https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/go-strategic-in-syria

Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday left no doubt that the United States is preparing to act, in a significant military way, in Syria. “President Obama,” he said, “believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious, and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny.”

For many of us, it has been a long time coming. But we have steadfastly insisted that intervention in Syria was required and inevitable. The question now is, will it be tactical or strategic?

For too long it has been tempting to think that the Obama administration has essentially viewed Syria as a secondary issue – a subset of either the U.S.-Russia or U.S.-Iran files. While caution is always justified, neither perspective was defensible.

Kerry laid out a clear moral and political vision that leaves the United States with no choice but to act decisively to stop the use of the “world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people.”

When, early in the second Obama term, the United States finally decided to provide nonlethal aid to rebel groups in Syria I called for some “good, old-fashioned American mission creep.” That aid wasn’t ever going to be enough. And now, American military action in Syria of some kind is a virtual fait accompli.

But it is far from clear what – apart from stopping the use of chemical weapons – the broader strategy is. This could simply prove a tactical, limited intervention designed to prevent the use of internationally banned weapons and punish the Syrian government, again in some limited ways, for having used them.

This would, of course, have a significant impact on the war. The Syrian military will be hit and, presumably, deprived of its ability to use some of its most appalling lethal weapons. But if it is limited to that, it will hardly be decisive. Indeed, despite the blow to the Syrian government and military, it’s far from clear that this would have a major strategic impact on the balance of power on the ground between the rebels and the government – or among rebels themselves, for that matter.

But the United States would be well advised to avoid limiting its intervention to a tactical, chemical weapons based, approach. Instead, whatever is done under this rubric should be part of a broader effort to shift the strategic balance on the ground away from both the odious family-led Mafia regime in Damascus and the despicable, bloodthirsty Salafist-Jihadist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, and in favor of the groups like the Supreme Military Command of the Free Syrian Army led by General Salim Idriss.

This process, though underreported, is already well underway on the ground in the south, where, unsurprisingly, the recent chemical attacks occurred, It has been amply described by Michael Weiss, Elizabeth O’Bagy, and Thomas Pierret, among others. Such strategic intervention would require coordination with allies such as France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey along multiple fronts. It would mean providing not only much more sophisticated weapons and intelligence, but also training, and command and control capability for the FSA.

This would probably from the outset, or by additional “mission creep,” lead to the creation of safe areas and no-fly zones, certainly in the south, and possibly the north as well.

Most importantly, the intervention should focus on weakening the regime’s most potent strategic advantage: its airpower. Above all, the systematic destruction of airbases and major landing fields under the control of the regime would dramatically shift the ability of Iran and Russia to supply men and materiel to the Damascus dictatorship.

As things stand, it’s possible that the Obama administration is acting mainly out of moral and legal outrage, as eloquently expressed by Kerry. If so, I would both urge, and cautiously predict, additional “mission creep” of the kind that took us from belatedly providing lethal aid to being on the brink of unavoidable direct military intervention.

Tactical intervention against chemical weapons-related resources is a good start. But it’s not enough. A strategic intervention designed to shift the balance of power on the ground – away from both the regime and the more extreme rebel groups – and toward more nationalist, rational, and acceptable rebel forces is required.

Everything is in place. It may not happen, or be obvious, right away. But if the United States is to finally abandon, however reluctantly, what has heretofore been a fundamentally risk-averse, reactive policy that has allowed other, entirely malevolent, forces to shape realities on the ground in Syria, a genuine, coordinated strategic intervention is required.

The time to act decisively is now. Both the Damascus regime and the extremist rebels simultaneously must be outmaneuvered, thwarted and defeated. This will require real, courageous American leadership.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/compromise-or-go-ghannouchi-faces-morsis-dilemma

The ripple effects of the overthrow of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi are shaking the already unstable Ennahda-led government in Tunisia.

Ennahda is reaching a crucial juncture, similar to the one Morsi faced: compromise with an increasingly dissatisfied majority, or risk losing power.

Unlike in Egypt, in Tunisia there is no real possibility of a military intervention. However, also unlike in Egypt, the non- and increasingly anti-Islamist political opposition is organized enough to bring the government down without violence. And they appear to be very close to succeeding.

