiites constitute less than 1 percent of the Egyptian population (approximately 657,000). But Muhammad al-Darini, a prominent Sunni who converted to Shiism, puts the figure at 1.5 million.

Al-Darini also claims that Egyptian Shiites are Twelvers, which is the type of Shiism practiced in Iran. But he denied any connection between the Shiite community and the Iranian government. "Iran does not have any kind of influence over us," al-Darini said. "Sometimes, even Iranians criticize us for some of our stances and statements. Everybody must know that Shiism is not originally an Iranian [sect], but an Arab one, while [the four traditional] Sunni schools stem from Iran." Part of the attraction of Shiism in modern Egypt is political rather than doctrinal in nature. Some young Egyptians see conversion to Shiism as a way of protesting the regime, much as thousands of Iranian Shiite youths convert each year to various other faiths partially in reaction to the Shiite nature of their government.

 

Conclusion

While a breakthrough in relations between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Tehran remains unlikely, the consequences for the United States of such a union would be very damaging. Iran remains focused on expanding its influence in the Persian Gulf and beyond, and connections to the strongest opposition party in the Middle East would be a great leap forward. The longstanding and growing ties between Iran and Hamas, as well as a look back at the relevant history, makes clear that U.S. policymakers should monitor this trend.
 

Mehdi Khalaji is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute, focusing on the role of politics in contemporary Shiite clericalism in Iran and Iraq.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Egypt is not going to stop the smuggling into Gaza.

 

by Efraim Inbar and Mordechai Kedar

  

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Conventional wisdom posits that Egypt must and will play a central role in halting the smuggling of weapons from Sinai to Gaza. Yet this is unlikely — for strategic, political and Egyptian domestic reasons. Egypt does not mind if Hamas bleeds Israel a little; it gains domestically by indirectly aiding Hamas; gains internationally by playing a mediating role (in a conflict which it helps maintain on a "low flame"); and is incapable of stopping the Sinai Bedouins from continuing as the main weapons smugglers into Gaza. Thus, Israel would be imprudent to rely on Egypt to end the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.

 

The massive and continuous smuggling of weapons into Gaza from Egypt via the Sinai was a main cause of the recent war between Israel and Hamas. The international community realizes that this problem has to be tackled in order to prevent escalation in the future. Stopping the transfer of weapons to Hamas requires significant Egyptian cooperation and action, says conventional wisdom; and in the negotiations towards this week's ceasefire, Egypt indicated it would play such an expanded role.

 

Indeed, one of the clear winners of this conflict seems to be Egypt, whose mediating role received plaudits all around. Many heads of state jaunted off to meet President Mubarak, along with Israeli emissaries, underscoring the importance of Egypt in securing an end to the crisis in Gaza. Egypt also holds the keys to the Rafah Crossing into Gaza, whose opening is demanded by Hamas.

 

However, the expectation that Egypt will put an end to the traffic in the tunnels under the Egyptian-Gaza border is not realistic — for strategic, political and domestic reasons.

 

Strategic Advantage

At the strategic level, Egypt sees Israel as a competitor in the quest for hegemony in the Middle East, and has for years turned a blind eye to the arming of Hamas via the tunnels. Simply put, it had, and still has, an interest in bleeding Israel. In contrast to its rhetoric, Egypt is not interested in a resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict that will free Israel from an immense security burden and will allow the Jewish state to become even stronger than it is nowadays.

 

Power politics and balance-of-power is the prism through which the Egyptian leadership views the region. The continuation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on a "low flame" serves best the Egyptian interest of keeping Israel not-too-strong and engaged in a conflict with the Palestinians.

 

Moreover, the "low flames" in Gaza and elsewhere in the Palestinian arena maintain an important role for Egypt as a "moderate leader" in the eyes of the international community, particularly in Washington.

 

Egyptian behavior is intriguing and cunning. After all, the development of "Hamastan" in Gaza poses a danger to Egypt too, since part of the weaponry going to Gaza could be redirected for the Moslem Brotherhood along the Nile; and Hamas is a role model for Egypt's Islamists. Similarly, the growing role of Iran in arming, training and financing the Hamas is a source of concern for the Egyptian regime.

Nevertheless, Egypt appears to have reached the conclusions that it cannot prevent Hamas rule in Gaza, and that Hamas' continuing rule actually is useful both against Israel and at home.

