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1211. Civil-Military Relations in the Middle East

Author:
Ahmed Abd Rabou
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
This book focuses on Civil-Military Relations (CMR) in Egypt, a country that witnessed uprisings calling for democratic change in January 2011, which led to the ousting of Hosni Mubarak from the Presidency, the suspension of the constitution, and the dissolution of the parliament as well as the ruling of the National Democratic Party (NDP). Ironically, revolutionary forces in Egypt were dependent on the Egyptian military in taking these steps, with the military ultimately taking power some 30 months later.
Topic:
Civil Society
Political Geography:
Middle East

1212. What Drives the Use and Abuse of Dead Bodies in Middle East Conflicts?

Author:
FARAS
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Future for Advanced Research and Studies (FARAS)
Abstract:
Regular armies, militias, terrorist organizations, opposition factions, international powers and rights organizations, all use dead bodies of ci- vilians, soldiers and police personnel during armed conflicts in the Middle East and beyond for various reasons. Identication of dead bodies has become a dilemma for conflict-hit countries such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Mali, due to prevalent security chaos and the destruction of healthcare infrastructure. Moreover, involved parties tend to announce a minimized official civilian and combatant toll using only the numbers of corpses that could be carried to hospitals.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Middle East

1213. Challenges Facing Disarmament of Violent Actors in the Middle East

Author:
FARAS
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Future for Advanced Research and Studies (FARAS)
Abstract:
Partial or complete disarmament of violent sub- state actors in border areas is a prerequisite for achieving domestic and regional stability. This applies to the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas in the Palestinian territories, the Houthi group in Yemen, Shi’ite and Kurdish militias in Syria, the al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forc- es) in Iraq, tens of area-based armed groups in militias in Libya and tribal militias such as the Rapid Support Forces and the Janjaweed militia in Sudan. All these represent roving armies crossing soft borders.
Topic:
International Security
Political Geography:
Middle East

1214. Hybrid Warfare in the Middle East

Author:
LSE Ideas
Publication Date:
02-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
This report considers the hybrid warfare techniques of Daesh, Al Qaeda, the Taleban, and Iran, and makes specific suggestions on how the UK and other Western countries can better counter this threat. The report is sistilled from discussions with senior British officials, academics, and current practitioners in the media, strategic communications, and cyber security
Topic:
Security and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Middle East

1215. Islamic State Enters Al-Qaeda’s Old Hotbed: Afghanistan and Pakistan

Author:
Mona Kanal Sheikh
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
The Islamic State (IS) movement has opened a new chapter in the Afpak region, changing the landscape of militant movements in the area. This article looks at the patterns of rivalry and collaboration between the Islamic State on one side and Al-Qaeda and Taliban-related movements on the other. It also surveys the way Al-Qaeda has developed during the past years where most of the international attention has been devoted to the formation of IS in Iraq/Syria, and shows that Al-Qaeda is still active, though it has become more locally oriented. Finally, the article looks at the prospects for the further expansion of IS especially in Pakistan where, on one side, a range of sectarian anti-Shia movements that resonate with parts of the IS agenda while, on the other side, there is no ideological tradition for embracing the kind of caliphate-jihadism that the IS advocates.
Topic:
Terrorism, Violent Extremism, Al Qaeda, and Islamic State
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Iraq, Middle East, and Syria

1216. Islamic State in Yemen – A Rival to al-Qaeda?

Author:
Maria-Louise Clausen
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
The Yemeni state has all but collapsed as the political transition that followed the popular protests in 2011 has been derailed. This has left Yemen without a functioning central government and thus provided a ripe context for the expansion of both al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Islamic State in Yemen. This article focuses on the balance of power between AQAP and Islamic State in Yemen. Yemen is an interest- ing case of the international competition between al-Qaeda and Islamic State as the branch of al-Qaeda in Yemen, AQAP, is one of the strongest. The article argues that AQAP has sought to establish stronger local ties by enmeshing itself with the still strong tribal structures in Yemen whereas IS has sought to carve out a place for itself in Yemen by challenging AQAP on its religi
Topic:
Terrorism, Violent Extremism, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, and Arab Spring
Political Geography:
Middle East, Yemen, and Persian Gulf

1217. Elite Cues or Social Cues? The Formation of Public Opinion on Foreign Policy

Author:
Michelle Nicholasen and Joshua D. Kertzer
Publication Date:
02-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
In July 2014, a wave of violence erupted in the Middle East, as Israel responded to a barrage of rockets from Gaza by launching airstrikes, and eventually, a ground incursion intent on degrading Hamas’s military capabilities. In Washington, both Democrats and Republicans firmly sided with Israel: the Senate passed a unanimous resolution blaming Hamas for the conflict, and both prominent Democrats and Republicans gave staunch defenses of Israel’s right to defend itself. Although both Democrats and Republicans in Washington were united in their support for Israel, a series of polls conducted at the time found that Democrats and Republicans in the public were not aligned with them: in a Pew poll, for example, 60 percent of Republicans blamed Hamas for the violence, while Democrats were more evenly split, with 29 percent blaming Hamas and 26 percent blaming Israel. A Gallup poll detected a similar pattern: 65 percent of Republicans thought Israel’s actions were justified, but Democrats were more divided, as 31 percent backed the Israeli response, and 47 percent called it unjustified.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Public Opinion, Military Affairs, Political Parties, and Hamas
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and North America

