Gulf Countries Should Endorse al-Maliki

Hussain Abdul-Hussain

Is it time for the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, to drop their caution towards the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al Maliki and his cabinet, and embrace a neighbour currently emerging from years of tyranny followed by civil strife?

Gulf reservations are understandable. Mr al Maliki was a member of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) parliamentary bloc, the predecessor of the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), a coalition of Shiite, mainly Islamist, parties. Fearing Iranian dominance over Iraq, Saudi Arabia distanced itself from him.

By the time of the parliamentary elections in December 2005, the UIA consisted mainly of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (ISCI), Mr al Maliki’s Dawa party, its splinter group Dawa Iraq Organisation, and the Fadhilah party. Other groups known for their close ties with Iran, such as Moqtada al Sadr’s candidates and Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraq National Congress (INC), ran independently.

The UIA won the largest number of seats in parliament, and Mr al Maliki was eventually named prime minister in April 2006. But from a weak federal cabinet, the prime minister has proved to be anything but weak. He sent government forces to wipe out al Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Basra. In parallel, Mr al Maliki asserted government control over Iraq’s eastern provinces, in co-operation with local Sunni tribes and American troops. Even with the Kurds, who later became allies, Mr al Maliki did not concede on any independent oil drilling or sale in the north.

Iraq’s prime minister has surprised Iran and its allies. It seems that, in one of its rare lapses, Tehran has not done its homework.

Mr al Maliki is the grandson of Mohamed Hassan Aboul-Mahasen, an activist with the 1920 revolt against the British mandate, and later a government minister. Mr Aboul-Mahasen was an Iraqi patriot, and there is no reason to believe that his grandson thinks Iran should dictate Iraq’s politics. Perhaps the only difference between the two men is that Mr al Maliki understood that participating in the US-sponsored political process was more effective than rebelling against it.

And despite his membership of an Islamist group, there is no evidence to indicate that Dawa endorses Iran’s velayat-e faqih, or Rule of the Jurisprudent. On the contrary, several academics have suggested that the political thought of Dawa’s founder, Mohamed Baqir al Sadr, was opposed to that of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, despite the friendship between the two during the 1970s.

Unlike Ayatollah Khomeini, Dawa’s founder had no illusion that one man could decide all matters of any state; rather he endorsed a supervisory role for an Islamic jurist within a constitutional framework.

Further proof of Mr al Maliki’s patriotism could be detected in the early 1990s, when he and the rest of the Dawa politburo voted to impeach the party’s spiritual leader, Kazem al Haeri, an Iranian known for his support of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic dictatorship. Ayatollah al Haeri later became the sponsor of Moqtada al Sadr and his militia.

While living in Iran from 1982 to 1990, Mr al Maliki might have learnt that similarity in religion was not enough to bring predominantly Shiite Iran – an arguably Persian patriotic and sometimes chauvinistic nation – and the Shiites of Iraq into one state. During the Iran-Iraq in the 1980s, 80 per cent of the Iraqi army and 20 per cent of its officers were Shiite, but felt patriotic enough to fight a neighbouring Shiite state to defend their homeland.

Mr al Maliki’s efforts to assert the power of the federal government in Baghdad have run counter to Iranian ambitions. He has thus lost Iranian support for term renewal so Mr al Maliki and his party left the UIA.

Nevertheless, Iranian officials tried to convince him to stay within the all-Shiite coalition for the 2010 elections. So far, he has turned down that invitation and formed his own ticket, the Coalition of the State of Law, signalling further empowerment for Baghdad at the expense of a possible Shiite federation in the south with Iran as its patron.

Mr al Maliki’s opponents argue that he is just another Iranian operative, and that his confrontation with UIA was all part of a grand Iranian plan. Even if that were true, the prime minister understands that his current leadership depends on his Iraqi nationalist stance. Abandoning that might render him just another INA politician.

Despite the absence of firm opinion-poll data, Mr al Maliki’s coalition seems in a good position to win most seats at the elections in February. In that case, the large Kurdish bloc is expected to swing in favour of renaming him prime minister, and it seems unlikely that his opponents can forge an INA-Sunni alliance to dislodge him.

If the Gulf countries remain distant from Mr al Maliki before the election, it might bring them his animosity afterwards. Instead, these countries should follow in the footsteps of Egypt and the US and embrace him.

Leaving Mr al Maliki out in the cold might simply send him back into Iran’s arms, whether he is elected or not.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a Visiting Fellow with Chatham House, London

The Story in The National

Ask not what the US can do for Lebanon

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, Special to NOW Lebanon

President Michel Sleiman (L) and Prime Minister Saad Hariri. The president and March 14 leaders should be doing more to protect Lebanese sovereignty. (AFP/Dalati & Nohra)

US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, formerly his country’s ambassador to Lebanon, often tells the following story: “On March 13, 2005, I cabled Washington saying that given the political situation, demanding a Syrian redeployment into the Bekaa Valley seems to be the choice. Little did I know that more than 1 million Lebanese would take to the streets on March 14 demanding full Syrian withdrawal. The Lebanese were apparently a step ahead of politicians, who then followed.”