The struggle began last year when Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi was, unbeknownst to him, videotaped asking Tunisian Salafists to give him time to consolidate control over the police and the military, lest secular forces return to power. That candid statement confirmed many of the worst fears of the opposition that Ennahda’s eventual agenda was the complete domination of the state (the same concern that drove an overwhelming movement to overthrow Morsi in Egypt).

Everything that has happened since has worsened Ennahda’s position. The government it leads is widely perceived as having failed on two key fronts: security and the economy.

Salafist-Jihadists are waging an open rebellion near the Algerian border in the West and parts of the South. Salafist extremists, especially Ansar Al-Sharia, have become increasingly brazen in their own violent tendencies. Parts of the country are already in a state of civil conflict, and others threaten to fall into one.

The security collapse was brought home to the Tunisian opposition and majority in the most direct and brutal manner twice in the past six months. Leading anti-Islamist, liberal politicians – in February Chokri Belaïd and in July Mohamed Brahmi – were gunned down in broad daylight. The government claims they were assassinated by jihadists, and even with the same gun.

The government is widely blamed for having “coddled” Islamist extremists, thereby creating the sense of impunity that allowed parts of the country to drift into civil conflict and respected politicians to be murdered in the streets. The minimal charge is guilt by omission, if not by commission itself.

Even worse for Ennahda is the country’s ongoing economic meltdown. It is widely seen as being on the brink of bankruptcy. Last week it received a terrible economic evaluation across the board from Standard and Poor’s.

Both of these issues, especially the economic crisis, have brought Ennahda into a potentially fatal confrontation with the redoubtable Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT). With over 1 million members, it is more powerful than any Tunisian political party and has no labor movement parallel in any other Arab country.

Traditionally, the UGTT has valued its role as a “mediator” in politics. But it has now formally renounced that position and identified itself as having a political role in opposition to the government. This could prove an impending catastrophe for Ennahda, since the UGTT is the one group in the country with the potential power to unseat the government.

Ghannouchi and company are clearly disturbed by the uninterrupted series of setbacks they have suffered in recent months, as well as the overthrow of Morsi. But the opposition – including many members of the suspended National Constituent Assembly – have been staging sit-ins and other protests with a simple but deadly demand: form a national unity government of technocrats to deal with the crisis.

Ghannouchi has been quickly backpedaling from his more recalcitrant initial positions. But, this is essentially asking him to relinquish power as Islamists are not well-represented among the technocratic class. A government of experts is bound to look very different from a government of religious fanatics and include few, if any, Islamists.

However, Ghannouchi is now frightened enough to have recently met with his most dangerous opponent, UGTT leader Hussein Abassi, and, secretly, with the head of the increasingly popular Nida Tounes party, Beji Caid el Sebsi. Recent polls, though questionable, suggest Nida Tounes may now outstrip Ennahda as the most popular party in Tunisia.

Ghannouchi reportedly offered both an “all party” government of national unity, but not the dreaded technocratic government. They turned him down, but more talks are planned.

Ghannouchi knows he’s fighting, not just for political power now, but for the long-term survival of Ennahda as a credible and potential governing force in Tunisia: a less dramatic version of exactly what’s happening to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. So do the secularists.

So, just as Egypt recently did, Tunisia now faces a crucial juncture in which Islamists will either compromise or confront a vast coalition that will overwhelm them. Their government is perceived as having failed, and Tunisians are demanding change.

Ghannouchi seems to understand the need to be perceived as conciliatory. But if he does not give sufficient ground, he may end up losing everything he has accumulated in the past two years, and more.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/cutting-off-us-aid-to-egypt-would-be-a-serious-mistake#full

As the streets of Cairo smoulder and the Egyptian people brace for further violence, throughout Washington the cry is: “Cut aid to Egypt.” Such an appeal may be emotionally satisfying, but it would be a terrible policy miscalculation.

To its credit, the Obama administration appears to understand this. Its strong condemnations of the killing of demonstrators and limited punitive measures have struck the appropriate balance between expressing American values and protecting American interests.

First, it would be totally ineffective. The Egyptian military receives the overwhelming bulk of American aid. But it doesn’t need it. Gulf states have pledged up to $15 billion to the new Egyptian government.

Second, it would undermine the American strategic relationship with Egypt. Salivating at the opportunity to make an inroad, Vladimir Putin wasted no time in announcing joint military exercises with the Egyptian army.