1218. Looking for Green in the Desert, an Irishman is Lured to Bahrain

Author:
Michelle Nicholasen
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
To Gareth Doherty, there's no such thing as a single color "green." There are just too many hues and variations to commit to one label. Doing fieldwork in Bahrain, a desert nation in the Persian Gulf, he found a palette of colors, each imbued with the history, social dynamics, and politics of the island nation. Even when they live in a desert, people need green. On his daily walks across this arid, thirty-mile-long island, he documented the persistent presence of green, from green-painted roofs and doorways to a flourishing of scrub in the desert after a brief rain shower. Because people hunger for green space, states and individuals will go to great lengths to get it, taking steps that are at odds with sustainable development. Doherty investigated the resources required to keep Bahrain green, and explored the facts and myths of how a country lost its fresh water and its iconic date palm groves over the past century. His fascination with fieldwork also has led him and his students to the Bahamas to study the sustainable development of an island archipelago, and to Brazil, where states experience different amounts of rainfall and seasonal blankets of green. The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs asked Doherty about his year in Bahrain, and what he’s discovered about how people use and respond to the various colors of green in their landscape.
Topic:
Environment, Religion, Culture, and Local
Political Geography:
Middle East, Caribbean, Bahrain, and Bahamas

1219. Insight on Syria: Documenting the "Burden of War" on Syrians

Author:
Michelle Nicholasen
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The war in Syria is remarkable in its cumulative destruction of a society in a short six years. The toll on human life has been heavy; the involvement of multiple states, factions, and terrorist groups undermines resolution; the instigation of forced migration unprecedented; and the unfettered aerial bombardments against civilians—and perhaps most viciously, the deliberate destruction and targeting of health care facilities, health care workers, and patients—have defied all norms of war. Achieving an accurate picture of the human cost of this conflict has been an extraordinary challenge for aid agencies and health officials. In an effort to understand the impact of the war thus far, last winter the British medical journal the Lancet convened a commission of medical professionals to investigate and report on this conflict through the lens of public health. In Lancet parlance, a commission is always anchored at an elite university; in this case the American University of Beirut (AUB). In an early publication to set the stage, The Lancet-AUB Commission on Syria (the Commission) has called Syria “the most dangerous place on earth for health care providers,” and notes that the many reported atrocities “undermine the principles and practice of medical neutrality in armed conflict.” One of the three co-chairs leading the Commission is Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Jennifer Leaning, François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who has studied war and its long-term effects on societies in many parts of the world, including in the Middle East. Her fellow Commission co-chairs are Professor Iman Nuwayhid, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at AUB, and Dr. Samer Jabbour, a cardiologist on the AUB faculty. The Weatherhead Center sat down with Jennifer Leaning to discuss the Commission’s work, its goals, and the scope of the devastation in Syria.
Topic:
Civil War, Displacement, Civilians, Public Health, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

1220. Insight on Syria: A Quagmire of Warring Religious Groups? Why the Western View is Misguided

Author:
Melani Cammett
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
opular discourse, especially in the West, presents the current conflict in Syria as part of an age-old struggle between the Sunni and Shi’a communities within Islam. Despite the sectarian trappings of the conflict, these divisions are not the root cause of the war in Syria. Rather, the hyperpoliticization of sectarian identities is one of the outcomes—and an increasingly salient one as conflict progresses. The origins of the Syrian war lie in much more mundane political and economic grievances. Despite steady economic growth and an extensive public welfare infrastructure, the vast majority of the population was excluded from the fruits of development and faced thwarted aspirations for social mobility and political expression. Rising poverty rates, endemic corruption, the poor quality of social services and government repression—factors present to varying degrees elsewhere in the Middle East—constituted a critical background to the Syrian uprising, even if they do not predict precisely why and when individual protestors took to the streets. More proximately, the evolution of a peaceful uprising into a full-blown civil war was sparked by the regime’s response to the initial waves of demonstrations. On March 13, 2011, several teenagers in rural Dara’a in southern Syria spray-painted the slogan of the uprisings, al-sha’ab yurid isqat al-nizam, or “the people want the fall of the regime,” on walls in their town. Government security forces arrested the young men and tortured them, inciting peaceful demonstrations by family members calling for the boys’ release. Syrian forces then cracked down violently, spurring other protests across the country.
Topic:
Civil War, Religion, Sectarianism, and Violence
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria