THE ARAB “FALL”: TUNISIA AFTER ENNAHDA, HOPE; EGYPT AFTER MORSI, MAYBE; FOR THE REST — LYBIA, YEMEN, SYRIA — A MESS

The Fall of Tunisia's Islamists: Michael J. Totten, World Affairs, Oct. 4, 2013—Ennahda, the Tunisian Islamist party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, has been forced from power by an overwhelming secular opposition. I didn’t know this was going to happen, but I had a pretty strong sense that it would.
 
Egypt and Tunisia: A tale of Two Uprisings: Osama Al Sharif, Gulf News, Oct. 10, 2013—Tunisia, the birthplace of Arab Spring, is providing an alternative to confronting the rule of the Islamists than that of Egypt. The two countries offer important contrasts and parallels over the course that was taken in the aftermath of the peaceful unseating of two authoritarian rulers: Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.
 
Premier's Brief 'Arrest' Highlights Anarchy in Libya: Ghaith Shennib & Ulf Laessing, Yahoo! News, Oct. 10, 2013 —Libyan gunmen on the government payroll seized the prime minister in his nightshirt on Thursday and held him for several hours, in a new manifestation of the anarchy that has followed the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

Clerics: Military Alone Won’t Stop Al-Qaeda in Yemen: Iona Craig,National Yemen, Oct. 9th, 2013—After more than a decade of U.S. counterterrorism efforts and drone strikes in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula remains a potent and growing force. Some say it is time for a change in strategy.
 
On Topic Links
 
Tunisia’s Government Falls, Arab Democracy Is Born: Noah Feldman, Bloomberg, Sept 30, 2013
The 'Arab Winter' Will Be Cold but Calm in Tunisia – in Egypt it Will Be Violent: Zvi Bar'el, Ha’aretz, Oct. 6, 2013
Since Benghazi Attack, Libya Worse off, Families in Lurch: Mathieu Galtier and Jabeen Bhatti,USA Today, Sept. 11, 2013
 

THE FALL OF TUNISIA'S ISLAMISTS
Michael J. Totten
World Affairs, Oct. 4, 2013
 
Ennahda, the Tunisian Islamist party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, has been forced from power by an overwhelming secular opposition. I didn’t know this was going to happen, but I had a pretty strong sense that it would. Tunisia is a modern, pluralistic, civilized place. It’s striking liberal compared with most Arab countries. A person couldn’t possibly show up in Tunis from Cairo and think the two are remotely alike. Egypt is at one extreme of the Arab world’s political spectrum, and Tunisia is at the other.
 
The Islamists won less than half the vote two years ago, and the only reason they did even that well is because Ennahda ran on an extremely moderate platform. They sold themselves to voters as Tunisia’s version of Germany’s Christian Democrats. It was a lie, of course, and once Tunisians figured that out, support for Ennahda cratered.
 
The assassination of leftist politician Mohamed Brahmi this summer pushed the country over the edge. Ennahda didn’t kill the guy. A Salafist terrorist cell did the deed. But Ennahda has been playing footsie with the Salafist fringe while the rest of the country recoils in horror, so Ennahda is getting blamed too.
 
Unlike in Egypt, the Islamists weren’t thrown out by force. Tunisia doesn’t have an Egyptian-style military that’s big and powerful and ideological enough to occupy the country and rule it through a junta. Also unlike in Egypt, Tunisia has a critical mass of secular citizens who won’t put up with even a whiff of theocracy.
 
The other reason Ennahda’s partial victory was possible two years ago is because they had an organizational advantage after the dictator Ben Ali fell. They had the mosques while the secular parties had nothing. And since the Islamists were smart enough to pretend to be moderates, they managed to get moderate people to vote for them.
 
That’s over now. In the meantime, the liberal and leftist parties have had a lot more time to get organized and merge into larger entities so they can avoid the vote splitting that hurt them so much last time. When a single religious party squares off against dozens of secular parties, it doesn’t take a political or mathematical genius to figure out which will get the most votes.
 
Tunisia is the one and only Arab Spring country that I’ve been cautiously optimistic about. Libya is too much of a mess, Egypt was a lost cause begin with, and Syria is in worse shape than Bosnia in the mid-1990s. Tunisia, though, is doing as well as could be expected. And get this: now that Ennahda is out, not a single post-Arab Spring country is ruled by Islamists. All of them are secular now.
 
Contents

EGYPT AND TUNISIA: A TALE OF TWO UPRISINGS
Osama Al Sharif
Gulf News, Oct. 10, 2013
 
Tunisia, the birthplace of Arab Spring, is providing an alternative to confronting the rule of the Islamists than that of Egypt. The two countries offer important contrasts and parallels over the course that was taken in the aftermath of the peaceful unseating of two authoritarian rulers: Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. The two countries still hold hope for achieving the goals of the Arab Spring such as democracy, social and economic justice and political pluralism.
 
