AS “ARAB SPRING” TURNED INTO “ARAB FALL,” YEMEN & TUNISIA REPRESENT OPPOSITE OUTCOMES

We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to:  Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station  H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 –

Contents:

Yemen Exposes Difficulties in U.S. Strategy to Combat Extremist Militants: Maria Abi-Habib, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 3, 2014— The steady weakening of Yemen’s pro-U.S. government over the past two months has exposed some of the same difficulties Washington faces in its efforts to battle extremist group Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

How Iran Views the Fall of Sana’a, Yemen: “The Fourth Arab Capital in Our Hands”: Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, JCPA, Nov. 3, 2014— In recent years the Yemeni government conducted a series of military operations against rebels of the al-Houthi clan of the Zaidi sect of Shia Islam.

So Far, So Good for This Arab Democracy: Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 20, 2014 — The gracious loser is a stock character of American elections, and virtually unknown in the Arab world.

Tunisia Stands Alone: Max Boot, Weekly Standard, Nov. 10, 2014— Who knew being an election observer was such hard work?

On Topic Links

Yemen Changes Hands. Will an Iranian Stronghold Emerge Near the Entrance to the Red Sea?: Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, JCPA, Oct. 7, 2014

Iran-Backed Shia Rebels Push Forward in Yemen: Jonathan Spyer, PJ Media, Nov. 5, 2014

Tunisia’s Islamists Learned from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Failure in Egypt: Ariel Ben Solomon, Jerusalem Post, Oct. 29, 2014

Brought To You By The Arab World…: Dennis Prager, Jewish Press, Oct. 8, 2014

YEMEN EXPOSES DIFFICULTIES IN U.S. STRATEGY

TO COMBAT EXTREMIST MILITANTS                                            

Maria Abi-Habib                                                                                                

Wall Street Journal, Dec. 3, 2014

The steady weakening of Yemen’s pro-U.S. government over the past two months has exposed some of the same difficulties Washington faces in its efforts to battle extremist group Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The Yemeni government, which had been a bulwark in the fight against the country’s potent al Qaeda offshoot, collapsed in September after Shiite-linked rebels known as Houthis attacked the capital San’a. Since then, Houthi rebels have taken control of towns and cities throughout Yemen and gained political power while the rival al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, mounted some of its deadliest attacks in an effort to thwart the Houthi advance.

The Pentagon’s strategy to counter Islamic State in Syria faces similar problems to those confronted in Yemen. The U.S. attempted to weaken AQAP by focusing on airstrikes in the absence of a strong local power on the ground to partner with. But with only a remnant of the Yemeni government remaining in power—President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi —Washington is now at risk of losing a key counterterrorism partner at a time when it is trying to contain a new threat in the region. Despite years of training and hundreds of millions of dollars invested, Yemeni troops have failed to develop into an effective fighting force that could fend off the double threat of AQAP and the Houthis.

In contrast, the Houthis, who have said they receive weapons and training from Shiite Iran, managed to bring down the government and then go on to capture more territory in the predominantly Sunni country. Along the way, they succeeded in holding back AQAP advances. AQAP claimed responsibility for a deadly car bombing that targeted the Iranian ambassador’s residence in San’a on Wednesday. A security guard and five civilians were killed, security officials said. Hossein Niknam, Iran’s new ambassador who is seen as a close ally of the Houthis, was unharmed. Since September, the Houthis have overrun territory in the northern provinces of Amran, Jawf and Hajjah and the central provinces of Ibb and Dhamar while continuing to control the capital. Additionally, the rebels took over much of Hodeidah province in the west in October, including the provincial capital, which is an important Red Sea port. U.S. and Yemeni officials have warned in the past that the Houthis have their eye on the Bab el Mendeb port in the same province, a narrow strait through which some 4% of the world’s oil supply passes.

In October, an offensive by the Houthis followed by U.S. airstrikes in November routed AQAP from Rada, a city overrun by AQAP in southern Bayda province in 2012. The struggles to build up a ground force in Yemen to underpin airstrikes against extremists resonate particularly in Syria, where the U.S. and its allies are struggling to find a local partner. Absent an effective ground force in Syria, the U.S. is relying heavily on airstrikes to rout Islamic State there. That tactic in Yemen had kept AQAP at bay since 2011, but has so far failed to defeat the force. Since the Houthi takeover in September, AQAP has increased attacks on government installations and the capital, Yemeni officials said.

A senior American official urged taking a longer view with regard to stabilizing Yemen. “We can help build up a functioning state inside Yemen, but we need to be patient. This is not going to be a short-term project,” the official said. “But unfortunately with the political and economic insecurities, especially over the last months, al Qaeda has been able to mount a bit of a comeback, which is unfortunate.” A challenge confronting current counterterrorism strategy to fight AQAP in Yemen and Islamic State in Syria is war fatigue after long commitments of U.S. troops and funding to the wars in Iraq and Syria. President Barack Obama campaigned on ending those wars and bringing U.S. troops home. U.S. airstrikes have become a centerpiece of the president’s counterterrorism strategy.

Yemen’s government has received roughly $950 million in U.S. military, economic and humanitarian assistance since 2011. Since late 2011, the U.S. has increased its assistance, providing $346 million for security, up from $288 million from 2009 to 2011, according to the State Department. Another $249 million has been given for political and economic development and $357 million in humanitarian aid. Even with U.S. support, Yemen’s government and its forces were deeply unpopular and long struggled to extend their authority across the country. By contrast, the U.S. spent $20 billion in Afghanistan in 2010-2011 for military training and equipment on top of many billions more in humanitarian, economic and political aid. “Without a ground force to partner with, airstrikes will be hamstrung,” said Jordan Perry, a Middle East analyst with research firm Maplecroft. “There are very few moderate actors that Washington could partner with against AQAP in Yemen. There are the Yemeni security forces. Their legitimacy is limited and much of the country is beyond their scope, so they aren’t effective partners.”…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]

                                                                        Contents                                                                        

HOW IRAN VIEWS THE FALL OF SANA’A, YEMEN:

“THE FOURTH ARAB CAPITAL IN OUR HANDS”                                     

Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall

JCPA, Nov. 3, 2014

In recent years the Yemeni government conducted a series of military operations against rebels of the al-Houthi clan of the Zaidi sect of Shia Islam. This conflict, which has already gone on for over 10 years, stems from feelings of political, economic, and social discrimination among the Zaidi Shia residents of Yemen’s north. The Houthis constitute about 30 percent of Yemen’s population, which totals over 25 million people. The Zaidi Shia are considered one of the moderate Shia schools, closer from a legal standpoint to the Shafi’i school of the Sunna.  At the same time, since the Islamic Revolution in Iran and all the more so in recent years with growing Iranian subversive activity in Yemen, the Zaidi Shia have been increasingly exposed to the ideological influence and political agenda of the regime in Iran, leading to a change in the usually moderate attitudes of the Zaidi Shia.

Yemen’s geostrategic location at the entrance to the Red Sea and across from the Horn of Africa, along with the inherent weakness of the central regime, has made it an attractive target for subversion by external power centers, both political and nonpolitical. That pertains particularly to Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Al Qaeda as another disruptive element. In September, Shia rebels of Ansar Allah (Houthi’s military wing) were able to exploit the weakness of Yemen’s central government, which is also engaged in a struggle with the Sunni Al Qaeda and with tribal and separatist elements in the southern part of the country. Ansar Allah took over on September 21 the capital city of Sana’a and the Al-Hudaydah port (150 kilometers southwest of Sana’a) on the Red Sea, Yemen’s second most important port after Aden almost without resistance by the security forces and the Yemeni army. The Houthi forces’ entry into the capital was accompanied by calls of “Death to America” and “Death to the Jews,” imprecations heard frequently from the Iranian regime. Battles are also being waged in Yemen between Ansar Allah and Ansar al-Sharia, which is affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) and has had difficulty coming to terms with the recent Shia successes in Yemen. The Houthi Shia rebels, having conquered Sana’a and Al-Hudaydah, are now concentrating their efforts on a further conquest of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. This key waterway, the southern gateway to the Red Sea, passes through the Gulf of Aden, linking the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean, and historically constituted a strategic hub connecting Eastern and Western trade routes. Yemen overlooks and indeed commands movement through the strait from the island of Miyun (Birim). From the African side, Eritrea and Djibouti overlook the strait.

Iran views Yemen, in general, and the northern Shia sector in particular, as a convenient staging ground for subversive activity against Saudi Arabia, its main religious-political rival in the Middle East, via the Saudis’ “backyard.”  Iran also sees Yemen as an important factor in its policy of establishing a physical Iranian presence, both ground and naval, in the countries and ports of the Red Sea littoral, which control the shipping lanes that lead from the Persian Gulf to the heart of the Middle East and onward to Europe. If the Shia rebels gain control of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, Iran can attain a foothold in this sensitive region giving access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, a cause of concern not only for its sworn rivals Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf states, but also for Israel and European countries along the Mediterranean.

Arab commentators in the Gulf have warned in recent years about this Iranian push. For example, economic analyst Muhammad Abduh al-Absi said in an interview to Asharq Al-Awsat that Iran has long been trying to take over the sea lanes surrounding the Arab world. It commands the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf (through which five million barrels of oil pass daily) and now is trying to seize the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (through which three million barrels of oil pass daily), which forms a key conduit of trade for all the states along the Red Sea. Al-Absi emphasized that Houthi control of the strait will have a harmful impact on the entire world, but those that will suffer the most will be the Gulf states, which will be at Iran’s mercy. Before invading Sana’a and seizing other parts of the country, the Houthis were concentrated in the city of Sa’dah in northern Yemen, on the Saudi border. There the Zaidi Shia form a majority of the population. Now the Houthis are trying to extend their control beyond the oil-rich Mar’ib province in the country’s east.

Sana’a: The Fourth Arab Capital to Fall into Iran’s Hands

For Iran, which in recent years has supported the Houthis’ struggles as part of its fight with Saudi Arabia over regional influence, the Houthis’ recent gains in Yemen mark an impressive achievement.  Senior Iranian spokesmen have referred publicly and particularly defiantly to the latest Houthi successes and have not hidden their support and satisfaction with the expansion of their control in Yemen and their political gains. It should be noted that before the Arab spring erupted and undermined the old order in the Middle East harsh criticism was leveled in Iran at the government’s helplessness in the face of the “slaughter of the Shia” in Yemen.

Ali Akbar Velayati, former Iranian foreign Minister, and currently adviser on international affairs to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and president of the Expediency Council’s Center for Strategic Research, recently told a group of Yemeni clerics in Tehran: “The Islamic Republic of Iran supports the rightful struggles of Ansar Allah [Houthis] in Yemen and considers this movement as part of the successful materialization of the Islamic Awakening [the name Iran adopted for the “Arab Spring”] movements.”4 Velayati added that the Houthis had succeeded in creating a movement without precedent in any Arab state, and that their frequent and rapid triumphs (in the domestic arena) proved that “Ansar Allah planned their moves well in advance [perhaps hinting at Iranian involvement?] and learned from past experience.” Velayati added that he was sure Ansar Allah’s triumph in Yemen meant that the Houthis would play a similar role to the one Hizbullah plays in Lebanon. Velayati was asked about the effects of the Yemeni revolution and responded, “The important issue is that the road to freeing Palestine passes from Yemen since Yemen has a strategic location and is near Indian Ocean, Gulf of Oman and Bab al-Mandeb.” Iranian official: “Sana’a – fourth Arab capital that belongs to us.” – Iran: Sana’a, Yemen Is “the Fourth Arab Capital in Our Hands”…

 [To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]

Contents            

SO FAR, SO GOOD FOR THIS ARAB DEMOCRACY                        

Matthew Kaminski                                                                                              

Wall Street Journal, Nov. 20, 2014

The gracious loser is a stock character of American elections, and virtually unknown in the Arab world. Rachid Ghannouchi makes an unlikely pioneer. The 73-year-old politician is one of the world’s most influential Islamist thinkers and the longtime leader of Tunisia’s offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. To his detractors, his sins range from indulging in “double discourse”—saying one thing to Westerners and another to his flock—to peddling anti-Semitism and supporting terrorists. His public record is long. “We must wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam,” he said in a speech in Sudan, coming to Saddam Hussein ’s defense after Iraq invaded Kuwait. He tells me that those words “were fabricated,” but I hold in my hand a copy of an August 1990 article from Ila Filastin, an Islamist publication, that reported them. You can also find Ghannouchi statements going as far back in support of democracy and Islamic reformation.

Who’s the real Rachid Ghannouchi? Perhaps now, after a couple of Tunisian elections impressive for their orderly execution, and on the eve of a presidential vote Sunday, this divisive figure of Arab politics can be judged just by what he has done. Mr. Ghannouchi, who is not on the presidential ballot, is the one person most responsible for fostering the introduction of an Arab democracy, however fragile, in this North African nation—the exception in a region torn apart by the violent upheavals of the past four years. Ponder the picture of the bearded leader of the Islamist Nahda (Renaissance) Party last month calling to congratulate the head of the rival secular bloc for its victory in Tunisia’s parliamentary elections. It was as if everybody had won. Hardly. Nahda—which in 2011 secured a larger share (37%) of the country’s first free vote than the Muslim Brotherhood ever won in Egypt—had finished a surprise second in Tunisia’s second free election. With no apparent bitterness, Mr. Ghannouchi offered to join a government of national unity with the victorious Nidaa Tounes (Tunisian Call), which brings together remnants of the old secular and repressive regime ousted in early 2011. As promised, to calm secular nerves in Tunisia, Nahda isn’t running a candidate in this weekend’s presidential elections. Mr. Ghannouchi keeps repeating that without consensus and power-sharing, no formerly authoritarian country can build a democracy.

The road to here was bumpy, and the journey remains daunting. An Islamist insurgency in Tunisia is being aided by arms from neighboring Libya. As many as 3,000 Tunisians have reportedly joined the Islamic State terrorist forces in Syria and Iraq—more than from any other country. Islamists assassinated two prominent secular politicians last year, nearly ending the experiment in consensus politics. In the aftermath of those killings, massive protests blamed the ruling Nahda Party, not unjustly, for being too soft on violent extremism. Mr. Ghannouchi didn’t dig in—he turned conciliatory. He pushed Nahda, over the objections from insiders, to step aside for a technocratic government. He worked out a constitutional compromise with Beji Said Sebsi, an 87-year-old politician who served the old regime in various roles and now runs the Nidaa Tounes Party, winner of last month’s parliamentary election. The Tunisian constitution adopted this year is remarkably liberal.

When I saw him this fall in New York, Mr. Ghannouchi brought up the common charge against Islamists and democracy: One vote, one time, never again. (See Hamas in Gaza and Iran’s theocrats.) Yet Nahda gave up power last year and has now accepted the results of a free election. If you can win once and lose once, his party can feel confident it can win again. Like in a normal country. Mr. Ghannouchi seems to have digested this basic lesson. But have the people of the ancien, undemocratic regime? If Mr. Sebsi, the leading presidential candidate in Sunday’s vote, wins the election, his party will control the executive and legislative branches. Given its roots in the authoritarian past, there will be a temptation to slide back into the old ways. “We have a great constitution but it’s still only on paper,” says Radwan Masmoudi, who runs Tunisia’s Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. “The culture of democracy is young and weak.”

We’re often told that the clash in the Muslim world is between Islamism and liberalism. This is misleading. In reality, the fight is authoritarianism or violent chaos versus freer and peaceful politics. Syria, Libya and Iraq are living through the chaos, and the rest of the region is ruled by strongmen. Some come in the military uniform of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. In the fine suits of Bashar Assad or the thawbs of Saudi royals. Or in the clerical garbs of Tehran’s mullahs. Then there’s the something-in-between of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The lesson from Tunisia for the political future of the Arab lands: Don’t pay attention to the labels. What matters is the all-too-human capacity to adapt and see a better way to self-government. “Yes, God has given us his word and his commands, but he has not put anyone to represent him on this earth,” says Mr. Ghannouchi, explaining his Islamist take on representative rule. “This is why democracy is the best way to decide how to rule ourselves.” You don’t have to know the true content of Mr. Ghannouchi’s heart. It should be enough that his country is the one Arab nation with some guardrails now in place to protect it from the vices and stupidities that might issue from any mortal politician, no matter his religion.