Essentially, any ending of aid would mean the United States turning its back on the only group in Egypt that is a well-established partner.

The US has more leverage in Egypt than it may think. But if it cuts off aid, it will be left with very little indeed. This would greatly complicate American strategic relations in the broader Arab world by reinforcing the notion that the US does not stand by its friends.

This complaint was wrongly levelled against American policy when it supported the ousting of Hosni Mubarak. But now the socio-political dynamic is reversed: the US, slightly belatedly, supported the Egyptian people’s demand to be rid of Mr Mubarak, but it would now be opposing their evident determination to be rid of Mr Morsi.

A sizeable number of the Egyptian people have made it clear that they are out of patience with the Muslim Brotherhood, both in office and in their subsequent campaign of unrest.

Having lost domestic legitimacy, the Brotherhood is banking on a nationwide destabilisation campaign to win itself new international backing and to recoup some of its political losses at home.

Perceived US support for this effort would reinforce a widespread misapprehension that Washington backed the Brotherhood all along, and tried to get it into power and to keep it there. While this is false, policies that unwittingly reinforce this conspiracy theory are profoundly unwise.

Third, such a cut-off would be a breach of understandings underpinning the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. A key inducement to Egypt was the American long-term military aid commitment. Breaking that would probably not prompt Egypt to abrogate its peace treaty, and increasingly close security ties, with Israel. Those are strongly in Egypt’s own national interests and likely to prevail.

But it would make the US the first of the three parties to the original Arab-Israeli peace treaty to break a fundamental pillar of its commitments. Is that really the precedent to set as it embarks on an intensive effort to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace, or for talks with other Middle Eastern countries on various issues, including Iran?

The “unreliability” factor in this case would be radically different from support for the popular uprising against Mr Mubarak. It would place the US not on the wrong side of history, but on the wrong side of the strategic calculus of its regional partners and interlocutors. No one can seriously advocate that the US should demonstrate it respects Arab public opinion and supports its friends while simultaneously backing a cut-off of aid to Egypt.

But US military aid programmes are not necessarily what they seem. Most such aid, including to Egypt, is dedicated to the purchase of American military goods. They are a workaround skirting American and World Trade Organisation regulations that otherwise bar such subsidies.

An even more serious strategic and economic factor – one often overlooked by many commentators and analysts – is the preferential treatment for American vessels passing through the Suez Canal. An obvious means of retaliation that the Egyptians could, but probably wouldn’t, use, is to revoke that preferential treatment, which is a courtesy.

But if they did, this might force US aircraft carrier groups and other vital naval deployments to use the distant Cape of Good Hope, costing precious time and money, and diminishing the rapidity of deployment. Much US commercial shipping also enjoys preferential treatment in the canal, and the loss of this could cost billions of dollars to US financial interests.

Finally, there is the question of consistency. Under the rule of Mr Mubarak, the armed forces, and Mr Morsi alike, there were numerous abuses, massacres, arbitrary actions and extra-constitutional moves. At no point did anyone raise the issue of a cut-off of aid, precisely for the reasons outlined above. So, why now? Charges of hypocrisy will be difficult to refute or deflect.

If the US wants to wash its hands of Egypt and let it drift into other orbits, or simply declare defeat and go home, so be it.

But no serious American administration, including President Obama’s, is going to take such a drastic and reckless step, no matter how many people without direct responsibility for the consequences of US foreign policy advocate such a blunder.

[NOTE: a shorter version of this commentary was published in The National on August 11, 2013]

Anti-Americanism isn’t just a ubiquitous feature of contemporary Arab political culture. It arises from a deeper, more insidious and ingrained concept: the myth of American omnipotence. Thus the will of the United States becomes the default explanation for everything that happens in the Middle East, particularly when people don’t like it.

Anti-Americanism follows the same logical distortions, but applied in reverse, of the other great omnipotent power: God. Among the devout, God gets all the credit for everything good that happens, but none of the blame. If large numbers of children are fortuitously saved from disaster, God saved them. If they tragically die, no one ever applies the inescapable logical inverse: God killed them. God is omnipotent and omniscient, but is utterly exempted from blame for anything the faithful find bad, and only gets credit for the good.

