The
most interesting developments in the Middle East aren't in the news
stories but can be discovered by analyzing those reports. Here are a few
developing right now.
--The
Libyan government gave 50 percent of the funds to finance the budget of
the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council (SNC) budget. Since
Libya is very much a U.S. client, it’s reasonable to conclude that the
Obama Administration encouraged this generosity. Yet this money was
financing a Muslim Brotherhood front. A lot of arms have been flowing
from Libya to Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip and to
radical forces in Syria. Some claim that the U.S. government was
coordinating that traffic though this has not yet been proven. The SNC
has now been replaced by a new umbrella group whose role and even
survival is still unproven.
This
means the Obama Administration was using a barely disguised channel to
pay for a revolutionary Islamist movement seeking to take over Syria.
The fact that this group was also anti-American, antisemitic, and
genocidal toward Jews seems significant.
The
rest of the SNC budget came from Qatar (38 percent) and Saudi Arabia
(12 percent). Now the SNC has fallen apart but U.S. efforts to broker a
new Syrian opposition leadership have failed completely.
-----------------------
Please be subscriber 30,167 (among more than 50,000 total readers). Put email address in upper right-hand box: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com
------------------------
-----------------------
We need your support.
To make a tax-deductible donation to the GLORIA Center by PayPal: <https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=ET6RUW2JGHGGW>
By credit card: <http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com> and click Donate button.
Checks: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line.
Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003.
For tax-deductible donations in Canada and the UK, write info@gloria-center.org.
------------------------
--Not
only is al-Qaida not dead but its sympathizers and those influenced by
it have planned a remarkable number of terrorist attacks on American
soil, 95 in the last three years according to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
It’s interesting to note that the committee lists the Fort Hood attack
among them, despite executive branch denials that it was terrorism.
--As
if to ensure strong opposition to making Palestine a non-member state
in the UN—the only diplomatic initiative the Palestinian Authority has
come up with in the last four years which in no way s advances peace
with Israel—Abbas Zaki says once this happens the Oslo accords will be void. One
implication of this stance is that a state of Palestine will exist
which has denounced any recognition of Israel's existence. Granted that
he is a traditional PLO hardliner crony of Arafat but this really
underlines the point that such a step would destroy any basis for a
peace process and potentially reopen the conflict fully.
--An
attack from Lebanon on Israel is increasingly unlikely because that
country is moving toward a civil war of its own. Currently, Lebanon is
dominated by Syrian and Iranian clients, Hizballah, the Shia Islamist
group, and pro-Syrian Sunni Muslim politicians. In contrast, the
opposition has been led by Sunni moderates
But
Syria’s civil war is shaking this situation. Hizballah and its patron
Iran have been supporting its other patron, the Syrian dictatorship. The
opposition, which includes the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist Sunnis,
is outraged. If the current Syrian government is overthrown, and this is
already visible, the opposition is going to go after the Lebanese
regime.
Not
only will it support the Sunni Muslims there against the Shia but it is
likely to sponsor a transformation of the Sunni side with radical
Islamists replacing moderates. A sign of that coming civil war has been
several days of fighting in the Lebanese city of Sidon. The Sunni
Salafist leader demanded that Hizballah banners be taken down, then tore
down a poster of Hizballah’s leaders. Gunfire followed and people were
killed. With the home front so insecure—and likely to be more
so—Hizballah isn’t going to have the forces to spare to go after Israel.
--The New York Times continues
its bizarre coverage of an Egypt in which the Muslim Brotherhood can do
no wrong. There is a rather humorous aspect to the newspaper’s
reasoning. The issue in question is the new Egyptian constitution, about
whose text rumors are leaking, though only seeing the full draft text
will be authoritative.
According to the Times, “the
principles of Islamic law” would be the main source for Egypt’s
legislation but the precise definition of what is or isn’t properly
Islamic would be left to the parliament and courts. David Kirpatrick
says:
“Little
is expected to change under the current courts and Parliament —
dominated by Islamists who mostly favor a relatively flexible or gradual
approach to adopting Islamic law….”But…if literal-minded
ultraconservatives—known as Salafis and who currently hold about a
quarter of the seats in Parliament — gain more influence in the
legislature and eventually the courts, they could someday use the
provisions to try to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law.”
In
other words, as long as the Muslim Brotherhood holds most of the power
there’s nothing to worry about, as if that movement doesn’t have the
imposition of Sharia law as its main principle. How can having a
parliament in which 75 percent of the seats are held by radical
Islamists suggest that they aren’t going to impose Islamic law? And
who’s going to be appointing the judges who make such determination in
courts?
Yes,
the wording might be similar to that of the old, pre-revolution
constitution. But a Muslim Brotherhood regime is going to interpret
things differently from a Western-oriented, anti-Islamist government.
The
article continues that “liberal delegates who signed onto the deal
noted that the guidelines were broad enough to leave substantial room
for debate over just what Islamic law should require in the context of
modern Egypt.” That’s true but many liberals boycotted the
constitution-writing process precisely because they believed no such
thing. And, again, who cares if there’s a debate when the debate will be
settled by a Muslim Brotherhood president, an Islamist-dominated
parliament, and increasingly an Islamist-dominated court system?
At any rate, I’ll wait until the full text is available for analyzing what the new Egyptian system will look like.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.
No comments:
Post a Comment