Religious Religious Radicalism after the Arab Uprisings JON B. ALTERMAN, EDITOR Radicalism The Arab uprisings of 2011 created unexpected opportunities for religious radicals. Although many inside and outside the region initially saw the uprisings as liberal triumphs, illiberal forces have benefitted after the Arab disproportionately. In Tunisia, formally marginalized jihadi-salafi groups appealed for mainstream support, and in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood triumphed in Jon B. Alterman Uprisings elections. Even in Saudi Arabia, not known for either lively politics or for Jon B. Alterman political entrepreneurship, a surprising array of forces praised the rise of “Islamic democracy” under a Muslim Brotherhood banner. Yet, at the same time, the Arab uprisings reinforced regional governments’ advantages. The chaos engulfing parts of the region convinced some citizens that they were better off with the governments they had, and many governments successfully employed old and new tools of repression to reinforce the status quo. Religious Radicalism after the Arab Uprisings In the Middle East, conflicts that many thought were coming to an end Religious Radicalism after the Arab Uprisings will continue, as will the dynamism and innovation that have emerged among radical and opposition groups. To face the current threats, governments will need to use many of their existing tools skillfully, but they will also need to judge what tools will no longer work, and what new tools they have at their disposal. The stakes could not be higher. 1616 Rhode Island Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036 t. 202.887.0200 | f. 202.775.3199 www.csis.org EDITOR Jon B. Alterman Religious Radicalism after the Arab Uprisings Religious Radicalism after the Arab Uprisings Editor Jon B. Alterman ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Center for Strategic & International Studies 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 202-887-0200 | www.csis.org Published by Rowman & Littlefield A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, MD 20706 Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright @ 2015 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. ISBN 978-1-4422-4067-4 (cloth alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4422-4068-1 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-4422-4069-8 (electronic) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Contents Acknowledgments vii 1. Introduction: The Changing Geopolitical Landscape 1 Jon B. Alterman 2. Jihadi-Salafi Rebellion and the Crisis of Authority 9 Haim Malka 3. Key Elements of the Counterterrorism Challenge 36 Thomas M. Sanderson with Joshua Russakis and Michael Barber 4. Tunisia: Confronting Extremism 92 Haim Malka 5. Egypt: The Search for Stability 122 Jon B. Alterman and William McCants 6. Saudi Arabia: Islamists Rising and Falling 144 Jon B. Alterman and William McCants 7. Conclusion 176 Jon B. Alterman Index 181 About the Authors 194 About CSIS 196 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book would not have been possible without invaluable contributions from a distinguished group of international security practitioners and experts. The project’s Senior Advisory Group offered continued guidance and substantive feedback to the research team throughout the project. Members included Arnaud de Borchgrave, director of the CSIS Transnational Threats Project and a senior adviser to the Center; Juan Zarate, senior adviser to the CSIS Transnational Threats Project and CSIS Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Program; Bernard Haykel, professor of Near Eastern Studies and director of the Institute for Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia at Princeton University; Stephen R. Kappes, partner and chief operating officer at Torch Hill Investment Partners and a former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency; John MacGaffin, senior adviser to the CSIS Transnational Threats Project and a former associate deputy director for operations at the Central Intelligence Agency; Ziad Munson, associate professor of sociology at Lehigh University; Richard O’Neill, founder and president of the Highlands Group and a former deputy for strategy and policy at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense at the U.S. Department of Defense; as well as representatives from the Defense Intelligence Agency at the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Security Research Centre at Singapore’s National Security Coordination Secretariat. Additional appreciation is extended to both Arnaud de Borchgrave and Juan vii viii CSIS Zarate who, in addition to serving on the Senior Advisory Group, also worked closely as project advisers with the authors of the “Key Elements of the Counterterrorism Challenge” chapter in the final stages of its writing. The study also benefited from interviews with individuals and meetings with representatives from a wide range of organizations in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and the United States. We would like to thank all those who were kind enough to make time, both formally and informally, to meet with the study team, answer our questions, and challenge our findings and recommendations. Special acknowledgment is owed to Carolyn Barnett, who coordinated the background research for and critically edited many of the chapters, and to Zack Fellman, for his contributions to the field research used in the “Key Elements of the Counterterrorism Challenge” chapter. Additionally, the following contributors deserve particular credit and a great deal of thanks for their contributions to this project: Rebecka Shirazi, Waleed Al Bassam, Basil Bastaki, Nicole Beittenmiller, Meaghan DeWaters, Sandra Geahchan, Christopher Looney, Jason Mullins, Dan Paltiel, Breanna Thompson, and David Wiese. We are also grateful to the government of Singapore and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency for their generous support of this study. While this book benefited greatly from the guidance of nu- merous people, the content is the sole responsibility of the authors and should not be construed to represent the opinions of anyone associated with the project. Any mistakes contained herein are the sole responsibility of the chapters’ authors. �. INTRODUCTION: THE CHANGING GEOPOLITICAL LANDSCAPE Jon B. Alterman he breadth, depth, and persistence of religiously inspired Tviolence in the Arab world have made the region an outlier for many decades. While religious wars and pogroms feature in the history of many countries, the tensions that caused them have attenuated in the modern period. In the Arab world, how- ever, religious and sectarian conflicts seem to have deepened and accelerated, coloring not only how Arabs see their own so- cieties, but also how Arab states interact with non-Arab powers. Varying explanations have been offered for this phenom- enon. One is that the violence is a natural outgrowth of Islam itself. According to this view, Islam is a religion that brooks no compromise and is bent on domination; it has bloody borders because it is a religion of conquest. Further, Islam is coercive and patriarchal by nature, and thus it inspires coercive and patriarchal societies. It is essentially a premodern religion in a modern world, and it carries with it premodern levels of vio- lence and repression. Another explanation is that the religiously inspired discord in the Arab world is an outgrowth of the region’s modern poli- tics. This argument suggests that the colonial and mandate pe- riods, followed by decades of authoritarian rule, have created publics who are estranged from their rulers and who naturally flow to the least regulated space in society—the mosque—to 1 2 Jon B. Alterman express their discontent. The scant prospects of liberalization or more broadly participatory governance, this argument goes, pushed a hardened minority to support violent and/or revolu- tionary change. Rigorous repression of dissent hardened the opposition and made it more extreme; the growing extremism of the opposition frightened and alienated much of the general public and, in the eyes of many, justified increasing repression. Most religions, it seems, have been used to justify most things at some point in history. It is hard to accept the idea that Islam is uniquely receptive to violence given the justifications religion has given for violence throughout the world. And yet, other regions have emerged from colonialism without the high levels of endemic violence of the Arab world. The durability of religiously inspired violence in the Arab world, and the seem- ingly widespread acceptance of violence against civilians, de- mands some explanation. The terrorist attacks of September 2001 brought focus and urgency to the problem. The collective tendency in the West was toward the political explanation of the Arab world’s mal- aise, and the George W. Bush administration made the Middle East’s democratization a priority. If governance became more inclusive, the thinking went, it would push politics toward con- sensus rather