America the omnipotent occupies the opposite position in the moral economy of contemporary Arab political thought: it’s always blamed for whatever people don’t like, but never gets the credit for anything perceived as good.

Recent events in Egypt are only the most striking and current demonstrations of this very long-standing pattern.

Supporters of former Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi are convinced the United States was directly responsible for his ouster. His opponents, perhaps even more ferociously, believe the Americans put him in power and wanted to keep him there. The most bizarre theories, from both sides, about various supposed conspiracies hatched by US Ambassador Anne Patterson abound in the Egyptian media. The only thing Egyptians now agree on is whatever it is they don’t like, it must be the fault of the United States.

The same applies in Syria.

Last year I was on an Arabic TV debate with three Syrians. The first, a Salafist, said the Americans wanted to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power at the behest of Israel, because they feared the “Islamic Awakening.” The second, a nationalist, insisted that the US indeed wanted Assad to stay in power, because he had cooperative relations with Israel. The third, a regime stooge, insisted on an American plot to overthrow Assad because he was the leader of “resistance” against Israel.

But how did the United States become this “great Satan,” for which all bad things can be, and are, blamed by all Arab sides, all the time?

The problem is clearly overdetermined. Like western Islamophobia, it feeds on centuries of ancient rivalry between Dar al Islam and Christendom. Arabs feel, and for good reason, mistreated by the colonial West. Decades of nationalistic, religious, xenophobic and chauvinistic propaganda entrenched anti-American narratives in 20th-century Arab political culture. And since the 1950s the United States has been the primary regional power in the Middle East and acted like it, with all the local resentment that naturally entails.

But the underlying, latent theme actually seems to be a profound sense of unrequited love. Why is America so inexplicably biased towards Israel? Why are their policies always so unfair? Since American is omnipotent, and bad things keep happening, why does the US do them?

Yet while Arabs rail against the United States, they love its culture and products. They fight for visas, and to send their children to American universities. Even Islamists like Morsi studied and taught in California.

Arab sensibilities about international relations are defined by a profound sense of disempowerment, especially as contrasted with an illusion of American omnipotence. These fantasies feed each other in a neurotic vicious circle.

Even as American influence around the world is palpably waning, absurdities — such as the idea that the recent abdication of the Emir of Qatar was, for some reason, “ordered” by Washington — are a commonplace.

How radically different things look from DC, where a new and uncharacteristic sense of helplessness has taken root in the aftermath of the Iraq fiasco, the Afghan failure and the fiscal calamity.

Washington looks at Syria and most incorrectly conclude there are no effective or useful policy options. The United States thinks that it has virtually no influence in Egypt, even less than it really might. Even in its most familiar territory, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, American policymakers are not coy about saying they feel at the mercy of the domestic politics and policy caprices of Tel Aviv and Ramallah.

The new American feeling of impotence, or at least risk-aversion, is as exaggerated as Arab delusions about American omnipotence. There is much the United States can do to help its friends in the Arab world, if only it would. But there is a persistent, crippling reticence to support those who share American goals or values, particularly if they are not fully trusted by Israel.

Arab anti-Americanism rests on two pillars: disillusionment and perceived betrayal by an ideal, combined with a wild overestimation of American power. Arabs therefore oscillate between yearning for American leadership and resenting its clout.

Contrast the ubiquitous, and normatively negative, Arab sentiments towards the United States with an almost total disinterest in the role of Russia. Yet if there is an external power up to no good in the Middle East, it is Russia. Its wholehearted support for the Syrian dictatorship helped kill at least 100,000 people in the past two years.

But there is no unrequited love affair with Russia. No sense of betrayal. No feeling of an abandoned ideal or love-hate neurosis. That Russia does what’s in its interests is simply accepted with a shrug. The dearth of conspiracy theories about the Kremlin’s machinations — especially compared to the plethora of bizarre fantasies attributed to the White House — reveals Arab anti-Americanism to be a collective neurotic symptom, fundamentally disconnected from reality.

Of course anti-Americanism is consciously and cynically abused in much Arab political rhetoric. It’s too easy a tool of manipulation for unscrupulous demagogues to pass up. And it works, all too often and all too well. Indeed, it’s so pervasive and visceral that it most closely resembles the rage of a jilted lover.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/both-sides-all-in-in-egypt-but-looking-for-an-out

Egypt finds itself again in the grip of a high-stakes political poker standoff, this time between the new government and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The authorities hold the “big stack.” They are in power, with the backing of Egypt’s administrative bureaucracy, most political parties, the media, and military and security forces. They also have much of the Brotherhood’s leadership in detention, and have frozen their assets.

But politically both sides have been losing ground.

A large public majority seems to mostly still feel the Brotherhood made this showdown inevitable. Millions of Egyptians clearly remember why they took to the streets demanding former President Mohamad Morsi fold. And many blame the Brotherhood, more than the authorities, for the ensuing violence and instability that has rocked Egypt’s cities and Sinai Peninsula since his downfall.

Nonetheless, the crackdown on the Brotherhood, both legally and physically, has alienated some initial supporters of the military’s intervention. While the Brotherhood’s narrative about “massacres” of “peaceful protesters” seems to have considerably more adherents in the West than in Egypt, the new authorities are also increasingly seen by Egyptians as having behaved in a heavy-handed manner and, worse, failing to restore order. Buyer’s remorse is already emerging, and this is likely to only increase.

More than 80 years in opposition has prepared the Brotherhood to be at its most effective in the role of “the victim.” Their “dominated hand” is expertise at milking sympathy – even outside of their own highly disciplined ranks – for the travails they suffer at the hands of any government crackdown. Morsi’s own two last speeches in office were characterized by repeated vows to cash out by “shedding his own blood,” and “sacrificing his own life.”

Of course it’s never the leadership of any extreme, vanguardist revolutionary movement that actually volunteers for martyrdom. It’s always the rank-and-file that is food for powder. An estimated 150 pro-Morsi protesters have been killed in violent clashes with the police and security forces, who themselves lost an estimated 20 or so fatalities.

But there is a growing sense that the new government may be overplaying its hand by cracking down too harshly for the taste of many Egyptians, and through the threat the Brotherhood can “bleed its chips” by persisting in promoting an anarchical and violent atmosphere.

By playing, and in some senses even being, the victim, the Brotherhood is gaining sympathy, but not renewed legitimacy. Even those who are critical of, or in some cases repulsed by, the crackdown aren’t more impressed by the Brotherhood so much as they are dismayed by the government’s conduct.

And the government may be losing some degree of legitimacy, but not authority. Egyptians are still looking to the state and the military to restore order and normalcy to the country.

If we have entered into an exchange of mutual losses for both the authorities and the Brotherhood, there’s no doubt that the government and military are much better able to sustain such damage. They have a degree of support and respect in the public that the Brotherhood simply doesn’t. And this time, the army has wisely decided to stay behind the scenes and allow others, including politicians and judges, at least ostensibly, to take the leading role.

The new government’s position is clear: they will not brook unrest, violence, or rioting from supporters of the former president, whether in Egypt’s cities or in Sinai. But they seem and should be willing to try to find a formula to reincorporate the Brotherhood and its political party into the new system.

The Brotherhood has been issuing a “crying call” suit for peace, first privately, and now publicly. At the same time, they have been pursuing a parallel strategy of destabilizing Egyptian society through protests and, at least proxy, violence. The Brotherhood knows that its fundamental position that there must be a return to the status quo ante, Morsi’s presidency, is completely out of the question. The problem is, how to broker an arrangement between two sides so diametrically opposed in a country so deeply divided.

International mediation is ongoing, but still fruitless. The Arab states, including Qatar, and the whole world, have formally recognized the legitimacy of the new government. The problem is how to get the Brotherhood to do the same, and agree to terms for going forward. A compromise might involve ministerial positions for Brotherhood members, or buy-in to a transitional plan involving new elections in the near future.

The Brotherhood has to face the fact that in the foreseeable future it won’t be returning to power. Other Egyptians have to face the fact the Brotherhood isn’t going away.

The prospects for Islamists around the Middle East will be powerfully influenced by how both sides play their hands, and whether Egyptians can find a compromise, or will persist with their present double-down.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/support-for-rebels-will-help-push-syrians-away-from-extremists#full

Extremists are increasingly dominating the Syrian rebellion, especially since the beginning of this year. This has significantly strengthened the position of the dictator, Bashar Al Assad, by validating his narrative about “Islamic terrorism” – that began as a fiction during the period of peaceful, unarmed protests but is now a reality that he is instrumental in shaping and driving.

