New Book: Barry Rubin, Guide to Islamist Movements

I'm proud to announce the publication of a new book:

Guide to Islamist Movements by Barry Rubin (Editor)

Published by M.E. Sharpe, list price is $249 BUT it’s available from Amazon for only $168.07 with free shipping (and even gift-wrapping--no kidding, Amazon will do it--for those doing your holiday shopping early!)

Seriously, though, this was a very special project. We commissioned 55 people around the world to write about Islamist groups—their leadership, ideology, and activities—in that many different countries. The result turned out very well and is the most serious analytical and factual presentation on political Islam in operation.

You should consider ordering the book for your university or organization and I’m happy to respond to inquiries with more information

White House on Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing--Can't Remember Who Murdered 241 Americans

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By Barry Rubin

The White House has just released a very routine but still quite disturbing declaration by President Barack Obama. And it goes like this:

"On the anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, we remember today the 241 American Marines, soldiers, and sailors who lost their lives 26 years ago as the result of a horrific terrorist attack that destroyed the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The military personnel serving in Beirut were there to bring peace and stability to Lebanon after years of internal strife and conflict. The murder of our soldiers, sailors, and Marines on this day on 1983 remains a senseless tragedy....In remembering this terrible day of loss, we are at the same time hopeful that a new government in Lebanon will soon be formed. We look forward to working with a Lebanese government that works actively to promote stability in the region and prosperity for its people."

The problem is not so much the wording of the declaration but the context in which it's issued. After all, the president of the United States has access to U.S. intelligence. And U.S. intelligence knows:

--That the bombing was carried out by cadre of Hizballah under the guidance of Syria and Iran.

--Today, attacks are being carried out against U.S. military personnel in Iraq under the guidance of Syria and Iran, and

--Iran is trying to stage such attacks in Afghanistan.

--The current and previous Iranian defense minister were involved in the attack: Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar (defense minister,  2005-2009) was head of the  Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps force in Lebanon and in charge of carrying out the attack while his successor, General Ahmad Vahidi, was involved in planning the attack.

--Hizballah was involved in other attacks on U.S. citizens and servicemen in Lebanon.

--It is also the anniversary of the killing of three U.S. security agents by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who the Palestinian Authority never punished and Hamas is now protecting. There is no apparent effort by the U.S. government to bring these killers to justice or to press the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to cooperate in doing so or to punish them for not doing so.

All of these forces, however, are left anonymous. No one is named for involvement in that "horrific terrorist attack." And, of course the attack was not "senseless" but part of an Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah campaign to take over Lebanon and drive U.S. influence out of the region. In fact, it was counted as a great victory for these forces since it showed America's vulnerability to being hit by terrorism--an inspiration for September 11?--and did succeed in paralyzing the U.S. effort in Lebanon. Ultimately, this led to the withdrawal of the peace-keeping forces altogether, paving the way for Syria's turning Lebanon into a satellite state for two decades at a great financial and strategic profit. .

None of these attacks were perpetrated by al-Qaida, the only group that remains a target of this administration's version of a war on terrorism, a phrase which is no longer used.

It is bad enough the administration doesn't say any of this. Is it aware of these factors at all?

Indeed, the president's advisor on terrorism is on record as saying that Hizballah is no longer a terrorist group, which opens the door for U.S. contacts in future.

This raises the question of the declaration's final sentence. Let's repeat it:

"We look forward to working with a Lebanese government that works actively to promote stability in the region and prosperity for its people."

While negotiations are complex and ongoing, the government being discussed for Lebanon would include a large contingent of Hizballah cabinet ministers and would give Hizballah veto power over government decisions.

Now it could be argued that this would not constitute, in U.S. eyes, a goverment promoting stability and prosperity. But who knows? Without even naming Hizballah as an adversary, however, the implication is that the United States does not oppose a government including Hizballah, which is one more step toward having such a government.

Consider just one such additional case. Colonel William Richard Higgins, kidnapped by Hizballah men while serving with UN peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon in 1988, horribly tortured, turned over to the Iranians and murdered. Does the White House remember him?

So 241 U.S. servicemen died 26 years ago. Who killed them? Will the murders be punished in any way or will the groups and states that stood behind the attack be rewarded? On this, the declaration is silent.

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 books are 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). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

And speaking of making fools of the American media...

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By Barry Rubin

Many years ago I read a true story about the visit of the American novelist William Faulkner to Japan. At one point, Faulkner made a joke and the translator, who was putting his talk into Japanese for the audience, merely said: "Mr Faulkner has just told a joke. Would you all please laugh."

