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Beginning in the 1960s, many academics analyzed how Asian
and African states changed from traditional societies to modern, developed
nation-states.[2] Other scholars
focused on the nature of control and political survival in these new
states.[3] In the Middle East, during
this period, the military became the predominant power within emerging
nation-states. First in Turkey, then in Iran and Egypt, and later in Iraq,
Yemen, and Libya, military leaders seized power and established or
abolished monarchies. Military leaders also retained predominant power in
Syria, Algeria, and Tunisia. In Jordan and the Persian Gulf emirates, more
traditional leaders survived only by forging close ties with the military
and establishing vast security services.
In some countries, the military coexisted with traditional
Islam and even Islamists. During the Cold War, in Saudi Arabia and Iran,
Islam was seen as a force resistant to communism. Indeed, while demands
for U.S. apologies for the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad
Mosaddeq are now a staple of the Islamic Republic, the irony is that
Iranian Islamists and the Central Intelligence Agency found themselves
sharing opposition to the populist premier because of his closeness to the
Iranian communist party. So long as extremists—the Muslim Brotherhood or
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's followers, for example—were contained, Islam
was a positive, non-threatening force. With time, however, Islam grew to
threaten military stability and rule. The ramifications of this shift in
power politics are great.
After World War I, Arab leaders created nation states
alongside British and French mandates. This process was gradual and came
at the expense of the pan-Islamic alternative. Pan-Arabism grew to become
the dominant ideology even as Arab leaders divided Arab-speaking areas
into separate countries. Almost a century later, pan-Arabism is on
life-support, paid lip service to only at Arab League meetings and among
some intellectuals and artists. A similar rise in Islamist sentiment has
come at the expense of ethnic identity in Turkey, Pakistan, and Somalia.
For the masses, Islamism is simply more attractive. In Algeria, Pakistan,
Somalia, and Yemen, Islamist movements continue to threaten regime
survival as these states rely increasingly on the military or, in
Somalia's case, militias, to prevent an Islamist takeover.
Political Development in the Middle East
In Arab countries today, the "street" has little political
significance. Whereas the nation-state was alien to Middle Eastern
political culture, authoritarian regimes and patrimonial leadership have
long been part of the regional heritage, in which religion demanded
submission to God and the leaders who claimed to be his representatives on
earth; culture demanded similar submission to tribal and political
leaders.
Patrimonialism makes authoritarian regimes resistant to
democratic reform.[4] Many political
leaders today thrive on personality cults. In most Arab countries, Iraqi
Kurdistan, and Iran, ordinary citizens feel compelled to display portraits
of national leaders in schools, offices, and sometimes even private homes.
In Turkey, the same phenomenon occurs with the Atatürk cult. As they
developed, Arab states became marked by political corruption, a high level
of army involvement in shaping and managing policy, weak political
institutions, a lack of democratization, and an absence of formal
decision-making institutions. Together, these led to arbitrary,
centralized government leadership and a maximization of the role of the
military in politics that placed them almost in hierarchical command.[5]
There may be constitutions, political parties, and
parliaments, but these are insignificant and often lack influence. In
Tunisia, for example, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali defeated two
opponents in October 2004 elections with 94.5 percent of the votes cast.
Likewise, in the September 2005 Egyptian elections, Hosni Mubarak defeated
his two main opponents, Al-Ghad party leader Ayman Nour and New Wafd party
leader, Nu'man Guma'a, winning 88.6 percent of the vote.
The Rise of the Military
Throughout Islamic history, prominent heroes have come from
the military. Squares, buildings, and universities are still named after
the twelfth-century Kurdish warrior Salah ad-din al-Ayyubi (Saladin).
Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser may have been a dictator, but he did
enjoy popular appeal. So, too, did Syrian president Hafiz al-Assad and
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Today, however, the heroes of the masses
are often Islamic leaders. Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini captured the imagination of the Third World. After the 2006
Israel-Hezbollah war, polls suggested that Hezbollah secretary-general
Hasan Nasrallah was among the most admired Arab political leaders.[6] If, through most of the twentieth
century, the dominant political trend in the Middle East involved the
waning of the traditional tribal elite and their replacement by the
military, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the
defining trend appears to be the replacement of authoritarian military
leaders like Egyptian president Mubarak by Muslim movements.
In many countries, the military provides a bulwark against
unconstrained Islamism. Indonesian president Muhammad Suharto used the
military and an iron fist to constrain Islamist movements in the world's
most populous Muslim country.[7] In
Turkey, the military has long served as the guarantor of the
constitutional separation of mosque and state, stepping in most recently
in 1997, suspicious of the agenda of Islamist prime minister Necmettin
Erbakan. In Syria, the military protects a relatively secular and minority
'Alawi regime against a majority Sunni population susceptible to Islamist
populism. When the Muslim Brotherhood grew too vocal and active in Syria,
President Hafiz al-Assad ordered his army to raze its stronghold in Hama,
killing perhaps 20,000 civilians. After Islamists won the 1991 elections
in Algeria and, as is often forgotten, promised to change the constitution
to prevent future polls, the Algerian army intervened. H. Osman Bencherif,
the Algerian ambassador to the United States later explained, "It was the
lesser of two evils: Democratic principles would be violated by cancelling
the second round just as they would be seriously threatened by a
theocratic, authoritarian, Islamist takeover. The army took a difficult
step, but one that saved Algeria from an even worse fate."[8] A new study by Steven Cook confirms the connection
between the military establishment and the stability of the regime.[9] Conversely in Lebanon, where the
military is weak, Hezbollah has constrained political development as it
tries to impose Shi'i norms and a radical foreign policy onto Lebanese
society.
What If Middle Eastern Militaries Switch Sides?
Islamism seeks to replace the modern mechanisms of state
with an Islamic social and cultural framework. In some cases, the military
either declares its neutrality or joins with the Islamists to topple the
secular order. This happened most clearly in Iran where the army's
declaration of neutrality enabled the triumphal return of Khomeini in
February 1979, and also in Sudan when, in June 1989, Hasan 'Abdullah
at-Turabi's National Islamic Front cooperated with the military to take
over the regime. After the Egyptian army defeated the active Islamic
insurgency in the late 1990s, the Egyptian government moved to co-opt many
of the Muslim Brotherhood's potential recruits by Islamizing education and
society.[10] While many commentators
persist in describing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and
Fatah as secular, especially in juxtaposition to Hamas, the fact is that
the late PLO chairman Yasser Arafat Islamized Fatah through the 1990s.[11]
Since the 1960s, the Pakistani military has allied itself
with Islamists. Pakistan was founded nominally on the basis of religion,
but the country's founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was more secular
than religious in orientation. Pakistan is an ethnically diverse country,
and first Pushtun nationalism—manifested in the Pushtunistan struggle of
the 1950s and 1960s—and then Bangladesh's secession in 1971 spurred the
Pakistani leadership to promote Islam as an antidote to ethnic
nationalism. Indeed, this was the major motivation behind Islamabad's
support for the Taliban.[12] In
recent years, the Pakistani government has struck deals with the Taliban
in both North Waziristan and Swat.[13]
While the Syrian government defeated an Islamist insurgency
in the 1980s, and the Egyptian and Algerian governments defeated Islamist
insurgencies in the 1990s, the chance for a secular regime to emerge
victorious today is not as certain.
Turkey provides a troubling example. The Turkish military
long served as the defender both of Turkish secularism and democracy.[14] But, as part of the European Union
accession process, Turkey's Grand National Assembly passed a reform
package that loosened the power of the military in the domestic political
sphere by, for example, placing the country's powerful National Security
Council under civilian control.[15]
With the military no longer in a position to protect secularism, Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has moved to consolidate Islamist control,
not only in political circles, but over ministry bureaucracies, the
educational system, and the media.[16] Should the Turkish government decide to abandon
the European Union accession process—and its commitment appears to be
wavering—then it will already have succeeded in marginalizing the one
force that would prevent it from casting aside Kemalism for an Islamist
state.
Islamism and Democracy: Mutually Exclusive?
A growing number of mainstream foreign policy voices—former
New Republic editor Peter Beinart and Carnegie Endowment scholar
Robert Kagan, for example—advocate for engagement with the Muslim
Brotherhood and other Islamists.[17]
While Beinart and Kagan may be swayed by the rhetoric of democracy and
appeals to electoral fairness, the new Islamic wave could undercut not
only the stability of traditional military regimes but also meaningful
reform and liberal opposition.
