Issue No. 8-9 / 2008 THE NYU REVIEW OF LAW AND SECURITY

A PUBLICATION OF THE CENTER ON LAW AND SECURITY AT THE NYU SCHOOL OF LAW THE CENTER ON LAW AND SECURITY Table of Contents Founded in 2003, the Center on Law and Security is an Fever Pitch: The Sunni-Shia Divide ...... 23 independent, non-partisan, The and (Suzanne Maloney, Karim Sadjadpour, Shia Demographics in the global center of expertise designed to Prof. , Steven Simon) . . . .2 ...... 24 promote an informed understanding of the major legal and security issues that define Iran, Israel, and the USA Suicide (Prof. David Menashri) ...... 4 (Peter Bergen, Farhad Khosrokhavar, the post-9/11 environment. Towards that Robert Pape, end, the Center brings together and to Timeline of United States/Iranian Prof. Stephen Holmes) ...... 24 public attention a broad range of policy- Relations ...... 6 Critique of the Nationalist makers, practitioners, scholars, journalists Iranian National Government Explanation of Suicide Terrorism and other experts to address major issues Institutions ...... 7 Campaigns and gaps in policy discourse and to provide (by Peter Bergen) ...... 27 Colloquium on Law and Security concrete policy recommendations. (Rachel Bronson) ...... 8 Conversation with Lawrence Wright ...... 28 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Who’s Who in the Saudi Royal Family ...... 10 Editor in Chief Conversation Karen J. Greenberg Muslim Brotherhood with Rory Stewart ...... 30 Editor (Nick Fielding, Alexis Debat, Jeff Grossman Peter Bergen) ...... 11 Excerpts from Iraq, Iran, and Beyond: Research Egypt’s 2007 Constitutional America Faces the Future ...... 31 Paul Cruickshank, Daniel Freifeld, Amendments ...... 12 Susan MacDougall The Fate of America’s Student Interns Re-Evaluating Radical Islamism Iraqi Allies Logan Booth, Gil Shefer, Zachary Stern (Maha Azzam) ...... 13 (George Packer) ...... 32 (’07), Mike Torres (’07), Jessica Van Ness Notable Middle Eastern Conversation Designer News Media ...... 14 with Paul Barrett ...... 34 Wendy Bedenbaugh OPEC Proven Crude Oil Inside the Islamic Republic Reserves ...... 15 Free podcasts from the Center on Law (Daniel Freifeld) ...... 35 and Security’s events are available Movies Playing in Theaters New Works by the for download. Please visit Around the Middle East ...... 16 www.lawandsecurity.org for information. Center on Law and Security’s Faculty and Fellows ...... 36 Hezbollah (Hala Jaber, Amb. Michael Sheehan, The Center on Law and Security Map of the Middle East ...... 37 Peter Bergen) ...... 17 New York University School of Law 110 West Third Street, Suite 217 Glossary of Arabic Terms ...... 20 New York, New York 10012 Cover photo: “Allah.” ©istockphoto.com/Murat Sen (212) 992-8854 Is al Qaeda the Product of Back cover photo: Carrying Bread in Cairo, Egypt. www.lawandsecurity.org Saudi Arabia’s and Wahhabi ©istockphoto.com/Sandra vom Stein [email protected] Religious Ideology? (Prof. Bernard Haykel) ...... 22 Copyright ©2008 by the Center on Law and Security The opinions of the speakers herein do not represent the opinions of the Center on Law and Security. Editor’s Introduction Executive Director Karen J. Greenberg

Faculty Co-Directors Noah Feldman The attacks of 9/11 set in motion a whole world of new ideas and David M. Golove facts, questions and policy directives. Accepting the challenge of Stephen Holmes Richard Pildes learning about this new universe of threat and security, the U.S. government and the American public have immersed themselves Board of Advisors in the unknown and the perplexing dimensions of this new Daniel Benjamin political environment. We have come to learn about threat matrixes and jihad, about Peter Bergen terrorist cells and intelligence networks, about the history of , , Saudi Rachel Bronson Arabia, Iran and Iraq and about tribal conflicts throughout the Middle East and the Persian Roger Cressey Gulf region. At the center of much of this inquiry has been a thirst for knowledge about Viet Dinh the history and customs of Islamic cultures and of Muslim societies. Joshua Dratel Richard Greenberg Martin Gross “Current Trends in the Muslim World (Part I)” reflects on the first five years of the Center Bernard Haykel on Law and Security’s programs on topics endemic to the Muslim world. In it, the reader Judge Kenneth Karas will find a compendium of fundamental statistics and facts about daily life as well as some Priscilla Kauff of the most vibrant thinking on today’s political developments in the Middle East and Neil MacBride within Islamic political organizations. Here you will encounter searing questions and Dana Priest authoritative analysis about democratic trends, the role of the media, the varieties of Samuel Rascoff radical Islam and the historic conflicts that have led to today’s clash of interests, ideologies

2007-2008 Fellows and ideas. Peter Bergen Sidney Blumenthal The has become the first global conflict of the 21st century. As the public Peter Clarke enters this Age of Security, it is hoped that the NYU Review of Law and Security – with Paul Cruickshank this volume as with its previous issues – will guide readers towards a deeper appreciation Barton Gellman not only of the complexities and problems that face the international community but of the Tara McKelvey vast opportunities that challenge us as well. Nir Rosen Michael Sheehan Craig Unger Karen J. Greenberg, Lawrence Wright

Alumni Fellows Executive Director, Center on Law and Security Amos Elon Judge Baltasar Garzón Dana Priest Michael Vatis w w w . l a w a n d s e c u r i t y . o r g

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 1 Open Forum Series: September 26, 2007 Fever Pitch: The United States and Iran

go to war. That will not happen before the stake in respect to Iran. From the perspec- end of the Bush administration. tive of the U.S. government, it is the nuclear • • • issue, it is terrorism, it is rejection of the Ahmadinejad is, in a way, a very difficult peace process, and the questions of democ- Karim Sadjadpour, Steven Simon. Photo by Dan Creighton man to understand. He seems to be racy and the political situation on the absolutely convinced that he has truth on ground at home. Suzanne Maloney, Senior Fellow, his side and that he knows what he is doing. He framed it with an important overview Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Because he will not engage and give question: do these constitute a systematic The Brookings Institution straight answers to straight questions, but challenge to the American position in the rather equivocates, wanders around, and Middle East, to American interests in the Karim Sadjadpour, Associate, Carnegie gives elliptical responses, people are region and around the world? That is cer- Endowment for International Peace intrigued. They want to push him further. tainly the view that the Bush administration Prof. Gary Sick, Senior Research Scholar, They want to see if they can get something holds quite deeply and quite broadly. While School of out of him, so they keep trying. They keep there are differences in terms of how to International and Public Affairs asking these questions, he keeps giving the approach and address the Iranian challenge, same answers, and we do not get anyplace. the sense that Iran is deliberately and sys- Steven Simon, Moderator, Senior Fellow I think that he is potentially dangerous in tematically opposing everything that we are for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on the sense that he has a single-minded view trying to advance in the Middle East forms Foreign Relations that comes from some depths of his soul – a the basis of the sense of urgency and prior- view that is not informed very much by ity that the administration has when it • • • facts, information, or other people’s opin- comes to Iran. Steven Simon: ions. He has these fixed ideas. He is con- I disagree. If you were to look across the • • • vinced that he is the smartest guy in the region, you would see an opportunistic for- There are two questions regarding Iran that room and that he can, in fact, debate and eign policy on the part if the Iranians. They have recently emerged. One is whether the overcome anybody who challenges him. In did not create the environment that has Iraqi domain, the Lebanese/Palestinian that sense, he is dangerous. enabled them to make such gains in their theater, and the nuclear fandango are all I am impressed by the fact that none of influence in Iraq. Although there may be part of some systematic Iranian challenge the policy statements that he has made, and disagreement as to what precipitated it, they to American hegemony in the region, as none of the things that he has said, represent did not create the environment in Lebanon some people believe. Does this have the policies that he has had anything to do with. today. Nor did they necessarily even benefit makings of a systematic and methodical He does not run Iran. He does not run Iran’s from the events of last summer, as I think confrontation with the United States? In nuclear policy. He does not run Iran’s secu- one can look Hezbollah’s situation today short, are these parts of a strategy that we rity strategy. He is, at best, a representative and recognize that while there are some are seeing unleashed? The second question of that strategy and carries it to the rest of advances there are also some new liabili- is, what does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have the world. ties. Iran did not create the vagaries in the to do with any of this? Is there a system He is most dangerous not to us but to Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty nor the responsible for these decisions that is big- Iran itself, through the image that he proj- permissiveness of the international commu- ger than he is and to which he is actually ects of his country. He comes from a highly nity in the way that that treaty has been perhaps marginal? cultured, historically exceptional country enforced over the years that have enabled • • • with its own background and literature. But Iran to create a systematic, comprehensive, that is not the impression that he leaves. and broad-based program which now, right- Prof. Gary Sick: That hurts Iran. That means that when the fully, evokes concern in Washington. I do not think that Iran is in the process of Iranians come up with a reasonable strategy I would continue to look at Iran as we building a nuclear weapon. I think they are on their nuclear program, it gets wiped have seen since the death of Ayatollah in the process of building a nuclear infra- away because other people think only of Khomeini (and one might argue even earli- structure which would give them that capa- Ahmadinejad and nothing else. That is a er than that) – as a regime which is respond- bility for negotiation purposes and, if neces- shame, and Iran is paying a high price for it. ing to opportunities across the region, often sary, to actually go ahead and complete a • • • creatively, often violently and assertively, bomb. That belief is not shared by everyone, but not as a regime which is inevitably revi- but it is not held by me alone. In regard to Suzanne Maloney: sionist, not as a regime which is trying to the possibility of a conflict, I do not think • • • impose some sort of caliphate or Islamic that the United States and Iran are going to Steven Simon mentioned all of the issues at state across the region, and not as a regime

2 NYU Review of Law and Security which we cannot deal with or which is inca- Karim Sadjadpour: weak image of the country and did not get pable of engagement and negotiation. • • • anything for us. We need to take a hard-line, What I feel directly coming out of the I find it informative to compare the institu- non-compromising approach. That is what administration is the frenzy that has tion of the Iranian clergy with the institu- the West responds to.” enveloped Washington and which I suspect tion of the bazaar. There are a long history That presents a problem for the is being felt elsewhere – this frenzy that was and a strong affinity between them, and Europeans and the Americans. If they were evoked in the title of tonight’s event, “Fever both are known for their cunning and their to offer major incentives to an Ahmadinejad Pitch;” the sense that we are on the verge of piety. government that were not on the table dur- some sort of very violent and serious con- In terms of the nuclear issue, it is inter- ing the Khatami era, that would quite likely frontation with the Iranians. Like Gary esting to look at the bazaar when trying to appear to validate the hard-liners. Sick, I am quite skeptical of likelihood of a decipher Iran’s negotiating posture. Young It does not behoove us to publicly demo- military confrontation under this adminis- Iranians are taught never to let a merchant nize Iran. Teddy Roosevelt said it best: tration. I saw almost no sign of an inevitable know whether they love one of his carpets “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” I think conflict during my two years at the State because he would realize that he could that both governments are speaking loudly Department. The general thrust of adminis- extract a very high price for it. The Iranians and carrying much smaller sticks right now tration policy has been, in a very frustrating see that the United States is obsessed with because both of them are hampered. way, a search for a diplomatic solution to their nuclear carpet – the U.S. cannot stop • • • the Iranian problem. I think the frenzy itself talking about it; it is very important to I would say that a U.S./Iran rapproche- is potentially quite dangerous, and I agree them. So the Iranians say, “Okay. Pay the ment is a prerequisite for domestic political that both regimes have contributed to it to corresponding price for it. It deserves more reform in Iran. I do not see any hope for some extent. than spare airplane parts or membership to major domestic political reform as long as • • • the World Trade Organization.” Iran remains in isolation. But if we were to Steven raised a very good question about • • • change the dynamic, there would be foreign who Ahmadinejad is and what he repre- The second lesson from the bazaar is that investment coming into Iran, Iranian exiles sents. Gary spoke about how Ahmadinejad there are never price tags affixed to the car- going back, and tourists going into the is not ultimately Iran’s decision maker on pets. The merchant is not looking for a country strengthening the Iranian middle any particular issue. Ahmadinejad, I would fixed price. He is looking to extract the class. It would much more difficult for the argue, is still important. He is not being highest price possible. One reason why it is Islamic Republic to retain the status quo. marginalized in the way that his predeces- difficult to devise an effective policy I think of these people as a type of weed sor Mohammad Khatami has been. He mat- towards Iran is that they do not know exact- that only grows without sunlight. They ters. The issues that he represents and the ly what they are looking for. Iran is not a thrive in isolation. It is not coincidental that approach to Iran’s regional relationships dictatorship. There is no one person who whenever the U.S. and Iran are cooperating and the world that he has propounded carry makes the decision. It is a consensus-build- and some hope for diplomatic accommoda- some weight. They certainly influence the ing process, and I do not think there is any tion exits, something comes out of Tehran man who is the ultimate decision maker, consensus about which direction the coun- which aims to torpedo those efforts. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. try should go. I think that Ahmadinejad has Karine A incident in 2002 is a good exam- So we have to have a balanced view of a much different vision for Iran than Ali ple. The U.S. and Iran were cooperating in Ahmadinejad. We have to be careful about Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani does. Ayatollah regard to Afghanistan. Then the Karine A the way we talk about him and focus on Khamenei is paralyzed with mistrust. He is was intercepted off the coast of Gaza with him, both in terms of substance and in so mistrustful of U.S. intentions that he can- 50 tons of weapons postmarked from terms of style when it comes to influencing not make a decision. Tehran. Iranian opinion about him. But we also have So I think the Iranians feel that they There are some individuals in Iran who to be careful not to discount him, not to deserve to extract a very high price from the realize that their hold on power would slip assume, as I think that many of my Iranian U.S. right now. I think that in 2003 and if the country were more open and merito- friends did at the outset of his administra- 2002, when oil prices were $20 a barrel, cratic. Right now, 85 percent of the econo- tion two years ago, that he was a rube and Iraq was still a blank slate, and there were my is state-owned, so they have more than political unsophisticate who was going to student agitations in Iran, they would have enough money (especially with oil prices as be effectively a puppet. been willing to make a nuclear compromise they are) to continue to fund the main pil- He is a man who matters and, whether we for far less in return. lars of their power – the Revolutionary like it or not, we are going to have to deal • • • Guards, the Basij, and the like. Changing with an Iran in which his ideas and his view I am ambivalent about putting large that dynamic would expedite domestic of the world matters. That has to be the foun- incentives on the table. There has been a reform in Iran. dation of decision making and policymaking long-standing debate in Tehran between the over the next year and a half. Ultimately, I conservative hardliners currently in power think that the Iranians have already cast their and the reformists. The conservatives have bets and decided that they are not going to always been critical of the approach taken come up with any sort of workable frame- by Mohammad Khatami. work for dialog with this administration. They essentially say, “All that this talk They are looking ahead to 2009. about a ‘dialog of civilizations’ has gotten • • • for us is the ‘axis of evil.’ It projected a

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 3 Distinguished Speaker Series: April 11, 2006 nated institutions of power. While the reformists support greater political free- dom, economic openness and social change Iran, Israel, and the USA and advocate improved ties with the outside world, and some of them even support defusing the tension with the United States, the final stabilization of the regime will the conservatives emphasize the centrality not have to do so much with the degree of of the initial revolutionary values and the the return to Islam but rather with the supremacy of dogma in formulating policy. degree to which the regime manages to It is a profound and vigorous debate, based solve the problems that initially caused the on important questions such as the relation- revolution. ship between religion and state, idealism vs. • • • national interests, isolationism against Upon coming to power, riding the wave globalization, and the preferred attitude to of dramatic victory, Ayatollah Khomeini be adopted vis-à-vis the outside world. and his disciples sought to implement their • • • Prof. David Menashri. Photo by Dan Creighton revolutionary ideology but were no One must admit that there have been strangers to pure considerations of state. many significant pragmatic changes in Iran. Prof. David Menashri, Director, Center for Faced with the responsibility of actual rule, When I review cultural life there – the Iranian Studies, Tel Aviv University with very few exceptions, whenever ideo- press, book publications, the movie indus- logical convictions clashed with state inter- try, the use of the Internet – I am impressed Prof. David Menashri: est – as prescribed by the ruling elite – by the level that the Iranians have reached Since coming to power in 1979, the Islamic pragmatic interests ultimately triumphed. compared to both the pre-revolutionary era Revolution has had two major aims: to con- Thus, although national considerations and to other countries in the Middle East solidate and institutionalize their rule and, were alien to Khomeini’s general principles today. Women’s organizations and youth more importantly, to implement Ayatollah and theory of foreign relations, his regime movements are doing splendidly. They have Khomeini’s ideology as the means to allevi- nonetheless chose to conduct its regional been suppressed from time to time but are ate the general feeling of malaise in the policy primarily from its perception of still vibrant and very active. I gave a lecture country, to develop Iran into a prosperous Iran’s state interests. some time ago in . Someone country and in turn further legitimize their • • • turned to me and asked, “How can one talk rule. I would say the regime has been gen- With authority comes responsibility and about even limited freedom of expression in erally successful in strengthening its hold the Islamic regime had to find a pragmatic Iran when a hundred newspapers were shut on institutions of power, but has proved less way to do what needed to be done. There down in five years?” My instant answer effective, to date, in utilizing their dogma to are 70 million people to feed in Iran. was, “Show me another country in the ease the mounting problems that were the Reality has to be considered, and it has been Middle East which has a hundred liberal root cause of the revolution. since day one. Thus, faced with harsh reali- newspapers to shut down.” I happen to read • • • ties, gradually, ideology was subordinated many of them. It was a real pleasure, main- I think it would be wrong to view the rev- to national interest, and actual policy suc- ly in the late 1990s. But, again, that is just olution exclusively through a religious ceeded in combining ideological conviction one segment of society. Moreover, even prism. To be sure, Islamic theory encom- with regard for the national interest. when this group held power (basically passes all spheres of the believer’s life, • • • between the mid-1990s until the early making no distinctions between religion, Still, concerning the scope and depth of 2000s), they lacked the power to lead to real politics, and science. Thus, from a purely transformation, Iran’s domestic political change. We have seen this trend diminish- Islamic perspective, the economic distress, factions vary greatly. There are many trends ing since then, until they lost power alto- social disparities, political repression, for- and subgroups. I will limit myself to what I gether after the provincial elections in 2003, eign exploitation, and rapid westernization view as the two main trends competing for the parliamentary elections in 2004, and the that served as the catalysts for the revolu- ascendancy (with all the differences presidential election in 2005. tion can not be entirely separated from reli- between them). One is generally defined as For all practical purposes, the conserva- gion. Indeed, Iranians rose against the Shah “reformists,” “moderates,” or “pragma- tives are now in complete power and advo- for a variety of reasons and viewed Islam as tists.” The other is often called “conserva- cate dogmatic adherence to Ayatollah the means to provide their children with a tives,” “extremists,” or “radicals.” While Khomein’i’s revolutionary ideology. Thus, better life, and to lead their country to a both movements have been part of the Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi - brighter future. The revolutionary credo Islamic system, their differences are pro- who is considered one of President “Islam is the solution” best embodied this found. In a nutshell, this is a contest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s mentors - went deep-rooted and multidimensional vision. between the revolutionary ideals of 1979 into great detail in providing the doctrinaire Ultimately, the demise of the monarchy led and the spirit of the 1997 reform movement. justification for suppression of dissident to the creation of an Islamic regime led by It is equally a contest between institutions voices. He dismissed the spirit of leniency clerics, and in that sense it was, undeniably, of power and the emerging civil society, and indulgence as alien to Islam, and advo- an Islamic revolution. If this is the accepted between the old guard and the new genera- cated use of violence, or hoshunat, against analysis of the roots of the revolution, then tion, and between the elected and the nomi- those who are considered enemies. In a ser-