I imagine some American columnist or TV "personality" meeting with a radical Arab or Iranian leader and breathlessly reporting the scoop that he is really a very nice person and wants world peace. (Actually, I don't need to imagine it as I've seen it many times.)

But this television network piece on Syrian dictator President Bashar al-Asad is priceless. I couldn't stop laughing. It is the mother of all puff pieces. In fact, the state-controlled Syrian newspaper the next day must have been headlined: "President Asad meets with really stupid American journalist."

Here's how one of my readers sums up the interview (which I think was in 2007)\:

""When you were student in England, you rode the bus?" Wow.

"You talked about the internet. You like video games?"

"Do you have an ipod. What's on it?"

"And you're a country music fan. Faith Hill... Shania Twayne."

"And American movies."

"You like true stories?"

These are the actual questions she asked.

My personal favorite was when the American journalist said--with absolute awe and hero worship  in her voice--"He knows everything about American politics!"

Goodness, who does she think Asad is, Obama?

Haven't these people ever heard of staff briefings? Like when a journalist is going to interview a national leader there are people to prepare him for the questions.

True story. A famous American columnist once told me that he had interviewed Dan Quayle, an American politician made much fun of for allegedly being dumb. But he was quite surprised at how much Quayle knew.

Asked I, "What did you talk about?"

"Defense issues," replied the columnist.

"And did he know you were coming to interview him on that subject?"

"Yes."

Hmmm. Staff briefings beforehand. I've written and given some of them myself. Best thing in the world other than having a teleprompter with all the words written on it.

Yet aside from this general goofiness, there is also some mystique--call it the Che Guevera complex--that clings to murderous tyrants, at least if they aren't pro-American ones. Perhaps it is because these are men of action who fascinate journalists, who just watch other people doing stuff, or policy wonks, whose main adventure is to go to academic conferences.

Or maybe it is also Third World worship. But reporters who would jump all over an American politician, accuse him of lying, and pummel him with tough questions seem to go all to pieces when encountering some truly horrible tyrant (as long as he's anti-American) as if they were meeting Brad Pitt or Angela Jolie. Come to think of it, if Brad Pitt or Angela Jolie met Asad or Ahmadinejad or Arafat they'd probably ask for autographs.

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 books are 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). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Middle East: Listen to What They're Saying, in their own language, not English

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By Barry Rubin

Here’s a tip for understanding the Middle East. For Arabic-speaking countries and groups, there are two parallel lines of discourse going on: one in English, one in Arabic. The English-language one is directed outward at the West; the Arabic-speaking is for the direction of policymakers, opinionmakers, and the masses. Not surprisingly, the first is more moderate; the latter, more radical.

The exact proportions vary with each country or movement. But even in Egypt, a large-scale recipient of U.S. aid, the state-controlled newspapers publish an almost unending stream of anti-American hate propaganda. A key problem, however, is that most Western policymakers, opinionmakers, and journalists either don't take non-English talk seriously or aren't even aware of it.

In contrast, democratic states like Israel or America says basically the same thing in both languages, with at most very small variations. Perhaps that's one reason why many or most Westerners aren't aware of the wide gap that exists in other societies.

The variation between true and false discourse—though sometimes in the same language—is, of course, quite ancient. In the "Communist Manifesto" of 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote:

“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.”

But this was before the Age of Public Relations. Even the Communists quickly became masters of saying two contradictory things simultaneously. If they were still around today the Communists would have defined themselves as a race and called anyone who opposed them a racist or, more likely, would have coined the term Communophobia. But I digress.

Here’s a fun example of how doublespeak is done:

The Soviet leadership addressing the Polish people in 1920:

“Our enemies and yours deceive you when they say that the Soviet government wishes to plant communism in Polish soil with the bayonets of the Red Army.”

And now here’s the Soviet leadership addressing the Red Army in 1920:

“Over the corpse of Poland lies the road to world revolution. On bayonets we will bring happiness and peace to laboring humanity.”

I think you get the point. Back to the Middle East of today. The more radical the group—as with Hamas or al-Qaida, for example--the higher the proportion of radical statements made in English. They just don’t care. Hizballah is a little more devious.

As for Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a member of the Communist Manifesto school on that one, but Tehran gets a lot of mileage with a relatively few lies.

