The Revolutions after One Year

Egyptians Celebrate Anniversary -

The anniversary extended over a week, as demonstrators are searched by Brothers (Ikhwan al Muslimiyya, the Muslim Brotherhood , before entering Tahrir Square. The army has commissioned the Brothers to run security, arguing that since the Islamists took some 75% of the vote in the recent parliamentary elections, they are entitled to run security.

Of course the weird relations between the army and the Brothers have been on-and-off-and-on again, a cycle going back to the late 1930s. The Salafis were able to grab some 25% (or more) of the vote because the army put them on a legal platform and allowed Wahhabi clerics from the Gulf Arab states (except Oman, Iraq and Bahrein) to fund these Muslim organs.

The much more tolerant sufi groups have long been targets by takhfiris in this ten-year-old Muslim Inquisition. Most Egyptian Muslims have no choice as their culture becomes mere white bread spiced with coercion. Following the Wahhabis, other Muslims can be targeted (to be slandered, wounded and killed) simply because they dress in western clothes or read books.

The Egyptian Block has done a decent job in getting over superficial ideological differences. Socialists mix with businessmen, the educated with the labor unions, the young with the old, and the men with the women.. Unfortunately, most professional associations have fallen under MB control or influence..

Now the focus shifts to writing a constitution and holding presidential elections this summer. The street, however, wants SCAF to give up its power. So the revolution rolls on.

Morocco: Is This Revolution or What?

The group-immolation of five students opens once again factors of raw dissent. The February 20^th Movement is composed of the loyal, established opposition, thereby excluding many youth. Back in March 2011, the King, Muhammad the 6^th, reorganized the entire political arena. The Berber language, Tamazight, was legalized, the judiciary was made independent, and the king opted to have parliament choose the PM. The large Committee for Justice and Benevolence signed on, even though the king kept for himself, the religious ministries, the armed forces and foreign relations.

The November 25 elections were deemed free and fair. Some 45% of voters turned out, up from 37% in the elections of 2007. The large PJD (Party of Jutsice and Developmet) took 107 out of 395 seats, while the Istiqlal (Independence) Party took 60 out of 395 seats. The promising Party of Authenticity and Modernity, led by Fuad Ali Al Himan, did not fare well in the elections.

Yemen - Ali Abdullah Saleh departs for America

The moment most have been waiting for – the resignation and disappearance of President Saleh – occurred last week when he flew, via Oman, to the USA. He'll undergo a surgery aimed at helping his nervous system.

Yemen has slowly been changing. Life in Sana'a and other cities is returning to normal. The economy is so shattered that even a little clean water, NG, food, gasoline – goes a long way to restoring chances for long-term survival.

But in the cities of Ta'is and Aden refugees are swamping the flimsy facilities and testing the tempers of everyone involved. A group called the Ansar Ash Shari'a (Helpers of the Legal Way), no doubt connected with al Qaidah, is conducting terror operations.

Some 70,000 refugees from the east have flooded into Aden. They are being housed 70-a-room in local schools. UN offices are filling and placing sandbags all around its compound. The UN is a prime target, as the terrorists prefer to render the country completely destitute, as a way to power.

High tension remains between the opposition (complex) and the government; and within the army (many dissident soldiers) and with the opposition (the street challenges the traditional dissidents).

Readers of this blog have known of the humanitarian needs of the Yemenis since February 2011.

Though US operations last autumn killed Anwar Aulaki and other leaders of AQAP (Al Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula, this is no way ended the group. Furthermore, other Al Qaida-type terrorists may be crossing from Somalia to the Yemen. Will Yemen become another Somalia? Indeed, the clash of interests and identities may well draw in terrorist elements.

Yemen is not like Somalia, being much more complex. Yemenis are master farmers, while Somalis are expert camel breeders. Maybe all the diverging elements can check each other in ways that bring them together in a new government.

Central Government Failing in Libya -

The Benghazi offices of the National Transitional Council were overrun by street-generated armed former soldiers and Islamist ideologues. The government cannot persuade dissident rebel groups from handing in their weapons. The towns and cities remain under municipal control, and some rebel groups, tribally based, like the Mishurata, the Zawiya and Tripoli groups, have set up prisons to hold some 50,000 prisoners – those accused of working for the Qaddhafi entity. There is a civil rights catastrophe occurring and the government is not in control.