Post uprising elections in Tunisia and Egypt brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power for the first time. The two countries charted their own course towards democratic transition — electing a president and a national assembly and, in the case of Egypt, writing a new constitution. But soon public resentment of Islamist rule emerged. Worsening economic conditions and fear of attempts to impose a religious state, as part of a grand design by the international Muslim Brotherhood movement, created internal fissures and led to the breakout of violence amid political turmoil.
 
But the similarities end here. In Egypt, bitterness and anger over the authoritarian rule of president Mohammad Mursi forced millions to take to the streets on June 30. Three days later, the army stepped in and deposed Mursi, triggering a chain reaction of protests and violence. The military proposed a political roadmap and a transitional phase that includes amending the constitution, holding fresh legislative elections and electing a new president….
 
Since the July 3 coup, Islamists have continued to stage protests, calling for the restoration of the “legitimate” president. In many cases, violence erupted and people were killed. The sacking of Mursi coincided with the outbreak of violence and terror in northern Sinai, forcing the army to launch the biggest military operation in the peninsula since the 1973 war with Israel. The crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood has polarised Egyptian society. Although weakened as a result of government onslaught, its followers continue to challenge the military. Last Sunday, when Egyptians were supposed to show unity as they celebrated the 40th anniversary of the October 6, 1973, victory over Israel, thousands of Islamists marched to protest the military takeover. By the end of the day, more than 50 were killed. A day later, a series of attacks on soldiers and government offices left scores dead. More than three months since the coup, Egypt remains gripped by crisis and violence.
 
Tunisians offered a different path in dealing with the unpopular rule of the Islamist-led government. The ruling coalition led by Al Nahda Party had rejected calls to resign and hold snap elections. The political crisis deepened following the assassination of two leading opposition members. But unlike their Egyptian counterpart, Tunisia’s Islamists expressed readiness to engage in a national dialogue. The events in Egypt had cast a shadow on Tunisian politics.
 
Eventually, the Islamist leadership in Tunisia bowed to public pressure and accepted the mediation of the country’s powerful labour union. After only a day of talks, a deal was reached under which the ruling coalition would resign to be replaced by a government of independents. The roadmap would also pave the way for drafting a new constitution to be followed by elections. While this process is still nascent — national dialogue will commence soon — it has circumscribed the deepening of a political crisis. It has also spared the country further violence, at least for now.
 
Despite many similarities between the Egyptian and Tunisian cases, the contrasts are clear. Tunisia has a long history of secular rule and the influence of the Islamists is largely limited to rural regions, while the left-leaning opposition is active especially in urban areas. The labour union is strong and well-organised and Tunisia has a vibrant westernised middle class. Al Nahda’s leader, Rashid Gannouchi, has lived in exile in Europe for years and is known for his libertarian ideas on controversial issues. And unlike Egypt, the military has no role in Tunisian politics.
 
The recent deal means that the Islamists will continue to be part of Tunisian politics. They appear to have learned from the Egyptian experience and are now willing to offer compromises. It will be interesting to see the outcome of the current process. Tunisia’s experiment may provide a much-needed vision of the role of political Islam in modern Arab societies.
 
Egypt has chosen a course that aims at extricating the Muslim Brotherhood from public life. That will prove to be an impossible task. The Muslim Brotherhood has endured since the 1930s and previous attempts to crush them. They have lost ground among followers and sympathisers as a result of Mursi’s uncompromising style and lack of experience. But one cannot write them off entirely. While Egypt appears to be trapped in a political vicious circle, Tunisians have opted for a more realistic path that avoids confrontation and chaos. They may still be on their way to achieve the lofty goals of the Arab Spring.
 
Contents

 
PREMIER'S BRIEF 'ARREST' HIGHLIGHTS ANARCHY IN LIBYA
Ghaith Shennib & Ulf Laessing
Yahoo! News, Oct. 10, 2013
 
Libyan gunmen on the government payroll seized the prime minister in his nightshirt on Thursday and held him for several hours, in a new manifestation of the anarchy that has followed the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. The militia justified its bloodless dawn raid on the luxury hotel where Ali Zeidan lives under notionally tight security by saying he should be investigated for aiding U.S. forces in their capture in Tripoli on Saturday of a Libyan al Qaeda suspect.
 
But the liberal former diplomat has no shortage of critics among Islamist and other leaders for his failure to resolve strikes that have paralyzed oil exports or to impose order since he was elected premier a year ago by the interim legislature. A morning of negotiations while Zeidan was held at an Interior Ministry office by a group employed by the state to provide security in Tripoli ended with him being freed unharmed and then pointedly avoiding criticism of his erstwhile captors.
 