But why do should we believe the Arabic more than the English? Let me limit the answer to three of the most important points:

First, the Arabic dialogue establishes the main principles and the limits of what is acceptable. An example is the Palestinian debate. How is the Palestinian Authority going to accept a two-state solution based on ending the conflict, security guarantees, and settling all Palestinians in their own state if nobody even dares say that in Arabic? Exceeding the boundaries can get you killed, cost you your position, have you branded a traitor, and give your enemies ammunition against you.

For a Palestinian politician to say that Israel has ever done anything good and honestly seeks compromise peace is something like a Republican male politician putting on a dress and marching down the street with a poster proclaiming the virtues of Joseph Stalin. In Mississippi. On the Fourth of July. In the middle of an American Legion picnic.

That’s why it is almost impossible to find a moderate statement by any Palestinian leader in Arabic—and I’ve read many thousands of them. Two examples come to mind: when Arafat was making a televised speech from Gaza which he knew was being closely watched and an angry Palestinian general when they entered Hebron complaining that people who committed terrorist acts caused damage to the economy.

During the peace process era, by the way, when Arafat was to give a speech in front of an American Jewish audience, leaders of a dovish Jewish group edited the lecture to make it more palatable. That’s what I mean by lying for peace. Thinking that if you misrepresent the facts on the basis of wishful thinking somehow everything will work out ok in the end.

Second, discussion in Arabic encompasses a huge volume of statements made in all sorts of situations. In contrast, each English-language remark is crafted with a specific purpose in mind—to communicate to Western public opinion or governments.

Third, experience shows overwhelmingly that what is said in Arabic corresponds to what countries and groups actually do.

I fondly recall my biggest success ever with the New York Times. Meeting with an open-minded journalist, I pulled out a huge pile of translations from the Arabic—U.S. government ones from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service which in the pre-computer era used to take up large spaces on my bookshelves—and showed him what was actually being said by Palestinian groups, far more hardline than the American media was reporting. He wrote up a front-page piece on it. Ah, those were the days!

Today, MEMRI plays a very important role in bringing the Arabic discourse to Western attention. In fact, it has been so successful precisely because these facts are so distant from what is expected and reported in the media. Not only does it translate the many extremist statements but also the far fewer moderate writers who say divergent things.

Now, here’s why you have to study carefully the primary sources (original, Arabic-language material and not just what the Western media say). Someone always spills the beans. After all, you have to keep the troops’ morale high and prove you haven’t sold out.

So here’s a MEMRI translation of an interview given by Walid Sukariyya, a Hizballah member in Lebanon’s parliament. He tells it like it is.

Syria’s stance on peace with Israel? It’s just for “tactical bargaining chips.”

How does Syria fight America? “Since, for obvious reasons, Syria cannot [conduct] a confrontation through direct resistance it has opened [its] border with Iraq to all the resistance fighters of Al-Qaida, even though it does not share their ideology.”

Notice, he said al-Qaida. And of course that’s, as I’ve previously reported but which is pretty obvious, one of the main affiliations of the Iraqi insurgents. So, in other words,

--Syria is working with al-Qaida (this should not be a controversial statement but in the Western debate it’s considered as such).

--Al-Qaida is dedicated to the destruction of America and the West.

--Therefore, Syria is an enemy and even under the narrow definition of what used to be called the “war on terrorism”—which is now only against al-Qaida—Syria is on the other side.

Finally, “This is why Damascus supports the resistance – because it does not want to confront the enemy itself.” Right, Syria (and Iran) use Hamas and Hizballah to fight Israel without risk to themselves. And they won’t stop doing it.

Thanks, Walid. And let that be a lesson to all of you out there: Listen to what people in the Middle East actually say, especially when they are speaking their own language.

MEMRI translation, from Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London) October 19, 2009. Special Dispatch | No. 2612 | October 22, 2009

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 books are 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). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Iranian Negotiations: Ploy of the Week or Deal of the Century?

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By Barry Rubin

There are widespread reports about an imminent deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program. Here’s how the New York Times optimistically presents the proposal:

“Iranian negotiators have agreed to a draft deal that would delay the country's ability to build a nuclear weapon for about a year, buying more time for President Obama to search for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff.”

(To be fair, even this somewhat cautious note may be much less ecstatic than what we'll be hearing if the deal goes through.)