Sometime later, a Saudi-Syrian agreement was reached to form a Syrian-Lebanese “Security Committee.” Such a committee, a defiant Walid Jumblatt said at the time, would mean the return of Syrian dominance over Lebanon, and the March 14 leadership killed the suggestion.

For March 14 supporters, those were the days when their leaders, empowered by a sweeping popular mandate, could – and did – practice sovereignty, enjoying their hard-won freedom. America, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran had no choice but to accept Lebanon’s strong independence movement.

Then it collapsed. Some say the turning point came with Hezbollah’s “invasion” of West Beirut in May 2008, while others argue it happened because of a wind-shift in US policy, including the replacement of the savvy Feltman. A third group believes Qatar snatched Paris from March 14 and made out of it a pro-Syrian capital, while a fourth group says the “Lebanese file” in Saudi Arabia was moved from the hands of one group of officials to another, one more sympathetic to Syria.

None of these theories considers what happened inside Lebanon and within March 14. Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun sold out on Lebanese independence, thus weakening the coalition, while the remaining March 14 leaders went into hiding fearing for their lives.

Even before May 2008, some March 14 leaders had lost the stomach for the fight. In late 2007, Feltman addressed a Washington think tank, arguing that his country had thrown its weight behind the election of a Lebanese president with a simple majority. March 14 did not move, arguing this might invite violence from Hezbollah. It came anyway.

One defection after another and one concession after another resulted in a March 14 meltdown.

What remained of March 14, however, was its leaders’ fascination with world affairs. Americans are opening up to Syria, some argued – wrongly as it turned out. Others decided never to go the extra mile without Saudi approval, while a volte face by France was also blamed on the dip in March 14’s fortunes.

In reality, March 14’s leaders never considered it was their failure to act when action was needed, whether through deposing former President Lahoud, appointing Shia ministers after Hezbollah and Amal walked out of the cabinet, electing a president with simple majority or behaving like winners after the June elections. For some reason, the March 14 leaders went from heroes to spectators obsessed with regional politics. Accordingly, Lebanon’s independence, sovereignty and freedom were compromised.

Since then, Lebanon has become a country in March 14’s image: A failure.

It elected Michel Sleiman, an unknown politician, to the presidency. Keen to live up to his description as a consensus leader, Sleiman has proven ineffective in his first 18 months and before that stood by as Hezbollah burned down Future TV and Al-Mustaqbal newspaper.

What is worse, the Sleiman lethargy syndrome has spread through various state institutions. The first to contract the virus were pro-March 14 diplomats, who cannot match their March 8 counterparts when it comes to spreading the political gospel.

In Washington, where Syrian, Libyan and Qatari diplomats and lobbyists show formidable effectiveness, the Lebanese Ambassador, Antoine Chedid, can be found at social functions, but never addressing think tanks or lobbying this senator or that congressperson.

Now, in the name of Lebanese consensus, Sleiman and Chedid are endorsing Hezbollah and Syrian talking points, such as the “right of resistance,” whether or not it achieves any Lebanese consensus, the “benefits of the US opening up to Syria” and more arms for the Lebanese Armed Forces, “though not to implement 1559 or 1701 or any other relevant Security Council resolution,” to name a few.

Lebanese consensus politicians, and now some March 14 leaders, are asking, “What can America do for Lebanon?” The same question is sure to be posed by Sleiman to US President Barak Obama when the two meet in the White House on Monday. Surely Obama should ask Sleiman, “What can you or the once pro-independence leaders do for Lebanon?”

America, like on March 14, 2005, will certainly follow.

The Article in NOW Lebanon

The maverick thinker: Talking to Sadiq Al-Azm

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, December 2, 2009

Special to NOW Lebanon

At 75, maverick Syrian thinker Sadiq Jalal Al-Azm is still as sharp as ever. And while he is no neo-con, he certainly supports democracy in Arab countries and believes resistance movements have no future.

Azm began his illustrious academic career with a BA from the American University of Beirut in 1957. He then went on to receive a PhD from Yale in 1961. He has taught at AUB, the University of Damascus and a number of prestigious American universities, including Princeton.

Azm is famous for his books “Self Criticism after the Defeat” (1968) and “Critique of Religious Thought “(1969). He is also known for criticizing Edward Said’s theory on Orientalism, arguing that such a hypothesis “essentializes” – or stereotypes – the West, in the same manner that Said criticizes imperial powers and their scholars for stereotyping the East.