 

Indeed, Israel and Egypt both seem to have reconciled themselves to a long-term Hamas government in Gaza. Neither country can do much about it, although both prefer to see Hamas weakened. Egypt does not want to fan "high flames," while Israel needs Hamas to understand that Israel best be left alone. To a great extent, the international community also accepts the fragmentation of the Palestinian polity, and is not actively pursuing the goal of bringing Gaza under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.

 

Domestic Considerations

The two-faced policy being pursued by the Mubarak administration also serves a useful purpose in domestic Egyptian politics. In contrast to Europeans and other foreigners, Egyptian citizens easily recognize and comprehend their government's double-dealing. Everybody in Cairo understands that the government is facilitating the arming of Hamas; and turning a blind eye to the tunnels weakens the argument of the Islamic opposition that the government is cooperating with the Zionists. Moreover, curbing the traffic in the tunnels would worsen the economic situation in Gaza. Pictures of suffering in Gaza or of Palestinians climbing the fences to get into Egypt only help the Islamist opposition.

 

Realities in the Sinai

Finally, Egypt's double game is also result of a complex reality in the Sinai Peninsula. As with other Third World states, the Egyptian government is not fully in control of its territory. Thus, an international agreement on ending arms smuggling from Sinai into Gaza will face considerable problems of implementation, even if the Egyptian regime wants it to happen.

 

Notably, most of the smuggling into Gaza is led by Egyptian Bedouins who live in the northern Sinai. These tribes do not speak Egyptian Arabic, they are not really an integral part of Egyptian culture and society, and they do not subscribe to Egyptian political ethos. They make a living by smuggling women and drugs to Israel, as well as arms, ammunition, and missiles to the Gaza Strip.

 

Egyptian attempts to extend law and order to Bedouin areas have met armed resistance. Every time the Egyptian regime attempts to curtail the Bedouin smuggling activities, they carry out a terrorist attack on a Sinai resort, as has happened in Taba, Sharm el-Sheikh (twice), Nueiba, and Ras al-Satan. Such attacks negatively influence tourism to Egypt, an important source of income, and seem to be an effective way of "convincing" the Cairo authorities to live and let live.

 

Bribery, an important element in the Egyptian ways of doing business, also facilitates the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. Low-paid Egyptian officials in Sinai can hardly resist hefty bribes. A one-hundred-dollar bill does wonders with an Egyptian police officer at a Sinai roadblock who intercepts a truck packed with "pipes." The likelihood that policemen at Egyptian checkpoints will stop taking bribes from trucks transferring arms to Gaza is very low — unless the Egyptian government decides to heavily punish such behavior. Only execution of smugglers could have a deterring effect, but such a determined Egyptian government behavior is also unlikely.

 

Another hindering factor in any attempt to stop smuggling is the bureaucratic culture of Egypt. The cumbersome Egyptian bureaucracy is hardly effective. Even presidential decisions are watered-down as they pass through the ranks of the administration. Thus the chance that a presidential decision on a total curb in smuggling would be fully implemented at Sinai checkpoints remains slim. This is Egypt.

 

To illustrate the point: Several weeks ago, the Palestinians published a report that the Egyptians had started to seriously combat the smuggling tunnels between the Egyptian and Palestinian sides of Rafah. The Egyptians initiated an inquiry to discover "who" suddenly became so motivated, and discovered that it was an Egyptian official who did not receive a big enough reward from the tunnel operators and decided to teach them a lesson! The Egyptians immediately found a different posting for this hyperactive official.

 

Conclusion

Despite the current Egyptian anger at Hamas and the international prodding of Egypt to terminate the traffic in the tunnels from its territory into Gaza, a drastic change in Egyptian border control performance along its border with Gaza is unlikely. Therefore, it would be imprudent of Israel to rely on the Egyptians to significantly end weapons smuggling into Gaza.

 

This means that Israel will continue to face a significant Gaza security challenge, despite Operation Cast Lead. An important policy implication of this reality is that Israel must maintain freedom of action to bomb tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor, or to destroy them by ground operations. This must be made crystal-clear to friends and foes alike.

 

 

Efraim Inbar is professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a lecturer in Bar-Ilan University's Department of Arabic and a research associate at the BESA Center.

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Homegrown threat against Saudi Arabia.

 

by Olivier Guitta

  

Saudi Arabia very recently released a list of eighty-five most wanted terrorists. Eighty-three of the individuals are Saudi nationals, the other two are Yemenis. These individuals are suspected of wanting to revive Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, attack oil facilities inside the kingdom and overthrow the monarchy. Because of the pedigree of the suspects, the Saudi regime is taking this threat very seriously.

