The Hardest Thing To Do--Nothing

The signs of ascendant, austere, political Islam are unmistakable in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.  The sharply Islamist party, the Renaissance Party, is expected to hold a plurality if not an outright majority in the new constituent assembly in Tunisia.  In Libya, the outgoing head of the National Transitional Council (NTC) announced changes in banking and family law to make Libya more Shariah compliant.  In Egypt, the Salifists who are the granddaddy of all the austere, politically oriented Muslim groups, are battling with the Muslim Brotherhood for the number one spot in the forthcoming government, with the inevitable result being the triumph of austere political Islam as the two entities share far more than not.

Throughout both Egypt and Libya, both Christian and Muslim communities are under direct, physical attack.  The Sufi shrines, venerated graves, and mosques in both countries have been vandalized, even destroyed by armed men bearing the symbols of Salifist affiliation.  As the world well knows, the Coptic Christians of Egypt have been brutalized, killed even, not only by mobs of the austere and violent but by security force personnel as well.  In Egypt as in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, Christians have become a highly endangered species, occupying the same slot in the local social and political ecology formerly possessed by Jews.

There can be no doubt but the austere groups--the Salifists, the Wahhibists, the Deobandis--are well on their way to establishing operational dominance in the countries of the "Arab Spring" as they are in Pakistan and the Arab Peninsula.  The Shia equivalents have done the same in Iraq.  The outcome in the next few months will not meet the expectations of the Western leaders and governments which embraced the purportedly democratic fervor of the "Arab Spring."

In the context of looming disappointment, the opinion molders of the West would be well advised to consider a chain of events which hit the tipping point twenty years ago in Algeria.  Back in 1991, Algeria was experiencing the same basic problems as ignited the "Arab Spring."  There was very high unemployment, particularly among the educated youth.  The economy was stagnant despite oil riches.  Internal divisions of tribal and class origin split the nation.  The long running autocratic government was out of ideas, and, more importantly, out of perceived legitimacy.

The government decided to call for elections.  The campaign was loud, enthusiastic, energetic.  Algerians went to the polls with joy, believing a real future beckoned.  When the votes were counted, the government, its supporting elite, and the armed forces were shocked.  The parties of the austere, political Islamists had won.

The army nullified the elections.  Next it took power directly.  Then, quite predictably, violent unrest started.  By the time the shooting stopped, more than 150,000 Algerians were dead.  Scores of thousands more had been wounded.  Even more had been jailed.  Many of these had been tortured.

Even today, more than a decade after the internal war ended, the scars remain.  Despite the return of a semblance of democracy, a sort of "guided democracy," the echoes of the police state soldier on.  Voices are quiet and furtive.  After sunset, streets are weirdly quiet, a testament to the curfews of the period of military rule.  The government supported Gaddifi until the bitter and bloody end.  And, jobs are still scarce, the economy still in doldrums, regardless of the special relation with France.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

There is no real probability that rule by austere Muslims will see the end of the myriad economic and social problems which propelled the demonstrations which brought down ben-Ali, forced the military to toss Mubarak to the wolves, and led to the NATO enhanced violence in Libya.  Prayer, beards, and putting women in garbage sacks will not assure jobs--particularly for the over educated, Western oriented youth which served as the shock troops in Tunisia and Egypt or provided many of the trigger pullers of the revolt in Libya.

Islam and the Koran will not, pace the Muslim Brotherhood's two best known slogans, be the answer.  When the faces of disappointed revolutionaries are rubbed in the mud of reality, the most probable result will be another round of violence.  Also, topping the list of outcomes to be expected will be the charges levied by the austere Muslims running affairs.

The folks in charge will accuse a sinister conspiracy on the part of the "Zionists" and the US for any and all failures.  There will be calls for jihad to defend the new, faith based governments against the cabal of Jews and Americans.  The path blazed by Iran (and to a lesser extent, Pakistan) will be traveled by the incoming regimes of Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt.

The countries will either go the way of successfully focusing anger on the mythical enemies in Israel, the US, and Europe or dissolve in a welter of internal war and blood.  In the latter case, it is to be expected that the military will step in to restore order in a manner akin to the process which drew a bright blood red line through Algeria twenty years back.

Absent a miracle of Biblical proportions which will do the impossible--squaring the circle of austere Islam with the real requirements for success in the contemporary world--the picture which will be painted across much of the Mideast and North Africa over the coming months and years will be ugly as hell.  The challenge to opinion molders and senior governmental wallahs will be to watch.  To watch while doing nothing.

Given the past record of Western colonialism, neo-colonialism, or plain vanilla intervention and interference, the West, including the US, has no viable alternative.  Rightly or wrongly, many, perhaps most, citizens of the countries in the regions see the West, its governments, its institutions, its corporations, its policies, its militaries as the props and supporters of dictatorships, the adversaries of indigenous desires, internal perceptions of dignity, as both indirect and direct exploiters, and as "the Crusaders" bent on the destruction of Islam.  The truth or falsity of this belief set is irrelevant.  What is relevant is simply that the beliefs are widely and deeply held.

The only viable option for the West, for the US, is to keep out.  The people in the several countries must travel the very rough road alone.  We must not even seek to use "soft power" methods to shorten the journey or pave over the worst parts of the road.

All we can or should do is make it clear that internal affairs of any and every Muslim majority state is of no concern to us.  Beyond this, we must make it plain that any export of political Islam, most importantly, any export by violent means, will be met by robust, very robust means.  As long as the austere, politically motivated Muslim governments keep it at home, they will be left to their own devices, but should they cross their borders, we will stop them by means of our own choosing.

This posture will be difficult, very difficult for NGOs given to humanitarian goals to accept let alone support.  It is an unfortunate truth that any approach other than patient watching and vigilant guarding of our interests will make life worse both for us and the people who live under the sway of Salifists and others of their ilk.  This is a stinging nettle of the sharpest sort, but we all need to get a grip on it.

Going To Hell In (Allah's) Bucket

Due to cloudy weather, the demands of woodcutting (winter is a-coming on) and the debilities of age, the Geek has been kicking back reading the news from around the world and generally coming to the conclusion that a large segment of the globe and its attendant population is going to hell in a bucket.  And, the hand carrying the bucket is a collective one--the aggregate of the large and rapidly growing advocates of austere, political Islam.  Not to put too fine a point on the knife of reality, the single largest problem resident in the global political order is not the economy, nor is it "global warming," not even American "arrogance" and "unilateralism."

The problem confronting all of us today, whether or not we like the idea, is simply Islam.  Islam is the necessary and sufficient foundation of that most detestable phenomenon, austere political Islam.  In both its violent and non-violent forms, political Islam, particularly the most common sort, the variety growing from the austere roots of Salifism, Wahhibism, and Deobondism, constitutes the single largest threat to international and national stability, order, and peace.

In all the hosannas ringing out during the days of the "Arab Spring," a simple and critical fact was ignored by the political and opinion molding elites in the US and the rest of the West.  That seemingly willfully ignored ground truth was the power of austere political Islam to attract and mobilize adherents during periods of great political, social, and economic turbulence.  Also ignored by all the applause makers of the West was the companion fact: As uncertainty increased due to the many, often violent changes in all aspects of life, the appeal of austere political Islam would necessarily grow.

Humans are genetically programmed to fear uncertainty, to be risk averse, to seek security in the storms of change.  Islam, more than any other religion promises certainty, assures security--if only the rules of the faith are followed absolutely and completely.  Islam also provides a roster of acceptable scapegoats upon whom blame can be foisted and whose persecution onto death is given positive sanction.  The combination of rule based security and approved scapegoats affords a powerful appeal to austere Islam of the Salifist sort or of the Wahhibist variety.

The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt caught it perfectly in its slogan: Islam is the solution.

When fear or apprehension or anxiety or insecurity threaten, the bracing and strict requirements of austere Islam in its political expression do constitute the solution.  The irrefutable fact that life under the rigor of austere Islam is unlivable in practice is no bar to the inherent appeal of the promise given by the faith.  The equally irrefutable fact that Islam is inherently incompatible with modern economics, contemporary technology, or even the oft asserted "universal" rights of all humans is likewise no barrier to its attractiveness to people suddenly confronted with all enveloping upheaval.

We have seen the direct correlation between social and political tumult and the rise of austere political Islam in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, and, over the past nine months, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.

It is worth noting that ten and more years ago, Pakistan was peaceful.  Back then, before George W. Bush presented the "with us or suffer the consequences" ultimatum to the government of Pakistan, sectarian violence was essentially unknown.  Also a stranger to Pakistani life was the horrid specter of "honor killings."  Also absent were suicide bombings.  Even the FATA was relatively quiet.  Karachi was not the political murder capital of Asia (or, to err on the side of accuracy, the world.)

The peace left never apparently to return with the influx of Taliban from Afghanistan.  The ISI undoubtedly believed it could continue to exercise full operational control over Taliban, the Haqqani network, and all the other entities predicated on violent political Islam.  ISI and the rest of the military and government committed an error in this belief.  In justification stands the reality that the destruction of critical elements of traditional society and its polity which occurred in the wake of the Afghan invasion promoted an unexpectedly rapid growth in fear and uncertainty which resulted in an ever widening recruit pool for the advocates of austere violent political Islam.  Events outpaced the capacity of ISI to control its monsters.

In the Big Three of the "Arab Spring," Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the organizations of austere political Islamists were not only the only groups ready to take advantage of the new situation.  That was reasonably widely understood even if belittled here in the US and elsewhere in the West.  What went by unnoticed was the automatic appeal of austere political Islam to the uprooted, the suddenly unmoored, the majority of the people living in all three countries.

Islam is the answer,  the solution for those who crave certainty, security, a firm mooring in the new, white waters of "democratic change."  Only austere political Islam pretends quick, easy, certain remedies for all the myriad ills resident in the gales of social, political, and economic change blowing through the high deserts and crowded cities of each and all of the Big Three.  Not surprisingly, the Salifists, the Wahhibists, have gained the most support in record time.