He called for "wisdom" and national unity and praised former anti-Gaddafi rebel groups for helping secure his release. Underlining the sense of chaos generated by such forces, still under arms two years after Gaddafi fell, members of the militia which seized Zeidan tried to deny their group's involvement. "His kidnapping clearly indicates that his government is not cohesive, and that not only is his government not in control of the country, but that he is not in control of his government," said Geoff Porter of North Africa Risk consulting.
 
World oil prices rose more than 1 percent on speculation that Libyan crude experts would not quickly return to normal after weeks of disruption. Able to supply about 2 percent of world demand, and also a big supplier of gas to Europe, Libya's six million people can look forward to considerable prosperity, but rivalries over control of resources has hampered investment….
 
Libyans, especially from the restive east, far from Tripoli, formed a significant component of al Qaeda and other fighters while Gaddafi was in power. Some benefited from asylum in the West as opponents of Gaddafi. Some, too, were sent back to face torture in his jails after he made peace with the West. The fall of the veteran ruler, who was killed in fighting on October 20, 2011, encouraged some radical Islamists to return home, while others emerged from prison. Some of these are now cooperating with other groups in Africa, worrying Western powers who see an increasing Islamist threat, from Nigeria in the West, through the Sahara desert, to the likes of Somalia's al Shabaab in the east – the group behind a bloody attack on a shopping mall in Kenya last month.
 
The incident, which follows days of Islamist anger at the U.S. raid which snatched al Qaeda suspect Abu Anas al-Liby, also highlighted the dilemmas facing Libya's government in relations with the United States and other Western powers which provided the air power that helped them end Gaddafi's 42-year rule. Zeidan, who lived in exile in Geneva after defecting from Gaddafi's diplomatic service three decades ago, had expressed surprise and annoyance about the U.S. operation – distancing himself as Islamists vowed reprisals against U.S. interests.
 
But that failed to convince his critics, who said they took Zeidan into custody because Kerry had said the Libya government had been informed of the mission which seized Liby outside his house and flew him to a U.S. warship for questioning. Zeidan made no mention of the issue after his release. The group which bustled him from the seafront Corinthia Hotel, a heavily guarded complex housing diplomats and senior government officials, was the Operations Room of Libya's Revolutionaries, which has criticized Zeidan in recent weeks….
 
A visit by Zeidan last week to neighboring Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood government was ousted by the army in July, also angered Libyan Islamists who accused the prime minister of endorsing the overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi. Zeidan was among those who persuaded French and British leaders to support the 2011 revolt against Gaddafi. Last month, on a visit to London, he appealed for more Western support to rein in the former rebels.
 
After the Arab Spring revolts that ousted several autocratic leaders, Libya's transition has been one of the messiest. It still has no new constitution, Zeidan faces a possible vote of no confidence and its transitional assembly, the General National Congress, is paralyzed by divisions between the secular National Forces Alliance and the Muslim Brotherhood. "Is this a wake up call?" asked one Western diplomat. "Will it frighten the political class into understanding that they can't carry on squabbling and that they have to work together?"

Contents

 
CLERICS: MILITARY ALONE WON’T STOP AL-QAEDA IN YEMEN
Iona Craig
National Yemen, October 9th, 2013
 
After more than a decade of U.S. counterterrorism efforts and drone strikes in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula remains a potent and growing force. Some say it is time for a change in strategy. Imam Abu al-Harith Omar bin Salem Bawazeer said he is one of many Muslim clerics who are part of a campaign to persuade Yemenis to reject the militancy and jihadist ideology al-Qaeda spreads in Yemen. He sees signs of success. “These efforts not only have a significant role in raising awareness but have led to some coming back … they abandoned this (al-Qaeda) ideology,” he said.
 
But he worries that the military-heavy tactics of the U.S.-backed central government in Sanaa are pushing people into the arms of militancy. “Unfortunately, our efforts have not been supported by the state,” Bawazeer said.
 
Mukalla is a picturesque port on the eastern edge of the Gulf of Aden famous for its abundant fish. Traditional wooden boats bob in clear green water along the town’s crumbling corniche overlooked by the former palace of long-gone sultans. Al-Qaeda has had a presence in the region for a decade at least, often recruiting from the thousands of mujahedin who returned home after fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Yemeni government has partnered with the U.S. military to crush the group.
 
Al-Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula as the Yemen branch calls itself has not been wiped out. In fact, it has been described by the Obama administration as the most lethal wing of the core group that attacked New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001. Its self-stated goal is to impose by an Islamic cleric-run caliphate in Yemen and the Middle East free of non-Muslim influence. AQAP has been accused of a failed 2009 assassination attempt on a Saudi prince and the British ambassador in Sanaa. In May 2012, a suicide bomber killed more than 100 Yemeni soldiers rehearsing for a military parade.
 