Syria Prepares for Another Month of Arab League Monitoring -

Both the regime and the protesters are preparing for another month of Arab League monitoring. This time we believe casualties will go down, not up. Too many killed in Syria – at least 6,000. Fighting may break out with Turkey – iof the regime goes after dissidents across the border.

Conditions are extreme in Homs and Hama, in Dar'a and Idlib, and the AL monitoring should lead, if not to peace, then to the transport of food (and water) into these cities. Just as important are seeds and plastic sheeting to make hot houses.

The regime does not care about western sanctions, as its survival is at stake and also because, the Russians will support it. While the situation is not black and white, it is true that the regime has discredited itself through the wanton killing of citizens simply demonstrating.

The author, JPM, is the monitor/instructor for the on line discussion group on Islamic civilization hosted by the graduate alumni office, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Your comments are more useful than you might assume.

Genocidal Projects Underway

ARAB LEAGUE meets in Cairo: Will Monitoring Continue?

The question is whether the League monitors will be renewed, and if renewed, how it will change in Syria. Monitoring is something the League is attempting to do in Yemen, Somalia and the Sudan. Nigeria too is being closely studied, as war ignites in the north.

The Arab League has undergone a striking change: the establishment sided with the people on the streets. Actually, it is not nearly so simple. Paranoid conservative actors like Omar Bashar in Syria and Bashar Al Asad in Syria and Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, keep the League out of peacemaking in any of these places.

Genocidal Projects Underway

It must have been the invasion and occupation of Iraq that set the Mid East table spinning. In any case, the clerics have given us a set of genocidal projects: Iran is making a nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles. In Palestine and Lebanon radical clerical elites teach genocide to their congregations, against Jews. In Saudi Arabia, militant Wahhabi clerics teach intolerance, ever takfir, licensing the slaying of elected officials and their staffs. In Israel, hard-line rabbis direct investors and settlers to roll up Arab Palestine – a slow motion genocide. Meanwhile, in the USA, Republican candidates for president call for a Crusade against the Persians immediately.

Behind all these countries, including Israel, clerics lurk, book in hand. They want a return to the early Medieval period, when religions clashed. Of course they are a minority, a usurping unelected group, deluded and aggressive, murderous. But they go for power and enforce bad laws.

Elections in Egypt - An Islamist sweep

With the final third voting, the Egyptian people has given 70% o0f parliamentary seats to Islamists. In today's elections, the Muslim Botherhood took 47%, while the hard-line Salafis took some 25%. The remainer went mostly to the Egyptian bloc, which is an umbrella for the liberal parties, business and minorities. For example, Naguib Sawiris, a Copt, directs a business-friendly group which won support across Egypt. 


Libyan rebels seize offices in Benghazi -

The National Transitional Council now has to be mobile after hundreds of demonstrators seized NTC offices in the eastern city of Benghazi. Even in Benghazi, people are not giving up their weapons. The problems today stem from tribal rivalries, and from the lack of any democratic history.


Saudi Arabia -  The Kingdom pulls out of the Arab League

The Saudis are very angry with Hafiz al Asad and his regime.On the 21st, they pulled out of the Arab League. The Saudis are now aligned with Qatar, and the UAE. Also on Jan.21, Saudi Foreign Minister gives a speach where he demands that Russia and China stop vetoing the vetoes.


Syria -  The mystery of Douma

FSA takes over Douma, a suburb of Damascus. Syrian army stays on the ring road, as the FSA troops pull back. Strange. Now the government forces cannot patrol in most regions of Damascus. All the forces connected with the regime have fallen back.


Yemen - Ali Saleh leaves Yemen for the USA

Giving an empassionate speach to a picked crowd, Ali Abdullah Saleh flies to the USA for medical treatment. Sana'a erupts in spontaneous expressions of joyful anxiety.

The Need for Islamic Legal Reform -

My own graduate work was in fiqh and shari'a so it is easy to see how the bad laws got into the shari'a texts. Stoning, for example, was a old Jewish law, attested in both Old and New Testaments. The cutting off of hands and gouging out of eyes was a Byzantine law taken from the Gospels “If your hand offend thee, cut it off. If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out...” Terror is condemned in the Qur'an, at each step, from its conception as a plot, to its execution to the consequences. As for Jihad, there is no theory of war in the Qur'an: a warning against 'mischief on the earth and corruption in it' offering rights and rites for its victims.