Equally unsurprising has been the fast boost increase in "honor killings," and overt persecution of Christians, which has been seen with particular drama in Egypt.  While most visible in the Land of the Pharaohs, these uniquely Islamic crimes have been occurring in Tunisia and Libya.  (It is worth noting that fear of the same happening in Syria has motivated Christians and other sectarian minorities to side with the Baathist regime regardless of other considerations.)

In Libya, the values and imperatives of austere political Islam have been demonstrated in the persecution of sub-Saharan Africans.  The rebels have averred repeatedly that the victims (if, indeed, there were any) had been Gaddafi "mercenaries."  This excuse is fantasy.  The vast majority of black Africans singled out for persecution were not fighters but simply guest workers, most of whom happened to be non-Muslim.  This second consideration is non-trivial when assessing the basis of rebel behavior.

The groups advocating austere political Islam will be the new ruling class in each and every of the Big Three.  The inevitable failure of the new regimes to address effectively the economic concerns of the citizenry will be met by charges of "infidel" or "Zionist" or "apostate" directed counter-revolutionary conspiracies.  Blood will flow in attempts to quash dissent or divert attention.  The afflicted countries will, like Pakistan, become less rather than more stable, less rather than more peaceful, less rather than more prosperous.  Dissent and repression will lock in a mutual and deadly embrace.

As the societies grow less stable and life less secure, there will be an accelerating move to more austere, more inclusive forms of political Islam.  Nothing else can be expected given that tumult and fear demand the anodyne of certainty--the only anodyne promised by Salfiism and the rest of the austere ilk.  The predictable failure of Salifism and the rest to provide an effective cure will (as in Iran) result in more and more repression.

The search for outside sponsors of failure along with the religiously sanctioned need for scapegoats will have a high probability of resulting in war.  War with Israel is highest on the list, but there can be other candidates as well--including Turkey which can be cast in the role of the model which failed or branded with interference in internal affairs given Ankara's search for Ottoman Empire 2.0.  The mere fact that the combined armed forces of the Big Three even if augmented by other Arab or Muslim states will be defeated will be of no moment should the austere Islamists running the show see war as the only way to stay in power.

Looking at the Mideast or North Africa or Northwest Asia or almost anywhere austere political Islam has and is making headway provides no pleasure.  Rather, it provokes a strong desire to engage in projectile vomiting.

Only ten years and a month ago, the world looked like a good place to enjoy life.  Thanks to advocates of austere violent political Islam, that all changed.  Worse, there is no way back to the good years before the Muslims of Osama bin Laden's world view forced the entire globe into Allah's bucket on the road to hell.

Small Straws In A Stiff Wind

There are weeks when the Geek has regretted his lifelong interest in matters of war, diplomacy, and the shadow lands of covert/clandestine affairs.  The past month of so has been one of those periods.  It is not that the world has suddenly been infected by a fulminating virus of peace and love.  Quite the contrary.  Rather the intellectual languor has been promoted by the combination of events having unfolded in a drearily predictable factor and the lack of imagination exhibited by the Deep Thinkers and Bold Actors on all sides of all the many conflicts, armed and otherwise.

A useful example of both predictability and the lack of imagination is presented by the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.  The energetic dismantlement of the New Mexican borne cleric is both welcome and long overdue.  The fact that he was accompanied on his trip to paradise by the one time resident of North Carolina, Samir Khan, rendered the event all the more pleasurable.

Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the UAV campaign in the FATA and the building of a base convenient to Yemen from which Agency operated Predators might make their lethal flights well understood that Awlaki's days were numbered, and that the number was small.  The violent death of the genius of Internet (and personal) radicalization became as certain as sunrise when he was placed on the "kill or capture" list last year.  Despite the inevitable wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth by the ACLU and other advocates of human rights above the dictates of real life, and regardless of the equally certain condemnations of "extrajudicial execution" already resounding around the world, the Obama administration by it's listing of the imam let it be known that the governing considerations were those of war--a war in which Awlaki had voluntarily enlisted and waged with ever growing success.

With the failure a few months ago to capture Awlaki by a force of Yemeni personnel backed by USSOCOM assets, the only option was killing, and the only practical tool was provided by a Predator launched Hellfire.  The only time limits were imposed by the requirements for constructing an operational base and gaining from both Yemeni and national technical means sufficient actionable intelligence.  When fractured open source reports out of Yemen a couple of weeks ago indicated a diminishing of drone traffic over the area of Yemen in which Awlaki's tribe holds sway with a ramping up over territory to the country's north, it became evident that the endgame for the preacher was underway.

The removal of Awlaki and Khan from the board is good.  But, it is drearily predictable that it is not much more than that.  The strike in no way lessens the nature or effectiveness of the threat posed by al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP).  Had the reported inclusion of AQAP's chief bombmaker in the body count not been later retracted, the Hellfire would have well and truly hurt the group.  As it is, the most that can be said is the killing has had a marginal beneficial impact by reducing AQAP's capacity to use Internet radicalization with the same effect in the future that it has in the past.

Neither the killings nor the knee trembling on the part of human and civil rights lawyers and groups will change the nature of the ongoing war between advocates of violent political Islam and the civilized states and people of the world.  The bad guys will keep on being bad actors.  The administration and any future one as well will use whatever means are necessary within the broad limits of proportionality to defend the country and its allies against attacks of whatsoever nature.

If there is any alteration in the future, it will be in the direction of placing increased reliance upon UAVs and other means of long range, low signature, low cost of commitment war fighting.  The use of special forces teams and UAVs has been both tested and proven in the harsh laboratory of the FATA as well as the one next door in Pakistan.  Both capabilities can be of great assistance in countering the potential threats resident in AQAP, al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM.)  Both may be required urgently against the latter threat if AQIM demonstrates greater capability as the result of having tapped into the arms stream flowing from the looted arsenals of Libya.

A greater use of UAVs will provoke an enormous consternation on the part of the usual suspects--the NGOs involved with human and legal rights as well as the apologists for countries which wish ill to the US but cannot match the American technological capacities.  There will be more and more political strange bedfellows both domestic and international as the US leans more heavily upon the impersonal, remotely controlled deliverers of death from above.  There will be demands beyond count for new conventions to bar such devices as Predator.  There will be calls for a moratorium on the use of these infernal machines until the law can catch up with the new technologies.

The only reply to those who believe the Predator and its tribe are inhuman and inhumane is,"Phooey!"  It is far better for a single Awlaki to die downrange than to see real war with its effects, unpredictable in detail but certain to include hundreds if not thousands of dead--most of whom will be civilians.

The Predators will continue to fly over Libya even long after NATO's warplanes have packed up and gone home.  They will be overhead to observe not only the intended targets of weapons being smuggled or saboteurs preparing but also the probable agony of protracted internal war as the joy of liberation turns into the pain of political disagreements of a very fundamental nature.

Libya (and its neighbors, Tunisia and Egypt) is also drearily predictable.  Much of the reason for this observation is found in a remark made by a Salifist Tunisian, 23 years old and holder of a degree in engineering who, when interviewed, opined, "We Salifists are the majority.  Democracy is rule of the majority.  Why should we allow the minority (secular oriented Tunisians as well as their non-Salifist fellow countrymen) dictate how we should live?"

By this question as well as similar content expressions by legions of Egyptians, Libyans, Tunisians, and their supporters in the West, the young man demonstrated just why the "Arab Spring" will turn into a Winter, a most harsh and bitter Winter.  The promoters of democracy show they well understand democracy in and of itself but fail to see the necessary corollary: Democracy is the tyranny of the majority.

Unless properly constrained within the firm dikes of a representational republic and held in check by dams formed by both division of powers and an independent judicial system, democracy is tyranny pure and simple in which the rights of the minorities are either non-existent or tenuous at best.  In the rush to embrace democracy without the time necessary to build the essential dikes and dams, no citizen is secure, no rights and liberties are permanent, nothing is safe from the fads and fantasies of public opinion and the winds generated by demagogues.

Libya, unlike Egypt or Tunisia, but quite like Yemen and Afghanistan or other Islamic states, has the additional burden of tribalism.  This is not to say tribalism is bad.  It isn't.  Tribal identity is predominant in several states to the point that they are not real, integrated nation-states but rather collections of tribes sharing a flag.

The attempt to force tribal based societies and polities to pretend they are Western nation-states is doomed to fail.  Don't believe?  Take a look at Somalia.  It is not a failed state because it never was a real state.  Rather it was an artifact created by Western diplomats who used the only model making sense to them--the nation-state.  The same is true of Afghanistan.  Much of the inherent instability there results from ignoring the tribal nature of the human terrain in order to pretend we can make it into a Western style state.

When looking at Libya or Yemen or, to a lesser extent, Syria, the same dynamic is present--tribes forced to act as if their members owed a higher loyalty to the state.  The example of Iraq is instructive here.  As long as we outsiders insist on democracy and the nation-state as the touchstone of legitimacy, we are helping to doom the targets to a long, harsh Winter.

Even if tribalism of the usual sort is absent as it is in Egypt and Tunisia, there is a functional equivalent at work. That is the existence of differing interpretations of Islam and thus the relation of the faith to the state.  The ground truth is Islam carries the seeds of its own failure as a foundation of state.  This actuality has been shown in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  People may think they want to live in a Shariah based system until they are actually in one.  The proponents of austere Islam have and will find that their vision of life is totally unattractive to most people.  Then, they must (as do the austere Islamists of Iran) rely upon naked force to oppress their way to continued power.

Put together, the two forms of tribalism, traditional and religious, along with unchecked democracy point to a long, bitter Winter of pronounced discontents.  This, in turn, implies a high possibility of protracted or episodic internal war in all its manifold and evil forms.  Such is the result of ill-advised exercises in "nation-building" or regime change or support of the "peoples' will.

Coming full circle, the several downsides of either intervention or unthinking support are circumvented completely by using Predators or even special forces units.  These approaches to defending against hostile intents and acts minimize the probability of unintended consequences.  Predators do not engage in "nation-building," neither do they change regimes.  They kill people in serious need of being killed.

To this end, the killing of Awlaki is one important small straw in the very stiff winds of the coming Arab Winter.