4 NYU Review of Law and Security One who is supported by Islam on one side and the military on the other is secure to a large degree. In addition to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, the judici- ary has also traditionally worked to block reformism. The Council of Guardians, the Expediency Council, and the powerful rev- olutionary foundations – along with a range of semi-governmental bodies – often resist reformism. Additionally, the Islamic regime seems unwilling to voluntarily concede power. When the Shah faced opposition he took his family and left the country. The ayatollahs are many and don’t have anywhere to go. They have another advantage in that there is no single opposition with coherent ideology and accepted leadership challenging them. Just as significantly, issues of great con- cern to the United States – i.e., and weapons of mass destruction – would not be in the hands of the reformists even if the reformists were in power. The question is not what the intellectuals think but rather who has the actual power when it comes to major issues of national security. No matter how wonderful the civil society may be, or how many books and newspa- pers are being published, the prerogative on security issues is exclusively controlled by the Supreme Leader and the conservatives close to him. One major area in which Iran’s policy has remained excessively uncompromising is its inherent hostility to Israel, which remains one of the rare examples of contin- ued adherence to dogma. In this case, so far, ideological hostility has not seemed to con- flict with the pragmatic interests of the state, as defined by the regime. In the view of the Islamic regime, Israel remains the enemy of Iran and Islam, and a threat to Northern Tehran, Iran. ©istockphoto.com/Klaas Lingbeek-van Kranen mankind. The revolutionary goal was unequivocal: “Israel should be eliminated.” mon on July 23, 1999, he stated that the the dangers of free expression, he said that The gradual pragmatism notwithstanding, leaders of those acting against the Islamic the Guards would not allow attacks on the when it comes to Israel, both domestic regime, or who speak out against its basic most precious ideals of the revolution. He trends seem to share a more or less similar tenets, or who chant slogans against the punctuated his remarks by saying the policy. When I said that the revolutionary Supreme Leader should be cut by a sharp Revolutionary Guards were ready to decap- movement has become more pragmatic, I sword. He asked: Should those who want to itate or cut the tongues out of those stand- did not mean to imply that the revolutionary seize the people’s lives, property, chastity, ing against the revolutionary ideals. leaders wake up in the morning and seek and religion be treated with negligence? What makes the conservatives so power- out ways to contradict their promises. They Those who claim that Islam does not ful? For one thing, they speak in the name want to stick to them. They consider modi- approve violence do not understand Islam at of Islam, thereby enjoying much influence fying their ideology only when there is a all. Rahim Safavi, commander of the in the community. In the Middle East, if you significant price to pay otherwise. In the Revolutionary Guards, warned that the speak in the name of God, that is good (and case of Israel, they have not seemed to have Guards would use violence, if necessary, to not only in Muslim countries but in Israel had a good incentive thus far to change purge the unfaithful elements in the press. too). Also, they enjoy the loyalty of the their attitude as a practical matter. Viewing the West’s cultural onslaught as the armed forces – the Revolutionary Guards, • • • main threat to the regime, and recognizing Army and other law-enforcement bodies.

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 5 Timeline of United States / Iranian Relations

1906: Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s tyrannical 1951: Nationalist and reformist leader 1980: Saddam Hussein invades Iran, behavior prompts mullahs, merchants, and Mohammed Mossadeq is elected prime beginning the Iran-. tradesmen to flee Tehran, leaving the minister; the oil industry is nationalized. economy stagnant. The protesters demand January, 1981: The hostages held in the the formation of a Majles (or representa- 1952: The shah dismisses Mossadeq as American embassy in Tehran are released. tive assembly). When the first Majles is prime minister in response to his policy In exchange, the U.S. unfreezes Iran’s assembled, known as the Constitutional initiatives. Popular reaction demands that assets and pledges that the U.S. will no Revolution, the members appoint a he be reinstated. longer intervene in Iran’s affairs. committee to draft what becomes the Fundamental Law, which the shah signs 1953: The intelligence forces of the October, 1981: Hojjatoleslam Ali right before his death in December. United States and Britain cooperate to Khamene’i is elected president for the overthrow Mossadeq. first of two four-year terms. 1907: A longer Supplementary Fundamental Law is drafted and signed 1954: An international oil consortium is 1986: President Reagan gives the CIA into law by Mohammad Ali Shah. formed and begins negotiations with the permission to sell 4,000 TOW missiles to The two documents serve as Iran’s Iranian government. The Anglo- Iran, with Israel as a go-between. The constitution until 1979. Persian/Anglo-Iranian Oil Company executive branch’s use of the funds from becomes British Petroleum (“BP”) and the sale to support the contra rebels in 1908: Large oil deposits are discovered in takes a 40% share in the consortium. Nicaragua forms the “Iran-contra affair.” central Iran. American companies take another 40% share, leaving the remaining 20% to be 1987: The United Nations Security 1909: The Anglo-Persian Oil Company is split between the French and the Dutch. Council passes a resolution calling for a formed. cease-fire between Iraq and Iran. Iraq 1961: The shah dissolves the government accepts, and Iran declines to respond. The 1915: Russia and England sign a secret and appoints Ali Amini to be prime minis- U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes shoots down treaty in which Russia is awarded control ter. Elections for the Majles are suspended an Iran Air passenger jet, killing 290 over Istanbul in exchange for British con- and riots ensue. Amini and the shah people. The U.S. says that the plane was trol of central Iran. proceed to rule by decree for over a year. mistakenly identified as a fighter plane.

1918: Postal and printing workers form February, 1979: In response to protests, 1988: Iran accepts Security Council trade unions in Tehran and Tabriz. the shah cracks down. Exiled cleric Resolution 598, ending the Iran-Iraq war. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini then returns 1923: Reza Khan becomes prime minister. to the country. The Imperial Guard June, 1989: Ayatollah Khomeini dies; attempts to suppress a rally in his favor in Ayatollah Khamane’i is named supreme 1925: Reza Khan takes the name Pahlavi, Tehran, and revolutionary forces mobilize. leader. from a pre-Islamic society in Iran. He has Khomeini takes control of the government the Majles depose the Qajar dynasty of on February 11. August, 1989: Ayatollah Akbar Shahs, and assumes the title of shah Hashemi Rafsanjani is elected president himself. November, 1979: The shah, in Mexico for the first of two four-year terms. for cancer treatment, travels to the U.S.A. 1935: Tehran University is founded. group called “Students Following the Line 1995: President Clinton imposes an Women are permitted to attend. of the Imam” seizes the U.S. embassy and economic embargo on Iran. holds its occupants hostage. 1936: In imitation of Turkey’s Kemal 1997: Reformist Mohammad Khatami, Atatürk, Reza Shah passes a law requiring December, 1979: A new constitution supported especially by women and young women to dress in Western clothing. Some drafted by the Majles is ratified by popular people, is elected president for the first of women refuse to appear in public. referendum. The constitution grants signif- two four-year terms. Ayatollah Khamane’i icant powers to the clerical leader of Iran names Rafsanjani head of the Expediency 1941: During World War II, the shah abdi- and includes measures for the eradication Council. cates in response to an occupation by of poverty. The Islamic Nationalist party, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. His the Azerbaijani party, the Kurdish party, 2005: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mayor of son, Mohammad Reza, becomes shah. and the federalist Islamic party all boycott Tehran, is elected president, defeating the referendum. Khomeini is named leader. former president Rafsanjani, who was running for a third, non-consecutive term.

6 NYU Review of Law and Security Iranian National Government Institutions

August, 2006: Iran fails to suspend its Supreme Leader: Ayatollah Ali Expediency Council: A group of uranium enrichment, violating a UN Khamene’i. The Supreme Leader is the prominent figures responsible for Security Council Resolution. constitutional head of state and com- resolving disputes between the Council mander in chief of the armed forces. of Guardians and the Majles. Members December, 2006: Iran hosts a controver- He appoints the head of the Judiciary are appointed by the president. The sial conference on the Holocaust; delegates and six of the twelve members of the current Council, on which members include Holocaust deniers. The UN Council of Guardians. The Assembly of serve for seven years, has 28 members Security Council votes to impose sanctions Experts chooses the Supreme Leader, led by former President Akbar Hashemi on Iran’s trade in sensitive nuclear materi- who serves as long as he is fit. Rafsanjani. In October 2005, the als and technology. Iran condemns the Khamene’i follows Ayatollah Ruhollah president endowed the Council with resolution and vows to speed up uranium Khomeini, who served as Supreme supervisory power over all branches enrichment work. Leader until his death. of government.

May, 2007: Ryan Crocker and Hassan President: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Council of Ministers: (Cabinet) - Kazemi-Qomi, the U.S. and Iranian The president, the second-highest-rank- Appointed by the President and ambassadors to Iraq, hold the first high- ing official in Iran, appoints the Council approved by the Majles. level talks between the two countries in of Ministers, the equivalent of the almost 30 years. cabinet. Candidates for the presidency Outside of the central institutions of must be approved by the Council of government, the Iranian Revolutionary October, 2007: The U.S. announces Guardians. The president serves for four Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Bonyads expansive new sanctions against Iran, years, with a limit of two terms. play significant roles in shaping and including its Revolutionary Guard Corps implementing policy. The IRGC serves specifically. Council of Guardians: A body of 12 as the ideological, technical, and mili- clerics that reviews the candidates for tary instrument of the central powers of December, 2007: A declassified all national elections and all legislation the Islamic Republic. Bonyads are large, National Intelligence Estimate of the U.S. passed by the Majles. Six of the mem- quasi-state foundations that distribute intelligence agencies concludes with bers are selected by the Supreme oil revenues through patronage net- “high confidence” that Iran suspended the Leader. The other six are selected by the works and service delivery outlets, military component of its nuclear program judiciary and voted on by the Majles. particularly for veterans’ payments, in 2003 and with “moderate confidence” The members serve for six-year terms. social welfare, and local infrastructure. that the program had not been restarted. Majles: A 290-member parliamentary Sources: Sources: body responsible for legislation (which BBC News, “Iran: Who Holds the Power?”; , “U.S. Imposes New Sanctions on must be approved by the Council of http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/ Iran,” http://www.msnbc.msn.com, October 25, 2007 Guardians), nominating cabinet 03/iran_power/html/default.stm BBC News, “Timeline: Iran,” October 27, 2007; members, and impeaching ministers. Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/ Members are elected by popular vote “Iran”https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/ country_profiles/806268.stm every four years. the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html BBC News, “Timeline: US-Iran Ties,” May 28, 2007; Economist, “Country Briefings: Iran,” January 25, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3362443.stm Assembly of Experts: An 86-member 2008,http://www.economist.com/countries/Iran/ body of clerics, approved by the profile.cfm?folder=Profile%2DPolitical%20 Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Iran,” 2007 Council of Guardians, which selects and Structure Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Reza Shah oversees the Supreme Leader. Former Pahlavi,” 2007 president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Helene Cooper, “U.S. Plays Its ‘Unilateral’ Card on is the current chair. Iran Sanctions,” New York Times, October 26, 2007 Head of the Judiciary: Ayatollah Nikkie R. Keddie, Modern Iran (New Haven: Yale Mahmud Hashemi Shahroodi. The judi- Press, 2006) ciary is responsible for reinforcing the Mark Mazzetti, “U.S. Finds Iran Halted Its Nuclear Iranian legal code, which is derived Arms Effort in 2003,” New York Times, December 4, from Islamic law, and for selecting half 2007 of the members of the Council of Guardians. The head of the Judiciary is appointed by the Supreme Leader.

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 7 November 8, 2005 Colloquium on Law and Security

others allied with the West. The Iraqis, the Jordanians, and the Saudis were very worried. Nasser’s presence and prestige grew and grew throughout the Fifties and Sixties. This was a period of Arab nationalism, of reaching out to the masses and public mobi- lization. Saudi Arabia saw what was going on and was very worried. Nasser was say- ing that the monarchs were like dwarves and should be overthrown. His rhetoric was very harsh. One of the things the Saudis did in response was to consciously say, in essence, “We are going to fight them with religion. We are going to take them on. We cannot compete on Arab nationalism; Egypt has the largest Arab population in the world. There is very little we can do about that, but we can challenge Nasser on religion.” Prof. Noah Feldman, Rachel Bronson, Prof. Stephen Holmes. Photo by Dan Creighton The Saudis started building institutions to try to convince the Islamic world, as Rachel Bronson, Senior Fellow and their pumps open and prices low.” Actually, good Muslims, not to affiliate with Arab Director of Middle East Studies, Council during the Cold War, we were fighting the nationalism, but with Saudi Arabia. They on Foreign Relations; author of Thicker “godless communists.” The fact that they start creating institutions and major univer- than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership were godless was actually very important to sities that brought Muslims from around the with Saudi Arabia (Oxford University the United States. Promoting religion Islamic community to Saudi Arabia and Press, 2006) became a way of fighting communism, and Saudi Arabia became a natural ally in this Rachel Bronson: battle. This is true from Dwight D. • • • Eisenhower up until Ronald Reagan. The There is a sense that the relationship Soviets were godless, and the Saudis saw between the United States and Saudi Arabia them that way. The Saudi regime has had a is simply all about oil; that all you have to historic partnership with clerics in the understand is oil and then you will under- Kingdom dating back to 1744. They did not stand the relationship. That assumption is need to be convinced that godlessness is a not true and it has never been true. bad thing. They viewed the very existence From the beginning, the relationship has of the Soviet Union’s communism as an been about three things. First, it has been existential threat. They got on board against about oil, but it has also been about two the Soviets very early. Unlike many of Saudi stamp. other things. America’s partners in the region, we did not which then sent them back out. Some of the It has been about Saudi Arabia’s strategic have to convince them to be on the side of universities that became hotbeds for radi- location, where it sits in the world. You just the United States. They joined fairly eagerly. calism in the 1990s, and that pump out have to look at a map and see the Red Sea • • • members of al Qaeda, date back to the on one side and the Persian Gulf on the I am going back 50 years because it is Fifties and Sixties. But, at the time, that is other to recognize its importance. In terms relevant to some of the problems we are not what they were trying to create. They of air transit and the American air force, facing now. The United States faced a real were trying to establish an Islamic identity think about how to get to Pakistan or challenge in the region. Communism was and to spread the faith in order to combat Central Asia from the United States. The very much on the rise, personified by the ideological threat of Arab nationalism. U.S. military pushed for bases there during Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser. The The United States saw what was going World War II so that we could get out to the Egyptian-Czech Arms Deal in 1955 was the on. We were not encouraging them to do it, Asian theatre. first time that the Soviet Union put weapons but it was certainly okay with us, because But what I find the most fascinating is into countries outside of the Warsaw Pact. anything that would take on Nasser was the role of religion. Writing about the Arab- They had hopscotched over Europe and good in our eyes. And anything that would Muslim states in on were directly arming a Middle Eastern take on the godless communists was even March 3, 2005, Thomas Friedman said the proxy. Everyone was very nervous about better. U.S. cared only about whether they “keep this, certainly including the monarchs and • • •

8 NYU Review of Law and Security There is a domestic battle going on in Saudi Arabia between the pragmatists and the ideologues, which I view as a struggle for Saudi Arabia’s soul. The two groups have had a natural alliance for much of Saudi Arabia's recent history. The pragma- tists were fighting the godless communists and the ideologues were fighting the non- Wahhabis. There was a real separating out in 2003. I think that the battle could probably go either way. I am a little optimistic that the pragmatists will ultimately win because I think they are in positions of power, but it is certainly not clear. • • • The United States and Saudi Arabia do not have the same sort of shared strategic interests that we had during the Cold War. There will likely be friction – over oil poli- cy, Iran policy, and Iraq. There are many issues over which the relationship could be very strained. The relationship was collapsing through- out the Nineties. September 11th was just the bottom of it. There was a steady decline from the high point of Desert Storm in 1991 to the low point of September 2001. There is no strategic logic keeping the states together anymore. Nothing makes sense. We used to go to the Saudis all the time and say, “Could we have money for this? Could we have money for the Contras? Could we have money for Angola?” It all made sense, and the Saudis are writing their checks. Now we are asking them to put money into home heating in North Korea and to help us with the Mexican peso bailout. It does not make sense to the Saudis. There are many issues that will keep us together. A nuclear Iran is very troubling for both countries. In fact, the Saudis, who had al Masjid al Nabawi (The Prophet’s Mosque), Medina, Saudi Arabia. ©istockphoto.com/Salem been undertaking a rapprochement with the Iranians for the last half of the 1990s, are higher oil prices than we would prefer, but the proselytizing and the outward flow of scared to death of Iran. They see a very they won’t want prices as high as $100 a radicals. There is “a fire hose of funding,”as muscular and powerful Iran. A few months barrel. That would not be good for them. Larry Wright calls it. ago at the Council on Foreign Relations, the They have too much invested globally and But these are now all separate issues Saudi Foreign Minister said, “The Iranians they need buyers. Their strategic location is rather than a global strategic threat. That is are coming into Iraq under your aus- still important. We ran Afghanistan and a a challenge the United States now shares pices.”And in large part they are right. good part of Iraq from Saudi Arabia. with all of its allies. We do not have this The balance of the region has really But what it really comes down to is overarching strategic threat and we are changed, so the Saudis have to decide whether they on the right side in terms of going have to manage on an issue-by-issue whether or not we have anything to offer the war on terror and in terms of proselyti- basis. So I do think that there are things for them. I think that they are still going to need zation. I think that, since 2003, the admin- us to work together on, but it is not going to security guarantees from the United States istration has rightly determined that they be as easy as it has been in the past. because they are still vulnerable, and that are, and therefore there are things that we • • • they will ultimately continue working with can work with them on. They have accepted us on security issues. In terms of energy, I the FBI into the Kingdom and there does think that the Saudis are going to want seem to be a concerted effort in stopping

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 9 Who’s Who in the Saudi Royal Family King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud (King, 2005 - present) King Abdullah is the Prime Minister and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. He has no full broth- ers, and thus must form alliances with other factions in the family. He was previ- ously the mayor of Mecca and commander of the National Guard.

Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud is the Crown Prince and the Deputy Prime King Abdullah King Abdulaziz Prince Salman King Fahd Minister, and has been the minister of Defense since 1963. He was appointed Second Deputy Prime Minister upon King Fahd’s accession to the throne in 1982, and then to his current position when King Abdullah took the throne. He is a son of King Abdulaziz Abdulrahman Al-Saud.

Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz al Saud has been Minister of the Interior since 1975. He is also a son of King Abdulaziz King Khaled Interior Minister Nayef Prince Turki Abdulrahman Al-Saud, and a likely successor to Sultan as Crown Prince. uccession in Saudi Arabia differs from the founder of the modern Saudi state. Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud the primogeniture succession of most He is credited with defining the bound- S has been Governor of Riyadh since 1962, European monarchies, wherein the throne aries of the Kingdom through military and is a son of King Abdulaziz is passed from the king to his eldest son. conquests, strategic marriages, and other Abdulrahman al Saud. In the case of the Saudi royal family, only diplomatic tactics. sons of King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Prince Saud al Faisal bin Abdulaziz al al Saud, the first ruler of modern Saudi King Saud bin Abdulaziz al Saud (King, Saud has been Minister of Foreign Affairs Arabia, can become king. Because al Saud 1953-1964) Al Saud’s eldest son, he abdi- since 1975. He is a son of the late King was married to 22 different women and cated the throne in 1964 and died in 1969. Faisal. had 37 sons, this chain of succession could continue for many years. In the past, sons King Faisal bin Abdulaziz al Saud Prince Turki al Faisal was Director of al Saud have chosen the next King (King, 1964-1975) Faisal was named General of the National Intelligence through consensus reached in private, Crown Prince when Saud was named his Service from 1977-2001, and then negotiating demands of the family’s father’s successor, and his reign ended Ambassador to the in different branches amongst themselves. when he was assassinated in 1975 by his 2003. He became Ambassador to the King Abdullah codified this process in nephew, Amir Faisal bin Musaid al-Saud. United States in 2005, and was replaced by Saudi Basic Law, calling for a council of Adel al-Jubeir in February of 2007. Prince al Saud’s sons to convene and choose King Khalid bin Abdulaziz al Saud Turki is a son of the late King Faisal. a successor. (King, 1975-1982) King Khalid delegated The list below is not intended to be much of his power to Fahd, who was Sources: comprehensive. Rather, it reflects an Crown Prince at the time. His health was Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; endeavor to include former heads of the poor at the end of his brief reign, which http://www.saudiembassy.net/Country/Government/ Saudi state, ministers who have held their ended upon his death in 1982. Gov.asp positions for many years, those who have Madawi Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia had particular influence, and those who are King Fahd bin Abdulaziz al Saud (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006) potential successors to the current ruler, (King, 1982-2005) King Fahd coined the Simon Henderson, “Policy Watch #1156 New Saudi King Abdullah. title “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques” Rules on Succession: Will They Fix the Problem?” in 1986. He suffered a debilitating stroke The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 25, 2006, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/ King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman al in 1995, after which Crown Prince (now templateC05.php?CID=2526 Saud (King, 1932-1953) was the sixteenth King) Abdullah assumed most of his ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and responsibilities. Photos courtesy of the Saudi Information Office.

10 NYU Review of Law and Security Open Forum Series: October 19, 2006 the answers. But I have little doubt that the refusal to recognize the legitimate demands of the majority of Muslims for a state gov- Muslim Brotherhood erned by Shariah law is the real reason for the growth of militancy in the Islamic world. The increasingly untenable support hands of the Qutbists, the al Qaedas of for dictators is one of the principal reasons today and tomorrow. for the radicalization of Muslims, not just in I think that we have failed to understand the Middle East and Islamic countries but the political landscape of Islam. The great also in the West. social movements that over the last 40 years • • • have thrown up the Brotherhood in the Middle East, the Jamiah Islamia on the Indian subcontinent, and the Khomeini rev- olution in Iran have not been fully under- . stood by us here in the West. In the Islamic Ikwhan al Muslimeen world, these movements are all seen as products of what is called the Sahwa “Muslim Brotherhood” Nick Fielding. Photo by Dan Creighton Islamia, the Islamic Awakening, which grew out of the collapse of the Ottoman Description Nick Fielding, author of Masterminds of caliphate and the profound shock that event Sunni political movement Terror: The Truth Behind the Most had on all Muslims. Unsure about how to Devastating Attack the World Has Ever replace the Ottomans, we in the West opted Seen (Arcade Publishing, 2004) for kings, princes, and dictators. That age, Current Leader I think it is reasonable to say, is coming to Supreme Guide Mohammed Akef, based Alexis Debat, Senior Fellow, the Nixon an end. in Cairo, Egypt Center We are facing huge challenges. The Peter Bergen, Moderator, Fellow, Center monarchies in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Identity & Politics on Law and Security; CNN analyst; author face an increasingly unpredictable Advocates reform according to its of The I Know: An Oral future. Hosni Mubarak, who is king in all interpretation of Islamic values. History of Al Qaeda’s Leader (Free Press, but name in Egypt, is 78 years old and des- 2006) perately trying to create a dynasty to suc- ceed him. If we do not adopt a more posi- Began in Egypt in the early 20th century Nick Fielding: tive policy of engagement – a policy that by Hassan al Banna and has inspired The Muslim Brotherhood is essentially recognizes that democracy has many differ- similar movements in countries through- reformist. It represents the best possibility ent forms, and that the genuine aspirations out the Arab world. Currently banned as in the Middle East of an organization that of the majority of the populations in Islamic a political party in Egypt. Members can both make and stick to deals. In con- countries are what really matters – the hard- running as independents won 88 seats in trast, as Condoleezza Rice alluded to in her liners will be the only ones who gain. parliament (20% of the total) in 2005. speech at the American University in Cairo The Brotherhood is not an easy choice on June 20, 2005, we in the West have con- for us in the West. It remains ambiguous sistently backed Middle Eastern regimes about its attitude toward minorities such as Designated a Foreign Terrorist that have repressed their citizens, especially the Coptic Christians and others. It has Organization by the U.S. State citizens who have sought to establish some departed in many ways from the more strin- Department? kind of Islamic state governed by Sharia gent aspects of the outlook first set out by No. law. We have either backed outright dicta- Hassan al Banna, but some say its commit- tors and despots or sought to impose the ment to these more democratic views is sus- Muslim Brotherhood and Violence adoption of secular, Western-style democ- pect. It continues to act as a proselytizing Attempted to assassinate Egyptian racy. We have chosen to emphasize human religious missionary organization, despite President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954 rights only when it has suited pragmatic for- its pretensions to political power. Ironically, eign-policy considerations. the preponderance of support for the I am not convinced that Western democ- Brotherhood, stemming from the years of Leaders do not advocate violence by racy will ever prevail in the Islamic world. repression that it has undergone, may result members although they refuse to That is about as likely to happen, in my in what amounts to a one-party state if it denounce suicide bombing entirely. opinion, as Shariah law being adopted in were to be allowed to take part in free elec- Washington or . Most Muslims tions in Egypt, for example. Would it share Sources: want Islam to be central to political and power? Would it be prepared to relinquish Steven Brooke and Robert Leiken, “The Moderate social life. Every move that we make to power if it lost in a future election? Muslim Brotherhood,” Foreign Affairs, deny the centrality of Islam will drive the These questions are very difficult and March/April 2007 increasingly frustrated Muslims into the require discussion. I do not pretend to have

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 11 Sultan Hassan Mosque and El Rifai Mosque in Cairo, Egypt. Photo by Jack Berger

Egypt’s 2007 Constitutional Amendments

On March 26, 2007, Egyptians confirmed amendments to 34 articles of the Constitution in a national referendum. Proposing the amendments in December, 2006, President Hosni Mubarak called them important steps towards democracy, arguing that they would boost the powers of the parliamentary assembly. The changes, however, have been criticized by a range of opposition parties.

Article 179 of the constitution has been amended to allow the president to continue to refer citizens to a military court after the country’s period of emergency rule has ended. Military court referrals previously have been challenged on constitutional grounds. The Mubarak government has supported this amendment as necessary to fight terrorism.

An additional change eliminates required judicial supervision of elections. Instead, an electoral commission will oversee the polls. Critics of the government have questioned the commission’s potential independence.

The revised version of Article 5 prohibits “any political activity, “within any religious frame of reference.” The new language, which expands the pre-existing ban on forming political parties on religious bases, seems to prevent the formation of a political party by the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist opposition group.

Certain amendments strengthen parliament’s powers over the executive. It is now easier for Parliament to dismiss a prime minister, for example. On the other hand, the Parliament itself has become more vulnerable because it can now be dissolved by the president “in the case of necessity” without a previously required referendum.

Sources: Michael Slackman, “Egypt to Vote on Expanding Powers of the Presidency,” New York Times, March 25, 2007 Michael Slackman, “Forgone Conclusion Appears to Keep Voters Home,” New York Times, March 27, 2007

Nathan J. Brown, Michele Dunne, and Amr Hamzawy, “Egypt’s Controversial Constitutional Amendments,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 23, 2007, www.carnegieendowment.org/files/egypt_constitution_webcommentary01.pdf

12 NYU Review of Law and Security Distinguished Speaker Series: April 28, 2006 Re-Evaluating Radical Islamism

demands of many the world over and the and minds. Their moderate leadership United States, and the West in general. stance expressed by the late General Guide The struggle for the Islamists has always Hassan al Hudaybi that they are preachers, been about the setting up of their own polit- not judges, has resonated and won converts. ical system and empowerment within the It is a route that is appealing because it international order that does not leave them remains radical but non-violent. weak and poor. This remains the main This argument in some ways exists in thrust of their political appeal – that some- parallel with the argument for greater how they can remove their states from back- democratization, undermining the appeal of Maha Azzam. Photo by Dan Creighton wardness and forge them into a power to be the radicals. If the Islamists proceed and reckoned with, and create a more equitable make gains through democratic channels, Maha Azzam, Associate Fellow, Royal distribution of power and wealth. the main issue will not be the enshrinement Institute of International Affairs • • • and legitimization of a democratic system, Although inspired by politics and crises but rather the enshrinement of an Islamic Maha Azzam: across boundaries, many activists are the one, which can be voted in and out of power • • • product of local pressures. Domestic condi- by other, probably Islamist, parties. A reformation of sorts has been taking tions long-ignored in the Middle East are The democratic process has become place under the aegis of the radicals, who also part of the radicalization process. increasingly appealing to Islamists as they have sought to reinterpret Islam in the con- Populations have been politically disen- see their potential for reaching power. As text of their political struggle to justify both franchised, have experienced little respect we all know, this does not mean that they suicide and attacks on civilians. The conser- for human rights or the rule of law, and have find the values of Western democracies vative theological establishment has coun- had to tolerate corruption from those who acceptable wholesale; for example, the terattacked any such reinterpretation in an cannot be held accountable. They have also West’s legal codification of women's rights. attempt to rob the radicals of theological had to withstand military defeat and humil- One should keep in mind that it is the legitimacy. iation, whether at the hands of Israel or the minority in the Muslim world, whether The glorification of an Islamic past United States. The madrasas in Pakistan Islamist or not, who would hold views, par- emboldens weak political groups in the face and the Saudi educational curriculum may ticularly on social issues, which would be of the political and economic demise which be altered but the resentment will remain acceptable to a Western audience. In some their societies have experienced. This is not unless these conditions are seriously ways, this is something that those in the peculiar to the Islamists. It is shared by rad- addressed. West, whether policymakers or others, need icals and non-radicals as a source of inspi- I would describe Islamist groups, partic- to resolve and come to terms with. They can ration, and the hope that the strength of a ularly in the context of the Middle East, as press for further rights for women and past civilization can one day be resurrected. groups that have primarily been engaged in minorities but they are likely to fail if they In its extreme forms, it is expressed in the a power struggle with regimes. The empha- wish to create a system in their own image. desire for a caliphate. In more moderate sis has been local and the resort to violence, Pursuing democratization in the Middle forms, it is expressed in terms of unity although not systematic, nevertheless fea- East is unlikely to discourage the choice of between Muslim states, leading to econom- tured as a weapon against those in authority Islamist candidates but the blocking of ic revival and technological and scientific in the 20th century. political channels and the denial of power to progress. • • • Islamist parties has allowed what was once • • • The association between Islamism and considered radical to be superseded by Although there had been much talk about terrorism has created deep divisions within greater radicalization. The longer there is a encouraging good governance in the the Islamist movement itself. The Muslim delay in establishing an Islamic state, the Middle East after the first Gulf War, these Brotherhood, the oldest and most influential more likely there is to be a growing radical- responses have been somewhat half-heart- of the Islamist groups, has for several ization outside the control of the state. ed, except for security, which has been pur- decades disassociated itself from violence. • • • sued with greater vigor. The problem This was partly due to its experience of tor- It is conceivable that a consensus can be remains that there is still little acknowl- ture in Nasser’s jails and its belief that if it reached between the moderate Islamist par- edgement of the right of those in Muslim were to be true to the teachings of its ties, those in government as well as other societies to opt for an Islamist alternative. founder, Hassan al Banna, it had to pursue legitimate political forces. The more diffi- This was apparent in the case of FIS in a gradualist approach built on educating cult, and yet the more pressing in security Algeria, and today of Hamas. We have society and Islamizing from below. terms, is how to reach a cease-fire with the never really come to terms with the fact that The Brotherhood are, in some ways, on militants. Despite the deep rifts, progress there may be a need to create more equi- the way to winning the political struggle. towards this can happen through the moder- table relations between the political Their gradualist approach has won hearts ate Islamist parties taking the lead.

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 13 However, Western policies such as denying aid to a Hamas-led government only weak- ened those who could perhaps have some leverage over the militants. • • • The lack of respect for human rights and the rule of law in the Middle East has given a direct impetus to the Islamist alternative. On one level, the Shariah simply offers a legal framework which is divinely inspired and which its proponents claim will count- er the abuses committed by the state and its legal system. The issue here is not only sec- ular versus religious. It is a search for jus- tice as opposed to repression and lack of respect for the law. Islamism and the imple- mentation of the Shariah are about religious belief, but they are also about respect for the rule of law. Mosque. Photo by Jack Berger Notable Middle Eastern News Media

Newspapers al Hayat (“Life”) Kayhan (“Universe”) Country: Pan-Arabic, established in Country: Iran Aftab-e Yazd (“Sunshine of Yazd”) Lebanon and now published in the U.K. Language: Farsi Country: Iran Language: Arabic Circulation: 350,000 Language: Farsi Circulation: 170,000 Web site: http://www.kayhannews.ir/ Circulation: 100,000 Web site: www.daralhayat.com; http:// Notes: Persian-language daily written from Web site: http://www.aftab-yazd.com/ english.daralhayat.com (English) a conservative viewpoint. The Supreme Notes: Reformist paper affiliated with the Notes: Owned by Prince Khalid bin Sultan Leader appoints the paper’s managing Association of Combatant Clerics (of bin Abdul Aziz; banned by Saudi authori- editor. which former President Mohammad ties in August of 2007. Khatami is a leading member) Maariv (an evening prayer) Islamic Republic News Agency Country: Israel al Ahram (“The Pyramids”) Country: Iran (national news service) Language: Hebrew Country: Egypt Language: Farsi Circulation: 325,000 Language: Arabic Circulation: N/A Web site: www.nrg.co.il Circulation: 900,000 Web site: www.irna.ir; www.irna.ir/en Notes: Competes with Yedioth Ahronoth Web site: www.ahram.org.eg; http:// (English) for the widest circulation in Israel weekly.ahram.org.eg/index.htm (weekly Notes: Publishes seven different periodi- (although Maariv’s circulation is consider- English version) cals in Farsi and English. Founded in ably lower than Yedioth Ahronoth’s). The Notes: First published in 1876, now 1934 as the Pars Agency; name changed rivalry between the two papers began in owned by the Egyptian government. after the Islamic Revolution in 1981. 1948, when the editor of Yedioth Ahronoth More reputable on world affairs than IRNA is under the administration of the left to form Maariv. on Egyptian politics. Ministry of National Guidance. al Quds al Arabi (“Arab Jerusalem”) Haaretz (“The Country”) Jaam-e Jam (“Jam’s Cup”) Country: Published in the U.K. Country: Israel Country: Iran (published by the Language: Arabic Language: Hebrew state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Circulation: 50,000 Circulation: 70,000 Broadcasting Organization) Web site: www.alquds.co.uk Web site: www.haaretz.co.il; Language: Farsi Notes: Published in London and owned by www.haaretz.com (English) Circulation: 460,000 Palestinian immigrants to the U.K. Notes: Editorial page features many Web site: http://www.jamejamonline.ir/; distinguished contributors and is http://www.jamejamonline.ir/jamejam.asp? considered very influential, although t=evt (English) its circulation is much smaller than the Notes: Conservative daily paper. The title other two leading Israeli papers, refers to a vessel containing the world, and Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv. is an allusion to the monarch Jamshid.