AQAP has also been implicated in Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed 2009 Christmas Day bombing and Faisal Shahzad’s attempted 2010 Times Square bombing, along with a failed plot to down cargo flights bound for Chicago. More recently it has shown it can operate militarily as well despite joint U.S.-Yemen attacks against it. This month AQAP allegedly launched a coordinated attack against a military base in Mukalla. Fighters dressed in Yemeni security forces uniforms seized the building and killed several soldiers before being driven out.
 
Long before the U.S.’ drone program in Yemen began in earnest in 2011, and five years prior to the 2009 creation of AQAP, Bawazeer began warning of the threat posed by the ideology of al-Qaeda and its insurgent arm, Ansar al-Sharia.
 
An imam and head of an Islamic institute for Koranic and Sharia studies based in Mukalla, the provincial capital of Hadhramaut, Bawazeer along with scholars and tribal sheikhs have been running programs for Yemeni youth who are susceptible to AQAP’s message justifying violence. Bawazeer and his colleagues said an alternative solution must be found to the primarily military one used by the government. But he said their warnings and labors have not been heeded by the government and the threat has spread.
 
John Brennan, Obama’s former chief counterterrorism adviser and now head of the CIA, noted recently that the number of al-Qaeda militants in Yemen had risen from a few hundred in 2010 to “more than a thousand” in April 2012. However, Yemen’s government said it has not failed to act against the dissemination of al-Qaeda’s ideology.
 
Jabri Ibrahim Hassan Kamil, general director of preaching and guidance for a government ministry, said state-run programs training imams to promote moderate Islam have been used successfully across the country along with educational and media campaigns against al-Qaeda’s extreme interpretation of Islam.
“If it weren’t for these (government) efforts, al-Qaeda would now be pervasive in the country,” Kamil said. “The aim is to disseminate moderation and rationalize the religious discourse.”
 
Bawazeer said he has repeatedly been rebuffed when he has asked for help from the government and international organizations to rehabilitate former al-Qaeda militants and prevent new recruits through media campaigns, education programs and cultural activities. He said his work along with fellow imams and tribal leaders prevented insurgents from taking over towns in the southern provinces of Abyan and neighboring Shabwah when security broke down during Yemen’s political uprising of 2011. But some have paid with their lives.
 
Salim Ahmed bin Ali Jaber, a friend of Bawazeer’s, denounced the militants during Friday prayers in an August 2012 sermon to his congregation in the small village of Khashamir in northern Hadhramaut. He challenged al-Qaeda to show him “one piece of evidence in Islam that said killing is justified,” according to Salim’s brother-in-law, Faisal bin Ali Jaber. Faisal bin Ali Jaber said he tried to persuade him to tone down his challenge to the militants but Salim Ahmed bin Ali Jaber told him he was determined to speak out. “If I don’t use my position to make it clear to my congregation that this ideology is wrong, who will?” Salim told his brother-in-law.
 
The following evening, Faisal said Salim was killed by what he said was a U.S. drone strike as Salim stood outside the village mosque talking to three strangers who had come looking for him. The strike may have targeted the strangers, but no one knows because the United States will not comment on strikes. Southern Hadhramaut’s security director, Fahami Mahroos, agrees that the response to terrorism can’t depend on military or law enforcement, a sentiment expressed by President Obama as well. Mahroos said the strategy against al-Qaeda needs to be a dual offensive: firstly tackling their ideology via religious scholars and secondly with military action.
 
But he conceded that there is a huge lack of cooperation between the central government and local community leaders in confronting the extremist ideology. “The main responsibility should be laid on the local people and community leaders,” Mahroos said. “Maybe the government doesn’t have the skills or the abilities to do this.”
 
The Obama administration strategy has largely been to keep taking out senior leaders of al-Qaeda, Katherine Zimmerman, a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, told the House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence last month. In Yemen, the strategy has killed senior leader Anwar al Awlaki, USS Cole bombers Abdul Munim al Fathani and Fahd al Quso, AQAP senior operative Mohamed Said al Umdah, spiritual leader Adil al Abab, and deputy leader Said al Shihri. But AQAP has still managed to expand during that time, Zimmerman said.
 
Bawazeer said two things he believes are needed to reverse the trend and challenge al-Qaeda’s ideology: a guarantee for those who leave al-Qaeda and go through rehabilitation won’t be automatically re-arrested, and support from international aid agencies to fund projects, small businesses and help provide jobs. “As long as these two things were guaranteed then things would be easier,” he said. Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Institute at George Washington University, agreed in testimony before Congress last month. “Ideology is the lifeblood that sustains al-Qaeda,” he said.
 
Bawazeer may not be there to challenge that ideology. He and several of his family members have received multiple death threats from al-Qaeda because of his work and don’t want to be involved, Bawazeer said.
“Now I’m really discouraged to go on,” he said. “I’ve stopped.”
 

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