Going To Hell In A Bucket

To paraphrase a mantra of the early (1920s) self-help movement, the Mideast and coterminous regions appear "in every way and every day to be growing worse."  For those of us who are fans of collapse and chaos, these are the glory days for the benighted folk living in the vast arc from Pakistan to the Persian Gulf and beyond to the point where sand dunes meet the surf in Morocco.

Pakistan remains what it has been for some years now, a national definition of the old military term SNAFU.  You almost have to feel sorry for the Pakistanis.  In the rush to use Islam of the Wahhibist flavor to unify the nation, the result was not only to undercut whatever potential for unity might have existed but to assure the place would dissolve into a bloody froth of differing views of what sort of Islam held the total truth for the Pakistani national identity.

The crimson foam of theological disputation conceals but does not mitigate the other divisions which constitute the political and social terrain of Pakistan.  Corruption is an ever present "flavor of the day," providing the basic diet of politics and business.  The Baluch defensive insurgency refuses to simply go away despite the fervent desires of Islamabad.  The national judiciary would provide much comic relief were it not for the tragic results of its combination of lethargy and incompetence.  The national fisc is a disaster area such that the country depends upon international aid (aka protection money and bribes) so that the army can continue to prepare for the hoped for next round of war with India.

Arguably, the real world challenges of inefficiency, bankruptcy, insurgency, corruption, broken government, and general poverty would be solvable were it not for the more powerful threats presented by the aforementioned religious disputes.  Stripped to the politically incorrect essentials, Pakistan is rumbling dangerously close to the cliff of failed state status due to the Islamic tendency to stay stuck in a war of religions, or, more properly, a war of competing sects not all that unlike those which left the German states in utter ruin nearly four hundred years ago.

The same dynamic of warfare between conflicting interpretations of theology threaten to turn the "Arab Spring" into an endless winter of very violent discontent in Egypt and, perhaps, Libya, as well as other countries--here Syria comes to mind.  No matter the gloss applied by Western journalists, academics, and politicians, the ugly face of conflict between adherents of austere Islam, Salifists, Wahhibists, and others of similar ilk with adherents of less austere forms as well as "secularists" can be seen easily.

Bad ideas do not die.  It does not matter to the True Believers of austere Islam that the appeals of their form of Islam have been shown in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and elsewhere to have a short life in the real world.  The seeming exception of Iran can be explained easily by reference to the numerous and well equipped internal security forces.  The lesson of life remains the same.  Austere Islam is not acceptable to the vast majority of Muslims and can be imposed and maintained only by robust, eternal repression.

Taliban in Afghanistan had outworn its welcome before the Americans arrived a decade back.  Al-Qaeda in Iraq rapidly expired as a direct result of its dreadful behavior in Anbar province.  Even in Somalia, the "kids" of al-Shabaab have insured their own ultimate defeat by their efforts to forcefully impose an unacceptably harsh interpretation of Islam on a people who previously wore their Islam lightly.

These lessons are lost on the Salifists of Egypt, a group which has not garnered the attention in the West lavished on the better known Egyptian Brotherhood.  It might be noted that a self-proclaimed voice of Salifism in Egypt, a man named Ismaili, has a very good chance of becoming Egypt's first democratically elected president.  The Salifists are dead set against peaceful relations with Israel.  Rather they are fully committed to seeing an end to the Jewish state.  Even more than the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's Salifists are anti-West, anti-American.  They are also of the view that the current regimes in the region are apostate and must be overthrown.

The Salifists of Egypt are four square in favor of Shariah.  They are equally firm in their opposition to making any accommodation to the West (or Western tourists.)  Some would go so far as to treat the monuments of Egypt's long pre-Islam history as "unlawful" suitable to be treated as Taliban did the great statutes of the Buddha.  Others would allow them to exist--hidden behind protective screens.

The Salifists are not so evident in their presence in Libya.  The invisibility doesn't imply absence.  Rather, it is indicative of caution, the same sort of caution which impelled the Renaissance Party in Tunisia to deny its goals and interim agenda for weeks after the collapse of the old regime.  It is a caution bred of the hard experience of Salifists and kindred souls in the deadly war between them and the Algerian army twenty years ago.  While the old regime in Egypt suppressed Salifists as it did the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian armed forces obliterated these advocates of political Islam.

The Salifists, the Brotherhood members, the Wahhibists, all those who espouse austere and politically oriented forms of Islam learned the lesson and keep their heads well down until such time as they can be raised with impunity at the least and an expectation of victory at best.  Splits between "secularist" militias and those representing the advocates of austere, political Islam are already apparent in Libya.  There is not yet fighting between militiamen without beards and those whose faces are bearded (but lack mustaches--a clear sign of Salifist tendencies), but there is no reason that today's lack of inter-group trust will not degenerate into exchanges of fire in the not too distant future.

Egypt, Tunisia, Libya all face very large problems in the wake of their respective adventures in regime change.  Big as the problems might be, seemingly insurmountable as the challenges seem, there is no reason to believe that each state and its people would not be able to overcome them.  That is, there would be no reason were it not for the presence of religious disputes.  The dynamic pitting those of powerful austere beliefs against all others bodes well to assure that each case is more likely than not to fail in achieving the goal of a more or less open, more or less democratic, more or less free market society, polity, and economy.

Once again it may be politically incorrect but it is not inaccurate to observe that each of these states is likely to dissolve in a welter of sectarian violence not unlike that which occurred in Iraq.  This eventuality is not in the interests of regional or global stability--to engage in an exercise of belaboring the obvious.  It is also an eventuality which cannot be halted or mitigated by Western action or inaction.

The takeaway?  To paraphrase the campaign mantra of Clinton in 1992: "It's the religion, stupid!"

Egypt (Or Its Generals) Looks To Ataturk's Turkey

In a set of moves which is in no way surprising, the supreme command of Egypt's armed forces is seeking a continued, large role in the upcoming government.  The reason for the sudden political aspirations of the generals is not hard to unpack.  They are more than a tad scared of the Muslim Brotherhood and other advocates of political Islam.

Both the Washington Post and New York Times have taken note of the development.  That implies the US government will soon do so as well.  One would hope that the Deep Thinkers of the current administration have already taken cogniscence of this development, but you can never be sure given the number of blunders which constitute the Obama and Company's excuse for a Mideast policy.

It is clear both from the US media accounts and those appearing in Egypt that the senior leadership of the Egyptian armed forces sees the military as the guarantor not only of territorial sovereignty but also the integrity of the government.  As the ultimate protector of state, nation, and government, the Turkish model is completely accurate.

Until the recent stare-down between the Islamist predicated AKP and the military, the people of Turkey not only allowed but expected the army to take over whenever the civilian government was unable or unwilling to put a stop to internal violence of whatsoever origin and goal.  Parsing the public remarks of Egyptian generals in recent days, it is evident that they see the army as the only neutral party able to impose and maintain peace between highly motivated contestants willing and able to resort to violence in pursuit of political goals.

The armed forces' moves in the direction of greater authority to be exercised over an indeterminate span of time has perturbed some of those who provided the muscle of the "Lotus Revolution."  Many of these individuals see the armed forces' counsel, the transitional government, as having stolen the fruits of the revolution, of having become a set of Mubarak clones.  This sense of betrayal has motivated the recent sit-in demonstrations in the same Cairo square as those which brought down Mubarak.

Months ago as Mubarak prepared to call it quits, the demonstrators chanted, "The Army and the people are one!"  Now to many, the memory of that chant rings hollow and empty.  Many in the younger demographic segment of the Egyptian population no longer see the armed forces as a protector or the powerful force multiplier which assured Mubarak had no choice but abdication.

The generals who run Egypt behind the screen of carefully chosen civilian political nonentities have made concessions to the outraged "kids" in the square.  Hundreds of senior police officials were forced to take early retirement.  Mubarak, his sons, and close associates have been arrested and face trial on a number of charges even though the armed forces high command had promised initially to spare the aging autocrat this fate.

The concessions have not been enough to satisfy the dissidents.  They could not be.  The very success of the protesters assures that.  In a completely understandable way, the heady aroma of having dumped the dictator has clouded a lot of folk's judgement.  The armed forces commanders have recognized something of which the dissidents are either totally unaware or, at best, have a dim awareness.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to any sort of secular Egypt.  The Brotherhood has employed very slick public relations moves to convince many in the West, in the US particularly, that the MB is not a collection of Muslim crazies with delusions of power.  The leadership, or at least the visible portion, has denied any ambition of taking power--immediately.  They have publicly distanced themselves from any imposition of Shariah upon the state--again immediately.  They have declined to run a candidate for president and will not enter a candidate in many of the upcoming parliamentary elections.  The message is: See, we are not hell-bent on taking over Egypt, of establishing a new Cairo caliphate.

Not unlike the senior echelons of the world's foremost seat of Islamic learning, al-Azhar university, located in Cairo, the commanders of the Egyptian military do not believe the Muslim Brotherhood's protestations of innocence.  Alone or in conjunction with other apostles of political Islam, including those willing to use violence, the Muslim Brotherhood will move as quickly as is politically expedient to establish a Shariah compliant state, a Cairo Caliphate.  This is what the generals hope to preclude.

Kemal Ataturk had the same fear in the wake of World War I and the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire.  He and his fellow officers knew the power of Islam, its raw emotional force acting on a people who had been oppressed and humiliated for years.  The inevitable internal violence which would accompany a religious conflict would destroy Turkey at worst or, at best, prevent its entering the modern world for generations.  The Turkey of Ataturk would be resolutely secular--and the army would guarantee that.

In the days following the Second World War, the Turks discovered that secular political ideologies could be as violent and disruptive of social and political life as any religious conflict.  Thus, the army was expected, empowered really, to step in and take over whenever political passions overflowed the dikes of civil discourse.  Much as the periodic military takeovers bothered the states and people of Western Europe, the Turks saw them not only as unexceptional but quite necessary.

(Her Geekness was a student at METU in the early Seventies when the Left and Right exchanged gunfire on campus.  She found no dissenting voices--save among the ideological combatants--when the army moved onto the streets and lowered the noise level to a saner level.)