14 NYU Review of Law and Security al Sharq al Awsat (“The Middle East”) al Jazeera (“The Peninsula”) Country: Published in the U.K. Headquarters: Qatar Language: Arabic Language: Arabic Circulation: 237,000 Viewers: 40 million Web site: www.asharqalawsat.com Web site: www.aljazeera.net; http:// Notes: Owned by the Saudi Research and english.aljazeera.net/English Marketing Group (of which Faisal bin Notes: Founded in 1996 by Sheikh Hamad Salman bin Abdul Aziz of the Saudi royal bin Khalifa, Emir of Qatar. family serves as the head of the Board of Directors) Sources: Associated Press, “Saudi Government Bans Leading Saudi stamp. Shargh (“East”) Arab Paper,” International Herald-Tribune, Country: Iran August 28, 2007 OPEC Proven Crude Oil Reserves, Language: Farsi Harold Bailey, ed., The Cambridge History of Iran, 2006 (million barrels) Circulation: Currently shut-down by Vol. 3, bk. 1, The Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian the government Periods, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (Cambridge: Cambridge Saudi Arabia 264,251 Web site: www.sharghnewspaper.ir Univ. Press, 1983) IR Iran 138,400 Notes: Reputable opposition news source Alina Bernstein, “Running Nowhere”: National Iraq 115,000 Identity and Media Coverage of the Israeli Football Kuwait 101,500 Yedioth Ahronoth (“Latest News”) Team’s Attempt to Qualify for EURO 2000,” Country: Israel Israel Affairs 13 No. 7 (2007): 653-664 United Arab Emirates 97,800 Language: Hebrew Venezuela 87,035 Circulation: 650,000 BBC Monitoring, “Guide to Iranian Media and SP Libyan AJ 41,464 Broadcasts to Iran – March 2007,” Web site: http://www.ynet.co.il; http://www.arabmediasociety.org/UserFiles/ Nigeria 36,220 www.ynetnews.com (English) DOCUMENTS%20Iran%20Media%20Guide.pdf Qatar 15,207 Notes: Part of Yedioth Group, an Israeli Algeria 12,200 media company BBC News, “The Press in Iran,” August 16, 2005; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4308203.stm Angola 9,035 Indonesia 4,370 Emmar Properties, “Emaar the Economic City signs Television MoU with Saudi Research and Marketing Group,” Press Release, http://www.emaar.com/MediaCenter/ OPEC 922,482 PressReleases/2006May23.asp al Arabiya (“The Arab”) Source: Headquarters: Dubai OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin 2006 (published Nazila Fathi, “Another Reformist Paper Closed,” July 31, 2007) Language: Arabic New York Times, August 8, 2007 Viewers: 23 million Web site: www.alarabiya.net; Hassan M. Fattah, “Spreading the Word: Who’s Who in the Arab Media,” New York Times, February 6, 2005 www.alarabiya.net/english (English) Notes: Part of the Saudi-owned Middle Marshall G. S. Hodgson, ed., The Venture of Islam: East Broadcasting company (MBC), Conscience and History in a World Civilization, vol. of which Prince Walid bin Talal is the 2., The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods. largest shareholder. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974). http://www.allied-media.com/Arab-American/ (Web Jaam-e Jam (“Jam’s Cup”) site of Allied Media Corporation Advertising) Headquarters: Iran (television station of the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran http://www.irna.ir/en (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Organization) Broadcasting Corporation Web site) Language: Farsi Independent, “Al Jazeera: the New Power on the Viewers: N/A Small Screen,” December 7, 2007 Web site: http://www.iribnews.ir/; http://www.iribnews.ir/front_en.asp?Sec= International Herald-Tribune, “Briefing: Foreign front_en (English) Cartoons Barred in Prime-Time China,” August 14, 2006 Notes: Television station of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the state- Azadeh Moaveni, “Silencing the Voices of Dissent,” run news agency that also owns the Time, September 11, 2006 newspaper with the same name. The Supreme Leader has the authority New York Times, “A Nation at War: Briefly Noted; Jazeera Reporters Barred from Stock Exchanges,” to appoint and dismiss the director of March 26, 2003 the IRIB. Jaam-e Jam is broadcast internationally as well as within Iran.

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 15 Movies Playing in Theaters Around the Middle East: February 13, 2008

Abu Dhabi, UAE Egypt Jordan Oman Cinestar Cinema, Marina Mall Galaxy Cinema - Cairo Grand Zara - Ruwi Cinema - Ruwi, Muscat - Ras al Akhdar Al Gazira Jumper Rambo 4 The Water Horse Heya Fawda Sydney White Bee Movie No Country for Old Men Kalashnkov Captain Abu Raed Even Money Martian Child Tabakh Al Rayes Charlie Wilson’s War Fee Mahatat Masr Aliens vs. Predator 2 Alvin and the Chipmunks I Am Legend Matab Sinaee Rambo 4 I Am Legend Wilderness Cloverfield One Missed Call Kuwait Cloverfield Sweeney Todd Sunday Al Sharqia - Kuwait City Seraphim Falls Iran Rambo 4 Meet the Spartans Palestinian Authority Farhang Cinema - Tehran The Nanny Diaries Enchanted From Afar Aliens vs. Predator 2 Al Kasaba - Ramallah Eghlima Enchanted Heya Fawda Dubai, UAE Al Jazzera Lion and Four Cats Grand Cinecity - Al Ghurair Israel Cloverfield City The Water Horse Saudi Arabia Globus Theater, Malha Mall - Cloverfield Jerusalem No movie theaters. Sweeney Todd Lebanon Elizabeth: The Golden Age Martian Child I Am Legend Empire CinemaCity, City Mall Why Did I Get Married? I Could Never Be Your Woman - Nahr el Mot, Dora, Beirut Sources: The Water Horse No Country For Old Men Cloverfield http://www.alkasaba.org Rambo 4 Rambo 4 Butterfly on a Wheel http://seret.co.il Aliens vs. Predator 2 The Kingdom Dan in Real Life http://www.tehranavenue.com/events. Enchanted Bee Movie P.S. I Love You php#cinema No Country for Old Men Atonement The Water Horse http://movies.theemiratesnetwork.com/ Rama Rama Charlie Wilson’s War Atonement Sunday http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/list.htm The Bucket List Rendition Cloverfield Charlie Wilson’s War Wedding Daze Photo from Captain Abu Raed.

16 NYU Review of Law and Security Open Forum Series: September 28, 2006 terrorism. That is their official position. The training is much more subtle but, in my view, is happening. So I would say, in sum, that Hezbollah is primarily a political Hezbollah organization, secondarily a militia resist- ance movement, thirdly a social movement Michael Sheehan: funded by Iran, and fourthly a terrorist • • • group. They were founded on terrorism. After the Israel Defense Forces pulled out They have used it in the past. Right now, of southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah they have restrained its use for whatever started to re-examine itself. They won. reasons to support Palestinian terrorists Their primary reason for being, the resist- against Israel. ance against the Israeli occupation of south- That is basically all they do on the terror- ern Lebanon as Hala said, no longer existed. ism front. Others would argue that shooting So between 2000 and 2006 they were trying Katyusha rockets into civilian areas is ter- to figure out what they were going to be – a political party, a terrorist group, a militia, a social movement. They were a little bit of Hala Jaber. Photo by Dan Creighton all of the above. Everything changed in 2006. They came Hala Jaber, correspondent, The Sunday across the border and kidnapped two Times (London); author of Hezbollah: Israelis, touching off a 43-day war. Hezbollah Born with a Vengeance (Columbia • • • “Party of God” University Press, 1997) Hezbollah clearly gained in the short term. Its popularity is way up in Lebanon Description Ambassador Michael Sheehan, and across the Islamic world, its morale is Lebanese Shia political party; also has Distinguished Fellow, Center on Law and up, and it is being rearmed as we speak. It an armed component Security; former Deputy Commissioner for has developed a new weapon system that Counterterrorism, NYPD; former State threatens Israel with its rockets. And so they Identity & Politics Department Counterterrorism Coordinator are on a bit of a roll. Leads political oppostion Peter Bergen, Moderator, Fellow, Center Besides Israel in a certain sense, the peo- on Law and Security; CNN analyst; author ple of Lebanon are again the losers in all of Goals are to promote political reform in of The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral this. My prognosis is pessimistic. I think it Lebanon; to provide social services to History of Al Qaeda’s Leader (Free Press, is going to get worse before it gets any bet- the Shia community; and to defend 2006) ter. There are too many incentives for peo- Lebanon against incursions by Western ple to continue to inflict instability in the powers, particularly the United States region, particularly for the Iranians who and Israel Hala Jaber: have gained so much from it, and for • • • Hezbollah. The Lebanese will continue to Social services run by Hezbollah Many people think that Hezbollah is a non- suffer. I think that Shebaa Farms will include orphanages, hospitals and Lebanese party; that it is a bunch of aliens become the new flashpoint and we will have micro-lending banks that dropped into Lebanon from Mars or more of the same rather than any improve- from Iran and is carrying out a war against ment of the situation in the years ahead. United Nations Security Council Israel on behalf of the Iranians, the Syrians, • • • Resolution 1559, adopted in 2004, or other foreign powers using Lebanon as a “[c]alls for the disbanding and disarma- platform. Peter Bergen: ment of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese Hezbollah is a fully-fledged Lebanese Is Hezbollah part of the solution in militias” in Lebanon. In a statement party. It has a massive political wing. It is Lebanon or part of the continuing problem? attached to the resolution, Mohamad represented in parliament and in govern- • • • Issa, Lebanon’s Minister of Foreign ment, and it has a military wing. Its original Affairs, said that there were no militias, raison d’être was to fight an occupation. It Michael Sheehan: only a national resistance movement continues to be in Lebanon because it • • • “which appeared after the Israeli occu- evolved into both a political and social party. Since the 1980s, Hezbollah has really been pation and which would remain so long For many in the West, and in particular out of the terrorism business except for as Israel remained.” the United States, Hezbollah is a terrorist Israel. They actively support terrorism in organization. For many in the Arab world, it Israel by helping to train Palestinian terror- Designated a Foreign Terrorist is a resistance. For many in Lebanon, it is a ists. Their media propaganda that exhorts Organization by the U.S. State political party and a resistance with which that terrorism, glorifies it, and motivates it Department? they have some political disputes. is clearly coming straight out of central Yes. • • • Hezbollah apparatus. That is support for

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 17 rorism. I did not say that. I did not say that if Hezbollah is asked to distribute $100, for kidnapping an Israeli soldier or coming example, that $100 will go where it was across the border into Israel was terrorism. intended. So they are doing more humani- I could make the argument, but I didn’t, and tarian work. I didn’t purposefully. I am not going to say Yes, they received a lot of financial aid that’s terrorism – it is gray area. Hezbollah from Iran. They have been saying for decades is a very complex organization. They are that they get financial and military aid from very sophisticated in what they do. They Iran. But they actually put that money or aid know their boundaries and what they can into use for the Shiite community, which they and can’t get away with. regard as having been oppressed or at the To answer the question as to whether bottom of the ladder for decades. they are part of the solution or part of the problem, I think it is irrelevant – they’re Michael Sheehan: there. But I would say this: they prosper I agree with that, by the way. I agree that when the situation in Lebanon deteriorates Hezbollah is a much more efficient and less and that is a sad equation. corrupt organization than the Lebanese • • • government. Iran is funding virtually 100 percent of it. Hala Jaber: Iran is Shia and they strengthening the Shia • • • in Lebanon. That is going to create other They arrested, they seized, they kidnapped issues for Lebanon, which is a tenuous two Israeli soldiers from the border. At the alliance of Shia, Sunni, Christian, and end of the day, the damage in Lebanon, the Druze peoples. Hezbollah does have a lot of destruction, the killing of more than 1,000 credibility with the Shia population. They people was not created by Hezbollah – per- have a very well-run social services pro- haps it was the overwhelming attack that gram. But, again, it is funded by Iran and, in came from Israel as retaliation (which they my view, that does not come without any should not have done), bombing half of the strings attached. country, destroying entire villages and turn- • • • ing them into rubble under the pretext that Hala Jaber: this was going to wipe out Hezbollah. • • • Everybody knew that Hezbollah would not Until this summer, the Lebanese/Israeli bor- even be touched. der over the last six years had been quieter • • • than it had ever been before. That shows Hezbollah came out the best from it Poster at a checkpoint in south Lebanon. Ayatollah Ali what can be achieved once some of the Khameine’i & Ayatollah Khomeine’i. Photo by Razia Ahamed because many Lebanese, even those who issues are finally resolved. Perhaps then we lost their homes, see it as the only force in few organizations that is actually carrying will not see these kinds of disturbances the entire Middle East so far to show an on a major dialogue with the Christian enti- between the borders. ability to deter Israel, at least up to a small ties in Lebanon, particularly one which rep- point. Instead of Israel being able to walk in resents 70 percent of the Christian popula- and zoom out as it usually does, Hezbollah tion on the ground. They have come to deterred it. Many Lebanese think that, many agreements between them. So I think should something happen in the future, that its future is in politics. Israel might think twice before launching It is not out there sitting and waiting to another war in Lebanon. provoke another war or any incident that • • • would cause more instability. There is a I think that Hezbollah is going in the huge amount of reconstruction to be done. same direction that been going for the past They recognize full well that the Lebanese Lebanese stamp. six years since it started participating in the people can not take another session of mili- political system. It is part of the govern- tary violence and assault like they have this Hezbollah will continue to do well polit- ment. It is part of parliament. It has partici- summer. So I think they will head more into ically in Lebanon. It will continue to pro- pated in elections twice already and has politics, social welfare, and reconstruction. vide a lot of the aid to the people that it has. won by a landslide. It has a massive social • • • The Lebanese government (which takes the welfare system. All of these characteristics Whatever else one may say about money it does have for its own personal are part its identity now and will be in the Hezbollah in Lebanon, their history of cor- use) cannot afford to replicate what future. What happened this summer was a ruption, if it exists at all, is minimal com- Hezbollah has created as a social factor. mishap, and a very big one for many pared to all others – the government, the Once it can, that role will be over for Lebanese. politicians, and every other group or party Hezbollah, but I do not think that is going Hezbollah will go back into elections and that exists at the moment. People some- to happen in the near future. There is a long, will do much better I think. It is one of come to them because they know that long way to go.

18 NYU Review of Law and Security Hezbollah’s military wing will continue to feel that they have to be on the defensive, or at least ready if anything should happen, until they think that Lebanese/Israeli issue is resolved once and for all. I think that is what they see as the bottom line. By “once Hezbollah (continued) and for all” I mean that neither country is in Hezbollah and Violence a state of war and perhaps have signed a Truck bombings of U.S. Marines at their peace agreement. I have no inside knowl- barracks in Beirut, 1983 edge of when that will be. I do not know whether it will be decades or a few years Hijacking of TWA flight #847, 1985 from now. I do not think it will be a few months. Bombing of Israeli embassy in Michael Sheehan: Argentina, 1992 (involvement denied by Hezbollah) I think that Hezbollah is a revolutionary organization and a militia. Often, as those Bombing of a Jewish community center sorts of organizations mature, they either in Argentina, 1994 (involvement denied mature into regular political parties and by Hezbollah) become part of the status quo or die on the vine, or a little bit of both. Kidnapping and killing of U.S. Lt. But Nasrallah is still a revolutionary. He Colonel William Higgins, 1998 is a very cagey politician. He does not speak widely about his vision for Lebanon Seizure of two Israeli soldiers from a because, I think, he would scare off most border post in northern Israel and Lebanese. I think that most Lebanese sup- involvement in the ensuing port him now but certainly would not want Lebanon/Israel conflict, 2006 him to be in charge of the country. I think that he very much understands that, and understands also that there were more than Sources: Shia in the streets of Beirut. He reached Agence -Press, “Hezbollah again denies across lines, through all of Lebanon, in fac- role in deadly Buenos Aires bombing” March 19, 2003,http://www.lebanon.com/news/local/ ing down the Israelis. Yet I think that most 2003/3/20.htm Lebanese would be somewhat uncomfort- able with the notion of Nasrallah’s and Associated Press, Lebanon’s army chief threatens Hezbollah’s vision, which is a very conser- to quit presidential race if political wrangling continues,” April 3, 2008, vative fundamentalist Shia vision, in charge http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/03/africa/ Jerusalem (Wailing Wall, Dome of the Rock). of the state. ME-GEN-Lebanon-Politics.php • • • ©istockphoto.com/Steven Allan Poplulation Age in Middle Eastern Nations Augustus Richard Norton, Hezbollah:A Short Population Age in Middle Eastern Nations History (Princeton University Press, 2007) 40 36 BBC News, “Argentina marks 1994 bomb attack,” 35 July 18, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ 31.1 americas/5190892.stm 28.8 28.8 29.2 29.4 30 28 27.1 26.7 Council on Foreign Relations, “Backgrounder: 25 23.4 23.3 Hezbollah,” http://www.cfr.org/publica- 22.9 22.5 21.1 tion/9155/#6

Age 20.6 20 18.9 16.9 16.7 New York Times, “Argentina Orders Inquiry Into Median 15 1992 Bombing of Israeli Embassy,” May 6, 1999

10 Steven Erlanger, “Israel Vowing to Rout Hezbollah,” New York Times, July 15, 2006 5 United Nations Security Council, “Press Release 0 SC/8181: February 9, 2004, http://www.un.org/ orld Iran Iraq News/Press/docs/2004/sc8181.doc.htm UAE Syria urkey Israel emen Qatar Egypt W Oman Arabia Kuwait T Jordan Y Bahrain Lebanon United States State Department Office of Saudi United States Counterterrorism, “Fact Sheet: Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs),” October 11, 2005, Palestinian territories http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37191.htm Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpp

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 19 Glossary of Arabic Terms *

Hezbollah: “Party of God;” the title of Khaleej: “Gulf.” The term often refers to a Lebanese political body designated a what English-speakers call the “Persian Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Gulf ” and Arabic-speakers call the government. “Arabian Gulf,” or “al Khaleej al Arabi.”

Imam: A leader; one who stands in front. Kunya: A name that adults take after The term often refers to the cleric who they have children. It is typically com- leads Friday prayers. In Sunni terminology posed by pairing “Abu” (“father of ”) or it can refer to the leader of Muslims, “Umm” (“mother of ”) with the name of embodied in the caliph. In Shia terminolo- one’s eldest son. In some places it is cus- gy it can mean an Islamic jurist or the suc- tomary to take a kunya in anticipation of cessor of Muhammad intended to lead all having a son. Muslims. “Mullah,” a term used primarily in Iran and Central Asia, overlaps in mean- Madrassa: “School.” In non-Arabic- ing with “imam.” The word “mullah” speaking countries, the term generally specifically refers to Islamic jurists but can refers to a school associated with a also be used to describe anyone with an mosque. The term can be used secularly Islamic education. (as in “madrassa ibtiday-ea” or “primary school”) or to refer to schools with some Insha’allah: “If God wills it.” degree of religious curricula.

Intifada: A shudder or awakening. When Mahdi: “Guided one.” In Islam, the English/Arabic keyboard. ©istockphoto.com/Paul Cowan used in English, it commonly refers to Mahdi – one expected to arrive on earth Palestinian uprisings against Israeli rule in and usher in an era of purity – is similar to Abu: “Father,” also used as “father of.” 1987 and 2000. In Arabic, it is used more the Judeo-Christian Messiah. Sunni and For example, Palestinian President generally but can add political connota- Shia understandings of the Mahdi differ. Mahmoud Abbas is often referred to as tions. The Cedar Revolution in Lebanon in The Mahdi is mentioned in Hadith but not “Abu Mazen,” meaning “father of Mazen.” 2005, for example, was called the “Intifada the Koran. of Independence.” Eid: A feast or celebration. Examples Ma sha’allah: A phrase used to express include Eid al Adha, which takes place Jihad: Derived from the verb “to strive,” appreciation for God’s work. If someone during Dhu al Hijja (the month of pilgrim- the exact definition of what constitutes were to say that he has three children, for age), and Eid al Fitr, which takes place “jihad” is controversial. The term is often example, “ma sha’allah” would be the after the month of Ramadan. used to refer to a divine war against infi- appropriate response. dels. It can also describe an internal strug- Fatwa: A ruling issued by an Islamic gle to live a more pious life or the work of al Qaeda: “The base,” and the name of cleric, typically in response to a specific converting others to Islam. the terrorist organization run by Osama bin question about reconciling Islamic doctrine Laden and Ayman al Zwahiri. with daily life. al Quds: “Holiness,” and the Arabic Hajj: A pilgrimage to Mecca that takes word for Jerusalem. place during Dhu’l Hijja, the twelfth month of the Islamic lunar calendar (the Ramadan: The ninth month of the Hijri Hijri Calendar). The Hajj, one of the five calendar, during which Muslims fast each pillars of Islam, replicates Muhammad’s day from sunup until sundown. return to Mecca, the place of his birth, after ten years in Medina. Pilgrims reenact Salafi: A person belonging to an Islamic a series of events in the lives of the school of thought that advocates a return prophets Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael. to the way of life at the time of the Prophet Mohammad. “Salaf ” translates as “ances- Hamas: An acronym for al “Harakat al tors,” and the Salafi’s belief is called Muqawama al Islamiya,” or “Islamic “Salafiyya.” Resistance Movement,” and the title of a Palestinian political body designated Shariah: Islamic law, derived from the a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the Qur’an, Sunnah, and Hadith. U.S. government. Iraqi stamp.

20 NYU Review of Law and Security Tawhid: Belief in the oneness of God. Arabic Names

Takfir: A concept similar excommunica- Names in the Arab world follow a specific pattern. A person will have their individual tion but that does not necessarily entail given name, a name taken from either their father or grandfather, and also a family a formal process. Any person pronouncing name. The family name may come from their tribal affiliation, place where they were another as an infidel is committing an born, or other attributes. They may also take a kunya, which means either “mother” act of takfir. (“umm”) or “father ” (“abu”).

Ulama: Religious scholars educated in a Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s name illustrates a kunya. “Abu Musab” means “father of traditional manner (the singular form is Musab.” “Zarqawi” indicates that he is from Zarqa, Jordan. alim). The name Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab indicates several things. Muhammad, for the Umm: “Mother,” also used as Prophet Muhammad, is his given name. “Ibn,” meaning “son,” shows that his father is “mother of.” named Abd al Wahhab.

Ummah: The community of Muslims. “Abd” means servant. “Wahab,” one of 99 Arabic names for God, literally means “bestower.” The full translation of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, then, is Muhammad, Umra: A pilgrimage to Mecca that son of Abd al Wahab, Servant of the Bestower. follows the same pattern as the Hajj but, unlike the Hajj, may take place at any time during the year.

Wasta: Personal pull, influence, or connections.

* Each Arabic word might have several alternative English spellings. The terms in the glossary are alphabetized according to the English transliterations used here.

Sources of Islam

Qur’an: The holy book of Islam, said to be given by God to the Prophet Muhammad in a series of revelations. The word “Qur’an” means recitation. Parts of the Qur’an were recorded during the Prophet’s lifetime, and it was completely transcribed within twenty years of his death. It is the most authoritative source in Islam, and is only considered authentic in Arabic.

Hadith: An aggregation of biographical accounts of the Prophet and his compan- ions. Hadith were transmitted orally for 200 years and then gradually transcribed. The authenticity of some Hadith is now a source of careful scholarly examination.

Sunnah: The words and deeds of Muhammad, which establish normative standards of conduct for Muslims. The Sunnah is embodied in the collection of authentic Hadith reports.

Tram stop, Alexandria, Egypt. ©istockphoto.com/Holger Mette

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 21 Distinguished Speaker Series: October 13th, 2006 Is al Qaeda the Product of Saudi Arabia’s Politics and Wahhabi Religious Ideology?

ly Wahhabi or Salafi in its orientation. Half This is something that has been adopted by of the tenets that they believe, something like al Qaeda and others. 15 out of 30, involve excommunication; the There is, in fact, a combination at least at concept of excommunicating fellow the political ideological level, but not in Muslims who do not agree with their view of terms of theology. We are talking about a the world. This is a practice called takfir. It is very purist, very puritanical religious something that the Wahhabis historically movement that is theologically minded and were very fond of doing and have engaged in takes theology very seriously – so seriously wantonly, and they have combined this prac- that there are few analogs in Western tice of takfir with a political agenda. Europe or in America. They are not, however, linked to the • • • Muslim Brotherhood in terms of intellectu- On one end of the Wahhabi spectrum is a Prof. Bernard Haykel. Photo by Dan Creighton al genealogy, as many have argued, except group that is very much like the Amish, in in perhaps one respect. The theology and a town called Buraydah. They do not drive Prof. Bernard Haykel, Associate the creed of the Muslim Brotherhood is not cars, they ride horses. They do not use elec- Professor of Islamic Law and Politics, really a Salafi one. The Muslim Brothers tricity. They refuse to use identity cards or New York University typically do not have problems with Shiites. to be photographed. They reject the state, They do not have problems with certain but they don't do anything about it. They Prof. Bernard Haykel: forms of Sufism. In fact, the founder of the live in a kind of primitive commune fash- • • • Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna, an ion. Then there is a group that gives its alle- Al Qaeda is a Salafi political movement. So Egyptian, was alleged to be a Sufi himself, giance to the Saudi royal family, and obeys, what is Salafism? I’m going to use and to have been influenced by Sufism. blindly, what the Saudi royal family says, Salafism and Wahhabism interchangeably – What the Muslim Brotherhood gives al because they consider the royal family – to be a Wahhabi and to be a Salafi is the Qaeda, though, is something quite distinct, and the king specifically – to be the legiti- same thing, because the Wahhabis have and this is something that it has given to mate ruler of a Muslim state. In Arabic, this essentially co-opted the Salafi term for many other Muslims, both in Saudi Arabia person is called a Wali al-Amr. There is a themselves and constitute a subset of the and elsewhere. It is a form of political con- group beyond them, who are actually des- global Salafi movement. A Salafi is some- sciousness, and also an analytical, concep- perate to reform the politics of Saudi Arabia one who is obsessed with certain theologi- tual, and terminological framework within and the Muslim world, but who refuse to cal views; namely, an obsession with the which to discuss politics nationally and engage in violence. I would describe them idea of God’s oneness. This is something globally. as nonviolent reformers or activists. called tawhid. Salafis condemn anyone who A typical Wahhabi, for instance, would Then there is al Qaeda. These are people deviates from that oneness. never have had anything to say about who not only want to reform Saudi Arabia Typically and historically, they have been Americans, or about America’s politics or and the world but who want to do so bothered about things such as requests at western imperialism. He would be bothered, through violent means. They are advocates gravesites. Visiting the gravesite of a saint however, about Americans being present in of violence at a very individualistic level. and asking for something, something like Saudi Arabia, and we have lots of poetry Their argument is quite simple: The good health, is considered to be stripping from Wahhabis who vilify the Americans Muslim world is under attack by a barbar- God away from one of His attributes, name- who came to work for Aramco (the Arabian ian force (meaning us). There is a complete ly that only God can heal. You cannot ask it American Oil Company that discovered oil disjuncture in the balance of forces and of any mortal whether alive or dead, and in Saudi Arabia in 1930s and ‘40s), but you weaponry between the West and the they are willing to fight and engage in vio- don’t actually have wholesale discourses on Muslim world. Because the Muslim world lence over such issues. politics. They just don’t do that. is being attacked, certain rules from Islamic They also hate Shiites, unquestionably. They are more obsessed with the acts of law immediately come into play. If there is They consider Shiites heretics, outside the individuals – whether you visit graves, a defensive jihad and an armed struggle to pale of Islam. There is a debate as to whether you pray, how you perform your defend Muslim territory, the duty is indi- whether you can kill them wholesale or ablutions, whether you speak to non- vidual upon all Muslims – certainly upon only their elites and scholars. Muslims, and so on. The Muslim the Muslims of the area that is being • • • Brotherhood is not like that. It does have a attacked and then spreading out in concen- If you look at al Qaeda’s creed, which political agenda, and more importantly a tric circles so that each and every Muslim is you can find on the Internet, it is absolute- framework in which to talk about politics. duty-bound to repel the aggressor.

22 NYU Review of Law and Security The argument is that the Americans were in control of Saudi Arabia. They had an occupying force, and the rulers of the Muslim world, especially the Saudi rulers, are lackeys and accomplices of the West. They are servants of the West and apostates. Because they are in alliance with the West, they are not to be considered Muslims. A very important principle in Wahhabi and in al Qaeda ideology is a notion called al- wala’wa-l-bara’. This means associating yourself with Muslims and disassociating yourself from non-Muslims. They take this doctrine very seriously and argue that the Saudi ruler does not prac- tice this concept of wala’ wa-l-bara’; he does not disassociate himself from the Americans, and is in alliance with the Americans. Therefore he is an apostate, and rebellion is incumbent on the Saudi people, and on all Muslims, to remove this person from power and to establish another order, a virtuous order, in which Islamic law and this principle will be applied. • • • The argument that economic deprivation is what leads to the radicalization of people such as the members of al Qaeda is entirely spurious. It just does not hold water empir- ically. Al Qaeda is represented in Saudi The Sunni-Shia Divide Arabia largely by middle- to upper-middle- class people. The Sunni-Shia divide originated over a dispute over the succession of the Prophet If you go to the southern provinces of Muhammed. The Shia asserted that Ali, Muhammed’s son-in-law, was the only Saudi Arabia, such places as Asir and Jizan, legitimate successor to the Prophet Mohammed and should serve as the first Caliph where 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers are from, (the term “Shia” derives from “Shi’at Ali,” or “the party of Ali”). The Shia believe that it is a fairly wealthy place, and the families the Prophet intended for members of his own family to succeed him as leaders of the of the hijackers are wealthy families. Muslim community. Autocracy is not an explanation for the al Qaeda phenomenon either – in other words, Upon Muhammed’s death, however, the Muslim community in Medina instead chose that the Arab regimes, or certain Arab Muhammad’s ally Abu Bakr. Ali later became the fourth Caliph in 656. He then fought regimes, brutalize their populations, lead- several wars to retain his position. He was ultimately killed in 661 and succeeded by ing to this form of Islam. I do not think that his chief opponent, Mu’awiyah. is true for Saudi Arabia. It may be true for places like Egypt, it is certainly true for Ali’s son Husayn later refused to recognize the legitimacy of Mu’awiyah’s son as places like Syria, but not Saudi Arabia. Caliph. The citizens of Ali’s former capital – the town of Kufah in present-day Iraq – Saudi Arabia is not a regime that brutalizes invited Husayn to become a rival Caliph. Husayn and his supporters were shortly there- its population. It is actually a fairly benign after killed in the battle of Karbala in 680. place by regional standards. I think that al Qaeda is explained much Over time those who supported Ali in and around Kufah grew into a distinct collection more by ideology. Ideas are important. of sects asserting the legitimate authority of Ali’s lineal descendants. The largest Shia Wala wa-l-bara’ is important if you take it sect, the Imami, recognize the succession of twelve ‘Alid claimants to the Caliphate, seriously. Issues that have to do with humil- beginning with Ali himself. They believe that the twelfth such Imam disappeared but iation are also a factor. If you feel humiliat- will eventually return as the Mahdi to bring justice to the world. ed, even if you are not personally humiliat- ed in Saudi Arabia but you feel somehow Sources: humiliated as a member of the global Encyclopædia Britannica 2008, “Ali,” Encyclopædia Britannica Online, http://www.britannica.com/eb/ Muslim community, that does make you article-260781 more receptive of this ideology. American Encyclopædia Britannica 2008, “Shi’ite,” Encyclopædia Britannica Online, policies have certainly fed this feeling of http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-272013 Muslim humiliation since 9/11.