The problem distills to conflicting concepts of legitimate,
authoritative government. In the West, in the mid-eighteenth century, Jean
Jacques Rousseau outlined the concept of a social contract between a
people and its government. Islamists, however, reject the idea of a social
contract in the Western sense. According to Arab culture and many Islamic
tenets, legitimacy is granted exclusively to the leader.
While some majority Muslim states—Egypt and Iran, for
example—have long and cohesive histories, many others, whether in Africa,
the Middle East, or elsewhere in Asia, have weak national identities
easily rendered weaker by clerics appealing to ties with the Muslim
umma (community) rather than national sentiment.[18]
Civil society cannot defend itself against Islamism enforced
and protected by the military. Especially within the Arab Middle East,
civil society is weak. The problem is not the absence of organizations but
rather their independent function. Even if there are political parties,
professional and civic associations, and opposition groups, they have
little influence on governance and decision-making. Parties operate more
on behalf of the regime as mass organizations for political mobilization
while opposition is mostly illegitimate and works underground. The 2002
Arab Human Development Report, for example, found deficits in
freedom, knowledge, and opportunities for women.[19] In Arab states, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Iran there
are few independent nongovernmental organizations. Most groups describing
themselves as NGOs are, in reality, "GONGOs," government-operated
nongovernmental organizations.[20]
Nor are labor unions in the region independent of government control.[21] Social suspicion and political
cynicism are dominant, and the cultural inclination is toward conformity
of thinking and operational loyalties to the extended family and clan.
When the chips are down, identifying oneself with kinship is much deeper
and more significant than identification with any other group, including
the state or its political institutions.[22]
With the exception of the West African nation of Mali, no
majority Muslim state is considered "free" in Freedom House's Freedom
in the World survey.[23]
Democratic forces in Arab countries are either nonexistent or lack the
power to be credible.[24] There are
many values in Arab political culture that contradict democratic
principles,[25] and the Middle East
and North Africa have proven particularly resistant to democratic
transition.[26] What distinguishes
the Middle East from other regions is not only the phenomenon of enduring
authoritarianism but also its density and the absence of successful
democratization.[27] Much of this
appears rooted in the cultural influence of Islam.[28]
Western political culture is participatory. It represents
the norms, attitudes, and values of the individual and the group towards
political institutions and the state. In Arab society, political culture
is, in the best case, subjugated at the center and parochial at the
periphery. Cultural values of honor and shame hamper Arab political
culture. Traditional political culture and ethnic divisions pose a barrier
to the development of effective parliamentary government and democracy.[29] Underneath the modern veneer, the
older realities of ethnicity and desert values persist.[30]
The principles of Islam are in contradiction to the values
of civilian society and democracy.[31] The source of authority and sovereignty is neither
a social contract nor the will of the people but God. There is no
egalitarianism between leader and subject, between man and woman, Arab and
non-Arab, Muslim and non-Muslim, or even between segments of society.[32] The concepts of democracy and
liberalism are rejected ab initio.
The Western temptation to engage moderate Islamists is
misguided. The absolutism of political Islam—and the extra-constitutional
rejection of those who do not accept its precepts—raise the danger of
one-man, one-vote, one-time scenarios. Many Islamist movements readily
embrace the rhetoric of democracy but fail to follow its principles when
no longer convenient. This was the case with Algerian Islamists who, upon
winning the first round of elections in December 1991, spoke openly of
changing the constitution and abandoning the democratic process. Erdoğan,
while mayor of Istanbul, summed up this problem when he quipped,
"Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get
off."[33]
Engaging Islamists undercuts democracy in other ways.
Egyptian-American sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim described the dichotomy
that exists between autocrats and theocrats. "We have had autocrats in our
region, fifty years or more of autocracy, in many of our countries;
actually, nearly all of our countries. Who in due course generated their
mirror image? Theocrats, the Khomeinis, the bin Ladens, the Zawahiris, the
Zarqawis … who are challenging the autocrats, but who also are
participating with the autocrats in an unholy, unintentional alliance to
squeeze and to crush the budding democrats."[34] When Western officials embrace Islamists—even
those they deem moderate—they contribute to oxygen starvation for liberals
and those truly committed to democracy.
Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Tablighi
Jamaat can be dangerous in other ways. Even when they say they eschew
violence, they often serve as a "recruiting agency" for more radical
groups or terrorist causes.[35]
Tablighi alumni have gone on to join Al-Qaeda affiliates, for example, and
many of those who joined the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Kurdistan
Islamic Union continued, after further indoctrination, to join more
radical and violent movements such as the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan or
Ansar al-Islam.
Conclusion
The Middle East is far less stable than the White House and
many European leaders believe. There is little social and economic
development. Both military regimes and pro-Western monarchies are shaky.
The departure of U.S. troops from Iraq may not only lead to a vacuum in
that country filled by both Sunni and Shi'i militias, but the perception
that the West is weak might embolden other Islamists and lead nominally
pro-Western regimes to make accommodation with Islamism. Security is
declining in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Only the Ethiopian army
prevents a whole-scale Islamist takeover in Somalia.
Washington bases its policy toward the Arab Middle East on
the pillars of alliances with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The
population in each country, however, is fiercely anti-American.[36] While Turkey appears stable in the
short term, both Egypt and Saudi Arabia face uncertain succession. Both
have already weathered Islamist threats to their security with their
government secured only through significant military and security
investment. Al-Qaeda continues to target both. Bin Laden's deputy Ayman
al-Zawahri comes from Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bin Laden has repeatedly
denounced the Saudi government as illegitimate and called for its
overthrow. On March 1, 2003, for example, he called for Muslims to revolt
against Saudi Arabia and, the following year, complained, "In Saudi
Arabia, it is the king and not God who commands sovereignty and complete
obedience … I advised the government two decades ago to remedy the
situation ... but it has not changed at all," he declared in a December
2004 statement.[37] The Islamic
Republic of Iran, meanwhile, is overconfident. Iranian leaders already
feel themselves the paramount power in Iraq and, perhaps, Lebanon. The
Supreme Leader has referred to Iran as a "superpower."[38] Over the past year, Iranian officials have
expanded their influence in Gaza and have questioned the sovereignty of
Bahrain, a majority Shi'i sheikhdom ruled by a Sunni leader. Islamist
terrorist groups are well-established in Somalia and increasingly active
in Yemen, and together threaten the Gulf of Aden and, by extension, access
to the Suez Canal.
Scholars and policy experts find attractive the notion that
political Islam is a spent force.[39]
Repeatedly, they have been proven wrong. Today, Islamism is rising not
only in Egypt and Pakistan but also in once-secular countries such as
Turkey. In of each these cases and in states including Algeria, Tunisia,
and Saudi Arabia, only the military prevents further Islamist gains. But
like the proverbial boy with his finger in the dike, armies dependent upon
recruits for ever more conservative societies cannot forever hold off the
flood. It is quite possible that the Middle East and South Asia might look
quite different a decade from now. It would be wise for Western
policymakers to consider the possibility rather than continue to assume
that the militaries that imposed security in the past will continue to
repel Islamism in the future.
David Bukay is a lecturer at the School of
Political Science in the University of Haifa.
[1] The Economist (London), Nov.
16, 2006.
[2] See, for example,
Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation: The Rise of Self-Assertion of
Asian and African Peoples (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960);
Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1968).
[3] Howard W. Wriggins, The Ruler's Imperative:
Strategies for Survival in Asia and Africa (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1969).
[4] Michael
Bratton and Nicholas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 82-97; Houchang Chehabi
and Juan J. Linz, "A Theory of Sultanism," in Chehabi and Linz, eds.,
Sultanistic Regimes (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1998), pp. 3-48.
[5] Amos
Perlmutter, The Military and Politics in Modern Times (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 104-5, 145-7; Michael Herb, All in
the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern
Monarchies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), pp.
21-50.
[6] Al-Hayat al-Jadida
(Ramallah), July 17, 2006.
[7]
Zachary Abuza, "Jemaah
Islamiyah Adopts the Hezbollah Model," Middle East Quarterly,
Winter 2009, pp. 15-26.
[8] H. Osman
Bencherif, "Algeria
Faces the Rough Beast," Middle East Quarterly, Dec. 1995, pp.
31-8.
[9] Steven A. Cook, Ruling
but Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt,
Algeria and Turkey (Baltimore: John's Hopkins University Press, 2007),
pp. 13, 133-8.
[10] "Islamizing
Egyptian Education," Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2009, pp.