The Egyptian generals are not any less perceptive than Ataturk and his supporters.  They know the Egyptians and the Muslim Brotherhood with the fine grained detail that no foreign observer can muster.  They also are aware that the armed forces of Egypt (like those of Turkey in an earlier period) have a level of universal approbation that no other institution possesses.  They fear the passions of a long oppressed people which can be tapped with ease in the full flush of democracy poorly understood as to practice.  They fear with good reason the potential power of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, a power which can unleash the passions with no good result for Egypt.

The move by the senior commanders to keep a firm hand on the levers of power is both prudential and justifiable.  It can be hoped that they use the firm hand with caution and restraint, a caution and restraint which was often lacking under Mubarak and Sadat.  If they fail to use their authority in a controlled and minimal way, their failure will bring more problems, problems which cannot be solved by tanks and troops.  For decades the Turks played the game well, so there is a paradigm for the Egyptian military to follow.

It is questionable whether or not the Obama administration recognizes the motives of the generals in Egypt.  It can be hoped that the Deep Thinkers will understand that stability in Egypt and the region requires not only an exercise in plausible democracy but also mechanisms to assure the passions will not swamp a civil society and a polity sailing in new and troubled waters.

Well, one can hope.  Can't one?

Think Globally, Act Locally

This old bumper sticker phrase much loved by the tree hugging crowd some twenty years ago has become the new, de facto slogan of al-Qaeda under the direction of its new capo d' tutti capi, Ayman al-Zawahiri.  This, in itself, is not surprising as the good doctor has long been known for his possessing a far greater interest in making Egypt a model of shariah in action than in establishing a global caliphate.

What makes the latest expression of the world according to Zawahiri (it has a catchy title: The Message of Good Hope and Tidings For Our People In Egypt.  OK, maybe it loses something in translation.) is the way in which he combines the ideas of making Egypt safe for a Salifist view of Islam with the further disestablishment of the US as a force in the region.  The six parts of "The Message" are themselves a riff on Zawahiri's earlier and vastly important philosophical book best known by its short title Exoneration.  In both he argues that the successful jihad mounted to date by al-Qaeda and its franchises forced the Obama administration to abandon Mubarak and prepare the way for the success of violent political Islam in Egypt.

In both "The Message" and "Exoneration" al-Zawahiri contends that the moment has come to shift the focus of jihad on the internal revolutions in Egypt and other countries such as Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Tunisia and Syria so as to put more pressure not only on the local apostate rulers but on the US.  In essence he is calling for al-Qaeda to act not as a global non-state player but rather as the facilitator and coordinator of local efforts such as those being waged by al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP,) al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM,) and al-Shabaab.  It is clear that he believes that the US will be overstretched by simultaneous challenges mounted by these groups as well as smaller entities and lone wolves preying on soft targets throughout the Mideast and North Africa.

Even in this context it is self-evident that al-Zawahiri's focus in on Egypt.  His view of the Ummah is through the prism of Egyptian nationalism.  He sees the (in his eyes) necessary victory of the most austere form of Islam in Egypt will vault the country to primacy in the emerging caliphate.  As a good Egyptian nationalist, one who rivals the quite secular Nasser as a hyper-nationalist, al-Zawahiri sees Cairo as the fulcrum of the new Islam, the next Caliphate.

To this end "The Message" calls upon Egyptian Muslims to act as one, to act quickly and decisively so as to assert Egypt's pride of place among the Muslim majority states of the world.  This appeal will not fall on deaf ears.  Overlooked in all the hoopla over the yearning for genuine democracy expressed during the overthrow of Mubarak is a very basic and potent ground truth: Egyptians have felt diminished as a people, a nation over the past thirty years.  After the national high point of the Yom Kippur War of 1973 the road has been strictly downhill.

Egyptians have increasingly seen themselves as citizens of a diminished country.  More and more they have come to see themselves as having lost status, position, even dignity.  The thought that Egypt had become nothing more than a dependency of the US rankled--deeply.  As is the case in Russia, the notion of having lost national status not only rankled, it motivated.  Mubarak was deeply hated not simply because he presided over a country neck deep in corruption, nepotism, inequity, but because he had not only acquiesced in but actively fostered the decline of Egypt in the region and in the world.  On Mubarak's watch, many believed and continue to believe, Egypt was no longer a country worthy of respect but rather the object of derision.

Al-Zawahiri's skilled blending of religion and nationalism serves to counter this pervasive sense of Egyptian degradation.  By seizing the present moment, al-Zawahiri argues, Egyptians can reclaim their dignity, their status, their pride, their place in the sun.  Merging the Egyptian national identity with the true belief of basic and uncompromising Islam will bring salvation, or, if not salvation, at least pull Egypt and its people out of the slough of the marginalized, the trivialized, the ignored, the bowed head beggers.

Al-Zawahiri promises that an Egypt powered by Islam of ninety proof purity will once more be what it seemed to be many, many years ago during the heyday of Nasser--a force in the world, a country that could call the tune danced to by supposed superpowers.  All that is required, the one time medic alleges, is for Egyptians not to fall prey to American blandishments or secret plots made in the USA and hold true to the calls of the faith and the needs of political Islam--including the use of violence should such be either necessary or desirable.

In "Exoneration" al-Zawahiri extends his argument to include countries such as Yemen, Syria and the states of North Africa.  His position is both simple and inherently attractive, particularly to younger members of the over-educated and underemployed middle class.

In short he says, "All of you, Syrians, Yemeni, Algerians, Tunisians, Libyans are members of societies which were once great.  You are all citizens of states which were once respected, even feared by the infidels.  You are people of nations which were once great but are now small."

He then asks the essential question, "Why?  Why were you who were once so great are now so small?"

And, unsurprisingly, he gives the correct answer.  "Because you abandoned the path of pure and true Islam.  Because you surrendered to government by apostates, by turncoats who say they are Muslims but act and govern as if they are kaffir."

Then comes the expected call to arms.  "You will be great once more, respected and feared once again, feel the dignity you deserve only when you join the jihad.  Only when you throw out the apostates and restore genuine Islamic rulers will you regain your greatness."

Shrewdly al-Zawahiri backs his argument by emphasizing Islam's stance on social justice, economic equity, and political openness.  He contrasts the nature of the Islamic posture in all these critical and highly emotional issues with the stance of the US and Uncle Sam's local clients.  He wraps all the ills of the Islamic Mideast and North African states in an American flag.  He demands locals act for local goals while doing so in the global context of putting increased pressure on the US--pressure to withdraw.

It is worth considering that the thinking of al-Zawahiri has been picked up, reflected and even amplified by other high profile advocates of violent political Islam.  Anwar al-Awalacki in Yemen has done this in recent weeks.  Indeed much of the theoretical writing in the several issues of Inspire might have come from the keyboard of the American born and educated cleric, but the ideas and arguments, the logic and goals, are those of al-Zawahiri.

Even in the geographic expression, Somalia, where one is surprised to discover a level of literacy which would allow the reading of al-Zawahiri's rather dense prose, the locals have been extolling the ideas of the medic turned mass murderer.  The same applies to recent musings by spokesmen for AQIM.  Clearly, al-Zawahiri has a message that many are both reading and amplifying.

The US has been playing the role assigned to it in The World According to Ayman.  Our aid to the Ugandan forces in Somalia has been increased as has been the assistance provided to the fictitious government of Somalia.  Shortly we can expect more Predator strikes in Somalia along with a significant ramp-up of the remote controlled death from above operations in Yemen.  Carefully targeted special operations will not be long in the offing.

The regional impact of the ongoing mess in Libya is growing.  There will be a requirement in the not-too-distant future for the US to make some choices as to what we should or must do to help the local forces and governments in their struggle with AQIM.  While we have no bulls in the herd, particularly as compared with European countries, the small but rapidly growing AQIM will reach the level of potential threat to US interests long before the next election here.

Think Globally, Act Locally!  Al-Zawahiri has it right.  So right that we may soon be wishing for the good old days of Osama bin Laden.  The legion of experts assured us that al-Zawahiri would be a nebbish as the Lord High Poobah of al-Qaeda because he had the charisma of a nematode.

What a crock!  Brains beat charisma every time--particularly in war.

Pragmatism Or More Obama-esque Truckling?

Secretary of State Clinton has admitted that the US not only has been engaged in "limited" contacts with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood but intends to continue doing so, perhaps on a significantly expanded basis.  These contacts have been described as "official" by some unnamed sources but are more accurately seen as "informal" or "unofficial" so as to avoid both political and legal embarrassment.

In any event and under whatsoever term, the contacts with the MB will prove controversial.  Whether they will turn out as useful remains to be seen.

Not surprisingly, assorted bloggers on the Right have picked up cudgels to pound the current administration into so much jelly.  Individuals such as the redoubtable defender of Israel, Barry Rubin, have alleged the Obama administration is once again demonstrating its typical, ill-informed, and counterproductive genuflection before the political totems of the Islamists.  Certainly, this US policy lends itself to this interpretation given the context of Obama's apparent hostility to the government of Israel, at least as presently constituted.

It is possible to see the continued and perhaps expanding dialogue between the US and the MB as a pragmatic ploy given the political dynamics within Egypt today and into the near future.  The MB in the land of its origin is a very real, very potent political player.  Even with self-imposed limitations on the number of parliamentary seats and seeking the presidency, the MB is and will remain the most critical political force in Egypt--the power behind the throne even if a secular rump fills the exalted seat itself.  Beyond that consideration, which is non-trivial to say the least, a constructive relation with the MB would assist the US in gaining a degree of rapprochement with other groups in the region which espouse political Islam.

The inducements for the US to have contact with the present senior leadership of the MB is not reduced by the very evident generational split within the Brotherhood.  The "Young Turks" of the Egyptian Brotherhood may be quite annoyed with their elders, particularly with the ukase tossing any Brother out of the hood should he break the ban on running for the presidency or join a party other than the official MB organ.  The split is real, but its effects are easy to exaggerate.

Also easy to exaggerate is the purported differences between those Brothers who emphasize practical programs aimed at solving the numerous and almost overwhelming social and economic problems currently besetting Egypt and those Brothers for whom the establishment of an Islamic state based on all Shariah all the time is the goal.  There is a difference not so much in basic views and understandings separating these two wings of the MB as there is a disparity of tactics, of priorities, and of means.