What the Radical Clerics Want -

Only the radical clerics want war. But they have used their assumed status, to influence other simple-minded bigots. They play on fears, and don't care much about the other. For example, in a recent prisoner-exchange, Bibi Nitanyahu traded some 1,300 HAMAS prisoners, for one Israeli. A good bargain, in their view, as (to them) the life of a Jew is worth more than any number of Arab dead.

These shared genocidal projects are beyond being shameless, or noxious. The costs of their crimes and damages can never be calculated. The Mid East is going nuclear. By the year 2016, Iran may have ready its bombs and missiles.

Sometimes the ball is in the Russians court. They support Syria. Russia's only base in the Med is at Tartus, Syria. It is a client state. Relation between Tehran and the Kremlin are more complex. The only peaceful scenario I can foresee features Russia putting the squeeze on Iran.

Regional Changes -

As we noted last week, there are regional changes underway. Turkey has been deeply embarrassed by its naïve 'reunion' with Iran and Syria – disabused. In some place, like Yemen and Egypt, life is turning back to normal: some much-needed supplies are flowing in, though not nearly enough.

Egyptian politics are much more volatile than the press has it. Everyday there are incidents. It's a big country, concentrated along the Nile and in the Delta. The Copts are taking a beating, and curiously, many Muslims have vowed to protect their Christian minority..

Tunisia has the best chance, it seems, of returning to pre-revolution 'prosperity.'

('We've been down so long it looks like up to us.')

Algeria deserves constant study, for several reasons. Mass demonstrations still occur, but the government has done some amazing things, like increasing fresh water by a third, using desalination.

In Sudan, in Jongle state in the South of North Sudan, the Lau Nuer and the Merlei tribe are battling it out, while Sudan prosecutes another genocidal campaign against former SLA people in Kordofan.

People are placing bets on whether Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Nigeria will erupt in a civil wars – led by clerics. The odds are, respectively, one in 4; one in 3, one in 2. and one in 3.

Curiously, sectarianism is a subliminal, if not direct, element, in all these genocidal projects. In the United States, amongst the Southern Republicans, the debates were led by Mike Huccabee, a fundamentalist preacher.

Anti-intellectualism is rife, not just in the southern USA, but virtually all countries we looked. Ignoring history and science will get us nowhere.

Meanwhile, the table is turning now, the clock ticking.

-John Paul Maynard, Harvard University

Geopolitical Changes in the Middle East

Egypt - The first Anniversary of the Revolution of January 25

One year after Egypt's revolution, Egyptians are still trying to sort things out. Just a month ago we saw more demonstrations in Tahrir Square against the military's assumption of power. In November and December 2011 there occurred other demonstrations: by the minority Coptic community, and by women.

Both fear the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood (and Salafis). Outside observers are right to be concerned, as well. The MB and the Salafis see everything western, every idea, every tool, every medicine, as evil. All non-Muslims were kafirs – infidels who can be killed with God's sanction.

Though relatively small in number, the Islamists intend to force all others to believe and think as they do. They err in saying, as they once did, that democracy and Islam are incompatible. Our readers are familiar why Islam and democracy can get along just fine.

The Egyptian armed forces and intelligence services present a huge obstacle to prospective democrats in Egypt. Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi 'the Sphinx' says very little. During the summer of 2011, we received reports that the army and the Muslim Brotherhood have reached a power-sharing agreement. In December, we heard that this alliance has soured.

On the 14^th of January, Muhammad El Baradei ends his campaign for president. He did not feel the coming elections will be free and fair. Originally, El Baradei had brokered an agreement, an alliance, between his party and the Muslim Brotherhood.

But that soured in November, for reasons not known.

Yemen – Parliament Confused

Ali Abdullah Saleh is seeking immunity from prosecution for himself, his close associates, and his family. Such an immunity has to be voted into law by the Yemeni parliament. But on January 16, the parliament postponed the vote.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has long advised immunity and elections. But in their peace agreement(s) they did not specify which comes first: elections? Or immunity?

At present there is a stand-off between Saleh and his Revolutionary Guards, and dissident soldiers controlled by the Hashid tribe, led by dissident Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen. Back in June, Hashid warriors attacked the presidential palace, wounding Ali Abdullah Saleh.

With the revolution losing its force, thanks to incompatible differences inside the opposition, gangs of armed thugs are raising hell in Taiz and elsewhere. Aden, too, has recently seen kidnapping and robbery. Often the soldiers and police observe the shake-downs, but do nothing. The Southern Movement cannot control its clandestine terror cells. On Jan. 15, there was a protest demonstration of police and soldiers – demanding plots of land on which they might construct their houses.

