The House the Muslim Brothers Built

Posted on August 25, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 23/8

The recent events in Sinai are the latest evidence of Egypt’s rapid transformation under the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood.

They are only the most visible manifestation of the Brotherhood’s project in the largest Arab state.

The details of the unfolding situation in Egypt, in turn, may offer clues as to the direction of events in other parts of the region, as Sunni Islamism moves forward to power and influence in a variety of countries.

Events in Egypt have moved forward with astonishing rapidity. The Muslim Brotherhood’s swift victories in parliamentary and presidential elections left the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces as the final barrier to the Brotherhood’s full spectrum domination of Egypt.

President Mohamed Morsy’s bold move this month to annul the constitutional declaration granting SCAF its special powers, and his sacking of a number of senior generals, have removed this obstacle.

This achieved, the Brotherhood is now moving forward to consolidate power. In the committee tasked with drafting the new Egyptian constitution, Brotherhood members and other Islamists constitute a majority. They are pushing to ensure that Islamic Shari’a law forms the basis for Egypt’s governance.

Senior Brotherhood member Essam al-Arian told Asharq Alawsat newspaper this week that it is not right for a supporter of democracy to object to the right of the majority to implement Islamic Shari’a law.” President Morsy has himself said that Shari’a should govern all aspects of life.

Egypt’s current constitution sees Shari’a as the “principal source of legislation.”

Islamists within the committee are fighting to ensure that Article Two of the new constitution strengthens this provision. Representatives associated with the Salafi al-Nour Party initially insisted that Shari’a be named as the “basis” rather than the “principal source” of legislation. A compromise has been reached, according to which the ancient Al- Azhar University will become the final arbiter on matters related to Shari’a. This in itself represents an advance for the Islamists. It indicates that Shari’a and its correct application are set to take a central place in the new Egyptian system of governance now in the process of formation.

The steady advance of the Muslim Brothers must be seen in context. This movement has been in existence since 1928. Its strategic goal is very clear. Khairat al-Shater, one of the most powerful figures in the Egyptian Brotherhood, in a speech in Alexandria on April 21, 2011, detailed the process by which the organization hopes to achieve, or revive, the “Global State of Islam” as he called it.

Shater depicted the process in the following terms: “As Ikhwan [Brothers], we have spent a long time working on the individual, walking along this line, working on the household, working on society. So we are now developing the Muslim individual and Godwilling we will continue. We are developing the Muslim household and God-willing we will continue. We are developing the Muslim society and God-willing we will continue. We are preparing for the stage of Islamic government after this because it is what follows the stage of society.”

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Badie characterized the Brotherhood’s path in similar terms. He outlined the Brotherhood’s strategy as “reforming the individual, followed by building the family, the society, the government and then a rightly guided caliphate and finally mastership of the world.”

It has become received wisdom in policy- making circles in the West that the strategic goal of the Muslim Brotherhood (here described as the “Global State of Islam” and “mastership of the world”) is of no concern. This is because it is seen as merely a nebulous, endlessly deferred utopian aspiration.

It is not clear on what this assumption is based. The Brotherhood has certainly been characterized by patience and flexibility in the 84 years of its existence. But this does not mean that it lacks seriousness or a sense of urgency regarding its objectives.

Where it has held power, as in the Hamas enclave in the Gaza Strip, it has proven to be a skilled, ruthless and tenacious wielder of authority, one that brooks no rivals.

The rapidly unfolding situation in Egypt lends further credence to the view of the Muslim Brotherhood as a sophisticated, patient, deeply radical organization with a clear blueprint for the transformation of society.

The events of 2011-12 in the Middle East constitute the most exciting time for the Muslim Brotherhood since its inception. The group is moving toward power in Egypt. In Tunisia, a party close to the movement is already in government. The Brotherhood, via its Hamas franchise, would probably have captured the leadership of the Palestinians by now, were its Fatah rivals not protected by the IDF in the West Bank. In Jordan, they form the main opposition group (although the Arab monarchies have proved a far less brittle target than the secular republics).

In Aleppo, the Tawhid Brigade, funded by the Brotherhood, is playing the key role in this key sector of the Syrian civil war.

The Brotherhood enjoys the support of AKP-led Turkey, which has given it a leading role in the Syrian opposition structures it sponsors. Qatar and its communications arm, the Al Jazeera Media Network, are also to be numbered among its firmest supporters.

Revolutionary groups do not usually compromise on their strategic goals during the period of their ascent. The goal of the Muslim Brotherhood, as its senior officials openly state, is the creation of states based on Shari’a law, which will then unite and expand. This may in the end prove an entirely delusional goal. But the Brotherhood will nevertheless do its best to push it forward at this, the moment of its triumph.

As one Iranian dissident, a firm opponent of the Brotherhood recently put it: when you build a house, you first draw up the plans, consult, build a blueprint, recruit the labor force, perform groundwork and build foundations. The actual construction of the house is one of the final stages.

The Muslim Brotherhood has laid the foundations. It is now set to embark on a push toward political power and societal transformation in a variety of contexts across the region.

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Silence Speaks Volumes

Posted on August 20, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 17/8.

Lebanon’s former information minister, Michel Samaha, who is closely linked to the embattled regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, was arrested in Lebanon last week. Samaha has since confessed to involvement in the transfer of explosives from Syria to northern Lebanon.

The explosives were intended for use in a bombing campaign designed to increase sectarian tensions in Lebanon.

That the authorities in Lebanon sought to arrest a senior, Syria-linked figure such as Samaha is itself worthy of note. That pro-Syrian elements in Lebanon allowed the arrest to take place, and have organized no major protests against it, is yet more significant.

The arrest of Michel Samaha reveals the nervousness of the dominant pro-Syrian element in Lebanon, as the Syrian civil war grinds on and the Assad regime erodes. It is also a tentative indication of renewed confidence on the part of anti-Assad, anti- Hezbollah forces in the country.

There was never any serious chance that Lebanon would remain immune to the turmoil gripping Syria. Syria’s occupation of its smaller neighbor ended only in 2005.

Since then, in its own unique way, the Assad regime made sure that its power and influence remained, exercised by other means. The politics and governance of the two countries are inextricably linked.

Since January 2011, pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian elements have held exclusive executive power in Lebanon. Their ascendancy was built on the military power of Hezbollah, the haplessness and weakness of their opponents and the menacing presence of neighboring Syria.

The ascendancy of the Iranian-led “resistance axis” in Lebanon looked like a done deal. But the uprising in Syria has shifted the balance.