NOW sat down with Azm during the Middle East Studies Association’s annual conference in Boston last week.

You were among the first Arab intellectuals to write that Islamist movements would fill the vacuum after 1967 and the Arab defeat to Israel. This seems to be happening today. What are your thoughts?

Azm: Today, we see that armed resistance against Israel is an illusion, but at the time in 1967, we wanted to hang on to anything, and we thought resistance would play the role of an alternative and save the pan-Arab national project. But Palestinian resistance was a branch of the Arab liberation project, and when the project fell down, so did its branch.

So where does the Arab world go from here?

Azm: In my opinion, after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, the left, or the progressive camp, was divided. The bigger part of leftists retreated to the second line of defense, which consists of defending human rights, freedom and parts of democracy. Most importantly, leftists in various Arab countries worked to end emergency laws and courts. The smaller part of leftists, however, committed itself to fighting imperialism. This fight is led today by the Islamists like Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda and [those in] Somalia.

I don’t see any future for these Islamist movements.

Their style and tactics totally ignore all the lessons that could be concluded from successful national liberation movements, such as in Algeria. There is a basic rule in liberation wars: You ought not to attack your own people. But current Islamist movements don’t care. We see them attacking their own people often on the basis that this is an infidel and that is a collaborator and so on.

Let’s apply these rules to Lebanon, for example. Notwithstanding all the faults with March 14’s performance, this alliance is the one fighting for human rights, freedom and democracy, and accordingly it enjoys the support of some leftists, whereas other leftists support the idea of liberating the land first, and maybe beating those Lebanese who oppose liberation as a priority on their way.

Azm: My perspective is that March 14 has the intention to implement the democratic principle that the majority rules and the minority opposes, while at the same time preserving freedom of expression and political activity for the minority. I think there is the intention to silence democracy in Lebanon, and I think the Islamic opposition in Lebanon, whether Shia or Sunni, if it ever gets to rule Lebanon, has nothing to say about minority rights. Democracy to them is tyranny of the majority.

If we apply this to the Islamic opposition in Syria, we see them calling for democracy because the Sunnis form 65% of the Syrian population. But if we hold elections and they win, there are no guarantees that minority rights will be preserved or that the minority in parliament would be given the chance to reorganize and try to come back to power as a majority after a new round of elections.

But the Islamic opposition in Lebanon says the issue of resisting Israel is a priority over other issues such as democracy and the implementation of international resolutions.

Azm: I think this is an excuse that the Islamic minority in Lebanon hides behind. Under the pretext of confronting Israel and resistance, we should suspend everything; we should suspend democracy, and we should suspend women’s [rights], and we should suspend social justice. Everything is suspended until we liberate Palestine first. This is an excuse, like the excuse that Arab countries used not to develop science because they thought it might contradict Islamic teachings. I think such excuses have been exhausted.

No matter how much Hamas and Hezbollah carry arms and enjoy the noise of arms, without a democratic project – and here I am referring to some kind of democracy – these movements have no future. In any country, Lebanon or Syria, if democracy was improved by 20 or 30 percent, that would be a big step.

What are your thoughts on Syria?

Azm: The best thing that could happen to Syria is to suspend the martial law imposed under the pretext of war with Israel. If 40% of these laws were suspended, that would be a huge leap forward.

Among the various Arab countries, which do you think has had the best democratic experience so far?

Azm: If you want me to give you a personal answer, I would say Lebanon. Most of my books are censored in the Arab world, and the only place where they are sold is Lebanon. The only place where serious debate takes place is Lebanon. This is a personal and not an objective response, since I am the son of both Damascus and Beirut. Beirut has always been the window through which we could say something, or present something, despite the war. Until today, Beirut remains the best city for an intellectual who likes to read like me. And it also has good libraries and bookstores.

My books are not censored in Lebanon only, thanks to court verdicts. In 1970, they went to court to censor my book “Critique of Religious Thought”, and they put me in jail. But during that time, the secular front was strong; parties, physicians and lawyers came to defend me. They did not necessarily endorse my book, but they defended the principle of free speech. The court dismissed the case.

If this same book was published today, do you think you would stand a chance of winning the battle for freedom?

Azm: Not a single chance. The battle of freedom cannot be repeated today… Today things are going backward in Lebanon and the Arab world. At the time [1970], a very wide debate took place across the Arab world about the book. As you know, the book was 250-300 pages, and there were 1,500 pages written in rebuttal. All the rebuttals were also published in Lebanon.

Today, those who are opposed to a book or an article you write might simply shoot you.

Are you saying that freedom in Lebanon is now facing restrictions?

Azm: Exactly.

The Interview in NOW Lebanon