76-7.
[11] Ido Zelkowitz, "Fatah's
Embrace of Islamism," Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2008, pp.
19-26.
[12] Michael Rubin, "Who Is
Responsible for the Taliban?" Middle East Review of International
Affairs, Mar. 2002.
[13]
Daily Times (Lahore), Mar.
2, 2007; Najmuddin A Shaikh, "Analysis: Implications of the Swat
Deal," Daily Times, Feb.
22, 2009.
[14] David Caprezza,
"Turkey's
Military Is a Catalyst for Reform," Middle East Quarterly,
Summer 2009, pp. 13-23.
[15]
Financial Times, July 31, 2003.
[16] Soner Cagaptay, "Turkey's Secret Power
Brokers," Newsweek International, Mar. 30, 2009.
[17] Open Letter to President Obama, Mar.
10, 2009.
[18] Albert Hourani,
Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798-1939 (London: Oxford
University Press, 1970), pp. 291-323.
[19] Arab Human Development Report 2002 (New York:
U.N. Development Programme, 2002), pp. 2-5.
[20] Moisés Naím, "What Is a Gongo?" Foreign
Policy, May/June 2007.
[21]
Sharq (Tehran), Jan. 2, 2006; Halim Barakat, The Arab World:
Society, Culture, and State (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1993), pp. 273-5.
[22] Dankwart
Rustow, "Transition to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model," Comparative
Politics, Apr. 1970, pp. 350-1.
[23] "Map
of Freedom in the World, Tables and Charts: Combined Average Ratings:
Independent Countries, 2008," Freedom in the World, 2008
(Washington, D.C.: Freedom House, 2008), accessed Apr. 20, 2009.
[24] Mustapha K. al-Sayyid, "The Concept
of Civil Society and the Arab World," in Rex Brynen, et. al., eds.,
Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World
(Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), pp. 131-48; idem, "International
Dimensions of Middle Eastern Authoritarianism," in Oliver Schlumberger,
ed., Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in
Nondemocratic Regimes (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), pp.
215-6.
[25] Elie Kedourie,
Democracy and the Arab Political Culture (London: Frank Cass,
1994), pp. 103-5.
[26] Eva Bellin,
"Coercive Institutions and Coercive Leaders," in Marsha Pripstein Posusney
and Michele Penner Angrist, eds., Authoritarianism in the Middle East:
Regimes and Resistance (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005) pp. 21-41.
[27] Marsha Pripstein Posusney, "The
Middle East Democracy Deficit in Comparative Perspective," in Posusney and
Angrist, Authoritarianism in the Middle East, p. 2; Nicola Pratt,
Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Arab World (Boulder: Lynne
Rienner, 2007), pp. 189-204.
[28]
Frederic L. Pryor, "Are
Muslim Countries Less Democratic?" Middle East Quarterly, Fall
2007, pp. 53-8.
[29] Michael Herb,
"Princes, Parliaments, and the Prospects for Democracy in the Gulf," in
Posusney and Angrist, Authoritarianism in the Middle East, pp.
169-91.
[30] Fouad Ajami, The
Dream Palace of the Arabs (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), p. 155;
Philip Carl Salzman, "The Middle
East's Tribal DNA," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2008, pp.
23-33.
[31] Daniel E. Price,
Islamic Political Culture, Democracy, and Human Rights: A Comparative
Study )Westport: Praeger, 1999), pp. 137-56, 177-86.
[32] Bernard Lewis, Race and Color in
Islam (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 28-36, 54-61, 85-91; idem,
Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 1-6.
[33] The New York Times, May 11, 2003.
[34] Saad Eddin Ibrahim, "Dissent
and Reform in the Arab World," conference transcript, The American
Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., Jan. 13, 2006.
[35] Alex Alexiev, "Tablighi
Jamaat: Jihad's Stealth Legions," Middle East Quarterly, Winter
2005, pp. 3-11.
[36] "America's Image
Slips," Pew Global Attitudes Project, Washington, D.C., June 13,
2006.
[37] International Islamic
News Network, Dec. 16,
2004; Rediff India Abroad, Dec.
16, 2004.
[38] Abrar
(Tehran), Nov. 27, 2008.
[39] See,
for example, Ray Takeyh, "Islamism, R.I.P," National Interest,
Spring 2001.
David
Bukay
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