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221. The Rise of the Islamists

Author:
Shadi Hamid
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
For decades, U.S. policy toward the Middle East has been paralyzed by "the Islamist dilemma" -- how can the United States promote democracy in the region without risking bringing Islamists to power? Now, it seems, the United States no longer has a choice. Popular revolutions have swept U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes from power in Tunisia and Egypt and put Libya's on notice. If truly democratic governments form in their wake, they are likely to include significant representation of mainstream Islamist groups. Like it or not, the United States will have to learn to live with political Islam. Washington tends to question whether Islamists' religious commitments can coexist with respect for democracy, pluralism, and women's rights. But what the United States really fears are the kinds of foreign policies such groups might pursue. Unlike the Middle East's pro-Western autocracies, Islamists have a distinctive, albeit vague, conception of an Arab world that is confident, independent, and willing to project influence beyond its borders. There is no question that democracy will make the region more unpredictable and some governments there less amenable to U.S. security interests. At their core, however, mainstream Islamist organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan and al Nahda in Tunisia, have strong pragmatic tendencies. When their survival has required it, they have proved willing to compromise their ideology and make di⁄cult choices. To guide the new, rapidly evolving Middle East in a favorable direction, the United States should play to these instincts by entering into a strategic dialogue with the region's Islamist groups and parties. Through engagement, the United States can encourage these Islamists to respect key Western interests, including advancing the Arab-Israeli peace process, countering Iran, and combating terrorism. It will be better to develop such ties with opposition groups now, while the United States still has leverage, rather than later, after they are already in power.
Topic:
Security and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia

222. Video-recorded Decapitations: A seemingly perfect terrorist tactic that did not spread

Author:
Martin Harrow
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Video-recorded decapitations have an enormous impact, they are cheap and easy, and they allow the terrorists to exploit the potential of the Internet. With these advantages, the tactic would have been expected to quickly spread across the globe as a favored tactic. Yet, years after its invention in 2002, this has not happened. This paper using evolutionary theory finds that video-recorded decapitations have not caught on for locally specific reasons: in the West because the tactic is less accessible than one might expect; in Iraq because of the unwillingness to be associated with Zarqawi, and in the Afghan context, it has not spread because it is mainly relevant for mobilizing resources from abroad, which is not a priority for the Taliban. These are however situational variables, and just as suicide bombings took years to spread, there may be campaigns of video-recorded decapitations as conditions change.
Topic:
Terrorism, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Iraq, Middle East, and Taliban

223. The Evolving Threat of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

Author:
Andre Le Sage
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The United States faces an important strategic question in northwest Africa: what level of activity by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) would constitute a sufficient threat to U.S. national security interests to warrant a more aggressive political, intelligence, military, and law enforcement response? AQIM already poses the greatest immediate threat of transnational terrorism in the region, and its operational range and sophistication continue to expand. Since 2007, the group has professed its loyalty to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's senior leadership and claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks in the subregion. These attacks have included the use of suicide bombers, improvised explosive devices, kidnapping operations, and assassinations.
Topic:
Islam, Terrorism, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Arabia, and North Africa

224. Policing and COIN Operations: Lessons Learned, Strategies and Future Directions

Author:
Samuel Musa, John Morgan, and Matt Keegan
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Book
Abstract:
At the time of this writing, the United States and the other members of the International Security Assistance Forces are completing nearly a decade of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. What started as more conventional or traditional fights has degenerated over time into insurgency warfare, something U.S. Forces have had to re-learn and re-build to fight. Re-learn and re-build are key elements as U.S. Forces have fought insurgencies in the past, but consistently maintained forces to fight more conventional warfare. Counterinsurgency (COIN) is very different from armored vehicles rolling through the Fulda Gap, or the race to Baghdad. It is a fight not against a Government as much as it is a fight for control of the mind-set of the population by non-state actors in a race to gain popular support. It is a grassroots battle that not only requires military force, but security established at the local level through everyday police presence that represents the Rule of Law, the national Government, and safety and stability locally. It is against this backdrop that the Center for Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP) and the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO) came together to look at Policing and COIN and the ways, methods, and techniques that could be shared to help overcome the insurgencies Coalition forces face. The efforts of the CTNSP at the National Defense University (NDU) and the CTTSO culminated in a one-day workshop held on September 29, 2010, on Policing and COIN Operations: Lessons Learned, Strategies, and Future Directions.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Terrorism, War, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Asia

225. A False Foundation? AQAP, Tribes and Ungoverned Spaces in Yemen

Author:
Gabriel Koehler-Derrick (editor)
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
Events in Yemen are moving at a rapid pace. Economic, environmental and political crises that have long limited Yemen's attempts at developing a strong centralized state now threaten to overwhelm the country. Protest movements similar to those that pushed out autocratic regimes in Tunisia and Egypt have plunged Yemen into deeper instability, and multiple competing factions are currently fighting for control of the government. Reports of rising Islamist militancy and a stream of terror attacks by al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have raised fears that soon large parts of the country may be overrun by jihadists intent on striking the United State.
Topic:
Terrorism and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Yemen, and Arabia

226. Ten Years After September 11: An Analysis of Public Opinion in the Muslim World

Author:
Katherine Didow and Jinnyn Jacob
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
In January 2011, protests started in Tunisia and Egypt, sparking a string of uprisings in the Muslim world, with consequences yet unknown. These monumental shifts caught many politicians, academics, journalists and pollsters by surprise. As world leaders scramble to formulate policy to confront these new realities, there is an urgent need for accurate and relevant public opinion data on the Muslim world.
Topic:
Islam, Terrorism, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arabia, Egypt, and Tunisia

227. Gaza's new Islamists: The atomization of Palestinian Islamism since 2006

Author:
Leila Stockmarr
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The emergence of new Islamist groups challenging Hamas from within is demarcating a new tendency towards inter-Islamist rivalry in Gaza. Based on original empirical data this report maps the Islamist milieu in Gaza. It offers a critical examination of how Hamas has governed Gaza since 2007 and why new Islamist groups in Gaza have emerged. The report argues that the phenomenon of new Islamists is diffuse and intangible. It does, however, relate to the question of the ideological price of governing in Palestine, and the repercussions of Hamas' rule and external policies upon the Islamist milieu in Gaza where, for the first time, an Islamist political body is in power. Two major aspects are motivating the emergence of new Islamist agendas: people's ideological grievances towards those in power and the instrumentalisation of ideology and religion in the midst of a power struggle between an increasingly authoritarian political body and its dissidents and challengers. In the face of governments which are failing to deliver, non-organised religious activity has become political power in Gaza.
Topic:
Islam, Terrorism, Armed Struggle, and Governance
Political Geography:
Middle East, Palestine, Arabia, and Gaza

228. Towards a regional security regime for the middle east

Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
The SIPRI Middle East Expert Group met four times over an 18-month period to consider how a regional security regime might be developed. The principal points of this report are:Further progress in the Middle East peace process would create a suitable political climate for consideration of a regional security regime.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Peace Studies, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Arabia

229. Egypt's Imperiled Transition: Pakistan on the Nile?

Author:
Michele Dunne
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
As Egypt prepares to hold its first post-Tahrir elections, the transitional military government is trying to turn de facto influence into de jure powers written into the new constitution, such as freedom from civilian control over senior appointments and budgetary oversight. While most political parties have agreed not to challenge the extensive influence and economic perquisites of the military for now—understanding that full civilian oversight might take years to achieve—allowing the military to formalize such powers would create enormous new obstacles to eventual democratization. Egypt is now in danger of producing a post-revolutionary system similar to that of Pakistan, where elected civilian institutions are relatively powerless while unelected and unaccountable military and intelligence services actually run the country, fanning the flames of sectarianism and terrorism.
Topic:
Democratization, Terrorism, Sectarianism, and Political Power Sharing
Political Geography:
Pakistan and Middle East

230. The Foreign Fighter Phenomenon: Islam and Transnational Militancy

Author:
Thomas Hegghammer
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
A salient feature of armed conflict in the Muslim world since 1980 has been the involvement of so-called foreign fighters. These foreign fighters are unpaid combatants with no apparent link to the conflict other than religious affinity with the Muslim side. Since 1980, between 10,000 and 30,000 such fighters have inserted themselves into conflicts from Bosnia in the west to the Philippines in the east.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Islam, Terrorism, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Bosnia, Middle East, Philippines, and Arabia