Contents                  

TUNISIA STANDS ALONE                                                                                          

Max Boot

Weekly Standard, Nov. 10, 2014

Who knew being an election observer was such hard work? When the International Republican Institute, a nonprofit, U.S. government-funded organization devoted to democracy promotion, invited me to serve on its team watching Tunisia’s parliamentary elections on October 26, I imagined myself lolling by a Mediterranean beach, sipping a café au lait, with a short break in the middle of the day to ascertain, yup, Tunisians are going to the polls. The reality was several days of nonstop meetings with Tunisian politicos, nongovernmental organizations, and election officials, both in the capital, Tunis, and in Jendouba, a governorate in the northwest near the border with Algeria.

On Sunday, election day, I got up at 5:15 a.m. and, with the rest of my team (an IRI staff member, local translator, and driver), set off, bleary-eyed, to observe preparations before voting booths opened at 7 a.m. We spent the rest of the day driving from polling place to polling place to see if balloting was being carried out by the book. The polls finally closed at 6 p.m., but our job was not yet done—we spent the next three hours locked in a small schoolroom that doubled as an election station, watching as four officials laboriously counted more than 450 ballots by hand. Everywhere we went, we inquired about election chicanery. We found none. The violations reported to us were laughably minor—for example, some campaign posters being displayed in violation of Tunisian law, which strictly limits the size and location of such advertising. Although there were fears that Ansar al Sharia militants would try to disrupt voting, there was not one terrorist attack in the country. More than 60 percent of the 5.2 million registered voters turned out—not the highest figure possible but still a stirring sight: so many people who had spent their lives under a dictatorship exercising rights that we in the West take for granted. That the election was so free and fair is impressive enough—remember how dishonest voting was in places like Chicago and Newark not so long ago? Tunisia’s achievement was all the more remarkable considering that there is not one peaceful and democratic state in the entire Arab world. (Iraq is sort of democratic but violent.)

Tunisia has been showing the path toward Arab democracy ever since a 26-year-old fruit seller named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire on December 17, 2010, to protest the harassment he had suffered from heavy-handed government officials. His death set off a month of protests that brought down longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. That triggered antigovernment protests that shook the entire region. In Libya and Syria, the result was perpetual war; in Egypt, the rise of a new dictatorship. Only Tunisia has continued to stumble toward self-government. The first free elections, held in October 2011, left the Islamist Ennahda party in the lead but with far less than a majority—it won 37 percent of the vote, forcing it to form a coalition government with two secular parties. The rule of “the Troika” got off to a bad start in September 2012 when a fundamentalist mob stormed the U.S. embassy in Tunis, although, unlike in Libya, no American diplomats were hurt. This was followed in 2013 by the assassination of two leftist opposition politicians, Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi.

Secular political leaders blamed Ennahda for tolerating Salafist terrorists. Protesters took to the streets, the Tunisian General Labor Union called a strike, and for a few months the country appeared to be on the verge of coming apart. But cooler heads prevailed. Rather than cling to power the way that Mohamed Morsi had done in Egypt, Tunisia’s Islamist prime minister resigned in January 2014. Ali Laarayedh was succeeded by a technocratic caretaker administration under Mehdi Jomaa, whose task was to supervise parliamentary elections on October 26, to be followed a month later, on November 23, by a presidential election. (The president’s powers under the new constitution remain unclear but appear to be less significant, in many respects, than those of the prime minister.)…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]

Contents           

On Topic

Yemen Changes Hands. Will an Iranian Stronghold Emerge Near the Entrance to the Red Sea?: Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, JCPA, Oct. 7, 2014—This past month, Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, was transformed.

Iran-Backed Shia Rebels Push Forward in Yemen: Jonathan Spyer, PJ Media, Nov. 5, 2014—The Middle East is currently the arena for a cross-border sectarian war.

Tunisia’s Islamists Learned from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Failure in Egypt: Ariel Ben Solomon, Jerusalem Post, Oct. 29, 2014—Tunisia’s Ennahda party, the first Islamist movement to secure power after the 2011 “Arab Spring” revolts, conceded defeat on Monday in elections, perhaps drawing a lesson from the failed power grab of Islamists in Egypt.

Brought To You By The Arab World…: Dennis Prager, Jewish Press, Oct. 8, 2014 —At least since the early part of the 20th century, the Arab world has produced essentially no technology, medicine, or anything else in the world of science. It has almost no contributions to world literature, art, or to intellectual development.

Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research/ L'institut Canadien de recherches sur le Judaïsme, www.isranet.org

Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284 ; ber@isranet.wpsitie.com