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 23 Open Forum Series: February 23, 2006 Suicide Terrorism Shia Demographics in the Middle East by Percent of Over the last few years, I have compiled Total National Population the first complete database of every suicide terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004, and I have recently updated it Country Shia for Iraq through December 2005. • • • Iran 89 - 90% The data shows that Islamic fundamen- talism is not as closely associated with sui- Azerbaijan 59 - 75% cide terrorism as many people think. Bahrain 58 - 75% Overall, from 1980 to the end of 2003, there were 315 completed suicide terrorist Iraq 60 - 65% attacks around the world. The world leader Lebanon 34 - 45% Robert Pape. Photo by Deb Rothenberg is the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka -- a Marxist group, a secular group, a Hindu group. Yemen 40% Peter Bergen, Fellow, The New American They have done more suicide terrorist Kuwait 25 - 35% Foundation; CNN terrorism analyst; attacks than either Hamas or Islamic Jihad. author of The Osama bin Laden I Know: Pakistan 20% Further, at least 30 percent of Muslim An Oral History of Al Qaeda’s Leader suicide attacks are by secular groups such Turkey 20 - 30% (Free Press, 2006) as the PKK, which is a Kurdish terrorist Afghanistan 9 - 19% Farhad Khosrokhavar, Professor, École group in Turkey. Overall, at least 50 percent of all suicide terrorist attacks around the Qatar 10 -16% des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, author of Suicide Bombers: Allah’s world are not associated with Islamic Syria 11 - 16% New Martyrs (Pluto Press, 2005) fundamentalism. UAE 6 -16% • • • Robert Pape, Professor, University of To explain suicide terrorism, I have ana- Saudi Arabia 10% Chicago; author of Dying to Win: The lyzed the phenomenon at three levels in my Tajikistan 5% Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism book, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of (Random House, 2005) Suicide Terrorism. It seeks to explain why Jordan 2 - 5% suicide terrorism makes sense for terrorist Prof. Stephen Holmes, Moderator, organizations (the strategic logic), why it Professor, New York University Law gains mass support (the social logic), and Note: The ranges in the chart above School, author of “Al-Qaeda, September what motives drive individuals to do it (the represent differing estimates among 11, 2001” in Making Sense of Suicide individual logic). Each level of analysis is multiple sources. Missions, Diego Gambetta ed. (Oxford important, because suicide terrorism is University Press, 2005) conducted by non-state actors who lack the The Shia are divided into multiple coercive apparatus of a state to compel different branches, with the majority Robert Pape: either the surrounding society or individual being Imami. The countries in which • • • members to support their operations. I am the majority of the Shia belong to Suicide terrorism has been rising around going to focus only on the strategic logic, other branches are Syria, Turkey, and the world but there is great confusion about partly because of time constraints and Yemen. In Syria, the majority of the why. Since many attacks, including 9/11, partly because it is the logic that unifies the Shia are Alawites. In Turkey, 70% of have been perpetrated by Muslim suicide other two. the Shia are Alevi (a Sufi branch of terrorists, many people have presumed that What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks Shi’ism). In Yemen, around 90% of Islamic fundamentalism must be the obvi- have in common is not religion but rather a ous central cause. This presumption has specific secular and strategic goal – name- the Shia are Zaydi and the others fueled the belief that future 9/11s can only ly, to coerce a democratic state to withdraw mostly Ismaili. be avoided by wholesale transformation of military forces. I do not mean advisors with Muslim societies, which was a core reason side arms. I mean the withdrawal of tanks, Sources: for the broad public support of our invasion fighter aircraft, and armored personnel car- CIA, 2008 World Factbook of Iraq. This presumed connection between riers from territory that the terrorists con- Encylopaedia Britannica World Data Analyst terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism is sider to be their homeland or that they prize Vali Nasr, “When the Shiites Rise,” Foreign misleading, however, and may be encourag- greatly. From Lebanon to Israel, Sri Lanka, Affairs, July/August 2006 ing domestic and foreign policies that are Kashmir, and Chechnya, the main goal of likely to exacerbate America’s situation. every suicide terrorist campaign since 1980

24 NYU Review of Law and Security has been the establishment or maintenance It is important to underscore that the United This does not mean that we should blame of self-determination for territory that the States had never stationed combat forces on ourselves for the deaths of 3,000 of our cit- terrorists prize. Religion is rarely the root the Arabian Peninsula before then -- advi- izens on 9/11. Suicide terrorism is murder, cause, although it is often used as a tool by sors, yes, but not tanks, fighter aircraft, or and there is nothing that our forces did terrorist organizations in recruiting and in APCs, going all the way back to World War II. when they were stationed on the Arabian other ways to serve the broader strategic Notice where the suicide attackers are Peninsula that would justify the murder of objective. not coming from: our civilians. However, that should not Three patterns in the data support my cause us to overlook the fact that bin conclusions. The first concerns the timing • Iran, which has an Islamic fundamen- Laden’s best mobilization appeal, which of suicide terrorist attacks. Suicide terror- talist population of 70 million people. would help him recruit suicide terrorists ism rarely occurs as an isolated or random It is three times the size of Saudi better than anything else (not the only thing, event, as it would if it were merely the prod- Arabia but has produced no al Qaeda but better than anything else), is the pres- uct of an evil ideology independent of cir- suicide attackers. ence of American and Western combat cumstance. Instead, the attacks tend to • Sudan, which has a population almost forces on the Arabian Peninsula. Not all al occur in clusters that look very much like the same size as Saudi Arabia. The Qaeda suicide terrorists came from Sunni campaigns. Specifically, 301 of the 315 philosophy of its government is a Muslim countries. Two thirds did and one occur in coherent, organized, strategic cam- brand of Islamic fundamentalism so third did not. One third is transnational in paigns that terrorist groups design for spe- congenial to Osama Bin Laden that nature. However, if we look at those who cific political, secular goals. Only five per- he chose to live there for three years are transnational, we can see that the pres- cent are random or isolated events. in the 1990s, yet it has produced no ence of Western combat forces on the suicide terrorists. Arabian Peninsula is a powerful motivating • • • factor. Second, while I am not saying that for- • Pakistan, the largest Islamic • • • eign occupation or the threat of foreign fundamentalist country on the planet, Our counterterrorism strategy has been occupation is a sufficient condition for sui- with 149 million people. It has based on a faulty premise – that suicide ter- cide terrorism, a military presence or the produced two. rorism is mainly the product of an evil ide- control of territory appears to be a neces- ology called Islamic fundamentalism. sary condition. The third pattern concerns If Islamic fundamentalism were driving Although there are multiple causes, the data target selection. If suicide terrorism is a cal- the threat, we should be seeing suicide ter- shows that the main cause is not an evil ide- culated, coercive strategy, one might expect rorists jumping out of Iran, Sudan, and ology independent from circumstance, but that this strategy would be applied to target Pakistan. Instead, we see a different pattern. the sustained presence of American and states that are generally considered to be the I am not saying that there is no transnation- Western combat forces on the Arabian most vulnerable to punishment. Rightly or al support for al Qaeda, but it is crucial to Peninsula. The U.S. had 12,000 combat wrongly, democracies are viewed as soft see that the presence of foreign American troops there on 9/11 – 5,000 in Saudi and especially vulnerable to coercive pun- and Western combat troops on the Arabian Arabia and 7,000 in other countries on the ishment. They have also been the target Peninsula is bin Laden’s best mobilization rim. Today, we have over 140,000 combat state of every suicide terrorist campaign appeal. forces in Iraq and the rest of the Arabian since 1980. So the bottom line is that the Since we have data on the complete set Peninsula. American combat presence and timing, goals, and societies targeted by sui- of al Qaeda suicide attackers, we can asses suicide terrorism, both by al Qaeda and in cide terrorism suggest that it is a coherent the effect of American military policy. With Iraq, have increased side by side. strategy designed to cause democratic only one exception, all of the al Qaeda sui- This does not mean that we should mere- states to abandon the occupation or military cide terrorists from 1995 to 2004 were from ly cut and run from the region. We have a control of territory. various Sunni-majority countries. Hence, vital interest in the Persian Gulf because of Al Qaeda fits the pattern. We have long we can compare the rate at which they come oil. Oil is the reason that the Persian Gulf known that a major goal of Osama bin from Sunni countries with American com- and Iraq are not Vietnam, and we have to Laden’s has been to compel the United bat presence and Sunni countries without. act to secure that interest. Instead, I have States to leave the Arabian Peninsula, but They are over 10 times more likely to come been offering three points to the Bush not how this goal relates to his ability to from a Sunni country with American com- administration. recruit suicide terrorists to kill us. bat forces than without. This is difficult for First, al Qaeda must be our top priority. My research is the first to collect the me to say, and I supported having those While Iran and North Korea are important, complete set of all al Qaeda suicide attack- troops there in the 1990s, but this means it is al Qaeda that is actively planning to kill ers; that is, the 71 individuals from 1995 to that American military policy was likely the us. We have lost sight of that over the last early 2004 who actually killed themselves pivotal factor leading to 9/11. Although three years. to carry out attacks for bin Laden. Of these Islamic fundamentalism may have mattered Second, we should not expect democracy 71, we know the name, nationality, and somewhat, the stationing of tens of thou- in Iraq to be a panacea that will end suicide other demographic data of 67. The largest sands of American combat troops on the terrorism so long as American combat group from a single country, 34, comes Arabian Peninsula during the 1990s proba- forces remain stationed there. We should from Saudi Arabia. The majority are from bly increased the risk of al Qaeda suicide begin to draw down our combat forces in the Persian Gulf, where the United States attacks against Americans, including 9/11, the next year and transfer responsibility for first began to station combat forces in 1990. over ten times. the security of Iraq to the Iraqi government

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 25 as we begin to draw down. In the last six months, however, we have Third, over the next three years we seen 25 suicide attacks there. I think part of should shift to our traditional strategy of that is copycatting what has gone on in Iraq. offshore balancing for securing our oil Who are doing these attacks? If Bob is cor- interests in the Persian Gulf. During the rect, the people engaging in these attacks 1970s and '80s, we secured our oil interests should be Afghans. After all, it is their in the Gulf without stationing a single com- country that is being occupied by the bat soldier on the Arabian Peninsula. United States. According to Carlotta Gall’s Instead, we formed an alliance with Iraq very good article in The New York Times on and Saudi Arabia. We also stationed numer- February 15, 2006, most of these suicide ous aircraft carriers off the coast of the attacks are being conducted by Pakistanis. peninsula, and air power is more powerful The U.S., however, does not presently have today than it was 30 years ago. Finally, we troops in Pakistan. maintained an infrastructure of bases with- I think that part of the research that we out troops, so that we could rapidly deploy need to do is in finding out who is conduct- hundreds of thousands of ground troops to ing the suicide operations in Afghanistan. If the peninsula in a crisis. Bob is right, they should all be Afghans. If That strategy worked splendidly to Bob is wrong, it will turn out that they are reverse Saddam Hussein’s aggression mostly Pakistanis. Maybe we could even against Kuwait in 1990. It is again our best split the difference, because a lot of strategy for securing our interest in oil and Pakistanis are actually Afghans who grew preventing the rise of a new generation of up in refugee camps and who have suicide terrorists from coming after us. It is Pakistani passports. a strategy that we can maintain not just for a year or two, holding on by our fingernails, Farhad Khosrokhavar: but for decades. That is what we are going • • • to need, because even the best estimates do I think that there is a major problem in that not foresee our getting rid of our addiction some kinds of fundamentalism within Islam to oil anytime soon. Over the last 10 years, end up in radicalization and possibly terror- our enemies have been dying to win. But, ism, while other kinds do not. There is a with the right strategy, it is America that’s question as to whether we should look at Minarets. Photo by Jack Berger poised for victory. fundamentalism as a kind of footstep They really believe that the Pentagon was toward radicalization or not. My personal Peter Bergen: staffed entirely by Jews, so from al Qaeda’s view is that, in most cases, fundamentalism • • • perspective, the attack on the Pentagon was prohibits radicalization, although in some It is of course a fact that the U.S. military actually an anti-Jewish attack as much as it cases it pushes the other way. It is not true presence in Saudi Arabia was the principal was an anti-American attack. But, be that as that fundamentalism, as such, is somehow reason that al Qaeda launched its attacks it may, al Qaeda and its affiliates have con- encouraging radicalization. against the United Sates, but we have drawn ducted a systematic campaign against My experience in many European coun- down our presence in Saudi Arabia to effec- Jewish and Israeli targets after 9/11. These tries – based on anthropology, on inter- tively nothing now. That does not seem to are not directed at getting Israel to with- views, on descriptions of intentionality have stopped al Qaeda’s campaign against draw from the occupied territories. These rather than gathering statistical data – shows the United States, or the West in general. are simply religiously motivated, anti- that it is a much more complex phenomenon. • • • Semitic attacks. It involves the intersection of many levels. I do think that Islam remains a very I’ll give you several examples of such First of all, there needs to be some kind important factor here. I would like to sketch suicide attacks. One was the directed at a of personal experience of rejection, of out a couple of examples that demonstrate Jewish community center in Casablanca, racism, of Islam-phobia as a condition for why it is hard to say these attacks are relat- Morocco. There have been two synagogue radicalization. In 160 two-hour prison inter- ed to territory, or are some sort of national- attacks in Istanbul, an attack on an Israeli- views conducted over two years, the people ist response, but are instead motivated by owned hotel in Mombasa, and an attack on I spoke to referred to some kind of existen- Islamic fundamentalism. These are the a Tunisian synagogue which killed 17 tial experience related to Islam-phobia and attacks that al Qaeda and its affiliates have Germans. So, while Bob has done an incred- racism. conducted against Israeli and Jewish targets ibly valuable job of collecting all this data, I The second level is political, dealing since 9/11. do not think we should underestimate the with the sorts of things that happen in It was always puzzling to me why al importance of Islamic fundamentalism. Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and in many Qaeda, which called itself the World There is an interesting example which other Muslim countries on a daily basis. Islamic Front against the Crusaders and the may cut all sorts of different ways. The crisis of Muslim societies is very Jews, never attacked Israeli or Jewish tar- Afghanistan had had no suicide attacks important. gets before 9/11. I think part of that is that more or less in the post-9/11 era, despite the Their identification with this ummah these groups believe their own propaganda. fact that there was a U.S. occupation there. (which is partially an imaginary ummah,

26 NYU Review of Law and Security because it never existed historically the way it does now) is much more important than Critique of the Nationalist Explanation their identification with other British, French, Dutch, or Danish citizens. Through of Suicide Terrorism Campaigns a kind of symbolic and imaginary construc- tion of this new ummah, it becomes much Saudis and only one by an Iraqi. Similarly, more important than ties to citizens of their in June, 2005, the SITE Institute of own countries. Many people from the sec- Washington, D.C., found by tracking both ond or third generation in Europe told me jihadist Web sites and media reports that that the suffering of the ummah all over the 104 of the 199 Sunni extremists who had world, and in their own countries, was deci- died in Iraq either in suicide attacks or in sive in their determination to become a action against coalition or Iraqi forces were martyrist and jihadist. from Saudi Arabia and only 21 from Iraq. In that respect, the fact that people might And so, the most extensive suicide cam- suffer through jihadism in their own coun- paign in history – more than 860 suicide try, for instance in England, through explo- Peter Bergen. Photo by Dan Creighton attacks since 2003 – is being conducted in sions seem to them not to be important. In Iraq almost entirely by foreigners animated many European countries, there is weaken- The claim that suicide terrorism campaigns by the deeply-held religious belief that they ing of the national identity and the strength- are generally nationalist struggles, as artic- must liberate a Muslim land from the “infi- ened idea of a kind of universal ummah. ulated by Robert Pape in his book Dying to del” occupiers. Those suicide attackers see This is all constructed on the basis of TV, Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide themselves as acting on behalf of the umma the Internet, and an identity antithetical to Terrorism, does not match the evidence (the global community of Muslim believ- the societies to which they factually belong. when it comes to Iraq and Pakistan. There, ers), a supranational concept that does not Most of the people in Europe who iden- where suicide bombings are on the recognize national boundaries. In short, the tify with this kind of ummah do not speak increase, having reached record levels in suicide attackers in Iraq are as far from Arabic, and do not know the Koran – or at 2007, the evidence suggests that occupation being nationalists as is possible to imagine. least they don’t before being radicalized. of a foreign country has less to do with the The bulk of them traveled to Iraq, a country Then they try to learn Arabic, they try to suicide attacks than other factors, most they had never even previously visited, to have some kind of legitimization through prominently religion. commit suicide. The only explanation for sacred texts and so on. So the process of Mohamed Hafez, the author of the this is the rationale that the jihadist terror- radicalization in many ways precedes the authoritative 2007 study Suicide Bombers ists themselves offer – that they are doing process of Islamization, and this whole con- in Iraq, has found that of the 139 known this for God and Islam. struction is related to the crisis within suicide bombers in Iraq, 53 were from Just as the suicide campaign in Iraq does European societies. Saudi Arabia and only 18 were Iraqi. The not correspond to a one-size-fits-all expla- • • • rest came from other Arab countries and nation for suicide terrorism as an invariably even Europe. Hafez’s findings were backed nationalist response to foreign occupation, Robert Pape: up by the October, 2007, discovery of a nor do recent events in Pakistan. In 2007 As to whether our withdrawal from Saudi trove of al Qaeda in Iraq documents recov- Pakistan suffered some 60 suicide attacks, Arabia should end the problem, it would if ered by the US military in Sinjar, close to most of them launched by the Pakistani we took an extremely narrow view of our the Syrian border. The documents provide a Taliban and/or al Qaeda. Many of them military forces. It is important to remember record of foreign fighters who had traveled were directed against the Pakistani state, that our forces are not weak. They are the to Iraq since August 2006. According to a which they consider to be infidel because precise military that conquered Baghdad in careful analysis by West Point’s Combating of its collaboration with the United States three weeks. If we have 140,000 combat Terrorism Center, more than half of the 606 in the “war on terror.” The perpetrators of troops in Iraq, how long would it take for foreign fighters whose biographies were these suicide attacks have usually been them to get to Riyadh? detailed in the documents were listed as Pakistanis and the targets have, in the main, Our going into Iraq fulfilled one of bin aspiring suicide bombers. The Sinjar docu- been Pakistani politicians, policemen, gov- Laden’s most powerful prophecies. He gave ments also confirmed Hafez’s findings that ernment officials and army units. The a sermon in 1996 called “The American Saudis were playing a prominent role in al Pakistani government is clearly not “occu- Occupation of the Arabian Peninsula,” Qaeda in Iraq and its suicide operations. pying” Pakistan, so nationalism cannot be which ran to 40 single-spaced pages when it Forty-one percent of the fighters in the the motivating principle. was published. In section one, he laid out all Sinjar documents were Saudi. Immanuel Kant observed that “out of the of our combat operations on the peninsula. Other researchers have also published crooked timber of humanity, no straight He went on to say (and remember that this findings indicating that the suicide attack- thing was ever made.” This aphorism was in 1996) that the U.S. will conquer Iraq, ers in Iraq are overwhelmingly foreigners. should be a warning to those who imagine break it into three pieces, and then do the The Israeli terrorism specialist Reuven Paz, that universal laws govern the actions of same to the rest of the Arabian Peninsula. I using information posted on al Qaeda- men. In fact, there is no single law that gov- am sorry to say that we have fulfilled that linked Web sites between October, 2004, erns why men do what they do, not least prophecy. and March, 2004, found that 23 of the 33 suicide bombers. • • • suicide attacks listed were conducted by – Peter Bergen

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 27 September 12, 2006 Conversation with Lawrence Wright

