Even if a common goal exists between the Islamists of both, they will never act in common. Faced by a common threat, the two will not fuse, not fight as one but constantly fritter away strengths in internecine strife.
Until recently there has been little evident reason to question the conventional wisdom. There has been no visible evidence to suggest any potential of change in the long extant dynamic.
The first real hint of rapprochement has emerged from a seemingly unlikely source, the Muslim Brotherhood. Yousef Nada posted a lengthy and well considered article on the Muslim Brotherhood's official website.
Nada contends that there is no religious justification for Sunnis to view Shi'as as apostates. Rather Twlever Shi'a should be understood as a Fifth School of Islam, an equal with the Four Schools of Sunni. He argues that the split between Sunni and Shi'a is purely political and does not represent any binding understanding of the sacred writings of Islam.
This position was criticised almost immediately by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide's staff, Mahmoud Ghazian. The response held that Nada's views were strictly personal and ran counter to the tenets of Sunni doctrine as well as the stance of the Muslim Brotherhood today as well as at its beginning.
Then came the surprise. The Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Mahdi 'Akef, disagreed with Ghazian. The Supreme Guide concluded that Nada's position was essentially correct. That the division between Sunni and Shi'a was far more political than religious in nature.
What politics and political realities seemed to dictate ages ago, 'Akef seemed to be saying, now could be reversed in acknowledgement of shifts in the political landscape. 'Akef paid a large measure to the changes in political realities in recent decades as he assessed the impact of the Iranian Revolution on the fortunes not only of Iranian Muslims but on the Islamic community globally.
His assessment is highly favorable. Indeed, it would be quite hard for the most dedicated Iranian nationalist to find a single syllable in 'Akef's presentation which was less than laudatory for the Revolution or its leader.
Clearly there is a strong tendentious flavor to the entire three section exchange. One cannot help but suspect the entire point-counterpoint-concluding point trialogue was a set up, a pre-planned pseudo-debate with the end goal of laying the groundwork for a working relationship between the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and the Shi'a mullahs of Iran and their clients Hezbollah and Hamas.
Perhaps the Geek should be forgiven for thinking that this Muslim Brotherhood gambit is redolent with the fragrance of the Popular Front days of Soviet diplomacy in Western Europe in the days prior to World War II. But, the idea of Iranian Shi'a mullahs climbing into bed with the Sunnis of the Muslim Brotherhood is far less disquieting in many ways than the long ago bedding of Soviet Communists with those most hated of political scum, the Socialists.
"Hold on there, Geek! Those Sunni bombers in Iraq don't seem to be in a hurry to kiss and make up with the Shi'a they are killing."
Right, bucko, so it seems. We are well advised not to play the religious motivation too heavily in the Iraqi context. In Iraq it is not religion-as-politics, but, rather, politics-as-religion. The Sunni powered, al-Qaeda denominated insurgency in Iraq is all about regaining the ascendancy lost in the wake of the American invasion. As you will recall, the long dominant Sunni minority held the Shi'a majority in political subordination and a fair degree of cultural reprobation.
The thwacking great boot of the US invasion kicked the nifty (from the Sunni perspective) status quo into small, bloody fragments. Scared, shaken and deeply angered by the sudden change in fortune, the Sunnis, who had long been more secular than observant, suddenly discovered the power of belief to motivate fighters and suicide bombers alike. Religion is a tool to be invoked, used and exploited, but the goal is rigorously political--the re-acquisition of lost power.
Similarly the Iranians have been invoking, using and exploiting the mystical faith of Shi'a and its history as a political tool. To the mullahs of Tehran it is neither a matter of politics-as-religion or religion-as-politics but rather, religion-is-politics. The very able and resolute men at the top of the Iranian religious and political structure are pursuing the goal of regional hegemony--at the very least.
The opponents of Iranian hegemony are by and large Sunni in their affiliation. The most wealthy and potentially influential of these opponents, Saudi Arabia, is not simply Sunni but of the austere, demanding Wahhibist interpretation of Sunni doctrine. The Saudi Wahhibists, not unlike the Sunni insurgents of Iraq, are playing the politics-as-religion gambit seeking to spread Saudi authority through the Mideast (and far beyond their main region of interest) by exporting Wahhibism with its intense rejection of Shi'a as apostasy.
The Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to outflank the Saudi ploy by employing a "Popular Front" strategy of seeking an apparent melding or at least an alliance between Sunni and Shi'a. The Brotherhood has a portfolio of goals starting with the re-establishment of Islam as the solid foundation of Mideast politics but extending far beyond that initial end.
The potential of even a relatively short-lived tactical alliance between Iran and the Brotherhood is (or should be) of major concern to the secularist regimes such as that of Egypt. For decades now the secular leaning rulers of Egypt, Syria, Iraq as well as the purportedly Islamic "conservative" sheikdoms of the Gulf have depended on a continuation of antipathy between Sunnis and Shi'as to continue their regimes. The Brotherhood's new gambit threatens the continuation of the so far successful approach of "divide and rule."
The imponderable in play, the perhaps "knowable unknown" is the degree to which the assorted highly inflated egos of the leadership of the Brotherhood, its "national" subordinates and the mullahs of Iran and Iraq can accommodate themselves to the requirements of a political relationship of mutual goals and shared perceptions of threat. In any uneasy alliance, the question of just who will be "first among equals" surpasses all others. Absent the sort of iron discipline that could be imposed by Joe Stalin seventy years ago, the clash of egos and parochial interests can destroy the possibilities raised by unity.
The Popular Front could and did survive the pre-war stresses of national politics and personal ego only to be shattered by the Nazi-Soviet pact in August 1939. After that fatal wound, it could never be effectively resurrected in the post-war years despite repeated Soviet efforts in that direction. The Popular Front was a weapon which could be used only once.
Whether the Muslim Brotherhood effort will prove successful to even the slightest extent is yet to be demonstrated. It is too early to predict success or failure. It is not too early to see the exchange on the Brotherhood's website as other than what it is--a wakeup call to policy makers in the West. It is a clear warning that the reign of conventional wisdom is over.
No comments:
Post a Comment