Neither the "Young Turks" nor the "Old Guard" of the Brotherhood, neither the "practicalists" nor the "idealists" differ on a single basic and highly critical point.  Even if this one point is all that binds together the assorted sub-groups within the Brotherhood it would be sufficient to make the MB a potent threat looming over the future of Egypt and the region.  Here is the point:  No member of the Brotherhood has any more regard for the nature of democracy as understood in the West than Ron Paul has for the Federal Reserve System.

Of course there are a plethora of points upon which all Brothers agree.  Israel must go is one.  Another is that the sway of Islam must be extended over the House of War.  Still another is the debased, evil, and threatening nature of the US.  There are others, but you get the drift from this very short list.

The mere fact that the Muslim Brotherhood not only in Egypt but around the world would like to see Israel expunged as the deity laughed with delight or the population of the US boiled in the pit for all eternity as the blessed of the faith watched from the gallery thoughtfully provided in Paradise for the amusement of the Muslim saint is no bar to talking with the Brothers.  In past years the various administrations and their diplomats have talked both officially and otherwise with any number of people who sought our defeat.  Talking with those who oppose you is one of the most, arguably the most, important aspects of diplomatic work.

Given that the MB in Egypt is a very real fact on the political ground and will remain such for some time to come, it is critical that we convey to them the limits of acceptable conduct.  It is even more critical that the Brotherhood's leaders come to understand not only the limits but become convinced that the US will exact a price for any violation of these limits.  In this context "contacts" does not imply a dialogue between equals but rather the transmission of facts to an auditor.

If the contacts are limited to the task of delivering a clear understanding of the limits of acceptable conduct as well as the range of possible penalties, the exercise is worth the effort.  It is important that the contacts do not fall prey to mission creep.  Whenever conversations, particularly those of an allegedly "informal" or "unofficial" nature, take place, the temptation to expand, make official, or otherwise raise the importance and status of the talks exists.  This temptation must be resisted.  Regardless of any impressions to the contrary, there is no more chance that the Brotherhood or any significant sub-group within the MB will accept American views of proper governance, proper social and political equality, proper policy regarding Israel than there is the Tea Party embracing Obamacare.

The folks on the Right and other reflexive defenders of all things Israeli ought to get a grip and stand down from their ramparts of indignation.  The time to man those ramparts will come when and if the Obama administration and its diplomatic personnel get off the track of squaring away the MB on what US policy will allow and what it will not, wandering instead into the bottomless morass of palaver about democracy, transparency, the rule of law and similar (to the mind of a Brother) fables.

After all, Mr Rubin and all you others, it is not possible to draw a line in the sand without talking to the opposition.  For the benefit of the Egyptians, the Americans, and, yes, the Israelis, it is rather important that the US draw a line and tell the Brothers of all stripes where the line is and what will happen should they be so ill-advised as to cross it.

If You Like Pakistan, You'll Love The "Arab Summer"

Now that all the hyperbolic prattling about the wave of democracy rushing tsunami like over the sands of Arabia is fading away, perhaps overpowered by the sounds of exploding NATO delivered ordnance in Libya, it is possible to take a less biased look at the most likely course of events for the long hot Arab "summer" which is looming like the smoke of an Arizona wildfire.  While the details of the forthcoming "summer" are obscure, the broad outlines are coming more clear by the day.

It is not inaccurate to posit Pakistan as the paradigm soon to apply to the countries of North Africa and the Mideast which were convulsed to a greater or lesser extent by the pseudo-revolutions of recent months.  This means that there will be a contest for political supremacy pitting the interests of a microscopic economic and political elite against the rising expectations of the marginalized majority egged on by increasingly extremest members of the Muslim clerical establishment.  It means the ultimate arbiter of authority will be the armed forces of those states which already possess a large, well organized, well equipped military.  Finally, there will be an overlay of regional and tribal loyalties which can serve as effective king-makers.

In the North African states, most notably Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, the trappings and forms of democracy will be followed.  This process will not apply to Libya unless and until Gaddafi is removed--and the date for this event is impossible to predict beyond saying there is no reason for optimism.  Democratic processes are less important in Mideast centers of protest: Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen.  But even in these states there will be eventual genuflections before this prime totem of Western affections.

Despite the observance of democratic forms, the substance of representative democracy will be conspicuous by its absence.  There is a simple reason for this prediction.  Democracy per se is irrelevant to the majority of those who sought the overthrow the established regimes while the exercise of actual democracy is not in the interests of the major contestants for power: the elite and the adherents of political Islam.  Insofar as either contestant favors the appearance of democratic processes, it is only to ensure that some middle ground movement comes to power in order to assure that the inevitable failure to bring prosperity to the many will be blamed on the scapegoat so as to allow the real contest to be waged and won.

Western governments and elites would be best advised to discount any and all blather about democracy in action completely.  At best elections and the other accoutrement of vox populi is a charade.  At worst it will be a mechanism for hijacking power.  Elections, after all, sanctified not only the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933 but assured the creation of the statist theocracy in Iran in 1979.  To look at the paradigm of Pakistan, elections matter not, for regardless of what party or individuals win at the polls, the army still runs the show.

The army will run the show as well in Egypt or Tunisia or anywhere else that sees the old regime involuntarily retired.  As in Pakistan--and Turkey before--the army is the final custodian of nationhood.  It is the ultimate guarantor of internal tranquility as it is the defender of the state's borders.  Whether openly or from the shadows of the barracks, the army will do the same in the forthcoming governments of North Africa and the Mideast.  No government will be allowed to act in a way which is not approved in advance by the armed forces.  At the same time, the armed forces will have both the will and ability to direct the government to undertake specified actions or policies.

The limitations which can be imposed by the military are understood by even the most ardent supporter of political Islam.  The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt has implicitly acknowledged this in various fora.  This recognition along with the strategic consideration of assuring Islam and Islamists are not tarred with the brush of economic policy failure is behind the MG's entering into coalition agreements with a secular party.

Taking a longer term view, the primacy of the armed forces will be countered by the adherents of political Islam through a program of education and indoctrination.  This path has been blazed by the Pakistanis for the past thirty years with the result that the percentage of adherents of political Islam including that of the violent sort is higher among armed forces personnel, including company and field grade officers, than among the population as a whole.  Given both the Pakistani paradigm and the power of current social and economic pressures abroad in the several "Arab Spring" countries, there is no reason to believe that the lengthy time period need be followed.

The armed forces of Egypt and Tunisia are well aware of the limits which the West will apply to the foreign and military policies of their states.  They also understand the tools available to the West and the effectiveness of these tools.  There will be no false bravado operating as there has been with Pakistan.  The states of the "Arab Spring" have learned from Pakistan's mistakes as they have from Islamabad's successes.

The backlash against the super-wealthy currently underway in Egypt will slow and halt.  The fact is the country, all the "Arab Spring" countries, need these hated rich folk.  Even if it is true that one hundred percent of the wealthy became so as the result of the old regime's corruption, the wealth and skills of the rich business types are needed greatly for the country as a whole.  The narrow elite will be constricted and placed on the defensive, but it will not be erased.  As it will continue to exist, so also will it continue to seek and retain power.

The economically marginal will remain so regardless of the government and its promises.  This reality will be exploited by the most extreme elements within the political Islamists.  Practically, the results will be a co-option to the "left" which will be expressed primarily in foreign policy.  Terror attacks against the "Zionist entity" will increase as will strident diplomatic and propaganda support for the deligitimatization campaign.  Anti-Americanism will also ramp up markedly.  The armed forces will try to keep the level of attacks below the threshold triggering a robust Israeli response but will fail ultimately.

The evermore vituperative attacks on the US provided these are not matched with terrorist operations, will motivate the American people and its representatives to disengage from the region pleading financial exigencies.  This disengagement will exclude Israel.  The result will be the worst of all possible worlds for the US--diminished influence with the governments of the "Arab Summer" while making the commitment to Israel more and more of the "blank check" variety.

With the high probability of Yemen becoming a collapsed state, the US will become more and more involved with the assorted tribes on the ground as a mechanism of self-defense.  The US will wage an undeclared war with AQAP using civilian personnel and civilian controlled weapons systems.  As a "deniable" set of operations run by CIA, the US will be able to act in a more discrete, small footprint way enlisting tribal assistance, using paramilitary officers and UAVs with a sufficiently low public profile not to excite public or congressional opprobrium.  In fact, as the experience in Pakistan has shown, the opposite will be the case--widespread approval in both public and congress.

If the Libyan Affray ends in stalemate or a collapsed state or should the Algerian monolith once more show its underlying cracks, the US would rightly apprehend the use of the new opportunities by AQIM.  The only viable American response would be similar to that emerging in Yemen--think of it as FATA 3.0.  With a civilian agency in the lead and assets from JSOC available on an "as-needed" basis, the US would have the capacity to inhibit the rise of violent political Islam--or at least its ability to operate abroad.

The experiences of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have taught all but the most terminally obtuse American policy and decision makers all the critical lessons regarding "nation-building."  We have learned for the umpteeth time that nations cannot be built by foreign intervention.  This means that the US has only two choices when confronted by violent political Islam: ignore it and hope it goes away or target it with the most lethal and finely focused tools (both human and technological) that are available.

The inherent dilemmas posed by the uprisings of the "Arab Spring" should have shown American decision and policy makers that there is no one-size-fits-all approach possible.  The internal dynamics of each uprising as well as the regional and global contextual differences means that each event must be examined as a one-off proposition.  The realities of the game of nations also has demonstrated once again that national ideals, values, and norms must support well defined national interest.  To state categorically that national interest is predicated on ideals, norms, and values may make for good sound bites but provides a poor basis for effective policy.

On the upside, we can be thankful for our years of frustrating experience with Pakistan.  All that we have come to know and dislike about Pakistani politics and international relations has prepared us for the overriding realities which will exist for years to come as a consequence of a few fun filled and exciting weeks last spring.  The folks in Foggy Bottom and at the EOB should be pulling out the archives detailing the last twenty-five or so years of our dealings with Islamabad.  The contents will be hard to read, embarrassing even, but when the day is done, one can look up and say with genuine feeling, "Good training.  Damn good training."