The Shia and Alawi “resistance axis” of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah is currently engaged in an all-out war to preserve its Syrian element. It has sacrificed much of the kudos it built up in recent years as the most potent military challenge to Israel. Instead, its military assets are today in use in an openly sectarian battle against Sunni forces sponsored by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The plot of which Michel Samaha was a part appears to have been a Syrian attempt to launch a destabilizing campaign of terror in Lebanon. The intention, according to Lebanese media outlets, was to carry out a series of bombings in the Akkar area of northern Lebanon, which would then be blamed on Sunni Islamist extremists.

The details of this operation are familiar.

The Syrian regime has long been a proponent of the “strategy of tension.” It has a long record of constructing phantom Sunni jihadi groups, such as Fatah al-Islam and Jund al-Sham, and using them to spread fear and uncertainty.

Such activity can be useful in a variety of ways. It can be utilized to justify countermeasures.

It can intimidate opponents and send a message. Syria has also made use of genuine Sunni jihadis, and it is quite possible that the operation of which Samaha was a part would also have involved Lebanese Sunni Islamists. The charges against Samaha also indicted two Syrian army officers, one of whom was General Ali Mamluk, the powerful head of national security.

The charge sheet read that Samaha and the officers planned to incite sectarian strife by “by targeting the authority of the state and its civil and military institutions,” through “terrorist attacks.”

Lebanese analysts are currently poring over the details and the implications of the arrests. This being Lebanon, competing conspiracy theories abound. Yet, whatever the hidden intricacies, it is the easily visible evidence which is most fascinating in this case: The Internal Security Forces, which carried out the investigation preceding the arrests, is identified with the pro-Western element in Lebanon. Still, the Lebanese authorities, including the pro- Syrians at the top, would clearly have known about the arrests in advance.

Yet no one appears to have warned Samaha. One might have expected him to be conveniently absent when the police came to arrest him, but he was not.

There have been no furious protests from the Hezbollah/pro-Syrian side of the spectrum. These forces made a mockery of the special tribunal investigating the murder of Rafiq Hariri – making it clear that whatever the court decided, no suspects would be found. They neutralized and emasculated the March 14 movement when it tried to challenge Hezbollah’s state-within-a-state in May 2008.

Yet for Samaha – nothing. By contrast, two prominent pro-Syrian officials – Prime Minister Najib Mukati and President Michel Suleiman – have welcomed the arrest of the former minister and the foiling of the plot in which he played a part.

All of this suggests a subtle but unmistakable shift in the balance of power in Lebanon, due to events in Syria. Just as Bashar Assad is withdrawing his army from increasing parts of his country so as to consolidate those parts that he thinks he can hang on to, so the pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian forces that control Lebanon are no longer attempting to defend every inch of ground. The arrest of Samaha suggests confusion, disunity and nervousness among the formerly triumphant pro-Assad camp in Lebanon. They are watching the massive force of Sunni Islamism rise next door, aware of its potentially disastrous consequences for them.

As the pro-Assad, pro-Iranian hegemony in Lebanon grows weaker, it begins to throw its less important members to the wolves. Still, posing as the impartial defenders of law and order won’t help the Shia ascendancy if Assad loses his fight for survival. At that point, a more general challenge to the status quo in Lebanon is likely to come. The first distant rumble of this may have been sounded last week with the arrest of Michel Samaha.

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Turks Fear ‘Kurdish Spring’

Posted on August 15, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Turkish forces have launched a major offensive in recent days against positions held by the PKK rebel movement in the area of the Turkish-Iraqi border. Up to 2,000 troops are taking part in the operation, according to Turkish media sources.

Turkey’s Interior Minister, Idris Naim Sahin, claimed that 115 Kurdish rebels had been killed by the Turkish security forces – an assertion dismissed by the PKK, which itself claims to have killed up to 49 Turkish soldiers.

The fighting has been going on since July 24, when the Turkish army responded in force to a PKK attempt to seize control of the road between the towns of Semdinli and Gerdiya. The authorities have closed off the area, making it difficult to attain an accurate picture of events on the ground.

A PKK media statement described the Semdinli area as an “area of war,” involving “thousands of enemy soldiers and hundreds of guerrillas,” in which Turkey is using “tanks, warplanes, helicopters and other military technology.”

Semdinli’s mayor, Sedat Tore, who is affiliated with the Kurdish BDP party, told The Economist magazine that Semdinli’s residents are currently surrounded by a “circle of fire.”

From the point of view of the government in Ankara, however, the circle of fire is a Kurdish one, directed against Turkey and currently increasing in its dimensions.

The Turkish move comes at a time when Ankara is deeply concerned at the notable improvement in the strategic position of the Kurds as a result of a series of regional developments. Currently unable to influence events in Syria and Iraq, Ankara appears to be trying to draw a line in the sand at its own border. Turkey is seeking to scotch any attempt to foment unrest among Kurds in Turkey who might feel emboldened as a result of the improving Kurdish position in Syria and Iraq.

Turkey’s concerns, from its point of view, are easy to grasp. Contrary to endless media reports that the situation in Syria has entered its “endgame,” the civil war now under way in that country shows no signs of nearing conclusion. Rather, the various sides are entrenching themselves in their sectarian strongholds and preparing for a long and drawn-out struggle.

Central government in Syria no longer exists in a meaningful sense. The Kurds of Syria’s northeast have taken advantage of the regime’s desire to entrench and consolidate its forces. The Syrian Kurds are natural opponents of the Arab nationalist Assad regime.

But there is also deep suspicion of the Turkish-backed, Muslim Brotherhood dominated Syrian National Council.

There is a strong desire in the Kurdish northeast of Syria to stay out of the fight. Kurdish paramilitaries in that area have sought to prevent the rebels of the Free Syrian Army from activity that could bring down regime retribution.

The regime is now seeking to concentrate its forces in the most volatile and vulnerable areas and is pouring troops into the battle for Aleppo. To free up personnel from its limited pool, it has carried out a withdrawal from the main parts of Kurdish-dominated Hasakah governate.

This area is now under the de facto control of a coalition of Kurdish forces. These forces, in turn, are dominated by the PYD (Democratic Union Party).

This is the franchise of the PKK among the Syrian Kurds. The area now controlled by the coalition led by the PYD includes a long swathe of the 900-kilometer border between Turkey and Syria. This raises the possibility of a new front, directed by the PKK and its allies, from an area of Kurdish autonomy.

The PKK currently maintains its main stronghold in the Qandil mountains between Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and southern Turkey. Ankara is now dealing with the possibility of this situation being duplicated on another of its borders.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan has made clear that Turkey sees intervention against rebel bases in northern Syria as its “most natural right.”