Then there is the fact that the Saudis • • • turned to America. Well who else were they One of the things that surprised me about going to turn to? But the strict Wahhabis al Qaeda and its creation is that it did not like bin Laden always remember the hadith, begin as a terrorist group. It was created as the saying of the Prophet ascribed to his a kind of Muslim foreign legion, an Arab deathbed, “Let there be no two religions in foreign legion to be specific, an anti-com- Arabia,” although there were many munist militia. Christians and Jews in Arabia at the time of Bin Laden wanted to pursue the Soviets his death. But this is an injunction that lives out of Afghanistan and fight the communist in the heart of many Saudis, not just bin government in Yemen. Those were his two Laden. The risk that the royal family took in big targets, and he would have been our inviting Christians and Jews – and even nominal ally in those efforts. Al Qaeda more galling, women – to come defend changed over time. It has evolved. I think it their kingdom was pretty great. Lawrence Wright, Steven Simon. Photo by Susan Cook is evolving still. We have seen from its early That is the moment when bin Laden days until now that it has been an amazing- turned against the royal family. I have been ly nimble and reactive organization. Lawrence Wright, Fellow, Center on Law reading these ideologues recently, and Abu • • • and Security; staff writer, The New Yorker; Musab al Suri writes about how he wanted author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda Steven Simon: to attack the royal family. The ideologues in and the Road to 9/11 (Knopf, 2006) How does he make the transition from this al Qaeda responded, “You won’t get the Steven Simon, Moderator, Senior Fellow Saudi hero to businessman, farmer, rancher, popular support for that, but if you attack for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on and terrorist financier in Khartoum? America you will expose their dependency, Foreign Relations their cravenness, their weakness.” Lawrence Wright: Well, bin Laden fell out of favor with the • • • It really started with Saddam Hussein’s royal family and he was kind of confined to Lawrence Wright: . This was a very telling quarters. He asked for permission to leave Osama bin Laden is a great spin doctor. He moment because Saudi Arabia was also the country and he fled to Sudan. From has been able to take the legend of the Arab endangered. You have to pause for a 1992 to 1996 he was in Sudan, and it was, I Afghans – which were a completely negli- moment to think about the sheer gall of bin think, the real cradle of al Qaeda the terror- gible factor in Afghanistan, in fact an Laden and about his delusional capacity. He ist organization. obstruction – and elevate them into this went in to talk to Prince Sultan, the defense Sudan had opened the doors to any mythic force. minister, offering al Qaeda to defend the Muslim, and that meant that any Muslim He always loved this sort of adventure. kingdom. He said that they could bring in who could not go anywhere else would go He loved the American television shows 100,000 unemployed Saudi youth, give to Khartoum, including recent Muslims like Bonanza and Fury, and he was kind of a them jobs, and defend their country. He Carlos the Jackal. He became a Muslim cowboy of the desert. So he had that side of said that they could use the Caterpillars, because it was a good time to go to him, that dashing side. But he took the bulldozers, and his father’s construction Khartoum. He would hang out in the image of the Arab Afghan struggle and company against a million-man Iraqi army Hilton, and Abu Nidal and all these differ- returned home the most unlikely hero. He with one of the largest tank corps in the ent terrorist groups had their offices there. hadn’t won any battles. He had stood off the world. Bin Laden set up shop, and he had some Soviets in Jaji, but it was not a glorious vic- Well of course the defense minister money, and they had a lot of needs. tory. The Soviets were already retreating. laughed him out of the office. It was a very This was like the Catholic expression, All of the other battles had been catastro- insulting moment. In retrospect, I think I “the near occasion of sin” – that is, just put- phes. Yet he came home and cloaked him- did not put as much weight on that moment ting yourself in a position to cross the line self in glory. as I should have, because oftentimes we is as if you have already committed the sin. He really is a puzzling figure in Saudi give bin Laden too much credit for his can- So he was in Khartoum, and he was sur- Arabia, where there is the royal family and niness or whatever. But think about the rounded by terrorists from all over the then there is everybody else. The others grandeur – the delusional capacity – of Middle East. It was a dangerous situation. It might be rich people but they are not royal. that, the image of digging trenches along was a tempting situation but he himself was They do not have streets named after them; there and putting a bunch of unemployed a business man. He opened up a number of they do not have hospitals named after kids on the perimeter with al Qaeda in the businesses. He was probably Sudan’s them. But suddenly here is this wealthy, lead, which must have had all of 20 or 30 largest landowner, because the government young Saudi who is Saudi Arabia’s first people in it at that time. paid for his construction of roads and such celebrity. They just did not know what to do So that was a humiliating moment; by giving him land. He had one plot that of with him. “humiliation” being one of his key words. more than a million acres. He would walk

28 NYU Review of Law and Security Pakistan. They had sanctuary. They were inevitable even in Egypt. But I do think that married to Pakistani women in many cases. it is important for them to be responsible for al Qaeda They were part of the community. They set- their rhetoric. I believe that democracy is an “The Base” tled down. But Zawahiri had a lot of men inherently moderating force (although dem- and a lot of operatives there, and he used ocratic movements can also be corrupt and Description them. It really became a trademark of al autocratic). I think that this is going to be a Terrorist organization; represents an Qaeda, suicide bombers taking out the generational struggle; I think it’s going to extreme interpretation of fundamentalist, Egyptian embassy. The Pakistani govern- be really messy. Salafi Islam ment lost all patience with the Arab Current Leaders Afghans and they rounded them up. They Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, put them in a dance hall in Peshawar, and al Qaeda (continued) likely based near the Afghanistan– they were going to deport them to their Pakistan border. home countries. Bin Laden showed up with airline tickets to Sudan for 300 people. al Qaeda and Major Acts of Violence Identity & Politics Some of these guys were hardened terror- Simultaneous bombings of the U.S. Espouses a broad philosophy of violent ists. They had crossed the line. And more- Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, 1998 jihad with a wide range of potential over they were really more committed to Bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Aden, targets, primarily Western civilian targets. Zawahiri than they were to bin Laden, but Yemen, 2000 Besides their antipathy to the West, al bin Laden’s generosity brought them to Qaeda is also anti-Shia. Sudan, no doubt at Zawahiri’s urging. That 9/11 attacks, 2001 Seeks to revive the Islamic caliphate was another key moment I think. Finally, there was bin Laden’s personal Simultaneous bombings of the London Maintained a relationship with the Taliban bitterness when America urged the public transport system, 2005 government of Afghanistan prior to the Sudanese authorities to expel him, and it Note: Al Qaeda has taken credit for each American military campaign in 2001 was at a time when we didn’t have an indict- of these attacks; this list does not Their philosophy, and sometimes their ment on bin Laden; we really could not do include all attacks attributed to al Qaeda name, has been adopted by numerous anything with him ourselves. On the way and affiliated groups other groups across the Middle East and out the door the Sudanese picked his pock- the Islamic world ets, seven million dollars or whatever it Sources: was. The Saudis had cut him off in 1994. Karen J. Greenberg, ed., Al Qaeda Now: Designated a Foreign Terrorist They cut off his allowance from the bin Understanding Today’s Terrorists (New York: Organization by the U.S. State Laden family. His businesses were not mak- Cambridge University Press 2005) Department? Yes. ing any money but he had vast investments. Cable News Network, “Yemeni pair charged in When he left, the Sudanese government USS Cole bombing,” May 15, 2003, around Khartoum with sunflowers that he http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05/15/cole. divvied him up among themselves, spoils of bombing.charges/index.html had grown and he would say, “This should war. Abu Rida al Suri, who was his business be in the Guinness Book of World United States State Department Office of manager, told me that when bin Laden left Counterterrorism, “Fact Sheet: Foreign Terrorist Records.” That really seemed to be an aspi- Khartoum he was worth about $50,000, but Organizations (FTOs),” October 11, 2005, ration of his. It is not an exaggeration to say the intelligence guy who had the al Qaeda http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37191.htm that al Qaeda had become an agricultural file in Khartoum said, “He left here with organization. But there were several things nothing.” So there was a personal grudge. It The radical Islamists are not interested in that were tipping the scale. was only a couple of months after bin government. They are only interested in One is the extreme paranoia that infected Laden got to Afghanistan in 1996 that he purification of their religion – even the this group. When there was the famine in declared war on the United States. Muslim Brotherhood; their main fixation is Somalia, and American troops among oth- • • • on the hijab. They have not developed deep ers arrived to help alleviate the chaos and I sometimes think that when Zawahiri political roots. If you were to sit down and distribute food, al Qaeda saw that as an act spotted bin Laden it was like Colonel talk to Mr. Zawahiri or Mr. bin Laden and of encirclement – that they were physically Parker seeing Elvis for the first time. He’s say, “Okay, so you got hold of Egypt. Now threatened. They saw it was a way of clos- thinking, “I can use this kid. He’s rich. He’s what? What are you going to do about job- ing in on them, an organization that no charismatic,” and these were qualities that lessness? What are you going to do about practically no American knew about at the Zawahiri notably did not have. But bin the environment? What is your economic time. They saw that as a real threat, and they Laden had no direction and he had no model, by the way? I never heard you say thought that they would have to strike back. organization. So Zawahiri just grafted al anything about whether you are a Another telling moment happened while Jihad onto bin Laden and they called it al Keynesian or a Marxist,” you would find Ayman al Zawahiri was waging war on Qaeda. So in my view that’s how the organ- that they have never thought about these Egypt, and he was a thorough-going terror- ization came together. things. So exposing the shallowness, the ist. This is his line of work, and he bombed • • • ineptitude, of these movements I think is the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad in I think that we are going to see periods essential to beginning to create a deeper and 1995. Bin Laden did not want that to hap- where Islamists win elections, and that richer democratic dialogue in that part of pen. Many Arab Afghans were there in seems inevitable, and perhaps would be the world.

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 29 Distinguished Speaker Series: October 26, 2006 Conversation with Rory Stewart

tion, and you are letting a 28 year-old cler- appears to be resurgent, and in which the ic with four or five friends bust in, abduct local population is extremely unhappy and your councilors, and torture them.” abused. Surely you’re not saying we should “We’re going to have to hand Sheikh Ali just leave that situation. We ought to do Zeidi over to justice,” I said, “What are we something.” going to do about it? What do you recom- My response to that, as indeed it is to the mend that we do about the problem in al situation in Iraq, is that ought implies can. Rafai?” The headmaster suggested a new We should spend more time asking what we election. I told him that I thought there are actually able to do. Machiavelli says, as wouldn’t be much point in that, because the you’ll remember from The Prince, “Many same thing would happen again. Sheikh have imagined principalities and republics Rory Stewart. Photo by Dan Creighton Talib of the Beni Rikaab had been telling that have never been seen or known to exist. me for the previous six months that he And those that persist in trying to do what Rory Stewart, author of The Prince of could maintain security if I were to give they think they ought to do, rather than the Marshes: And Other Occupational him cash, weapons, and ammunition. doing what they can, will undermine their Hazards of a Year in Iraq (Harcourt, 2006) “This is your chance,” I said, “What do power rather than maintain it.” you need?” • • • Rory Stewart: “I can’t touch Ali Zeidi. He is not from If you talk to the predominantly middle • • • my tribe.” The imam of the mosque fin- class, English-speaking, secular Iraqis with Iraq had been hollowed out under Saddam ished the meeting by saying, “Mr. Rory, whom the coalition intended to deal – the Hussein. Power had been dragged into the Sheikh Ali Zeidi has had a difficult life. His kind of people that the coalition employed center. At a local level, people were extreme- father died when he was young. His broth- as translators, the kind of people represent- ly reluctant to take political responsibility. er has just been killed. Can we not just for- ed by Ahmad Chalabi – you would hear the In April 2004, a man came into my office get about it?” classic answer that you would have heard in who was an elected councilor from al Rafai, Everybody in that room understood what the Middle East and the Islamic world since a town of 150,000 people in northern Dhi I was talking about. Everybody in that room the First World War; that the forces of tribe Qar. He had been elected in a ration card understood the language of the rule of law and religion are fundamentally retrograde. election system that had been quite good – and justice and understood the problems of It does not matter whether you are talking there had been a high turnout and people impunity. The issue is not conceptual; it about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey, had been happy. Ten mostly non-tribal, non- was that none of them had any faith in the Amanullah Khan in Afghanistan, the Shah political technocrats had been elected to the system. They could not see the point of in Iran or Abdul Karim Qasim in Iraq. In council. But two days before he came to handing Sheikh Ali Zeidi over to justice. each case, these men set out to say, “We have visit me, a militia group of four led by a 28 They were not interested in defending the a modernizing agenda, we are technocratic, year-old cleric stormed into his office, council. None of them, in fact, wanted to be we are nationalists. We may be anti-colonial, abducted him, and tortured him. He came the mayor themselves. Even Sheikh Ali but we are also turning against these reac- for justice. Zeidi, having kicked the councilors out of tionary forces of tribe and religion.” I contacted the Iraqi police, of whom the office, sat around for a few hours and After the invasion of Iraq, it turned out there were 450 in al Rafai. They refused to then wandered off again. that they had been much more successful in act. I contacted the Italian military. They Somewhere in all of these critiques lev- eradicating tribes than they had been in sent in two army personnel carriers. The eled against the nation builders, somewhere eradicating religion. The tribal Sheikhs are cleric, Sheikh Ali Zeidi, stood in the street in the vision of these ideal Machiavellian unable to act while Sheikh Ali Zeidi, the 28 and fired a rocket propelled grenade at princes who are failing to do their jobs, is year-old cleric who I mentioned earlier, was them. They went away. an obsession with our moral obligation, an able to storm into the building, abduct peo- Rather than getting depressed, I thought obsession with what we ought to be doing. ple, and torture them with impunity. that we would look for a political solution. When I told the British government last Middle-class, educated Iraqis, who are We knew these people well. I had just writ- year not to put troops into Helmand predominantly urban, like middle-class, ten a 45-page paper on the tribes of al Province in southern Afghanistan (where I educated Afghans, are reluctant to acknowl- Rafai. I could sit down and we would work now live) because that would spark an edge how conservatively religious the this out. So we got together in a room – the insurgency, they said, "Surely you're not urban poor and those in particularly rural headmaster of the big high school, the saying that we should stand by and do noth- communities are. We were told again and imam of the mosque, the Sheikh of the Beni ing. Surely you’re not saying that we should again, “Forget about Moktada al Sadr. Rikaab, the Sheikh of Shweilat, the police tolerate a situation in this province in which Nobody supports him. This man is a 30 chief, the mayor, and other sort of digni- the government is corrupt, in which the year-old, semi-educated, semi-literate hick. taries. I began by saying, “This is a dis- police fails to keep security, in which drug- People only like him because of his father. grace. You’ve had an election, a good elec- growing is rampant, in which the Taliban He is not even properly qualified as an 30 NYU Review of Law and Security ayatollah. The only people who support him are the illiterate poor. You do not even need to deal with him.” As a result, issued an arrest Conference: January 24, 2007 warrant for him and we fought a counterin- surgency campaign against him for six Excerpts from Iraq, Iran, and Beyond: months. When the election was held in my province, his party took three times as many America Faces the Future votes as the next nearest party. In the January 2005 elections, 85 percent Lawrence Wright: Salameh Nematt: of the vote in southern Iraq went to three If the United States were to pull back If I were to predict, I would say that the parties – the Dawa Party, the Sciri Party from Iraq, the psychological effect on al situation will look much better in nine (standing for “Supreme Council for the Qaeda and radical Islam would be pro- months, not only because of the 20,000 Islamic Revolution in Iraq”) and its Badr found. People have been talking about troops being sent in the surge, but Brigades, and the Sadrists. Despite the how we have not been attacked here since because of the way that all of the troops, many differences between them, all three 9/11, and saying that we must be doing all 140,000, will be used. They will be are extremely conservative Shi’a Islamist something right. used differently than before. That is parties, with illegal militias that firebomb The real reason we haven’t been what General David Petraeus has been internet cafes and music shops. attacked is that al Qaeda was essentially talking about, and I think this is impor- In April 2004, one of the militias shot a a zombie for three years, until we invad- tant. He might not want to spell out pub- woman in the streets of Basra for wearing ed Iraq and reawakened this creature. It is licly his plan for fear of giving advance jeans, at which point the elected governor much more potent now. It is focused on notice to the insurgents, but I believe of Basra came out and defended the militia. Iraq, but we would be crazy to think that that the insurgents are getting fed up. The month before, Dr. Kifiyah (whom I and there is not going to be an immense There is insurgency fatigue in Iraq. We my American colleague had employed as amount of blowback when all of the only see what happens on the American the head of the women’s center in Amara) jihadis who are going into Iraq begin to side. In a democracy you have to be was shot dead while walking on her way to leave. Many of them are going to be transparent, because the government is work. A man who I talk a lot about in my focusing their efforts on us and our held accountable to the people. This is book was dragged from his car and execut- allies, and they will be much more not the case on the side of the insurgents. ed in the street in July 2006, simply because emboldened if they feel like they have The majority of the Sunnis in Iraq now he was a 27 year-old who happened to have been victorious in Iraq. are fed up with al Qaeda. They feel that started a children’s magazine and had spent al Qaeda is driving them to hell. too much time talking to people like me. There was nothing to be done because the Prof. Barnett Rubin: Afghanistan is but one case in which the governor, the police chief, the entire provin- Max Boot: categories that our government, public, I am afraid that if we do start pulling cial council, and all of the elected officials and press bring to bear on the under- troops out, however we portray this in the come from these Islamist parties. standing of situations – derived from our news media, whether we call it redeploy- Most of the middle-class Iraqis were so interests and our understanding of what ment or whatever we call it, the reality horrified that when I was back in Basra in has happened to us – deprive us of the that would come through to the Iraqis is the middle of 2005, everybody said, “This ability to understand whom we are work- that we would be withdrawing, we would is all corruption. There cannot have been ing with and what they are trying to do. be conceding defeat, giving up. We might proper secret ballots. Sistani must have That is, September 11th was described see an acceleration of the collapse of the rigged the process. However, we have as an attack on freedom. Our enemies country which is already going on, and learned our lesson, and you’ll find that were the enemies of freedom, and every- that would lead us to some of the dire everybody will vote for the secular, nation- body had to be either with us or with the consequences of precipitous withdrawal alist parties in the October elections. terrorists. The fact is, not everybody in which the Iraqi Study Group itself Nobody likes these medieval clerics.” the world analyzes their own political warned about. When the October elections came, the dilemma in terms of whether they are share of the vote for these three Islamist with us or with the terrorists. Nor do they groups increased from 85 to 90 percent in Prof. Fawaz Gerges: agree with the terrorists. They have their southern Iraq. So how important is reli- The region is boiling, not just in Iraq, but own interests, but they see that by in gion? It is the only game in town. The fun- also in Lebanon, the Gulf countries, some way being with us, however partial- damental problem for the administration, as Sudan, Libya, and Egypt. I think that ly, they can get resources with which to we discovered when we began to work in what Washington views as “clarifying accomplish their other goals. Iraq, is that the only powerful, effective, moments,” in the words of the president representative politicians prepared to work and Condoleezza Rice, are in fact deep- alongside the coalition in Iraq were mem- ening and widening internal fault lines bers of extreme conservative Islamist par- that are basically shaking Middle Eastern ties. That remains the problem today. societies to their very foundations. • • •