Extremist prominence has also badly divided the opposition and the Syrian public, allowing for a string of significant government military gains in strategic locations. What is to be done about these radicals?

There are at least two clear, plausible approaches. Both can address this conundrum and improve prospects for a “least bad” outcome. And both involve concerted efforts to strengthen the Free Syrian Army (FSA) combined with other measures to de-radicalise or combat extreme Islamists.

Those who argue against arming any of the rebels because of the strength of radical movements are citing the self-fulfilling prophecy, and grim logical consequences, of their own consistent “hands-off” policy recommendations: reluctance to support the FSA for fear of the emergence of extreme Islamists has inexorably and inevitably led to precisely that development.

Extremists became disproportionately important because they received far more financial and material support from their backers. Meanwhile, nationalist groups associated with the FSA suffered neglect from western and Arab powers that should have recognised their strong interest in a strong FSA.

The most extreme rebels are Jabhat Al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham (ISIS). But these Jihadist groups and their Al Qaeda allies have become embroiled in a damaging internal power struggle. The big winners from that quarrel are factions associated with the Syrian Islamic Front (SIF), a coalition of Salafist groups.

Al Nusra and the ISIS are not only a boon to Mr Al Assad, they are at least as much a threat to the future of Syria as he is. One potential counter to them is the development of a Syrian version of Iraq’s “sahwa”, or awakening, that pitted former Sunni insurgent groups against their erstwhile Al Qaeda allies. This kind of population-based asymmetrical warfare will be harder for external powers to conduct with the limited and clandestine “boots on the ground”. But since these effects are largely driven by financial and material support, there is no reason it cannot produce significant results.

Such an effort could be intimately tied to a programme to fund, arm, train and provide intelligence, logistics and command and control support to the FSA. Or it could be a parallel, independent track.

A more intriguing possibility, and one too lightly dismissed, is that some groups or fighters who have drifted into the SIF orbit could be “winnable” to a more tolerant, inclusive and less dogmatic orientation. Unlike Al Nusra and others that imported an Al Qaeda ideology, most SIF groups emerged spontaneously in Syria. They grew because of intensive foreign backing combined with their nationalistic, but religious, stance. Large numbers of embittered young men have drifted into their orbit, in many cases probably for want of a better alternative.

No doubt many SIF leaders and some fighters already were, or have now become, committed Salafists and may be unlikely to shift from their unacceptable, and untenable “goal” of establishing a Sunni Islamist, Sharia-based, Syrian state. But how strongly committed are all of these groups and fighters to that decision?

The SIF’s standard rhetoric is indefensible, sectarian and intolerant. Unfortunately, it is also an effective rallying cry to arms against an Alawite-dominated regime and plays well with wealthy extremist patrons in the Gulf. However, it also runs counter to most traditional culture and lived realities of modern Syria, which is a heterogeneous and typically tolerant society. Salafism doesn’t come naturally to, or fit well with, most normative Syrian socio-cultural attitudes.

Counterterrorism observers often assume that online statements and videos tell the whole story. But the way these groups have rapidly developed and how they have used videos to raise money from extremist foreign backers, as well as the likelihood that many of their cadres were drawn to them for want of a more attractive alternative, suggest that a concerted programme to reorient or undermine them could produce results.

Syria’s socio-political reality is fluid, not neatly indexed into immutable, fixed categories. It is possible that many fighters and even entire groups, given sufficient incentives, could be drawn away from hard-core Salafism, just as they were drawn to it. Westerners who have met SIF types typically report a very different reality from that depicted in strident videos and statements.

In the present Syrian context, it’s defeatist, unimaginative and dogmatic to assume that “Salafist by name” definitively or irreversibly means “Salafist by nature”, or once a Salafist, always a Salafist. How many of these young men were armed two years ago, or even politicised? How committed are rank-and-file SIF cadres, or even some leaders, to a rhetoric that incongruously and unworkably conflates Salafism with nationalism?