Turkish forces and missile batteries were moved to positions adjacent to the Kurdish enclave in Syria in recent days.

Ankara maintains good relations with the Kurdish Regional Government of Massoud Barzani in northern Iraq. But Turkey was further concerned by Barzani’s brokering in his capital, Erbil, of the agreement between the PYD and the non-PKK-affiliated Syrian Kurdish factions of the KNC (Kurdish National Council), which has made possible joint Kurdish control of the areas abandoned by Assad.

Turkey’s political strategy appears to involve deepening relations with Barzani and the KRG, while seeking to marginalize the PYD.

The PYD, for its part, has sought to stress that Turkish concerns regarding the Syrian Kurds are groundless and that its focus is on ensuring the security of its own community, rather than seeking a base for military action against Turkey.

From a limited, military perspective, this is probably true. The land between northeast Syria and Turkey is less suited for guerrilla actions than is the Qandil mountain area. And Turkey’s track record suggests that it would not hesitate to respond in force to any such actions.

But from a longer-term strategic perspective, Turkey does indeed have grounds for concern. A series of events in the Arab world over the last decade have for the first time put the borders in place since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 seriously into question. The Kurds, who were the central losers from those borders, are the main beneficiaries of this.

The US invasion of Iraq allowed a semi-sovereign Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq to come into existence.

This enclave, while seeking normal relations with Turkey, also permits the use of its territory by rebels engaged in an insurgency on behalf of Turkey’s large Kurdish population.

As a result of the outbreak of civil war in Syria, another Kurdish enclave has emerged in Syria. This enclave is dominated by the sister party to the PKK. But the Iraqi Kurds also exert influence there.

As Arab borders and the integrity of Arab states look more shaky than they have at any time in living memory, Turkey faces the possibility of sharing long-term borders with two semi-sovereign Kurdish entities.

The specter of eventual Kurdish sovereignty and Turkish fear of this are also discernible in the air.

From this point of view, it becomes easy to understand why a move by the PKK in the Semdinli area received such a furious response from the Turkish state army. Ankara is utterly determined to prevent the extension of any Kurdish Spring to its own 25-percent Kurdish minority, and will evidently employ whatever measures and means it deems necessary to ensure this.

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Collateral Damage

Posted on August 4, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 4/8.

Brigadier-General Masoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of the Iranian armed forces, told a reporter this week that Iran would ‘not allow the enemy to advance’ in Syria. He said that no need had yet arisen for direct Iranian intervention in Syria, and expressed doubt that such a need would emerge. Another senior Iranian commander, General Hamid Reza Moqadam-Far of the Revolutionary Guards, echoed Jazayeri’s words. Moqadam-Far confirmed once more the presence of Iranian fighters in Syria, operating alongside the Assad regime’s forces.

The fighting words of these two senior Iranian military officials indicate just how determined Teheran is to stave off the loss of its key client in Damascus. But as is often the case with such public expressions, the ringing Iranian words of warning do not reflect Iranian strength. Rather, they are an indicator of the diminished and problematic situation facing the Iranians across the Middle East as a result of the re-shaping of the Arab world under way since last year.

With few assets remaining and little prospect of new gains, the Iranians are grimly determined to hold what they have. But their staunch backing of existing assets in Syria and Lebanon is itself serving to diminish their chances of spreading their influence further.

Iran’s bid for regional hegemony rests on its ability to successfully interfere in political processes across the Middle East. Central to this ability was the appeal of the Iranian revolutionary model, presented as an authentic, Muslim form of government, challenging the west and its puppets and clients. This all looks rather threadbare in the wake of the Arab upheavals.

As Sunni Islamism takes hold on the basis of mass popular support in key regional countries, the Iranians are discovering that their model of repressive Shia Islamic rule possesses little appeal. This has been demonstrated in a number of notable recent setbacks suffered by the Iranians. Additional mishaps have also reduced the Iranians’ reputation as savvy and feared covert operators.

In Tunisia this week, Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi, the influential leader of the ruling an-Nahda party, issued a public apology to the people of Syria for having invited members of the Lebanese Hezbollah to Nahda’s 9th party convention. Ghannouchi stressed his party’s support for the Syrian revolution.

Hezbollah, once Iran’s main avenue to the hearts and minds of the Arabs, has become something of a toxic brand, because of movement leader Hassan Nasrallah’s unwavering and loudly expressed support for the Assad regime in Syria.

In Yemen, Iran has sought to build influence through clandestine backing of the Shia Houthi rebels in the country’s north. The Yemeni defense ministry last week announced that the authorities had successfully located and dismantled an Iranian spy network operating in the country. The network, Yemeni authorities alleged, was led by a former Revolutionary Guards commander.

The authorities in Sanaa see the apprehending of this network as important tangible proof confirming Iranian internal subversion in their country. The Iranians rapidly moved to try to prevent diplomatic damage. The foreign ministry in Teheran flatly denied the existence of the espionage cell. To no avail. This week Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour snubbed an Iranian envoy visiting the country who sought a meeting with him. The Gulf Cooperation Council, meanwhile, expressed its support for Yemen and its condemnation of Iran’s activities.

In all-important Egypt, too, the indications are that Iran is losing out to the Sunni Arabs in forging an alliance with the ascendant Muslim Brotherhood. In May, the Egyptian authorities foiled an Iranian plot to kidnap the Saudi ambassador to Cairo, Ahmed Qatan. President-elect Morsy’s office is in the process of taking legal action against the Iranian Fars news agency, for running an apparently bogus interview with him in June.

To this list can of course be added the now familiar stories of Hamas’s exit from the Iran-led regional alliance in recent months, and Iran’s failure, so far at least, to foment Shia versions of the Arab Spring in Bahrain, Kuwait and the eastern province of Saudi Arabia.

The slow crystallization of a Sunni Islamist bloc leaves Iran exposed as a sectarian, foreign, Shia force. The rhetoric of resistance is entirely inadequate to counter this – particularly since the main current evidence of Iranian power on the ground is in Teheran’s backing for Assad’s slaughter of mainly Sunni civilians in Syria.

Iran today finds it increasingly difficult to wield influence outside of areas already allied with it.

Where there is a loser, of course, there is also a winner. In Syria, Egypt and Yemen, it is above all Saudi Arabia which is throwing money at the problems and as of now reaping the benefits of Sunni Islamism’s victories.

Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian, western-aligned regime. A key unanswered question remains whether Saudi petrodollars will keep the emerging Sunni Islamist governments focused on the Shia threat, or whether they will also find time and inclination to act against the west and Israel.

