The Foreign Policy of Islamist Political Parties

THTEH PERFEOSSR IENIG TNH E PMOILDICDYLEO EFAISSTLA AMNIDST PONLOITRITCHA LA PFARIRCTAIE, S Id1e8ol5og0y −1in P9ra5ct0ice Politics, Social History and Culture Edited by MOHAMED-ALI ADRAOUI Edited by ANTPHrOeNfaYc GeO bRyM OALNIVaInEdR DRIODYIER MONCIAUD The Foreign Policy of Islamist Political Parties The Foreign Policy of Islamist Political Parties Ideology in Practice Edited by Mohamed-Ali Adraoui Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © editorial matter and organization Mohamed-Ali Adraoui, 2018 © the chapters their several authors, 2018 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun—Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/15 Adobe Garamond by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 2664 0 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 2666 4 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 2667 1 (epub) The right of the contributors to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents Notes on the Contributors vii Foreword by Olivier Roy ix 1 The Islamists and International Relations: A Dialetical Relationship? 1 Mohamed-Ali Adraoui 2 The Islamists of Morocco’s Party of Justice and Development and the Foreign Policy Problem: Between Structural Constraints and Economic Imperatives 20 Haoues Seniguer 3 The Foreign Policy of Tunisia’s Ennahdha: Constancy and Changes 47 Maryam Ben Salem 4 The Foreign Policy of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood 70 Tewfik Aclimandos 5 “Islam and Resistance”: The Uses of Ideology in the Foreign Policy of Hamas 104 Leila Seurat vi | the foreign policy of islamist political parties 6 A Fighting Shiism Faces the World: The Foreign Policy of Hezbollah 127 Aurélie Daher 7 Identity of the State, National Interest, and Foreign Policy: Diplomatic Actions and Practices of Turkey’s AKP since 2002 142 Notes on the Contributors Jean-Baptiste Le Moulec and Aude Signoles Bibliography 186 Index 196 Tewfik Aclimandos, Lecturer at the University of Cairo, Egypt. Mohamed-Ali Adraoui, Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellow in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, USA, and in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics, United Kingdom. Maryam Ben Salem, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences at Sousse University, Tunisia. Aurélie Daher, Deakin Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford University, United Kingdom. Jean-Baptiste Le Moulec, PhD Independent Researcher, IREMAM, France. Olivier Roy, Joint-Chair Professor at Robert Schuman School of Advanced Studies and Chair of Mediterranean Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Haoues Seniguer, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Institute of Political Studies in Lyon, France. notes on the contributors | vii Notes on the Contributors Tewfik Aclimandos, Lecturer at the University of Cairo, Egypt. Mohamed-Ali Adraoui, Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellow in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, USA, and in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics, United Kingdom. Maryam Ben Salem, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences at Sousse University, Tunisia. Aurélie Daher, Deakin Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford University, United Kingdom. Jean-Baptiste Le Moulec, PhD Independent Researcher, IREMAM, France. Olivier Roy, Joint-Chair Professor at Robert Schuman School of Advanced Studies and Chair of Mediterranean Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Haoues Seniguer, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Institute of Political Studies in Lyon, France. viii | the foreign policy of islamist political parties Leila Seurat, Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Aude Signoles, Lecturer at Sciences Po Aix-en-Provence and Senior Researcher at the IREMAM, France. foreword | ix Foreword by Olivier Roy Is it possible to speak of an “Islamist” foreign policy? The question really only makes sense since Islamist parties have had the chance to try their hands on the levers of power. While they were opposed to the notion, the response to the question can only come from their ideological corpus. There are certainly some specific ideas to be found in the texts and programs of the parties: develop a “third way” from the time when the Western and the Communist blocs between them dominated the geostrategic landscape; unite the Muslim countries with the long-term goal of reconstituting a Califate; and ultimately revive concepts elaborated by jurists of the classical age (dār al islam (house of Islam), dār al harb (house of war), and dār al ahd (house of truce)) that allowed for the Islamization of concepts of diplomacy and international trea- ties. This applies to the Sunni Islamists, as we will see, as Iran would develop its own model of diplomacy. Apart from this ideological reference, the Islamist movement has never taken up a jihadist stance toward the West and always sought to maintain open channels of communication with Western governments. In general, it was the West that refused to regard them as legitimate oppositional movements, even though London had liberally granted them political asylum, particularly to individuals belonging to Tunisia’s Ennahda and the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). However, by now a large share of Sunni Islamist movements (and all x | the foreign policy of islamist political parties those studied in this book) have had experience in managing foreign relations, even if ephemeral (Egypt), exercised in a power-sharing arrangement (Tunisia, Morocco), or, in Hezbollah’s case, outside any state framework. It is therefore possible today to study actual practice instead of doing an often sterile exegesis of ideological discourse. Interestingly, despite the great diversity of cases studied, we find a number of constants: This is what gives the book an overall unity. As may be expected, all the Islamist movements have adopted a foreign policy that is more prag- matic and moderate than their discourse lets on. Even though largely toned down, the ideological corpus has not disappeared; rather, it has slipped from a referential focused on the first Muslim community of the Prophet’s era into one articulated around paradigms of identity and the clash/dialogue of civilizations formulated in terms of defending national values and traditions against a corrupting and alienating Westernization. In short, we pass from a religious cleavage (Islam/people of the book/heathens) to a civilizational split (peoples of the East against the West). We move from revelation to identity, from religion to culture. Thus, Istanbul’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) mayoralty in the 1990s could launch a series of meetings whose theme was the dialogue of civilizations, an initiative subsequently taken up by the AKP Government in tandem with Spain. Turning to the practice of diplomacy, it can be summed up as a dual approach. The first is a realistic one, in the sense of the realist theory of international relations. The Islamist parties do not question the national framework nor the grand regional balances. They are invested in the state framework. Even Hezbollah does not challenge the principle of the Lebanese state. Morocco’s Justice and Development Party (PJD) adopts the monar- chy’s position on the Western Sahara in whole cloth. Turkey’s AKP does not question the Kemalist state, Turkey’s European leanings or its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership. Nahda the entire time refers to the Tunisian nation and subscribes to the postcolonial perspective. Nowhere do we find complete reversals of the alliances that had marked the Islamic revolution’s victory in Iran (replacement of Israel’s embassy by the Palestinian embassy, support for Ireland’s Irish Republican Army (IRA), and support for liberation movements in Latin America against the United States). Egypt and Turkey have maintained diplomatic relations with foreword | xi Israel, while Morocco has maintained links with it even without exchanging ambassadors. At most, a change in the new elite’s tropism can be noted: Many Nahda cadres speak better English than French, because they took refuge in Great Britain or studied in the United States. The same applies to Egypt and Turkey (and to Iran as well): The old Francophone and secular elites have been overtaken by a new generation of Anglophone technocrats. French seems to be loaded with “values,” while English appears to be purely the language of technology. Once again, France pays in terms of influence for its willingness to identify Francophony with civilizational values, among which, of course, figures militant secularism. But this distancing from the former metropole and fostering identity has nothing to do with an “Islamic” diplomacy that has never made the least start at concretization or even definition. The problem for the Islamists in power, therefore, is managing the Islamic referential that is their hallmark. To renounce it, as much in foreign as in domestic policy, means losing their specificity. As it is often the case, the false problem of double-talk poses itself: It is said that the Islamists would like nothing better than reestablishing sharia, or the Caliphate, but, since they cannot, they wait for more propitious times while getting their bearings. But whatever motivates this compromise, it is indeed what passes for the actual policy, corresponding as it does to Islamist practice, and this practice has a performative effect (as does diplomacy in general): Saying is doing.

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