SPY EYES

The worst job in the world, western spymasters used to joke, was being number three in al-Qaeda.

At its peak, the US drone programme – with Hellfire missiles picking off al-Qaeda leaders seemingly at will in the remote mountains of Yemen and the tribal borderlands of Pakistan – meant becoming number three was as good as being dead.

But al-Qaeda has proved to have a Hydra-like quality. Far from withering, it has proliferated. The group and its affiliates have never controlled more land, had as many recruits in their ranks or been as well financially resourced as now.

In recent months, al-Qaeda franchises have scored successes or near-victories in an arc stretching from the Sahel in east Africa through to the Levant via the Horn of Africa, Yemen and Iraq.

In 2012, al-Qaeda forces came within hours of seizing control of Bamako, the capital of Mali. In 2013, its militants radicalised the conflict in Syria. This year has begun with fighters storming the city of Fallujah in Iraq, just 70km from Baghdad. They still control it.

Last Wednesday, the US House Intelligence committee opened an inquiry to investigate the resurgence of the group. Mike Rogers, the Republican congressman who chairs the committee, called the demise of al-Qaeda a “false narrative” and warned against complacency in Washington. He cautioned: “The defeat of an ideology requires more than just drone strikes.”

Three fundamental questions are of concern to the west in its handling of the group’s rebound. How resilient is the resurgence, how centralised is its structure and how much of a threat does it still pose internationally?

The hope among its opponents is that al-Qaeda’s renaissance belies a still dangerous but fatally weakened foe. Many see the group as a disparate set of franchises that have fed off disenchantment caused by the Arab Spring, but which ultimately are either locally focused and pragmatic. Or they believe it will burn itself out through its own brutality, alienating local Muslim populations by persecuting them as much as waging jihad against the west and its regional allies.

They point to the situation in Syria, where jihadis fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham are committing atrocities against civilians, turning other Islamist groups against them.

But Isis’s brutality – and the “seeds of its own destruction” narrative of al-Qaeda that is perpetuated by such actions in the west – is far from the complete picture.

Al-Qaeda is certainly disparate and no longer controlled to the same degree by a central authority. But it has proved very adaptable, and very aware of the mistakes it made in the past.

Afghanistan and Pakistan

In Afghanistan, the rout of al-Qaeda has been extensive. Intelligence analysts put the number of al-Qaeda operatives functioning in the country as low as 200, although many fear a rebound if aid to the fragile Afghan government dries up.

For now, al-Qaeda’s core presence in the area – and the world – remains in Pakistan, where Ayman al-Zawahiri, the successor to Osama bin Laden, is based.

Its links in Pakistan run deep. It is telling that it took the US a decade to find the whereabouts of bin Laden, who turned out to be living in a compound in urban Abbottabad. While al-Qaeda is known to have a significant presence in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of the country, many analysts believe its core leadership operates comfortably – or could even be based in – its most populated, metropolitan areas.

The US drone campaign explains why. “You can’t just go and bomb an urban area,” says Shashank Joshi, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a UK think-tank. “Al-Qaeda has adapted to our counterterrorism measures and it has become more resilient. [While] its leadership has been shattered at various points, it is clearly not any longer an organisation dependent on a small coterie of individuals for its survival.”

Syria and Iraq

It is now difficult to imagine that before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, al-Qaeda and affiliated groups had almost no presence in the Levant. The ill-fated US occupation created both a lawless environment for radical jihadi governments to take root and fomented an ideologically potent cause for them to pursue.

Al-Qaeda’s early success in Iraq under Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was unwound from 2006, thanks to the US-funded sahwa (awakening) of local Sunni tribes in Iraq’s Anbar province, who revolted against al-Qaeda’s excesses. It has since been resurgent. In Syria, the relentless and brutal assault on mostly peaceful Sunni protesters by Bashar al-Assad, the country’s Alawite president, has provided al-Qaeda with an expansive presence in the region. In Iraq, political mismanagement on the part of President Nouri al-Maliki and the spillover from Syria have contributed to the group’s renewed presence in Anbar province.