Nor do Saudi advances represent a victory for better governance in the region. A columnist in the Saudi-sponsored Sharq al-Awsat newspaper last week said that Iran’s ‘sectarian, racist and discriminatory’ regional policy has failed. It is worth noting that the Saudis themselves and their allies are no less notable for these three aspects than are the Iranians and their allies.

But what can be said with confidence is that Iran and its Shia-led bloc have emerged as among the main victims of the Arab ferment of 2011-12. Teheran wanted to be engaged by now in a battle with a retreating west for the leadership of the Muslim Middle East. Instead, it finds itself embroiled in a sectarian rearguard action, desperately and brutally trying to preserve its assets against the advance of a rising Sunni alignment.

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A Battle for Two Cities

Posted on July 30, 2012 by jonathanspyer

The Syrian regime is pouring all available resources into its defense of the two main cities of Syria: Damascus and Aleppo.

While simultaneously constructing an Alawi enclave in the northwest, the Assads understand that maintaining control of these central urban areas is vital to maintain their claim to constitute the government of Syria. Lose the cities, and Bashar Assad’s regime will come to constitute just another sectarian force in a Syrian civil war.

As of now, the dictator’s forces appear to have largely succeeded in their mission in Damascus. In Aleppo, the battle is still on. Those who began last week to prepare eulogies for the Assad regime have once again spoken too soon.

This is because while the balance of power in Syria is slowly shifting in the rebels’ favor, the essential cause of the stalemate between the sides remains.

The rebels are now far too numerous and powerful for the regime to entertain hopes of re-imposing its authority throughout the entirety of the country in the foreseeable future.

Assad simply does not have sufficient manpower to carry out an effective campaign of counter-insurgency throughout the country.

A considerable portion of Syria has now slipped beyond Assad’s reach. In the northeast, Syrian Kurds have established their own autonomous area with the help of the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq. This enclave is aligned with neither the regime nor the rebels.

In the northwest, in Idlib province, the regime has abandoned earlier attempts to maintain its presence in rural areas. An area of rebel control now stretches from the Turkish border to just west of Aleppo.

So the regime is following a strategy of scaling down the area it seeks to control and making a supreme effort to ensure that in these designated areas, its authority remains intact and not open to appeal.

This strategy is enabling Assad to hold on because while he no longer has the manpower to hold the whole of Syria, he still possesses sufficient equipment and men to decimate his opponents at any (limited) chosen point in the country. The lightly armed rebels still have no effective answer to air power, artillery and heavy armor.

This pattern played itself out in Damascus this week. The appearance of the rebels in the capital dramatically showcased the weakening hand of the regime. The illusion of normality that Assad had nurtured in the capital for 16 months was shattered.

This, combined with the successful attack on the national security building in Damascus, was an ominous sign from the regime’s point of view.

The regime then rallied its most reliable and brutal forces. Republican Guard Commander Maher Assad’s 4th Armored Division began to drive the rebels from the districts into which they had inserted themselves.

As of now, the vital Midan and Mezzah districts are back in government hands. Sporadic fighting is continuing in some southern suburbs of the city, including Hajar alaswad and Qadam.

The regime is trying to repeat this pattern in Aleppo following the liberation of districts of the city by the Free Syrian Army earlier this week. Aleppo is the largest of Syria’s cities, with a population of 2.5 million. Control of the city would mean the inclusion of a major urban area in a rebel-held enclave for the first time. It would also represent an enormous further blow to the morale of the regime forces.

For these reasons, the regime is utterly determined to prevent the loss of the city. In line with its strategy of retreat and consolidation, the government has withdrawn forces from the Jebel Zawiya area of Idlib province and rushed them to the defense of Aleppo.

Jebel Zawiya, an area with a long tradition of resistance to centralized authority, is one of the heartlands of the revolt. The regime’s concentration of forces toward Aleppo is in effect a conceding of Jebel Zawiya to the rebels, at least for the moment. This is being undertaken to save what can – and from Assad’s point of view what must – be saved.

The regime is approaching the pacification of Aleppo with its usual single- mindedness.

Fixed-wing aircraft have been used to strafe rebel-held areas in the city. Helicopter gunships also kept up a steady fire. Their use underlined the vast difference in equipment between the two sides. Yet the regime’s preference for air power also suggests a reluctance to commit ground forces unless absolutely necessary. Assad’s preference for the use of stand-off fire has been notable in recent months. It may well suggest that he can no longer rely on the loyalty and steadiness of parts of his own army.

Still, it is unlikely that Aleppo will fall to the rebels, so the essential contours of the stalemate are likely to continue to prevail. For as long as they do, thousands more will continue to die in the Syrian civil war, as the rebels slowly endeavor to hollow out and grind down Assad’s killing machine.

To change the balance and push forward, what the rebels need is greater international involvement – most importantly, air cover to establish secure safe zones, training and higher caliber weaponry.

External assistance for the rebels has made the gains of the last months possible. But more will be necessary if the balance is to be tipped in the weeks ahead. So as Assad scorches the Syrian earth, the question as to how long this will continue now largely depends on attitudes in the West, and above all in Washington.

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Is the Palestinian national movement dying?

Posted on July 27, 2012 by jonathanspyer

There is a strong case for saying that the Fatah-led Palestinian national movement, as we have known it from the late 60s onward, is fading from the scene.

But while in practical terms the Palestinian national movement is an increasing irrelevance, the symbolic cause of Palestine nevertheless retains great emotional appeal both for the Muslim world as a whole and for a wide spectrum of western leftists. The result is that a new, loose, global, Islamist-led movement is emerging in its stead to carry the Palestinian banner.

The failed peace process of the 1990s indicated the central dilemma for the Palestinian national movement. It was not strong enough to achieve its maximum goal – of destroying what it regarded as the illegitimate state of Israel. At the same time, with the defeat of Zionism at the very center of its view of the world, it proved incapable of making the compromises necessary for a peaceful partition of the disputed area.

Following Yasir Arafat’s death in 2004, the Palestinian unity which he had created and bequeathed to his people did not long survive.

The 2007 split between Arafat’s Fatah and the Palestinian Islamists of Hamas now has the look of permanence about it.

Hamas is entrenched in its Gaza fiefdom. As a branch of the Muslim brotherhood, its natural partner in the neighbourhood is the Muslim Brotherhood ascendancy in adjacent Egypt, rather than its Ramallah based secular rivals.

As for Fatah, it is the local representative of the rotting secular Arab nationalist movements and regimes which are currently being eclipsed.

It should be noted that the ‘Arab spring’, in terms of successfully toppled regimes, has brought down only secular Arab nationalist regimes of this type. Fatah and the PLO belong to the same era, and the same essential outlook, as the officers’ regime in Egypt, and the Ba’athi regime in Syria, and the other examples of this type which are now exiting the stage of history.