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 31 Distinguished Speaker Series: March 30, 2007 The Fate of America’s Iraqi Allies

They were refugees but were not regard- clerk who signed people in as if business George Packer. Photo by Dan Creighton ed as such. They were essentially consid- were as usual. There was a restaurant that ered to be people living with relatives in had no light and no heat, but it did have a George Packer, Staff Writer, The New Damascus and Amman – two million peo- waiter and a cook. We even managed to get Yorker; author of The Assassin’s Gate: ple living with relatives. There are no a plate of food after about an hour. There America in Iraq (Farrar, Straus and Giroux camps. They are an urban and largely mid- was a quite sinister feeling of abandonment 2006) dle-class refugee population filling the and of emptiness. That was the atmosphere apartment blocks and the housing in Syria in Baghdad after four years of war. George Packer: and Jordan especially. It is almost impossi- An Iraqi from southern Iraq insisted that • • • ble for them to work and their kids for the we meet in Kurdistan. There was nowhere In the fall of 2006, I began to hear from most part are not going to school. They are in the rest of Iraq where he would meet. He friends in Iraq that it was becoming impos- a sort of growth on those cities and coun- was going to go all the way from the south sible to go on living there. The sectarian tries. They are not being absorbed or reset- to Erbil to have two or three days of conver- violence in Baghdad was so widespread tled out and are quickly wearing out their sation. That is how far out of his way he was and almost indiscriminant that no one felt welcome. It is a huge and yet somewhat willing to go in order to tell me his story. safe anywhere. They were trying to leave hidden and paralyzed refugee problem. Others I met in Amman and Damascus. but leaving was very difficult for several I went to the Middle East in January reasons. because I was particularly interested in the The Iraqi passports issued after the fall cases of Iraqis who were trying to leave or of Saddam Hussein were being invalidated had left the country because of their affilia- by Western governments. If you had your tion with us. For obvious reasons, I felt that brand new, shiny post-Saddam passport, we, as Americans, had an especial obliga- which you thought was going to be your tion to them. There are many of them but ticket to travel around the world, you could they are hard to get to. This was a really dif- forget about it. The Jordanians were closing ficult reporting experience because if you their borders to Iraqis between the ages of go to Baghdad now and try to meet and talk 15 and 35, especially men and especially to Iraqis the way I used to – for four or five Shia. The Syrians were also cracking down hours, in order to get the whole story of the on their hitherto open-door policy. Other last four years – there is nowhere to do it. than Sweden, no Western countries, includ- You can’t go their houses. They do not want ing the United States, were letting in any to come to the Green Zone because it is too more than just a tiny handful of Iraqis. So, dangerous to be seen going there. Where do they were trapped in the hell of Baghdad. you do it? There are close to two million Iraqis dis- We improvised. In several cases we met placed within Iraq and two million more in a deserted hotel on the east bank of the have become refugees in the surrounding Tigris River called the Palestine Hotel. It countries. That means that about one out of used to be a buzzing hive of journalists and Iraqi stamp. every seven Iraqis has been displaced. It Iraqis looking for work with Westerners. In has been a hidden crisis for a few reasons. the old days, it was like a scene out of What I heard was a tale of high hopes The U.S. and the United Nations High Casablanca. It was a really interesting early on – which was their motive for going Commissioner for Refugees policies were place, full of intrigue, and the Mukhabarat to work for the Americans in the first place to treat them as temporarily displaced peo- still had some of its agents hanging around – and a gradual slide into disappointment ple who would return as soon as the situa- the lobby. and even a sense of being betrayed. tion in Iraq was stabilized. That was accu- When I went there in January 2007, to Basically, they were never trusted. When rate in 2003 and 2004. Iraqis would leave, have these interviews, it could not have their lives were in jeopardy and they came wait to see if things would calm down in been more deserted. There were no paying to the embassy, or to the contractor who their city or their neighborhood, and then guests. There were two Arab TV stations in hired interpreters for the military, or to the they would go back. But by 2005, and cer- some of the upper floors; you didn't see agency that they worked for like USAID tainly 2006, they were not returning or them. There were a couple of guys in and asked for help they were basically told expecting things to stabilize anytime in the leather jackets in the lobby who looked a that they could quit. It was a shocking expe- next five or 10 years. little sinister to me. There was one desk rience for me because even as they told me

32 NYU Review of Law and Security Soldier in sandstorm, Iraq. ©istockphoto.com/Bryan Myhr this they did not feel the kind of blanket I began to get a little angry, and pushed, and To get to it, you have to pass through three hatred that I was beginning to feel for the finally got an interview with two high offi- security doors that lock behind you, leaving people whom they had trusted. cials who would not be quoted by name. you in a little bubble until the next door There were always individuals who real- What they gave me was also boilerplate. unlocks. It was like the TV show Get Smart. ly tried to help them, who tried to push the They mentioned that they had held a By the time we reached the final office, I system in their favor, whether to get them a Thanksgiving dinner for the Iraqis the pre- felt as though there was no light or air of visa, to get them housing in the Green vious November. They also mentioned that Baghdad left. It had all been sealed off Zone, to get them a weapons permit, or to they had raised the Iraqis’ pay, which was behind us. We were now in a completely get them a badge that would allow them to true and not inconsiderable, but also sug- hermetic environment. There were no Iraqis bypass the long line and get into the Green gested a sense that the Iraqis’ lives were not either because it was a secure area. I think Zone quickly (which is something for all that expensive. But when the conversa- that provides some clue to the non-answers which Iraqis had been asking for two-and- tion turned to issues of security, immigra- I was given. a-half years without getting an answer). tion, and evacuation – and, to me, the ulti- This story is of the people of the entire There were always individuals trying and mate question: what will happen to these war, which is why I wanted to write about these Iraqis were full of love for them, people when we leave Iraq? – there were no it. The people I talked to at the embassy almost in a way that seemed beyond their answers at all. were perfectly decent. I knew that they were desserts. I had never felt such shame. Throughout not bad, and in fact I could see that they But institutionally we have completely this war there have been moments when I were a little conscience-troubled while I failed them. When I went to the embassy, was shocked or saddened by incompetence was talking to them. That the United States no one would speak on the record about this or by some form of cruel treatment, but this nonetheless continues to ignore the peril in issue. No one. I got one statement from the was such institutional failure in a case that which their Iraqi employees found them- embassy spokesman which said, essentially, I thought was morally as simple as can be. selves has something to do with the fact “Our Iraqi employees, like all Iraqis, must The lack of an effort to answer me suggest- that the people at the embassy were sealed deal with a challenging security environ- ed either that they were unaware or resigned off. They had such poor “intel,” as they say, ment in Baghdad. President Bush and to the fact that there was going to be no that they couldn’t imagine. Prime Minister Maliki have a security plan effort made for these Iraqis. • • • that is designed to improve security as well The office where this interview was held as service.” It was just insulting boilerplate. was in a classified section of the embassy.

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 33 Distinguished Speaker Series: February 16, 2007 Conversation with Paul Barrett

organizations, even radical ones, that can People have a tremendous amount in give Israel a black eye. common. I recently wrote an Op-Ed for the It would be a tremendous leap forward if Los Angeles Times that my editor cleverly people could talk about that a little bit titled “Reporting on Muslims While more, if people who disagree passionately Jewish.” I concluded the Op-Ed with a about Hamas and Hezbollah and their caus- vignette about how I have at times found es could say, “We agree to disagree about myself not so much looking through a win- Paul Barrett. Photo by Deb Rothenberg that stuff. Let’s put that the one side and talk dow at a foreign scene as looking at a mir- about a lot of other things and see if we can ror of scenes from my own life. I describe Paul Barrett, Assistant Managing Editor, passionately agree about other things. Let’s having dinner a number of times with an BusinessWeek; author of American Islam: let the scholars and the wise people sort out Indian immigrant family in Morgantown, The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion the Israeli-Arab conflict.” West Virginia, of all places – the type of (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007) • • • food, the body language, the woman host- There are people of extremely good faith ing me saying, “Have more, have more.” I and conscience on both sides of the line who could see my late grandmother standing on Paul Barrett: want to move forward. There are others who my shoulder smiling and saying, “Exactly. • • • cannot bear even to talk until the other side Eat more.” Muslim organizations and many individuals gives on the central issue, who say “Israel is Many Muslim Americans, especially in the United States have condemned terror- entirely illegitimate, and you have to say that immigrants, are obsessed with education. ism, and they have condemned it over and out loud before I’ll talk to you” or “I won’t They are obsessed with the material over again. Having said that, these same talk to you until there isn’t a single Arab accomplishments of the next generation – Muslim organizations and many (although who does something that offends me.” if the next generation does not outdo the not all) of the prominent Muslim figures in If that’s the gap, then it will never be current generation, the whole family is this country who have made such condem- bridged. I have no expertise in this, but it is going to be an embarrassment.These are nations often couch them in terms that tend my humble opinion from having talked to my people, too! to either dilute the statements or undercut many people on both sides that the next • • • them in such a way that I think many other stage in communication between Muslims listeners, particularly non-Muslims, cancel and non-Muslims in the United States the statements out. They do not take the needs to be conversation about things other statements seriously because they see terror- than Israel and other than the Palestinians. ism condemned in a very general way with- out reference to specific events at the moment – a bombing in Israel, or someplace in Europe, or what have you. Why would Muslim organizations couch their statements that way? Why not just say it without qualification? The answer is not because of al Qaeda. They condemn al Qaeda and 9/11 without qualification. For the most part, there are two answers: Hamas and Hezbollah. Muslim organizations, gen- erally speaking, do not want to and will not condemn Hamas and Hezbollah. They may not agree with everything Hamas and Hezbollah stand for. Most of them certainly do not agree with theocratic agendas, with the desire to replace secular states with entirely religious societies and so forth. But the enemy of their enemy is their friend. Many American Muslims see Israel as the enemy. Having seen decades of conflict between Israel and Arab nations, with Arab nations frequently getting the worst of it, they are not inclined to criticize Photo by Jack Berger

34 NYU Review of Law and Security Student Presentation: April 24, 2007 Inside the Islamic Republic

to win. He wanted the reformist vote divid- unspeakable destruction, human waves ed between two candidates. He wanted a walking onto mine fields to expose mines, conservative candidate out there to change chemical weapons, and civilian targets the language a little bit and bring it closer to readily exploited. It was incredibly hard the roots of the revolution. But in the end, war to fight in. Accordingly, the people the winner was supposed to be Rafsanjani, who ran this war from the Revolutionary although many people believe otherwise. Guard standpoint were heavily indoctrinat- I believe this largely because ed in revolutionary rhetoric. They were Daniel Freifeld. Photo by Dan Creighton Ahmadinejad ran such a dark horse cam- taught that the revolution has no borders, Daniel Freifeld, Student, New York paign. He was the mayor of Tehran but rel- that it is a righteous conflict between the University School of Law atively unknown as a national figure. He oppressed and the oppressors and is an was not a cleric. He was the first serious ongoing process. It won’t end until we top- non-clerical candidate. He banked on peo- ple the decadent Islamic regimes in the Daniel Freifeld: ple voting for a candidate rather than on the region and until we humble the United • • • levers of power. The Islamic part of this States or beat back the Great Satan. After the victories of reformist president regime is very suspicious of people in gen- So he does not sit there and say, “Well, Khatami in 1997 and reformist candidates eral. There are many quotes from Ayatollah what did we have with the Shah before, and in the parliamentary elections of 2000, the Khomenei saying that the people cannot be what are we trying to do to stay in power supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, trusted, that they are deficient. One of the now with our new system?” He very much saw that parliament and the presidency earlier fears about a powerful executive was believes that this revolution is ongoing. were controlled by people who, while that it would return to the country to a dic- Incidentally, when the British sailors always keeping a friendly tone towards him, tatorship. If anybody could play on the pas- were captured in March 2007, his support- had a largely different ideology about how sions and the emotions of people, they ers were yelling, “engelab sevom,” or, the state should be run.The Supreme would see a dictatorship return, and only the “third revolution!” The first revolution was Leader looked, and he saw that parliament religious authorities, the sort of philosopher- ousting the Shah, the second revolution was and the presidency were controlled by peo- kings, could be trusted as intermediaries taking the U.S. embassy, and the third revo- ple who, while always keeping a friendly between God and the people in his faith. lution was capturing these sailors. This tone towards him, had a largely different Ahmadinejad, taking a page from indicates that they did not think this was ideology about how the state should be run. Khatami’s book, went very local with this going to be an affair lasting a couple of Khamenei fought back, and he fought back election. He only talked about bread-and- weeks but rather another momentous step hard. He started a kind of concerted butter issues. He did not say anything about in this ongoing revolution. campaign of closing down newspapers Israel, about nuclear rights, or even a sig- Once in office, he appointed many of his and banning candidates from running, nificant amount about the war going on in colleagues from the Revolutionary Guard. including in the 2004 elections. He also Iraq next door (in 2005). He just said, The average age of his ministers is 49, and militarized politics. essentially, “I am going to put money on this is in a country that is run by many He looked around and saw all these fig- your table. I am going to end corruption. I aging clerics. Pictures of the Assembly of ures that he didn’t think he could trust run- am going to re-distribute wealth. I am Experts and these different governmental ning various ministries, and, more impor- going to increase your role and your stake bodies are fascinating to look at because tantly, nuclear programs and business inter- in this system so that everyone can live a everyone running the country is older than ests. He put Revolutionary Guardsmen in little bit better.” 70. After Ahmandinejad’s appointments of all of these positions. He increased the role He did this very much using the lan- non-clerical, heavily revolutionary veterans of Iran/Iraq war veterans in government, guage of Khomenei and indicting an unde- of the Iran/Iraq war, the average age is 50. where they had been before but without an fined clerical class for the same crimes as Ahmadinejad immediately used two especially powerful role. the Shah: exploiting oil wealth for personal strategies: he started using the language of We can only assume that he did this to gain, rising corruption, and the widening Khomenei and being revolutionary to out- prepare for the 2005 election, where he did gap between rich and poor. But he did not flank the Supreme Leader, and he started not want to see a reformist elected again. use pictures of Khomenei. He did not make courting conflicts with the world. He did everything he could possibly do. it about religion, but about the sort of spirit • • • In the 2005 election, which brought that Ahmedinejad rightly thought that peo- Ahmadinejad to power, something like ple would want to see. 1,000 candidates applied to run and only The key to understanding Ahmadinejad six or so were ultimately approved. This is is that his formative years were not the rev- debatable, but I believe that Khamenei olution but very much the Iran/Iraq war. intended for Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani This war in which he participated saw

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 35 New Works by the Center on Law and Security’s Faculty and Fellows

Stephen Holmes The Matador’s Cape: America’s Reckless Response to Terror (Cambridge University Press, 2007)

Tara McKelvey Monstering: Inside America’s Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War (Carroll & Graf, 2007)

Dana Priest Continuing series in on veterans’ care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (Pulitzer Prize, Public Service, with Anne Hull and Michel du Cille)

Michael Sheehan and Lawrence Wright at “Today’s Terrorist Threat: An Assessment,” Sept. 20, 2007. Photo by Dan Creighton Nir Rosen “Al Qaeda in Lebanon: The Iraq War Peter Bergen Barton Gellman Spreads,” Boston Review, “Al Qaeda: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy,” Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency January/February 2008 Mother Jones, October 18, 2007 (Penguin Press, 2008) (with Paul Cruickshank) “The Myth of the Surge,” Rolling Stone, “Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency” March 6, 2008 Sidney Blumenthal (Series in The Washington Post, The Strange Death of Republican America: June 24-27, 2007) (with Jo Becker) “Scapegoats in an Unwelcoming Land,” Chronicles of a Collapsing Party (George Polk Award, Political Reporting; The Washington Post, December 16, 2007 (Union Square Press, 2008) Pulitzer Prize, National Reporting) Michael Sheehan Crush the Cell: How to Defeat Terrorism Executive Producer, Taxi to the Dark Side • “A Different Understanding With without Terrorizing Ourselves (Academy Award, Best Documentary the President” (Crown, 2008) Feature) • “Pushing the Envelope on Lawrence Wright Presidential Power” Paul Cruickshank “The Spymaster,” The New Yorker, “Al Qaeda: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy,” “A Strong Push From Backstage” January 21, 2008 Mother Jones, October 18, 2007 • (with Peter Bergen) Playwright/Performer, My Trip to al-Qaeda • “Leaving No Tracks” Amos Elon Karen J. Greenberg “Olmert & Israel: The Change,” New York CLS Staff The Enemy Combatant Papers: Review of Books, February 14, 2008 American Justice, the Courts, and the Associate Director, Programs War on Terror (with Joshua L. Dratel) & Outreach Noah Feldman (Cambridge University Press, 2008) Nicole Bruno The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (Princeton University Press, 2008) Editorial Associate Jeff Grossman Executive Assistant Maggie McQuade Manager, Business & External Affairs David Tucker Research Daniel Freifeld Francesca Laguardia Susan MacDougall Michael Price

36 NYU Review of Law and Security Map of the Middle East

CIA, 2008 World Factbook

Rulers, Clerics, Radicals, Citizens 37 w w w . l a w a n d s e c u r i t y . o r g

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