Both Jahbat Al-Nusra, led by Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, claim affiliation to al-Qaeda in the region.

But in Syria, it is Al-Nusra – Syrian- led and more tolerant – that has the support of Mr Zawahiri, and not the more brutal Iraqi-dominated Isis, which has already alienated swaths of the indigenous Syrian population with its ruthlessness.

Yemen

The remote mountains of southern Yemen gave birth to al-Qaeda and to this day remain one of the group’s most cohesive strongholds in the world. The group has found solace among the mountains and fiercely independent tribes of the south, tapping into the deep pool of resentment born of grinding poverty, anti-northern sentiment and, more recently, US drone strikes that have all too often hit innocent targets.

The Yemeni and Saudi branches of the group merged in 2009 to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, led by Nasir al-Wuhaishi, Osama bin Laden’s former secretary and one of Mr Zawahiri’s closest allies. AQAP is considered by western intelligence agencies the most dangerous branch of al-Qaeda, and it has proved resilient: a government campaign in 2012 to expel the group from Abyan and Sabwah provinces is still continuing.

AQAP has more recently adapted its method of exporting jihad by using other militant groups around the world as proxies.

“This may be the kind of relationship that we increasingly see between AQAP and other groups with the promotion of Mr Wuhaishi – loose operational guidance with seed funding and, where possible, the provision of fighters to participate in high-profile plots, especially in the fluid security environments of north Africa,” says John Nugent, terrorism analyst at Control Risks, a security consultancy.

Horn of Africa

In the Horn, al-Qaeda’s current largest affiliate is al-Shabaab (the Boys), the former youth movement of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), the radical Islamist group that once controlled most of Somalia.

While it has been forced to cede huge swaths of territory in the past 18 months, it remains a well-resourced organisation, and embedded throughout Somalia.

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The UN estimated it earned $50m a year when it controlled the port of Kismayo. It has also exploited the illegal ivory trade, killing hundreds of elephants in the region, according to environmental campaigners.

As al-Shabaab has been pushed back, it has sought to export violence to the home soil of those fighting it, such as Kenya. The group orchestrated the deadly Westgate shopping mall attack in Nairobi last September, in which more than 60 people died.

The ICU itself had strong ties with al-Qaeda core, with many of its founding leaders trained in Afghanistan, but al-Shabaab has often chosen to follow its own path.

In 2010 Mr Zawahiri sought to replace al-Shabaab’s leader, Ahmed Godane, but his ruling was ignored. Mr Godane swore allegiance to Mr Zawahiri again in 2012.

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The Sahel and Maghreb

More than a year after staging a spectacular attack on a remote Algerian oil and gas facility, and 18 months after nearly seizing control of Mali, al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb appears on the defensive. French troops have pushed back AQIM, led by Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud, a veteran of Algeria’s 1990s civil war. Algeria’s security forces have cornered extremist groups.

But from Mauritania to Libya, the longstanding ethnic and political grievances still fester. The abuses of the civil war that fed Algerian Islamist anger have never been resolved. The official neglect that led ethnic Tuaregs to seek an autonomous Saharan homeland has worsened.

“No one should underestimate the narrow margin that existed between AQ and their goal of seeking to take over the organs of a whole state and create a safe haven,” says Stephen O’Brien, the UK prime minister’s special envoy to the Sahel, referring to AQIM’s near takeover of Bamako, Mali’s capital, in 2012.

“What is clear is that the franchise’s approach has become much more about winning over the hearts and minds of populations by the provision of basic services.”

Different approach

Last month al-Qaeda broke new ground: it apologised. “We acknowledge our mistake and guilt,” Qassim al-Rimi, a commander of AQAP in Yemen, said in a video, referring to an attack on December 5 on the Yemeni Defence Ministry that killed 52 people – many in the attached hospital next door.

Behind the statement was recognition of the need to keep local populations onside, and the difficulties of doing so for such a violent, strict Islamist organisation.