Irony of ironies, the element keeping the Fatah-PLO rulers in Ramallah safe from their Islamist opponents in their West Bank fiefdom is the army of their most hated enemies. Today, the only thing standing between the Palestinian Authority leadership and the fate of Bin-Ali, Mubarak, Ghadaffi and the rest is the Israel Defense Forces.

So the Palestinian national movement has divided into two. The more vital, Islamist element – Hamas – is busy building an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. It controls a sovereign space, outside of Israeli occupation, in which it is building a repressive prototype of Muslim Brotherhood rule. It remains theoretically committed to the destruction of Israel, but in real terms spends its main energies today ruling Gaza.

The remaining Ramallah-based Fatah authority, meanwhile, administers over the lives of 95% of the 2.4 million Palestinian Arab inhabitants of the West Bank, but in a situation of only partial sovereignty. It is safe from Hamas for as long as the implicit threat of Israeli intervention remains. It remains unable to pursue a successful negotiation with Israel because of its adherence to the old shibboleths of the 1960s and 70s vis a vis the ‘right of return.’ Of course, it also has no credible military option against the Jewish state, which is its protector.

Nor is old-style Palestinian nationalism faring any better among the populations living under Israeli rule.

The so-called ‘Palestinian-Israelis’ may vote for nationalist Knesset candidates, but they reject with horror any suggestion that their areas might come under Palestinian Authority rule. In real life, they much prefer the company of the Zionists to their fellow Palestinian nationalists. Understandably so.

The Arabs of Jerusalem, too, are seeking Israeli citizenship in increasing numbers.

Divided, with no strategy for reunification, or for victory, or for compromise. This is the current state of Palestinian politics.

And yet. A bright spot on the horizon remains for all those who still hope for Palestinian victory over Israel. At the very time that the actually existing Palestinian national movement faces a historic nadir, ‘Palestine’ as an idea has made great inroads into the public mind in the west. Particularly, but not only, in western Europe.

The Jewish state’s moorings as part of the western democratic world are more fragile than they were thirty years ago. Fervent anti-Zionism, sometimes shading into open anti-Semitism is closer to the western European mainstream discussion than at any time in the last half century. Israel’s fight against ‘delegitimization’ is not an imaginary struggle.

And of course the rising Islamist elements coming to the fore in the Arab world also despise Jews and reject Israel’s right to exist, no less fervently than did their Arab nationalist predecessors.

These trends are coalescing into a new challenge to Israel. A bizarre alliance of Islamists speaking the rhetoric of human rights, and western leftists dazzled and charmed by Islamist potency and fervor.

This new trend looks set to inherit. But, while waving the banner of Palestine, it is not an independent, coherent Palestinian Arab movement. Rather, it brings together a complex welter of different states (Iran, Turkey, Qatar, perhaps soon MB-led Egypt), their clients and proxies (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizballah, the IHH, the international Muslim Brotherhood, the al-Jazeera satellite channel) and their supporters in the broader Islamic world and the international left.

The old Fatah-led Palestinian national movement, meanwhile, is clinically dead, but maintained artificially – by US and European taxpayers’ money, and by the armed forces of the Jewish state that it came into being in order to destroy.

So is the Palestinian national movement dying? The answer is yes. But it is being replaced by a new phenomenon perhaps best described as a global, Islamist-led campaign for the nullifying of Jewish sovereignty.

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Syrian Diplomat: Regime carried out Damascus bombings

Posted on July 16, 2012 by jonathanspyer

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Nawaf Fares, a senior Syrian diplomat who defected to the rebel side asserted that the Assad regime was responsible for a major act of terror in Damascus, which was blamed at the time on al-Qaida.

The former Syrian ambassador to Iraq left Syria last week.

In the interview with Telegraph correspondent Ruth Sherlock, Fares claimed that the regime set up the bombing of a military intelligence headquarters in al-Qazzaz, ensuring that personnel at the base absented themselves minutes before the explosion, and that the only casualties were civilians.

“All these major explosions,” Fares told the Telegraph, “have been perpetrated by al-Qaida through cooperation with the security forces.”

A degree of scepticism is useful, of course, in evaluating Fares’s statement. He is a newly minted enemy of the regime, and has an interest in blackening its name.

But while the cynicism that would enable a regime to deliberately target its own population may seem shocking, it is in fact entirely in accord with the past practice of the Assad regime.

Indeed, the skillful use of jihadi organizations as tools of policy is one of the hallmarks of the Syrian dictatorship.

As Fares himself notes in the interview, during the Sunni insurgency against US forces in Iraq, Syria opened its border with Iraq to jihadis wishing to enter the country and take part in the fighting.

Damascus airport became a central hub for Sunni Islamists from across the region, who were ferried from there to the Iraqi border.

At the same time, Assad sought to present himself as an ally of the US in the war against terror, and as a “secular” opponent of Islamism.

Similarly, in Lebanon, Damascus has long made use of Sunni jihadis for its own purposes. In recent years, the most well-known instance of this was the emergence of the Fatah al-Islam organization in the Palestinian Nahr al-Bared refugee camp.

This mysterious group was led by one Shaker al-Abssi, a former inmate of a Syrian jail who for no apparent reason was freed and then turned up in Lebanon.

Fatah al-Islam engaged in violence against the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers in 2007. The group was later crushed by the Lebanese armed forces in Nahr al-Bared, in a standoff in which around 400 people died.

Many analysts, noting Abssi’s unexplained early exit from jail, saw the organization as an element in Syria’s broader campaign to destabilize Lebanon following the end of Syria’s occupation of the country in 2005.

Even in Syria itself, prior to the uprising, the Assad regime also made use of puppet Sunni Islamist groups.

The Jund al-Sham group, for example, was widely considered to be controlled and manipulated by the regime.

One of the regime’s known methods regarding Sunni Islamists who it wishes to make use of has been to first incarcerate them, and then after a suitable period of time to offer them the possibility of freedom in return for action on behalf of the authorities.

All of which brings us back to the present day, and to the bombs in Damascus.

55 people died in the two car bombings at the military intelligence building at Qazzaz.

Another 400 were injured.

Syrian officials at the time tried to blame al-Qaida-linked elements for the attack. They pointed to the Jabhat al-Nusra organization as the likely perpetrator.

Much media coverage subsequently speculated that al-Qaida was entering the rebellion.

This appears to have been the goal of the operation.

If Nawaf Fares is to be believed, the intention of the regime was to cast the rebellion against it as an Islamist insurgency, and thus to chip away at western and international support and sympathy for the rebels.