Interestingly, out of the 85, fourteen had been previously detained at Guantanamo Bay and undergone the Saudi rehabilitation program for jihadists. This program that was trumpeted by Saudi authorities as extremely successful is obviously now showing its limits. Indeed rehabilitating hard-core jihadists is a huge challenge, especially when these individuals have been brainwashed since their early age.

The Saudi regime has at this point a lot of introspection to do since its education system is at fault along with the hyper-present extremist and intolerant Wahhabism. It is no coincidence that among foreign jihadists in Iraq fighting coalition troops, the Saudis were the largest group. Most of these jihadists were between 18 and 25 and upon their deaths, preachers would visit their families in Saudi Arabia to underline the virtues of jihad and to confirm their son's martyrdom and his place in paradise.

A telling example of how the regime had radicalized a generation of youngsters is that of Abdallah Thabet, a 34-year-old literature teacher. Thabet was born in a tribal world, in a village in the Assir region near the Yemen border, where people lived without Wahhabi influence. This until 1979 when after the siege of Mecca, the regime decided to empower the radical religious clerics who started to spread their propaganda throughout the kingdom. Thabet affirms that throughout Saudi Arabia, fired up by the religious rhetoric, high school students, as well as students, were radicalized and in some cases plunged into violence. He was one of them, wanting to restoring the caliphate and viewing Osama Bin Laden as one of his heroes. Thabet left his family to head two clandestine cells that launched raids "against non-believers". Inspired by his jihadist years, Thabet wrote a novel entitled "The 20th terrorist". Out of the 19 terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks, 15 were Saudi, many of whom came from the Assir area. Thabet wanted to show in his book how so many young Saudis plunged into terrorism. Indeed, in the real world, some of its former companions are or were fighting in Iraq, or clandestinely preparing attacks in Saudi Arabia.

The role of the Saudi education system in radicalizing its youth is not a secret. Two weeks ago the Saudi Al Watan published a column entitled: "Who is behind the deviants" - for information, deviant is the word used in Saudi Arabia to describe terrorists-. In this column, the author clearly places the blame on the education system that teaches youngsters to memorize the Koran but not to learn much in other disciplines. He also noted that radical preachers have the upper hand throughout the kingdom and pollute the minds of the youth with extremist ideas.

The situation has been so dire that it looks like that, now after 30 years, Saudi authorities are realizing the hugeness of the problem. The tipping point was clearly the fact that some of its own citizens that joined Al Qaeda are very determined to overthrow the monarchy. So that is why for instance Saudi Deputy Minister of Education and Teaching for boys (coeducation is forbidden in Arabia), Mohammed Said Maliss, ordered the removal of certain radical and extremist books from school libraries and education centers. Among these books is one about Sayyed Qutb, one of the most influential Islamist thinkers who serves as a reference to Al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups. Another book now banned clearly calls for Jihad, in the name of Islam.

The second step taken by the regime was the reshuffling of the government that took place on Feb. 14. Most importantly was the replacement of the hardcore Wahhabi Education Minister Abdullah Bin Saleh al-Obaid by prince Faisal bin Abdullah, that is viewed as more moderate. Time will tell if the new incoming Education Minister will really reform the system and get rid once and for all of the extremist views that permeates the school curriculum. Faisal will have at his disposal huge amount of funds since the education minister gets about one quarter of the Saudi budget.

King Abdullah also fired the head of the religious police, the "Mutawaa" which ensures proper application of the Islamic Sharia law. The Mutawaa has been criticized for its heavy hand: back in August, the site Aafaq.org reported that a member of the force murdered his own sister after learning she had converted to Christianity. He stoned and burned her and cut her tongue, leaving her agonizing until death. The assassin is currently in custody, and authorities are trying to stifle the case for fear of the reaction of international opinion. Indeed, such revelations are damaging for Saudi Arabia's image.

The recent moves implemented by the regime are little tiny steps to tackle the problem of extremism in the kingdom. It might be way too little too late because so many mostly young men have been poisoned by radical ideas. Interestingly enough, Riyadh never listened when the West pointed out the risks of playing fire. But now that the threat is against the regime, they seem to be more attentive.
 

 

Olivier Guitta is an Adjunct Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a foreign affairs and counterterrorism consultant.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.