What is the proposed bargain? It is based on an offer the Iranian government made in 2007 and reintroduced last June. In practice, the result would be  that Iran enriches unlimited amounts of uranium to a level near that needed for weapons, a large amount of this would be shipped off to France and/or Russia where it would be converted into something useful for medical purposes alone. Thus, it could be said that Iran having nuclear weapons has been either stopped or delayed considerably, though in fact it would only be delayed (if at all) not very long.

If the deal is made—and don’t take for granted it will be as the Iranian regime can think of plenty of delaying tactics, demands for modifications, real or imaginary internal conflicts blocking acceptance, etc.—there will be general rejoicing and the idea of further sanctions will be put on a back shelf to gather dust.

Indeed, it could effectively be argued, that existing sanctions could be removed. This does not seem likely at present--it would require a UN resolution undoing existing sanctions--but such a thing could arise in the future. And of course various countries in Europe could interpret the restrictions more loosely to allow deals that would not have gone through otherwise.

In other words, Iran could go on sponsoring terrorism (in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, against Israel, and in other places) and calling for Israel’s destruction while being treated as a regular member of the international community. It would only be a matter of a week or two before media outlets start writing that this proves President Barack Obama did deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

Iran is trumpeting the proposed deal as a victory. But that seems rather strange doesn’t it? If this deal is as it appears (and again assuming it happens), then Iran won’t get nuclear weapons, has wasted billions of dollars and years of effort for nothing. In fact, it will be running a huge nuclear program to produce a product which in strategic terms is totally useless.

Or to put it another way, it's like setting up a massive and expensive sword-making industry, then shipping off the completed swords to be turned into ploughshares and pruning hooks when you didn't have any agriculture.

And by the way, since Iran--and its apologists--have been insisting that its real goal was nuclear power plants (as if one of the world's largest oil producers which exports almost all of its production needs that) then why doesn't Iran just agree to some deal in which all the uranium went to fuel such reactors with foreign-enriched fuel and close supervision? Even that would make more sense than this deal.

Does this make sense? There will be many silly reasons for this put forward: Iran was scared by sanctions and a united front against it, or Obama is so popular that they like him or trust him and it proves his strategy works. These ideas are nonsense but one a lot of average people in the West will believe them).

One logical argument that will be advanced is that internal disorder is forcing the regime to take a step back and be more cautious. This is a partial argument but, again, doesn’t explain why there would be such a huge apparent concession from a regime unaccustomed to making them.

So what’s really going on?

First, the whole thing may turn out to be a maneuver for buying time and no agreement is actually made.

Second, the Franco-Russian reworked uranium could be turned back into something suitable for further enrichment into weapons’-grade material in several months.

Third, Iran may well have other secret facilities which are going to be pumping out military useful enriched uranium. We have just seen how well they can conceal these things by the public exposure of such a secret facility. These could easily replace the uranium shipped abroad in a brief period of time.

Fourth, Iranian leaders, knowing that they have some way to go before being technologically ready to build weapons, are happy to accept a seeming delay in providing the uranium which will allow them to catch up with the technological and engineering requirements of making a bomb that works and missiles that will carry it to the target. Indeed, with sanctions loosened, it might get the very techniques and tools it needs to complete this process under the guise of other uses.

Note that the Bushehr nuclear reactor, which was supposed to have begun operation some months ago, has not been started up yet. Is this due to some technical difficulties? The reason certainly doesn't seem to be Iran sending a signal of willingness to compromise since the regime has not used this factor as proof of its flexibility.

If this last argument is true--and it seems to be a reasonable one--then the idea that such a deal would even "slow" Iran's obtaining nuclear weapons wouldn't necessarily be true.

There could also be Iranian deals with other countries—perhaps North Korea or Venezuela, for example—to cooperate in supplying what’s needed. Such a possible arrangement with Syria was destroyed by an Israeli attack on a facility in that country last year.

And speaking of an Israeli attack, this agreement would buy Iran assurance that this couldn't happen no matter what Tehran did since the regime's program would be now under Western protection.

As an Arabic-language expression has it: How do you know it was a lie? Because it was so big.
For example, if Iran was truly going to change course in any real way, there would have been a heated debate within the government of which we would have heard something about.

Or there would have to be a factional dispute or domination by a less extremist group in the ruling circle that argued President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s adventurism was too dangerous to pursue. But all these people have been expelled.

Or it would seem apparent that Iran really was afraid of Western military action or tremendous pressure that would be so great as to force it into a big defeat.

Such cautions seem quite logical. Yet no matter how ridiculous the situation seems if Iran pulls off this ploy it could be a devastatingly successful one.

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 books are 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). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.