In pursuit of this goal, Assad appears to have been prepared to deliberately murder a large number of his own civilians – including many who were presumably his supporters.

This should come as no surprise. The Assad regime is by its own admission currently engaged in a battle for survival.

It has throughout its existence made use of the very darkest methods taught to it by its trainers and backers in the intelligence services of the then-communist police states of eastern Europe.

It has never flinched before assassinating and terrorizing its enemies. It now appears that it also regards its own people, and even its own supporters as entirely dispensable and disposable in pursuit of its objectives.

As the regime’s fortunes recede further, it is likely that similar and even more shocking revelations than those detailed by Nawaf Fares will come to light.

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War by other means: The Revolutionary Guards Corps fights sanctions on Iran’s energy sector

Posted on July 14, 2012 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 13/7.

Iran announced this week that it is set to transfer responsibility for part of its oil sales to three newly established private consortiums. This move is intended to counter the impact of an EU ban on importation, shipping and purchase of Iranian oil, which went into effect on July 1st.

The ban is the latest element in the sanctions program intended to force Iran to abandon its push for a nuclear weapons capability. It looks set to cost Teheran a decline in revenue from oil exports of billions of dollars per month. The EU move came together with tightened US penalties on countries that do business with Iran’s Central Bank.

The announcement by Iranian Oil Exporters’ head Hassan Khosrojerdi regarding the establishment of private consortiums to circumvent the sanctions, meanwhile, is the newest example of the creative campaign being waged by Iran to reduce the impact of international moves.

This campaign is being coordinated by the increasingly powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which today controls the commanding heights of the Iranian energy industry.

The energy sector is Iran’s richest source of revenue, accounting for around 80% of Iran’s exports. As of last April, Iran’s oil minister is Rostam Ghasemi, a senior member of the Revolutionary Guards. The Energy Minister, another Revolutionary Guardsman, is Majid Namju. The IRGC is the largest single contractor in the Iranian oil and gas sectors today.

Thanks to its growing political power, the economic and development wing of the IRGC, known as Khatam al-Anbia (Seal of the Prophets), has in recent years obtained a series of multi-billion dollar contracts in the energy sector in Iran. These include, for example, a $2.5 billion contract for the development of phases 15 and 16 of the massive South Pars gas field, which straddles Iran and Qatar. The Guards are also set to build a 900 km gas pipeline for transporting natural gas within Iran – a project worth $1.3 billion.

Through its control of the relevant ministries, the IRGC in effect awards these projects to itself. No process of competitive tender takes place.

In addition to its political and economic activities, and its conventional military capabilities, the IRGC is also the primary Iranian agency for the conducting of clandestine warfare. It is this part of its skills which is being demonstrated in its efforts to circumvent sanctions.

The Revolutionary Guards maintain a complex and constantly shifting network of front groups. These are being employed in sanctions-busting. Khatam al-Anbia, according to one report, has 812 affiliate companies. Iran has proved adept at the swift creation of new shell companies, in order to outrun the watchful eye of US sanctions enforcers. The advantage of the network maintained by the Revolutionary Guards is that companies working with it often have no formal, organizational connection to it, or to the Iranian state. Rather, genuine private companies established by trusted IRGC veterans work in close cooperation with the Guards, with few traceable or visible links.

Another element in Iran’s attempt to circumvent or reduce the impact of sanctions is the flourishing economic relationship with China. Again, this is largely administered by companies and semi-governmental bodies maintained by the IRGC. Chinese trade with Iran accounts for nearly 18 % of Iran’s total commerce.

China has slowed investments in order to avoid inclusion in US sanctions legislation. But the Chinese relationship with Iran’s economy remains huge, particularly in the areas of import of Iranian crude oil, and export of finished petroleum products to Iran.

Because of restrictions on Iran’s financial sector and the plummeting value of Iranian currency, barter is playing an increasingly important role in Iran’s transactions. China already ‘pays’ part of its oil debt to Iran through bartered goods. Iran has sought to trade oil for wheat with both Pakistan and Russia. India, the second largest purchaser of Iranian exports, pays up to 45% of its oil bill in rupees, into a special account set up for Iran at a state-owned Indian bank.

Such unorthodox transactions play havoc with the Iranian economy, and are an obvious impossibility for regular, private firms. For semi-public entities such as the Revolutionary Guards, however, arrangements of this kind work very well.

Conveniently for the IRGC, it also controls the smuggling industry into Iran. According to a recent report by the Iran Energy Project, smuggling enables Iran to secure much of the technology and equipment needed to service its energy sector. The report notes that Dubai is a central site for the trans-shipment of goods to Iran.

The growing importance of smuggling means that while the IRGC seeks to restrict the impact of sanctions, it also benefits from the desire of middle class Iranians hit by the restrictions to purchase goods on Iran’s black market. The IRGC, which takes a cut on all smuggling activities, profits from the demand by middle class Iranians for goods only available illegally.

Sanctions are hitting the Iranian economy hard. Yet there are no signs yet that they are causing the regime to think again regarding its nuclear program, or regarding its interference in political processes across the Middle East.

One explanation for this is that ideological regimes such as that of the Mullahs simply perform their cost-benefit analysis in a way different from that of more pragmatic governments. The nuclear program and the push for regional hegemony are cardinal strategic goals. Hence they will be pursued even in the face of impoverishment and critical damage to the economy.

However, an additional element should be added to this picture. While the sanctions are having a generally detrimental effect on Iran, they are paradoxically benefitting certain sectors closely associated with the regime.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is waging a war-by-other-means in order to offset the impact of the sanctions. The damage to the Iranian economy and the fight against the sanctions are serving to increase both the wealth of the IRGC, and its growing centrality and importance in the power structure of the Iranian regime.

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The Sovereignty of Violence

Posted on July 12, 2012 by jonathanspyer

‘And as our vineyards, fallows, meads and hedges, defective in their natures, grow to wildness, even so our houses and ourselves and children have lost, or do not learn for want of time, the sciences that should become our country, but grow like savages – as soldiers will – that nothing do but meditate on blood – to swearing, stern looks, diffused attire, and everything that seems unnatural.’ (William Shakespeare, Henry V).

I remember the sound of Muslim prayer, chanted in the morning by the FSA fighters. in their headquarters in the town of Binnish in Idleb Province, northern Syria. Before they set out for their day of making war. AK-47s and RPG-7s stacked up against the wall. There were rumors that the army would be coming into the town any day.

Bashar Assad’s troops and armor were deployed on the main highway, and out in the surrounding countryside. The army were laying siege to Homs at the time, and a trickle of refugees had made it northwards, telling stories of massacres. It was thought that Idleb would be next.

That was in February, 2012. I had entered Syria over the mountains, with a smugglers’ convoy running weaponry and supplies for the FSA in Idleb. I spent a week in the province, interviewing fighters and activists, attending demonstrations and gatherings of FSA fighters.

As it turned out, I missed the counter-attack, when it came. It was not until early March that Bashar’s army began to re-take the rebel-held zones of Idleb. The 76th Mechanized Brigade came through in the course of the month, leaving a trail of blood and executions in its wake. By that time, I had already made the return journey across the mountains, back to Antakya, and then Ankara, and then my home in Jerusalem.

Things have changed since that February, and not to the Assad regime’s benefit. The determined and systematic counter attack launched by the dictator’s army in February and March has not produced the hoped for quiet. The army can still re-take any area it chooses. But when it moves on, the rebellion comes back to life. 40,000 men are now under arms against Bashar Assad’s regime. His own force still nominally consists of 220,000 troops. In reality, he can make practical use of probably around a third of that number.

Money for the rebellion is coming in from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The FSA no longer has to rely on small smugglers’ convoys to bring the lifeblood of arms and ammunition. The Gulf Arabs’ money, along with reported US direction, are helping to turn the rebels into a fighting force able to mount an effective challenge to Assad.

The results in the field have been plain to see. Once the rebels had only rifles and RPG 7s, grossly inadequate against the armor and artillery and attack helicopters of the dictator. No longer. They are destroying tanks and armored vehicles in Idleb now. You can see the pictures of their rusting remains on Youtube. They are taking on the army head on in Homs governate, the heartland of the rebellion. Increasing parts of Syria are no longer under the control of the regime. From the Turkish border down to Hama, north and south of Homs city, in Zabadani.

In Idleb, the army controls the main highways, but the troops now rarely venture too far away from the main road. In the open areas and in the villages, armed men wait to strike at cumbersome, unsuspecting patrols.

It is a cruel, ugly and brutal conflict. Assad, aware that the walls are closing in, is employing his sectarian thugs in what looks like a systematic attempt to clear out non-Alawis from the Latakia Governate in the north-west. He appears to be creating a stronghold of Alawi population, which will form a safe zone and baseline for his side in the sectarian civil war now under way in Syria.

His forces routinely butcher civilians. Whole families in Taftanaz, in Idleb Province. Children in Houla. These are only the examples that the news media or researchers managed to reach. This is a regime steeped in blood.

The bloodshed leaves a wake of broken lives. There are traumatized children in Binnish, instantly recognizable. Kids who will not leave their parents’ side, even for a moment. These are children who have learned too early that the world is not a safe place. That the tender stories that parents tell their young ones, with love, about the kindness and order of the world outside, are only stories.

These are children who witnessed the rampage of the Shabiha through their homes, in search of their hidden activist fathers. Who watched as the pumped-up, steroid filled giants of Alawi killers smashed their homes to pieces. They have lost their innocence, at a time before the resignation that living brings could replace it with calm and acceptance. The result is in their eyes, which are prematurely knowing.

The stony cruelty is not only on the government side, of course. There are executions of captured Shabiha and army men. And there are the explosions in populated areas, the deaths of civilians. Assad likes to broadcast non-stop close ups of the results. On live TV, after an explosion in Aleppo, I saw a regime security officer holding up a severed human foot to the camera. Just in case of any misunderstandings, the man made a shaking motion with the foot. The severed tendons coming out of it danced like disconnected telephone wires.

One may assume that if the insurgency, in the end, wins this, retribution will come. There is no reason, though, to believe that the rebels in Syria represent any kind of new dawn in the blighted politics of the Arab world.

The Sunni jihadis are now coming across the border form Iraq, smelling blood.

The US decision to back the Saudis and Qataris in financing and arming the rebellion is helping this process along.

It should surprise no-one that sponsoring Qatar and Saudi Arabia to build the rebellion in Syria will result in a Sunni Islamist-dominated insurgency. The Qataris back the Muslim Brothers, so that is who is now growing stronger. The Saudis support the Salafis, so they are growing too. It is the Sunni Islamists who have the shiny new hardware that is destroying Assad’s tanks and his helicopters.

But even the officers and men of the Free Syrian Army, most of whom oppose Islamism, appear firmly within the familiar boundaries of Arab nationalism. The distrust of non-Arab minorities, the paranoia regarding the west and Israel. All are easy to discern. Hence the almost entirely Sunni Arab complexion of the rebellion against Assad preceded the current rise of the Sunni Islamists within it.

I have seen the regime side less close up, for obvious reasons. But when imagining the convoys across the mountains bringing money to the rebels, one should also picture the Russian ships bringing gleaming new arms and machines to the regime.

The ships of the Russian state arms firm Rosoboronexport are loaded up at the Ukrainian port of Oktabyrsk. They sail from the Black Sea, through the Bosphorous, to Cyprus and then to the Russian naval stronghold at Tartous in Latakia Governate.
They bring with them the wherewithal for Assad to make his war.

Both sides still believe they can win. Both sides still have men and arms and money and motivation. Civil war.

When I returned from Syria in late February, I was possessed for a while by a sort of bone-weariness that drains things of their color. I had experienced this quiet fatigue before, after returning from the war in Lebanon, in 2006.

It is nothing like the healthy, joyous exhaustion that one feels after participating in sports or physical exercise. It combines a generalized numbness with a heightened, too-sharp focus on specific aspects recently experienced. It passed after a week or two.

But it has left a residue, which I cannot shake off, because it is rooted not in perception, but in obvious reality. This is the conviction, based on observation and commonsense, that the politics of the Arab world are not changing.

The rebellion in Syria is being fought by rival sectarian groups. The Alawi-dominated regime is implacably hostile to the west. The Saudis and Qataris are obviously less so. Hence the strategic reasons why Russia and China are backing the regime, and why the US ought to be backing the rebels.

But as far as the fabric of life in the country goes, neither side represents anything that will change much for the people of Syria. In that country, and beyond it, the political culture of authoritarianism, paranoia, politicized religion and ultra-nationalism will continue to blight lives. This is the simple and obvious truth and it will remain so whether Islamists or nationalists of this or that stripe ultimately win out.

As a result, the young men, as young men do, are joining the colors of their various armed tribes.

Whether and when this will change is impossible to predict. But it isn’t changing now and there are few signs that it will change soon. Those who truly want open, free societies in the Arab world tend to find their way, one way or another, to the west.