Pan-Arab Movement 2.0

One of the most hardy recurrent failures in modern history has been the movement for a pan-Arab super-state.  The most dynamic proponent of this notion--One Big Tent For All Arabs--was Abdul Nasser of Egypt.  When he was not  trying to be the Pharaoh of the Non-Aligned Movement, the colonel who made himself dictator of Egypt was plumping for his vision of an Arab super-state--under Egypt's leadership, of course.  Nasser's dream including its real world expression, the United Arab Republic, foundered on the rock of nationalism.

The zombie may be lurching back from the tomb.  Under a different guise and with a different ideological core, but with the same goal.  This time around it is the Muslim Brotherhood which is testing the wind.  Admittedly the Brotherhood is speaking cautiously even in Arab media but the presence of recurrent references to a pan-Arab aspirations of MB founder Hassan al-Banna make it clear that the Egyptian Brotherhood seeks to succeed where Nasser failed.

The vision of pan-Arabism riffs off the key idea within Islam, the idea of the One Community, the Ummah.  Insofar as the core of Islam is Arab it stands to reason (at least in the MB understanding) that the creation of an authentic Arab super-state would constitute the necessary first step toward making the ummah a reality rather than a pleasant abstract.

In recent interviews published by a pan-Arab oriented daily, al-Sharq al-Awsat, a heavyweight of the Brotherhood, Dr Kamal al-Helbawi, makes strong noises concerning the desirability, the necessity and even the virtual inevitability of the Brotherhood forming a pan-national entity in which one "Amir" would guide the many different national "voices" of the Arab nation.  That the Brotherhood does not now have such an international organization, Dr al-Helbawi maintains, is the result of the repressive actions of authoritarian states, particularly Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Of course the repressive authoritarian regimes are gone now in Egypt and Iraq as is the one in Tunisia.  Anti-Brotherhood governments in Syria and Libya are under severe and ongoing attack.  There is no doubt but Dr al-Helbawi and others of his ideology are tempted to see the will of the deity at work to the ultimate advantage of the Brotherhood.

Leaving aside the ministrations of a benevolently inclined deity it is true that the Brotherhood is the largest and best organized movement in Egypt with a political agenda in play.  In Syria the Brotherhood has been cautiously emerging from the deep shadows where it has survived since Assad, fils obliterated its ill-timed and worse planned uprising nearly thirty years ago.  The (comparatively) minor political demonstrations in Jordan have featured the MB in a front and center role.  With respect to Tunisia the any manifestation of significant differences between the Renaissance Party and the Brotherhood are more apparent than real.

In short, while it may lack presently any sort of international organization the Brotherhood exists everywhere in the Arab states, the tumultuous as well as the quiet, the authoritarian as well as the "democratic."  The foundations of a multi-national movement exist.  The only question is whether or not a superstructure can be erected on these.

For the moment the question of how to build an international organization is premature.  Arguably it is premature for the Brotherhood under whatsoever name to seek power in any of the states presently going through the painful process of reinvention.  Nowhere is this more true than in Egypt.

Egypt is the key.  The Muslim Brotherhood must ultimately succeed in Egypt if it is to have any potential as the instrument of Pan-Arabism.  But, to succeed the Brotherhood must stand back, avoid governmental responsibilities and allow other parties, other ideologies to fail in office.

"Winning" in the Egyptian political game is predicated on every other competitor failing.  The Brotherhood must stand unpolluted by failure as the last, best hope for Egyptians and their financial well being.

In Egyptian politics "it's the economy, stupid!"  Bill Clinton's slogan of twenty years ago applies to Egypt with a power far surpassing its relevance to the long ago election of the Boy Wonder of Whitewater.  A recent US government poll of Egyptian attitudes confirmed what the Geek and a few other observers argued months ago, the nitty-gritty of the uprising which ended an era was and is economic not political.  There was no great and unsatisfied thirst for democracy just a very real, very painful hunger for real jobs with real paychecks.  Four out of every five Egyptians who supported the "Lotus Revolution" did so out of personal economic motivations.

Considering that the Egyptian economy is far worse now than before the revolution and giving proper weight to the unrealistic expectations of the average man on the street in Cairo, the next government, the purported product of pure democracy in action will have the most impossible of missions: impossible.

The Egyptian public will expect an economic millennium, the instant arrival of a whole new day of prosperity, a new dawn without the sullying clouds of cronyism and corruption.  A fresh era of equitably distributed wealth, low food prices, cheap gas, almost free electricity.  A paradise on Earth where the grapes are fresh and juicy, the pomegranates plump and low on the bush while the streams run sparkling with not just cool, clear water but wine which neither befuddles or brings hangovers in its wake.  Maybe even seventy-two raisins as well.

The Egyptian people will be disappointed.  There is not going to be a whole new day of prosperity and headache free wine.  Not even the international welfare program already announced by the US and others is going to bring about the desired outcome of endless and equitably distributed wealth.  Disappointment brings anger in its wake.

With a sort of we-did-it-before-and-we-can-do-it-again mood the mobs will take to the streets one more time.  Well, more likely many more times.  Push will go to shove and shove will move to shoot.  Either the army or the Brotherhood will be the eventual knight on a white horse.  In all probability the army will defer to the Brotherhood, staying in the background as the final guarantor of sovereignty.

When all other parties and ideologies have been tried and have failed, the Brotherhood will come to the fore.  At this point the spirit of desperation will be pervasive and deep.  The MB will be seen as a savior and so hailed.

Under whatsoever name the Brotherhood's political arm will focus on a message of Give the Koran a Chance.  It will invoke Shariah to the max.  In keeping with the Islamic fear of division (fitna) the army will support the Brotherhood's demand for unanimity and suppress dissent to a degree far surpassing anything ever contemplated by the ancien regime.  If the combination of repression and Shariah works to any extent at all or if the religious passions unleashed by the interaction of financial suffering and the exhortations of preachers are strong enough, Egypt will become Ground Zero in the emergence of a new form of Pan-Arabism.

In a way the MB and its kindred adherents of political Islam cannot lose.  After other, less religiously predicated political parties fail to bring promised prosperity, the MB will either succeed where the others have failed (unlikely) or will be able to motivate more commitment by more Egyptians to an austere form of militant Islam by claiming that when and only when the Egyptians and other Arabs prove themselves to be deserving of the deity's favor will that favor be bestowed (quite likely.)

The MB, if it moves cautiously for a few more months, maybe a year at most, and lets everyone else try, get elected and fail, it will be in a classic "heads I win; tails you lose" dynamic.  Either foreign (infidel) governments will have to support the MB dominated regime for fear of unleashing one more terror based war or the MB will call for jihad as the best way to prove obedience to the will of the deity so as to gain the deity's favor and attendant rewards.

Either avenue leads to pan-Arabism with Egypt at the center.  Either route will allow the Brotherhood to succeed where the secular socialist Nasser failed.  Best of all either approach requires nothing beyond what the Brotherhood already possesses in abundance: an ideological agenda, patience and the willingness to preach a very basic, quite pure form of Islam.

Or, the capo di tutti capi, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence might have been right when he stated the Brotherhood was a deeply divided bunch of secular quasi-politicians.  Well, the Geek won't bet his ranch on that thought.

The Egyptian Foreign Policy "Reset" Button

One upon a time Egypt was a power to be reckoned with, even to be feared.  No, kiddies, not in the time of Ramses or one of the other big time pharaohs but fifty years ago when Gamal Abdel Nasser was running the show.

Nasser built much of his personal power on projecting Egypt very large on the international scene.  The fertile mind and great energy of the one time colonel turned dictator was responsible for the phenomenon of pan-Arabism.  In addition, he was one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement.  Nasser rapidly became the bete noir of John Foster Dulles to say nothing of so alienating both the British and French governments that these two allies linked up with Israel in a conspiracy to commit aggressive war against Nasser's Egypt.

Throughout it all, through all the defeats in war, the ups and downs of regional and global diplomacy, all the twists and turns of playing the Cold War game, the Egyptian public felt very, very good about themselves, their country, and their leader.  Nasser's successor, Anwar Sadat, also played the foreign policy game well.  And, better yet for the Egyptians, he played the Great Game of War far better than had Nasser with the  result that the Egyptian army and people reclaimed their long lost testicles in 1973 with the Yom Kippur War.  Sadat followed that with the best diplomatic volte face in years when he switched sides from the Soviets to the Americans.

Egyptians walked tall and talked loud, punching well above their weight in the global arena.  They continued to do so right on to and past the signing of the Camp David Accords.  But, not long after Mubarak replaced the assassinated Sadat, the Egyptian diplomatic power house faded to black.

True, Egypt helped this process when signing the Camp David Accords resulted in Cairo being shunned by the other "frontline" states of the Arab League.  However, far more important than this brief episode was the decision made incrementally by Hosni Mubarak to link Egypt's domestic political tranquility and economic well being to the US policy interest of maintaining Mideast peace.  Egypt withdrew from the diplomatic arena in all save a few, carefully selected, peace enhancing ways.

As long as Mubarak followed this approach of quiescence, the US overlooked the lack of democracy and the abundance of repression in Egypt.  Additionally, the US provided huge amounts of money desperately needed by Egypt to keep consumer prices on basic commodities low.  It was a decent bargain for both sides.

The bargain gave rise to a persistent belief among Egyptians that Mubarak was nothing more than an American lapdog.  This belief was and is emblematic of a proud people's reaction to their country and government having gone from the top ranks of diplomatic players to the silent majority of states that don't matter.

While subsidiary in importance to purely domestic issues, the shrinking of Egypt's global status was not absent in the overthrow of Mubarak.  The chant, "Stand tall, you are Egyptian!" speaks to that issue bluntly and clearly.

The tossing over of Mubarak assured that Egypt would shortly embark upon a new course of diplomacy.  It was a given that this new course would be one which kept the US at least at an arm's length.  It was a given that Egypt would edge closer to Iran.  It was a given that Egypt would be far more solicitous of the Palestinian cause.

Implied in these givens was the high probability that Egypt's new course would be one which did not meet with the approbation of the Saudis.  A further implication running in tandem with the first is that insofar as Egypt moved closer to Iran, the more it would find itself caught in the crossfire of the Saudi-Iranian cold war.