The tension recurs frequently but al-Qaeda has shown that it has the will to resolve it.

If al-Qaeda’s threat to the west is perceived to have diminished, it is perhaps precisely because the group has learnt from the sahwa in Iraq and has been at pains to refocus on its core project: the establishment of al-Qaeda controlled “emirates” and, eventually, a larger caliphate. To do so, the group clearly recognises that it needs genuine and lasting popular support. It is why Mr Zawahiri supports Al-Nusra in Iraq and fell out with Mr Godane in Somalia.

After French troops pushed AQIM out of Timbuktu in Mali last year, journalists stumbled across a rare document: letters from AQIM’s leader, Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud, to his commanders.

“The current baby is in its first days, crawling on its knees, and has not yet stood on its two legs,” Wadoud wrote. “If we really want it to stand on its own two feet in this world full of enemies waiting to pounce, we must ease its burden, take it by the hand, help it and support it . . . until it stands.”

Islamists have proven to be quite resilient in the face of existential threats.

The downfall of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has put political Islam at a crossroads. Not only has it shown that ideology per se is not a guarantor of political success, but also that Islamists need to rethink their strategy and tactics in order to deal with the new environment following the Arab Spring.

However, the debate over the end of political Islam in the Middle East is not only premature but also irrelevant and certainly misleading. Instead it would be more effective to discuss the ideological and political changes that might occur within Islamist movements during crisis time.

Survival impulse

During repression, survival becomes the chief goal for Islamists. As ideological and social movements, Islamists tend to unite in order to maintain cohesion among their rank-and-file. This has been the case with the MB since its founding in 1928. The movement has encountered many crises over the last decades; however, it hasn’t fractured or split.

Over the past three decades, the MB has capitalised on former President Hosni Mubarak’s brutality and dehumanisation of the group. Counter-intuitively, oppression enables Islamists to survive and unite while also strengthening and expanding their social networks. This was illustrated when Mubarak’s ouster allowed the MB to emerge as Egypt’s most robust and organised movement.

The survival impulse also explains the behaviour of the Tunisian Ennahda Party. Over the past three years, Ennahda’s leaders have shown a high degree of pragmatism and flexibility. Hence, they were keen not to alienate or marginalise Tunisia’s secular and liberal forces. Instead, they proved willing to make ideological and political concessions, which recently culminated in their agreement to hand power over to a technocratic government. Clearly, Ennahda has learnt a lesson from the MB’s experience in Egypt.

Crisis of political Islam

The fall of the Brotherhood in Egypt has revealed the crisis that faces Islamists in the wake of the Arab Spring; the lack of a revolutionary mind-set and agenda. The majority of Islamist movements in the Arab world maintain a conservative and outdated vision that could not live up to the aspirations and dreams that fuelled the Arab Spring three years ago.

This conservatism, or lack of revolutionary ideology, continues to be incompatible with the new environment that ensued after the fall of the old regimes. The majority of Arab youth who took to the streets were driven mainly by a revolutionary and ambitious agenda that could change their lives and destiny. However, they were struck by the emergence of the traditional Islamists who sought to diffuse the revolution. Moreover, Islamist movements seem to be a reflection of a traditional and conservative social bloc that seems to have Arab societies in its grip.

The inability to create such a revolutionary platform is in fact the most important reason for the MB’s downfall. They continue to act as the largest conservative social movement in Egypt. This allows them to maintain a closed and rigid structure composed of Egypt’s lower and middle classes, who are located mainly in the Nile Delta, and the more impoverished parts of Upper Egypt. Surprisingly, large segments of these demographics turned away from the Brotherhood during its year in power, although they benefitted the most from the group’s social services network.

Salafis’ ambiguous future

Over the past three years, the Salafis have emerged as one of the victors of the Arab Spring. They have gained considerable political clout and have played a key role in reshaping domestic politics. However, Salafi parties seem to have misunderstood what the Arab Spring represents and appeared to have forgotten why they entered politics in the first place.