Those of us who live on the borders of the strife do our best to protect ourselves against it. Those who live within it do their best to make their lives and protect their children.

In the meantime, the experience of conflict shapes and warps and twists. The children of Idleb that survived the onslaught of the 76th Mechanized Brigade and the Shabiha will grow in a stifled, unfree Syria, one way or another.

When we returned over the mountains we had to cross a narrow canal on foot, water up to our chests. We went through mud up to our knees, mud that sucks your shoes off. We wouldn’t have been able to run if we had stumbled into a patrol. But the border is long and quiet, and the dictator no longer has so many soldiers to spare to guard it. So we arrived back to Antakya. In the bar of the hotel, covered in mud and water at 3 am, I experienced a kind of momentary joy of astonishing intensity.

Then, waiting for me in the hotel room, that quiet, somber, disenchanted calm that comes after war zones. The Middle East is full of people with this feeling, one way and another. It is the silent accompaniment to all the noise and din of politics and war. Smother it with alcohol. Embrace your family. It returns, nevertheless. Returns, and then fades to a low background hum.

The Syrian civil war is currently consuming around 100 lives a day. It is not near to conclusion. Acts of great cruelty are being committed. Feats of astonishing and humbling bravery and courage are also taking place daily. The end result, it may be said with certainty given the nature of the forces currently engaged, will be authoritarian government of one kind or another. This is the reality of the Middle East, of the Arabic-speaking world, summer, 2012.

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Sunni Islamism Stirs in Lebanon

Posted on July 7, 2012 by jonathanspyer

As the civil war in Syria grinds on and assumes an increasingly sectarian character, echoes of the strife are being heard across the border in Lebanon.

The main beneficiary of the Arab uprisings of the last year has been Sunni Islamism. In Syria, Sunnis are playing an increasingly important role in the rebellion against President Bashar Assad. In Lebanon, too, individuals and movements of this type are emerging to prominence and issuing a challenge to the dominant political force in the country – Hezbollah. Sunni northern Lebanon, in particular the town of Tripoli, is a center both of Sunni Islamism and of support for the Syrian rebellion. The town has become a gathering point for foreign jihadi fighters on their way to fight the Assad regime.

The fate of Lebanon has always been acutely influenced by events in its larger neighbor, to the sorrow of many Lebanese. Currently, too, the Assad regime and Hezbollah are members of the same Iran-led regional bloc.

Lebanese Sunnis are aware of this alliance. Most have not happily acquiesced to the de facto Shi’a domination of Lebanon. They are aware also that Hezbollah is actively aiding Assad. Many are keen to play their own part in the unfolding battle, and to launch a Sunni resistance both to contest Hezbollah’s dominance of Lebanon and to support their fellow Sunnis against Assad’s local allies.

The problem for Lebanese Sunnis wishing to express and organize their discontent with Hezbollah has been a de facto vacuum of leadership in the community. The March 14 movement led by Saad Hariri sought to challenge Hezbollah in May,2008, and was quickly swept off the streets by the Shi’a militia. Saad Hariri has not been in Lebanon since last April.

Few Sunnis now see Hariri as a potential leader of the country. The March 14 strategy was to oppose Hezbollah’s guns with an appeal to international legality. Hezbollah contemptuously rolled over this approach.

As a result of this vacuum, and perhaps also in line with the mood of the times, the stirrings of Sunni discontent against the de facto domination of the country by Hezbollah are taking Islamist form. Sunni anger is currently coalescing around the figure of Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, a Salafi cleric from the town of Sidon, in the south of the country. Assir, the Imam of the Bilal Ibn Rabah mosque in Sidon, has achieved prominence over the last year because of his outspoken statements in opposition to Hezbollah. In particular, the Salafi sheikh has focused on the independent military capacity maintained by the Shi’a movement.

On June 23, in an interview on Al- Jadeed TV in west Beirut, Assir appeared to offer a direct challenge to Hezbollah’s independent weapons capacity and to its domination of the country.

“Either we live as equal partners,” he said, “or else, I swear by God, O Hassan Nasrallah and Nabih Berri, I, Ahmad Assir, will shed every drop of my blood to prevent you from relaxing until balance is restored to Lebanon.”

Two days later, gunmen fired on the offices of Al-Jadeed TV.

Following this interview, Assir launched a permanent demonstration in Sidon (with echoes of the sitin launched by Hezbollah and its allies in Beirut in late 2006 against the then-government of Fuad Siniora.) He has vowed to maintain this protest until the issue of Hezbollah’s independent arms capacity is resolved.

Assir’s rise to prominence is built on a perception that he is stating openly what many Sunnis are saying privately.

Thus, in spite of the apparently quixotic aspect of a provincial Lebanese Sunni cleric making demands of a powerful Iran-backed militia, Hezbollah and its allies are taking the latest developments seriously.

The emergence of Assir as a spokesman for Sunni grievances is going hand-inhand with a broader rise in Sunni militancy elsewhere in Lebanon. There are reports of military training of Sunni Lebanese volunteers in the Bekaa Valley, before they cross the border into Syria to fight Assad’s forces. In the Sunni heartland of rural northern Lebanon, sentiment in favor of the Syrian rebels runs high, increased by close acquaintance with Sunni refugees who have fled Syria for Lebanon over the course of the last year.

It is, of course, impossible to predict whether the current Sunni ferment in Lebanon will take on the form of action against the de facto Shi’a domination of the country. Outside of the Salafi fringe, the Lebanese Sunnis lack a deep tradition of paramilitary activity.

Large numbers of more middle-class and Westernized Lebanese Sunnis distrust the Islamists. Hezbollah, meanwhile, is a daunting, well armed and brutal foe.

Still, it is worth remembering that in the Lebanese sectarian system, nothing is forever.

The various sects reach their uneasy modus vivendi based on the relative power balance between them at any given time. Until 2011, the Shi’a power of Hezbollah, armed, trained and financed by Iran, seemed to brook no possible rivals. The civil war in Syria brings with it the undermining of Iran’s local Arab state ally, which formed a vital partner for Hezbollah and its allies in their domination of Lebanon.

This for Sunnis makes feasible, or at least imaginable, a challenge to the current situation of Hezbollah/Shi’a domination. As a result of the Syrian civil war, the first stirrings of a Sunni attempt to once again “renegotiate” the sectarian balance of power in Lebanon are being felt.

This “re-negotiation,” if it happens, will be led by Sunnis. In Lebanon, however, they will face not a decrepit military-nationalist regime, but rather a powerful, mobilized, rival Shi’a Islamism. The Arab Spring, which should more accurately be called the Revolt of Sunni Islam, may be coming to Lebanon.

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