The clashes between Kurdish fighters and Jihadists in recent weeks demonstrate how fluid and dynamic Syrian realities are. Western and Arab neglect facilitated the rise of extremist groups in Syria. There is every reason to believe that a more robust engagement could intensify the degradation of the Jihadist groups and provide viable alternatives for those currently in the Salafist orbit. In both cases, the big loser would be Mr Al Assad.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/the-inquisition-will-be-televised

Gil Scott Heron was wrong. As the Arab uprisings have shown, the revolution most certainly will be televised. It has to be. Because if something isn’t televised, live streamed, and tweeted, it simply hasn’t happened, at least in the public consciousness.

Fox News has just widened the aperture: the Inquisition will also be televised. And we have a foretaste of how idiotic and ugly a Torquemada of the tube actually looks.

Host Lauren Green had no rack or bastinado when “interviewing” author Reza Aslan about his new book “Zealot.” In a fit of inexplicable stupidity, mendacity, prejudice, and paranoia, she spent ten minutes bizarrely harassing him about why, as a Muslim, he chose to write a book about Jesus.

Aslan is an exceptionally savvy writer and marketer. He went on the show to sell his book, an honorable and universal motive for any author. He probably knew he was entering hostile territory, but it’s extremely unlikely he anticipated how vicious Green would be. She gave him a glorious opportunity to be gracious in the face of a deranged harangue.

The most inquisitorial moment comes when Green bizarrely implies that Aslan, who comes very close to being something along the lines of a professional Muslim, somehow “hides his faith.” Inquisition is always about uncovering the “crypto.” But in addition to his whole career, “Zealot” begins with an account of Aslan’s conversion to Islam as an adult. He hasn’t hidden, but marketed, this. It’s essentially a calumnious lie in the form of a purported question.

Between Green’s borderline insanity and Aslan’s composed responses, the video went viral and his primary aim of increasing sales will have been met beyond any possible expectations. Aslan’s publicists couldn’t have scripted it any better if given a totally free hand.

And, of course, it’s all the more intriguing to the viral video viewers because he is given no chance to really explain what his book actually is or isn’t. “Zealot” is a quick and easy read, and essentially an extended essay that popularizes decades of scholarship that attempts to identify “the historical Jesus.”

But, as Aslan notes, “The problem with pinning down the historical Jesus is that, outside of the New Testament, there is almost no trace of the man…” So, as “Zealot” goes on to demonstrate, this “historical Jesus” quest can only really boil down to learning as much as possible about Roman occupied Palestine at the time he supposedly existed, and then applying the myths and legends about this alleged figure to that generalized context.

In other words, when it comes to “Jesus” there is nothing outside the whale of the New Testament. All we know about this purported individual is contained in the works of people openly engaged in religious propaganda. This is the case with most truly revered religious and “holy” figures: they are conveniently shrouded in the mists of impenetrable time, in the smoke and mirrors of myth and legend.

Aslan – who is a good researcher (perhaps the best part of the book is the 53 pages of detailed notes, very useful for any interested generalist) and essayist – repeats the gesture of numerous “historical Jesus” scholars. First they sketch out the historical context. Then they separate the Jesuses of the Gospels (even though these very different figures don’t in any literary or biographical sense comprise a recognizably coherent character) from the Jesus as depicted in the later writings of Paul.

Far from being anything new, this conundrum is one of the oldest in Western civilization. Rather than, as some of his critics, claim, presenting an “Islamic” version of Jesus, Aslan basically sticks to some amalgam of the Jesus of the Gospels and assumes some level of truth to those accounts. He therefore ends up presenting a very familiar figure to anyone who has paid attention: Jesus the Jewish political and religious insurrectionary and revolutionist.

There will be many who haven’t heard this before, and be fascinated with “Zealot.” That’s exactly what a book that popularizes decades of scholarship should do. The problem isn’t new, it’s ancient. One set of well-established answers are concisely summarized and simply presented in this very accessible book.

What the insufferable and bigoted fool Green didn’t realize is that Aslan is buying into a concept that has no real basis in fact: the existence of Jesus. He might have really lived. But just as easily not. Believing Jesus ever really existed at all is, therefore, itself, an act of faith.

Green and her ignorant friends might find Aslan’s rehashed “revolutionary Jesus” disturbing. But imagine their interaction with someone who dismisses the whole thing as a ludicrous fairy tale. Her new televised Inquisition might be suddenly turned on its head, and defined by a completely different set of pointed questions, this time aimed at them.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/26/hamas-in-the-crosshairs.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/25/total-hamas-in-gaza.html