Since Morsi’s downfall, Salafis have only become increasingly fragmented. While Salafist parties such as al-Watan and al-Asalah have supported the Brotherhood, others such as al-Nour have chosen to support the July coup. Meanwhile, the military-backed government’s attempt to control the religious domain has restricted Salafi sheiks and imams from disseminating their ideology. The closure of several Salafi-oriented television channels has left many Salafi leaders marginalised and voiceless.

The Salafis’ future appears to be increasingly uncertain mainly due to their inconsistency. For example, they allied with the Brotherhood when they were in power only to support the military and its roadmap following Morsi’s removal. Their attempt at advancing their political and ideological agendas has resulted in a loss of support and credibility. While al-Nour’s flexibility might underscore its political acumen and pragmatism, it may also undermine the standing and credibility of the party among Islamists.

Generally, al-Nour’s political calculations are threefold: First, it seeks to ensure that the Brotherhood will not recover from the current crackdown any time soon. Second, al-Nour’s leaders believe that they can fill the political vacuum left by the Brotherhood, at least within the Islamic constituency. Third, it hopes to achieve an impressive result in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Nevertheless, al-Nour’s pragmatism could be costly. To its disadvantage, the party has alienated itself from other Salafi parties such as al-Watan, al-Asalah and al-Fadhila. Moreover, the party’s support for the military’s roadmap has enraged various Salafi sheiks and notables who have harshly criticised the party’s strategy. It’s unlikely that al-Nour has the organisational or the human capacities that would enable it to replace the Brotherhood. Finally, it is not guaranteed that al-Nour will remain legal as the new draft constitution bans religious parties. Indeed, the party might seem to be digging its own grave by calling upon its supporters to vote “yes” for the constitution.

Historically, repression has been a key factor in generating extremism by allowing for the emergence of radical and violent Islamist trends. After all, when Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s iconic president during the 1950s and 1960s, prosecuted and tortured many members of the MB, Sayyd Qutbsurfaced as the chief ideologue and inspired many young Islamists who implemented his philosophy on the ground. Similarly, the Rabaa massacre, which left hundreds of peaceful protesters dead, in addition to the on-going repression, are potential turning points in the path of political Islam. Having lost faith in democracy, it is likely that the Islamist youth may exchange participation in peaceful politics for an extreme Qutbist ideology and discourse. If this happens, it would be the kiss of death for the Arab Spring.

Political resilience 

History has shown political Islam to be a resilient phenomenon. When they encounter an existential threat, Islamists tend to adapt, endure and recover, albeit in different forms. When Nasser clamped down on the Brotherhood by imprisoning dozens of the group’s members, many believed that the movement was dead. However, the movement re-emerged in the 1970s and 1980s more vigorously and tenaciously.

Similarly, when the Turkish secular establishment deposed Necmettin Erbakan, Turkey’s Islamist prime minister and the leader of the Welfare Party, Turkish Islamists struck back in 2002, and have ruled the country ever since. However, the return of Turkish Islamists happened only after they made fundamental changes in their ideology and political platform. They moved from Erbakan’s “idealism” to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “realism”, and built their model of governance based on meritocracy, transparency and accountability. Indeed, the success of political Islam in Turkey underscores that inclusion is a crucial factor in altering Islamists’ ideology and mind-set to become more moderate and progressive.

To sum up, the experience of the last three years has shown that democracy is a long and intricate path and without including all political forces, domestic and regional stability will remain far-fetched.

By Khalil al-Anani
ALJAZEERA

Dr Khalil al-Anani is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute and an adjunct professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. His is the author of “Inside the Muslim Brotherhood: Religion, Identity, and Politics” (forthcoming) and the co-editor of “Elections and Democratization in the Middle East” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Synopsis

The agreement to resolve the Iranian nuclear programme could rewrite the political map of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as strengthen the US pivot to Asia. It could also reintegrate Iran into the international community as a legitimate regional power.

Commentary

IF ALL goes well, the preliminary agreement between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia – plus Germany, would ensure the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme and ultimately reintegrate it into the international community. In doing so, it would not only remove the threat of a debilitating war with Iran and prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and North Africa but also return the Islamic republic to the centre stage of the region’s geo-politics.