While there are some experts on the Mideast who think that the triangular dynamic of thirty years ago--Egypt, Iran and Turkey--exists unchanged today the reality is different, far different.  Even thirty years ago, the triangle was morphing into a quadrilateral with Iraq.  Today it is again a four cornered array with Saudi Arabia as the fourth.  The degree to which Iran influences Turkish policy is debatable, but there is sufficient community of interest between Ankara and Tehran to wonder if any meaningful daylight exists between the two.

From the vantage point of Riyadh, the prospect of Egypt, reinvigorated with the new politics of a post-Mubarak epoch, linking at all with Iran would be both threatening and totally unacceptable.  This raises the stakes for the US.

Were it not for the upticking Saudi-Iranian cold war, the US could view any changes in Egypt's diplomatic posture with a high degree of equanimity.  The Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty is not in danger.  Not even a government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood would rip up that particular piece of paper.  To do so would be quite unacceptable to both the US and the European Union, the two money bags upon which Egypt's basic fiscal health and thus political stability depends.

The prospect of an Egypt given to greater denunciation of the US and Israel is not amusing but neither is it a challenge to the good order of the region.  Even a greater degree of support for Hamas on the part of Cairo is not a game changer--except for the possibility for levering Hamas away from sole dependence upon Iran by way of Syria.  The US, Europe, and Israel could all deal with this level of change on the part of Egypt.

It is the Saudi-Iranian cold war which alters the dynamic in a fundamental way.  Right now the Saudis are counting the house, seeing who is potentially with them--and against them.  Affairs are looking a bit bleak from the Saudi point of view.  Syria is still in Tehran's hip pocket.  Iraq is run by the Shiites--and the last of the US forces is scheduled to be out in mere months.  And, Egypt is moving slowly but surely into the gravitational field of Iran.  Jordan is an embattled semi-nonentity.  Yemen is close to collapse--or, in a best case, suitable as a hollow state under direct Saudi control.

To the Saudis nothing is secure beyond their fellow feudal rulers of Sunni belief in the Gulf states.  For this reason if no other the Kingdom will be looking to the Obama administration to put some muscle on the Egyptians not to wander too far off the old reservation.  This will bring Washington into direct confrontation with the needs of the transitional government as well as whatever and whoever succeeds it to establish its bona fides as an independent actor with potency on the global and regional stages.

The resulting balancing act will be both difficult and demanding for the current administration.  It has shown itself remarkably tone deaf to the nuances of regional politics as well as the internal affairs of the several key countries.  It has also compiled a record of being indecisive and slow to act.  When the preoccupations of an active campaign for reelection and the domestic politics of divided government facing monumental difficulties are factored in, the probability of the administration or the president acting in a timely and effective fashion is low to say the least.

When the full weight of what is in process hits home it is likely that both Mr Obama and Ms Clinton will wish they were safely back in the senate voting "present" on pieces of controversial legislation.

Some Days The World Is So Boring It's Hard To Stay Awake

There are days when the affairs of the world are ever so interesting, inherently fascinating and filled with reasons to alternate between laughter and tears, between an attack of the go-get-'ems and black depression.  Today is not one of those days.  Today is one of total tedium.  It is a day where the same old, same olds triumph.

There is, for example, another example of the Obama administration teeing off to triple bogey a critical hole in the Mideast/North African course.  You may have heard of the minority group in Algeria known as the Kabyles. This bunch is a subset of the indigenous dwellers of the mountainous interior of North Africa, the Berber.  In Algeria the Kabyles number some ten million out of a total population of just under thirty-five million.  Not an insignificant minority.

The Kabyles are Muslim but lean strongly in the secularist direction.  They have a long and well established record as being hostile to groups such as AQIM which espouse violent political Islam.  Their own more or less official militias have a history of keeping the peace in their home mountains which has benefited the Algerian government on numerous occasions including the long and very lethal insurgency during the Nineties.  Over the years, including those of the Algerian insurgency against France in the Fifties and early Sixties, the Kaybeles have been strongly pro-Western.  They remain such today--for the moment, at least.

The Kaybles are not satisfied with their current relations with the central government and have demanded a referendum on autonomy.  Their search for government agreement on the proposed referendum has so far been without success.  As a result the Kabyles have come to Washington seeking assistance in achieving their goal.

To date the Obama administration has given the Kaybele representatives the coldest of shoulders if not quite the bum's rush.  All the heavyweights at the Pentagon and in the National Security Council are "in conference" when the Kabyles call or stop by.  Text messages and voice mail go unanswered.  Over at Foggy Bottom the supplicants are received but only by low level functionaries.  (Perhaps the Kabyles would get further if they invited the Secretary of State to dinner; the lady does have a real fondness for the swank and swan of a diplomatic do.)

Demonstrations are planned to back the demand for the autonomy referendum.  And, should those prove fruitless, the potential for violence is high, even very high.  The history of the Kabyles is punctuated by periods during which these folks exhibited a very high competence at guerrilla war.  Just ask the French about the Rif War and some of the other frontier fracases which marred their rulership.

The Kabyles have the capacity to put a very large, very highly motivated, reasonably well-armed force in the field.  A Kabyle insurrection would provide the most severe test experienced by the Algerian government during its half century of existence.  At the least the country would be destabilized to a degree tantamount to armed anarchy.

The Obama administration still has some influence in Algeria.  It would be in the best interests of the US, Algeria, and the region if it were to place its weight behind the Kabyle referendum demand.  An autonomous Kabyle state would not impair Algeria's existence or capacity to function.  Nor are the Kabyles unreasonable.  They understand the meaning of the word "compromise" and would be willing to work out one using the US as a mediator.  For some reason or another they still trust us and our intentions.

The situation with the Kabyles in Algeria is so touchy and time sensitive that Mr Obama cannot do what he is famous for doing--temporizing until it is clear which side is winning.  This is an emerging crisis where we cannot play catch-up; we must be ahead of the wave or it will crush us.

Over on the Korean Peninsula it appears that the Hermits of the North are cranking up for a third nuclear test.  The tunnels are under construction.  The combination of Northern determination and American jawboning has convinced the South to drop its (legitimate) requirement that the North apologize for the attacks last year before commencing bi-lateral talks either stand-alone or on the sidelines of a renewed Six Power Talk.  It is easy to see that the North is after a restart of the Six Power Talks not to end its nuclear program for such will not happen, but rather to extort aid, particularly food, from the other participants, South Korea most of all.

After some brief excursions into pushing back against the Northerners and their sponsors in the Forbidden City, the Obama administration has reverted to its default posture of passivity coupled with a touching childlike faith in diplomatic conversations of a multi-lateral sort.  The Obama signed order prohibiting the importation of anything made in North Korea to the US is not a departure from passivity-as-usual.  Nor is it an effective means of coercing the North.

In short, the risk taking, in-your-face policies of the North are again proving successful.  The US lacks the will and imagination necessary to impose any meaningful costs upon the Hermit Kingdom of the North.  The Obama administration has no options at the present beyond bootless palaver with a rogue regime backed by a notoriously self-interested major power.

To zip back to the Mideast.  All the Obama administration can do is look on with white knuckles and tight lips as Egypt moves one more step to full and normal relations with Iran.  The movement of Cairo closer and closer to Tehran has alarmed both Israel and Saudi Arabia.

From the perspective of Israel, the growing affection between the two countries is a genuine national security threat.  The transitional military government has already relaxed its tight controls on the Gaza border such that warlike stores can flow with greater ease to Hamas.  Cozying up to Iran bodes to increase the flow all the more as well as to provide greater state cover for the Hamas threat.

To the House of Saud the partial resurrection of normal diplomatic relations constitutes a species of diplomatic treason.  The Saudis see the move as a defection from the Arab camp to the opposition, the Persian Shiites.  Given the demonstrated involvement of Iran in the unrest in Bahrain and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the House of Saud must be feeling a highly unpleasant frisson of fear with this development.

From the Washington point of view, the new diplomatic outreach is not a major development but it is one which runs directly counter to the announced American policy of "isolating" Iran.  It represents a failure of this policy, a failure inflicted by a government which owes a goodly percentage of its successful existence to date to the backroom efforts of the US.

The Egyptian move is a tribute to the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and akin groups on the transitional military government.  It implies that the Egyptians have concluded they can safely singe the beard of Uncle Sam if by so doing they can secure their flank against the domestic advocates of political Islam.  The challenge for the administration is convincing the Egyptians that they have something real to lose if they get too close to Iran.

One last stop in today's trip from monotony to ennui: Africa, specifically Nigeria.  The improbably named Goodluck Jonathan has won the presidency in an election generally conceded to have been the most fair, most honest, most open in that country for two or more decades.  The Christian geologist turned politician won quite convincingly.  He did overwhelmingly well in the Christian oil rich south and performed surprisingly well in the Muslim majority north.

No sooner than the ballots had been counted and the results verified than the Muslims in the north picked up machetes, torches, guns, and clubs with the view of killing Christians and burning churches.  The death toll was rather modest as such affairs go in Africa's most populous country, but the potential for ongoing violence continues unabated.  The Muslims (or at least some) are of the belief that Goodluck's victory somehow violated the informal rotation in office scheme which sees Muslim and Christian alternate in the presidency.  As a consequence they allege vote fraud and look for someone to kill, something to burn.

Nigeria is fifty percent Muslim, forty percent Christian with the balance being primary adherents of traditional animist belief systems.  The Christian south has the oil.  The Muslim north has lots of dirt, rocks, and people.  While apologists for the Muslim violence have averred the cause is the maldistribution of wealth, the substantial cause of violence is the political Islam message pumped out in mosque after mosque.  The efforts of the local apostles of violent political Islam have been backed in their play by international groups including al-Qaeda.

Without very strong support from civilized states, including the US, the newly elected regime will have its plate all too full.  To put it bluntly but not in oversimplified form, Nigeria is on the edge of prolonged, slow motion internal war powered by religion--at least on one side.  At least for the next few weeks or months, Nigeria is trembling on the edge of becoming the Congo with oilfields.  With armed advocates of violent political Islam in the north and the MEND insurgents in the Niger delta, the prospect for energetic dissassembly are high.

