#1071 Pipes: "Four Middle Eastern Upheavals" in FoxNews.com

Daniel Pipes March 29, 2011

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Please take a moment to visit and log in at the subscriber area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in your area. Dear Reader: A brief blog entry on Obama's Libya speech last night precedes my regular column. Yours sincerely, Daniel Pipes George W. Obama by Daniel Pipes March 29, 2011 Cross-posted from National Review Online http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/03/george-w-obama Send Comment RSS Share: Be the first of your friends to like this. Barack Obama's rejection of George W. Bush's Middle East policies in large part fueled meteoric his own rise to the top of American politics. He reviled the war in Iraq, criticized the one in Afghanistan, promised to close down Guantánamo, establish a new respect of Islam, and quickly solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Two years later, what is striking is how much Obama's policies have come to reflect Bush's – in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the "war on terror," in the Arab-Israeli conflict, in the responses to turmoil in Tunisia and Egypt – and now in Libya, as the 3,400-word speech he gave last night exemplifies. Certain flourishes (such as the jibe at the costs of the Iraq effort), to be sure, reminded the audience who was speaking, but the overall theme of a noble United States working with allies to help an Arabic-speaking people in danger to win the freedom "to express themselves and choose their leaders" could have been spoken by his predecessor. Obama's rapid shedding of his own ideas and his adoption of Bush's policies suggests that, however great their philosophical differences, Americans have reached a working consensus on Middle East policy. Related Topics: US policy Four Middle Eastern Upheavals by Daniel Pipes FoxNews.com March 29, 2011 http://www.danielpipes.org/9630/middle-eastern-upheavals Send Comment RSS Share: Be the first of your friends to like this. FoxNews.com title: "Revolution Comes to the Middle East -- A Look at Libya, Egypt, Syria and Yemen" After decades of stasis, the Middle East is in uproar. With too much going on to focus on a single place, here's a review of developments in four key countries. Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi in full military splendor. Libya: With most Americans not quite realizing it, their government haphazardly went to war on Mar. 19 versus Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi's Libya. Hostilities were barely acknowledged, covered with euphemism ("kinetic military action, particularly on the front end") and without a clear goal. Two Obama administration principals were out of the country – the president in Chile, the secretary of state in France. Members of Congress, not consulted, responded angrily across the political spectrum. Some analysts discerned a precedent for militarily attacking Israel. Perhaps Obama will be lucky and Qaddafi will collapse quickly. But no one knows who the rebels are and the open-ended effort could well become protracted, costly, terroristic, and politically unpopular. If so, Libya risks becoming Obama's Iraq – or worse if Islamists take over the country. Obama wants the United States to be "one of the partners among many" in Libya and wishes he were president of China, suggesting that this war offers a grand experiment for the U.S. government to pretend it is Belgium. I admit to some sympathy for this approach; in 1997, I complained that, time and again, because Washington rushed in and took responsibility for maintaining order, "The American adult rendered others child-like." I urged Washington to show more reserve, letting others come to it and request assistance. That's what Obama, in his clumsy and ill-prepared way, has done. The results will surely influence future U.S. policy. Egypt: The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces sponsored a constitutional referendum on Mar. 19 that passed 77-23. It has had the effect of boosting the Muslim Brotherhood as well as remnants of Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party, while shunting aside the Tahrir Square secularists. In so doing, the new military leadership confirmed its intention to continue with the government's subtle but long-standing collusion with Islamists. Two facts underpin this collusion: Egypt has been ruled by the military since a 1952 coup d'état; and the so-called Free Officers who carried off that coup themselves had close ties to the military wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. The "Free Officers" in 1952. Note Gamal Abdel Nasser seated at the far left and Anwar el-Sadat seated at the far right. The spirit of Tahrir Square was real and may eventually prevail; but for now, it's business as usual in Egypt, with the government continuing Mubarak's familiar quasi-Islamist line. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fetes Bashar al-Assad in Tehran in 2010. Syria: Hafez al-Assad ruled the country for thirty years (1970-2000) with brutality and nonpareil cunning. Seized by monarchical pretensions, he bequeathed the presidency to his 34-year-old son, Bashar. Training to become an ophthalmologist, Bashar joined the family business under duress only after the death of his more capable brother Basil in 1994, basically maintaining his father's megalomaniac policies, thereby extending the country's stagnancy, repression, and poverty. As 2011's winds of change reached Syria, crowds yelling Suriya, hurriya ("Syria, freedom") lost their fear of the baby dictator. Panicked, Bashar wove between violence and appeasement. If the Assad dynasty meets its demise, this will have potentially ruinous consequences for the minority Alawi community from which it derives. Sunni Islamists who have the inside track to succeed the Assads will probably withdraw Syria from the Iranian-led "resistance" bloc, meaning that a change of regime will have mixed implications for the West, and for Israel especially. Yemen: Yemen presents the greatest likelihood of regime overthrow and the greatest chance of Islamists gaining power. However deficient an autocrat and however circumscribed his power, the wily Ali Abdullah Saleh, in office since 1978, has been about as good an ally the West could hope for, notwithstanding his ties to Saddam Hussein and the Islamic Republic of Iran, to exert control over the hinterlands, limit incitement, and fight Al-Qaeda. His incompetent handling of protests has alienated even the military leadership (from which he comes) and his own Hashid tribe, suggesting he will leave power with little control over what follows him. Given the country's tribal structure, the widespread distribution of arms, the Sunni-Shi'i divide, the mountainous terrain, and impeding drought, an Islamist-tinged anarchy (as in Afghanistan) looms as a likely outcome. In Libya, Syria, and Yemen – but less so in Egypt – Islamists have opportunities significantly to expand their power. How well will the former Muslim inhabiting the White House,* so adamant about "mutual respect" in U.S. relations with Muslims, protect Western interests against this threat? Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. * FoxNews.com changed this phrase to "How well will our president, the current occupant of the White House." Related Topics: Middle East patterns, US policy This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

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