It would force regional powers such as Israel and Saudi Arabia to focus on their most immediate issues rather than use the Iranian threat as a distraction, while offering the US the opportunity to revert to its stated policy of pivoting from Europe and the Middle East to Asia.

Complex panacea

To be sure, a resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue is not a panacea for the vast array of social, political, economic, ethnic, national and sectarian problems in the Middle East and North Africa. Political and social unrest, boiling popular discontent with discredited regimes and identity politics are likely to dominate developments in the region for years to come.

Nonetheless, Iran’s return to the international community is likely to provide the incentive for it to constructively contribute to ending the bitter civil war in Syria, breaking the stalemate in fragile Lebanon where the Shiite militia Hezbollah plays a dominant role, and furthering efforts to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians. That would also take some of the sting out of the region’s dangerous slide into sectarian Sunni-Shiite conflict.

All of that would reduce the number of fires in the Middle East and North Africa that the Obama administration has been seeking to control and that have prevented it from following through on its intended re-focus on Asia.

Countering US policy

A resolution of the nuclear issue offers Iran far more than the ultimate lifting of crippling international sanctions. Iran has over the last decade been able to effectively counter US policy in the Middle East and North Africa through its support of Hezbollah which is the single most powerful grouping in Lebanon; Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian faction in Gaza; its aid to the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad; backing of restive Shiite minorities in the oil-rich Gulf states and Iraq; and ensuring that the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki looks as much toward Tehran as it does to Washington.

Iran’s incentive to become more cooperative is the fact that resolution of the nuclear issue would involve acknowledgement of the Islamic republic as a legitimate regional power, one of seven regional players – alongside Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Pakistan – that have the ability or economic, military and technological strength to project power. It would also allow Iran to capitalise on geostrategic gains it has made despite its international isolation.

Iran is likely to be further motivated by an easing and ultimate lifting of the sanctions that will allow it to address boiling domestic social and economic discontent. President Hassan Rouhani’s election earlier this year has for now replaced that powder keg with high expectations that his more moderate policies would ease the heavy economic price Iran was paying for its nuclear programme. This is despite many Iranians feeling disappointed that Iran will reap only US$7 billion in benefits from the freshly concluded agreement in the coming six months. The $7 billion serve, however, as an incentive for Iran to come to a comprehensive and final agreement on its nuclear programme.

From spoiler into a constructive player

What worries opponents of the nuclear deal like Israel and Saudi Arabia most is the potential transformation of Iran from a game spoiler into a constructive player. The nuclear deal removes the Islamic republic as the foremost perceived threat to the national security of Israel and Saudi Arabia. For Israel, this risks peace with the Palestinians reclaiming its position at the top of the agenda, making it more difficult for the Israelis to evade the painful steps needed to end a conflict that is nearing its centennial anniversary.

For Saudi Arabia, it complicates its efforts to fuel regional sectarianism, deflect calls for equitable treatment of its Shiite minority as well as for greater transparency and accountability, and establish itself as the region’s unrivalled leader.

Nowhere is that likely to be more evident than in Iranian policy towards Syria. Contrary to perception and what Saudi Arabia and its allies would like the world to believe, Iranian-Syrian relations are not based on sectarianaffinity but on common interests stemming from international isolation. That reality changes as Iran rejoins the international community.

For the US, a deal means evading at least for now the threat of another Middle East war with potentially catastrophic consequences and enlisting Iran in addressing the region’s problems. That creates space for it to focus on long term goals in Asia.

However, in removing Iran as a regional lightning rod, the US is likely to be forced to clearly define a Middle East policy that balances short term national security with the reality of years of regional volatility and unrest to come that could redraw some national borders and is likely to involve messy political and social transitions, following the toppling in recent years of autocrats in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen and the civil war in Syria.

By James M. Dorsey
HUFFINGTON POST

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He is also co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with the same title.