This is not a situation in which the Obama administration can adopt a watch-and-wait approach profitably. Neither can it sit on the sidelines until it becomes evident that the wrong side is wining or the state has tumbled into collapse.  Robust and stalwart support for the elected government is needed urgently and quickly.  The support may have to go beyond the level of presidential phone calls or statements.  But, the US does get a fair amount of oil from the place and that should factor into administration decision making.

However if the past is but prologue as so often appears to be the case, the current administration will temporize, stand back, appeal to the "international community," and generally wring its hands over the limits of American power.  Of course, it is not power which is lacking but rather two other commodities--wit and will.  No matter how long on words Mr Obama and his team might be, they are woefully and persistently wanting in both wit and political will.

And, bucko, that is what makes today so damn boring.

What's Really Interesting In The Mideast

In the great swath of territory extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Himalayans, the areas of North Africa, the Mideast, and Northwest Asia, the big noise has centered on the "Arab Spring,"  The main focus of interest over the past few weeks has been the shooting war in Libya.  It isn't the only place where bullets, bombs, and IEDs are flying, falling, and exploding, but it is the most recent.  So, the media, the politicians, the international organizations, and We the People are not yet suffering from attention overload disorder.

Subsidiary points of fascination are found with the incarceration of the two Mubarak boys and the impending arrest of their aged and ailing dad, the ongoing face off in Yemen and the repressions in Bahrain and Syria.  The hardy perennial of the Israeli-Palestinian Question has wilted of late save only when a refreshing burst of outrageous violence is perpetrated by one or another of the Zany Congeries of Gaza.

While Libya and the other specific "hot spots" of the Mideast get the spotlight, they are actually quite boring, lacking fundamental and long term interest.  The future is not impossible to predict in broad outline.  A form of semi-democracy will come to pass in Tunisia and Egypt--primarily to the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood in the second case.  Libya will enter the stasis of stalemate unless and until Gaddafi catches a bullet or two--or until he has a sudden desire to decamp with his tent and his billions to some country which is not a signatory to the Statute of Rome.  Then Libya will simply be in stasis, a set of more or less rival tribes in search of a common center--and not finding it.

In Yemen it really will not matter if or when Saleh departs.  The place is either (1) a failed state or (2) a hollow one with operational dominance residing elsewhere.  (Of this more in a moment or two.)

Bashir al-Assad will stay in power.  A judicious mix of reforms more apparent than real plus repression will assure the Baathist regime stays where it has been for the past half century and more.  However, the processes of reform and repression loop directly into the really interesting dynamics of the Mideast.

The same is true with respect to Bahrain.  There is little to no chance of a sea change in the structure of authority in the kingdom.  However, the details of how the game plays out, including the degree to which Bahrain becomes one more hollow state, relate directly to the really interesting dynamic at work in the Mideast.

The only matter of fundamental interest, fundamental importance, and potential long term significance currently extant in the Mideast is not the usual suspect--the Israeli-Palestinian Question--but rather the cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.  This cold war, which has intensified continually for the past twenty years and with a high delta V in recent weeks, impacts directly and substantially the state of play in Yemen, the future of Bahrain, the direction of the Assad government--and the answer to the Israeli-Palestinian Question.  It also exercises profound effect upon the internal affairs of Lebanon, the direction of Egyptian Islamist politics, and a host of other inter- and intra-state affairs.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have never been known for their close and amiable relationship.  Part of the reason may be found in religion--Shiite Iran versus Wahhabist Sunni Saudi Arabia.  Part of the reason has been purely geopolitical--which country will be the front porch dog in the Gulf region and exercise a large measure of operational dominance over the Mideast generally.

Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the rivalry has grown in a major way.  The mullahs and ayatollahs are True Believers for whom the demands of Shia beliefs powerfully enhance the interests of state.

Iraq at one time played a very important role as a buffer between Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as being a force of its own acting to prevent regional hegemony by either Iran or the Kingdom.  Those days ended with the American invasion.

The overthrow of Hosni Mubarak took another restraining player off the board.  As the most populous Arab state with a long record of exercising leadership in the often fractured Arab world, Egypt served to both moderate Saudi ambitions for regional hegemony and buttress Saudi opposition to Iranian efforts in the direction of dominance.

The removal of both Iraq and Egypt has served to clear the decks for a more direct and higher stakes confrontation between Tehran and Riyadh.  From the perspective of the ancient rulers of the Kingdom, the policies of the US have become a marker of despair.  The reaction of King Abdullah and his closest relatives has not been anger so much as terminal frustration.

For years (decades would be more accurate) the Saudis have tried repeatedly to convince the US that Iran is the major threat to the region--and not Israel.  Insofar as peace between the Israelis and Palestinians was an issue, it was such simply because the continued conflict served to advance Iranian interests.  As far back as 2002 when the Saudis proposed peace and normalization of relations between all of the Arab League states and Israel in return for a peace agreement predicated upon Israel observing the pre-Six Day War borders, the justification offered to their American interlocutors was that of pulling Iran's fangs.

To the present day the position of the Kingdom on the Israeli-Palestinian Question is dictated by the Iranian strategic threat.  This implies strongly that the Kingdom would accept significant modifications of the 2002 proposal.  King Abdullah and company would, for example, be quite willing to see territorial modification by agreed upon land swaps, drop any Palestinian "right of return," and even accept a limited Israeli security presence along the Jordan valley.  The comparative inflexibility of the Obama administration's stance on the "settlements" issue both surprised and disappointed the Saudis who were actually somewhat optimistic when the direct bi-lateral talks commenced all those months ago.

It is probable that the Saudis have been equally frustrated by the American position on Syria during the W. Bush administration and its Obama successor.  From the viewpoint of Riyadh, the US pushed Syria into the Iranian embrace.  It is self-evident that the fit between secularist Syria and Shiite Iran is both poor and unnatural.  It is a marriage forced by the American pressure for isolation.

The sub-text of the unrest in Syria and the Assad government's responses to that unrest hints at a backroom battle between the Iranians and the Saudis.  There is no doubt but the Iranians have provided assistance in the repression.  The bouts of reformist rhetoric from Bashir including his most recent promise to end the forty-eight year long "state of emergency" sometime next week point to Saudi influence and (in highest probability) blandishments.

Much of Iran's status as an ally of Syria has been bought and paid for.  Syria has a desperate need for infusions of cash on a scale that economically strapped Iran can no longer meet.  The infinitely deep pockets of the Kingdom would have no such difficulty.  Bashir is a very pragmatic and practical man who comes with instincts which push him in the direction of reform.  He is also very much afraid of religious extremism.  If (and this is a big if) the Saudis can restrain their predilection to export Wahhabism along with their cash, it would be far safer for Bashir to cozy up with the Kingdom than to continue his current flirtation with the ayatollahs.

The Baathists of Syria are very well aware that Wahhabism brings extremism as desert rains bring fast blooming flowers.  As a result the Syrians will be very, very cautious about what may come along with any Saudi assistance.  It is probable given the slight moves to reform at home made by King Abdullah that the Saudis are far more willing to disconnect Wahhabism from policy based aid now than in past years.

The Saudi monarchy has been watching American policy regarding Bahrain with the closest of scrutiny.  After the US moved to help ease Hosni Mubarak from power, alarm bells went off throughout the Kingdom.  If the US appears to be doing the same in Bahrain, there is no doubt but the Kingdom will simply take the place over.  Bahrain is too strategically important to the Kingdom to allow otherwise.  Riyadh is convinced (rightly) that Iran is neck deep in the unrest among the Shiite majority in Bahrain and will not sit back thumbs twiddling while Iran moves in.  This is as unlikely as Riyadh kicking back and chilling out as Iranian agents move around freely in the Shiite (and oil) heavy Eastern Province.

The movers and shakers of the Kingdom are also dismayed by the seeming indifference of the US to Iranian efforts in subversion in countries as far removed as Afghanistan and Indonesia, Yemen and the Philippines.  It boggles the Saudis collective mind that the US has not moved to counter even the Iranian's demonstrated efforts in Afghanistan to assist the Taliban.  If we can view that with equanimity, we must be totally out to lunch regarding the hostile nature of Iran everywhere in the world.

The greatest anxiety and distrust of the US revolves around the bootless American campaign to prevent the Iranian development of an atomic bomb.  If Iran acquires a nuclear capability or even a credible breakout capacity, it is over for Saudi Arabia--game, set, and match.  The most rudimentary nuclear arsenal either in hand or on the close horizon gives Iran regional hegemonic status.  It would also make Iran immune to pressure generally as has been the case with nuclear capable Pakistan.

US policy under President Obama has been irresolute beyond the level of rhetoric.  As far as the Kingdom is concerned, the purchasing of weapons is a prudent move but not one which will secure Saudi Arabia against the Iranian threat or achieve the hegemonic status desired by King Abdullah and the rest of the family.  Even selling our most advanced ballistic missile defense system would be no more than one more prudential move.  The ultimate interests and goals of the Kingdom demand a neutralization of the Iranian nuclear program.  This is not likely to occur with the current administration, or so the Saudis have concluded.

The Saudis have acted on this conclusion recently.  The House of Saud has made outreach moves toward the Trolls of Beijing as well as the Guys in the Kremlin.  Such a demarche would have been unthinkable even a short year ago.  The weakness of the current administration has given the Saudis no choice but to look for a strong horse wherever such might be found.

While the Saudis have sought either alternative strong horses or to man up the Obama administration, the Iranians have become more certain in their own success.  This is not simply reflected in the typically overblown oratory of Ahmedinejad and others but in the increasing activity of Iranian agents of influence in Iraq, in Yemen, in Indonesia, and in the Central Asian Republics.  It has been reflected as well in the enhanced flow of equipment to Taliban.  And in the tighter connections with Turkey.  And Venezuela.  And elsewhere.

The correlation of forces (to use that fine old Soviet term) currently favors Iran in the cold war with Saudi Arabia.  The House of Saud knows this.  It knows the reason as well.  The reason is simple.  It can be expressed in one word: Obama.