Al Qaeda has been scene walking freely in Aden and in some eastern cities. They drive Toyota Hi-Lux trucks. One leader is Tariq Al Dhahab, who commands some 400-500 warriors.

Syria - Arab League ponders intervention

The peaceful protests in Syria degenerated into a civil war as the regime used brutal force indiscriminately. After some 10 months, some 6,000 have been killed. There is another 30,000 wounded and some 12,000 protesters still in prison. Many of those will not survive.

Many believe the conflict has turned into a religious war, between the dispossessed Sunni majority, and the ruling Shi'i Allewite regime of Bashar Al Asad. The widening of the Sunni/Shi'a rift has prompted changes in the constellation of regional power.

Turkey and Iran are watching themselves become enemies. The Iranians want to send the Syrian regimes arms and ammo, but its trucks are intercepted transiting Turkey. The Saudis and other Gulf states all favor the protesters – because they are Sunnis.

The Arab League did not finesse its visit to Syria. But in the coming year, we see the League sorting out its various potential roles – as brokers of the peace.

The problem is that over 6,000 have been killed, prompting revenge operations. The Syrian opposition will not cease its demonstrating.

The Role(s) of the Armed Forces in Egypt, Yemen and Syria.

Nasser's Legacy Hard to Reverse

Back in 1952, the Free Officers were just a small slice of political life in Egypt. They were surrounded by leftists, Islamists, Wafd party activists, businessmen big and small, and a monarchy backed by its creditors, Britain and France, with its armed forces and intelligence apparats. Nasser, Sadat, Amr, et al, should not have survived. Only because the Free Officers cultivated ties with officers in the army was Nasser able to do what he did.

Most analysts looking at Egypt see a terrible legacy: the Free Officers chased out a thriving international community in Cairo and Alexandria, making life as dull as it was unjust. Socialism took hold even as the Communists were liquidated, which meant high taxes. But most crucially, the armed forces were continually favored. The army came to run things. So today Egypt is back where it was in the early 1960s, where power has devolved upon the army, specifically the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) led by Hussein Tantawi, the 'Sphinx.'

Over recent weeks there has been a number of demonstrations against army rule, to which the army responded with violence. These recent demonstrations have opened wounds. Behind each demonstrator are other activists, some of whom are applying pressure on the security services.

Nasser's legacy spread from Egypt to Yemen, Syria, Libya, the Sudan, and Algeria. In each case, the security state still holds power and is not giving any up.

Military forces are generally wasting, unproductive assets. But Nasser built on earlier traditions, going back to Muhammad Ali, even to the Mameluke period, by which the armed forces during peacetime, develop industries, courts, and schools.

Transfer of power to a civilian, democratic government may be in the cards, but only through a step-by-step process. A new constitution has to be drawn up and promulgated. A president has to be elected. In the next weeks, parliamentary elections (for the lower house) will be concluded.

In Yemen, all sides are dead-locked, waiting for Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave the country. He said he would do so two weeks back, but once again he has reneged on an agreement. Saleh wants all his people to have some protection short of emigration. The opposition wants all the regime's privileged charged with crimes. They want to take control of the armed forces and the security forces. This wish-list is too much, too fast. A step-by-step process will soon commence, we hope.

In Syria, the officers are also on top. The Syrian regime consists of more than a million people, most security officers. Mahir Al Asad, Bashar's brother, is just one of some one hundred and fifty officers in the various services who are related to Bashar, or share his religion, and who do his bidding.

The Arab League has just finished two weeks of on-the-ground investigations. Led by Lt. Gen. Al Dabi from the Sudan, the League appeared to be co-opted by fascist killers. “We are not here to broker peace but to find out what is happening.”

In the Gulf, tensions are high as Iran warns the US not to deploy its carrier battle group into the Gulf. Meanwhile, the group; rescues 7 Iranian fishermen who had been held captive for two months by 15 Somali pirates.

Iraq experiences a surge in terror, with bombs killing some 80 people, mostly Shi'a. Now al Qaida is leading the Sunnis in a violent response. How else can they deal with the Shi'a government of Nur Al Maleki? He thought it was just fine to join with the dim mullah Sadr, excluding Sunnis (and Christians) from effective power. The government cannot even generate big money from its big oil deposits.

The author is the moderator/instructor for the online discussion group; 'Islamic Civilization,' hosted by the graduate alumni association, Harvard University.